The Best Of SFXs Attack Of The Clones

It’s separated at birth with a more sci-fi name. Well, sorta… Here are some of our faves from the past year

Doctor Who ’s Abzorbaloff was allegedly designed by a the winner of a Blue Peter compo. But you have to wonder whether he’d ever seen the Dan Ackroyd-directed 1991 movie Nothing But Trouble , where this handsome duo, Bobo and Lil’ Debbull, first appeared? They even clearly go to the same barber.

Allegedly, Flynn Rider in Disney’s Rapunzel makeover Tangled is an animated character voiced by Zachary Levi. But we suspect they saved some dollars on the digital wizardry by sneakily casting Duke from Haven instead…

The inspiration behind the design of Firefly ’s spaceships Serenity revealed – it’s a plucked parrot!

Looks like the three stigmata could transform the world into Arakis…

Okay, we’re used to seeing crop circles here in the West Country where SFX is created, but Park And Rides disguised as the Millennium Falcon? That’s just downright bizarre. (This is the one at Odd Down just outside Bath, by the way… “odd” being the pertinent word.)

Four military flat tops that you won’t get down the barber’s. These sci-fi airborne aircraft carriers all look mightily similar, but can you work out where they’re from before peeking at the answers below?

The SHIELD helicarrier from the 1998 Nick Fury TV movie (starring David Hasselhoff)

UNIT’s Valiant, from Doctor Who

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

Spectrum’s Cloudbase from Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons

We don’t reckon ASDA’s Tiger Rolls are really made from tigers. We reckon someone’s been factory farming clones of Oddbod Jr from Carry On Screaming all these years. Just remember that the next time you find a hair in your ham roll.

When you catch a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph And His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat you half-expect a guest appearance from Colin Baker’s panto Doctor Who jacket. What you might not expect is for the “Elvis” Pharaoh to have a couple of Na’vi for fans (oh and look, they’ve bought some of Pandora’s gaudy foliage with them). We knew his fame spread far and wide, but that’s ridiculous.

Ah, Wimbledon. Strawberries, grunting women and rain delays. And, this year, it also seemed to turn into Ball Boys & Aliens (now there’s a sequel for you, Jon Favreau). 28 years ago, Peter Davison’s Doctor granted immortal alien Mawdryn his greatest wish by killing the him off. Except, it turns out, he didn’t. Suddenly, there he was on centre court, facing Andy Murray. He was trying to fool us by calling himself Ivan Ljubičić, but that exposed brain was a dead giveaway…

One of the clips below is a trailer for Planet Lem , an “outdoor multimedia extravaganza” that took place on London’s South Bank as part of the I, CULTURE Weekend earlier this year.

The other is New Order’s “True Faith” video.

But which is which?

( For extra fun, set them playing at the same time but turn the sound off on the trailer , so you can hear “True Faith” while watching the weirdness – it fits bizarrely well)

Amy may not have believed him, but we know that Rory did join a rock band – Blur. He’s clearly been leading a double life as Graham Coxon. Puts a whole new spin on the track, “Out Of Time”. Cheers to Takeshi Kovacs on the SFX forum for pointing this one out…

In the final series of The Sarah Jane Adventures , The Metalkind monster was an impressive alien, but we couldn’t help feeling there was a familiar feel about him. Was he a genetic combination of Watchmen ’s Nite Owl, Shaquille O’Neal's Steel, a Necromonger from The Chronicles of Riddick and one of those stitchpunk characters from 9 ?

The ad campaign for Activision’s game Spider-Man: The Edge Of Time featured a Spidey wearing what looked like a saggy costume that kept bringing a certain image to mind…

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.