Fan Photos

How about a Christmas tree made of electricity? Dr. Peter Terren, an aficionado of Nikola Tesla, likes to manipulate electricity to capture unusual images.

Popular Science has a photo gallery of some of his current creations, including the image above. Terren uses a Nikon D 300 camera and a technique he calls "electrickery" to create the images with Tesla coils with a fishing rod and sinker, and household power. That's right; according to Popular Science, this is home grown electrickery. These aren't photoshopped, but they do require filters and a long exposure. The results are clearly quite festive.

Terren, the 52 year old physician and father of three has been getting a lot of media attention. The Discovery Channel is so impressed with Terren's work, which includes a variation on Rodin's "The Thinker", that they're planning a segment on his Christmas trees.

You can also see more at his website, Tesla Down Under. There you can see he also likes blowing up stuff, too.

Fantasy often mirrors reality, but it appears that's sometimes more true than other times. A picture circulating the internet shows a young boy who is the proverbial spitting image of the enthusiastic wilderness explorer trying for a merit badge that ends up on a trip of a lifetime in the Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation Studios Up.

Still, it's a cute picture, isn't it? it would be absolutely perfect if he was smiling instead of merely looking at the camera.

Egads, lady! I don't want to get into a pro-life/pro-choice debate, but you really should consider all your options here. At the very least have your OB-GYN check your midichlorian levels. This uncanny discovery was posted on the photo blog TotallyLooksLike, and, yes, it totally looks like Emperor Palpatine. Either that's a blurry ultra-sound photo or you're about to give birth to a Dark Lord of the Sith. Good luck with that...

"Go get the door, John..."

Assuming it was another party guest, some cousin or playmate with a present in tow, I was happy to oblige. But it wasn't just some kid at the door. It was DARTH VADER, Dark Lord of the Sith, and to my just-turned-five-years-old self it may as well have been the Devil himself looming like a black spectre of death in my grandparents' carport.

There's a picture of me, somewhere in my mother's things, with both legs off the ground, running to the nearest bedroom, away from Darth Vader. I'm about a foot off of the carpet, defying gravity, literally sprinting through the air as I left the entire fate of my partygoers at the cruel hands of the Empire. I was terrified.

Mom dug a couple of pictures out and posted them on Facebook recently, and I'm glad she did. It's one of my favorite moments from my childhood, and it makes me reflect on how kids' brains work in regards to separating fact from fiction. I knew it couldn't possibly be the real Darth Vader, because he wasn't a real person, and yet, there he was, at my fifth birthday party. As I hid in my grandmother's room, I knew in my heart that there was an everyday man in that costume, but there was still a big enough part of me that was incredibly cautious as well, because what if he did turn out to be the real Darth Vader? What then? Would my plastic lightsaber (with three changing colors!) be enough for a one-on-one duel? I needed to be prepared.

I don't think there's much to say here other than this Star Wars tattoo is quite possibly the sexiest geek-related tattoo I've ever seen on a female. The tat, which is in the shape of a 'V' and sits right above the female's ViJay, shows two X-Wing fighters closing in on the Death Star ... and all that purple around the Death Star is either an invading STD or outer space (I'm hoping it's the latter). Not quite sure what that red swirly thing is on the left (lipstick mark?), though regardless this chick definitely gets our award for Sexiest Star Wars Tattoo Ever!

Check out a few other cool geek-related tattoos in the gallery below (I'm totally diggin' the Spider-Man tat, though it does look kinda nasty.)



[via Slashfilm]

Chances are you wouldn't spend $1500 for a Pepsi, but some of you hardcore Back to the Future II fans might. Though the auction has now ended (without a buyer, I believe), someone with very bad spelling was selling what they claim to be the futuristic Pepsi bottle from Back to the Future II. Remember it? The Pepsi bottle popped up while Marty was pretending to be his son in that Cafe 80s scene?

