Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2193

Cosplay Friday #196 – Samus Aran, Pokémon, and More by Termina Cosplay

The work of Shayna Polomchak, a.k.a. Termina Cosplay, first came to my attention when she cosplayed as Scyther. She crafted beautiful, massive wings for the costume and turned the bug-like Pokémon into a fierce ensemble. Her skills aren’t limited to adapting pocket monster looks into stylish costumes; she also rocks at replicating existing looks. Exhibit A: her Samus Aran Zero Suit from Metroid.

Samus Aran (Metroid) | Photo by Eurobeat Kasumi

She nailed this Witcher 3 Triss costume, too.

Triss Merigold (Witcher 3) | Photo by Vordigon Photography

Scroll on down to the gallery below to view more of Shayna’s work. You’ll find a couple of characters from Fairy Tail, a Japanese manga series, and her takes on a couple of Pokémon monsters. See her vast cosplay portfolio by following her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (she has killer Midna and Cia costumes from Legend of Zelda titles).

Do you cosplay or take photographs of cosplayers? Then I want to see your work so we can talk about highlighting your creations in a future Cosplay Friday gallery. If you’re interested, please get in touch with me at alratcliffe@yahoo.com and send hi-res photos you’d like me to feature. Be sure to provide credits for the cosplayers or photographers for each image because giving credit is good manners—bonus points if you include links to relevant Facebook pages or websites. Though I wish I knew all the geek franchises, I don’t, so please let me know who or what is being cosplayed.

Images: Courtesy of Termina Cosplay

THE MAGICIANS Season 2: Syfy’s Crown Jewel Shines Even Brighter (Review)

Warning: the following review contains spoilers from season one of  The Magicians . We’re talking about what’s to come in season two in full detail, so don’t say we didn’t warn you!

“Destiny? It’s bulls–t.” The snarky, straight-talking twentysomething magicians we all fell in love with are back in The Magicians season two, and they’re not holding back their feelings when it comes to facing the problems with which season one left for them all. Sure, Quentin (Jason Ralph) may have discovered the magical world of Fillory from his childhood favorite book series is actually real, and his friend Eliot (Hale Appleman) was crowned High King by the time season one came to a close, but royalty isn’t going to fix any of the Brakebills students’ many, many problems going forward. In fact, gaining a crown is only going to add to the mountain of issues they’re all facing, but it also adds yet another layer of comedy to Syfy’s gloriously meta and modern take on the fantasy genre.

By the time season one drew to a close, everyone’s fate was left up in the air. Julia (Stella Maeve) decided to team up with the Beast (Charles Mesure) to get revenge on Reynard (Mackenzie Astin), the trickster Fox god who raped her. But in doing so, she prevented Quentin, Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), Eliot, Margo (Summer Bishil) and Penny (Arjun Gupta) from finally defeating the Beast and ending his reign of terror on Fillory, Brakebills and all the innocent lives he’s destroyed along the way. The Beast left the group for the dead, literally, as he sliced off Penny’s hands, broke Eliot and Margo’s necks and bled Alice out while Quentin could only look on in horror as his best friend Julia stole their magical knife (the only weapon that could kill the Beast). While many viewers chose to look at Julia’s actions as a betrayal of our heroes, from her perspective, she just went through a major sexual trauma and is coping by focusing on getting revenge on her rapist.

Of course, her actions did leave her friends royally screwed, and season two does take the time to explore their different perspectives on that.

That also means The Magicians clearly won’t be losing 90 percent of the main cast for season two. It was never really a question of whether Eliot, Margo, Penny and Alice would stay dead moving into season two, but rather how they managed to survive their failed showdown with the Beast. But magical resurrections are not the perfect, be-all end-all solution, and it’s no surprise that The Magicians would never rely on such a lazy trope to tie up every loose thread of an entire storyline where other shows might. And this is where the show truly shines: There are constant reminders throughout the season two premiere and subsequent episodes about how while this show might look whimsical, the consequences are anything but.

Sure, the stakes, questions and cliffhangers raised in the final moments of the season one finale are resolved quite literally in the first minutes of the season two premiere, but the day is anything but saved for the new kings and queens of Fillory. Yes, plural. Eliot won’t be the only one struggling with the role of monarch moving forward, and the crown comes with more than just lavish castle settings and fabulous new wardrobe choices for the magicians. The magical wellspring in Fillory is all but drained, the magical god-killing knife is gone and all hope seems to be lost for our heroes heading into this sophomore run. In the wise words of Eliot: must be a Monday!

