Let me start this week's contest with a quick review: Once Upon a Time Machine is awesome. It's a comic anthology Dark Horse released this week, edited by Topless Roboteer Andrew Carl, in which a variety of fairy tales, fables, tall tales and more are retold as science fiction. This means you have The Tortoise and the Hare as giant robots; Pinocchio as an artificial intelligence; the Three Little Pigs as rich bastards who have fled earth for their own highly fortified space stations, and much more. You can watch the book's trailer above for a taste of the myriad art styles. It's over 400 pages, is full color, and is somehow only $25 -- it's a steal (and Amazon currently has it for $13.50, which is even more absurd). Frankly, I loved it.
And I love this week's contest, because four people will win Once Upon a Time Machine, signed by Carl and producer Chris Steven. And one person will win the book, signed by the same two blokes and every single artist featured in the book that they could track down at NYC, including Ryan Ottley and Jill Thompson, plus a set of five nice 11x17 prints (including two NYCC-exclusives), plus a set of 8 snazzy bookmarks.
Since the book is taking these timeless tales and retelling them as science fiction, I figured you guys could do the same thing for this week's contest: Take an established book, movie, TV series, videogame, anime, whatever, and re-pitch it as a sci-fi story. I'm looking for the most clever interpretations here, so you can't just say "Rizzoli & Isles... in space!" and expect to win. I wouldn't recommend trying to pitch things that are already sci-fi as harder scifi, but you're welcome to try.
In hopes of having a contest that surpasses 200 comments, I'm going let you guys enter as much as you want. But please, PLEASE, keep these pitches brief. 100-150 words each. I won't count the words in each entry, but my eyes will gloss over entry that looks too long. That's not a threat, just a fact. Also
The contest ends at 12:01 am EST on Monday, October 15th. Have a great weekend, everybody! And don't forget The Walking Dead season 3 premieres this Sunday! Bring your tiny flashlights and spelunking equipment!
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The Princess And The Pew
The spoiled princess is very well loved by her father, the king. He loves her so much that he gave her a planet for her 16th birthday. The planet is small, but all of its inhabitants love her. The planet is also a very important strategic location, so much so that the evil prince (her brother, of course. he's jealous that he didn't get a planet for his 16th birthday) wants to take it over and overthrow his father's kingdom.
The evil prince's plan: Come to the princess' castle under the guise of a friendly visit. Once there, kidnap her in her sleep. As he was trying to kidnap her that night, he found out that the princess was far more clever than he realized. Knowing he was planning this kidnapping, the princess slept with a laser pistol under her mattress. Pew pew pew!
Abbott & Costello Meet Predator.
Abbott & Costello Meet Aliens.
Abbott & Costello Doesn't Give a Toss about Predator vs.Alien.
Abbott & Costello Meet NOS-4-A2 & Wirewolf.
Once more with edit:
During his period at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing was commissioned to develop an Artificial Intelligence that is capable of cracking any kind of cypher. As per usual, this new-fangled invention was stolen by German spies. Fortunately, the Russian Intelligence managed to caught up with the German. They secretly implemented a bug, codenamed “Jiminy Cricket” into the A.I, effectively turning it into a unpredictable liar. The ongoing war turned into a arm race of the mathematicians, as both sides were pulling their resources to solve the enigma of Project Pinocchio.
During his period at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing was commissioned to develop an Artificial Intelligence that is capable of cracking any kind of cypher. As per usual, this new-fangled invention was stolen by German spies. Fortunately, the Russian Intelligence managed to caught up with the German. They secretly implemented a bug, codenamed “Jiminy Cricket” into the A.I, effectively turning it into a compulsive liar. The ongoing war turned into a arm race of the mathematicians, as both sides were pulling their resources to solve the enigma of Project Pinocchio.
A disgruntled combat engineer has rigged a transport shuttle with a quantum explosive, once the transport hits hyperspace the bomb activates and will explode if the shuttle drops below Warp 5.
It is up to SWAT agent Keanu Reeves and spunky Sandra Bullock to keep this shuttle going until they can disarm the bomb, Prepare for the ride of your lives in "WARP SPEED"
"One Life to live" - Yes, the soap opera, but wouldn't most soap operas make more sense if they were transhumanist dramas? Post-singularity Viki Lord, head of the Lord Dynasty must struggle to keep her family from tearing each other apart. Centuries of love triangles, infighting, deaths, rebirths, uploads downloads and duplicates of four generations of a family who are stuck together in a post human, post death society.
