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I spotted this on the CDTCrew's YouTube channel while watching some dog disco. It's definitely not from Badi ("The Turkish E.T.") or that absolutely ungodly German E.T.. porn. The soundtrack is almost certainly dubbed in. But where is it from? More »
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I'm not sure what compels amateur Geppettos to construct infantilized incarnations of say, Lord Voldemort, but hey, the world is a weird place. Right now, somebody is eagerly filling their entire Netflix queue with every episode of Home Improvement. It's happening, trust me. More »
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This has been a big year for Steven Spielberg — he's launched two TV shows, including last night's Terra Nova, and produced countless movies. The Spielberg tribute Super-8 was a surprise hit, and it's become fashionable for other film-makers to claim they're paying tribute to early Spielberg. Still ahead this year: the huge motion-capture reinvention of Tintin, the Belgian adventure comic. More »
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There are a few storylines that you see in movies over and over again. This is generally not a bad thing; they work. But even if every movie that took up these tried-and-true plots were perfect, repetition can get, well, repetitive. With just a little tweak, however, they could be fantastically interesting tales. More »
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Artist Thurston Roscoe began to suspect his toys were committing acts of mischief while he was away. So he set up a hidden camera to figure out what He-Man, the Ewoks, and his Ninja Turtle toys are getting up to. More »
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With Cowboys & Aliens, Iron Man director Jon Favreau attempts to mash up the Western genre with science fiction. How well does it work? We've seen the first two reels, and they conjure a robust John Wayne sensibility. More »
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It's been almost 30 years since E.T. and his uncomfortably shaped finger ruled movie screens. But Paul, opening this weekend Stateside, is full of little E.T. jokes, most of them featured in the film's trailer. More »
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Robert Blankenheim and Derek Johnson Productions have created a trailer for ET-X: Extinction, an unnecessarily gritty and violent sequel to Steven Spielberg's family-friendly blockbuster. More »
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In honor of Turkey Day, here's seven of the best Turkish rip-off movies presented in their entirety. Copyright and production values are nonexistent, but the thrills are (sort of) non-stop. Here's Turkish Star Wars, Star Trek, and other trashterpieces.

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Science fiction has rocked cinemas for a century, and the genre has produced many undisputed classics during that time. But which movies are essential viewing for anyone interested in the genre? We broke down the 25 must-watch science fiction films. More »
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If you're making a movie about kids meeting an alien, it's probably semi-compulsory to include a flying-bicycle scene, as an E.T. shout-out. But nowadays, you can make the effects look way cooler. Right? Right Or... not. Witness this hideous example. More »
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In the following (heavily edited, but still mind-blowing) clip, a female ET makes love to a cadre of high-society humans, including a fellow that looks suspiciously like Abraham Lincoln. NSFW for thrusting, puppet breasts, and horror. More »
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In many of the science fictional futures that we know and love, racism, sexism, and homophobia are often scrubbed out of existence. Here's why science fiction is in favor of allowing people to marry whoever they want. More »
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Offered almost without comment: Even gravelly-voiced aliens abandoned on Earth know that you shouldn't drink and drive, if this odd example of movie marketing is anything to go by. Still, who thought this was a good idea? [Via] More »
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Still stumped on a Halloween costume idea? Maybe you can take your cue from these Halloween-loving characters from science fiction and fantasy. Check out what these folks wear to celebrate the season of horror. More »
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In the late 1970's, the toy industry embraced technology as never before and contributed to the children of the 70's and 80's becoming a tech-savvy, science- (and science-fiction-) loving populace. Do you remember your first microchip? More »
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Did you know E.T. kept a blog? Apparently after he and Elliot split, he moved to Philadelphia, shoots pool and scares tourists. Here he is, hanging out with his more assimilated cousin. [ETCloseEncounters via Slashfilm] More »
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As a child, I was forbidden to eat marshmallowy cereal unless it was a special occasion - - so naturally, like any youth told that they can't have something, I became obsessed. I wanted to know what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pizza cereal tasted like and screamed for a taste of Batman's bowl of bat wings. I've rounded up a collection of cereal boxes and commercials that should bring back so much breakfast nostalgia, you'll get a contact sugar rush. So, pass the milk and lets go on a cereal sugar bender together. More »
