Battlestar Flashback! My Crazy Guesses for the Final Five

I'm well aware that all self-respecting sci-fi fans have already watched Battlestar Galactica in it's entirety, but I've only just reached the end of the third season. My laziness is your gain, because I will now guess the identities of the heavily promoted FINAL FIVE cylons, and you will be able to laugh at my stupidity, or in a less likely scenario, marvel at my near-prophetic intuition.

NUMBER ONE DRAFT PIX after the jump (with MAJOR SEASON 4 SPOILERS, obvs...)



Full disclosure: I have already been spoilered on the point that Starbuck is at least SORT of a Cylon, so I'll assume she counts as one of the final five. So I'm really only guessing the identities of four Cylons.

One more thing. I'm splitting this up into two groups. The writers could either go awesome with this and make really intense dramatic choices, or they could cop-out. The show varies in quality enough for me to think they could go either way, so...

FINAL FOUR: AWESOME EDITION

Billy
Why It's Awesome:
We'd have Billy back! And Roslin would totally lose her shit!
Why It's Possible:
The show is in dire need of a male cylon who isn't physically repulsive, at least when compared to the ladybots. Billy isn't exactly GQ cover boy material, but he's sort of cute and he certainly seduced and destroyed Duella (and Roslin, in a less sexy way).

Tigh
Why it's Awesome:
What sort of Cylon God would build a model so full of grossness and hate? Tigh is already nuts and ready to die, if he found out he was a Cylon he'd snap for sure and I'd love to see that.
Why It's Possible:
There was all that weirdness in his past with Adama, getting fired from the military or whatever happened behind the Scary Door...I was never satisfied with the non-explanation as to what was such a big deal, and why it warranted a million dramatic flashbacks.

Cally
Why It's Awesome:
Cally is one of the worst most boring characters on the show (and that is SAYING something), having her be a Cylon would totally spice up her life.
Why It's Possible:
Well, she loves her man! That's a very Cylon thing to do.

Anders
Why It's Awesome:
It's actually not that awesome, but he's the only other character I could think of that wouldn't be OBJECTIONABLE as a Cylon.
Why It's Possible:
Again, the cylons need a hot guy model, and he would definitely fit the bill. Also, what has Anders done for humans, REALLY? That guerrilla fighting stuff didn't seem to get us much in the long run.

FINAL FOUR: LAME AND STUPID EDITION

Dualla
Why It's Lame:
Dualla is a weak character who has never done anything interesting on the show except fret over boys, which is in fact a very Cylon thing to do, but there are no interesting ramifications to her being a Cylon. I mean, Lee would be sad, but who cares?
Why It's Possible:
See above.

Gaeta
Why It's Lame:
Again, a boring personality-less character, who is just under the radar enough to be poised for a big "surprise!". WHO CARES? It's almost as if they created a character, and kept him from doing or saying anything too engaging just so they could make him a Cylon later and not have to deal with why he would have been programmed to do anything unique or interesting.
Why It's Possible:
I think Baltar pretty much told him he was a Cylon when Gaeta came to visit him in his cell, so yeah, I think this is a lock. Booring.

Tory Foster
Why It's Lame:
Who is this person? Have we met?
Why It's Possible:
She's close to the prez, and she's inconspicuous enough to avoid any sort of messy plotholes the writers could be looking to avoid. And if fans cry foul they can just say, "Look, she was here THE WHOLE TIME, okay?"

Doc Cottle
Why It's Lame:
Just a boring, unadventurous choice. Yes, he's been in a lot of episodes, but having him be a Cylon leaves zero emotional impact, and feels very mechanical (haw).
Why It's Possible:
It makes sense; why not have a Cylon on board as a doctor? He's probably been impregnating all the ladies on board with Cylon babies for the last 50 episodes.

Those are my picks! Now to watch the Season 3 Finale and see where the chips fall.

UPDATE:

I watched it! A little from column A, a little from column B. I was really hoping Chief wasn't going to be one, because they already teased us with that prospect back in the earlier seasons. It's s a bit anti-climactic to find out, "Yep, he was right the first time." Also, he was in love with Sharon! Cylons loving Clyons? That's just crazy. I'm really sad that Billy and Cally weren't in the Final Four, because A) Billy would have been such an incredible mindfrak and B) Now I have to deal with boring Cally for a whole 'nother season. Oh well. Season 4, ho!