With time unraveling Peter Pan was a middle aged man who started ageing backward. Now in his mid teens the time portals leaking more from past and future. The one scientist that can help named Wendy has been captured by a leaked pirate named Hook. It is up to Peter Pan his anti-gravity belt and A.I . Computer named Tink to save her.
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The sound of whirring startles Alice from her restless sleep. She listens to punching cards as she rubs her eyes and tries to make sense of the men in white lab coats huddled around a wall of blinking lights. They notice her and she is restrained. A man approaches with a large syringe and pierces her vein. She feels herself falling, falling down the rabbit hole.
Unstoppable. Two men must stop a unmaned runaway spaceship carrying 2 tons of red matter. Before it reaches the milky way galaxy and turns it into the largest black hole ever.
How about a sci-fi update to the bible?
Add Steve Jobs, Charles Darwin & Carl Sagan as prophets.
And make Jesus a cyborg. He reboots in three days, cause his software is ancient
There was once a black hole so large that no space ship could escape it's pull for light years. Then one day come along a small single engine sx-90. The ship is carrying medicine for a whole planet of orphans. With no time to go around the tiny ship decided to push on past the outer rim of the black hole. The whole time the ship is going I think I can. I think I can. The little space ship that could.
Okay I have a few of these and I just got home and my laptop was broken all weekend. I'll start with my favorite.
Alice in Wonderland with androids: Alice is an android that becomes self aware and is taken to the Wonderland Industries lab to be analyzed. Characters from the classic tale are all either Wonderland employees or androids in the lab of some kind. The Queen of Hearts is the CEO of Wonderland. The Chesire Cat is a cyborg ninja. The Mad Hatter, The March Hare, and the Dormouse are a trio of malfunctioning androids. And so on and so forth.
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Snow White in a post apocalyptic future: The White family ruled over the last city on Earth following a global nuclear war. The evil queen killed the Whites and took over with the help of a mirror supercomputer device but learned to late they needed White family DNA to use the cities technology. Snow White was sent to live in the wasteland and cared for by 7 brothers who are the sons of scientists who wanted to develop radiation resistance. The 7 brothers can survive in the radioactive wasteland but it did stunt their growth a bit.
Twist ending: after Snow White and her 7 short radioactive resistant scientists defeat the evil queen they discover the mirror supercomputer. The Mirror reveals that it caused the nuclear war that destroyed civilization, the computer was trying to reduce the population to a manageable level and now tempts Snow White with the knowledge of the ancient high tech world it possesses.
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The Planet of Oz: Dorothy lives on a farming colony planet. One day the environmental controls malfunction and cause random tornadoes. People are being evacuated by wormholes but one malfunctions and Dorothy ends up on the Planet of Oz. There she meets a bio robot made of plant matter that used to guard farmland; a cyborg who has barely any of his original organs left, not even his heart; a disgraced alien military commander who is labeled a coward because he chose to retreat and save the lives of his men instead of going on a suicide mission.
Macbeth in Space: okay not exactly a fairytale but I have an idea. In the future space is ruled by a space aristocaracy. Macbeth and Banquo are two up and coming young aristocrats who are scouting the moons of Jupiter where they discover a mysterious object floating in space. It is some sort of ancient alien supercomputer that can predict the future and likes to alternate its speech between three different female voices. Macbeth and Banquo use this device to predict the future and gain higher status but before long Macbeth turns against his friend to sieze power for himself.
Alice finds a space bridge below a tree in her back yard. As Alice jumps into the space bridge trying to fallow a giant humanoid rabbit dressed in a Victorian era suit. When she comes out she is in a world filled with humanoid animals and every peice of technology is run by steam. Alice in Steampunk Land.
On the California Highways, new technologies are allowing vehicles to go faster than ever before. Only one group keeps these West Coast streets from falling into anarchy, The California Highway Patrol otherwise know as C.H.i.P.s.
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How about The Nanny, but with Fran Being an Alien disguised as a human... oh wait, that's how the show officially went... carry on!
Dr. Boddy Black was an expert in nanotechnology. He was found dead in his mansion. His mansion is on lockdown. There are at least six people in the house, one or more could be the murderer, your mission is to locate the late Doctor's files and eliminate any loose ends. You are Jack Cluedo: P.I./Cleaner
When a young space ranger is sent undercover to find a group of spice thieves. Who steal straight from the space freighter. His main suspects are a group of illegal jet car racers. The Fast and The Furious.
Two Children from a Poor section of Harlem were abducted by an Alien and were "integrated" into the Alien's family... Consisting of the "Father" Ph'll'p Dr'm'm'nd, his Daughter K'm'b'r'l' and the rotating Maidbots... Much More Diff'rent Strokes!
