First of all, it's probably no surprise that the people at Pixar are obsessed with Disney iconography and specifically asked Tan to incorporate it into his posters. Tan said:

A lot of the creative leads up at Pixar are huge fans of the Disneyland attraction (or ride) posters. A lot of the ones from the 60's were done in this very simple, colorful style. In fact, you always come across a few pinned up on the walls when you walk through the halls of Pixar. I've always been a big fan of those too and when it became a point of discussion during prep work for the Incredibles posters, I thought it made perfect sense. That film felt very retro as far as design aesthetic and I felt the posters evoked that and would work nicely as inspiration. Once we got to Wall-E, they brought up the same posters again! Which shows how hung up on them they are. The ad twist was something I thought would give them a point of difference from the Incredibles posters.

I was curious about whether Tan favors some historical periods over others, so I asked him if he would do something like a Terminator 4 poster in an eighteenth century style. Turns out the eighteenth century isn't on his agenda.

He replied:

I LOVE the Terminator flicks! I guess I got into graphic design and wanted to create posters of my own once I saw the work of Alphonse Mucha at the San Diego Museum of Art. His work was so gorgeous and he mixed everything I was learning in school at the time (typography, illustration, color, and design) so seamlessly. After that, I got really into film posters from Europe. They were really doing some experimental and striking stuff in the 40's and 50's. I do use these for inspiration in my own posters, but only if they make sense. An Indy poster would be based in the mid 30's western/adventure era and Ratatouille could only fit within the world of A.M. Cassandre.

Pixar is a company whose production methods are cutting edge, and their movies are often about futuristic or scifi topics. So why would they favor retro styles in their posters?

Tan mused:

I think retro advertising might work because they're based in something we're all used to seeing. There's a comfort in that. There was a defining look to past decades that immediately brings you back to those days. If our job as artists/communicators is to evoke a feeling and/or emotion out of a piece, it's a good way to instantly bring the viewer that feeling of nostalgia.

He said:

Currently, I'm working on some work for Up (the next Pixar film), a video-game inspired piece for a gallery show, and a Beastie Boys poster (I'm a HUGE fan of theirs).

I can't wait to see Tan's next retro-futurist confection.

You can see more of Eric Tan's art on his blog.

[Cinemascope]

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In April Screamscape blog reported that Disney was going to place animatronic WALL-Es in each of their Disney theme parks. This WALL-E is life-size, standing about 3-feet tall. So if you're planing on visiting any of the Magic Kingdom's warn your kid that they may come face-to-face with a feral robot.[Blink via Slashfilm]

I really like the notion that Wall-E's crush on Eve, the far more advanced robot, forces her to evolve and become more self-aware. That could actually be cool to watch. And then Wall-E's quest somehow "reboots" the human race? It definitely seems like a more ambitious storyline than the Toy Story movies. [Slashfilm]

Wall-E: The Video Game will be out on June 27th, for just about every gaming platform you can imagine. Probably even on your car's computer navigation screen, or your internet-ready can opener.

New Wall-E Screens [Worth Playing]

Disney/Pixar grabbed up a raft of domain names last Friday, including johncarterandthegodsofmars.com, johncarterandthewarlordofmars.com, godsofmarsmovie.com and warlordofmars-movie.com. And last August, Disney snagged johncarterofmars-movie.com and some variants, plus childrenofmars.com in November.

Jim Hill, who covers Disney in depth, says "insiders" claim Ratatouille screenwriter Mark Andrews has completed his first draft of a John Carter script. And both Disney and Pixar insiders are excited by the draft, and eager to put it into production. The movie could come out as soon as 2011 or 2012. Pixar has been saying for a while that it wants to do a live-action movie, and The Incredibles director Brad Bird will be directing 1906, about the San Francisco Earthquake, as a Disney/Pixar co-production.

Part of the urgency for a John Carter franchise comes from the fact that Disney is losing enthusiasm for the Narnia movies, and probably won't make any more after Prince Caspian and Dawn Treader, unless they massively outperform expectations. So Disney will have a Narnia-sized hole in its schedule in 2011 and beyond, which can only be filled with two-fisted sword-wrangling Martian action. [Jim Hill Media]

You can also view the trailer in HD at Apple.