Fake Campaign Shirts 09

I'm still making my way through Battlestar Galactica for first time, because I refuse to watch good TV shows until everyone else in the world is already over them. Some of the election episodes got me itching for a good "Baltar/Zarich 01" shirt (01 of course referring to the calendar restart following the earth getting blowns up...that's how it works, right?) I couldn't really find what I wanted, except for this officially licensed merch by the Sci-Fi Channel, which you can't even get anymore.



Disappointing, yes, but it did lead me on a quest to find other awesome fake campaign shirts. Because nothing says "I Refuse to Draw A Line Between Fantasy and Reality" like wearing a campaign shirt for a candidate in an election that takes place in a made up fantasy land.

This is probably the greatest shirt ever. You don't need to read the rest of the post, cause it's all downhill from here. You don't even need to be a fan of Futurama to enjoy this shirt; anyone can enjoy the horrific comedy inherent in the idea of a Mecha Nixon running for public office.

More less good shirts after the jump...

This is a dumb cheesey font and unimaginative design. I think Zaphod would have his campaign team go a lot, A LOT, flashier. You should have to plug this shirt in. There's so much potential. It's a good thing D. Adams is already dead, because seeing this shirt would kill him. Someone please make a better one.


Sometimes a show does all the work for you in designing the campaign iconography; in the 3rd Season of the Wire, we saw this plain and simple campaign logo all over the place, but it took a weirdly long time for someone to make a decent shirt out of it.

You'd think there'd be like a million awesome Harvey Dent shirts online, right? Nope! The official viral campaign shirts are lame and no one has made any cool ones. This Obama knockoff is the best the internet has to offer. Sad sad state of affairs. Get it, state? State official, election, district attorney....eeheh. I guess there's no need for re-election campaign materials anyway, because one party with Bruce's friends and he'll never need another cent! Also he's dead.

More Anakin Skywaker Redux

Hey! Regular readers may be wondering where we've been...well, occasionally real life intrudes on one's commitment to fandom, but things are settling back down and we should be back to a regular posting schedule by next week.

Anakin Skywalker: The Fan Dub

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a fevered analysis on the shared and disperate qualties of Luke and Anakin Skywalker. The conclusion was Anakin is a horrible, horrible person but also a victim of circumstance, because his formative years were a trauma-inducing roller coaster of highs, lows, and constant dehumanization.

Photos: Friday at the 2009 BookExpo America

Though the bulk of our collective attention may be split between the siren songs of DVR, the internet, and video games, I think most geeks maintain a special place in their hearts for regular old books. It's certainly true of me, and it's why I love the BookExpo America, North America's biggest book publishing convention. The sheer concentration of booths filling the Javits Center in Manhattan makes the NY Comic Con look like the Montgomery Flea Market.

I was able to pick up review copies of a few upcoming comics (including the very awesome looking Pixu) and I'll be posting about those soon. In the meantime, here are some Friday highlights (frilights?) from the convention floor...

As you may already know, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from Quirk Books is a paperback best-seller, cultural phenom, and further proof that geek memes are pushing their way into the cultural mainstream. The formula is fiendishly simple; take the ultimate romance novel, insert zombie mayhem, and publish to a waiting nation of zombie fanatics. Love that public domain!

At the Quirk Books booth, publishing reps were promoting a new Deluxe Edition of PPZ coming out this winter, which will include "30% more zombies". I half-jokingly asked the rep if this addition was a concession to reader demands, and she answered in all seriousness, "Yes, we got a lot of reader feedback on the subject."

The big news is that on July 15th, the next "...With Zombies" title will be announced. The only hints I could get out of the rep were:

1. It won't be another Jane Austen book
2. It will take place in the Regency era (I'm guessing they'll stick with the Romance genre too)

I'll call it now: Jane Eyre With Zombies. Maybe cause that's the only Regency era book I can think of that isn't Jane Austen.



Neil Gaiman was signing copies of The Graveyard Book at the Harper Collins booth, bringing fans to tears with a mere word or touch of his hand. The autograph line was absolutely soul-crushing, so I just snapped a picture and moved on. We're BFF on twitter, though.

