Insect (1979-1982)

Gotta love the attention to detail here. "It's dancing horseshit," "music by the Beatles," and "The Movie Everyone Is Buzzing About!"

A closer look

Stalk of The Celery Monster (1979) A short short.

Romeo And Juliet, the Monster Movie!

Little Dead Riding Hood (1981)

Hansel and Gretel (1982). A storyboard from a Hansel And Gretel movie pitch, takes us to a world where the walls melt candy.

Mothera (1980-1988)

The Gardener
His hands are gardening tools. This was one of the many superhero villains Burton dreamed up, and he's very Edward Scissorhands-like.

Dr. Brain

Another villain, Dr. Brain, who needs two assistants to hold his head up at all times, or else it cracks open — see the right image. If only Burton got his own superhero movie, where he could dream up an entire new team of heroes and baddies.

Superman Lives - Brainiac

And finally here's a genuine concept art from Tim Burton's Superman movie with Nic Cage, that never saw the light of day. Still this is a pretty bad-ass Brainiac.

Superman Lives- Superman

And this is his Superman, who looks like Johnny Depp.

Here's a collection of some of the images:

For more images see New York Magazine the show starts on November 22 and runs until April 26.

In anticipation of the Burton retrospective, which comes to the New York Museum of Modern Art this November, Harper's Bazaar asked Burton to dream up his fantasy fashion spread, one inspired by his own movies. Of course, these outfits will set you back a few thousand dollars apiece, to say nothing about the giant skeleton props.

Tim Burton's Magical Fashion [Harper's Bazaar via Super Punch]

The movie's screenplay was written by Kevin Smith and eventually rewritten by Wesley Strick. The whole thing was set to film in 1999. But after spending loads of cash, the studio eventually dropped the movie, which centered on Superman's demise. This was a good thing, because as much as I enjoy a bad Nic Cage movie, with the yelling on every other emphasis, I don't think I could handle him as America's greatest hero.

[Tim Burton JP via IGN]

Historians will point to the year 2009 and Shane Acker's sack puppet apocalypse as the starting point of Stitchpunk. But before Stitchtoos and Stitchtatts become popular, before the needle-and-thread revolution, and certainly long before the horrific forthcoming Stitchtorture Sew films, let's take a moment to bear witness to the birth of an entirely new aesthetic.

It seems that everything has a "-punk" suffix these days. Steampunk, Cyberpunk, dieselpunk, biopunk, biodieselpunk. When the images for Shane Acker's film first appeared, the media lost no time in giving the director's unique visual style its appropriate "-punk" moniker. But what are the origins of this handcrafted anarchy? Here are (suitably) 8 of the influences and origins that came before 9's ragdoll revolution.

# 1 & 2: Steampunk and Dieselpunk
First and foremost, Stitchpunk owes its overall aesthetic to Steampunk, and could be construed at first glance as a subgenre. In an interview on Gone With The Twins, Acker himself admits to this being one of foundations of 9's visual style:

I'm a big fan of steampunk. I love the Jules Verneian, turn of the century design aesthetic. It celebrates mechanics but at the same time there's a kind of ornamentation. I think it's really beautiful and expressive and visual. I wanted to bring that to the world. It's as if the industrial revolution had progressed another 300 years and we hadn't gone into the digital age. There's sort of computer technology but it's all mechanical. If the Victorian era were to collapse in some post-apocalyptic event, then these creatures are made from all the bits and pieces that are left over. That's the idea behind "Stitchpunk." It's not steampunk, which fell away, but the bits and pieces of steampunk that got stitched together. I wish I could say I came up with "Stitchpunk" but I didn't. It was someone on a blog, but it really hit the nail on the head.

For the sake of accuracy, and good old-fashioned geek obsession to detail, it should be noted that 9 inhabits a world more closely related to Dieselpunk than Steampunk; Steampunk being retro-Victorian, whereas Dieselpunk is born out of WWII technology and imagery. 9 is rife with references from that period, from the tattered red fascist flags to the landscapes reminiscent of Normandy after the invasion, and Dresden after the bombing.