• The 1975 movie was based on the 1968 book of the same name by Alexander Key. Sadly, most of his novels, including Sprocket: A Little Robot and Bolts: A Robot Dog, are out of print. You can read and download some of these here.
• Don't let the name fool you, Escape To Witch Mountain isn't about witches at all, but about super-powered alien kids who don't know they're aliens.
• Remember the creepy and slightly spooky overture music? If not, you can hear it right here.
• In fact, want to watch the opening credit sequence? Well, here you go.
• Tony and Tia, the original Wonder Twins, both possess telekinesis, although Tony can only use it when he plays his harmonica. Tia can also telepathically speak to mammals, and to Tony. Looks like she got the lion's share of the cool stuff.
• Unlike Zan and Jayna, Tony and Tia have difficulty controlling their powers, which leads to several mishaps. Like Tia having to free every captive animal who can talk to her.
• Tony was played by Ike Eisenmann, who Trek fans will immediately recognize as Midshipman Peter Preston, who Scotty brings to the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Perhaps if he'd taken the mortally wounded kid to sick bay, he might have survived.
• Kim Richards, who plays Tia, is the aunt of both Nicky and Paris Hilton, which isn't really that interesting, but more mind-boggling.
• Both Ike and Kim would be reunited as brother and sister in the extremely forgettable Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell TV movie in 1978.
• The Twins' Uncle Bene is played by Denver Pyle, better known as Uncle Jesse from The Dukes of Hazzard, which Kim Richards later appeared on as Cooter's daughter. Now that's just weird.
• They encounter Jason O'Day (Eddie Albert) who lives in a Winnebago and travels around the country. He ends up helping them out, and probably made kids everywhere think Winnebago's were cool. (I know it did for me, in fact my parents bought me a little scale model Winnie after I saw this movie).
• The bad guy in the movie, Aristotle Bolt, seems like a genial rich man who just want to save kids from the orphanage. Of course, he really wants the twins for their abilities. However, he does have a pretty cool name and lived in a replica of a Byzantine castle that was built by Templeton Crocker between 1926 and 1934 from lava rock from Mt. Vesuvius and materials gathered all over Europe.
• The twins eventually discover (via their little leather "star case") that they are actually aliens from a binary star system who fled to Earth because their own world was dying. They're reunited with others from their planet, and they fly off in their spaceship for the sanctuary of Witch Mountain, never to return.
• That is until Disney made a sequel, Return From Witch Mountain, in 1978. In this movie, Tony and Tia have been training hard to use their powers and to learn about their own kind. In fact, they've been working so hard that the elders let them have a vacation in Los Angeles. What, two superkids on a vacation in L.A.? Nothing could possibly go wrong, right?
• If you want to see a movie trailer that says 1970s as loud of possible, then you're in for a treat. This trailer for Return features Christopher Lee, Bette Davis, andthe words "far out," "molecular mobilization," and "intergalactic energization." Is it me, or does that announcer sound like the guy from the old Batman TV show?
• In the sequel, Christopher Lee plays evil mad scientist Dr. Victor Gannon, and he uses a mind-control device he's invented on Tony, eventually pitting twin against twin in a battle of telekinesis. Bette Davis plays Letha Wedge (what a name), who has been financing the bad doctor's experiments.
• Sadly, there's no Eddie Albert in the sequel. It was also Jack Soo's final film, having been best known for playing Det. Sgt. Nick Yemana on Barney Miller. It was probably the coffee.
• In 1982 Disney made a television pilot called Beyond Witch Mountain, which featured a return of Eddie Albert as Jason and his Winnebago, but they recast everyone else, from the kids all the way to down to Aristotle Bolt. This was meant to become an ongoing series with the kids and Jason finding other alien kids and helping them get back home, but it never got that far and never went to series.
• Disney remade the original film back in 1995, with some major changes to the script. The twins are now named Danny and Anna, and they are separated as infants (who have full-fledged telekinesis), but are later reunited accidentally when they're older. Land developer Edward Bolt (the always evil Robert Vaughn) finds out about their powers, and plans to use them to blow up the entrance to Witch Mountain... without explosives. Way to use that power, Edward.
• It wasn't as charming as the original movie, and wasn't nearly as well received. You can find out why by watching the first 10 minutes right here.

