Is there a trend of body painting Star Wars characters, like the painted on bikini models that took off in the early 90s? Because if so... I want to go to there.

[via Pictureisunrelatedvia Geekologie]

BEST:

Spot, Data's Orange Tabby Cat from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Who: Data's number 1 friend that didn't wear a Devo-esque visor on his face.
Why he's awesome: He's probably one of the only cats in the universe that has an infinitely advanced AI at his beck and call.
Bonus points: Anything that pisses Riker off is a big plus in my book.

Willis the Bouncer from Robert Heinlein's Red Planet
Who: A sound mimicking furry ball that every kid should have as a friend.
Why he's awesome: In a 1960's era future, when a dog just won't cut it, the only way to really impress the kids at school is with an alien that doubles as a soccer ball. And here's a clip from the Fox miniseries adaptation.

R2D2, Star Wars
Who: The yin to C3PO's (annoying) yang that brings logic and light to any situation through a series of flickering lights and bleeps.
Why he's awesome: He's a moving trashcan that manages to be more likeable than most of the Star Wars palz extended cast.

Porthos, Captain Archer's Beagle from Enterprise
Who: Easily one of the more tolerable characters on Enterprise. Mostly because he didn't talk.
Why he's awesome: He's a beagle! How can beagles not be cute? Also, I feel like after the unfortunate Scotty related transporter incident, he deserves a nice memorial.

Ampersand, Y the Last man
Who: The world's ending, every man is dead, you're an aspiring escape artist pining away for your lost girlfriend and you're all alone. What do you do? Have crazy monkey antics with your favorite jungle friend with a punctuation mark as a name.
Why he's awesome: Not to spoil too much, but he may or may not be humanity's key to getting the XY's back in action.

Lockjaw
Who: Marvel's own alien bulldog and member of the non-human branch of the Avengers.
Why he's awesome: He's super strong, can eat anything and once latched onto the Thing.

Dog the Robot from Half Life 2
Who: Alyx Vance's No.1 go to robotic buddy who helps when your path is blocked by other dimensional beings or just wants to play fetch with your grav gun.
Why he's awesome: He's a giant robot with the personality of a dog. Do you need more?

Pen Pen, from Neon Genesis Evangelion
Who: A genetically altered super smart penguin that lives with Misato Katsuragi during the Angel apocalypse.
Why he's awesome: While the series has moments of intense despair and darkness, you can always count on jerky, anime humor involving naked people and penguins to brighten your day.

K-9 from Doctor Who
Who: Dr Who's multi-generational robotic canine companion.
Why he's awesome: He's gotten a series of spinoff stories and was even parodied on South Park.

Nibbler from Futurama
Who: Nibbler is part of an ancient race of Nibblonians who protect the universe from giant glowing brains that make everyone stupid. Er, Stupid-er.
Why he's awesome: He can eat about 1,000 times his body mass to, uh, produce dark matter.

Gaspode, from Terry Prachett's Discworld series
Who: A talking dog with human intelligence that attempts to bring "Hollywood" to Discworld.
Why he's awesome: He's an endless source of snarky remarks and regularly uses his speech to manipulate humans when he needs food.

CJ-7
Who: A puff ball with a body that guaranteed to produce family friendly fun times.
Why he's awesome: CJ-7 can help you repair torn relationships with certain parental figures and bring people back from the dead.

Einstein, Doc Brown's dog from Back to the Future
Who: You might be under the impression that a certain Family Ties alum might be the Doc's best time traveling friend in this series, but you'd be wrong. This adorable little terrier follows Doc whenever her goes.
Why he's awesome: As long as you ignore the craptacular animated television series, Einstein is always cute, helpful and never obnoxious.

Ein, Cowboy Bebop
Who: A super brained corgie that gets stranded on the Bebop.
Why he's awesome: Although they never really get into it in the series, Ein is a "data dog" that possesses super intelligence that allows him to answer phones and steer cars.

