The Spirit - The Octopus
Samuel L. Jackson's Octopus was probably the most insane translation of a comics character to the screen I've ever seen. Frank Miller just let the actor run wild, drawing eyeliner lightning bolts on his face and saying just about whatever the hell he wanted. At least they got the gloves right.

Bicentennial Man - Andrew Martin

From Isaac Asimov's novella/ I just wanted to know who thought it would be a great idea to make a Robin Williams robot that will last forever. That will give children nightmares.

Elektra and Daredevil

What else really needs to be said that hasn't already? This Jennifer Garner-Ben Affleck disaster was so bad, it's being remade, completely — as if the first one never even happened. Who thought, "Greek assassin? Let's get Jennifer Garner!"

Fantastic Four - Victor von Doom

With one bad film, one of the better villains went from bad-ass to just some neurotic dude muffled behind a mask.

Wolverine - Emma Frost

For years, we waited for the real, live-action version of Emma Frost. And what we got was a dorky girl, in an ugly leather coat/prison outfit. The cosplayers at Comic Con are better, and that's saying something.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas - The Grinch

Who painted my cat green and shoved it in a Santa suit? This isn't a Grinch; this is a fever dream, and there's nothing enchanting or magical about a Jim Carey gesturing about, covered in green fur, while salivating over the Whoville hussy.

I Am Legend - Vampires

They went from complex creatures with a fully realized society to zombie people who were all CG-ed to look alike. The best part of the novel was when Neville found an old friend who was too far gone. That went out the window, along with most of Neville's character, in the movie. But we missed the actual vampire people the most.

Speed Racer - Racer X

Hey, your Dad dressed up like Racer X. Cool, we guess.

Watchmen - Ozymandias

This was not actor Matthew Goode's fault. He was terribly underwritten and thrown into the part very late in the game; we understand. Sadly godlike genius Adrian Veidt, he was not. We're not sure if it was the look or the writing — either way, it just didn't work.

According to Empire Online, I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter Chad St. John are planning to take DC's war veteran into the future with the adaptation, in order to overcome studio nerves about a period setting and racist wartime attitudes. If true, this suggests that not only does Warner Bros. miss the point of the character altogether (Sgt. Rock is a series about a soldier in World War II! The time frame is the entire point!), but also that we have another potential comic-to-movie disaster on our hands. Then again, Lawrence has experience of both, having directed the Hellblazer adaptation Constantine, starring the not-so-British Keanu Reeves.

Is Sgt. Rock Finally Happening? [Empire Online]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The City That Sailed

follows a New York City street magician whose daughter, because of family circumstances, lives in England. In exploring a lighthouse one day, the girl discovers a room with magic candles and wishes to be reunited with her father, causing the island of Manhattan to break away and drift across the Pond.

It sounds much, much more interesting than finding out exactly how things got messed up in the run-up to I Am Legend. Of course, this being Hollywood, Lawrence can't simply film an Andrew Niccol script and have done with it — instead, says Variety, the script is being rewritten by Oceans Thirteen writers Brian Koppleman and David Levien. But even a dumbed down Niccol story sounds much, much better than I Was Legend Before I Was Legend. The film may not be their next project, since Lawrence is also talking about directing Water For Elephants, the adaptation of the Depression-era circus novel, with Reese Witherspoon starring.

Image by Notes Of Intelligence.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. has officially purchased the Primeval screen rights in a "high-six-figure deal," and Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster are set up to produce, along with Emily Cummins. Goldsman is planning to hire a writer to draft the script, which will transplant the action of the film from the U.K. to the U.S.

And the U.S. version will ramp up the action, probably thanks to an amped-up effects budget. Says Foster:

There is a solid mythology to the series, but the movie has the dinosaur element of ‘Jurassic Park' and the time travel element of ‘Lost,' and it just feels like the kind of big movie that Warner Bros. does well.

While the big-screen production is clearly a ways away still, the new season of Primeval begins airing on BBC America tomorrow, May 16 at 9 ET (8 Central).

Warners follows 'Primeval' urge [Variety.com]

This clip, of course, comes from Boll's Far Cry, which is a far cry from a good movie, but does provide a certain bombastic thrill. It's loosely based on a video game, but mostly based on some mushrooms Boll ate once. Right after the clip cuts off (sorry, it was getting too long), the military guy tells Udo Kier, "Why don't you shove your civilian orders up your civilian ass?"