While the seller didn't have a certificate of authenticity (kinda shady if you ask me), they do go on and on about how you should believe them ("I bought this item over 8 Years ago here on E-Bay from a big time prop collector in CA. of movie Props. He had 2 of them at the time, and I was able to win one. I thought I would never sell this item, but you just never know happens ..."). Don't you hate it when "just never know happens"? Anyway, dude (or dudette) was selling this bad boy for a whopping $1500 -- a pretty insane price for a prop that looks like it's worth about fifteen cents. The seller also claims to have a Hover Board, which is a prop I think I might be interested in, but if the Pepsi bottle is $1500, I can only imagine how much they'll try to get for the Hover Board ...

Check out a few images of the Pepsi bottle below. Any of you up for this purchase?



[via MTV Movies Blog]

Think you have a big Star Wars collection? Well, I bet this guy one-ups you ... and then some. From a non-English blog called Cho Woong comes what has to be one of the largest Star Wars collections in existence. And if it's not one of the largest, then it's certainly one of the classiest and well-designed -- with a sleek, modern touch full of glass cases, soft, blue lights, awesome character statues and a monumental collection of memorabilia. Kudos to this guy for a very impressive, geeked-out home turf.

Check out some of our favorite images below, and more over on his blog. What's the geekiest piece of sci-fi film memorabilia that you own?

What if Star Wars really existed and the characters we've all grown to love and adore had actually been around in a capacity where we've managed to document them in paintings, photographs and advertisements? That's what the site Nirah Lee has been doing, devoting an entire website to a fictitious world in which Star Wars mingled amongst the common earthling. My favorite aspect of the site are the old grainy photographs that are doctored to include characters from within the Star Wars universe. It's kinda fun to see what it would look like if the robots and the princesses actually lived amongst us during the turn of the century or earlier -- and kudos to the creators for including little captions for each photo making it all the more real.

We've chosen our favorite images from Nirah Lee and dropped them in the gallery below.



[via JoBlo]

Above: An image from the Random Star Wars collection featured in the post underneath this one.

Welcome to Captain's Log -- your (semi) daily round-up of sci-fi randomness from around the web. Here's what's happening today:

For some odd (and hilarious) reason, Todd McFarlane thinks he can get Leonardo DiCaprio to star in a new Spawn movie. Only DiCaprio wouldn't be playing Spawn; instead, he'd be the guy chasing Spawn. McFarlane compares the film to everything from Jaws to The Godfather. Keep dreaming ... [MTV]

Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch spoke to Moviehole about the potential big-screen movie, saying he thinks Universal should take a cue from Paramount's Star Trek reboot. He thinks they "should go further back" in time for the setting, like the recent Trek film, and even admits that the show ain't done yet. ""It's never the end if fans want more. It's a money game. If they realize people want more, believe me, they'll make more of them - they did it with Babylon 5, and a number of other sci-fi shows. Battlestar is not done yet, it's just a question of how and when it'll come back.'' {Moviehole]

Though the first Kick-Ass film won't arrive in theaters until next year, Mark Millar is positive a sequel will happen -- so much so that he's already plotting one out. He tells SciFi Wire, "Kick-Ass 2 is already being plotted out. "We're planning it, because all the actors are quite young and we have to make it relatively quickly. So we'll definitely do that inside the next 18 to 24 months." [SciFi Wire]

There's a rumor going around that Megan Fox is on the shortlist to star as Buffy in a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. I'd say the chances of that happening are slim to fuggedaboutit. [CineFools]

More stories after the jump

Those who already know me are aware of my obsession with completely random movie-related, fan-made photography projects -- most of which have something to do with Star Wars. I love it when talented artists and photographers have fun with the Star Wars universe by creating alternate lives for the characters, having them interact with neighborhood animals and all sorts of other junk. This latest collection doesn't seem to have a theme other than Random Star Wars, but I definitely enjoyed a bunch of the images -- like the stormtrooper American Beauty poster and the mini Darth Vader chasing the mini Luke Skywalker on tiny little bikes. Check out a few of the images below and let us know your favorite.



[via Balakov's Flickr page]

More Collections

The Secret Lives of Superheroes (and Villains)
The Secret Live of Stormtroopers
The Real Lives of Superheroes