Editorials
[Reaction] Tupac Returns From The Dead At Coachella 2012…Kinda
Last night, on the final day of Coachella 2012, hip-hop star Tupac Shakur, who was killed in 1996, joined Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre on stage…as a hologram. Yup, you read that right. Through the amazing advances in technology we can now bring dead artists “back to life”. The late rapper joined Snoop and Dre for Come With Me, Hail Mary, and Gangsta Party. You can check out video of “Tupac” below.
Does anyone else have an issue with this? I’m actually quite uncomfortable with the prospect of deceased artists suddenly appearing before me at a concert. That’s not something that I could want to see. Wanna use holograms to create astonishing creatures and light shows? Totally cool with it. Hell, I’d pay an extra $10 per ticket to see that because it would probably be unbelievably awesome.
But this is something else entirely. After all, think about it: Tupac died in 1996. Coachella started in 1999. How then, I must ask, did Tupac ever say, “What the fuck is up Coachella!” So now we can not only bring back deceased artists, but we can put words in their mouths?
Imagine going to a Nickelback concert (I know, it’s not easy) and, suddenly, during their performance of Side Of A Bullet, Dimebag Darrell appeared and played the guitar solo. Not all that cool in my book.
Oh, let’s take it a step further. Say Live Nation decides they want to do a Guns N Roses reunion tour. Axl has cleared it and so has Slash (a cold day in Hell, right?). But what they actually agreed to is that their likenesses can be used as holograms. They don’t actually have to ever appear next to each other or even leave their own home. They collect royalty checks for a completely hologram concert. Would you pay $70 per ticket for that? I know I wouldn’t. I pay to SEE the artists perform their art. I give them my money because I support them actually going out and working on a daily basis. I’m not going to pay these guys for going into a motion-capture studio to record a few moves that will then be recycled on a daily basis for a “tour”.
Like I said before, I’m all for technological advances that make the concert experience that much more amazing. After all, I think live touring needs to do what it can in order to make things interesting and keep people coming back for more. But this is taking things too far. I don’t trust artists or promoters to use this technology with any sense of compassion or respect yet. Until that day, I’ll be quite happy with some pyrotechnics and perhaps some lasers.
Got any thoughts/questions/concerns for Jonny B.? Shoot him a message on Twitter!
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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