Serialization was king because of the way TV shows were financed, not because people were comically incompetent at setting their VCRs. Back in the day a production company would sell a series to a network, but the network would keep most of the money made from commercials and usually only pay the production company…

This is an excellent observation. For some reason polarization seems to be the spirit of the current age. Everything has to be completely one thing or another, with nothing in between. In this case, shows have to be written like novels for TV, or else each episode is completely disconnected, with different characters…

My friend prefers this mode on his TV when he’s watching movies. I first noticed it when he wanted to see “Shallow Hal” and I couldn’t get over how weird the picture looked. Now I can’t decide if I dislike “Shallow Hal” because it’s a bad movie or because when I first saw it the movie looked like it was filmed with…

“That pushes things forward.” I don’t know if forward is the operational direction here. There are some movies that have to be batshit crazy. Like if they ever do another Flash Gordon, they can’t just make it realistic, or even a faithful adaption of the newspaper strip. It would need to be in a heightened reality all…

Bibbo’s Ace O’ Clubs bar is actually getting a real life incarnation in Abu Dhabi? This is one weird century we’re living in. 

Yeah, I think maybe that was why Kevin Flynn was so fascinated by Quorra’s people - they could potentially come back with him to our world someday. Not an invasion, but just some kind of migration.

I’m not sure how an invasion would even work. The Grid is a virtual reality that doesn’t need self-consistent laws of physics, which is how you get light cycles that appear to travel at a thousand miles an hour and flying carriers. If all that stuff somehow got translated into the real world like Quorra, wouldn’t it…

I have a nostalgic love for Tron, and I enjoyed Tron: Legacy (probably more than it deserved), but I’ve no interest at all in yet another aliens invade the Earth story.

Yes! Marta’s introduction was the story “Safeguards” in Astro City V1 #4. After reading that one I knew I was a fan of this series and would keep reading it forever. The conclusion was just so surprising, and not at all “comic booky” even though it was set in a full-fledged comic book universe. 

I love Astro City completely and totally without reservation! Just keep doing your thing, Mr. Busiek - this or anything else, and I promise I’ll be there to read it.

Wow!

Holy crap. He’s not just carrying the refrigerators in that last clip, but also all the framework holding the refrigerator combo together.

And soap?

I like your thinking, vbisoo! Hopefully gene therapy will live up to that tremendous promise. But right now it’s mostly science fiction rather than things that science can actually do. Techniques like CRISPR may change that, in time, but there’s lots of work that needs to be done on them first. Meanwhile, making…

Between the two of them, rotating sections of a spaceship seems like the far more doable option.

I think you’re right. In Martian gravity (or any gravity at all) the cerebrospinal fluid would settle. It would just take longer.

I can’t help feeling that the writer and director should have a financial interest in anything that is developed from their movie. But the case probably hinges upon upon the contracts they signed back in the early 80's, rather than fairness.

What... What would fried turkey taste like? I’m a little horrified, but also fascinated by the idea.

And that’s what happens when they take you to the vet. But there’s more! Here’s what happens when they take you to the farm...

But there were countless billions of people living there! Surely they all didn’t work at government jobs. I don’t know anything about Star Wars economics (not that there is any such thing), but surely there were economic niches Coruscant could fill that have nothing to do with administration of the galaxy. For…