Long before he was the most dangerously incompetent governor California has ever had, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the biggest action superstar on the planet, and everything he touched turned to box office gold.

Most of my generation first saw him in the title role of 1984’s The Terminator, a movie that was perfectly suited to his, um, acting ability, and (unfortunately for science fiction fans) cemented him in the minds of studio executives as the guy for science fiction movies.

As I observed in Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s:

Sci-Fi/Action is the most common Schwarzenegger hybrid, and he can be found chewing up cigars and scenery in some of the biggest blockbusters of the 80s and 90s.

In true action star fashion, Schwarzenegger totally overwhelms the roles he plays to the point of self-parody in each one. In the 80s, as a science fiction fan, I hated this, but with the benefit of time and the ability to not take these movies so seriously, I can enjoy them for the guilty pleasures that they are.

For this month’s Geek in Review, I reached into the vault, and pulled out a few of the future Governator’s more memorable sci-fi vehicles. To get perspective from the damn kids today, I convinced my 17 year-old son, Nolan, to watch them with me and give me a comment on each one.

The films are presented in chronological order, and are ranked on the McBain scale, which hopefully needs no further explanation.

The Running Man (1987)
In the future, society has collapsed and turned into a police state. The only thing more popular than rioting for food is watching the hit game show The Running Man, where convicted criminals try to escape from a hilarious group of “stalkers” who use the power of ice hockey, chainsaws, and LEDs to catch them. Arnold Schwarzenegger sits at the center of this Venn diagram, and with the help of his friends and a lot of spandex jumpsuits, manages to get the highest ratings ever, and bring down the government. Also, Mick Fleetwood is there.

Awesomely Awesome Because: To the film’s credit, it stops pretending to be something it’s not by the second reel. When Schwarzenegger tells Running Man host Richard Dawson’s Killian, “I’ll be back,” we know exactly what to expect from the rest of the film, and we’re not disappointed. Listening to Schwarzenegger and Maria Conchita Alonso speak heavily-accented dialog, and watching the excess of the late 80s –– on full, unapologetic display –– is unintentionally hilarious. Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Richard Dawson essentially play themselves in unselfconscious, uncomplicated performances that provide the perfect balance to Schwarzenegger’s ludicrous, over the top collection of McBainesque one-liners.

Awesomely Awful Because: The whole thing collapses under the weight of Schwarzenegger’s ludicrous, over the top collection of McBainesque one-liners. It’s like there are two movies struggling to get made here: one is a dark science fiction tale about a police state that abuses the public’s insatiable appetite for violence to maintain its grip on power, and the other is a series of convoluted scenes that exist simply to let Schwarzenegger feed it.

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Cigar-chomping? Check. Convoluted display of World’s Strongest Man-like feat of strength: Check. Quoting of The Line from Terminator? Check. Sappy, forced, “I learned something today” moment? Check. Uncomfortable romantic moment with a woman who’s too young for him? Check.

Nolan Says: “This movie needs 33% more skin-tight jumpsuits.”

McBain Ranking: 11 out of 10. (In fact, this may be the film that created McBain.)


Predator (1987)
Hey, did you hear the one about the guy who was dropped into the jungle with a bunch of red shirts and Apollo Creed? You know, the one with the alien and the cool thermal camera vision? Okay, it’s the one where Jesse Ventura has that ridiculous chain gun, and he’s all, “I ain’t got time to bleed!” Yes! That one!

Awesomely Awesome Because: Like The Running Man, once it drops the pretense of being something it’s not, and spends the rest of the film letting Arnold kick ass and struggle to pronounce names, it’s a whole lot of fun. And unlike the other films on this list, Schwarzenegger can’t really overwhelm the role, because he’s pretty much playing his character from Commando. The supporting cast is fine, and the climactic fight with the Predator is awesome.

Awesomely Awful Because: All the dialog in the non-Predator portion of the film is just painful to listen to. The entire MacGuffin about dropping an elite unit of commandos into the jungle who do the CIA’s dirty work –– but are surprised and pissed when they find out they’re doing the CIA’s dirty work –– feels like it was just lifted from another film. And for an elite secret fighting force that gets in and gets out before anyone knows they were there, they sure do make a lot of noise, fire thousands of rounds of ammunition, and never hit anyone. Still: GET TO DA CHOPPA!