Life-sized Clifford is actually pretty frightening.


Let's talk bookmarks. Old and busted.....

NEW HOTNESS:
It took me a minute to understand the point of an XMarxit, but it's actually pretty smart. You point the dot at the spot you stopped reading, so when you open up the book you know exactly where you left off. Boom. Elegant it's simplicity.

And if you ever need to prove that you're a bigger nerd than someone else, whipping out a speciality bookmark is going to be your ace in the hole.


The idea of making a tiny Ultimate Fighting ring for the Ultimate Fighting book to live in is totally adorable, but I question whether it's a good idea to give Beat-Em-Up gloves to a person who is so obsessed with Ultimate Fighting that they'd want this thing in their house. Someone in that house is going to get punched, that's all I'm saying.


From the publisher's notes: "Meet all these cute baby animals that find clever ways to solve their not-so-small problems". I have a problem with crying when I read children's books. I didn't even try to read these on the floor because there would have been trouble.


Oh look, it's a little tiny novelty book!

Or is it....?I can't decide if this is a great idea or not. Playaway is a self-contained audiobook - you'd just get it from the library or as a gift, plug headphones in, and listen to it like an iPod. It's kind of cool to not have to transfer CDs to your computer to your music player before listening to something, and the "tiny book" visual impact is definitely appealing.

My biggest problem is the packaging...

WHAT THE HELL? Why would you create a giant VHS sized package for something that's smaller than a cellphone? Just because something is going to be housed in a library doesn't mean it HAS to look uncool.


In case you were wondering what to get your mom for Christmas. My mom might actually like this, actually.

Photos: Lost Season Finale Party at the Bell House

Brooklyn's Bell House threw a massive party for the last Lost of 2009. Highlights included big screens, a Lostmobile cake, Dharma Beer, and a huge room full of alternately screaming and shushing fans.

The best part of the night for me was the performance by Previously On Lost, a NYC rock band who's songs are all based on episodes of Lost's 4th and 5th season. They have tons of MP3s on their site that I can't vouch for because I haven't listened to them yet, but I will tell you they f'in KILLED live on stage. Low-grade digital video won't fully express the explosive amounts of fan energy they emitted, but here is a short clip of the final lines from their song about SE04EP08, titled "The Island Won't Let You Die."



Lyrics:
Must venture to the temple on your own
will she make it safely to her friends, hey did you hear about the
PALM TREE MASSACRE
Palm Tree Massacre
You need to take my hand, he's toast, and on the count of three we'll coast let's go 123
DEAD

I'm not sure if that clip did them justice. They really were mind blowingly good.

Anyway, check this out!


Who doesn't like Geek Cakes?

Tons of the photos of all that other stuff I mentioned, after the jump....


Previously On Lost t-shirts.

Can you guess which episode they were singing about here?

These fools do it up with rainsticks. Need I say more?

More shots of the cake...



Here's an atmospheric one without the flash...

Let's hear it for the folks at nine cakes!

Filled to capacity.

I said Dharma Beer, and I meant it.


NERDS!

I don't think this was ever actually in Lost.

See The Galaxy! New Posters Mix Star Wars Planets with Depression Era Advertisng

There are few things I enjoy more than mash-ups that combine old timey Americana with geekanerd iconography. First it was comic cover artists copping from Norman Rockwell, now it's WPA Posters meets Star Wars. Zazzle has produced a line of officially licensed Star Wars posters based on the WPA's "See America" poster campaign. What's that? You've never heard of the WPA, the jewel of FDR's New Deal? Here's the original poster that the Hoth version was based on...


Tatooine and Courescant after the jump....


I couldn't find the original version of Courescant...seems like it must be based on a New York poster, but no sign of it on google image search. Oh well. Why does Couruscant need a tourism campaign anyway? Ain't no recession in Courescant! If those guys want credits, they PRINT some! Or mine some. Program some? What's a credit?

UPDATE! Reader "Andrew" tipped us to yet more old timey travel posters...these set in the Firefly universe. They don't seem to be directly referencing any WPA posters, but the influence is unmistakable. Awesome stuff. You can see and purchase all five at the Quantum Mechanix store.

