Tag Archives: Suday

Vader Meets Kirk in Awesome “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” Trailer Mashup (Video)

A new video mashes up clips from “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” into a trailer for a fake 1985 film whose release would have been the sci-fi event of the century.

by MIKE WALL, Space.com Senior Writer

“Trapped in a galaxy far, far away, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the famous starship Enterprise are left to the mercy of an evil galactic empire and caught in the middle of an interstellar war,” the narrator of the fake movie, called “The Carbonite Maneuver,” intones as the Enterprise is captured by a “Star Wars” Imperial Star Destroyer.

Details at: http://www.space.com/29404-star-wars-star-trek-mashup-video.html?cmpid=NL_SP_weekly_2015-05-15

“Legends will unite and galaxies will clash as your imagination embarks upon a fantastic flight into fantasy-film history,” the narrator adds in the 85-second video, which was posted to YouTube on May 6. “‘The Carbonite Maneuver:’ a cosmic spectacle unlike anything you’ve seen before.”

The fake film’s title is, appropriately enough, a nod to both sci-fi franchises. Han Solo was flash-frozen in carbonite in “The Empire Strikes Back,” and one episode in the first season of the original “Star Trek” TV series was called “The Corbomite Maneuver.” (In the episode, Captain Kirk bluffs away a potential attacker by claiming that the Enterprise is protected by an imaginary substance called corbomite.)

The trailer shows multiple meldings of the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” universes. For example, Captain Kirk comes face to face with the humanoid robot C-3PO, TIE fighters fire at the Enterprise during a deep-space chase, and the iconic “Star Trek” vessel zooms down the trench of the planet-destroying Death Star.

There are some nice touches in the credits as well. “The Carbonite Maneuver” was supposedly written by Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote two of the first three “Star Wars” films (“The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi”), and the music is attributed to the English composer Gustav Holst. (The works of Holst, who died in 1934, reportedly served as inspiration to John Williams, who has written the music for all “Star Wars” films to date.)

“The Carbonite Maneuver” is rated PG. It opens June 5, 1985; a related video game is available now from Atari.

[Editor’s note: Build your own captain’s chair and join along.]

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New Word to Live By: “Blankenstein”

First Saturday (or Sunday) of the month. Time for new words to live by. Once a month on the first Saturday (or Sunday) of each month, I will list a new word. This is NOT a word you are likely to find in the dictionary. It is a new word, often a portmanteau word, sometimes just a new word not made from merging two other words. Some of the previous words have included: obsurd, a combination of obscure and absurd, obscure absurdity means something obsurd. These new words might even be considered an exercise in obsurdity.

Here now is the new word.

Blankenstein, n., 1) The blank look on your computer monitor when the hard drive has crashed and all your files are gone, the program has crashed and your important work is gone, or your computer won’t start up for some reason, such as the motherboard gone band, and you can’t access your folders and files. In some cases, also known as “The Blue Screen of Death.”

Beware the Blankenstein!

Beware the Blankenstein!

2) The blank look on a low level business or government functionary who, while claiming to help you, is actually doing nothing to aid your situation. The blank or dead eye look and the monotone voice are often signs of the Blankenstein in non-action. While this can sometimes be confused with being lost in thought, it is more the thought, on the part of the functionary, that you will get lost.

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The blathering idiot and Santa’s lap

The blathering idiot stood in line to sit on Santa’s lap.

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” the young mother asked of the man standing with her as they tried to control three squirming kids dressed in wise men outfits.

The man grunted.

“We can always stop.”

The young woman was very pregnant.

The man grunted again.

Santa hats

For some wishes there isn’t enough magic in Santa’s cap … or lap.

The blathering idiot had never sat in Santa’s lap when he was a kid. Since losing the election for the highest office in he land, he decided he would do some of the other things in life he had never done before. Sitting in Santa’s lad was the first thing on his list.

He did not tell anybody: not Zoey, not Xenia, not Lydia, not anybody.

One of the kids in front of him squirmed away from her parents and was toddling away. The mother ran after her. The mother had to pick the daughter up and bring her back, kicking and screaming all the way. It was then that the blathering idiot realized all three of the kids were girls. Still, they looked as if they had been dressed to be miniature wise men.

“Are you sure?” she asked again.

She was staring hard at her husband.

He stared back. He did nothing to help control the kids.

The blathering idiot could detect a cold silence between them as the line crept forward.

As they neared the head of the line, the kids increased their antsiness.

Then they were next in line. It had been almost thirty minutes.

The boy on Santa’s lap burst into tears. After two attempts to calm the young man down, Santa looked at the mom, who, slightly red in the face, stepped up from the other side of Santa’s thrown and retrieved her son.

An elf in a pea green costume with bells on the ends of his up curled show tips and a five o’clock shadow across his downturned chin, stepped up to the red velvet rope and unhooked it from one of the poles.

“Last chance,” the woman said.

“Next,” the elf said, stepping back, clearing the way up the two steps to the dais on which Santa sat.

The man hesitated, then surged forward.

The mother and the three girls followed. They walked up to Santa, the squirmy one still in her mother’s arms, and the other two fidgeting as they moved. Then, they walked past Santa as the man, the husband, the father sat in Santa’s lap.

Seeing the man plop himself into Santa’s lap and Santa struggling to handle the size and the weight, the blathering idiot no longer had a desire to sit in Santa’s lap.

“Santa,” the man said, “I want you to bring me a baby son for Christmas.”

Then the blathering idiot suddenly felt antsy. He couldn’t remember what he wanted to ask Santa for.

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Filed under blathering idiot, Christmas, Photo by author, Story by author