Alasdair Wilkins, Author at Gizmodo

Martian snowstorms are the ultimate blizzards

While the climate on the surface of Mars is pretty much completely dry, it’s still possible that, every so often, it snows on Mars. These hellish storms would move at hurricane speeds and dump four inches of snow every hour Mineral evidence collected on Mars suggests that small lakes do occasionally form on Mars. This…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Knights of Badassdom footage shows off Peter Dinklage’s drugged up, double sword wielding LARPer

Last night’s Knights of Badassdom panel didn’t just unveil the movie’s trailer; we also got to see a clip showcasing Peter Dinklage’s fake sword-fighting prowess. We also learned just who all the characters are in this faux-medieval adventure comedy. https://gizmodo.com/in-the-first-knights-of-badassdom-trailer-larpers-open-5824161 The clip the panel showed is called “Training Time”, and it features Peter Dinklage’s Hung…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

See the first ever cast photos for Snow White and the Huntsman!

Snow White and the Huntsman is still days away from shooting, but the Comic-Con panel revealed these photos of stars Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, and Sam Claflin, plus they confirmed which badass Brits* are playing the movie’s dwarfs. As you can see in the photo up top, Charlize Theron plays the dagger-wielding queen.…

Movies Alasdair Wilkins

In the first Knights of Badassdom trailer, LARPers open the gates of hell

Here’s the trailer for Knights of Badassdom, the comedy adventure movie in which Peter Dinklage, Summer Glau, True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten, Steve Zahn, and Community’s Danny Pudi enter the world of live-action role-playing… and then she-demons from hell show up. We’ll have a lot more details from the cast — which also includes Mad Men’s…

Trailers Alasdair Wilkins

Eureka will go animated for their next Christmas special

Yesterday’s Eureka panel promised an animated Christmas special, a big mission into deep space, sinister forces plotting against the town, and a love triangle between Fargo, Felicia Day, and a hugely dickish Wil Wheaton. The most intriguing revelation of the Eureka panel was that the show is making an animated Christmas episode. The basic premise…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

In new Immortals footage, the gods are young, pissed off, and ultra-violent

Tarsem Singh’s Immortals just screened a bunch of new footage, including an absolutely epic extended fight scene between gods and monsters. Disemboweling and decapitation have never looked so visually striking. Read on for our spoiler-y description of the footage! The panel first showed a trailer for the movie, some of which we had seen before.…

Movies Alasdair Wilkins

Marvel is bringing Hulk, sexy super-spies, and Luke Cage to your TV screens!

In Marvel’s live-action TV projects, Hulk returns to his beginnings, super-spy Mockingbird and Cloak & Dagger get their own shows, and A.K.A. Jessica Jones introduces Luke Cage and Miss Marvel. Plus the animated return of J.K. Simmons’s J. Jonah Jameson! Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb confirmed that four projects are currently in development: Hulk and…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Warehouse 13 is going to get trapped inside a genre-bending, wizard-obsessed video game!

Yesterday’s Warehouse 13 panel at Comic-Con revealed what the new guy means for the show, the details of the latest Eureka crossover, whether Mark Shepard will ever return, and (yes!) confirmation of a spin-off following HG Wells in the days of Warehouse 12! Regarding the addition of Aaron Ashmore as Steve Jinks, executive producer Jack…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins and Katharine Trendacosta

The convergent evolution of butterflies is controlled by a single gene

Certain butterfly species are poisonous, providing a deadly defense against predators. Over time, different butterfly species have evolved the same color patterns, basically telling predators to avoid all butterflies of that appearance. This is the mystery of convergent evolution. These butterfly species are only distantly related, and once in their evolutionary history they didn’t look…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The Locke & Key pilot teases the brilliant horror series that might have been

We were at the special Comic-Con screening of Locke & Key, an attempted TV adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s acclaimed horror fantasy comic. We can officially add this to the list of brilliant pilots that never got series. The episode is a condensed adaptation of the book’s opening arc, “Welcome to Lovecraft.” Written…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

In Stitched, Garth Ennis takes zombies to the battlefield

Last night at Comic-Con, we saw the premiere of comics writer Garth Ennis’s first short film. Stitched follows a group of NATO soldiers in Afghanistan as they vie with strange, seemingly unkillable monsters that aren’t quite like any zombies we’ve seen before. The plot of Stitched is straightforward enough – three American soldiers have survived…