#3: Little Big Planet
9 is a cornucopia of apocalyptic imagery and visual references, but it was the titular character who seemed most eerily familiar to me. As 9 started out on his adventures of a strange new world, I realized where I'd seen him before. He's Little Big Planet's Sackboy.

Little Big Planet is a videogame created by Media Molecule, the makers of Rag Doll Kung Fu. The game is populated by crafty puppets on a series of adventures in a handcrafted world reminiscent of Michel Gondry's office. The puppet even share 9's zippered look. While I have no evidence to substantiate LPB as a direct influence of 9, I think it's clear that LBP should have a primary place in the origin story of the genre itself. 9 is essentially Sackboy wandering through Terminator's destroyed landscape, isn't it?


#4: Tim Burton's early work
Producer Tim Burton must have felt as though he had found a kindred spirit in Shane Acker. Burton has been stitching on screen since his directorial debut, the animated short Frankenweenie. Stitches, needles and scissors (and the darker side of handcrafting) are recurrent themes throughout Burton's work, and obviously influenced Acker's. For example, Burton's illustrations from The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy feature sackpuppet characters and sharp edges, like the Pin Cushion Queen.

#5: Burton's Catwoman
Believe it or not, we can also point to Burton's Batman Returns as a starting point of Stitchpunk. Remember Michelle's handmade Catwoman costume? Recall the needle-sharp claws? The costume perfectly blended sewing & punk, and for the first time in the character's long history, Catwoman was less sleekly assembled and more coming-apart-at-the-seams.

#6: Burton's Edward ScissorhandsFrom the opening strains of Danny Elfman's score, echoes of Burton's gothic fairytale are encountered at every turn in 9; the mad scientist who creates life, the desiccated Victorian house, the creation leaning over his fallen creator, and the dark sculpture garden. There are clear nods to Scissorhands even in the smallest character details, like 8 sitting on a statue's hand or 1's buckled leather straps. 6's hands, which he uses to express himself, are crafted from another utilitarian device; the nubs of fountain pens. Burton's work in general, and Edward Scissorhands in particular, will undoubtedly come to be seen as one of the major influences of the coming Stitchpunk movement.

#7 & #8: Coraline and The Nightmare Before Xmas
If 9's opening sequence looked and felt familiar, that's because we saw something very similar earlier this year; the opening credits of Henry Selick's Coraline. Needle hands play God while dismembering and stitching up a sackdoll, before sending it out into the world to make mischief. Coraline, with its handsewn look and button-up horror, can easily be seen as another Stitchpunk precursor.

There are also notable nods to the iconic Burton & Selick collaboration, The Nightmare Before Christmas. 8's shape and demeanor seems to come directly from Oogie Boogie, and Sally's stitched-up sex appeal and sewing skills seem obvious influences on Acker's characters of 7 and 5.

The ultimate conclusion is that Stitchpunk, like its visual aesthetic, is made up of many parts and ideas: sewing chic, dark and whimsical; stitches against machines; handmade horror; breathing life into the inanimate, and unraveling the mysteries.

By now you've had a chance to see 9 for yourself, and appreciate its lush visuals and brilliant action. Our own review is here. But for those of you who haven't gotten to it yet, there are some minor spoilers in this interview.

So here are Shane Acker's 9 unbreakable rules for great post-apocalyptic movies, culled from the interview:

1) Keep it short but sweet. Acker's own movie, 9, is only about 79 minutes long, including credits. "You can tell an enormous amount of a story in a very short time. It's very dense, and it's fast-paced... I think nowadays movies tend to be a little too long, and a little bloated in some ways," says Acker.

2) Show characters banding together to survive. In 9's "dysfunctional family drama," we discover that the ragdolls each have separate strengths and weaknesses, "and separately they're not strong, and together is when they can really do the best work and try to overcome the dangers of this world."