Geekanerd Giveaway! Or: The Power of Fan Democracy

Geekanerd is a fabulously professional website, and accordingly we often have big companies showering us with riches. And by riches, I mean highly caffeinated soda. And by us, I mean you, the reader.

The drink in question is Mountain Dew, which recently had a fan vote to see what color their new Dew, Voltage, would be (spoiler alert: it's blue).

This got me thinking about past examples of companies putting the fate of their properties in the consumers hands. There have been fails, and there have been sales. Let's take a look at fan democracy in action....

Marvel vs DC
In this epic cross dimensional war of the mid 90s, fans got to decide the victor of the fights. It was a chance for comic nerds to democratically settle age-old "who would win" debates once and for all.

Or not. Certain results were so unlikley it can only be concluded that fans voted along party lines, and that the Marvel boys had the majority. How else to explain Storm beating Wonder Woman? And we all like Wolverine, but taking down Lobo? The Main Man is an instellar demi-god who's held his own against Superman...Wolvie would be lucky to scratch up his leather jacket.

Verdict: Fail

More tales of fan power after the jump...or just skip to the end for free soda...

ReBoot ReLaunch
What happens when you give fans TOO much power? A curious example of this scenario can be found in the relaunch of ReBoot, which you may fondly remember as a smart and funny Saturday morning CG cartoon from the early 90s. When the property was acquired by Rainmaker Entertainment, the devs gave the show's loyal fans a major stake in how the relaunch would proceed. They posted five ideas for a new ReBoot web comic, each by a separate production team, and let fans decide on which concept and team would get the green light.

The winner was Arrival, which was generally considered by the voters to have a plot that stuck closest to the original series, and brought back all the original characters. But sadly, geek cred doesn't necessarily translate to quality, and the comic was ripped apart by the same people who gave it the green light.

Verdict: Fail

New M&M Color
Oh light brown M&M, we hardly knew thee. In 1995, Mars Inc. in their infinite wisdom decidded to kick their classiest shade of candy shell to the curb, and let consumers vote on the replacement. The winner was blue, America's favorite color, who we now all know and love as the cool M&M who likes to wears sunglasses, just like Poochie. I miss tan.

Verdict: Sale AND Fail


Mr. Payback
The self proclaimed "first interactive movie" was also the last. This 1995 slapstick comedy played only in theaters specially equipped with seatside remotes, which allowed you to pick the main character's decisions for him. Hey, we all loved choose your own adventure books when we were kids, same thing, right?

"NO!" screamed film critics. The mere idea of allowing an audience to steer the course of a film offended anyone who worshiped at the altar of the capital a Auteur. Critics might have given it a bit more of a chance if the film hadn't been a completely horrible piece of early nineties trash, but it bombed bad enough to put off anyone who might have improved on the gimmick.

Verdict: Mega Fail!


Jason Todd
This is the big one. Long before Cap and Superman's "deaths" made headlines, the news was picking up the story of the Boy Wonder's fan-mandated death as proof that comic geeks are not only uncool, but sadistically disturbed. The more subtle truth is that A)The robin who died was a mean little impostor to Dick Grayson's throne, and not the beloved sidekick most of America knows and loves and B)Even then, the vote was very close.

This also happens to be a case in which fans made the right choice: offing Jason addressed the irresponsibility of Batman's decision to train child apprentices, and gave the Dark Knight a new degree of doubt and humility. It also gave us Tim Drake, a smarter, more interesting Robin, and got rid of that Jason brat for a good decade or so. Those were the days.

Verdict: Sale!


So where will Voltage fall in this grand tradition of product/consumer synergy? That's for us to decide. And you can sample Dewmocracy in action on us.

Email us at Tips@GeekanerdBlog.com with a fan vote we missed, or one you think needs to happen. We'll pick the most interesting submission and the folks at Mountain Dew will send them a free case of sweet, sweet, blue caffeine juice. Contest ends Friday, April 5th.

Dying Artforms: The Best Left 4 Dead Fan Art On The Web

Remember how much we at Geekanerd love Portal? Sure you do. Well, for the past few months, we've devoted a sizable fraction of that love to Valve's newest venture, Left 4 Dead. Perhaps you've heard of it.