Bubastis, Ozymandias' lynx from Watchmen
Who: When you're a super genius David Bowie impersonator with the world at your fingertips what do you do next? You create a genetically engineered psychedelic colored lynx as a companion.
Why he's awesome: He takes one for the team for the sake of furthering an evil plan for his master.

Gizmo, Gremlins
Who: The main furry faced protagonist of the Gremlins series.
Why he's awesome: While I'm pretty much a fan of all the gremlins, I can't deny the greatness that is Gizmo channeling his inner Rambo.

Seymour from Futurama
Who: Seymour is a part of one of the most tear jerking episodes of Futurama involving Fry recounting the story of the most loyal dog that ever lived.
Why he's awesome: Did you see the last scene? He's the most loyal dog that ever lived! Also, we can rest easy knowing that alternate timeline Fry gave Seymour a great life.

Bronx from Gargoyles
Who: Bronx is the dog version of the Manhattan gargoyle clan. During the whole series you only see one other gargoyle beast, but unlike Budeka, Bronx gets a whole episode devoted to him befriending an Amish kid.
Why he's awesome: Gargoyles are already pretty high on the cool supercreatures scale, but add a dog personality to the mix, and you've got gold.

Roach from WALL-E
Who: They weren't lying when they said that after the world ended there would be nothing left but cockroaches. Fortunately, the end of the world also gave them charming personalities!
Why he's awesome: Making me want a roach as a pet is an epic win in my book.

Kevin and Dug from Up
Who: Kevin is a rare, brilliantly colored giant bird that Carl and Russell accidentally find in Paradise Falls. Dug is sweet golden retriever with a collar that allows him to talk.
Why they're awesome: It takes a lot to make slapstick giant birds funny, but Pixar does a magnificent job. And Dug? He's exactly what I imagine an actual talking dog to sound like. SQUIRREL!

WORST:

Tribbles from Star Trek
Who: Fuzzy, purring little meat pets that take over the original Enterprise.
Why they suck: Pets rocks were bad enough, why would they think that a massively multiplying furry pet rock would be better?

ALF
Who: Alien puppet that takes over a really lame sitcom in the 80's. If ever you want to torture someone without the use of waterboarding, show them and episode of ALF… or Small Wonder.
Why he sucks: Look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn't scream in horror when you saw that clip.

Snarf, Thundercats
Who: A fat alien cat that ends every sentence with an annoying "snarf!" sound.
Why he sucks: Is he a lizard or a cat? I'm going to go with meth induced demonic lovechild.

Teddy from A.I.
Who: An animatronic intelligent Teddy Rucksbin from the future that accompanies David in a search for the Blue Fairy.
Why he sucks: Ok, now I understand that some people might take issue with Teddy's position on the worst list but he's a toy that's alive. That's pretty much the worst nightmare of most 8-year-old kids. And me.

Slimer from Ghostbusters
Who: A green ghost that terrorizes the Ghostbusters team by covering everything in slime.
Why he sucks: For those of us born in the mid 80's and watched the Ghostbusters cartoon first, we expected to see cool ghost antics when we finally saw the movie. Instead, we were greeted with a grotesque blob that was pretty evil.

Div-x from Penny Arcade
Who: You might remember the Sony Dix-X player, an ahead of its time technical marvel.
Why he sucks: According to Penny Arcade Comics, he's a foul-mouthed drunk that's teetering on the edge of killing us all.

Pets from Children of Men
Who: When the world's gone infertile, people turn to animals to provide comfort in the end of humanity.
Why they suck: I have nothing against the animals in Children of Men, personally, but seeing all the dogs, cats and birds cluttering people's homes can be an ominous image.

Selacious Crumb from Star Wars
Who: He's a little fox-lizard thing that hangs out with Jabba the Hut and laughs at all his lame jokes.
Why he sucks: Everybody hates the skinny jerk in the corner with the stupid laugh.

