Triptych: It Was Me! I Was The Turkey The Whole Time

"Space Zims" by Craig Tucker

"Girthulhu" by Squiggle Scribbles

"Two Little Robots" by Dora Lerf

Showcase: Star Wars 80s High School Redesigns

Han and Chewie

Luke and Leia

Nerdroids

Vader, Boba and Trooper

Lando and Greedo

I don't make a habit of doing Star Wars-themed posts, for a couple of reasons. First off, there's so much Star Wars fanart out there, you could dedicate an entire blog to it and still not have it covered. I know that if I took it upon myself to start including Star Wars in my repartee, I'd be opening a Pandora's Box full of demons that would consume me to the point where I posted nothing but Star Wars, all the time. The other reason is that I feel like Star Wars, while a topic that I can nerd out about with the best of them, tends to be much more insular a nerd community than my typical fare.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may have noticed that there are certain fan subcultures that I have made an effort to avoid. Pokemon is one of them: I steadfastly refuse to post Pokemon fanart here. It's not that I have anything against Pokemon; it's just not within the purview of what I'm doing here. The same goes for Star Wars. There are dozens, if not thousands, of Star Wars fan-art blogs out there, and it's not a niche I really feel all that compelled to contribute to myself.

But then again, every once in a while, something amazingly cool comes along and I just have to post it. Like this, for example: Denis Medri's revamp of Star Wars characters, as high school teenagers in the '80s. Medri's also done a series of Old West-style Justice League heroes, and steampunk Spiderman villains, but I think this is my favourite thus far.

Let's break it down, from top to bottom:

a) Han and Chewbacca as a pair of metalhead thrasher rebel types. I love how Han is wearing a clearly hand-made shirt, has nunchuks for no apparent reason, and drives what appears to be a Ford Thunderbird. These are guys who have no business being cool, and are probably into some crazy and possibly illegal shit, but are still probably alright guys.

b) Of course Luke would be the all-American boy next door, while Leia would be the bubblegum, headphones and eyeliner type. Luke is modelled after the epitome of '80s high-schoolers, Marty McFly, and his skateboard sports the same colour scheme as his landspeeder. Leia's headphones are a nice touch.

c) The Nerdroids, based on C-3PO and R2-D2. This one is my favourite of the lot: I really love the tall, skinny, bespectacled 3PO, and the patterned sweater and red button on the R2 nerd is pretty much all you need to get the idea across. They kind of vaguely remind me of Martin Starr and Samm Levine's characters from Freaks & Geeks.

d) In Denis' revision, Vader is the leader of a "motocross crew" - so naturally, he and his cronies wear modified full-face dirtbike masks. It never occurred to me until now, but almost all the bad guys wore helmets in Star Wars, and none of the good guys. Anyway, I like how Vader wears a Michael Jackson 'Thriller'-style jacket, only black, while the Stormtrooper has camo pants on. 'Cuz he's in the military, get it?

e) And finally, preppy, smooth-talking Lando and punk rock villainous scumbag Greedo. I can't really see thrasher Han being old buddies with yuppie Lando, but I can totally see Han shooting Greedo over a debt.

Hopefully Denis isn't finished with this series - I'd love to see how Jabba, Yoda, the Emperor and even the Ewoks fit into this whole concept.

[Denis Medri's Deviantart]

Triptych: Zimvaders

"Space Invader Zim" (t-shirt design) by John Jurik¹

"Space Invader Zim" (t-shirt) by 1337Wear²

"In(vader) Zolo" (t-shirt) by Atomic Rocket³

¹ I should mention that I'm not 100% certain that the John Jurik I linked to is the same person responsible for this t-shirt design. I am open to correction.
² I don't know if this shirt glows in the dark or not, but it should, and if it does, I want one.

Triptych: Mario The Plumber

"Star Wars Donkey Kong" by Matt Cowan

"Super Mario Father" by Nick Beery

"Plumbin' Ain't Easy" by Aaron Campbell

Showcase: Return of the Pixel

"8-Bit Han Solo"

"8-Bit Chewbacca"

"8-Bit Boba Fett"

[David The Destroyer's Deviantart]

---

My girlfriend had the bright idea, because she's awesome, to watch the original Star Wars trilogy this weekend. No reason; she just hadn't seen them since she was a kid, and for my part I will never say no to a Star Wars marathon. Of course, having seen the movies more recently (and much more often) than her, and also being a huge nerd, it turns out I have a lot to say about Star Wars. I tried to keep the running commentary to a minimum, but wasn't always successful, to her infinite chagrin. Observe:

(Return of the Jedi, the Rebels are looking over the Death Star plans)
Me: You know, many Bothans died to bring them that information.
Heather: What? How do you know that?
Mon Mothma: Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
Heather: ARGH YOU WERE THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE

(This also happened with "It's a trap!" and every time someone had a bad feeling about something.)