In the midst of all these disastrous emergency, let’s not forget that Eliot must also cope with the fact that he is now a married man … with a wife. This huge life change isn’t the only consequence he has to deal with now that he’s High King. The sexually fluid and free man is not only forced to be monogamous with a woman, but he also can never go home. His friends can come and go in Fillory whenever they please, but he’s stuck in a foreign place with the responsibility of an entire world on his shoulders. That’s not a great combination for an alcoholic, selfish, manic-depressive person prone to bad decisions. Season one only just scratched the surface on who Eliot is underneath his impeccable wardrobe and witty quips, and this season finally explores his character further. Seeing as how Appleman steals the show no matter what, with the writers giving him even more to chew, he’s proving to be the MVP of the whole series.

If it sounds like The Magicians is losing the comedy and no f–ks given attitude that made it groundbreaking in its first season, that couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, the writers have dialed up everything that worked last season and leaned in to the comedy this time around. That balance helps ground the fantastical elements, making these characters relatable even as they deal with the most unrelatable issues—especially as The Magicians moves more into Fillory in season two. Setting the show mostly in Fillory was a brilliant idea, not only for the immense well of Lev Grossman’s creation from which the writers can draw their stories, but also on a purely visual level.

The sets are beautiful and haunting, magical and foreboding. You get chills every time a new set piece is revealed, and most of the time you can’t tell whether those are good chills or bad chills. One particular shot—you’ll know it when you see it in the premiere—is so breathtaking I actually rewound, paused and took a screenshot, just so I can stare forever at the natural and magical beauty woven together so seamlessly. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give the set designers, post-production, and special effects teams their due for making this show look as amazing as it does on a weekly basis.

Whether or not you read Lev Grossman’s original book trilogy, there’s something new for everyone in its Syfy iteration because it’s not following the stories sequentially. (Just look at how the writers incorporated Julia’s origin story into the first season when her journey wasn’t fully explored until book two!) The TV show is still honoring the books, just in a different way. And honestly, who would want a straightforward adaptation that provides nothing new for book readers? That would just be boring.

One of the highlights of the entire series comes in the first episode back, when a Fillorian test somehow ended up as a performance of Patrick Swayze’s speech from the climax of Dirty Dancing. You really can’t make this stuff up. But the emotional weight of what the first season accomplished is still there, and magnified now as everyone deals with the consequences of choices they made in the heat of the moment.

Eliot can never leave Fillory, and if his friends leave, since time passes in the realms differently he might never even see them again. Penny never gave in fully to believing all the rules and traditions of the fantasy world, so he can’t reap the benefits, even if that means cursing his hands forever. Alice and Quentin still love each other but they each made decisions that forever altered their relationship and no matter how much they want to go back, they can’t — they’re different people now with different goals and desires. Julia teamed up with the Beast to get revenge on Reynard, but if she gives in fully to their partnership, she could lose herself. Even someone who is supposed to be wise and knowledgeable like Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) who banned battle magic from Brakebills decades earlier now needs it from the person he fired in order to save the world.

No one who deals with magic comes out unscathed, and no one has all the answers—season two really drives that point home even more so than last season. Even the gods can mess up, and they frequently do. But hey, if everyone was perfect and magic solved every problem, we wouldn’t have an obsessively addictive show, right? So brace yourselves for a season full of magical screw-ups and shit jokes, because while magic might be real, it actually kind of sucks.

4.5 out of 5 truly magical burritos:

Images: Syfy

The Magicians season two premieres Wednesday, January 25 at 9 p.m. on Syfy.

And ICYMI, our own Alicia Lutes got downright magical with some of the cast:

The Story Behind the X-Men Comic in the LOGAN Trailer

Yesterday, the final trailer for Logan popped its claws and gave us a glimpse of the R-rated goodness to come. Hugh Jackman‘s final Wolverine appearance after 17 years is shaping up to be one of the most exciting X-Men films in the franchise. Aside from X-23 kicking a lot of ass and Professor Xavier’s harder edge, the thing that really stood out in that trailer was a X-Men comic that no one had ever seen before. What’s the scoop on that comic? Today’s Nerdist News is activating Cerebro to bring you the answers!

