1412 – Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013)

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox is a direct-to-video animated film adaptation of the 2011 comic book crossover “Flashpoint” by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert. It is scripted by Jim Krieg and directed by Jay Oliva. (wiki)

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013) is an alternate reality horror story (…), where The Flash (voiced by Justin Chambers) changes the past and transforms the present into world at war. In this alternate future, Flash has no powers, Bruce Wayne is dead (turning Wayne’s father into a brutal masked vigilante), and superheroes Wonder Woman and Aquaman are vicious warlords ready to destroy the earth in their blood feud. It’s the butterfly effect as comic book apocalypse and it’s a dark, brutal animated film. Warped-mirror versions of beloved DC heroes are turned into bloodthirsty warriors murdering one another (and even slaughtering children, albeit off-screen) until the frame is littered with corpses, and The Flash needs to recover his speed to set things right. This one earns its PG-13 rating (it features bloody violence and even some mild foul language) and is aimed at a more mature graphic novel audience. The voice cast includes Michael B. Jordan as Cyborg, Cary Elwes as Aquaman, and Vanessa Marshall as Wonder Woman. (Sean Axmaker)

imdb   /   rt

1391 – Abominable (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Shanghai/ Hong Kong >  Sichuan region > the Gobi Desert  > the banks of the Yellow River > the Himalayas

Abominable is a 2019 computer-animated adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation and Pearl Studio. It was written and directed by Jill Culton and co-directed by Todd Wilderman, and stars the voices of Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson, Tsai Chin, and Michelle Wong. (wiki)

imdb

1376 – Atari: Game Over (2014 documentary)

A crew digs up all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s. (imdb)

Atari: Game Over is a 2014 documentary film directed by Zak Penn about the North American video game crash of 1983, using the Atari video game burial excavation as a starting point. Eurogamer called it “one of the best films about gaming this year and should be seen by anyone with an interest in the medium’s early wild west years.” (wiki)

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A Psychological Exploration of Engagement in Geek Culture

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1368

Last year, the astrophysicist Adam Frank implored an audience at Google that we see climate change – and the newly baptised geological age of the Anthropocene – against this cosmological backdrop. The Anthropocene refers to the effects of humanity’s energy-intensive activities upon Earth. Could it be that we do not see evidence of space-faring galactic civilisations because, due to resource exhaustion and subsequent climate collapse, none of them ever get that far? If so, why should we be any different?

A few months after Frank’s talk, in October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s update on global warming caused a stir. It predicted a sombre future if we do not decarbonise. And in May, amid Extinction Rebellion’s protests, a new climate report upped the ante, warning: “Human life on earth may be on the way to extinction.”

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… apocalyptic prophecies are designed to reveal the ultimate moral meaning of things. It’s in the name: apocalypse means revelation. Extinction, by direct contrast, reveals precisely nothing and this is because it instead predicts the end of meaning and morality itself – if there are no humans, there is nothing humanly meaningful left.

The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst

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THOMAS MOYNIHAN MAY 11, 2020

PALLADIUM

GOVERNANCE FUTURISM

Our Visions of the Future Determine Our Society Today

“The future may not look like satanic mills in space, after all.”

1366 – Les triplettes de Belleville (2003)

timespace coordinates: 1930’s – 1950’s France > Belleville (an amalgam of New York City, Montreal and Quebec City

The Triplets of Belleville (French: Les Triplettes de Belleville) is a 2003 animated comedy film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. The film is Chomet’s first feature film and was a France | Belgium | Canada | UK | Latvia | USA co-production.

There is little dialogue; much of the narrative is conveyed through song and pantomime. It tells the story of Madame Souza, an elderly woman who goes on a quest to rescue her grandson Champion, a Tour de France cyclist, who has been kidnapped by the French mafia for gambling purposes and taken to the city of Belleville. She is accompanied by Champion’s loyal but obese hound, Bruno, and joined by the Triplets of Belleville, music hall singers from the 1930s, whom she meets in the city.

The film was highly praised by audiences and critics for its unique style of animation. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards—Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for “Belleville Rendez-vous”. It was also screened out of competition (hors concours) at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. (wiki)

imdb / Art of the Triplets of Belleville / The Triplets of Belleville / Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003) – Background Layouts

1365 – ACID RAIN (2019 short)

timespace coordinates: focus on the rave scene in post-communist Eastern Europe

“Polish animator Tomek Popakul’s riveting Acid Rain has been one of the darlings of the festival circuit this year. The mo-cap/2D animated short, which centers on a young runaway from an Eastern European village who falls in with a bad crowd, has been praised for its edgy visuals, memorable electronic music and highly original point of view.” (read more – animationmagazine)

imdb

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Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race

1357 – Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018)

timespace coordinates: Victorian era Gotham City

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is a 2018 American animated steampunk superhero film produced by Warner Bros. Animation and distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, featuring an alternate version of the DC Comics character Batman. It is the thirtieth film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. It is directed and produced by Sam Liu and written by James Krieg, loosely based on the one-shot graphic novel of the same name by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. (wiki)

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, originally published in 1989, is considered to be DC Comics’ first Elseworlds story. “In ELSEWORLDS, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places–some that have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist.” – DC editorial copy.

Influences   /   imdb