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In the far Future Technology took control over humans. No one could stand against the machines. Until one day a small group of human runaways found a capsule made out of a tanning bed, Liquid Nitrogen containers, and Duct Tape. Inside they found the Key to their Salvation: MacGyver!! Now Mac is in a brand new world and he's about to show the machines how resourceful humans can be!
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It began with the making of the Machines. Three to the elves, wisest and fairest of the forest worlds. Seven to the dwarflords, miners of the great asteroid belts. And nine to the race of Terra, who above all else, desired power. Within these machines came the ability to guard and preserve the three races for aeons to come. But they were all of them deceived, for another machine was made. In the depths of the dead system of Mordor, in the fires of a great supergiant, the Machine Lord Sauron forged a great war-machine. And within this he gave his cruelty, his malice, and his will to destroy all life, until only cold metal remained. One by one, the free races of the galaxy fell to the shadow of the War-Machine. Until a last alliance plunged into Mordor, and defeated the Machine Lord. However the great War-Machine was not destroyed, and was lost. For three thousand years the One Machine, housing in it a copy of Sauron's cybernetic mind, waited to be found. And found it was by the most unlikely creatures imaginable. Now, a simple East System lad, a halfing, must go on a quest with many unlikely allies to destroy the War-Machine, in the great Supergiant that it was forged in.
Fellow Roboteers, I give you: Lord of the Machines!
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In a lawless galactic frontier a new breed of lawman had been created. He is perfect, and he is infinite. Where his faithful sidekick, Myron Tonto, cannot go, he goes fearlessly for even in sacrifice, he knows as the masked man he will always fly again in the fiery ship through a cloud of space dust. He is the Clone Ranger!
Times Se7en
Starring Brad Pitt as Spatial-Chrono Investigator David Mills
and Morgan Freeman as Spatial-Investigator William R. Somerset.
The undermanned Spatial Chrono Police Department attempts to keep order through time and space. However; as a new transfer is partnered up with an investigator on the brink of retirement, they suddenly find themselves in a desperate race against a madman seeking to unravel the universe itself. Famous people from throughout history are plucked from their times and then gruesomely murdered in public spectacles representing the deadly sins. Cleopatra, Caligula, Genghis Khan, Rockefeller...as each is murdered timelines are unraveled and the world changes...And in the meantime a mysterious package is postmarked for Investigator Mills in a century before he was born and a city he doesn't know he will be in. The only thing certain is that nothing is certain...until the box is opened.
LUST GLUTTONY WRATH PRIDE SLOTH GREED
ENVY
In a world where the Olympic games are events reserved forRobots, one (formerly wheelchair bound) man dared to do the impossible: He is QWOP!
Fighting Evil by Moonlight, Winning Love by Daylight. Never running from a real fight, she is Hannah Montana. A Cyborg Vigilante/Pop Star/"Normal Girl" She is all 3. Her father is a werewolf...
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I still can't believe that no one has made a pitch for The Brady Bunch where the Female Brady's are Japanese Schoolgirls while the Male Bradys are Tentacled Monsters... Cause that's my next pitch!!
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Who's the Boss with a twist... Tony is a Catholic Priest (with a troubled past), Angela is a Satan worshipping necromancer, Mona is half succubus, Jonathan is an undead risen from the grave and Tony's "niece" is actually his daughter and possibly the Anti-Christ, Samantha. Angela's house is a Giant Robot...
A youg woman named Belle is traveling a well know space trading route in hopes of finding her father. When her navigation computer is knocked out due to a cosmic storm. Flying blind she crashes into a uncharted moon. As she is making her way from the crash she is attacked by a monkey wolf hybrid looking creature. As she is about to be eaten she is saved by a huge mutated creature. The beast then takes her back to his under ground bunker and locks her in a cell. The next morning Belle awakens to find her father in the cell next to her. I give you Beauty and the genetically alterd Beast.
A Middle-Class Family in near-future America hire a new Housekeeper who struggles to adapt to life in America as the Housekeepr of a Middle-Class Family... He is Mr. Belvebot!
Jehova, an interstellar space traveler, lands on a primitive planet and sees a pond full of microbiotic life.
using the computer on his ship, he shoots out a massive communication net over the planet allowing him to see the whole of it at one time. then using subatomic energy, he bombards the surface, giving rise to new life and intelligence.
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Top Thrust - a British television show about starships, primarily personal cruisers, and the universe's most widely watched factual television programme. It began in 2077 as a conventional starship review show. Over time, and especially since a relaunch in 3002, it has developed a quirky, humorous and sometimes controversial style. The show is currently presented by superintelligent, genetically modified orangutan Jeremy Clarkson, cyborg Richard Hammond (heavily reconstructed in Season 7 after a disastrous attempt to break the interplanetary speed record in a space dragster), and "The Most Boring Man in the Universe" James May. It has featured at least three different test drivers known as The Stig, rumoured to be specially constructed for the show by the military outposts on Cygnus VI.