Join host and Wolverine’s 24th clone, Jessica Chobot, as she unravels the origin of the X-Men comic from Logan. You may have noticed that none of the previous X-Men films directly used any of Marvel’s comic book covers, although X-Men: Apocalypse almost had one of Bill Sienkiewicz’s Dazzler covers in the final cut. For Logan, the comic exists in part because of Jackman himself, since he personally asked Marvel’s Joe Quesada to draw the four page X-Men story that appeared in the trailer, with inker Dan Panosian finishing Quesada’s pencils and contributing a few covers as well. Panosian originally relayed the story to Bleeding Cool.

While Logan didn’t appear to be too impressed by his comic book counterpart, he’s far from the first Marvel superhero to go a little meta. But perhaps the most intriguing part of this is that Marvel and Fox actually found a compromise to include the comic within the film. Hopefully that means more collaboration between the two sides in the future. It may not lead to say…the Fantastic Four movie rights going back to Marvel, but it’s something!

What did you think about the X-Men comic in the Logan trailer? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ BLACK PANTHER Series Brings Back THE CREW

For most of 2016, Ta-Nehisi Coates expanded the reach of Marvel’s Black Panther with a relaunched ongoing series that paved the way for the World of Wakanda spinoff by Roxane Gay and Yona Harvey. Now, Coates is adding another new Black Panther series to his corner of the Marvel Universe, and he’s bringing back the Crew!

Long time comic book fans may recall that The Crew was originally a spinoff from Christopher Priest‘s Black Panther run in 2003. While speaking with Time, Coates revealed that he wanted to bring back all of the characters from that book before discovering that Marvel had placed some of them off limits. That’s why the Black Panther and the Crew ongoing series will instead feature a new team: Misty Knight, Storm, Luke Cage, Manifold, and the Black Panther himself. Coates is co-writing the book with Harvey, and while Marvel hasn’t announced the artist, the company did debut some art by Butch Guice that features the main characters in their civilian identities. It also appears to be heavily influenced by Cage and Knight’s appearances on the Marvel Netflix shows.

John Cassaday’s first cover image from the series also prominently features Knight, which suggests that she may be the focal point for this series. We’ve certainly felt that she’s been ready for the spotlight for a long time, and it’s nice to see her get the recognition.

The new series will be set in Harlem, and most of the leading characters in this book have a connection to that neighborhood. Coates revealed to Time that the opening storyline will deal with the fallout after an activist dies in police custody, but he was quick to say “this is in the air. It’s not like I looked at a Black Lives Matter protest and was like, ‘Hey, I want to write a comic about that.’ But you’re confronted with it every day. So when I sat down to think about what is this story with four black protagonists about, and you start scribbling, that rises up. The events of the day are with me. It seemed like an opportunity to do something. It becomes clear in the first issue that the activist is not just an activist. There’s something more going on there.”

Marvel will release Black Panther and the Crew # 1 later this year.

What do you think about the newest Black Panther series? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!

Images: Marvel Comics

Veritasium Highlights the Ethical Dangers of Not Adapting to Autonomous Cars

Although self-driving vehicles are starting to come online in a big way — Tesla, Uber, and pretty much every other giant company making something with four wheels are racing towards full autonomy— there’s still hesitation among some in regards to their safety. In his latest video, Derek Muller, of the YouTube Channel Veritasium, highlights the reason why fear of self-driving cars is not only unfounded, it’s potentially unethical.

Some of the video focuses specifically on BMW, and its own self-driving tech, but the more general point that Muller makes is that there is a lot of death and injury happening out on the world’s roads every day, and it’s due to human error 94% of the time.

Muller notes that “more than 30,000 people are killed each year in the U.S. alone” and that more than 2,000,000 are injured. And for a truly astonishing number, the WHO reports that there were 1,250,000 road deaths worldwide in 2013. For comparison, a report from the Institute for Economics and Peace said that there were 18,000 deaths from terrorist attacks in the same year.

Muller also points out the fact that in 2015, “half of all traffic fatalities occurred on highways,” so even “autonomous driving on a highway could save… a lot of lives.”

In an unrelated but relevant nod to Muller’s point, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (and SpaceX), recently tweeted out a report conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which found that “the data show that the Tesla vehicles crash rate dropped by almost 40 percent after Autosteer installation.”