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Cigar-chomping? Check. Convoluted display of World’s Strongest Man-like feat of strength: Check. Sappy, forced, “I learned something today” moment? Check.

Nolan Says: “It’s so sad that they gave that big guy such a tiny little gun.”

McBain Ranking: 6 out of 10.


Total Recall (1990)
Douglas Quaid is a construction worker with the hottest wife on the planet, who wants to fuck him every time he breathes. Because he is some kind of asshole, this dream life isn’t perfect enough for him, and he constantly fantasizes about living on Mars. His entire household budget goes toward keeping his wife’s hair huge, though, so they can’t afford to take an actual trip. Luckily for him, a company called Rekall can implant vacation memories that anyone can afford, so he visits Mars that way. But just visiting Mars isn’t awesome enough, so he tells Rekall to make him a secret agent, throw in some alien artifacts, and a nefarious plot to destroy the planet. He also wants to nail a girl while he’s there who isn’t nearly as sexy as his wife, and is actually kind of skanky. Seriously. Asshole!

Something goes wrong (or does it?) at Rekall, and Quaid finds out that ... he’s a secret agent on a mission to Mars, where there are lots of alien artifacts and he’s nailing a girl who isn’t nearly as sexy as his wife. Before we’re done, people try to kill him, he uncovers a nefarious plot, saves the world, and gets the girl –– who isn’t as sexy as his wife. We’re not sure if he’s dreamed the whole thing, but one thing is crystal clear: this guy is an asshole.

Awesomely Awesome Because: Throughout the whole film, we’re left to wonder if the whole thing is a dream or not, and there are an equal number of clues to support both conclusions. Anchored by reliable science fiction villains Ronny Cox (Robocop) and Michael Ironside (Scanners) it’s a great 70s-style science fiction thriller, right up until the third act, when the whole thing falls apart and becomes an intelligence-insulting action movie with science so bad, it couldn’t even fool George W. Bush. If you’re hoping for a faithful adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s classic We Can Remember it for You Wholesale –– as I was in 1990 –– you’re going to be profoundly disappointed. But if you’re willing to suspend all of your disbelief, you’ll be glad you got your ass to Mars.

Awesomely Awful Because: It won an academy award for its visual effects, but the miniatures, blue screens, and foam rubber puppets do not age (or convert to DVD) well. However, they’re not nearly as bad or distracting as the terrible atmospheric pseudoscience at the end of the film, or the 35 minutes of mind-numbing gun battles and action movie idiocy that precede it.

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Convoluted display of World’s Strongest Man-like feat of strength: Check. Uncomfortable romantic moment with a woman who’s too young for him? You know that’s going to be a nice big check.

Nolan says: “That blond girl was kind of hot, but I’m really disappointed he didn’t have a single cigar.”

McBain Ranking: 2 out of 10.


The 6th Day (2000)
Adam Gibson, a mild-mannered helicopter pilot and dedicated family man who has recently gotten a face lift, has been cloned without his knowledge. As if watching his clone smoke his cigars and bang his wife isn’t bad enough, a whole bunch of other clones are trying to kill him. Also, there are clones.

Awesomely Awesome Because: The science fiction is great, the art direction is ultra cool, and who doesn’t want to live in this future of virtual girlfriends, remote controlled helicopters, cloned pets, and an XFL that lasted more than one season? The supporting performances from Robert Duvall, Michael Rapapport, and especially Tony Goldwin are just outstanding.

Awesomely Awful Because: While there aren’t as many product placements as Demolition Man, the few we see are as obvious and distracting as those in Ghost Dad, but that’s not the worst of it. The 6th Day had the potential to be a science fiction classic; it deals with some very serious ethical questions about how far we’ll go to cure diseases, the rights of cloned humans, and what it even means to be human. But even with its great supporting cast, and solid, smart writing, it can’t achieve escape velocity from Schwarzenegger’s limited acting abilities and obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms. In fact, of all the roles he overwhelms in sci-fi movies, this is probably the most egregious example. Adam Gibson is supposed to be a talented but mild mannered helicopter pilot who loves his family, and still holds on to the good old days when clones only existed in bad movies. But by the end of the first act, Schwarzenegger has turned him into a gun-toting psychopath who doesn’t think twice about killing anyone who gets in his way, and actually seems to enjoy it. And it’s simply unforgivable that we had an opportunity to finally watch him fight himself, but the whole thing ended after just one punch.