What's the plot of Far Cry? Well... Let's just let the trailer speak for itself:

I picture someone saying "You're making brainless monsters!!" to Uwe Boll. Right after they watched this film. [IMDB]

Obviously, director Francis Lawrence and writer Mark Protosevich are going to have to take some liberties with this book, since the Fox movie can't simply be two hours of buildings decaying and traces of civilization vanishing slowly. Early news reports suggest Lawrence and Protosevich will use the science behind the book as a jumping-off point to tell a story about a catastrophe that ends up erasing humans from the planet. It could just be another disaster movie, or it could be something much more desolate and weird. If it's anything like the first half of Legend, I'm definitely intrigued. (Just as long as it's nothing like the second half of Legend.) [Reuters]

Films:

Freejack (1992)
According to Wikipedia:

In the polluted, dystopian year 2009, the super-wealthy achieve immortality by hiring "bonejackers," mercenaries equipped with time travel devices, to snatch people from the past, just prior to the moment of their deaths, for use as substitute bodies.

Those who resist being used as substitute bodies are, of course, the titular "freejacks." One of these freejacks is a Formula One racecar driver snatched up from 1991, played by none other than Emilio Estevez, being chased down by the ruthless mercenary, Mick Jagger. Yes, Mick Jagger. If that's what 2009 has in store, sign me up. Then again, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get . . .

2009 Lost Memories (2002)
This is a scifi action thriller from South Korea, taking place in an alternate 2009 where the Koreas are still part of the Japanese empire. The plot involves terrorists, an archaeological artifact of some kind, and, eventually, trying to restore history to its rightful path. More importantly, however, the plot also seems to involve a couple of good-looking Korean guys, which is always a plus of sorts.

I Am Legend (2007)
Although the film primarily takes place in 2012, it begins in 2009, when a supposed cure for cancer doesn't go quite as well as planned. Will Smith, welcome to the zombie apocalypse. (Using the term "zombie" kind of loosely, I guess.)

Cloverfield (2008)
The film takes place on May 22, 2009, presented as a recovered camcorder found in what used to be Central Park. This camcorder tracks the attack of a giant monster in New York City from the point of view of five people attending a going-away party. Here's where you make a note to avoid the city on May 22.

Eagle Eye (2008)
The events occur between January and April, as Shia LaBeouf plays a young guy terrorized by a terrorist organization, teaming up with a single mother (Michelle Monaghan) to do whatever the voice on the telephone tells them, in the hope of getting out alive. Meanwhile, Billy Bob Thorton and Rosario Dawson play the feds trying to get to the bottom of all this.

Television:

Family Matters: "Father of the Bride" (Season 5, Episode 17, 1994)
Carl falls asleep and wakes up fifteen years in the future (2009), where his daughter, Laura, has married Urkel and given birth to four little Urkels. Talk about a disheartening vision of the year 2009. (Especially since they all seem to play the accordion . . .)

Charmed: "Morality Bites" (Season 2, Episode 2, 1999)
Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) has a vision of her own death: burning at the stake on February 26, 2009. The three sisters then travel ten years into the future and see their future selves, with Prue as a single workaholic, Piper as a divorced mother, and Phoebe, well, burning at the stake. At least they all now have really good answers to the question, "Where do you see yourself in ten years?"

Blue Gender (1999-2000)
In this anime, Yuji Kaido is diagnosed with a disease called the "B-cells" and therefore put into a cryogenic state in 2009. When he's brought out of it twenty-two years later, however, he finds himself in a world where heavily armored soldiers are fighting a war with "insectoid beings" known as the Blue. As it turns out, the soldiers are from a place called Second Earth and are also trying to recover any left behind humans, known as "sleepers."

Batman Beyond: "Out of the Past" (Season 3, Episode 5, 2000)
As it turns out, back in '09, Batman had a run-in with Ra's Al Ghul that was loving referred to as the "Near Apocalypse of 09." Although, since the series takes place in the future, it's good to know that it was only a near apocalypse. Meanwhile, Ra's Al Ghul is once again voiced by David Warner, who is, scientifically speaking, constructed entirely out of awesome.

Dark Angel (2000-2002)
At the age of nine, the genetically-enhanced supersoldier-in-training, Max Guevara, escapes from their secret government training center with a group of her peers. That same year, an electromagnetic pulse destroys the country's computers and communications, thereby throwing us into chaos and disorder. Ten years later, the country still isn't what it was and Max (now Jessica Alba) is still trying to avoid the secret government organization that created her.