Gleek from Superfriends
Who: The alien monkey pet of the Wondertwins.
Why he sucks: Usually if he was featured in Superfriends, you could count on him popping out to end the episode on a lame joke.

Independence Day Dog from Independence Day
Who: If you're like me then you probably laughed at the idea of a ball of flame chasing a golden retriever down a tunnel.
Why he sucks: Was it really necessary to have a slow motion explosion behind a dog? And wouldn't all that heat ultimately cook them all in that storage locker?
Then Again:...he's immune to explosions. And that's pretty cool. Dodging fire like that, he's like a canine Neo. Maybe he should have been best?

Space Buddies
Why they suck: I'll just point you in the direction of this.

Queequeg, X-files
Who: A Pomeranian adopted by Dana Scully and eaten shortly after by the legendary Big Blue.
Why he sucks: He was found snacking on his previous owner.

Krypto
Who: Superman's dog. Enough said.
Why he sucks: I hate pet versions of superheroes. Also, why does he need a cape?

Muffit from the original Battlestar Gallactica
Who: Caprica used to have a variety of tracker dogs but sadly, none of them survived the Cylon attack. Instead a group robotic dogs are created to replace them.
Why he sucks: Is he an ewok? A fuzzy, metallic gremlin on meth? You decide.

MAD Cat from Inspector Gadget
Who: Dr. Claw's chortling fat feline.
Why he sucks: He's the quintessential evil cat meant to taunt the hero. Plus Dr. Claw regularly beat the crap out of him and he seemed to be ok with that.

Frank the Dog from Men in Black
Who: An alien stool pigeon using the guise of a small pug.
Why he sucks: He made me remember "Who Let the Dogs Out" existed.

Gir, Invader Zim
Who: Invader Zim's mentally disturbed robot helper that was given to him as either a joke or sabotage. Probably both.
Why he sucks: Yeah, yeah Gir is really cute, but he's amoral, evil and would gladly watch you die a fiery death while bursting into a fit of giggles.

Astro, The Jetsons
Who: The Scooby Doo knockoff of the 21st century.
Why he sucks: It might have worked with the Scooby Gang, but there's only room for one charismatic dog with a speech impediment ‘round these parts.

Lamar, Half Life 2
Who: The neutered headcrab that resides in Dr. Isaac Kleiner's laboratory.
Why he sucks: Crabs are rarely a good thing. Head crabs are a double whammy of bad.

Joshua from Dark Angel
Who: A transgenic dog-man with an affinity for painting and crappy comedic timing.
Why he sucks: There was only one good thing that came out of season two of Dark Angel and that rhymes with Smensen Shackles.

Honorable Mention: Blarp from the Lost in Space remake.

The contest, announced with some fanfare on Star Trek's Facebook page last month, has a winner: Scott H. of Erie, Colo. who writes:

During the Drill Machine sequence as the Enterprise comes out of its barrel role amidst destruction of the other Federation ships above Vulcan, we cut to an interior Enterprise bridge over the shoulder of Kirk that is looking out through the front viewscreen. In space, R2-D2 is floating in the debris from about the top middle of the screen to the bottom right.

For his prowess at spotting Star Wars droids infiltrating enemy territory by disguising themselves as garbage, Scott H. wins a prop phaser from the movie (retail value: $100, unless Scott puts it up on eBay). No prize for spotting any of the film's other Easter eggs, in-jokes, stunt-casting cameos, or references to other works, but TrekMovie.com has a pretty comprehensive list of them.

The show - due to premiere in London this April before heading to the States - features the scores from the six movies, rearranged by John Williams himself and performed by an orchestra in front of a backdrop of re-edited footage from the movies, creating a 90 minute visual narrative accompanying the music. But that's not all that you'll see when you visit the show, according to Rolling Stone magazine:

[Tour producer, Spencer] Churchill said A Musical Journey is bigger than 90 to 95 percent of all rock tours because of the stage, the LED screen, and all the vintage Star Wars costumes that will be displayed within several thousand square-feet of "front of the house" space each night. Churchill can't detail specific artifacts from the exhibition but said, "It will be a lot of stuff. A few of them have never been seen before."