Movies Alasdair Wilkins

Futurama reveals the lighter side of child exploitation

Yesterday’s Futurama showed Leela exploring her creative side and launching a children’s show…which inevitably led to an entire planet being plagiarized and orphans being used for cheap labor. It’s almost as though Futurama has bad experiences with the TV industry! “Yo Leela Leela” finds Leela returning to her childhood orphanarium to entertain the kids, a…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

Ancient Mayans are still shaping their environment thousands of years later

To help save a critically endangered Central American species of river turtle, conservationists examined the gene pools of three highly isolated populations. What they discovered is a surprising legacy of the ancient Mayan civilization. Smithsonian scientists examined 238 wild turtles, each of which came from one of 15 locations in three separate river basins. These…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

New footage from NBC’s Awake has us pumped for the latest reality-bending cop show

We just watched a condensed, thirty-minute version of the pilot for NBC’s Awake, in which Harry Potter’s Jason Isaacs plays a cop jumping between two parallel universes after a horrific car crash…which killed a different family member in each reality. Isaacs was on hand with producer Howard Gordon and show creator Kyle Killen – whose…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

Hugh Jackman reveals the villain of The Wolverine! Plus Jon Favreau talks Cowboys & Aliens!

Man of Steel will take flight a little later than expected. Peter Dinklage explains what’s next for Tyrion on Game of Thrones. Joss Whedon’s long-delayed horror movie is finally getting released. And Hilary Swank is headed to Venus. Spoilers from here on out! Top image from the Total Recall reboot. Man of Steel The release…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

We’ve seen Jemaine Clement’s Scary Men in Black 3 alien!

We just got the first good look at Men in Black III’s villainous alien biker Boris, played by Flight of the Conchords’s Jemaine Clement. Plus makeup master Rick Baker explains why these aliens are unlike all previous MIB aliens. Spoilers ahead… We’ve caught glimpses of Clement’s alien before, like in the set photo up top.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

First Trailer for Daniel Craig’s Creepy Film Dream House

When a “haunted house” movie stars Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts and is directed by My Left Foot’s Jim Sheridan, you can expect more than just your standard old horror movie. But exactly what is going on here? Honestly, we’re not completely sure. The trailer gives away one hell of a huge twist…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Captain America is an incredible war movie that just happens to star a superhero

Captain America is a rousing, massively entertaining movie that’s as much an old-school, earnest World War II epic as it is a modern superhero action movie. It also features a showstopping song-and-dance number and moments of surprising poignancy and emotion. Captain America: The First Avenger begins in the present day, as an Arctic expedition has…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Check out the first Avengers promo poster! Plus filming updates for The Dark Knight Rises!

The Captain America writers explain why the sequel won’t abandon World War II. Bruce Campbell will be in Evil Dead 4, but what about David Tennant’s Doctor Who future? Spoilers from here on out! Top image from Captain America. The Dark Knight Rises Here are some details from a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article describing the city’s…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

The stars trace an impossible circle in the night sky

This photo isn’t real, and not just because it’s been squished. The circles up there are star trails completing a full orbit through the sky. That’s never been photographed before…and you’ll need to head to the Poles to do it. Time-lapse photography allows us to see these star trails blaze across the sky as they…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Alasdair Wilkins

Martian snowstorms are the ultimate blizzards

Knights of Badassdom footage shows off Peter Dinklage’s drugged up, double sword wielding LARPer

See the first ever cast photos for Snow White and the Huntsman!

In the first Knights of Badassdom trailer, LARPers open the gates of hell

Eureka will go animated for their next Christmas special

In new Immortals footage, the gods are young, pissed off, and ultra-violent

Marvel is bringing Hulk, sexy super-spies, and Luke Cage to your TV screens!

Warehouse 13 is going to get trapped inside a genre-bending, wizard-obsessed video game!

The convergent evolution of butterflies is controlled by a single gene

The Locke & Key pilot teases the brilliant horror series that might have been

In Stitched, Garth Ennis takes zombies to the battlefield

Futurama reveals the lighter side of child exploitation

Ancient Mayans are still shaping their environment thousands of years later

New footage from NBC’s Awake has us pumped for the latest reality-bending cop show

Hugh Jackman reveals the villain of The Wolverine! Plus Jon Favreau talks Cowboys & Aliens!

We’ve seen Jemaine Clement’s Scary Men in Black 3 alien!

First Trailer for Daniel Craig’s Creepy Film Dream House

Captain America is an incredible war movie that just happens to star a superhero

Check out the first Avengers promo poster! Plus filming updates for The Dark Knight Rises!

The stars trace an impossible circle in the night sky

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