The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007-present)
The series takes place a year and a half after the Doctor Who episode "School Reunion," thereby placing it in 2009. Elisabeth Sladen reprises the role of Sarah Jane Smith, former companion to the Doctor. This time around, she's fighting aliens with the aid of her adopted son, Luke (Tommy Knight), and a few other neighborhood kids, not to mention Mr. Smith, a giant, flashy, sentient computer. The series is intended as a more child-friendly, lighthearted counterpart to Doctor Who, and the Brigadier himself appeared on the show in the two-part story "Enemy of the Bane."

Books:

The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker (1970)
Set partially in 2009, the novel is about (according to Wikipedia):

Brian Chaney is a demographer and futurist approached while on vacation with the news that his contract has been purchased and he is required for a physical survey of the future via a secretly constructed time displacement vehicle. At a military installation south of Joliet, Illinois, the reluctant Chaney is teamed with two diversely talented military officers and a civilian liaison.

The Postman by David Brin (1985)
Set in a post-apocalyptic country, Gordon Krantz dons a postal uniform for lack of better clothes, and finds people desperate to believe that he is, in fact, an actual postman. As he travels about the country, he assumes the persona of the postman in order to help keep hope alive. The novel was made into a film in 1997 (and set in 2013), directed by and starring Kevin Costner.

Research by Nick Denton

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Never Go Through A Tunnel

It seems like a quick and easy way out, but dark and scary passageways usually house bad things that you don't want to bother with in the middle of fleeing for your life. It's simple: tunnels=death, for at least one person in the group. This is a tried and true fact of apocalyptic movies. Take for example the idiot drivers who decided to take the tunnel in Independence Day, toasted via fire ball (except for the ones who had that dog, but more on that later). Also who could forget the night vision moments in Cloverfield walking through New York's subway system. Avoid tunnels at all costs.

Do Not Join A Theme Gang

With the world ending, there will be many sad sacks who will try and recreate a Mad Max road warrior gang. Resist the urge to join anything theme-oriented. Basic rule of thumb: if you look like an idiot with a face tattoo or a fool running around in Medieval garb, you're going to get the sharp end of the death stick. Doomsday spelled this out pretty clearly: everyone who looked ridiculous got a ridiculous ending. Motorcycle gangs count too, don't forget even Romero's Dawn of the Dead leather riders got their just rewards for their hideous outfits and bad attitudes. Stick to the rag-tag refugee look, or lone wolf army motif. If you have to join a gang, stay in the back and never do anything you might later regret — like eat people.

Do Not Go Back For Loved Ones

If the world is ending, you may feel the need to find love ones that are in Princeton, a New York Library or a high rise apartment. This is a bad idea. Let go of your emotions and assume that everyone else in the world is dead, or trying to steal your food supplies. Going after loved ones almost always means your own death or the death of someone in the group. Look at it this way, it your loved one has survived and you meet up with them, bonus for you. But most likely they died from the plague, zombies, earthquake flood or whatever.

Never Be The First

I can't believe this even has to be said but no, do not go exploring in rooms, attic, caves, hallways or apartments where you are the first one in the door. My favorite character from Resident Evil Extinction, L.J., got bit by a zombie lady because he was checking out all the rooms to make sure it was safe. Let someone else do this, get a job as a medic or cook. There is no need for you to be first to go anywhere — let someone else do the exploring. If they find something really good, you can kill them and take it anyway.

Bring Your Pet

If you don't have a pet, I suggest you go to the pet store and steal one, looter style, or take care of your dead neighbors'. You may need this pet to help you keep your sanity or sacrifice its life for you, like in I Am Legend. Either way, animals are good luck when the chips are down for humans. You never know when a pair of love birds will come in handy to calm down a flock of murderous seagulls and crows. The same rule sometimes applies to children, but you will have to feed them considerably more.

Ditch The Biggest Guy In Your Group

They will turn into a zombie or rage machine, it's proven. Kill them before they kill you, or just ditch them at the next pass.

Don't Trust People In Uniform Unless They Have Defected From The System

Never trust the government, especially when the world is ending. It's a terrible idea, they would rather nuke the whole place than deal with people. If you see the military, run the other way or hide. Do not do what they say. The friendly people of Hollywood followed the advice of the government from Right At Your Door, and what happened to them? Same with the people of Raccoon City, from Resident Evil Apocalypse. Granted an ex-military person hell-bent on sticking it to the man can be a wonderful asset during the end of the world, just be sure to know the difference between the two.