"Let's put it this way," says [Churchill's partner, Greg] Perloff, "We could sell tickets just for the exhibit and people will feel like they've got their money's worth."

This means respecting the movies and the fans, according to Churchill... which, in turn, means that you shouldn't expect to see someone dressed as Darth Vader appearing in front of the orchestra to try and get everyone to boo him:

Certainly you want it to be entertaining without it being kitschy and I think we are doing that completely. It's not a bunch of shtick. It's not R2-D2 going across the stage - that's what it's not going to be.

As long as the 90-minute re-edit of the movies excises Jar-Jar, I'll be happy.

Flick Image by PowerPig.

LucasFilm Says "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" Bound For U.S. [Rolling Stone]

Even more than last week's episode, this week's Clone Wars, "Duel Of The Droids," felt like it was a quiet reboot of the series - The animation seemed smoother (with the painterly touches and textures even more pronounced, and the characters less blocky and awkward), the incidental music more overwhelming - but at least it wasn't more of last week's ill-chosen techno - and the writing... well, much less annoying than last week, at least.

It's not that I'm suddenly sold on the whole "R2 is kidnapped and Anakin will do anything to save him" plot, but I have to admit, it was almost worth it to see the stocky little droid take on his replacement in a ridiculous duel that more or less involved the two robots running into each other a lot and trying to make the beeps and bloops into some kind of tension-building dialogue. It was helped by the other droid turning out not to be comedically inept, but actually an evil spy droid out to kill Anakin and the clones all along, and even moreso by a space station battle between Anakin, Ahsoka and General Grevious' droid army that - again, as with almost all of the most engaging moments of the series - recalled the Star Wars movies.

In the end, of course, everything ended up exactly as it had begun - R2 was back with his friends, General Grevous had, yet again, run away from an explosion so that he can pop up and be threatening yet ultimately ineffectual next week, and the good guys had won a small but apparently important victory in the ongoing Clone War. If the show is to keep improving - and it is improving, slowly - then that sense of plot apathy is going to have to be overcome in future episodes; with the backdrop of galaxy-wide warfare, why does the show always feel so weightless and meaningless... and short of killing off characters, how can that be overcome?

I totally want a cute robot that comes and picks up after me when I've crashed out drunk on the floor of my floating space-forest. Right after the scene of Bruce Dern collapsing, the robots take him to the surgery and give him really good drugs through a nose/mouth mask, while they patch him up. And they become his robo-poker buddies. So it's totally sad that one of the three robots gets whooshed out to space before Bruce gets around to naming them Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Silent Running was supposed to be sort of a follow-up to 2001: A Space Odyssey and shares the same slow contemplative pace and majestic visuals. (Its director, Douglas Trumbull, was special effects supervisor on 2001.)

But really, it's only remembered for Huey, Dewey and Louie now. There had been funny robots before Silent, like Robbie from Forbidden Planet, and vaguely cool robots, like Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still. But nobody had the technology to make little robots, or even robots that didn't look like a guy in a suit. What was the miracle advancement that allowed Silent Running to solve this problem? Amputees. Four bilateral amputees took turns playing the four "sweet-tempered" robots. With Wall-E, Huey and Dewey's time has finally come.. which is sort of fitting, since Silent Running takes place in the distant year of 2008.