3) Focus on worldbuilding. We don't just want to see how people cope with the aftermath of the devastation — we want to see how it happened, and why. Acker says he uses his original Academy Award-winning short film, also called 9, as a departure point for this film, and in the process he thought a lot more about the backstory: "How this world came to be, what was the history before these creatures came to be, what is this artifact that is the artifact of contention between the monsters and the little ragdoll-like creatures. And so it was great because we were able to explore the history of the world and introduce seven more of these (ragdoll) creatures."

4) Don't forget that post-apocalyptic movies are, in part, about hope for survival. Part of why we love post-apocalyptic films is their promise that someone, or something, worth saving will survive after our world ends. So the best post-apocalyptic stories are the ones which give us hope for the resilience of humanity — in the case of the ragdolls, they carry on the legacy of humanity. "It's post-human, but humanity lives on," says Acker. "They're a manifestation of humans that can survive in this landscape where we, as organic beings, could not." The ragdolls embody "hope and potential." Where there is darkness in the movie, it's there "so we can really see how important it is for these creatures to struggle."

5) Never forget the MacGyvering. The other thing that every good post-apocalyptic movie has is the spirit of MacGyver, the action hero who can create incredible technological marvels out of whatever random junk he finds laying around. And 9 fully embodies the MacGyver spirit, showing the ragdolls approaching the wreckage as building blocks. "For some of them, becuase they're very creative creatures, this is a world full of amazing raw materials with which they can create their own inventions."

6) Let the visuals tell the story. The original short film had no dialog whatsoever, and a lot of fans were apprehensive that adding dialog to the feature-length film would ruin it. Says Acker, "We actually set out trying to make the feature without dialogue, but we found that it just became so cumbersome to the storytelling, that that kind of conceit was a disadvantage... to making as rich an experience as we wanted for the film." So instead, he struck a compromise: out of 79 minutes, there's only about 19 minutes of dialog. "A lot of it is still told through visual storytelling, and pantomime, and through a lot of the design elements of the world."

7) Don't forget the cautionary message. The best post-apocalyptic films contain a serious warning about where we're heading if we don't slow down and pay attention, and 9 is no different. Acker says his film about killer robots trying to crush the benign ragdoll creatures asks the question, "At what point do we become so technologically advanced and so embraced in technology that we start to lose our own soul?" The ragdolls represent technology with a soul, and the monster machines represent soulless, hateful technology. "What is it to find the ghost in the machine, in some way?" He asks. "That really is in the end what separates [the ragdolls from the monsters]. They realize they have to live up to the standard of humanity, and the hope and the potential. That even though they're machine-like in some ways, that their true essence is that of the human spirit."

8) Don't forget the humor. You can't just be grim and knife-edge all of the time. Acker says that of his two producers, he was much more familiar with Tim Burton's work than Timur Bekmambetov's, and he loved Burton's work for its "rich amazing characters," but also its "comedy and charm." The actual screenplay for 9 was written by Pamela Pettler, who also worked on Monster House and Corpse Bride.

9) Don't be afraid to take risks. Acker says that 9 might not have found such acceptance without the support of both Burton and Bekmambetov, who both saw something of their own sensibilities. It's a tough time in Hollywood right now, because of the economic downturn. He's hopeful that if the movie does well, it'll open the doors for more edgy animation projects and films that blend science fiction and fantasy in creative ways. "Things like that don't seem like easy sells in Hollywood."

Oh, and there are definitely spoilers in this review, although I try to avoid giving away any major twists.

As you probably know, 9 is based on a short film by writer/director Shane Acker, which garnered an Oscar nomination a few years ago. The film impressed both Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands) so much, they both agreed to serve as producers and get it made into a full-length feature. The full-length version contains the same beautiful, unsettling animation as the short film, but fleshes out the characters and the backstory of the world — and the crucial question is whether you'll find the fleshed-out, longer version as intense and fascinating as the short film.