Obligatory Schwarzeneggerisms: Unnecessary biceps flexing? Check. Cigar-chomping? Check. Quoting of The Line from Terminator? Check. Sappy, forced, “I learned something today” moment? Check. Uncomfortable romantic moment with a woman who’s too young for him? Check and mate.

Nolan Says: “I’ve actually seen this before. It does not improve upon a second viewing.”

McBain Ranking: 4.5 out of 10.


Some of you may be wondering why Terminator 2 isn't on this list. Well, the truth is, I love Terminator 2, and I don't feel guilty about it at all.

Wil Wheaton will be back.

Hey, remember me? My name’s Wil, and I used to write about geek stuff once a week. Well, now I’m doing it once a month. It’s good to be back.

My extremely active imagination was forged in the playground fire of a childhood spent weak and strange. I read books while other kids played football; I played and wrote computer games while other teens went to makeout parties. While I couldn’t get to second base on the kickball field at school or in Justine Baker’s house, by the end of middle school I had taken the One Ring to Mordor, destroyed the Death Star, and designed and populated countless dungeons.

The real world was a pretty miserable place for a kid like me. I did everything I could to find ways to step out of it: one page at a time in a book or one quarter at a time in the arcade, the more immersive the game, the better. I was never a huge fan of Battlezone’s gameplay, but it remains the closest I’ve ever come to actually driving a tank. I always favored the sit-down versions of games like Pole Position, Spy Hunter, and Sinistar. They felt more . . . real . . . than their stand-up brothers, providing a cleaner escape from the kids at Pinball Plus who took pitiless joy in pointing out that my shoes were Traxx from Kmart, not Vans from the mall.

While game designers and arcade owners did all they could with cabinet systems and sound design (I defy anyone to tell me they didn’t want their Slush Puppy “shaken, not stirred” after a particularly rousing round of Spy Hunter, with music blasting behind their heads, their feet jammed down on the gas, and imagined breezes blowing through their feathered hair), it was our imagination that did most of the work of creating the alternate reality, especially on our console systems at home.

The earliest video games didn’t just encourage us to use our imaginations when we played them, they forced us to. Yar’s Revenge, the best-selling original title on the Atari 2600, has simple yet entertaining gameplay, but it was supported by an extraordinarily rich backstory, turning it into one chapter in an epic struggle for cosmic justice. When I was 9, I wasn’t just chipping away at the shield while I readied my Zorlon cannon; I was helping the Yar extract revenge on the Qotile for the destruction of their planet, Razak IV, as illustrated in the comic that came with the game.

When I was 10 or 11, I arranged a TV tray, a dining room chair, and a worn blanket to make a small tent in front of our 24-inch TV set. I carefully moved our Atari 400 onto the tray and plugged Star Raiders into the cartridge slot. I flipped the power on, picked up the joystick, and booted up my imagination as I sat in the command chair of my very own space ship. For the next hour, I was a member of the Atarian Starship Fleet. I was all that stood between the Zylon Empire and the destruction of humanity. Through my cockpit’s viewscreen (developed at great expense by the RCA corporation back on Earth) I blasted Zylon starships and Zylon basestars, and I would have defeated them all, if my meddling mother hadn’t made me stop and eat dinner!

Over the years, I built bigger and better immersive environments for myself, using transistor radios and walkie-talkies to complete a cockpit with a Vectrex as the main viewer. I made maps of whatever jungle I explored as Pitfall Harry and hung them on my bedroom walls. I created star charts and galactic maps for everything from Asteroids to Cosmic Ark. When I copied game programs out of Antic magazine, I dimmed the lights and did it in the dark, because that seemed like something real hackers would do. (This probably explains a rash of headaches suffered by real hackers throughout the ’80s and ’90s.)

In 1984, after cutting my teeth on the Atari 400 and TI-99/4A, I got my first Macintosh computer. While it had word processing and drawing ability like nothing I’d seen up to that point in my life, it didn’t have any real games, and its programming environment was confounding to the point of uselessness. There wasn’t enough combined imagination in the world to make MacVegas fun, especially when my friends with Commodores and PCs could show off a game like King’s Quest. I was despondent.