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Science fiction is all about showing us new and startling worlds - and it doesn't hurt to sell a few widgets along the way. Like Eureka, which recently proved that you can save the world using Degree antiperspirant. Or the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which showed on Monday that a certain brand of car is the official vehicle of the anti-robot resistance. Product placement has been a part of science fiction for decades, but it's grown as the genre has become big business. Here's our history of the phenomenon since the beginning. Science fiction helped to invent product placement, with Steven Spielberg's shoehorning of Reese's Pieces into E.T., making them the official candy of penis-fingered growly alien visitors. But that wasn't actually the first instance of product placement in the genre. What was? It's hard to say, but one of the earliest instances was the overexposure of Sugar Puffs cereal in 1966's Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. The movie version of the classic Doctor Who story starred Peter Cushing as the eccentric time-traveler, who visits a ruined future London where the killing-machine Daleks have taken over. There's no food or clean water, and the survivors of the Dalek attacks live in total squalor. But hey... did we mention Sugar Puffs cereal is sugary and delicious? Sugar Puffs helped to finance the movie in exchange for having their posters visible throughout. Also, 2001: A Space Odyssey features prominent references to, and fake ads for, Pan-Am, IBM and Howard Johnson. But those were simply companies that director Stanley Kubrick thought would still be around in a few decades. As far as I can find out, no money actually changed hands - in fact, Kubrick contacted 50 companies and asked them to submit logos and designs for what their products might look like in 40 years. Also this nifty bit of Marlboro promo in a Superman II fight scene predates E.T. by a couple of years. Kneel before our cool, refreshing smokes: But yes, E.T.'s focus on Reese's Pieces may well have been the first high-profile example of product placement in a science fiction movie. The media reported widely that M&Ms had turned down the chance to be in the mega-hit, and Reese's Pieces reaped some extra publicity from all the coverage. The candy's sales spiked 65 percent after the film came out, and kids wrote to Steven Spielberg with fan art that featured Reese's Pieces prominently: But there's also a lot of exposure for Coca-Cola, Coors beer, Speak'n'Spell and Pez candy, among other brands, in the movie. Here are some more screen shots: Around the same time, TV's Knight Rider showed us the way forward in science fictional product placement: people will always want to buy the supercars they see featured on screen. (See below for Transformers and the new K.R.) General Motors gave the show's makers models of the new Trans Am, which they decked out as KITT, and people rushed to buy their own KITTs. But E.T. and Knight Rider were like babies, or maybe monks, compared to the Back To The Future trilogy. Seriously, google "Back To The Future worst product placement" and set aside an hour or two to look at all the lists of the "worst movie product placement of all time" that include the BTTF trilogy. References to Pepsi are jammed into the first two films (like when Marty tries to order a Pepsi Free in 1955), his mom thinks he's named Calvin Klein, and the films ram Nike, Pizza Hut, AT&T, Hasbro and Mattel down your throat. (The DeLorean gets a free pass, because it's actually funny.) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home took advantage of its present-day setting to pimp Michelob beer - the official beer of the Federation - and of course, Scotty gets to know an Apple Macintosh better. The Trek franchise liked that product-placement money so much, Kirk and his crew go camping in Levis jeans in Star Trek V. Meanwhile, Apple got sluttier and sluttier, getting some first-class pimping in Mission Impossible and Independence Day - where a Mac notebook is the key to stopping the alien invaders. And then in Blade Trinity, one character goes to the iTunes music store to assemble a playlist for her ipod, which she listens to while fighting vampires. There's also a nice Apple plug in I Am Legend. Another movie which wins a spot in the product-placement hall of shame is Demolition Man. Sylvester Stallone gets woken up in the future, and finds that Taco Bell/Pizza Hut has won the "franchise wars" and now all restaurants are Pizza Huts: One of the first television series to be accused of shoving consumer items in your face was Babylon 5, which stuck a gigantic Zima sign over the alien boxing ring in the episode "TKO." Series creator J. Michael Straczynski insisted the show got "not a dime" for the Zima plug, and it was just for the lolz. Men In Black got a lot of flak for its relentless pushing of the Ray-Ban Predator 2 sunglasses, which tripled in sales to almost $5 million after the film came out. And Men In Black II is another proud moment for product whoring. An alien intruder arrives on Earth and needs to assume a form to confuse us humans. So of course her/its eye lights on a Victoria's Secret ad: And then there's the famous taxi chase in The Fifth Element, which leads up to the cops getting showered with McDonald's cartons. Good thing they still have Mickey D's in this dystopian future: One trend in the 2000s has been movies featuring fake advertisements for real products as part of the plot, sort of a throwback to 2001. Who helped pioneer this? None other than Steven "Reese's Pieces" Spielberg, who has Tom Cruise walk through a mall full of personalized ads in Minority Report. Michael Bay also crams The Island full of fake ads, including a Chanel ad that stars the woman Scarlet Johnasson was cloned from. I, Robot pushed Converse's Chuck Taylor shoes so much, there's a whole Chuck Taylor web page devoted to the film. (The movie gets four Chucks out of five.) I have blotted this movie out of my memory, but apparently all Will Smith does in it is wave his "antique" Chuck Taylors around and talk about how fast he can run away from the killer robots, thanks to his Chucks. If you saw this movie and liked the shoes, could you buy your own pair? Gosh, I think so! I could be here all day discussing the wealth of car product placement in recent movies. The Lost World: Jurassic Park features a new kind of Mercedes Benz SUV, and Steven "man-whore" Spielberg lovingly, frames a shot so you can see the Mercedes logo really clearly. That Steven. The Matrix Reloaded is such a great Cadillac ad, with its freeway chase, that the DVD even has a featurette about the product placement. Terminator 3 is brought to you by