Final report on Autopilot issued by @NHTSAgov is very positive https://t.co/KsOZSrr3l9

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2017

Report highlight: “The data show that the Tesla vehicles crash rate dropped by almost 40 percent after Autosteer installation.”

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2017

What do you think about Muller’s points on the need to adapt to self-driving vehicles more quickly? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Images: Veritasium

Michael Keaton Thrills and Chills with THE FOUNDER (review)

Thanks to kid-coveted Happy Meals, catchy commercial jingles, and locations that blanket the nation, every American knows McDonald’s. But too few know the true and twisted story of the iconic fast food franchise’s origins. Enter The Founder, a biopic and cautionary tale that’s so relevant to our times it’s dizzying.

Michael Keaton stars as Ray Kroc, the inventive businessman who grew one successful burger joint in San Bernardino, California, to a sprawling corporation known worldwide. In his fifties, he was a floundering traveling salesman, looking for his next big idea. He found it when brothers Mac and Dick McDonald revealed their revolutionary fast food system, which delivers burgers, french fries, and milk shakes in seconds. Inspired, Kroc urges the brothers to franchise, with him heading expansion. Of course he’ll succeed, but the how is harrowing.

Cleverly crafted by screenwriter Robert D. Siegel (The Wrestler, Big Fan) and director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), The Founder delivers two tales of the American Dream: both Kroc’s version and the McDonalds’. Over dinner, the deeply bonded brothers (John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman in a pitch-perfect pairing) tell Kroc their story, which involves a movie theater crushed by the Stock Market Crash of 1929, a whiz-bang burger stand in need of a new location, a whimsical anecdote about a bridge, and an emphasis on quality over all else.

Hancock presents their origin efficiently, with a series of charming black and white photos, and spirited flashbacks that show the brothers sketching out a kitchen’s layout on a tennis court with the help of some chalk, a bit of elbow grease, and a fleet of eager employees performing a dry run of their in-the-works Speedee System. Lynch and Offerman underscore this old-school charm playing the brothers like they’re Gracie Allen and George Burns. Lynch, with a sheepish smile and a garrulous nature is the kind-hearted fool, not dumb, but definitely naïve. Offerman is the stalwart straight man, punctuating punch lines and playing the heavy when one’s demanded. Together, they are so warm and wonderful, you completely get why Kroc wants to be a part of their world. But that’s not all he wants.

The brothers’ story is one of diligence and ingenuity. The kind where ordinary hard working people are rewarded for being hard working and ordinary. But Kroc’s is that dark side of the American Dream, where ambition leads to greed, leads to an all-consuming need to “win,” no matter what. Kroc doesn’t care about quality, he cares about cold hard cash. Prior to sitting down for The Founder, I was completely ignorant of Kroc’s story. Thus, I was hit hard by the slow burn reveal that Keaton–who has made a career on playing the American everyman and hero in movies like Mr. Mom, Gung Ho, and Batman–is the film’s duplicitous villain. Here, Kroc not only cons the McDonald’s, but us too.

With a peppy score and a lovable American icon at its center, Hancock knowingly lures audiences in to what seems a common inspiring tale of the triumph of perseverance. The beginning is jaunty, establishing Kroc as a hard-working man with the gift of gab, an undeniable charm, and desperate need for the right break. You root for him. When he finally meets the McDonalds, you cheer for him, and you continue to cheer for him as he stacks up franchises, finally on the path he’s so long sought. But then, somewhere in the second act, there’s a disturbing sea change. The spirited score grows vaguely sinister. Kroc’s dialogue becomes sharper, his warmth wanes. And his actions become more and more despicable in the name of success. Before our very eyes, Keaton takes the good will earned over decades and shrewdly uses it to con us into loving a con man, a con man who will initially make our hearts soar, but ultimately leave us heartbroken and reeling.

Sly and sensational, this film is further proof Keaton is owed the Oscar he’s been courting with Birdman and Spotlight. But more than this, The Founder is an alarming reminder of how wealth is a sign of success, not virtue. A blustering businessman may seem to have all the answers. But if you want the true measure of a man, it might be best to look at the path that led him to victory, and survey how many broken promises, shattered bonds, and outright crimes litter it.

4 out of 5 burritos. 

