I'm generally a big fan of paleo-futures--basically yesterday's visions of tomorrow (think The Jetsons). But I'm an even bigger fan of what might be termed "meta-paleo-futures" which, I suppose, are today's visions of yesterday's visions of tomorrow (that phrase alone is enough to get me excited). The best example is probably the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, an homage to old matinee serials and comic books and such--all the stuff that was geek before geek even existed. It's a movie that knows its ray guns and giant robots are ridiculous, but it revels in the ridiculosity, as do I.
Nobody's using the term meta-paleo-future that I know of, since, as far as I know, I just made it up, but you might have heard of "steampunk," which I'd consider to be an MPF subset (look, I already have a 3-letter abbreviation for my own silly term!). Steampunk is a type of science fiction, set in a time when everything ran on steam power. If you can summon an image in your mind of a Victorian-era steam-powered rocketship or a clockwork robot (of doom, preferably), you'll have a basic understanding of steampunk.
Now that you have a bit of context, I give you: two cool MPF videos! The first could be called steampunk, and the second is something I came across while I was doing reasearch for my 1950's Literature & Culture class.
Weta Rayguns!
Brotronic Rayguns!
Click for a nice list of steampunk links!
12 years ago
2 comments:
I have been starting to take note of steampunk as the idea has been gaining more and more..., well as it has been on Digg more recently. It is a pretty fun idea.
And I really like Weta, they are a pretty cool bunch of people.
Oh, I forgot about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That's steampunk like a mofo, which is probably why I like the movie even though it sucks. The comics are on my Amazon wishlist if anyone out there is looking for a mid-June present for me... :)
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