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Michael Bay directed both The Island and Transformers 3: Mark of the Spoon, so I guess he's allowed to rejigger a chase sequence from the former for the latter. Watch as Bay's 2005 clone saga becomes stock footage. More »
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Mark Coleran, creator of "fantasy user interfaces" for films like The Bourne Ultimatum and Children of Men, is now focusing on solving real-world problems. John Pavlus with Fast Company Design explains. More »
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Lost's mysterious cave, the heart of the island, was discovered just outside of Buffalo, New York. Get a better look at this totally natural phenomenon - just don't expect a better series ending to be hiding in there, somewhere. More »
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Science fiction is full of dystopias — and they've got the best interior design. These imaginative interiors and sexy architecture are almost enough to make us want to live in the worst possible worlds, just for the decor. More »
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Designer Mark Coleran designs user interfaces for high-tech and near-future movies, those computer-based visuals that flash briefly across your screen. But the information designs he's created are often more detailed than you might think. More »
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Wolverine, out on DVD recently, is a great example of one of the silliest clichés in escapist entertainment: someone reclaims his/her true humanity and unique individuality — by killing everyone in sight. What the hell is this about? More »
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If you're looking for a job, here's a list of successful, influential corporations you might want to work for. That is, as long as you don't ask too many questions.
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Diminutive British actress Keira Knightley is starring in the cloning drama Never Let Me Go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel. So thinkThe Island, but probably with fewer people exploding and more actual character development. More »
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Science fiction is all about showing us new and startling worlds - and it doesn't hurt to sell a few widgets along the way. Like Eureka, which recently proved that you can save the world using Degree antiperspirant. Or the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which showed on Monday that a certain brand of car is the official vehicle of the anti-robot resistance. Product placement has been a part of science fiction for decades, but it's grown as the genre has become big business. Here's our history of the phenomenon since the beginning. Science fiction helped to invent product placement, with Steven Spielberg's shoehorning of Reese's Pieces into E.T., making them the official candy of penis-fingered growly alien visitors. But that wasn't actually the first instance of product placement in the genre. What was? It's hard to say, but one of the earliest instances was the overexposure of Sugar Puffs cereal in 1966's Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. The movie version of the classic Doctor Who story starred Peter Cushing as the eccentric time-traveler, who visits a ruined future London where the killing-machine Daleks have taken over. There's no food or clean water, and the survivors of the Dalek attacks live in total squalor. But hey... did we mention Sugar Puffs cereal is sugary and delicious? Sugar Puffs helped to finance the movie in exchange for having their posters visible throughout. Also, 2001: A Space Odyssey features prominent references to, and fake ads for, Pan-Am, IBM and Howard Johnson. But those were simply companies that director Stanley Kubrick thought would still be around in a few decades. As far as I can find out, no money actually changed hands - in fact, Kubrick contacted 50 companies and asked them to submit logos and designs for what their products might look like in 40 years. Also this nifty bit of Marlboro promo in a Superman II fight scene predates E.T. by a couple of years. Kneel before our cool, refreshing smokes: But yes, E.T.'s focus on Reese's Pieces may well have been the first high-profile example of product placement in a science fiction movie. The media reported widely that M&Ms had turned down the chance to be in the mega-hit, and Reese's Pieces reaped some extra publicity from all the coverage. The candy's sales spiked 65 percent after the film came out, and kids wrote to Steven Spielberg with fan art that featured Reese's Pieces prominently: But there's also a lot of exposure for Coca-Cola, Coors beer, Speak'n'Spell and Pez candy, among other brands, in the movie. Here are some more screen shots: Around the same time, TV's Knight Rider showed us the way forward in science fictional product placement: people will always want to buy the supercars they see featured on screen. (See below for Transformers and the new K.R.) General Motors gave the show's makers models of the new Trans Am, which they decked out as KITT, and people rushed to buy their own KITTs. But E.T. and Knight Rider were like babies, or maybe monks, compared to the Back To The Future trilogy. Seriously, google "Back To The Future worst product placement" and set aside an hour or two to look at all the lists of the "worst movie product placement of all time" that include the BTTF trilogy. References to Pepsi are jammed into the first two films (like when Marty tries to order a Pepsi Free in 1955), his mom thinks he's named Calvin Klein, and the films ram Nike, Pizza Hut, AT&T, Hasbro and Mattel down your throat. (The DeLorean gets a free pass, because it's actually funny.) