Pacific Rim using a cargo ship as a baseball bat is cooler than a Hulk SMASH on Loki and yelling PUNY GOD!!

Disclaimer: This post is not about a dreary all inclusive chick flick dripping with feelings. Rather, it is aimed more at an all male circle jerk fantasy of robots versus monsters. If you wish to expand your horizons, proceed with caution. :)

These are the sexy Jaeger suits that the pilots wear. Of course the pilots
are young and incredibly good-looking. I love how they're basically molded
to the skin and highlight the muscles. Just looks awesome. Click to Embiggen.

The latest trailer for Pacific Rim slammed into the internet on April 30th, and it's taken me about a day to think about what I saw. That, and I'm like "ZOMGAH trailer for Pacific Rim is so frickin' cool!" to everyone in my office. Only everyone in my office is like..."Uh what's that?" To be fair there are 2 people that work in my entire building that actually knew what this movie was. The rest just pretty much did what they usually do: stare awkwardly projecting thoughts like "why do you get excited about movies because that's so weird?" I imagine they'd share my enthusiasm if I asked them if they'd taken their kids to see the Lego animals at the local zoo or if Music and the Spoken Word had a nice episode this weekend. The last movie that the three guys who are my age in my office paid for was Les Mis back in December because they're cheap their wives wanted to see it.

I like this banner. Click to EMBIGGEN.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, Pacific Rim is a kaiju (the word kaiju means "strange beast" in Japanese) movie that I'M "FAP FAP FAP" EXCITED TO SEE (ahem) I will most likely see in the theater. I've blogged about it HERE and HERE. It's also CRUSHING THE BOX OFFICE being released the weekend after Independence Day (the Independence Day movie unfortunately is The Lone Ranger--a $150 million dollar western "paranormal" by Disney because the Legend of the Lone Ranger was OH SO PARANORMAL!). I'm sorry if my sarcasm over the Lone Ranger is palpable, but the Lone Ranger had silver bullets because silver was expensive, and it was a reminder that each bullet he fired had a "cost" to it. So it's best not to get me started on how I think Disney is screwing up the Lone Ranger. Yeah, we're not going there today.

Concept art that gives you the sheer scale of the robots in Pacific Rim.
That Jaeger in the background is frickin' HUGE. Click to Embiggen.

Anyway, in the newest Pacific Rim trailer there is a gargantuan robot (aka Jaeger) that uses a cargo ship like a baseball bat to bash in a kaiju's head! That should make anyone want to press "PLAY" like RIGHT NOW. But in case you can somehow wait, the many thoughts going through my head are: 1) I can't wait to see this show. 2) That looks more awesome than Hulk grabbing Loki and smashing him into the concrete while saying "PUNY GOD!" and 3) Is this a nod from Guillermo del Toro on just how much ass America kicks at just about everything? Let's face it, baseball games are as American as apple pie my friends and the movie comes out the week after Independence Day! Coincidence? I think not, and that's the story I'm stickin' too.

Oh Guillermo...I see whut u did thar...

This is a screenshot of a huge pile of Kaiju poop. Nice eh? Click to Embiggen.

Okay, but there are seriously other things about this movie that I picked up from this trailer that transcend the pure "monster versus robot" basic plotline. First, previous clips touted the invasion of the alien kaiju from another realm, but these clips never gave me the impression that the kaiju were intelligent. Pacific Rim is NOT a story about huge mindless pests invading our home on a grand scale. It's the story of a war. A frickin' war between two worlds. My evidence:

This is actor Charlie Day in the role of Dr. Newton. Click to Embiggen.

Charlie Day's Dr. Newton Geiszler (the presumed smart guy who "gets" the kaiju in the trailer) says, "Their sole purpose was to aim for the populated areas and take out the vermin--us." And consequently, Dr. Newton calls the Jaegers "2,500 tons of awesome," which goes right up there with the line: "Old and busted...meet the new hotness"<== one of my favorite lines in film. You get serious nerd cred if you know what film that line appears in. So yes, the kaiju are smart, and they're an invasion force, meticulously plotting out a strategy to wage war on Earthlings. I'm sure Guillermo del Toro borrowed a page from Cthulhu here (after all he was going to make an H.P. Lovecraft film called The Mountains of Madness).

