Eppu – Page 35 – Co-Geeking

An Improved Kenobi-Vader Fight for Star Wars A New Hope

May 14, 2019May 12, 2019Eppu

Under the moniker FXitinPost, visual effects artist Christopher Clements made an unofficial, improved scene for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and seamlessly inserted it into the movie. The resulting six-minute clip is all about the final confrontation between Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader, and definitely worth a watch:

Star Wars SC 38 Reimagined by FXitinPost on YouTube

I don’t know whether they had any skill or not, but if Alec Guinness and David Prowse were not competent sword fighers, it’s understandable the scene looks like it does. I have to confess, though, that the clunkiness of the fight has been long bugging me; it also stands out since Lucas retroactively changed so many other scenes. Clements’ version is much more in line with Jedi abilities and includes many intriguing creative choices on how to use the space on the Death Star. Kudos!

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Striking Iron: A New Exhibition at the National Museum of African Art

May 8, 2019April 28, 2019Eppu2 Comments

One of the current exhibits at the National Museum of African Art is “Striking Iron: The Art of African Blacksmiths”. It focuses on blacksmithing in sub-Saharan Africa and features works dating from the 17th century to recent times: not just weapons, but other tools and implements such as musical instruments.

The range and design of shapes is truly impressive. Below are just some of the examples.

I wasn’t familiar with the concept of rain wands (image below) before. They were planted in the earth with the intention of drawing the life force of the Earth up toward the heavens in order to bring down rain.

Various kinds of sound instruments are also displayed, including lamellophones.

And, since it’s ironworking, there are weapons.

I’m especially struck by the multiple elaborate curls of the ceremonial knives and the rain wand in the shape of a three-headed snake. Simply stunning.

The exhibition runs until October 20, 2019.

Found via NPR—make sure to visit the article for more photos!

Images: Ceremonial knives by Olivia Sun for NPR (Democratic Republic of the Congo; 19th century; iron). Rain wands by Olivia Sun for NPR (Nigeria; iron). Lamellophone (chisanji) via Smithsonian (Chokwe artist, Angola; late 19th century; wood and iron). Double-bladed dagger by Olivia Sun for NPR (late 19th-century Sudan; iron, bone, and crocodile skin).

Disney Princess Cosplayers Wearing Mandalorian Armor

May 1, 2019April 21, 2019Eppu1 Comment

Ooh—I knew cosplayers were an ingenious group, but this is awesome: cosplayers portray Disney princesses in Boba Fett -like armor:

Oh my goodness, the leaf detailing on the Pocahontas / Fett helmet! And the detailing in general—love it!

The photography is credited to Jonathan York who posts his photos as York In A Box. I haven’t been to confirm it, since Facebook has been glitching for me for some reason. It would’ve been great to read more about the setup and the individual cosplayers’ thoughts.

(I did some searching elsewhere, too, but my google fu fails me for the moment. If you can find a different link, please share!)

Found via Queens-of-Cosplay on Tumblr.

Images by Jonathan York / York In A Box via Tumblr.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

First Trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

April 24, 2019April 21, 2019Eppu2 Comments

The name and the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX were released last week, and both are tantalizing! Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker again seems to revolve around Rey:

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – Teaser by Star Wars on YouTube

Oh my goodness, her leap over the speeding fighter looks incredible! (Even if I can’t quite understand the decision to run with an extended lightsaber in your hand… Is anyone else reminded of running with scissors?) I’m also looking forward to seeing Poe and Finn questing, er, fighting the Empire together—I always appreciated the ease with which they became and remain buddies.

J.J. Abrams’s work has been bit of a hit or miss for me in the past, so at the moment I’m cautiously optimistic about Rise. It will, however, be remarkable to see the end of the nine-movie Skywalker story arc begun when I was a toddler.

A nostalgic tidbit: A New Hope was one of the first stories I remember reacting to and realizing that I really, really liked the stuff with space and robots and dragons and elves and whatnot. Ever since then, around the age of 11 or 12 or so, I’ve considered myself a science fiction and fantasy geek.

And now I kinda want to make myself a sleeveless, hooded tunic like what Rey is wearing underneath her wrap. It’s a really neat design. 🙂

December 20, 2019, seems so far, far away.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Trailers for the Tolkien Biopic

April 19, 2019April 21, 2019Eppu

It’s three weeks to the release of Tolkien, the new biopic directed by my fellow Finn, Dome Karukoski.