In 9, humans have built super-intelligent war machines, which have gone on to create other machines in their own image and then risen up to destroy us. There's never any doubt that — as Flight Of The Conchords would say — the humans are dead. So instead, our protagonists are also machines, but they're cute, cuddly machines, with skins of sackcloth and cartoony eyes that are constantly refracting their shutters in a lovable fashion. But the "ragdolls" have their own internal power struggle, between the hegemonic, conservative 1 (Christopher Plummer) and the rebellious, inquisitive 9 (Elijah Wood). 1 wants to keep the ragdolls safe, cowering in hiding, while 9 wants to go out and find the truth about their existence.

As I said, this is an unusual post-apocalyptic narrative in that we see two groups of machines fighting each other over the ashes of humanity. We slowly learn more about how the human race died, and why the bad machines are so furious. The film makes a stab at explaining the difference between good and bad technology — it has to do with how we use it, but also what parts of ourselves we put into creating it — and we see how the machines rose up and destroyed us. The scenes of rubble and devastation, with the last remnants of humanity dying off as the first ragdolls flee, are among the film's most affecting and disturbing.

The contrast between the two types of machine is really at the heart of 9 — the killer bots are all dark metal and sharp edges, glowing red eyes and bestial energy. The ragdolls, meanwhile, are meant to have a lot of engaging personality. They're definitely cute, and their concern for each other and their curiosity about the world contrasts sharply with the callousness of the slaughterbots. And the film makes sure we learn each ragdoll's unique personality early on. As Timur Bekmambetov said in our exclusive interview, each ragdoll represents an archetype, including the hero, the friend, the dictator, the crazy person, and... oh yeah, the girl. (Jennifer Connelly, representin' for the ladies.)

Sadly, the ragdolls and their "personalities" are really the main area where the movie falls the flattest, and it's almost a fatal flaw. The ragdolls — including our hero, 9 — feel so one-note that they become boring as characters. Take the central conflict between the rebellious 9 and the autocratic 1 — it feels like we see variations on the same scene a few times, but nothing interesting ever happens. We hear 1 say almost exactly the same line, "This folly will lead to no good," or words to that effect, over and over again. And then 1 narrows his little lenses in a grimace, and stalks around, while 9 spouts vague phrases about wanting to understand stuff. These two are the only ragdolls who are graced with anything even remotely approaching real personalities, and they come across like they're reading off the cliffs-notes versions of cue cards.

Where the ragdolls do shine is in their occasional moments of actual playfulness, but these are few and far between, and mostly fall towards the end of the film. There's a great bit where 8, the "big lug" who follows 1's orders unquestioningly, starts putting a magnet near his head and getting high off it. His eyes flicker and he gets this goofy grin on his face, and his enjoyment is infectious — everyone in the theater started laughing at that part. There's also a weird-but-great interlude with a record player where the ragdolls celebrate their victory (wrongly, it turns out).

Eventually we do find out the ragdolls' origins, and the movie even sort of makes a stab at explaining why each ragdoll only seems to have one aspect of a complete personality — I won't give it away, but this Washington Post review gives away the secret early on.

Honestly, I went into 9 expecting to fall in love with the film — the clips and art I'd seen had wowed me, and it seemed bracingly original. But even with a running time of 79 minutes, the film felt draggy and uninvolving. There are two different sequences where ragdolls run away from an explosion and somehow outrun it. There are two different bits where you think one of the ragdolls is dead, but then his lenses suddenly jerk to life. The film's central MacGuffin felt oddly random, and the plot depends on the characters being total idiots, until they're suddenly invincible. And the ending is both a big treacly and totally unsatisfying.

On the other hand, the film is always gorgeous — the lush animation is really its strong suit, and seeing the ragdolls on the big screen, you can really appreciate the detail that goes into them. Their stitchwork actually moves in fascinating ways as they move and talk. And there's a fascination and joy to watching them lope around the ruined landscape and dodge blades and flames — given how fragile and flammable they always seem to be. 9 is really worth seeing just for the visuals and its gothic, grotesque aesthetic of machines made in the image of animals, fighting machines made in our image.