Strange goo in the helmet. It's anyone's guess what this stuff is, but I think
it helps the pilots mind-meld. It's an "educated guess." Do you agree with me?

And consequently, I also like how the Jaegers are piloted by two people who mind-meld with each other apparently through some kind of strange goo that's put into their helmets. I think that'd freak me out and make the whole "drowning" impulse really strong. You know how people say science fiction can sometimes be ahead of actual science? Maybe in a few years there'll be this goo that really does allow people to mind-meld. Wouldn't that be awesome? Think of all the crimes we could solve by just going inside a criminal's head and examining their thoughts. There'd be no more need for "enhanced interrogation."

ZOMGAH THE TRAILER HAS RON PERLMAN IN IT!

I can't tell what role Ron Perlman is set to play in the brief flash he gets in the newest trailer for Pacific Rim. I doubt he's playing a grunt of any kind which is pretty much his modus operandi in other films. I've really gotten to be a fan of Ron though, and I'm happy to see he's basically the guy that's in ALL of Guillermo del Toro's films (Hellboy anyone?). The dark glasses make me think he'll have some kind of insight that will be crucial to the storyline. *Does a happy dance. Go BIG or GO EXTINCT!

*****

My very prolific author friend P.T. Dilloway has a series of books out that tell the tale of an intelligent and beautiful young woman who is called to become a superhero. I've read three in the series thus far and loved them all. I plan on reading the remaining five or six at some point (right now I'm reading Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy). Anyway, the first book in the series is called A Hero's Journey. It has been discounted to .99 cents for the entire month of May. If you have a buck and some time, I recommend you download a copy. It's a quick read. You can read my review HERE if you would like to know more.

BIO: P.T. Dilloway has been a writer for most of his life. He completed his first story in third grade and received an ‘A’ for the assignment. Around that time he also placed in a local writing contest for a television station, receiving an action figure in lieu of a trophy, thus securing his love with the written word. Since then he’s continued to spend most of his free time writing and editing. In the last twenty years he’s completed nearly forty novels of various genres.

A Hero’s Journey is P.T.’s first superhero novel, born from his love of old TV shows like “Superfriends” and the 1960s “Batman” TV series, both of which he spent much time watching in reruns growing up in rural Michigan, as well as more recent theatrical offerings like “The Dark Knight” and “Watchmen.” A Hero’s Journey tells the story of a young woman who finds a suit of magic armor that allows her to save the world—and herself.

When not writing, P.T. enjoys reading and photographing Michigan’s many lighthouses. In order to pay the bills, he earned an accounting degree from Saginaw Valley State University in 2000 and for the past ten years has worked as a payroll accountant in Detroit. He lives in suburban Detroit, where he continues to work on new writing projects. If you want to find him, just search the Panera Breads and Starbuckses near Detroit on weekends.

Purchase Links:
SMASHWORDS | NOOK | KINDLE U.S. | SERIES

If you don't buy a copy of P.T.'s book, could you please send a single tweet (if you are on twitter). Just copy and paste the one from below:

Like stories with Egyptian flavor and girls kickin' ass? Read one of the finest comic novels ever written #comicbooks http://www.amazon.com/A-Heros-Journey-ebook/dp/B009O5H3RA/

Eleven Buck Rogers episodes that could also be porn titles

Even many decades later Buck Rogers in the 25th Century drips TOTALLY AWESOME GOO, and I'm about to splash your screen with copious amounts of it. Oh you probably have no idea of the NUMEROUS contributions to modern day science fiction that Buck Rogers has given us. For one, it pioneered big-haired women with huge boobs in fiction for a whole new generation of people. And it's still going on.

Have I gone insane you might ask? Pick up any young adult cover, and you'll see big hair all over the place. It's worse than hearing an Amish man say, "The Bible tells us that men should grow beards and women their hair long."

But if you don't believe me, check out the cover art on Brinda Berry's book The Waiting Booth, and you'll see where the "ahem" Buck Rogers influence comes into play front and center. And view any fantasy art (like seriously) from Dungeons and Dragons or any of its spin offs and you'll see the scantily clad vixens that grace such iconic Buck Rogers episodes as "Planet of the Slave Girls." Brinda for the record I LUV YOUR COVER ART!

Princess Ardala in one of the uniforms she wore on her spaceship full of men. IN the
future, women don't have to worry about sexual harassment. It's the men that have to worry.
She could be on a young adult cover from the neck down even today.