Two trailers are out at this point:

TOLKIEN | Official Trailer | FOX Searchlight on YouTube

TOLKIEN | Trailer 2 | FOX Searchlight on YouTube

Looking very shiny! At just under 2 hours and chock-full of great actors—Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Genevieve O’Reilly (Mon Mothma in Star Wars!), Colm Meaney, Pam Ferris and Derek Jacobi, among others—it sounds promising.

Image: Lily Collins as Edith Bratt and Nicholas Hoult as J.R.R. Tolkien, via IMDB.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

The Graceful Curves of the Vogelherd Horse

April 17, 2019April 14, 2019Eppu1 Comment

Like the Stone Age twig horse I blogged about a few years ago, this ivory horse is rather magnificent:

Found in the Vogelherd cave in south-western Germany, it’s carved from woolly mammoth ivory with flint tools in the Aurignacian period, from 40,000 to 28,000 BCE.

Like other animal figurines found in the same layers, the horse appears astonighingly lively and graceful. I’ve done a little bit of wood carving in my life, and—like all sculpting—it definitely takes not just skill but also pre-planning. I can’t imagine what carving ivory with flint would be like, but I’ve no doubt there are quite a few tricks that go into it.

Whatever the use of the Vogelherd horse was, it’s clear that the maker(s) invested time and significant effort into making their art—a good indication that the creativity, dedication, and determination of the modern human do have deep roots.

Found via The Ice Age (@Jamie_Woodward_) on Twitter.

Image: horse figurine from the Vogelherd cave via Wikipedia (Baden-Württemberg, Germany; c. 32,000-35,000 BCE; ivory)

The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?

Never Gets Old: Surfing on a Flaming Harpoon Bolt

April 12, 2019October 20, 2024Eppu

Northrend has some of my favorite areas in World of Warcraft. I love the music in Grizzly Hills, and both Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra have nice, varied environments. (Then again, Northrend also has one of my all-time non-favorites, too: Icecrown. So dark and spiky and empty, brr. But I digress.) Whenever I level a toon through Northrend these days, I visit all three zones, and pick and choose the rest as mood strikes me.

One of the Howling Fjord quests never gets old: Let’s Go Surfing Now lets you ride down an impossibly tall cliff standing on top of a flaming harpoon bolt. I took my Dark Iron Dwarf through there last night:

WoW Dark Iron Dwarf Howling Fjord Riding Harpoon

Whee! 😀

Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.

Yet Another Avengers: Endgame Trailer: Special Look

April 4, 2019April 5, 2019Eppu1 Comment

Well, how about that—just after I scheduled my Second Avengers: Endgame trailer post and leaned back, there’s another trailer:

Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame | Special Look by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

It seems there are at least two big group missions: from trailer #2 the one that the team wears their pale armor for while epically slowwalking in the hangar (at the Avengers compound, I assume), and from the special look the one where they take the fight to Thanos wearing darker armor. Unless the trailers deliberatly lie, which they might.

Smaller sorties are implied e.g. in the scene where Tony and Steve shake hands and Cap tells Tony he trusts him; it looks like it either might lead to a confrontation or come at the end of one—you can just see emergency vehicle lights flashing in the background. We also see Black Widow and Hawkeye gearing up (seemingly in the quinjet, perhaps over Manhattan), Hawkeye running away from a fire blast in a tunnel, Rocket hanging onto War Machine’s shoulder ready to take anyone on, and Ant-Man jumping at a lever.

IMDB lists Endgame run time at an unprecedented 3 h 2 min. Even if the end credits take the now-usual 10 minutes, that leaves 2 hours and 50 minutes for the storytelling. There’s clearly a lot to go through: apart from numerous fights, flashbacks, and getting people regrouped, some from pretty far away, there’s some training, planning, and contemplating. (So much contemplating!)

For one, I am looking forward to Thor getting to use his honking big axe-mace, and for another, to how Captain Marvel fits into the lineup.

However, one thing absolutely baffles me—I assume there will be at least one stinger, since that seems de rigueur for MCU, but what it (or they) might contain is beyond me. Any guesses?

This post has been edited to correct a typo.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.