My disappointment softened when I discovered Macventure games by ICOM Simulations: DeJa Vu in 1985, Uninvited in 1986, and Shadowgate in 1987. While these games weren’t as technologically advanced or immersive as some in the arcades, they gave me access to worlds that were richer than the ones I’d visited before. They felt less linear, less finite, and engaged my imagination in ways I hadn’t felt since I built my first Atarian Starship in our living room so many years before. And when I finished them, I got a diploma that I could print out – slowly – on my dot-matrix Imagewriter.

As I grew older and came of age in the ’80s, I looked to gaming more for stimulation and entertainment than for escape. I was still attracted to immersive environments, though, and loved games like Defender of the Crown and NeTrek. Around 1988 or 1989, an unlikely game captured my imagination and transported me to another world like nothing had before. Maybe it’s because I was such a huge geek, maybe it’s because I’d been reading Choose Your Own Adventure books since I was in fourth grade, or maybe it’s because I was working on Star Trek every day and my imagination was constantly in an excited state, but Infocom’s The Lurking Horror completely pulled me into its virtual world. It was just green text on a black background, and there wasn’t even any sound, but I was Flynn to its MCP. I spent hours – okay, days – exploring G.U.E. Tech and the nightmares therein. My imagination took the words and created something scary and real. I had finally found the totally immersive game I’d been looking for my entire life in my fragile eggshell mind, where I got to control everything from the sound of a floor waxer to the darkness of the steam tunnels. After I finished it, I played every interactive fiction title I could get my hands on, from Zork to Leather Goddesses of Phobos to Planetfall to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (I think I’ll get over Macho Grande before I get over my inability to capture the babelfish without using Invisiclues™.)

My kids live in a very different world than I did. Their immersive, narrative gaming experiences are the space shuttle to my paper airplane. Several months ago, I showed my 17-year-old stepson some of the classic Infocom games that I loved when I was his age. After growing up in a world where our Xbox 360 is more powerful than every console I owned in my entire childhood, combined and squared, he could appreciate the historical significance but was otherwise unimpressed. (“This is what gaming was for you? That’s weird.”) I was a little saddened, but it quickly passed. After all, when I was his age, I could only dream of one day putting myself into a living, breathing world like Liberty City. It’s a consequence of progress, I guess, and I’m sure that one day he’ll show my incredulous grandchildren these games he used to play that were confined to a television set. (“You had to use an external console, not a chipslot? That’s weird.”)

As I wrote this column, I got a jones to hop in a bathysphere and spend some time back in Rapture. I already finished Bioshock once, but it wasn’t the plasmids or the music or the visual design that pulled me back; it was the story. It was a desire to experience Andrew Ryan’s world once again, to find every single diary and explore every single room, to feel like I was back under the sea in that incredible place.

I played for several hours one day, discovering some new areas and reliving some half-remembered favorites. I eventually found myself under Sander Cohen’s spotlight, pulled away only when my wife asked me – for what was apparently the third or fourth time – to come to dinner. I saved the game and shut down the console. After we ate, I grabbed my controller, and prepared to go back to Fort Frolic.

What I found was worse than a room filled with Splicers: the dreaded Red Ring of Death. To anyone who doubts the narrative power of modern video games, I submit myself: I felt like I was in the middle of a book, only to have it ripped from my hands and thrown into a fire. I felt like I was watching a movie, only to have the film catch and burn through somewhere in the fourth reel. It was fabula interrupta.

Waiting for my 360 to get back from the gaming doctor and restore my access to Rapture and points beyond isn’t as bad as one might think, though. I still have all my books and movies and hobby games and other nerdly escape routes. And, I confess, I keep a Z Machine interpreter on my Mac, so I’m never too far away from an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

Wil Wheaton imagines there’s no heaven.

The eighties were an interesting decade at the movies for science fiction fans. After Star Wars pretty much created the science fiction blockbuster movie event, studios scrambled to feed a newly-discovered audience that hungered for more. Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, and Troy Mcclure’s unforgettable The President’s Neck is Missing! all came out before 1982, and it looked like we were in for a sci-fi renaissance at the movie house.

For the most part, Hollywood delivered films as diverse as Back to the Future and Aliens, satisfying mainstream audiences and geeks alike, but some studio executives, their faces buried in a star destroyer-sized pile of blow, filled future car wash bargain bins with craptacular derivative hybrids, like sci-fi/comedy, sci-fi/horror, and the most enduring offender, sci-fi/action.