• Luke and Leia: When you first saw Star Wars, weren't you rooting for the young, rebellious teenager from Tatooine to actually score with the girl? You had the feeling that Han had been around the block a few times and didn't need another notch on his blaster-belt, royalty or not. Luke was the entire wish-fulfillment part of the movie: who wouldn't want to get whisked off their world and into an interstellar struggle along with magic and laser swords? You not only wanted him to destroy the Death Star, but to get the girl as well. Well, at least he got to make out with his sister first few minutes of Empire, hinting that there might have been some other episodes of that going on.
• Han Solo and Chewbacca: They say dogs are a man's best friend, and there's probably an even closer relationship when your dog is over seven feet tall, walks uprights, talks you to in his own language that only you understand, and can fly your ship for you. Plus you know exactly where to scratch him when he needs a bit of a reward for doign something good. The flea baths and upkeep on that glossy fur must be fairly expensive, and who knows what you have to feed the guy. Although there's a slight undertone of jealousy when Chewie chuckles at Han when he gets dissed by Leia, he just calls him a fuzzball and everything is right again.
• Darth Vader and Boba Fett: Think about it, they both spend most of their lives encased in armor, had their parent (singular, in both cases) taken away from them at an early age, and they both enjoy killing things for fun. It's just natural that they'd be attracted to each other, and who's the first person Darth calls when he needs to have someone hunted down? Also, Darth has his own little private torture chamber, and Boba's ship is called the Slave I, so they must have some sort of bondage fetish going on.
• R2D2 and C3P0: Nothing says "I can't quit you" like two droids who stick with each other through thick and thin. Plus the sheer amount of concern that Threepio shows for R2 whenever anything happens to him betrays his feelings, and the Emperor would say. If that golden whiner could have burst into tears when Luke says "I've lost R2!" over the radio in Star Wars, he sure would have. Traipsing around the galaxy together might have been hard on their droid bodies, what with R2 not being able to fly anymore, and Threepio getting blasted to bits in Empire, but just think about the stories they'll be able to tell their grandtoasters.
• Jabba the Hutt and Leia: Running an evil organization that operates on the underbelly of the law can be taxing. Just check out Jabba's body: he's fat, smells, eats live reptiles, and he has to chain women to himself just to keep them around. Once he spotted Leia trying to make off with Han's frozen body, he quickly forced her into a tiny metal bikini and turned her into his newest slave girl, much to the delight of horny basement-dwellers around the world. She wouldn't even reciprocate his proffered tongue kisses, but repays him with some erotic asphyxiation. We swear he enjoyed being choked out.
• Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar: If you thought a smuggler and a walking carpet were an odd couple, consider a woman and her giant fish. It's probably hard to serve as the leader of the Rebellion and to coordinate efforts to overthrow the Empire when you have to worry that your partner is getting enough water, and do you have a good supply of krill on hand. Still, she manages to pull it off with grace and spotless flowing white robes, while Ackbar looks paunchy and happy, like someone who has just downed a few beers before the big game. We just hope he doesn't slap her around when those Rebels aren't around.
• Lando Calrissian and Nien Nunb: Once Lando accepts his guilt for the freezing of Han, he starts flying the Millennium Falcon around, dresses like Han, and even takes on Chewie as his co-pilot. However, that all changes when the Battle of Endor erupts. Lando ditches Chewie and makes room for Nien Nunb, who likes to gasp and nod. Plus, he speaks his own secret language with Lando, and they spend a lot of time in that cockpit together. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
• Tusken Raiders and their Banthas: Tusken Raiders spend their lives wrapped head to toe in mummy bandages, and the only thing they have to keep them company are other Tusken Raiders, and Banthas. According to Star Wars lore, when a Tusken receives a Bantha, they form a life-long bond; when one of the two dies, the other is exiled to the desert to die. Which would really suck if Banthas are known to have a short lifespan. Still, nothing says love like a bond that requires an exile after the breakup.
• Han Solo and Leia: Darth Vader's daughter sure gets around. During the course of three different films, she makes out with her brother, gets flirted with by scoundrels, wriggles around almost nude for fat gangsters, tickles a furry Ewok silly, and then ends up with Han. However, didn't it feel like she chose him because she found out she was related to Luke? Decisions of the heart are a lot easier when you find out you might have offspring with giant foreheads and genetic problems.

Art via the excellent Joel Watson.