wall-e

Avatar won the Oscar for Best Cinematography last Sunday. It's not unusual for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to award the Best Cinematography Oscar to sweeping big budget epics. It is unusual for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to award the Best Cinematography Oscar to a film that was almost entirely created within the confines of a computer using motion capture technology.

There's an image that's been making the online rounds. Depending on who's posting it or tweeting it or linking it, it usually comes with a caption expressing bewilderment, disappointment or snark. I'm linking you to a snarky one because I'm that kind of guy.

What happened? Were Academy voters entirely aware of what they were voting for here? Did voters make the conscious decision to embrace the motion capture and 3D "revolution?" Or were they simply handing it the trophy because Avatar looked pretty? Both options taste sour in my mental mouth to be perfectly honest.

Before we go any further, let's make sure everyone reading this is on the same page.

It's been ten years since we crossed into the seemingly futuristic "Year 2000." While we didn't get moon colonies or hovercars, we did get a collection of amazing science fiction films, both blockbusters and indies. The staff of Sci-Fi Squad has compiled their top ten (okay, eleven) favorite films of the decade, a list that will allow you to nod your head in agreement or spit venom at us in the comments. So now, in alphabetical order...

Children of Men (2006, Dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

The opening scenes of Children of Men plunge the viewer neck-deep into an icy future with an expiration date firmly set. The human race faces extinction because women all over the world have become infertile: no children have been born for a generation. The British government endeavors to stave off chaos by deporting all foreigners, but many of its citizens have already succumbed to hopelessness and despair. Theo Faron (Clive Owen) strides through this terrible new world with a cynical air of resignation until a glimmer of light -- the possibility of a future - turns his head. Adapting a novel by P.D. James, director Alfonso Cuarón and his collaborators (notably cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designers Geoffrey Kirkland and Jim Clay) meticulously create a nightmarish future in which the walls are closing in, and then proceed to smash through the limitations of imagination. Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Clare-Hope Ashitey, and Julianne Moore bring varying shades of humanity to their ultimately haunted characters. (Peter Martin)

Tyler Foster at BoxOffice.com recently posted an article Science Fiction for Kids, musing about the mediocre response to most science fiction adventures, particularly the ones aimed at younger audiences. Foster ponders the history of several recent kid oriented science fiction, and their success or failure along with the recent release of a tepid Planet 51.

That got me thinking. The WALL-Es are few and far between, but it's not that there isn't an interest in science fiction among kids, is it? Maybe it's just taken for granted in the younger generation today. When I was a kid, we'd already walked on the moon, but the space shuttle hadn't yet launched. Technology has changed a lot, but not everyone in my generation has adopted high tech in their daily life. Kids today practically use computers before they can walk.

The mystique is lost when it's a matter of course that technology changes drastically in just a few years. Compact Discs have only been commercially available since the early 80s, yet today I can fit thousands of songs on a Micro SD memory card shorter than a dime and thinner than a credit card. My MP3 player is smaller in dimensions than said credit card, and less than 6 ounces, and I can fit multiple movies on it. That was nearly unimaginable to anyone who wasn't a sci fi geek last millenium.

So perhaps the youngsters of today are just too familiar with changes in technology, and changes in general to be easily entertained by science fiction? That might even explain the draw to the Twilight Saga, as the supernatural still has the draw of the unknown.

What do you think?

In reading this piece over on io9 called 'The Cities You Can Never Leave', I'm reminded of just how restricting some of our most memorable sci-fi cities actually were. And maybe it says a little something about us that a great majority of the fictional futures we create contain cities where citizens cannot leave for one reason or another (though exiting said city usually means a punishment by death). Why is that? Why are we so obsessed with not being able to leave our home? Are we really that afraid of losing our freedom -- to the point where it's become an underlying theme in more sci-fi films than one can count? What do you think?

Some of my personal favorite restricted cities mentioned by io9 are The Axiom (from WALL-E), The City of Domes (from Logan's Run), The Electronic Labyrinth (from THX 1138), Seahaven (The Truman Show) and New York and Los Angeles (from Escape from NY and Escape from LA).

What are yours?

By Kevin Kelly (originally appeared on Cinematical)

Wall-E is such a good, sappy, funny, adventurous, touching, and enjoyable movie, that by the time you get to the end you're exhausted. Plus you probably have a single tear sliding down your cheek like Iron Eyes Cody. So by the time the end credits roll, you're looking for something to bring you back down to Earth, no pun intended. Aw, who am I kidding -- that pun was definitely intended.

Thankfully that thing isn't a Randy Newman song, although it does come via his cousin Thomas Newman who thank all the stars above wisely lets Peter Gabriel sing the outtro song "Down to Earth." Hey, it netted him an Oscar nod. The song is slow, beautiful, and plays out against visual images depicting the "new" history of mankind on the planet: cave drawings, hieroglyphics, mosaics, sketches, pointilism, Van Gogh skies ... and when it finally slides down underground and turns into a traditional credit crawl, you've got 8-bit graphics closing things out. Great stuff.

To quote Rob Reiner, "But hey, enough of my yakkin'! Whaddaya say? Let's boogie!" Check out the full end sequence after the jump.

He's not as cute and adorable as Pixar's Wall-E, and he probably isn't all-too familiar with Hello Dolly, but this real-life robot certainly knows how to pick up trash like his animated counterpart. The DustCart is part of a $3.9 million DustBot research program designed to help clean up the streets of Italy. According to Inhabitat, the robot "collects trash and measures atmospheric pollutants like sulfur oxide, benzene, ozone, and nitrogen oxide with its on-board sensors. The robot can even be summoned with a cell phone and can go door to door, identify residents with a personal ID number, and sort their trash into organic, recyclable, or waste!"

Like Wall-E, the robot detects the trash then sticks it into its belly and takes it to a waste management site. It's still in its infancy stage and isn't yet allowed to roam the streets without a human there to guide it, but it does go to show that the future predicted by Pixar may not be too far off from reality. Check out a few images of the DustCart below.



[via John T.]

From Cinematical

Sunday afternoon seems like the perfect time to check in on our friends from Worth1000, whose latest movie-related photoshop contest has to do with taking any celebrity image and transforming it into a Star Wars character. You can find an example above; that's Wall-E and Eve as R2-D2 and C-3PO. And they definitely get wackier -- with President Obama showing up as Yoda multiple times, and Princess Leia merging with folks like Angelina Jolie and Kevin Spacey (probably the oddest and most random image of the lot). Ever want to see Elvis as Han Solo? It's in there. And ever wonder what Goofy mixed with General Grievous would look like? No? Well it's in there, too ... with the Please Let Them Never Do This In Real Life award going to an image of Han Solo (as Jim Carrey), Chewbacca (as Jack Black), Luke Skywalker (as Owen Wilson) and Obi-Wan (as Jackie Chan) onboard the Millennium Falcon. Creepy.

Read the rest (and see more pics) at Cinematical