Image: The Weinstein Company

Peeqo the GIF Robot is a Constant GIF Party and The Perfect Work Partner

The dream for many roboticists, it seems, is to not simply evolve machines as tools, but ultimately to invent a new species of best friend/co-worker. But to create machines that we humans intuitively bond with — that don’t eventually rise up to spite us like the ones in Westworld or Ex Machina — a lot of evolution needs to take place. It seems that on the way to building a (non-murderous) Maeve or an (again, non-murderous) Ava, there could be an evolutionary stop off at Peeqo: the robot that interacts using only GIFs, helps you with your work, and also seems utterly, painfully squeezable.

For his thesis project at NYU’s ITP school (a graduate program that aims to “explore the imaginative uses of media and technology”), Abhishek Singh created Peeqo, a small desktop robot that interacts with its users entirely through GIFs. In the clip above, we see the little guy (it’s apparently a he) in action, turning off lights, playing music, and even monitoring Singh’s Reddit usage.

Singh noted in his thesis project presentation (below), that “GIFs have become a language of sorts of the internet.” He also said that the ability for emotive robots to really express emotion is critical, and that the idea of merging these two ideas “would be exciting.”

According to the Peeqo demonstrations, the result of the merger between GIFs and emotive robot is indeed exciting, and hilarious. By utilizing GIFs, as well as quirky movements of its body and a design that can only be described as cuddly-wuddly, Peeqo essentially becomes a far more personable Amazon Echo or Google Home. Singh said that ultimately “Peeqo’s purpose is to be… a workplace assistant [and that he’s] supposed to help you keep track of your work, to get the information you want in hand, and most importantly, give you… small moments of fun, delight, and entertainment to get you through the day.”

“As human beings, we’ve always wanted, at least I feel, we’ve always had this… desire to connect with robots,” Singh added in his thesis project presentation, to “move from [using them as] tools to partnership.” And Peeqo seems like a great step toward that goal. Just remember not to mispronounce “GIF” around him.

What do you think about Peeqo? Respond with your opinion in GIF form in the comments below!

Images: Abhishek Singh

This Full Orchestral TWIN PEAKS Tribute Was A One-Man Job

We are but three months away from the premiere of the long (LONG) awaited third season of Twin Peaks on Showtime. In the lead-up to the two hour premiere episode on May 21, many fans are revisiting not only the original 1990-91 series and its prequel film, Fire Walk With Me, but also listening to the brilliant and iconic soundtrack from series composer Angelo Badalamenti. Badalmenti’s score is as much a part of why Twin Peaks is TWIN PEAKS as John Williams’ score is part of what makes Star Wars what it is. It’s hard to imagine David Lynch’s unique world without it.

Although Badalamenti’s score is epic and sweeping, until now, it has almost never been done with a full orchestra behind it (the two notable exceptions are the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Brussels Philharmonic. ) Now, thanks to the folks over at Welcome to Twin Peaks, we’ve learned about David Locke, a UK-based recording artist, guitar teacher and session musician, who has created his own 7-minute orchestral interpretation of Angelo Badalamenti‘s “Laura Palmer’s Theme” and “Twin Peaks Theme” — and he did it all by his lonesome.

In a statement to Welcome to Twin Peaks, David Locke said his one-man orchestra was accomplished by using the following musical instruments: “the strings section are violins 1 and 2, violas, cello, double basses. Woodwinds like flutes, bassoons, clarinets, oboes. A brass section of trumpets, french horns, trombones, tuba and Wagner horns. Then some percussion too. Then my guitar and bass guitar… and of course the piano and synth pads.” What? that’s it??  (I kid.) You can now hear the entire 7-minute Twin Peaks musical suite in the video above.

What do you think of this amazing musical tribute? Does it whet your appetite even further for the return to Twin Peaks in May? Let us know down below in the comments.

Image: David Locke

For more TV music, here’s the Game of Thrones theme on kazoos!

Notoriously Expensive LEGO Prices Scale Linearly, Remain Constant Over Time

If there’s one big gripe common among brickheads, it’s that the prices of LEGO sets are quite lofty (plus maybe not enough spaceships). But two disparate people interested in the plastique fantastique eschewed conjecture in favor of hard data, and found that LEGO prices scale linearly with piece count, and that on average, prices of sets have actually remained constant over the last couple of decades.

In a recent Reddit post published by user proxyformyrealname, a graph originally created and then posted to twitter by Ken Steif shows that the cost of a LEGO set increases linearly according to piece count. (Steif controls for both the theme of the set, and the year.)