Shane Acker has an amazing imagination and a great eye — and if he can just come up with a compelling story next time, he'll be our hero.

There were only 999 copies of the art book made, and this is the last chance you will get from io9 to win one. In order to receive your copy, email us your name and address at cp@io9.com. Winners will be chosen at random and alerted via email. You have 24 hours to get your email in, or you'll have to wait for the next drawing.

Each book is encased in a uniquely numbered burlap bag, featuring a special forward by Ray Kurzweil, behind-the-scenes art, an extensive collection of stills from the film, commentary from director Shane Acker and producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, and a DVD of the original short film by Shane Acker which inspired the full-length feature.

9 hits theaters on 9/9/09.

Only 999 of these special-edition collector's "9" movie books were produced - so here's your chance to win one of the nine copies that Focus Features has provided to us!

Each book is encased in a uniquely numbered burlap bag, featuring a special forward by Ray Kurzweil, behind-the-scenes art, an extensive collection of stills from the film, commentary from director Shane Acker and producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, and a DVD of the original short film by Shane Acker which inspired the full-length feature.

We're giving away three copies with each exclusive gallery that we're posting. So here's your first chance: email us your name and address at cp@io9.com. Winners will be chosen at random and alerted via email. You have 24 hours to get your email in, or you'll have to wait for the next drawing.

9 hits theaters on 9/9/09.

The scientist's experiment is even online and you can plunder through his things on the site with Elijah Wood.
A better look at the man in question.

The official title of Focus Film's new alternate reality game is the "9 Movie Talisman Challenge Clue." The image appears to be a ripped bit from something more. We are just one among 9 other sites hosting images from the site. One you find all nine pieces, it should decode a message over at www.9experiment.com. Good luck.

At the Alice In Wonderland press conference, people cornered Burton about his next rumored movie project Dark Shadows, the vampire soap opera that aired on ABC.

When asked if he had plans to pursue the movie adaptation of Dark Shadows and bring the infamous Barnabas Collins back to life his response was:

Yeah if I ever finish this one here [Alice in Wonderland]. It's hard to think beyond this at the minute but yeah that's the plan.

The rights to the show's rights were optioned by Infinitum-Nihil, which is Johnny Depp's production company. This can only mean one thing: Edward has some gigantic competition. Burton and Depp do everything together lately, there's no reason we shouldn't start assuming the same. Depp as a vampire — is there anything more ridiculous and wonderful at the same time?

As you can see our rag-doll hero is holding some sort of odd green glowing ball that seems to be the source of something — let's just go ahead and assume life, because isn't that what green always represents?

Honestly, this whole film 9, about the end of humankind and the birth of nine new rag-doll people, has me totally thrown for a loop. And I love it. I'd rather not have the ending spoiled just yet, I have a feeling it's going to be a fun Burton-esque twist. Below are new stills from MTV, The Anime Blog and Buzznet. Click on the image to see the additional exclusive images.

And the first picture is of the crazed rag doll, was he busted during his creation period or was he just made nuts? Which can be viewed in higher quality at Entertainment Weekly.

So all this time I thought 9 would be only young-adult-novel scary, but damn if that isn't a body strewn across the first still. Methinks 9 is going to be a lot more brutal than the rest of the upcoming CG animated films, which makes sense, since Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov are both producing. So which ragdoll is going to get his (or her) stuffing ripped out?

UPDATE: OK so they only have two legs I still think they look a bit more WOTW that AT-AT but...I see what you're all saying.

9 opens on 9/9/09

This is really the first time we've seen anything about the relationships between the characters. It seems like 9 is inherently just a good guy — which works well with his Elijah Wood vocals. Shane Acker's movie comes out September 9th, 2009.