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home took advantage of its present-day setting to pimp Michelob beer - the official beer of the Federation - and of course, Scotty gets to know an Apple Macintosh better. The Trek franchise liked that product-placement money so much, Kirk and his crew go camping in Levis jeans in Star Trek V. Meanwhile, Apple got sluttier and sluttier, getting some first-class pimping in Mission Impossible and Independence Day - where a Mac notebook is the key to stopping the alien invaders. And then in Blade Trinity, one character goes to the iTunes music store to assemble a playlist for her ipod, which she listens to while fighting vampires. There's also a nice Apple plug in I Am Legend. Another movie which wins a spot in the product-placement hall of shame is Demolition Man. Sylvester Stallone gets woken up in the future, and finds that Taco Bell/Pizza Hut has won the "franchise wars" and now all restaurants are Pizza Huts: One of the first television series to be accused of shoving consumer items in your face was Babylon 5, which stuck a gigantic Zima sign over the alien boxing ring in the episode "TKO." Series creator J. Michael Straczynski insisted the show got "not a dime" for the Zima plug, and it was just for the lolz. Men In Black got a lot of flak for its relentless pushing of the Ray-Ban Predator 2 sunglasses, which tripled in sales to almost $5 million after the film came out. And Men In Black II is another proud moment for product whoring. An alien intruder arrives on Earth and needs to assume a form to confuse us humans. So of course her/its eye lights on a Victoria's Secret ad: And then there's the famous taxi chase in The Fifth Element, which leads up to the cops getting showered with McDonald's cartons. Good thing they still have Mickey D's in this dystopian future: One trend in the 2000s has been movies featuring fake advertisements for real products as part of the plot, sort of a throwback to 2001. Who helped pioneer this? None other than Steven "Reese's Pieces" Spielberg, who has Tom Cruise walk through a mall full of personalized ads in Minority Report. Michael Bay also crams The Island full of fake ads, including a Chanel ad that stars the woman Scarlet Johnasson was cloned from. I, Robot pushed Converse's Chuck Taylor shoes so much, there's a whole Chuck Taylor web page devoted to the film. (The movie gets four Chucks out of five.) I have blotted this movie out of my memory, but apparently all Will Smith does in it is wave his "antique" Chuck Taylors around and talk about how fast he can run away from the killer robots, thanks to his Chucks. If you saw this movie and liked the shoes, could you buy your own pair? Gosh, I think so! I could be here all day discussing the wealth of car product placement in recent movies. The Lost World: Jurassic Park features a new kind of Mercedes Benz SUV, and Steven "man-whore" Spielberg lovingly, frames a shot so you can see the Mercedes logo really clearly. That Steven. The Matrix Reloaded is such a great Cadillac ad, with its freeway chase, that the DVD even has a featurette about the product placement. Terminator 3 is brought to you by Lexus and Toyota. I Am Legend is one big ad for the Ford Mustang. Transformers is basically built around promoting GM's latest car models, and the second film is already getting buzz around the new Chevy Volt and Corvette models. The Dark Knight is plastered with Ford. We have a new Knight Rider show, which is basically a Ford Mustang infomercial as the car transforms into different Ford models. Fringe is also chock full of Ford. Heroes has had product placement for Sprint, Apple, Dell and other brands, but also especially Nissan. A new growing category of product placement in science fiction, rivaling cars and computers: phones. After all, if you're under attack by aliens, you really need to be able to reach your comrades in a hurry. Hence, Jericho's and Heroes' constant whoring for Sprint, Superman Returns' constant Samsung and Virgin whoring, Cloverfield's Nokia love, etc. etc. It's pretty amazing. Judging from our research, there's been more product placement, and more blatant product placement, in 2008 than in the past few years combined. We could literally spend an entire post just listing all the product placement this year. And it's getting way more blatant, especially on television. As we mentioned above, Sarah Connor Chronicles set a new high-water mark with its hour-long Dodge Ram commercial last week. Smallville devoted an entire episode last spring to Stride gum, and how it can turn you into a superhero. And then there's Eureka, which has apparently been finding ways to feature Degree For Men in every. single. episode. this season, including the one where Degree provides protection from a lethally hot second sun. Where will it end? How much lower can we go? In the interests of ironic dystopian amusement, I can hardly wait to find out. Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett. More »
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Remember that awful movie The Island with Scarlett Johansson and Obi Wan discovering that they were clones who'd been grown to provide body parts for rich people? And all the other clones are kept in line because they're promised a trip to "the island" if they're good (A TRIP WHICH IS REALLY TO DEATH)? And then remember how the movie bombed, but some people sued because they said The Island totally ripped off their early 1970s movie about clones who discover that they are being grown to provide body parts for rich people? Well, this is a clip from that movie — Parts: The Clonus Horror. More »
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If you're living in a shiny happy world where everything is provided to you, and your white pajamas never ever get stained, then chances are you're in a false utopia. Someone's going to be coming and harvesting your organs, or culling you at age 30, or drugging you into obedience. The fake paradise built on a foundation of shit seems to flourish most during times when technology seems to be solving all our problems (like during the dotcom boom.) Click through for a list of false utopias. More »
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Why do dystopian-future movies always turn their protagonists into sexless infants? Often, our hero is reduced to the mental status of a confused toddler, and may actually end up hairless and naked, like Neo in The Matrix, or everyone in THX 1138. We all secretly want to be children again, and dystopian movies indulge this fantasy. Don't believe us? There's a whole mess of adult-baby dark futures after the jump. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=333845&view=rss&microfeed=true How do you make a fictional user interface look futuristic when actual UIs are getting flashier every day? That's the challenge that Mark Coleran struggled with in designing interfaces for Alien vs. Predator, Blade 2, The Island and other movies. His solutions? Fast-moving graphics, touch-screens packed with data, light pens, and lots of wheel shapes, judging from his clip reel. And screw keyboards and mouses. [Coleran's clip reel, via the Guardian and Technovelgy] More »
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Stephen King's The Mist is vaporizing from theaters left and right, but there's already another fog-shrouded mutant mist movie heading to your multiplex. Night & Fog, which is in production with Myriad Pictures, has a very familiar-sounding plot: military experiment on a remote island results in monsters in the mist. Got your lawyer on speed dial, Mr. King? More »
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