This is Michael Sormann's Barracuda steam-powered train, created for his Theme Planet world, and it just looks, well... badass. In fact, if the country had rails instead of freeways, this is what a tricked-out custome personal locomotive would look like. It'd set you back a ton of credits, but you'd own the railways.

Theme Planet is Sormann's project about a theme park that covers an entire planet, sort of like Coruscant in the Star Wars-verse, except a hell of a lot more fun. You can see the Barracuda in action in his short film (below) from the project, which he produced for SIGgraph, and check out some of the other pieces of concept art on his website. If one guy can produce something that looks this good, Pixar might have a whole crop of competitors in the next few years. In the meantime, we want to get our hands on one of these trains and take it for a spin.

• The sound was originally recorded in 1931 for Frankenstein, and it quickly became a staple for haunted houses, spooky castles, and impending bad weather on film soundtracks everywhere.
• Originally recorded on optical film stock, most modern day version are 15th generation (or older) copies, meaning you can no longer hear the original crackles and pops that are apparent on the original.
• The sound was featured in Star Wars, courtesy of Ben Burtt again, and can be heard during the trench run sequence on the Death Star.
• The most famous science fiction use of the sound (besides Frankenstein) was probably when the Delorean was struck by lightning in Back to the Future. In fact, we're surprised they don't use that sound effect when anything gets struck by lightning. It's just so perfect. Maybe because I can't get it out of my head right now.
• Other science fiction films that latched on the Castle Thunder were: Ghostbusters, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Big Trouble in Little China (okay, we know this is fantasy... but c'mon), Short Circuit, The Land Before Time, The Monster Squad, and of course Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.
• The sound can be heard multiple times every day inside The Haunted Mansion as both Disneyland and Disney World, most famously in the stretching room when the host suggest a "way out." Cue the thunder and screams.
• The sound effect was a favorite on Scooby Doo, and could be heard during the opening credits. However, they later "retired" the sound from the show in 1988 to make way for digitally recorded thunderclaps. The bastards.
• However, it's still featured prominently in the opening to Aqua Teen Hunger Force, so there is still some cartoon love for the sound going on out there.
• For my money, the best usage of the sound was in the opening sequence to Dr. Shrinker, which was part of the Krofft Supershow. One day I'll devote an entire triviagasm to this show, trust me.

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• Clip #1: Wall-E at work. Our little herobot works away in his role as the last working robot on the planet. It's 700 years after the human race was supposed to leave the planet so the disposal bots could clean the place up over the next five years. However, something has gone wrong, and we never returned. Over the intervening centuries, Wall-E keeps at his job, and he's developed a personality. While compacting trash, he keeps the more interesting finds in his lunchbox: a bra, a squeaky toy, an old boot, and so on. Plus, he has his little cockraoch buddy to keep him company.
• Clip #2: Eventually a spaceship lands on the planet and drops off a probe droid named EVE. Wall•E courts her for awhile, and eventually brings her back to his pimped out truck where he keeps all of his Earth junk. She nearly laser-zaps his singing Bigmouth Billy Bass on the wall, enjoys his bubble-wrap, breaks his egg-beater, and nearly brings down the house when she tries to emulate the dancing she sees in an old video Wall•E presents to her on VHS.
• Clip #3: The ship returns and EVE is tucked away onboard, ready to return to wherever she came from. Wall•E is terrified at the thought of losing his new friend, and tries to stow away on her ship but only makes it halfway up the ladder. He hangs on for dear life while they rocket into outer space, and he tags along for the ride all the way back to the megaship they dock in. Along the way, it's a touching tribute to our own space program (although the moon has been turned into an outlet mall), and previous space films like 2001.
• Clip #4: Wall-E creates some work-related problems for EVE, and she tries sending him home in an escape pod. However, she soon regrets her decision and goes off after him, although things are a bit more complicated since his pod is set to auto-destruct. Wall-E narrowly escapes, and with the use of a fire extinguisher as a thruster, he navigates his way back to her. Although Stanton promises that their relationship will become a lot more complicated.
• In response to being told that all the Pixar movies keep looking better and better, Andrew Stanton ask a fan, "Are you saying Toy Story is the ugliest film we've made? Well... it is!" Hey, we love a director with humility.

