will the real viper please stand up?

So, you think you’re a sharp-eyed DarthMojo reader?  Do you have what it takes to spot the difference between real and CGI?  In the above image, one Viper is a frame-grab from an episode of the original 1979 Battlestar Galactica  and the other is 100% computer generated.   Can you tell which is which?  Click the image to get the full-size picture, put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and give us your best guess in the comments section.  On Tuesday, we’ll reveal the answer and give you a glimpse into how we produced the forgery!  May the Lords of Kobol be with you…

getty moon

My friend Jin finally gave me a CD-ROM of a bunch of pictures we took high atop the Getty Center last summer, and this one turned out particularly tasty.   Late in the day, outside on the giftshop terrace, we noticed a crowd gathering and went to check out what all the fuss was.  We were greeted by the rare and breathtaking sight of a giant, amber moon, hanging over the purple dusk of the San Fernando Valley (click image for full, hi-res version).

twisted metal

 Today was a great day!  Until the day turned into night and someone decided they didn’t really  have to pay attention to traffic before pulling onto Burbank boulevard.  I wish I could tell you that the picture above is a prop car, or some amazingly realistic CGI creation, but no, it is my once gallant, graceful and gleaming gold Miata, now badly in need of a medic.

parting is such sweet sorrow

The mood was sullen and my vision misty the day my work recently wrapped on  Battlestar Galactica.   According to the date stamp, I created my very first scene for the show on May 12, 2004 (a shot of Starbuck, Apollo and Boomer approaching the Olympic Carrier for “33”).  It was quite literally a dream come true; not only had the impossible happened and my favorite show was coming back, but I was working on it.  Of course that was no accident – believe me, I wiggled and wormed and begged and pleaded to get that job.  But now that it was coming to an end, how did I feel?

introducing: NSFW

It’s a sadly accurate cliche that fans of science fiction (myself included) become so engrossed in our genre of choice that we often forget there’s an entire world to explore, right here on Earth.  To combat this plague of myopia, we’ve decided to launch begin a new series: NSFW (that’s short for No Sci-Fi Wednesdays).   Once a week we’ll ask you to holster your phaser, put down that tricorder and join us for a refreshing trip through inner space.  To start us off I’m going to unload my camera phone’s databank  storage card and share some of the inexplicable wonders I’ve seen around town recently…

everything you always wanted to know about the star wars holiday special but were afraid to ask

My good friend Peter (who writes the best film-buff blog in the business) just sent me this wonderful, in-depth article from Vanity Fair about the making of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special (for those who don’t remember it, consider yourself lucky).  It’s a great read and full of tantalizing tidbits about the first, official moment in history when Battlestar Galactica was better than Star Wars!

And if after reading that you still hunger for more Holiday Special content (which one fan described as “The great secret of Star Wars; the 3-eyed cousin who lives in the barn attic, humping sheep and eating spiders”)  then head on over to Rifftrax, where the ex-MST3K boys have posted their own iconic commentary on the Holiday Special.  Hilarity ensues.

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Cell phone sunset

We had a gorgeous sunset today in Southern California, so I did the best I could to capture it with my cell phone (click for the full-res, stitched together, panoramic version).  Believe it or not, this is exactly what we saw today – no special effects work involved on this  one.

[Thanks to reader POLE for downloading and fixing the power lines in the final image, I didn’t even ask!]

Guiness-sanctioned videogame competition live online today!

Battlestar Galactica  Associate Producer and Supervising Editor Andrew Seklir is making a video game documentary, and today (Friday, 1/2/09), he’s braving the east cost cold to bring to us – live from MAGfest in Washington, DC – the competition for the world record of the arcade classic Nibbler (MAGfest is an annual coolest-of-the-cool videogame festival and the event is sanctioned by the Guiness Book of World Records).  It will be streamed live online all day Friday with cameras not only showing the players, but a direct feed of the screen itself!  Did you know that Nibbler was the first arcade game to break the one billion  point barrier?  Click through to find out even more.

happy new year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  Many thanks to all of you happy-go-lucky, loyal Darth Mojo readers.  I really do enjoy sharing all this neat stuff with you, and it truly makes me smile when someone tells me they learned something from a post.  I hope all of you have at least a few moments worth remembering from 2008 (aside from the day you discovered this blog) and let’s all work together to make sure 2009 kicks some serious ass.  For me, finding a project – and a crew – that tops Battlestar Galactica sounds like wishful thinking but, then again, having BSG come back and finding myself working on it was a dream come true itself, so it just proves that we never know what’s hiding around that corner. 

Speaking of boldy going into the future, the image you see above is just a small section of a poster I recently did for a friend’s Star Trek-related project.   If you click on it, you’ll be treated to a hi-res picture that seems fitting for our charge ahead into the new year…