To be fair though, Buck Rogers did show women in a leadership err "position." Princess Ardala of the Draconian empire was well...a princess...and she had huge almost naked bodyguards like Tigerman and Pantherman. However, we didn't get to see Pantherman until the episode "Flight of the War Witch."

This is Pantherman, Princes Ardalla's uh...bodyguard. At one point
the ship starts shaking, and he has to stabilize poor Ardala in her nightgown
(because nightgowns are what Princesses wear on the bridge of a starship)
by gripping her in his strong arms. It's the most ludicrous thing I've seen,
but is highly entertaining to see her in turbulence and high heels.

Here's the plot synopsis (it's my favorite episode in the series): In "Flight of the War Witch" a UFO lands outside New Chicago and presents a device for navigating an interdimensional vortex. Learning of the device, Princess Ardala steals it and forces Buck to hurry and enter the wormhole before she can. (Yes, Ardala really does want Buck to enter that wormhole).

Once through, Buck finds the planet Pendar, whose people tell of their conflict with the Zaads, an enemy race ruled by the War Witch Zarina. Lacking the means to wage war, the Pendarans ask Buck to fight their enemy for them. Meanwhile, the Draconians have arrived but Ardala refuses to help the Pendarans. Buck also declines and the aliens withhold the means for returning to their universe leaving Buck and Ardala trapped with no other choice but to comply. Buck asks Ardala to join forces, but Ardala instead tries to befriend the wicked queen. However, Ardala's plan backfires when Zarina thinks her a spoiled child, and Ardala is forced to work with Buck in combating the Zaad forces after all.

Random sampling of hot space babes from a Buck Rogers episode. This is what five centuries
of botox, and implants give us. Does anyone want to sing "America the beautiful?" It takes
a whole other meaning in the 25th century.

If I remember correctly, Buck even gives Ardala a spanking. But don't quote me on that...I think my memory may be playing tricks on me as it's been years...

And before you laugh...remember that this show got greenlit and had pretty good special effects for its day. Has your story ever been greenlit for a television makeover? Nodding "no." Okay then, people that live in glass houses should not throw stones (I read that somewhere). But have hope! Maybe what you really need is a Buck Rogers-type makeover. I kid, I kid (SEE IMAGE BELOW)

Don't hate on me :'( I only suggested it for the lulz...

Dear Buck Rogers, oh you seventies vixen of a t.v. show, how I long for the return of your roller skates, big hair, and TERRIBLE EPISODE TITLES. I proudly present to ALL OF YOU my eleven picks of Buck Rogers episodes that could also be porn titles (proving that it's contributions to society are many if not overlooked):

1) The Dorian Secret
2) Ardala Returns
3) A Dream of Jennifer
4) Planet of the Amazon Women
5) Planet of the Slave Girls
6) Return of the Fighting 69th
7) Escape from Wedded Bliss
8) Unchained Woman
9) A Blast for Buck
10) The Hand of Goral
11) The Satyr

The lesson here, writers, is that if you want to make sure your work is enduring, don't put "69" in your title.

 Just. Don't.

*Giggle

In the comments, tell me the names of some science fiction episodes that you think might be great porn titles. Or, if you can't think of any, name some that are rips of well-known movies like "Saving Ryan's Privates" for "Saving Private Ryan." I love reading them ZOMGAH YESSS! YESSS! :P

***

My author friend, P.T. Dilloway has a new book out. It's called Time Enough to Say Goodbye and is available for purchase for only $2.99 on Smashwords. Click HERE to download now.

I reviewed this book on Goodreads, and you can read that HERE.

Some highlights from my review:

"It's a cross between the serious brooding Dark Knight reinvented by Christopher Nolan and the occult-noir DC/Vertigo big screen adaptation of “Constantine.”

"As usual, Patrick’s plotting is superb. I think the climax is action-packed, fantastic, and something you can’t put down. The temporal mechanics of time travel are original and well-done; I’ve never seen any superpower quite like the one Marie wields in any story. Marie Marsh is incredibly powerful, and I wonder if we'll see her again at some point. It almost seems inevitable, and I think of her as a "Dr. Who" of this series at this point. Fans of the Time Lords should rejoice!"

Have a positively fabulous Wednesday!