Empire of the Iguanadons

Funny those are the Centurions I grew up with as a kid. For me they're still the best even though they're so fake these days.

Wow, now there's a bit of imagery for ya'. When I was little, my father took my sister and I to California for a vacation one year and we took the studio tour in which they had our tour bus thingy go through Jaws' lake and into the studio where they were having a battlestar galactica shootout (among other stops on the tour) and I'll never forget the thrill of it. To see one of those centurians, who I was sure were animatrons at the time, standing on a street corner panhandling is quite a sight. Not only did I believe they were only animatrons, but I find it hard to believe that the studios would've allowed one of their costumes to be used for that.. I'm going to have to assume that's entirely staged, or at least photoshopped. But it's still quite the imagery for our times.

Yes, of course it's staged. With a pretty cheap plastic copy of the suit if you look closely. I don't think the guy was trying to suggest it was a real centurion outfit, just that they'd been replaced with CGI versions.

They had stopped running the Galactica feature by the time I'd made my one and only visit to Universal. Which sucked, because it was the one thing I really wanted to see.

Too bad, at a glance, the shot looks pretty severe. I can almost imagine one of the animatrons standing out there with his cup instead of a blaster.. whether he's protesting CGI or the current economy, I think it still sends a loud message about our economic situation.

It really was a pretty cool and impressive part of the tour at the time. Of course, back then, none of had seen what we know of today in science fiction movies and it was still absolutely cutting edge. Only Star Wars outdid it, and you really felt like you were at risk of being blasted by one of those centurians. These days, Universal's got an entire theme park and their focused on Hogwarts and E.T. more than the really cool stuff of our yore.