Flash Friday: May the Fourth

Happy Flash Friday everyone! Today is also May the Fourth, a day seized by Star Wars fans because it sounds like “May the Force be with you.” So I know what you’re thinking, “Ken, how are you going to tie the Flash and Star Wars together?” Speedsters. Star Wars has its very own speedster, Teek. You may not be familiar with Teek, that’s okay. That F’ing Monkey has your back and today we’re going to forest moon of Endor.

Teek was one of the main characters in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. Battle for Endor was the second made for TV movie that starred the Ewoks. The first was Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. At one point both of these were available on one DVD, but that has been out of print for awhile. I’m getting off track here, back to Teek. Teek is a member of a species that live on Endor’s moon called Teek (not a typo, the race and the character have the same name). The race is covered in white fur and has an extremely fast metabolism. They run so fast they are often seen as a blur. They did not always come from Endor and most other sentiments viewed them as pests and thieves.

Teek (the individual not the species) was the only friend of a stranded human hermit named Noa (played by Wilford Brimley). Earlier in the movie the Ewok village is attacked by a new group of villains and all of the human characters from the first move are killed; except for the little girl Cindel. The Marauders capture the Ewoks and only Cindel and Wicket manage to escape. Cute little girl + crotchety old man + 2 furry/cute comic relief characters = yeah you know exactly where this is going. The bad guys are stopped, the Ewoks are freed, Teek gets to live with the Ewoks, and Cindel goes off to live with Wilford Brimley and his newly fixed starship.  They probably eat oatmeal every morning, it's quite sappy.

Teek later showed up in the boarding video for Disney’s Star Tours ride. His costume must have been lying around when they were trying to find random aliens. A figure of him was released in the Star Tours Boarding party set that was sold at the Disney parks. He also showed up in some of the children's books based on Endor.

Before the Attack of the Clones came out there was an official website called the HoloNet news. It ran numerous news stories to give people a better idea what was going on in the galaxy before the movie. A good number of the articles were humorous or filled with obscure references. One of those articles was about the Mobquest Presents: Fastest Land Beings event. A Teek named Yeep hands down one the biped race. The Teek race was so unknown that his win was contested and he had to be declared “adequately sentient.” Once awarded his medal, Yeep tried to eat it.

Hangover Thursday: Shot Glass Card

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? Sadly I was a little too busy to head to the bar last night so my head is clear. Today’s topic has to do with birthday cards. Normally I’m against birthday cards. I’d rather spend the couple dollars it takes to buy the card and use that money on the birthday gift instead. Really what do you do with a card? You open it, say “that’s so sweet,” or “that’s nice.” A week later it goes out in the trash.

The birthday card being offered from 55 Hi’s is meant to be disposable and it serves a dual purpose. Since it is Hangover Thursday, let’s say that your friend is having a birthday party. You arrive with a bottle of their favorite liquor. When they read your card it helpfully tells them to have a shot you on. And then they punch out the shape and form a makeshift shot glass.

The card comes in two different versions, a normal greeting card or one made to hang off of a bottle. The shot glass holds 1oz of your favorite liquid and the site says it will go for a hours before it will start leaking. The cards are 4.99 each, but I think the experience is worth the extra money.

Kickstart: Soulless

There are two very important things to remember about comic books. They don’t have to be about superheroes and they don’t have to come from the big two. I recently received an email from Logan Giannini about just such a project. Logan is working with artist George Kambadais on a comic named Soulless.

Soulless is the story of Neil, a man who wakes up in a morgue with a giant hole in his chest and his memories. He has no idea how the hole got in his chest and no idea why he is still able to walk around. The cast of Soulless also includes his girlfriend Sarah, a vampire name Bradley, and a young ghost girl with a gorilla and a parrot. I want to read just for that last group. There is something awesome about a gorilla following around a ghost.

This is a Kickstarter, to see everything that has been produced so far click HERE and check it out for yourself. The current Kickstarter is to raise money for the first issue. Logan is hoping to get picked up by a publisher so he doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting on the proposed 6 issue series. If something about the pitch grabbed you, make sure you help fund Soulless. There are a number of different rewards for funders, so go pick the one that is right for you.

Land Raider Redeemer Interior

I’ve been keeping some pretty strange hours lately. The television selection at 3 or 4 in the morning isn’t all that great, so I’ve been doing a lot of painting. I haven’t really shown off any of my Warhammer 40K troops lately but I can happily say that all of the soldiers that I have are finished, that leaves me a number of vehicles to work on.