My 3 y/o (ahem) loves #lego. Using @brickset data, controlling for theme & year, each add. piece on avg. adds $0.09 to set price. #dataviz pic.twitter.com/Uf0Fcrta3c

— Ken Steif (@KenSteif) January 14, 2017

Steif, who collected his data from brickset.com (a major hub for the bric-a-brick world), found that “each additional piece adds $0.09 to the price of the set, on average.” The idea that some sets having a far better price/piece ratio may be overblown (although perhaps not totally untrue). But while this may seem reasonable, it could still be that LEGO set prices have increased wildly over time, right? Not exactly.

In unrelated research by Andrew Sielen in 2013, it was found that (again, according to brickset.com) the average price for a LEGO set has actually remained roughly constant over the last 20 years. Sielen, whose research is absolutely superb in terms of rigor and presentation, notes that “From what our data shows, it seems that the notion that LEGO is increasing in price is false at least in regards to the last couple decades. Since around 2006, the average price of a piece of LEGO has remained relatively stable between 10 and 13 cents apiece.”

When the reports are considered together, it seems that in regards to LEGO pricing, you can expect to pay $.009 for each extra piece a particular set has, and also expect that the average price of any particular set will remain constant over time (when adjusted for inflation). Licensed sets — Star Wars LEGO sets presumably being the most popular examples of this — do still appear to cost more than generic LEGO sets, however. So if you want to make sure you’re paying the average price for some LEGO rather than above average, make sure to mix in plenty of City and Ninjango on your next shopping spree.

What do you think about LEGO’s pricing? Give us all your brickheaded thoughts in the comments below!

Images: Wikimedia / Benjamin D. Esham

Giant Fighting Robot with Massive 8-Foot Knife Arms is Anything But Crappy

Let’s say you have a generally useless chopping machine, one that just so happens to be extremely dangerous. What should you do with it? Would the wise thing be to simply dismantle it so it can’t harm anyone, or should you try modifying it to make it more utilitarian and safer?

Wrong. No matter what you said you are wrong. Because it turns out what you should do — the only thing to do actually — is to make it way, way bigger and attach it to an awesome giant fighting mech robot. Duh.

That’s what the team over at MegaBots did with the knife chopping machine originally designed by the Queen of Shitty Robots herself, Simone Giertz. If you don’t remember her original crappy contraption you can see it in action here.

Obviously funny, but totally useless. (Unless you’re goal is to eventually chop off your roommate’s hand.)A pparently all it needed to become the greatest thing ever was to have it supersized, with giant eight-foot, 500-pound steel knives (knives that despite their size are sharp enough to finely slice a lime in half), attached to the MegaBots’ multi-million dollar giant fighting robot.

Let us pause for a brief second and let that soak in: a giant fighting robot with massive steel knives for arms. They should have sent a poet…

The MegaBots team said they decided to “have some fun” with their Mk.III combat robot, their latest and most advanced mech warrior to date (they previously showed off their Mk.II being tested against a wrecking ball in preparation for their giant robot fight with Japan). So while they are still completing work on the legs, they decided to turn Simone’s chopping machine into its arms, because they are the best. (Although we’d replace the phrase “have some fun” with “build the coolest ******** thing in the world.”)

In this additional video from Tested, Norm and Simone got an explanation from the MegaBots guys about what makes this newest robot more advanced than the previous versions, the factors and considerations that drive the building process, and their hopes that by sharing their template it will be used by others to build their own giant fighting robots, a position we strongly support.

Giant Fighting Robots 2020!

Although, when you see a giant knife-armed robot wearing an over-sized chef’s hat, it does make it feel slightly less imposing. Well, that is until it cuts a washing machine in half like it was a head of cabbage, which the machine also did. (Seriously, eight foot knives should not be as effective as a samurai sword. These things are no joke.)

There’s also another video of the robot in action from the MegaBots team themselves, which you can also watch here.

Forget making life easier for mankind, this is really why technology is great, because it can turn a useless little chopping machine into a giant knife-arm robot.

Although, maybe they shouldn’t try this with all of Simone’s shitty robots. We’re fairly certain we don’t need a giant robot that does something like this.

What other crappy contraption that Simone has built would make for a great super-sized addition to the MegaBots robot? What other types of fighting arms should they consider? Slice and dice our comments section below with your best ideas.

Images: MegaBots/Tested/Simone Giertz