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Jack and Jill went to unknown space to fetch a container of dark matter. When Jack got caught in a blak hole. Jill went home and started dating the rich Hutt next door. The moral Hutt's allways win in the end.
In the near future, online gaming is a global obsession. Seeking escape from an ever-worstening reality, nearly 3 billion users jack in every day to find adventure in a immersive, virtual world which every fantastic aspect looks and feels utterly real. The game is created and controlled by a single, mysterious, and isolated master- known only as WONKA. Turmoil erupts when, in his first net wide communication, Wonka reveals that seven golden rings are hidden somewhere inside of the game. Those who find one will be granted access to the next generation of virtual gaming and escorted by none other than Wonka himself. What they find there will be the realization of every their every fantasy and their horrifying, personal nightmares. In the end, only one of them will survive to inherit the secret curse- of the WONKA.
Space age teenager Parker Lewis is just trying to get though High School in a Dalek run society. He hangs out with his best buds Mikey and Jerry. Mikey is a badass Silurian who loves to rock out and brood, and Jerry is a video game obsessed Ood. They spend most of their days trying to help their dimwitted friend the Face of Kube and outwit the Cyberman Frank and Supreme Dalek Musso. I give you Parker Lewis Can't Be EXTERMINATED.
Atlas Shrugged set in the far off future of 2525 in which 90 percent of Americans have literally become mutant parasites so if you really sit and think about it, it's okay to enslave them and force them to do all the dangerous and hard labor to ensure that you live an eggregiously prosperous lifestyle, without having to feel guilty about it at all.
Louie is just your everyday cosmonaut trying to make a living as a stand-up comedian on Mercuris 8. He takes care of his two girls, pays his bills, and gives allegiance to the Emperor from his space apartment in New New York. Not a lot happens in each episode except Louie always has sex with some crazy ugly alien. Oh, and there's lots of space blowjob jokes.
Meet Nathan Detroit a small time hustler on Busy New York station. Nathan has the ideal location to open up a gambling den, but he is broke and the proprietor of room he wants to use is demanding a 1000 credit safety deposit for use of the place. Enter Space Masterson the man who could never refuse a bet. Nathan proposes a bet which he believes he cannot lose: Space must take a droid of Nathan's choice to dinner at the Saturn's Rings Resort . Space agrees, and Nathan chooses S.A.R.A (Salvation. Army, Redemption, Android) . At the mission, Space claims he wants to be saved, impressing S.a.r.a with his knowledge of Engineer's Code. He offers S,a,r,a a deal: He will bring the mission "one dozen genuine corrupt" if she will accompany him to Saturn's Rings Resort the next night.. The rest of the story involves the local Fuzz Lt Zap of the Robot Police force and Nathan trying to keep his longtime girl-droid from Suspecting anything is up.
I call it
Guys and Droids
On the edges of the civilized galaxy, in a space station named for its unusual biconical design, a young woman is found dead. After following a lead from a tiny datachip embedded under the victim's fingernail, cyberdetective Dale Cooper discovers her secret second life in the station's computer networks, a life filled with debauchery unrestrained by physical limitations. Cooper, gifted with psycho-technical powers after an experience with mystical alien drugs in his youth, goes into the network to find out the truth behind her murder. In the meantime, residents are dealing with strange malfunctions in their station's Basic Operating Binary v9.0 (BOB 9000), that seem to cause bizarre and violent behavior. Will Cooper be able to defeat the malicious code, and keep his own sanity?
Through the darkness of future past
The magican longs to see
One chants out between two worlds:
Fire, blog with me.
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The Cybernetics Hostile Investigation Police Squad was created to help stop the trafficking of illegal human cybernetic upgrading. This is the story of C.H.I.P.S
22 years since the last bomb fell America is a place of rubble. Order is nonexistent and all cybernetic doctors have been gathered up and made to work for what is left of the government. When over 75% of the population are cyborgs who are they to turn to but one man a ex doctor turned mechanic named House.
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In 2050, Hamlet the Pince of Denmark, is haunted by a hologram of his dead father who gives him a recording of his murder by the king's brother, who now has taken over the throne. After an hour and a half of brooding monologue, Hamlet takes the recording evidence directly to the authorities and the traitorous uncle is tried and summarily executed without any other unnecessary and wasteful deaths because technology is awesome.
