Here's a super little steampunk film from Germany that has some really outstanding CGI, as well as being just beautiful to look at. Before you start thinking there's something wrong with the lipsynching, yes, it's dubbed into English both to reach as many viewers as possible, and because the original German dialog's sound quality was too poor (according to the production notes.)
Kevin's comment about "why isn't science fiction ever set in the past, or an alternative present" reminded me of Dr. Grordbort's Infallable Aether Oscillators.
Girl Genius, by Phil and Kaja Foglio, and colors by Cheyenne Wright, is one of the most highly-regarded serial webcomics out there today. Running for over thirteen years, this humorous, steampunk-inspired story follows the adventures of a young mad scientist as she tries to claim her birthright in a world where the Industrial Revolution has become a shooting war.
A week or two ago, Republibot 1.0 (My boss) reviewed "The Three Musketeers." (You can read it online here http://republibot.com/content/movie-review-three-musketeers-2011 ) Despite the fact that it wasn't at all a glowing review, I found some aspects of it fascinating (Airships. Milla. Etc. No, really, there's no "Etc" about it, it's just Milla and Airships, truth be told) so I decided to see the movie myself and review it *only* if something interesting struck me about it. We don't generally do multiple reviews of the same film, after all.
The latest counterculture to arouse public disdain and/or feigned apathy is "Steampunk," which is accused of being more of a fashion statement than an actual intelectual stance:
Found this via the almost always excellent ToplessRobot (www.toplessrobot.com) - the Friday Fan Fiction highlight is always a bit scary, but the site generally stays away from politics and focuses firmly down on good old fashion genre geekery and nerdery.
However, this is by far the coolest thing I have seen there yet. It is up to R3 to discuss the relative merits of it as SteamPunk though...
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