Don't Barricade Yourself In

It always seems like a good idea, but 9 times out of 10 whatever you're trying to keep out gets in and now you're trapped. Think of the mess it caused for the cute little family in the beginning of28 Weeks Later and Shaun of the Dead. I say build a sky city in the trees.

Finally if all else fails, find the closest fridge, step in, and pray for a miracle.

Doctor Patrick Lee, of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Dalhousie, was somewhat surprised when he happened to catch I Am Legend on a recent plane flight, and for good reason - That whole thing about the downfall of humanity coming from a specifically-engineered virus created to kill cancer cells? Kind of struck a little too close to home:

Dr. Lee's work involves using a naturally-occurring virus known as "reovirus" to treat cancer... Dr. Lee tested the virus on mice in 1998 with some very promising results. In addition to causing brain tumor cancer cells in mice to shrink, reovirus appeared to seek out other tumors and eliminate them. Meanwhile, right now in the United States and the U.K., independent of Dr. Lee's research, there are already clinical trials underway to test reovirus on humans.

Okay, first off: Why is no-one stopping these clinical trials immediately, having seen how it all turned out in I Am Legend? And secondly, how the hell do you get on a plane showing I Am Legend? Everytime I'm on one, it seems to be some movie about women dying of horrible illnesses or Ice Age.

When Sci-Fi Meets Reality [Natural News]

But even though we all have twenty nine brains and a stomach that speaks Swahili, we shouldn't condemn Hollywood without considering the evidence. Here's the evidence for the prosecution:

1. Hollywood's unseemly hatred towards mutants.

Just consider the wealth of movies and TV shows about people who start spontaneously converting into something beyond their original human design, thanks to a genetic change or exposure to strange substances. Like the vicious ex-humans in Night Shadows aka Mutant, who terrorize a small Southern town. "Mankind's deadliest threat will not come from the skies," it proclaims.

There are also terrifying mutants in Hell Comes To Frogtown and a number of other movies. And on shows like Star Trek, whenever a character (usually a dweeb like Lt. Barclay on Next Gen) starts developing a super-mind — or evolving into a super-lizard — it's always portrayed as a bad thing.) Not to mention the murderous disease-altered mutants of movies such as 28 Days Later, I Am Legend, Omega Man and many others. (These aren't as well known as Night Shadows, of course, but they still have an impact on our mutant-hating culture.)
Counter-examples: Comic books come to our rescue. Mutants come off quite well in shows like Heroes and movies like the X-Men trilogy, which are either based on comic books or obviously derivative of them. Obviously, we should be using our superior posthuman intellects to boost the comic-book industry.

2. Why does Hollywood persecute cyborgs?

Again with the Star Trek hate: Trek gives us the Borg, who are the most hurtful representations of cyborgs imaginable. My friend Zzarglboz had to hide his swizzle-shaped head implants on the street for a year after First Contact came out.
They're like Frankenstein, only cyber! (And actually, some of our posthuman friends are partially dead, and the Frankenstein story is very unfair to them.) In the original Robocop, being turned into a cyborg makes Officer Murphy into a heartless killing machine. And for some reason, regaining his "humanity" is seen as a good thing. Says Cyberpunk Review:

As Murphy begins to realize who he was, and worse, what he's become, the question asked is what degree of Murphy's humanity remains? Murphy's partner, Anne Lewis (played by Nancy Allen) serves to surface these concerns, as she still thinks that Murphy is inside somewhere. Yet, every aspect of humanity has been taken away from Robocop - he doesn't have a home, but instead returns to a borg-like podchair at night to regenerate. Even if Robocop eventually considers himself human in some sense, it's no longer clear what that even means. At best, Robocop is part of that strange category we call "post-human."

3. Hollywood hates it when we merge with aliens.

In movies and TV, alien creatures that want to merge with poor ordinary humans and uplift them to a higher level of consciousness and ability are never "benefactors." They're always "parasites," or at best "symbiotes." For once, comic-book movie aren't even our friend, either — Spider-Man gets an awesome boost from the inky black creature in Spider-Man 3, but it's still portrayed as a terrible thing. Even though it makes his hair so much better! Plus in The Invasion, the alien "parasites" are horrible and awful, even though they clearly make Daniel Craig the most James Bond-esque he's ever been. The same goes for The Puppet Masters. And it's hard to find happy representations of people inter-breeding with aliens, either — it's always nasty and fatal, like in the Alien films or the Species films. When everybody knows that in real life, merging or interbreeding with aliens often works out great. (It's just like marriage, though — don't get hitched until you try living together for a while first.)
Counter-examples: Star Trek has one of the few I can think of, with its happy Trills, the symbiotes that make Dax and the other spotted-neck people all cheerful and ageless with the wisdom and the cute "old man" nicknames.

