These days, product placement is an accepted part of science fiction. We're used to seeing big brands splashed all over every TV show and movie about aliens or the future. But it wasn't always this way. Here's the quick-and-very-dirty history of how on-screen advertising became a science fiction mainstay.
"Hey, you want to come camping with Bear?" That's a pretty random email to get on a Thursday morning, and it contained no other details. So, I said yes, packed a bag and hopped on a plane to New Mexico. Here's what happened over the next few days.
It's hard being Michael Bay, what with all the money he needs to count and women he needs to objectify. Plus, one shitty, loud, oversaturated three-hour car commercial is as good as the next, so you can't really blame the guy for re-using footage from one in another. He's got robot testicles to design! Frankly, the…
Michael Bay directed both The Island and Transformers 3: Mark of the Spoon, so I guess he's allowed to rejigger a chase sequence from the former for the latter. Watch as Bay's 2005 clone saga becomes stock footage.
Mark Coleran, creator of "fantasy user interfaces" for films like The Bourne Ultimatum and Children of Men, is now focusing on solving real-world problems. John Pavlus with Fast Company Design explains.
Lost's mysterious cave, the heart of the island, was discovered just outside of Buffalo, New York. Get a better look at this totally natural phenomenon - just don't expect a better series ending to be hiding in there, somewhere.
Science fiction is full of dystopias — and they've got the best interior design. These imaginative interiors and sexy architecture are almost enough to make us want to live in the worst possible worlds, just for the decor.
Designer Mark Coleran designs user interfaces for high-tech and near-future movies, those computer-based visuals that flash briefly across your screen. But the information designs he's created are often more detailed than you might think.
Wolverine, out on DVD recently, is a great example of one of the silliest clichés in escapist entertainment: someone reclaims his/her true humanity and unique individuality — by killing everyone in sight. What the hell is this about?
If you're looking for a job, here's a list of successful, influential corporations you might want to work for. That is, as long as you don't ask too many questions.
Diminutive British actress Keira Knightley is starring in the cloning drama Never Let Me Go, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel. So thinkThe Island, but probably with fewer people exploding and more actual character development.
Remember that awful movie The Island with Scarlett Johansson and Obi Wan discovering that they were clones who'd been grown to provide body parts for rich people? And all the other clones are kept in line because they're promised a trip to "the island" if they're good (A TRIP WHICH IS REALLY TO DEATH)? And then…
If you're living in a shiny happy world where everything is provided to you, and your white pajamas never ever get stained, then chances are you're in a false utopia. Someone's going to be coming and harvesting your organs, or culling you at age 30, or drugging you into obedience. The fake paradise built on a…
Why do dystopian-future movies always turn their protagonists into sexless infants? Often, our hero is reduced to the mental status of a confused toddler, and may actually end up hairless and naked, like Neo in The Matrix, or everyone in THX 1138. We all secretly want to be children again, and dystopian movies indulge…
How do you make a fictional user interface look futuristic when actual UIs are getting flashier every day? That's the challenge that Mark Coleran struggled with in designing interfaces for Alien vs. Predator, Blade 2, The Island and other movies. His solutions? Fast-moving graphics, touch-screens packed with data,…
Stephen King's The Mist is vaporizing from theaters left and right, but there's already another fog-shrouded mutant mist movie heading to your multiplex. Night & Fog, which is in production with Myriad Pictures, has a very familiar-sounding plot: military experiment on a remote island results in monsters in the mist.…
