Friday Afternoon Links

It’s Friday, and that can only mean one thing. This week: Pratchett, Akira, Captain America and a freaky dancing Android…

We’re going to start off this week with a huge update on all the cool stuff out there being adapted and remade and generally being brought back to life. And where better to kick off than with the news that Terry Pratchet’s Discworld is being adapted to a crime-of-the-week TV series? Now, we don’t mind procedurals, as such, but we do hope this doesn’t end up anything like CSI (no matter what the story says).

Also coming to TV is an adaptation of John Layman and Rob Guillory’s comic Chew – the story of a federal agent who gets a psychic impression from the things he eats. It sounds darkly tasty.

Or perhaps movie remakes are more your thing? In that case, have Akira. Oh, you meant remakes of so-bad-it’s-good z-grade horror alien flicks? Well, for you, we've got Plan 9 from Outer Space. Of course, how you feel about either of these will depend entirely on how much you trust the people involved and how you felt about the originals. Personally, we’re on Team ‘sure, you *can* make a version of Plan 9 with a proper script, special effects, real actors and a decent budget, but that doesn’t mean you *should*.’

This week’s essential trailerage comes thanks to Captain America, which released its first proper trailer this week – because apparently the Superbowl spot wasn’t a trailer so much as an ad. Less essential, but certainly amusing – although perhaps not for the reasons the studios were hoping, is this trailer for the remake of Conan the Barbarian. Uh huh.

If you’re one of those people who’s been hearing all about HBO’s upcoming Game of Thrones and thinking it looks kind of awesome while secretly worrying that you don’t know enough about George R.R. Martin’s book series to get into the TV adaptation? Well, this primer is for you. Don’t worry – the fact that there is a primer suggests you’re far from the only one.

There’s no denying that getting a tattoo is fraught with danger. We’ve yet to see body art that is universally loved, and we sure aren’t seeing it in this gallery of 22 of the most geeky sci-fi tattoos out there. These at least have the benefit of being generally well crafted and not looking like prison art, but, dare we say it, some of them are still a bit scary.

In things we did like this week, the folks over at Kotaku have a very interesting interview with a writer of Dragon Age II defending the game’s sexuality balance against criticism by a forum user. It’s intelligent and thought-provoking and, we think, makes all the right points.

And finally, it’s silly funny video time. This first one has divided opinion in this small pocket of the Atomic office. Some of us find it cute. Some find it creepy. But all of us felt compelled to watch the dancing Android do its thing at least for a little while. Also falling into the cute-or-creepy category (with a definite lean towards creepy) is Blinky – your friendly robot helper. Nice, huh?