The CG movie takes place after humanity is all but a memory on Earth and nine little creations are given the important task of restoring life to the planet, in the face of the machines that rose up against their makers. I'm still not sure which one is my favorite — maybe 7 for her skull hat. 9 will be released in theaters on 9/9/09.

According to Focus Features:

About 8:

Armed with a giant kitchen cleaver and half a scissor blade, the none-too-bright muscle and enforcer of the group, 8, is created to help the others physically survive the dangerous, post-apocalyptic world.

Insider Trivia:

8 is voiced by Fred Tatasciore, who studied animation at UCLA with director Shane Acker, where he became known for his voiceover talents on other students' films. Fred was enlisted to voice 8, the "brawn to 1''s brain if you will," says Acker.

Here's the high res. version of the poster:

9 will be released in theaters on 9/9/09.

The new clip also gives us more of a sense of the chaos that rag doll #9 (Elijah Wood) unleashes on the post-apocalyptic machine-ravaged world, by asking so many darn questions. And it shows just how hard this movie's killer robots are to dispose of. Acker's 9, produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, comes out September 9, in any movie theater that hasn't been overrun by dark cyborg monsters. [Sci Fi Scoop]

Tuesday marks the exact anniversary (June 23rd) of Burton's movie - a film that broke box office records despite many people expecting it to disappear without trace as soon as it opened. Instead, it opened the door for three sequels with different levels of diminishing return, a classic cartoon series, numerous bad superhero movies and a summer where it seemed like everything had a Bat logo on it. If there truly was life before Burton's Batman (and we only have science's word and our own faulty memories that there was) one thing's for sure - it was certainly a lesser place without the sounds of Prince's "Batdance" available for us to listen to.

To do our part to mark the 20th anniversary of the movie, we've looked back at the making of the movie, remembered some of our favorite merchandise from the Summer of the Bat, thought about the disasters that were made as a result of its success, and tried to think of the good things about each of the sequels. Feel free to join in, but if we hear someone doing the "this town needs an enema" line, we're turning this nostalgiafest around right now.

Batman Returns

There are many who think that Burton's second Batman is his best, and I have to admit that I'm one of them. For one thing, it's just weirder, dropping a lot of the compromise from the first to form a messier, funnier movie where Keaton doesn't have to fight for attention next to a scenery-chewing Nicholson (Not that Danny DeVito's Penguin isn't almost as bad). Yes, it doesn't have the clearest narrative in the world, but I fully and only slightly shamefully admit that the 17-year-old me didn't care about that as long as Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman was onscreen.

Batman Forever

Burton vacated the director's chair for the third movie (He stuck around as producer, however), leading to Keaton also leaving the series to pursue "more interesting" roles. Enter Joel Schumacher and Val Kilmer, and the beginning of the end. You can see the potential in all of their choices, even as the execution didn't live up to it: Trying to go for a new visual aesthetic instead of aping Burton was a good idea, but the neon dayglo look they came up with definitely wasn't. Similarly, the media-mocking of the plot (The Riddler's television-replacement device literally being an idiot box and sapping the intelligence of its audience) had potential, but the overly broad acting of Jim Carrey as the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face brought everything down to a farce-like level that reminded people a little too much of the Adam West days.

Batman and Robin

...And this was where the franchise ended, thanks to Schumacher's attempts to "homage" Adam West and Dick Sprang going horribly awry. To his credit, the director apparently wanted the movie to be much more like a cartoon than the earlier installments, but with toy companies having input into the design of the movie's costumes and characters this time around, maybe things got a little out of hand from his original intentions (Whether the toy companies were in favor of the much-ridiculed nipple additions to the Batsuits is unknown, if unlikely). Not helping things was the arrival of Batgirl, bringing the lead cast to a cramped five characters (Batman, Robin, Batgirl and two villains Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy, the last two masterclasses in overacting from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman). And yet, despite Schumacher himself apologizing for the movie on an extra from the recent DVD reissue, there's something weirdly compelling about it. I demand a critical re-appraisal!