Lexus and Toyota. I Am Legend is one big ad for the Ford Mustang. Transformers is basically built around promoting GM's latest car models, and the second film is already getting buzz around the new Chevy Volt and Corvette models. The Dark Knight is plastered with Ford. We have a new Knight Rider show, which is basically a Ford Mustang infomercial as the car transforms into different Ford models. Fringe is also chock full of Ford. Heroes has had product placement for Sprint, Apple, Dell and other brands, but also especially Nissan. A new growing category of product placement in science fiction, rivaling cars and computers: phones. After all, if you're under attack by aliens, you really need to be able to reach your comrades in a hurry. Hence, Jericho's and Heroes' constant whoring for Sprint, Superman Returns' constant Samsung and Virgin whoring, Cloverfield's Nokia love, etc. etc. It's pretty amazing. Judging from our research, there's been more product placement, and more blatant product placement, in 2008 than in the past few years combined. We could literally spend an entire post just listing all the product placement this year. And it's getting way more blatant, especially on television. As we mentioned above, Sarah Connor Chronicles set a new high-water mark with its hour-long Dodge Ram commercial last week. Smallville devoted an entire episode last spring to Stride gum, and how it can turn you into a superhero. And then there's Eureka, which has apparently been finding ways to feature Degree For Men in every. single. episode. this season, including the one where Degree provides protection from a lethally hot second sun. Where will it end? How much lower can we go? In the interests of ironic dystopian amusement, I can hardly wait to find out. Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett. More »
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Time for a little reality check. It seems like almost every day there's a piece of news about how "research suggests there were once oceans floating in the vacuum of space!" or "life could have once existed at the center of the Sun!" You know, we all get a little over-excited sometimes. Well, geochemist Nicholas Tosca of Harvard University put a damper on our enthusiasm yesterday when he calculated that early oceans on Mars were between 10 and 100 times more salty than seawater here on Earth. Even worse, they were probably highly acidic. But pro-Mars life scientists aren't giving up without a fight, After the break, some hopeful scientists speak out on why following Mars' ancient water supply could still lead us to the aliens. More »
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E.T. has a lot of friends, especially among fictional characters from other pop culture franchises. He really likes to hang out and race cars with the dudes from Dukes of Hazzard, as you can see in this great painting from Scott C. He also shoots the breeze with the dudes from Star Trek, does Speak n Spell with Batman, and pals around with a whole bunch of other pop icons. It's true that I hate E.T., but I love Scott C.'s cartoony renditions of the ugly little alien in a series of paintings that will be on display in Los Angeles at Gallery 1988 starting tonight. He also has the whole series up on in his blog for your viewing pleasure. [The E.T. Collection via Scott C.] (Thanks, Josh!) More »
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All sidekicks must have certain key lovable qualities, or else they lose that sparkle that makes them so endearing. But sometimes the cute-overload factor goes too far and a gag reflex kicks in, making people want to destroy that character. Compiled after the jump is a list of the most adorable sidekicks in science fiction TV and movies, some good, some too cute for their own good. More »
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With more big summer spectacles exploding, laser-blasting and CGI-ing all over the place, is serious, thoughtful science fiction being pushed out? Have movies like Transformers or Star Wars tractor-beamed the genre of science fiction away from perceived as serious literature, even in the book world? And which giant battle cruiser of a movie deserves the most blame for turning the genre into an amusement park ride instead of an exploration of our place in the universe? Vote for your scapegoat below. More »
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Stephen Chow's E.T.-inspired CJ7 opens this weekend, and although it's been critically kicked around like the lowest dog on Earth, we loved the cute little thing. It's not your typical science fiction movie, and it's not even a typical Stephen Chow movie, who is best known for comedies like Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. But this tale of a boy and his cute alien friend was the most fun we've had going to the theater in a long time. Spoilers and clips below. More »
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We've been hoping that CJ7 will spark a new wave of Chinese science fiction films, and this newly released trailer definitely shows a ton of potential. Stephen Chow is abandoning the kung-fu comedy that made Kung-Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer so successful, in favor of cute alien critters. Mild spoilers below. More »
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Welcome to Horrorhead, a fortnightly column about the dark, twisted part of science fiction - the part that borders on horror. If you're looking forward to I Am Legend next week, you know it's basically a vampire horror story translated into a microbial scifi nightmare. But what makes I Am Legend scary isn't the spectre of virus-deformed post-humans. It's something more fundamental. More »
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The decade that began with 2001: A Space Odyssey was the heyday of smart, socially relevant science fiction, writes Grady Hendrix in the New York Sun. Back then, science fiction films looked down on The Man. But today's corporate sci-fi spectaculars are The Man. The turning point came in 1982, when the candy-munching E.T. crushed the dark thriller Blade Runner at the box office. [NY Sun] More »
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