Furthermore, I was on Wookieepedia nearly the entire six-and-a-half hours, because for the first time in my life I could actually do that. I discovered a number of key pieces of information which I would like to share with you now:

· Ewoks and Wookiees are not related. The closest relative of the Ewok is the swamp-dwelling Dulok, who are not very nice to Ewoks and apparently are the race of the Grinch.

· Believe it or not, not only did Boba Fett escape from the Sarlacc by fighting his way out from the inside, he later fell in again (and escaped again) around the time of the Battle of Endor.

· Yoda's species is known as "Yoda's species". He's pointedly not just a very old, green-skinned Lannik. Other members of Yoda's species are Yaddle, Vandar Tokare and Minch (all of them Jedis).

· Under their robes, Jawas are "gaunt, rodent-like creatures, with shrunken faces and yellow eyes". They sew yellow or orange gemstones into their hoods to protect their sensitive eyes from sunlight.

· The musical number added to Return of the Jedi, where a CGI Sy Snootles and Joh Yowza perform for Jabba just prior to the arrival of Chewbacca and a disguised Leia, is one of the most odious things I've ever seen in my entire life. It has absolutely no purpose and it's such a drastic tonal shift that it's not hard to understand why Star Wars purists got up in arms over the Special Edition additions and alterations.

· Leia is way, wayyyyyy too casual about the fact that she made out with Luke when she discovers that he's her brother. Wayyyyyyy too casual.

· Before the release of Empire Strikes Back in 1980, Alan Dean Foster wrote the very first Expanded Universe tie-in Star Wars novel, "Splinter of the Mind's Eye". The book was written prior to the major success of A New Hope, and if that film flopped, George Lucas had intended to film "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" as a low-budget sequel. The story deviates significantly from what ends up being established in Empire, and ramps up the sexual tension between Luke and Leia to an unbearably awkward level. In an alternate universe, Splinter ended up as the filmed sequel to Star Wars, and our alternate selves are all much, much poorer for it.

Showcase: Seven Hundred's Restyled AT-ATs

"Hogwarts Express AT-AT"


"Mario Kart AT-AT"


"Mystery Machine AT-AT"


"A-Team AT-AT"


"The Dukes AT-AT"


"AT-AT To The Future"

[Seven Hundred's Flickr]

Showcase: Seven Hundred's Pixel Mashups

"Imperial Pac-Man"


"R-Toad D-ode & Yosh 3PO"


"Alien Invaders"

[via Seven Hundred's 8-Bit Flickr Photostream]

Triptych: Exterminate! Regenerate! (Doctor Who II)

“Daleks In Disguise” (Wallpaper, 1920x1200 - click on image for larger version) by Medox

“R2D-Who and Cyb3r-PO” by Captain-RibMan

“The Circle Of Life” by therandomfactor

Not The Droids

“Droids Poster” by slaterman23

A follow up to this post. YOU’RE WELCOME.

Triptych: sudo These Are Not The Droids You're Looking For

"Stormtrooper Send-Off" by microkosmic


"Not The Droids You Are Looking For" (t-shirt) by OctoChimp Designs


"Regrets", original photo by Johnny Chiang

A story, told in pictures, of the saddest Storm Trooper in the galaxy. Obi-Wan is kind of a dick.

iotacons!

To follow up on Andy Rash's Back To The Future pixelated timeline that I posted the other day, I'm posting a few others that I like. Click on any of the images for a full-sized version.

"Indiana Jones Quadrilogy" by Andy Rash


"Star Wars Original Trilogy" by Andy Rash


"The Beatles" by Andy Rash

Triptych: In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

"Pixel People: Star Wars: A New Hope" (cross-stitch design) by weelittlestitches


"How To Use The Force" (t-shirt design) by Sean Husbands


"Build Your Own R2 Unit" by sEAn8181