Arthur Radebaugh was a futurist and illustrator who came up with many of the "world of tomorrow!" style of ads that you'd see gracing the inside pages of magazines like Motor, Esquire, Fortune and Advertising Agency throughout the 1930s. He even coined the term "imagineering" back in 1947, and Disney tried to gank it in 1962. Sadly, they were partially successful, since most people automatically think of the Mouse House when they hear that word.

There's an amazing online exhibit of Radebaugh's art at the Palace of Culture called "The Future We Were Promised," which is just a short mouse click away.

Microsoft's Matt Rosoff explained just what they're getting out of the new future house:

I don't think Microsoft wants to get directly into retail, but it looks like these types of demonstrations are a way for it to get its brand in front of the public... It's an audience that's there to be entertained and specifically coming to see these kinds of things.

It's much different than a spiel that you would get at a trade show... We won't get into the bits and the bytes. It will be about the digital lifestyle and how that lifestyle can help you.

This film may just be too gosh-darn cute for its own good, but dammit, we want to see it. We even already want to buy a working remote control Wall-E unit for our office, just so we can make it emote to every inanimate object in the place. Not to mention the R2D2/Wall-E battles we could have.

Looks like Wall-E's little bug sidekick will make it to the game as well, so that might be a bit of a spoiler news: he doesn't get squished and sent to insectoid heaven in the flick. Players will be able to play head-to-head in the multiplayer version of this game, so we're not sure if that means multiple Wall-E's or what. but we're sincerely hoping they don't rush this game out to coincide with the flick, giving us a crappy game that vanishes from shelves in the blink of an eye. If it does, at least we'll have this artwork to fondly remember it by. Wall-E: First Screenshots [Team Xbox]

There are three more postcards in the set. Collect them all! [Kung Fu Rodeo] Or visit this freakish Wall-E tie-in site, allegedly belonging to Wall-E manufacturer Buy n Large, which does an eerily good parody of marketing speak at consumer robotics companies.

Walt Disney once said, "Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future." However, it looks like that blueprint is sponsored churros and Coca Cola, and has no clue what it's doing. Which might not be too far off from the actual future we're heading towards as a society.

Tomorrowland has been reworked and relaunched three times by Disney since the park opening in 1955, with the most recent facelift happening in 1998. But 10 years haven't even passed since then and the park feels incongruous and meandering, plus the "Rocket Rods" attraction that replaced the boring "People Mover" hasn't worked since 2000, yet it still sits there, looking like a heap of junk. Visitors to Tom Morrow's (an animatronic goof-bot voiced by Nathan Lane) "Innoventions" seek the exits within moments of entering what used to be the kitschy but cool "Carousel of Progress." Mostly because they take everything that is cool about science and make it as much fun as getting a root canal. Plus, "Star Tours" feels like it's about 20 years too old, which it is.

Over the past few years they've attempted to zap some life back into Tomorrowland by adding Buzz Lightyear's Astro-Blasters, which is basically a video game turned into a ride (riders get a gun and "blast" aliens with it throughout the ride, which keeps track of your score), and the Jedi Training Academy, which is a stage show aimed at turning tots into lightsaber-wielding badasses. They get to face off with Darth Vader, who could quickly turn them into padawan-cutlets if not for the cutesy power of the Force. it just doesn't work for a place that's supposed to be showing us what the future is like. You mean, we get to see more Star Wars in the future? George Lucas will be so pleased.

What's really sad is that it's been 20 years since Space Mountain opened, and that's still the coolest attraction in Tomorrowland. With all of the gee-whiz special effects and design innovations we've had along the way, Disney chose to upgrade Space Mountain for a limited time last summer with music from The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Give us a break. It's high time that Tomorrowland started living up to its name and wowing us with the possibilities of unknown worlds and the wonders of science.