After exhaustive research (read: a week spent watching a big pile of movies so I can convince my wife that I’m “working”), I’ve realized that most films of the eighties which claim to be science fiction are equal parts awesomely awful and awesomely awesome, and none of them are purely sci-fi; they’re all some sort of hybrid.

If you’re of a certain age, and you spent any time at all browsing the science fiction/horror section of the video store on Friday nights in high school, you may recognize some of these Sci-Fi Guilty Pleasures of the 80s. They are presented in order of release, and are unranked.


Scanners (1980)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Horror
The Pitch: Creepy looking Canadians can read your mind . . . and blow it up, eh?

The Plot: Two years before he did Videodrome and five years before he did The Fly David Cronenberg gave us Scanners, a film about telepathic telekinetics and the obligatory scary corporation which seeks to control or destroy them. Michael Ironside, Stephen Lack, and Patrick McGoohan (that’s right, Number Six is alive and well in 1980) all turn in great performances in a movie that isn’t nearly as gory as we all remember it.

Awesomely Awful Because: We know what’s going to happen before the characters do, an annoying problem which is exacerbated by the painfully slow pacing of the film. Also, someone in the prop department must have had access to a bunch of shotguns, because everyone in the film uses them, to an extent that quickly becomes ridiculous.

Awesomely Awesome Because: Though the science fiction elements are outrageously dated (listen for the whirring data tapes whenever a ConSec computer is accessed) it actually lends the film an awesome surreal quality. Michael Ironside is fantastic as the maniacal Darryl Revok, and the prosthetic make-up effects, which are a little too obvious in this era of giant CGI robots, were groundbreaking - and totally gross - at the time.

Drinking Game: Whenever a scanner “scans” someone, take a drink. If it has really gruesome results, chug.


Escape from New York (1981)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Action
The Pitch: New York City is a police state, filled with criminals and weirdos. No, it’s not a documentary about the 2004 Republican Convention.

The Plot: Written during the Watergate era, but unmade until the Reagan era, John Carpenter’s Escape from New York -- set in the far-off future of 1997 -- is one of many cult favorites to emerge from the eighties. The story is pretty simple: crime is so bad, the island of Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison, where everyone convicted of a serious crime in America is sent to rot. Everything’s working out just fine until the president’s plane crashes in midtown, dropping him off in a Mork-like egg that protects him from the crash, but not from the marauding band of criminals - lead by a pre-Super Adventurer’s Club Isaac Hayes - who take him hostage.

Enter world famous war hero-cum-felon Snake Plissken, who is given a chance to earn his freedom by finding and rescuing the president. It seems fairly easy, but he only has twenty-two hours to . . . Escape from New York!

Awesomely Awful Because: It’s all a little too easy. Out of thousands of prisoners, Snake instantly finds a guy who not only know who Snake is, but knows a guy who knows a guy who knows where the president is. And if the government was really serious about cutting Manhattan off , wouldn’t they blow up the bridges and tunnels instead of just (rather ineffectively) mining them?

Awesomely Awesome Because: Dude, Issac Hayes drives a car with fucking Tiffany lamps on the hood. And how can you not love Borgnine? Silly retrofutrakitsch aside, the soundtrack is fantastic, it’s a really dark film (visually and thematically) and it has some classic SF themes about authoritarianism and totalitarianism in it that are as relevant ever. And let’s be honest, okay? Snake Plissken is a badass.

Drinking Game: Whenever someone tells Snake that they’ve heard of him, take a drink. If they follow up with “I thought you were dead” before you finish your drink, you have to chug.


Night of the Comet (1984)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Comedy
The Pitch: A deadly comet turns everyone on Earth to dust, except for a couple of valley girls. Also, there’s, like, zombies.

The Plot: Take three parts Valley Girl, one part Fast Times, mix with some truly awful pseudoscience, add a dash of Miracle Mile, garnish with Dawn of the Dead, and you’ve got Night of the Comet. Release it just before Halley’s Comet makes its first return to Earth in a century, and you’ve got a cult classic.

