Titans Terrors and Toys

This month saw the release of The Predator , the latest film in the sci-fi creature feature franchise that started back in 1987. I haven't seen the new film yet, but I have been looking over the reviews to see how critics have reacted to the newest installment in a film series that celebrated its 30th anniversary just last year. Of course, most of the critics have been dismissive of the movie, which I've come to expect from critics when they talk about monster movie sequels. However, based on what I know about the franchise as a whole, it surprised me how much most critics don't know about the Predator series. If they did, they wouldn't be asking why Predator movies keep being made even though they don't make blockbuster amounts of revenue at the box office. Predator arrived in the middle of Hollywood's string of testosterone-laden, macho action star-driven adventure blockbusters during the 1980s, blockbusters that banked on the appeal of stars such as S...

Whenever a new form of electronic media enters popular culture, it will inevitably face a significant amount of challenges to define itself as something different from other mediums while simultaneously making itself accessible and appealing to as many people as possible. Such is the case of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), both of which use features from established electronic mediums (e.g., video games, digital video, and portable computing) to create new kinds of content. Of course, creating new kinds of electronic media is one thing; creating new kinds of electronic media as an extension of a pre-existing media platform is something else. The later issue was the main topic of “Designing the Next Generation of News”, a presentation that was held last Thursday evening at the Washington DC office of AARP and was co-sponsored by DC Virtual Reality (DCVR) and USA Today . “Designing the Next Generation of News” was presented by the Emerging Tech team from USA Tod...

A few weeks ago, CBS announced that this upcoming season would be the last for the long-running sitcom The Big Bang Theory . As a huge fan, I was a bit disappointed to hear this news; on the other hand, the show is still quite good for something that has already been on the air for 11 seasons, so it's probably best for Big Bang to go out on a high note. That said, this post isn't about The Big Bang Theory as a TV show. Instead, I thought that I would take a look at the show's merchandising--specifically, the collectible figures. Half-hour, live-action TV shows rarely get the collectible figure treatment and even though the nature of Big Bang 's comedy lends itself well to collectible figures, it's still pretty amazing to see the kinds of figures this merchandising license has cranked out over the years. Anyone who knows anything about The Big Bang Theory can tell you that nerd-friendly collectibles are on display in every episode. The main characters' ...

Dammit, Universal. How hard is it for you to re-release one of your classic creature feature box sets on Blu-ray without screwing it up?