While I would not attempt to try to recreate the monument of fandom that is Portal Authority, I've been looking at so much Left 4 Dead fan art in the last few days, I find it's necessary to share the highlights as a service to you, the reader.


First up, an adorable Hunter jumping an adorably oblivious Louis. This is from DeviantArtist Slushy-man's spin on Left 4 Dead DeviantArt meme, a source of endless fun.

Scary zombies, cute zombies, animated zombies, sexy zombies, and PEELS, after the jump...



Apparently this is this whole subculture of geek icons rendered in crochet...and windgie79 posted these Left 4 Dead "super zombies" on the Crafter.org messageboard. As much as I like to see zombie bile rendered in yarn, I would pay cash money for that lil Hunter on my desk. I would throw it at my roommates EVERY DAY.


I think we've all been here. From SAsukaLangley's L4D meme.

These are only two female characters in L4D. Here is them kissing, courtesy of Bar1Scorpio. For more Zoe/Witch escapades, check out this Nyoro meme comic by DDRshaman38. No pron, sorry.


Here's yet more Zoe/Witch BFFness...although if you read the full comic by Fishgut-San, you'll see it's all just part of a cunning plan.



Part of the LD4 meme is drawing yourself as your favorite character. This is a nice take on Zoe, and bonus points to artist Lauren for so subtly weaving in the Peelz Meme.

Speaking of the Peelz Meme...

Impressive work by CosmicD. The best part of this is the first 40 seconds. I'm thinking using the "Pills Here!" chorus as the backing track for my yet-to-be-written L4D rap.


Grabbin' seels. And if you think that's a misspelling, you need to brush up on your Pokerap.


Just a snippet from one of the better L4D comics I've seen. He's got a pretty good command of the survivor's personalities, and Louis's plan made me LOL. Read the whole thing at Sean's DA Page.


Are you noticing that there's a lot of really simple art here? You can't deny this scene from Wibbletfish has personality.


This is evidence if a disturbed and brilliant mind. "The Left For Deadfast Club", via Visually Pink. I have to include the artist's captions as well.

Thomas the Tank - A star football quarterback, likes throwing shit.

Bobby "Boomer" - Awkward fat kid, always sick, but when he's around, he really gets the party started.

Smokin' Sam - Weird smoking dude, always doing his own thing in the corner. Might get lung cancer or something worse one day.

Whitney - Quiet, sad girl. Always down for some reason. The boys don't know how to deal with her, so they just leave her alone.

Hunter - Sharp, quick kid. Don't know why he dresses like that - you look like a hoodlum, boy. >:/

Bright kids, with a bright future!! What lies in store for them!? Only time will tell!!

Haw!


Chibi-tastic cartoon, by Brad Redfield. People seem to really feel for the witch. I think perhaps there is a bit of The Witch in all gamers.

Beavotron has made a whole series of nerdy valentine cards, including one for each Special Infected. This is my favorite, because it's the only one that reaches it's full PUNtential (dies).


There are tons upon tons of these fan created "movie" posters, and almost all of them are terrible. I like this one by Naruzap, because the title is PUNderful and I'd love to see zombie congressmen.

This post has been a little Cute Overload for the most part, so here are some distressing images to close...


Not everyone survives a campaign. "Zoey's Final Moment" by Xerios.

And finally...it probably comes as a surprise to no one that there is a definite trend towards Smoker smex in fan art, combining the fun of tentacle rape with the emo-ness of necrophilia. Can't wait for those keyword searches to roll in. Oy. It's unavoidable on L4D fan art searches, so here are two relatively inoffensive examples.


Zoe is the focus of most of this stuff...poor girl.


OTP indeed. Seeing Francis like this is really upsetting. From super Smoker fan, Queen DeDeDe's meme.


Ahah, shoe's on the other foot now! Also by Queen DeDeDe.

Sorry to subject you to that, dear readers. Here some excellent non-sexual Smoker art by Browning43 to get that, ahem, taste out of your mouth. Uch. It's late.




HALLOWEEN UPDATE: This year Gnerd editor Degan went ahead and made a Smoker pumpkin. We've even got the stencils posted on our Halloween wrap-up, go check it out!


That's it for now. If I missed anything insanely brilliant, hit us up. I've got to go get my Zoey costume ready for ComicCon.