When Earth passes through the tail of a comet, just about everyone in Los Angeles stands outside to witness the pseudoscientific event. Unfortunately for them, the comet turns them all into little piles of dust. The few who aren’t instantly turned into dust are turned into zombies, who eventually turn into dust. The only true survivors are three teenagers who were protected from the comet’s deadly dust-creating wrath by the shielding power of metal, and a few insane survivalists who built an underground lair, stocked it with medicine, weapons, and computers, and are slowly turning into zombies because some genius left a window open.

Our heroes deal with the challenge of being the only survivors in the world in true teenage fashion: they go shopping. But Zombielarity ensues, and the survivalists chase them down to harvest their blood. Jesus Christ, guys, as if being a teenager isn’t hard enough already!

Awesomely Awful Because: For a film that advertises a bunch of comet-created zombies, you’d expect to see more than seven of them in the entire picture.

Awesomely Awesome Because: It’s actually a hell of a lot of fun, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and has a good heart. Atlantic Records had a big (heavy) hand in releasing this film, so 80s pop music (by artists who weren’t heard from before or since) plays pretty much non-stop throughout the entire film. I thought about making the drinking game relate to 80s references, but they are so prevalent in this film, you’d be passed out before the comet even shows up.

Drinking Game: Whenever younger sister Samantha complains about not “making it” with a dude, take a drink. Whenever you want to punch a survivalist in the neck for being so goddamn annoying, take a drink. Whenever a zombie appears, chug.


They Live (1988)
Hybrid: Sci-Fi/Action
The Pitch Rowdy Roddy Piper chews bubblegum and kicks alien ass.

The Plot:1980s wrestling icon Rowdy Roddy Piper is a homeless construction worker looking to make a dollar out of fifteen cents in Los Angeles. He ends up living in a shanty town just outside downtown that doesn’t have sanitation, but does have lots of television.

Through a series of events that’s not nearly as convoluted as you’d think, he discovers that thousands of hideous ghouls are living side by side with normal humans and are slowly taking over the planet. No, it’s not Dick Cheney and the neocons, it’s alien invaders from outer space. They keep humans “asleep” by overwhelming them with subliminal messages like OBEY, MARRY AND REPRODUCE, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY and CONSUME. The messages are embedded in everything from billboards to magazines to money (which carries the message THIS IS YOUR GOD).

Rowdy Roddy Piper can see all this, including the actual ghoulish appearance of the invaders, by wearing some nifty (for values of “nifty” do “totally fucking lame”) sunglasses that let him see things as they really are. This leads him to go on an action movie style rampage of extraordinary magnitude, joining the underground resistance, and eventually infiltrating the alien invaders’ underground lair.

Awesomely Awful Because: John Carpenter took twenty minutes of story and added in seventy minutes of filler, including a five minute-long back alley wrestling match that doesn’t involve a single folding metal chair. What could be a brilliant commentary on the excesses of the eighties tries way too hard to be funny. When you find yourself laughing at the satire instead of with the satire, something isn’t quite right.

Awesomely Awesome Because: If you set aside the filler, and just focus on the story, They Live is so prophetic, it’s kind of disturbing. It’s sort of like Ishmael for popular consumption. On a less deep note, the outrageous fights and snappy one-liners that are so annoying to sci-fi purist geeks also make this movie absurdly entertaining.

Drinking Game: Whenever Rowdy Roddy Piper delivers a witty action hero one-liner, take a drink. If it’s particularly cringe-worthy, chug. When it’s the line (you know the one if you’ve seen the movie) you can play a mini-game: shotgun a beer, and the loser has to draw alien ghoul makeup on their face. No, I will not play this game with you.


Honorable Mentions: The Last Starfighter, The Philadelphia Experiment, Life Force, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, The incredible Shrinking Woman, Innerspace.

Wil Wheaton blew it all up, you maniacs.

The old-school gaming art show bursting with brilliant works inspired by games from the '80s and '90s returns. Starting today and running until May 12th, classic console connoisseurs can head out to sunny Los Angeles and take a nostalgic journey through a gallery populated with both eerie and charming renditions of their beloved 8-bit heroes.

"Hip" and "With it" attendees are advised to quickly snatch up that surprisingly affordable stencil of Duke the Daring brandishing his Glandhammer to Princess Peach. Please do be wary of new parents raised on classic games looking to decorate their newborns bedrooms with stylized relics of their past. They'll be the ones with expanding midsections wedged into designer jeans a few sizes too small.