4. Movies and TV spread the hate against genetic engineering.

Just look at this hall of shame of genetic engineering movies and TV shows. You have your GATTACA, where genetic engineering upgrades the human race, but poor Ethan Hawke gets discriminated against because he's genetically inferior. (Which anybody who saw Reality Bites already knew.) And then there's the dark future world of Dark Angel, where people practice genetic engineering on humans, including the super-killer main character. And of course the aliens in the X-Files are practicing genetic engineering on humans. Not to mention, TV shows are always full of genetically advanced superhumans — including Khan's superior people in Star Trek and the subtly named Nietzscheans in Andromeda — who are all evil and intent on conquering everybody else. And in the forthcoming movie Splicers (or Splice), Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley create a scary-sexy human-animal chimera that turns out to be too much to handle. Why, oh why, can't movies and television ever celebrate the specialness of our genetically hacked brothers and sisters?
Counter-examples: Star Trek is the frenemy of the genetically upwardly mobile. On the one hand, there's Khan's gang and their whole Ceti-Alpha-Two keeping it real craziness. On the other, Trek does offer us Deep Space Nine's doctor Julian Bashir, who's a bit smug and obnoxious but otherwise a pretty decent upgraded human. So we'll call it even.

What can you do to stop the posthuman hate?

1. If you have mental powers as a result of mutation or some kind of alien implant, then use them on the producers and "suits" in Hollywood. Maybe if the blood vessels on their foreheads start swelling to the size of cantaloupes and everything tastes like bad salmon to them, they'll rethink their anti-posthuman prejudice. Otherwise, we may have to wait until the posthuman revolution happens, and then all of the regular humans will be tasped encouraged to treat us more fairly.

2. Support books. Books have been way more favorable to those of us who have moved beyond our human limitations. We'll have a post tomorrow detailing the pro-posthuman books that you as an aspiring posthuman, should read and support.

Top image adapted from photo by Lampeduza.

Stay Out Of The Basement:
A family father/scientist, Dr. Brewer, becomes obsessed with his flora experiments in the basement. His obsession begins to affect his behavior when his kids discover he bleeds green, is eating plant food and sleeping on dirt. It is later revealed that dear old dad was growing human clones from plants and the man they've been dealing with is really his plant clone. The real Dr. Brewer then destroys all of human and plant hybrids. But who's to say that's the real Dr. Brewer?

Why I'm Afraid Of Bees:
Gary Lutz's is a fan of computer role playing games. His computer games lead him to a company that advertises a real-life role playing game, where clients can switch bodies with other clients. Similar to The Fly, Gary accidentally gets stuck in the body of a bee that enters the machine during the switch. While his body has the mind of his partner, his partner's body is stuck with the mind of a bee, and Gary has the body of a bee.

Attack Of The Mutant:
Comic book fan Skipper Matthews is in fan-fantasy world when he discovers his favorite comic book characters have come to life in his town. Together he helps to defeat the villainous Masked Mutant. But unfortunately (or fortunately) Skipper gets sucked into their world (via ray gun) and becomes a real life comic book character as well, who bleeds ink.

Egg Monsters From Mars:
Dana (boys name) finds a mysterious egg and discovers that it's really from some crazy scientist. The egg hatches and the little monster becomes a pet to him. Of course the scientist will stop at nothing to get his eggs back, and the monster protects Dana, who later gets knocked up by one of the aliens.

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom:
This book was every siblings dream. Michael's bratty sister Tara is ruining his life and causing him embarrassment and beat downs from local bullies. For his birthday Michael receives a cuckoo clock that has the power of time travel. Michael figures out the switch and jumps back into time. Unfortunately for Michael he is stuck on a backwards loop that jumps him back year by year until he is a little baby. He figures out a way back, but manages to erase his sisters existence in the process.