I have three boxes on my desk to get to; all of them have been patiently waiting since Christmas for me to work on them. I’m leaving the troop carrier and attack bike for later; I wanted to start on the big boy. The Land Raider Redeemer is a durable tank capable of moving heavily armored troops across the battlefield and is armed with two extremely nasty flamethrowers. It is pretty much going to become the centerpiece of my army, so I really wanted it to look fantastic.

Because the Redeemer can carry troops, the model has opening doors. The interior of the tank is actually sculpted into the plastic. I could have gone the easy route and glue all the doors closed. That way I could save a ton of time and gotten to work on the outside of the tank. Except I had already said, this was going to be my army’s centerpiece. I had to do it right. So I took out all the interior pieces of the Land Raider and started painting.

The side panels have an insane amount of detail. One of the things I didn’t like about the kit is that it came with two pieces to cover the side doors. One of those pieces has a large instrument panel on one side and tools on the opposite side. The other piece is the set of doors. Since troops are supposed to be able to exit the Land Raider from the front ramp and both sides, I was very unhappy. I ended up ordering an extra set of both pieces. This way I could have the tool and instrument panel showing and a set of doors on each side. I paid around eight dollars to get the extra parts, but I think it was worth it.

You may notice the computer monitors have a bit more glare on them than the rest of the model. After I finished painting everything I sealed the model with a matt varnish. Once that had dried I painted a gloss varnish on all the computer screens. At a distance it gives them all a nice glassy look that I’m really happy with.

Since I’ve taken these pictures I’ve actually assembled most of the Land Raider. It will still take me a long time to paint the outside, but I feel like the difficult part is already behind me.

The Cabin in the Woods

This movie rocks the casba, do yourself a favor and go see it.

Next week I will be reviewing The Avengers. See ya then.

Warrior

Converse has been doing something very cool that you may not have heard about. Last month they released “Do Ya Thing.” It was a song and video teaming up Gorillaz, Andre 3000, and James Murphy. On April 5th they did it again, this time they teamed up Mark Foster (Foster the People), A-Trak, and Kimbra. The track is called “Warrior” and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to it in the past 3 weeks.

Despite it not being like anything else I like listening too, I really enjoyed the entire Foster the People album. This is no different. Adding Kimbra’s vocals just makes it better. You might not recognize the name, but it is her voice in Gotye’s song “Somebody That I Used to Know.” Besides being a great song, the video features an underground luchador fighting tournament. Seriously, use the effects in the video and make this a full length movie.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy the song as much as I do. Big thanks again to Brandon and Michael for helping out when I was away from the computer.

Brandon's Movie Pick #3: The Maltese Falcon

Ken O is currently away from the ship’s helm while he takes care of his wife and brand new son. During that time we are forgoing our normal updates for something special. Every month Turner Classic Movies has a Guest Programmer who chooses the films they show for that night. For 9 days we’ll be acting as we were the Guest Programmer. So you’ll get 3 movies from me, 3 from Brandon, and 3 from our guest writer Michael May! A huge thank you goes out to Michael May; please go check out his Adventure Blog

 

My final pic is John Hudson’s The Maltese Falcon. This is a film that everyone has at least heard of, and everyone should see. It is also the movie that made me fall in love with movies. My first 2 picks had a lot of technical and behind the scenes info with them. Not so much this one. This is more of a personal journey. Enjoy.

 

When Sam Spade, played to perfection by Humphrey Bogart, and his partner Miles Archer are hired to tail a rich man by a woman who claims her sister is being unwittingly kept separated from her, it seems like just another case. But when Archer and the target are gunned down and all the evidence points to Spade for conflicting yet damning reasons, Spade is launched into a string of deceptions that all point in one direction, the Maltese Falcon.

 

 This is a quintessential film noir, the long legged dame, the hard-boiled detective, the dead partner, the fantastic use of shadow in black and white, it all adds up to pure noir. This flick is pure story and character development, in fact at the end you find out that the MacGuffin and title piece is a fake and it is the characters you walk away remembering.

 

I first saw this movie on a whim. At the time I did not really understand film as an art form and although I loved certain movies, I loved them because they were good flicks on the surface. Then I picked up The Maltese Falcon. It was one of those movies you always hear about, so I felt perhaps I should check it out. My mind was blown to bits. I was amazed that movies could look this good in black and white. I was amazed that characters could be that good in an hour and a half. I was amazed. I began to find out all that I could about the production of this movie. This was in the days when the internet was in its infancy, so I had to work to find information. During this search I started to discover things about some other movies that I loved. I also began to watch other movies that you would always hear about – Citizen Kane, The Big Sleep, Singing in the Rain, ect.

That one statue of a falcon, that one detective that had seen too much of what the world could do to a person, that one gorgeous dame that you know is no good for you. It all adds up to the reason I love movies.