Here are a few places that manage to get it right:

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• The Science Fiction Museum: Located in Seattle, this museum dedicated to all things science fiction is massive, fun, and has a roof made out of glass so you can see the stars at night. It's couple with Paul Allen's Experience Music project, and will keep you entertained all day.
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• The Hall of the Universe at the Rose Center for Earth and Space: This giant explorable hall feature a circular staircase that tells you how the universe formed as you climb up. It's housed inside the giant glass and steel cubic Rose Center, and shouldn't be missed if you visit New York City.
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• The Exploratorium: San Francisco's huge science museum near the Golden Gate Bridge recently got a makeover, and it puts an strong emphasis onto hands-on exciting experiences about science. It might look like ancient Roman history outside, but inside it's a whole different world.
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Let's assume for a moment that you're one of the thousands of actors trying to make it in Hollywood, fighting daily for auditions, waiting tables by night, and hoping your big break will come along at any moment. Then suddenly you're catapulted into fame and fortune and starring on a hit show that films in, of all places, a tropical paradise. Sounds fairly idyllic, so what would lead someone in that position to become a drunk-driving boozehound?

• Daniel Dae Kim: Kim plays enigmatic Korean Jin-Soo on the show, and he's the latest in a trio of Lost stars drinking their way to DUI charges. He's also the first actor to actually fight his arrest in court. He pled not guilty on Friday to the charges from his October 25th arrest, which included a blood alcohol reading that was above the "highly intoxicated" level. We're not sure what sort of evidence he'll be presenting in his case, but look for plenty of black smoke and escape hatches.
• Cynthia Watros: After playing one of the survivors from the tail section on the show, and later Hurley's love interest, Cynthia was pulled over and arrested on the same day as fellow costar Michelle Rodriguez, although she was driving a separate vehicle. She plead guilty to driving under the influence, and was later killed off by Michael on the show via an "accidental" gunshot. Ka-blam. However, it looks like she'll be returning this year, albeit in flashbacks and dream sequences. Don't give up on Hurley getting some action just yet.



• Michelle Rodriguez: Michelle played hothead L.A. cop Ana Lucia, and her problems onscreen mirrored some of her offscreen dramas, including an arrest for assault, a hit and run, and a previous DUI. After being arrested the same day as Cynthia Watros, she also plead guilty and was offed seconds before Cynthia was on the same episode. Coincidentally, the show where they both bit it was called "Two For The Road." She's back on the hot seat lately, having broken her probation. Chances are she'll be serving more time before she appears in James Cameron's Avatar.

We're not sure if the monotonous days of filming are driving these actors to excess, or if it's something darker and more mysterious. However, if we were betting people, we'd have to put money on Josh Holloway's Sawyer as being the next to guzzle and gas. After all, it would be fitting for his character who has amassed quite a hoard of alcohol on the show. With the writer's strike holding up filming, it might be causing everyone to catch Island fever.

When the space age ended, the alien age began. In the early 1990s, the Disney Corporation decided to close down its Mission to Mars ride, itself a direct descendant of the Rocket to the Moon attraction Werner von Braun had helped to design. In its place came Alien Encounter, in which an extraterrestrial stows away on a spaceship. This made things easier for Disney, as one executive admitted: "One way for an attraction to remain timeless is for it to be based in fantasy, rather than reality."

After we stopped sending people into space, it was easier to spin elaborate fantasies. We no longer had any narratives about actual space travel, with all its challenges, to compete with our magical interstellar ships, DeGroot argues.

[Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest] NYU Press 2006

Crunchy goodness: 4

Elevator pitch: "It's Star Wars meets Forbidden Planet...but a lot more Star Wars, what with the robots the kids are into these days."

Stunt casting: Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens as the voices of the robots V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and Bob, respectively.

Design breakthrough: Though the filmmakers decided to use more traditional techniques for the models rather than the newfangled motion-control systems, the opening titles used CGI.

Black Hole official site