Let's Get Invisible:
A mirror connected to a light switch allows a group of kids to turn themselves invisible. They all experiment on how long they can change back and forth until the connection fizzles and one child gets stuck in the mirror. The mirror world is another dimension where their evil twins have been trying to break out into the real world. By the end of the book you don't know who is the original character and who is their doppelganger.

Invasion of the Body Squeezers/ Revenge of the Body Squeezers (Part One And Two):
Very close to invasion of the body snatchers, but the aliens get into your body via hugs. In the second part though you get introduced to a whole host of new aliens that are trying to set off a bomb that would squeeze all humans into a tiny size.

Piano Lessons Can Be Murder:
This book straddles the scifi fence a little. Jerry is a little boy taking piano lessons from the deranged Dr. Shreek. The piano teacher is fascinated by Jerry's hands, and it's later revealed that Dr. Shreek is a large robot that harvests hands for his master. Granted Jerry gets saved by the ghosts of it's past victims...so not entirely scifi, but the still hand stealing robot helps.

After a couple of test screenings and the trailer, Hancock and crew were seen filming in New York City this Saturday night. How is this possible with the release date steadily approaching? Maybe they are searching for a new ending that will allow them the PG-13 rating that sources say they're having trouble getting. With the movie reportedly including scenes of Hancock shoving a man's head up his behind and unleashing destructive sperm, it's no wonder they're struggling with the MPAA. Hopefully Hancock can get his crew in gear for their release in July. (To be fair, Smith's last movie, I Am Legend, reshot its ending in November, only about a month before its mid-December release date, and it did great.) [The Bad And The Ugly]

Planet Of The Apes (Tim Burton version): Wait, what now? Abraham Lincoln is an ape? This ending sort of follows the original Pierre Boulle novel, but sadly makes no sense whatsoever because nothing in the preceding film sets it up.

Screamers: So the nice girl turns out to be a killer cyborg as well, but she's a good killer cyborg, sort of. And then there's a killer cyborg teddy bear on board Peter Weller's spaceship. Oh noes! The end.

The Thirteenth Floor. Whoah dude. What is reality? How did that guy who died in the 1990s suddenly turn up in 2024? Is anything really real, or is it all just a simulation within a simulation within a simulation?

Titan AE. The captain of the ship is our friend. No, wait, he's an evil traitor. No wait, he's actually changed sides again and now he's sacrificing his life to save our heroes. Plus, the good guy knows all about dolphins despite having been raised among aliens.

Android. Klaus Kinski is working to create androids on a hidden space station.... but then it turns out he's actually an android himself! Whoah!

Every M. Night Shyamalan movie ever. That guy is dead, hey? And the aliens are allergic to water, so they decided to invade a planet that's mostly water. And the village is now. Whoah!

Battlestar Galactica, "Epiphanies." And then it turns out the half-Cylon hybrid fetus blood is magically the cure for the president's cancer. Wha? Why?

The 27th Day. Aliens show up and give five capsules that will destroy the world to five humans. All the humans have to do is avoid opening the capsules of mass destruction for 27 days and the world is saved. But oh noes! The Soviet Premier gets control over one of the boxes and wants to use it to hold the world to ransom and attack the United States. Good thing it turns out at the very last minute that you can modify the capsules to slay "only the enemies of freedom." All WMDs should be that discriminating.

The Mist. The army shows up... just a moment too late!

I am Legend. The cured plague victim's blood is actually a vaccine! (This makes sense in the Heston version, but isn't really explained or fleshed out in the Smith version.) And Alice Braga and her kid can survive a huge explosion, as long as they're locked in an airtight vault. Plus, the village is now! I mean, the village is real!

Mission To Mars. Not only is there life on Mars, but it's incredibly goofy. And it turns out they seeded Earth with life. And now they want to meet Gary Sinise, so they can tell him how much they loved Forrest Gump.

Vanilla Sky. OMG, what is reality? Tom Cruise's tragic girlfriends keep merging into one woman, and he can't keep them straight, but then it turns out he's in suspended animation having a 100-year-shroom dream. But then he wakes up, and he's still shrooming. Or is he? He jumps off a building, and into a big eye. Whoah. What just happened? The end.

Family Tree by Sheri S. Tepper. It turns out they're all animals!

Dark Star Rising by Frederick Pohl. The alien Erks promise to help restore America's lost superpower status... but it turns out every race they've "helped" before has died off!

Soylent Green. Up with people!

Superman Returns. Superman and Lois have a love child!

