I’ve been playing a lot of DC Universe Online since it became free (when I can get onto the server). If you’re not familiar with it, it’s an MMORPG set in the world of Superman, Batman and the Justice League etc. It’s a world populated by aliens, witches, geniuses, psychopaths and heroes. You get to design a superhero (or villain), go on missions and earn experience in the standard MMORPG way.
This game makes the differences between Gotham and Metropolis very clear. One city is dirty and decaying, bathed in both eternal night and heavy rain. In the other, everything is clean glass and shiny steel, and it’s always a bright sunny day. I’ll let you guess which one is which.
Hint: nobody can see the bat-signal in daylight
Where would you rather live? Based on the above summaries, you’d think everyone would immediately choose Metropolis. But the opposite is true – most internet surveys turn up Gotham as the city of choice. Why is this?
In 1989, nine years after the iconic Flash Gordon was released, the universe briefly twisted into a vortex of evil before snapping back into place like nothing had happened. But something had happened. Something had crossed into our dimension from... elsewhere, and it was Flesh Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders.
So 80s
Yeah, nostalgia about the 80s is fun. But this was 1989 – the year the 80s came to die. This is the film that buried the bodies:
As you can see, we're in for quite an interesting experience after the click.
There, now that song will be in your head for hours. If you don’t know it, then you’ve never seen the epic glory that is Flash Gordon. He’s the saviour of the universe:
You too can forever emblazon your camp science fiction opera on the minds of everyone with the magical music of Queen. Just ask Ben Elton! You can read all about it after the click.
Project Trident is a film-making collective in the South East of England. They’re a (very) independent collection of zero-budget film-makers, but my favourite part of their site is the procedural generator of B-movie film titles. Here:
Every time you click refresh, it’ll bring you a new, exciting-sounding movie title. It’s one of my favourite internet toys, and I love imagining the movies that the title-generator brings me. Sometimes I’ve loved my own ideas so much, I wrote them down. As a serving suggestion, read them out loud in your best Don LaFontaine voice:
The Skeletal Rippers from the Far Side of Time
Professor Johnson had been developing a wormhole generator. The evening before he was supposed to switch it on, something… went wrong. When his lab assistant and his wife accidentally switch on the generator, something… evilcomes through. From a time of monsters, stick-thin creatures made of calcium arrive through the portal. They’re here… to rip out our skeletons.
The Amazon That Came from the Future
Professor… Gregson, had been developing a wormhole generator. The evening before he was supposed to switch it on, something went wrong. When his lab assistant and his wife accidentally switch on the generator, something… sexycomes through! Now, the Amazonian warrior from a future wasteland has to survive… San Francisco! Expect hijinks aplenty as a geeky lab assistant tries to teach this warrior woman how to be a lady, and learns something about himself along the way. A heart-warming tale of hilarity, lust and time-travel.
(Eventually she goes on a rampage until she’s subdued, King Kong style, forcing us to ask who the real monsters are. Spoilers: it’s probably us.)
Motorbike Skeleton From the Dark Side of Transylvania
In 1954, a Transylvanian biker was speeding along a dark, stormy country road. But he should have known not to refuse a hitchhiking witch! Her curse combined his body with his bike, turning him into a hideous motorbike-man… centaur-looking… monster-thing. Fifty years since he died from the shock, when a US real estate developer tries to build a luxury horror-themed single’s hotel on the site of his death, he awakens the remains of… the MOTORBIKE SKELETON!
Bride of the Robots: A Warning from the Future
In a world where cruel robotic overlords are powered by sex, one woman escapes to the past. Now it’s a race against time, literally. She must kill the man who invented the dildo-powered cybernetic intelligence that conquered the world. With a warning from the future, she is… the BRIDE OF THE ROBOTS!
Lords of the Rippers: The Final Chapter
It’s been twenty years since Professor Johnson’s wormhole generator let the Skeletal Rippers into our time. At first we thought we could fight them. Then we thought we could live with them. Next, governments of the world tried to use them to build empires. Now, in a world ruled by the Skeletal Ripper Overlord, rebellious heroes arise… to fight!
(In the final film of the Lord of the Rippers trilogy, based on the popular Skeletal Rippers franchise, we follow the last moments of the rebels that have fought against the growing tyranny. Finally, in the Overlord’s throne room, we discover that the ruler of the Skeletal Rippers is none other than… PROFESSOR JOHNSON! From the first film, right? Mind = blown! It really ties the whole franchise together)
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