December 22, 2015

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Entertainment December 22, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: Flying R2-D2 Drone, Santa Claus Supercut and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Fan Build of the Day:

Who doesn’t love when R2-D2 flies? One Star Wars fan sees it happen more often now that he’s built a custom drone of the droid (via Mashable):

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Trilogy Recap of the Day:

Whether or not you need to recap before finally seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, here’s the original trilogy retold in 8-bit video game graphics and sound effects:

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Movie Remake of the Day:

And if you need another retelling, here’s a video that redoes Star Wars using clips from other movies, some that influenced George Lucas and some that were influenced by him (via Devour):

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Cosplay of the Day:

Almost everyone loves Rey, so we can look forward to a lot more cosplay of the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens heroine. Here’s one with BB-8 sidekick (via Fashionably Geek):

Fan Art of the Day:

Photographer Manuel Cabenero shot some nude models splashed in milk made to look like Star Wars costumes. See other, more NSFW examples at Design Taxi.

Filmmaker in Focus:

Gabriel Fasano showcases Wes Anderson‘s films as a series of unique and perfect masterpieces:

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Actor in the Spotlight:

The latest episode of No Small Parts profiles the character actor Roberts Blossom, best known today for his role in Home Alone:

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Supercut of the Day:

Burger Fiction will make you sick of Santa Claus with this supercut of St. Nick in the movies:

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Fan Theory of the Day:

Elf may seem like a fun holiday movie, but this bizarre video essay argues that it’s actually very dark tale of slavery and sexual harassment:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of Cast Away. Watch the original trailer for the movie, starring Tom Hanks and a volleyball, below.

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Sports December 22, 2015

WATCH: Drone Falls From Sky, Narrowly Misses Skier In Slalom Competition

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A camera-carrying drone crashed into the ground Tuesday just behind speeding Austrian skier Marcel Hirscher as he competed in a World Cup slalom event.

Hirscher, who finished second, didn’t seem to notice during the race, which took place in Madonna Di Campiglio, Italy. He said afterward, according to ESPN, “This is horrible. This can never happen again. This can be a serious injury.”

Later he tweeted a photo of a screenshot showing the close call with the caption, “Heavy air traffic in Italy.”

Heavy air traffic in Italy ? #crazy #drone #crash #luckyme https://t.co/afvCZTZ6eq

— Marcel Hirscher (@MarcelHirscher) December 22, 2015

This isn’t the first time this year a drone has interrupted a sporting event.

In September, a student flew a drone over the University of Kentucky’s packed football stadium and crashed it into the stands. No one was injured. Just a few days before that, a New York City teacher was arrested for flying a drone into a stadium during a tennis match at the U.S. Open.

While those incidents were ultimately harmless, drone usage is becoming increasingly problematic. Last year a drone incident sparked a riot at a soccer game between Serbia and Albania. In that instance, a drone carrying an Albanian nationalist banner landed on the field, fanning ethnic and nationalist tensions and provoking a fight between both the players and people in the stands.

And incidents are not limited to sporting events. As NPR reported earlier this month, a new study showed there were more than 300 incidents of “close encounters” between drones and manned aircraft in U.S. airspace in less than two years.

The Federal Aviation Administration has grappled with how to regulate drones. It has a series of rules based on whether the drone is for governmental, civil or recreational use.

Under the governmental use umbrella, law enforcement agencies are allowed to employ drones. This year, North Dakota became the first state to legalize armed drone use by police. As NPR reported at the time, the drones can be equipped with tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, pepper spray and Tasers. Meanwhile, police in Tokyo launched a drone designed to capture other drones.

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Business December 22, 2015

SpaceX Successfully Lands Rocket After Launching It Into Space

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SpaceX, the commercial aerospace company, pulled off a major feat Monday night. After pushing satellites towards orbit, the rocket’s booster separated, and safely landed back on earth.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Last night, a rocket from the commercial spaceflight company SpaceX took off from Florida.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Five, four, three, two, one, zero. We have lift off of the Falcon 9.

SHAPIRO: But for rocket fans, the real excitement came 10 minutes later, when the rocket’s massive first stage, more than 15 stories high, came back to Earth.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Stage one has landed.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: LG one, the Falcon has landed. Landing operators, move into procedure.

SHAPIRO: Supporters say the safe return of part of the rocket could change spaceflight forever. Joining me to discuss it is NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel.

Hey there.

GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi there.

SHAPIRO: Looking at the video, it does seem amazing that they were able to do this. How hard is it?

BRUMFIEL: Well, SpaceX says it’s like firing a pencil over the Empire State Building then having it turn around, come back and land vertically in a shoebox.

SHAPIRO: So no big deal.

BRUMFIEL: No. No big deal at all, right. No, I mean, this rocket, at the time it releases its upper stage which is what’s carrying the satellites, it’s going over 3,000 miles an hour. And then it has to flip back around, deploy some fins that kind of help it steer through the atmosphere, fall back to Earth and then right before it lands, fire its engine so it can just float down to the ground. I mean, this is pretty amazing.

SHAPIRO: And the reason to do this amazing thing is ultimately because it saves money. That means you can reuse it, right?

BRUMFIEL: Exactly. So the plan over at SpaceX is, these boosters are these big pieces of metal. They’ve got engines on the bottom that are very expensive. And if you can recycle them, you can really lower the cost. Here’s SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ELON MUSK: The potential cost reduction of it long-term is probably in excess of a factor of a hundred.

BRUMFIEL: So that’s a hundred times cheaper. I should say, we’re a long way away from that right now. It all depends on how much work it takes to refurbish these first stages and use them again – and how often they can be used again, for that matter. They’re going to take this test stage and really examine it closely to learn more about what needs to be done.

SHAPIRO: Geoff, what are the implications of space travel potentially being a hundred times cheaper in the future?

BRUMFIEL: You know, that really is the big question here. There have been studies that show this could really revolutionize the way we could use space. I mean, you could imagine people firing up commercial satellites for all sorts of stuff – everything from agriculture to, like, looking at how people travel around cities. Elon Musk, you know, he has even bigger ambitions. He hopes this technology could one day be used to colonize Mars.

SHAPIRO: Now, Elon Musk is not the only guy in this business. Just last month, another company, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, did something similar. And I gather there has been some posturing between these two billionaires on Twitter?

BRUMFIEL: Yeah, that’s right. So last month, the Bezos company, called Blue Origin, sent up a rocket and it came back down. It looked very similar to this. That rocket was suborbital so it didn’t go as high or as fast. It’s an easier problem to solve. At the time, Elon Musk was sort of condescending on Twitter – basically said, no big deal. This time, Jeff Bezos came back and said, welcome to the club, implying that he’d been the one who’d done it first. I mean, I think if you’re going to have billionaires showing off their big rockets, you know, you might as well have some fun doing it, right?

SHAPIRO: Billionaire burns, from NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel.

Thanks Geoff.

BRUMFIEL: Thank you very much.

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