The Astronaut's Wife. Johnny Depp's astronaut is really possessed by a goopy alien... but electrocuting him just causes the alien to leap into his wife, Charlize Theron.

Highlander 2. No, wait — the Immortals are actually aliens from the planet Zeist! And Sean Connery and Chrisopher Lambert were friends there. They just... forgot about it when they came to Earth. It all makes total sense.

Andromeda, the final season. But wait, Trance the purple girl is actually a sun. No, really! And she gave birth to some kind of ultimate evil thingy.

New X-Men. Xorn, the wise masked mutant, is acutally Magneto, the misguided (also masked) mutant separatist. Oh noes! Except that he isn't. Never mind.

Iron Man/Avengers. Tony Stark/Iron Man has really been working for the time-traveling maniac Kang all along. Since the beginning! But never mind, here's his teenage self, carreid forward in time to take his place.

Amazing Spider-Man. Spider-man's longtime girlfriend Gwen Stacy had a baby — with the Green Goblin!

Captain America. The Nazi Red Skull transfers his mind into a clone of Captain America, and then becomes the U.S. Secretary of Defence. You go to war with the Red Skull you have, not the Red Skull you wish you had. Or something.

Amazing Spider-Man (again.) Spider-Man was his own clone all along! Oh wait — no, he wasn't.

The Clone Republic by Steven Kent. According to the author himself, there's a "stupid plot twist" involving guns that are way way too easy to sabotage. By pinching them. Which does seem a tad weird.

Quantum Leap, the final season. Suddenly Sam is jumping into famous historical figures. He's Lee Harvey Oswald! He's Elvis! But wait, there's also an evil leaper who's breaking everything Sam's fixed! And maybe Sam's a vampire! But maybe not!

Independence Day. The aliens turn out to be vulnerable to a virus on an Apple Mac. Steve Jobs, alien killer!

JLA. Amazo the killer android has all the powers of the Justice League — so he loses all his powers if the League disbands!

And of course:

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Luke and Leia are really siblings! OMG narrow incest escape!

Thanks to Liz for research help. Also, several plot twists came from here and here.

In Sleep Dealer, the U.S. has finally succeeded in stopping illegal immigrants crossing over from Mexico. But Mexicans can still work in American factories and farms for almost no money, thanks to the miracle of telecommuting. The people in Alex Rivera's film hook up their nervous systems to the Internet to control robots in the U.S., but it takes a toll on them, as you can see from the spooky clip and stills above. The film's title refers to workers who get so drained they collapse.

Rivera says this bizarre scenario may be what America wants: "to use the labor, but not have the person."

Here's the official synopsis for this Sundance-bound film:

The story begins with Memo Cruz, a young campesino, or peasant farmer, in southern Mexico. He's always dreamed of leaving his small pueblo and maybe finding work in the big cities in the north. His dream comes true in the worst possible way when his home is mistakenly identified as a terrorist hideout in a hilariously reckless "Global War on Terror."

Rudy Gaeta is a soldier fighting in this future war. He works for an American security company flying a remote control war machine — a pumped-up version of today's Predator Drone. Rudy's first assignment is to take out the "terrorists" in southern Mexico. Following orders, from his office in sunny San Diego, Rudy dispatches a drone and attacks Memo's home in Mexico.

Uprooted as a consequence of the attack, Memo has to leave the pueblo and go north to earn money to help his family start again. He heads to the massive border city of Tijuana.

On his way into Tijuana Memo meets a young woman named Luz. Luz is a writer, and going into the city to look for stories. After she meets Memo we see what "writing" means in this future. Alone in her room, Luz connects her body to the net and speaks. As she describes her day, the computer records visuals from her memories and the sound of her voice. She puts these recorded memories up for sale on the net - a blog, straight from the brain.

In Tijuana, Memo finds work in a futuristic factory - he earns dollars by connecting his body to the net, and controlling a worker drone in America.

At home in San Diego, Rudy, the soldier, is lonely and disconnected from the world. He spends his free time plugging in and watching recordings of other people's memories. A few days after he attacked Memo's home, Rudy has doubts - something about the attack didn't feel right. He searches for information on the net, and finds Luz's story. He buys it, and for the first time, through Luz's recorded memories, he sees Memo's face - the face of his victim.

Through Luz's stories, effectively through her eyes and ears, Rudy gets to know Memo. And as Luz and Memo fall in love, Rudy realizes what he's done.