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Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Academy Award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company, Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when Lucas began production of the film Star Wars. ILM originated in Van Nuys, California, then later moved to San Rafael in 1978, and since 2005 it has been based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. Lynwen Brennan, who joined the company in 1999, currently serves as ILM's President and General Manager. In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired ILM as part of its purchase of Lucasfilm.
Lucas wanted his 1977 film Star Wars to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. After discovering that the in-house effects department at 20th Century Fox was no longer operational, Lucas approached Douglas Trumbull, famous for the effects on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull declined as he was already committed to working on Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but suggested his assistant John Dykstra to Lucas. Dykstra brought together a small team of college students, artists and engineers, and set them up in a warehouse in Van Nuys, California. Lucas named the group Industrial Light & Magic, who became the Special Visual Effects department on Star Wars. Alongside Dykstra, other leading members of the original ILM team were Ken Ralston, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Joe Johnston, Phil Tippett, Steve Gawley, Lorne Peterson and Paul Huston.
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), popularly known as Delta Force, is a U.S. Army component of Joint Special Operations Command. It was formerly listed as the Combat Applications Group (CAG) by the Department of Defense. While 1st SFOD-D is administratively supported by USASOC, it falls under the operational control of the Joint Special Operations Command. Delta Force and its Navy counterpart, the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, are the United States military's primary counter-terrorism units. It is often referred to in the U.S. media as a Special Mission Unit.
Delta Force's primary tasks are counter-terrorism, direct action, and national intervention operations, although it is an extremely versatile group capable of conducting many types of clandestine missions, including, but not limited to, hostage rescues and raids.
The Central Intelligence Agency's highly secretive Special Activities Division (SAD) and more specifically its elite Special Operations Group (SOG) often works with â and recruits â operators from Delta Force.
The unit is under the organization of the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) but is controlled by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Command of 1st SFOD-D is a Colonel's billet. Virtually all information about the unit is highly classified and details about specific missions or operations generally are not available publicly. A number of sources, including the book Inside Delta Force by Command Sergeant Major Eric L. Haney (ret.), suggest the unit's strength ranges from 800 to 1,000 personnel.
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Marvel Studios, LLC originally known as Marvel Films from 1993 to 1996, is an American television and motion picture studio based at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. The studio is a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Being a part of the Disney conglomerate, Marvel Studios works in conjunction with The Walt Disney Studios, another Disney unit, for distribution and marketing. For financial reporting purposes, Marvel Studios is reported as a part of Disney's Studio Entertainment segment.
Marvel Studios includes numerous units and joint ventures, both operating and defunct: Marvel Television, Marvel Animation, Marvel Music, MVL Productions LLC, and MLG Productions. Among the many animated, television, feature film and music releases, the studio has been involved in three Marvel-character film franchises to have exceeded one billion dollars in North American revenue: the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Marvel Cinematic Universe multi-film franchises, with X-Men and Spider-Man licensed out to 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures respectively. Marvel Studios' films are currently distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and by Universal Pictures for the Hulk films.
By 2005, Marvel Studios began planning to independently produce its own films and distribute them through Paramount Pictures. Previously, the studio had co-produced several superhero films with Columbia Pictures, New Line Cinema and others, including a seven-year development deal with 20th Century Fox. Marvel Studios made relatively little profit from its licensing deals with other studios and wanted to get more money out of its films while maintaining artistic control of the projects and distribution. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige realized that unlike Spider-Man and the X-Men, whose film rights were licensed to Columbia and Fox respectively, Marvel still owned the rights to the core members of The Avengers. Feige, a self-professed fanboy, envisioned creating a shared universe just as creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had done with their comic books in the early 1960s.
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The Rocketeer is a fictional character, a superhero created by writer-illustrator Dave Stevens. The character first appeared in 1982 and is an homage to the Saturday matinee serial heroes of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
The Rocketeer is the secret identity of Cliff Secord, a stunt pilot who discovers a mysterious jetpack that allows him to fly. His adventures are set in Los Angeles and New York in 1938, and Stevens gave them a retro, nostalgic feel influenced by the King of the Rocket Men movie serial, the syndicated Commando Cody TV series (both from Republic Pictures), and pinup diva Bettie Page.
In 1991, The Rocketeer was released as a feature film by Walt Disney Pictures and was directed by Joe Johnston. Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens has a small cameo in the film as the German test pilot who dies when the Nazi version of a rocket backpack explodes during take-off. This was a part of black-and-white film footage stolen, then smuggled to the US of Nazi top secret rocket backpack testing.
The Rocketeer makes a great number of references to pop culture from the 1930s to the 1950s. The first storyline, "The Rocketeer" features characters from the Doc Savage pulp series, though Stevens takes care not to refer to any of the characters â including Doc Savage himself â by name, so as not to violate copyright and incur a licensing fee for use of the characters. "Cliff's New York Adventure" similarly features unnamed characters from The Shadow pulp magazine series, including the Shadow's famous alter ego, Lamont Cranston.
Ra's al Ghul (Arabic: رأس اÙغÙÙ Raʾs al-Ä Å«l; "Ghoul's Head") is a fictional character, a supervillain who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Besides being considered to be one of Batman's greatest enemies, given his high status as a supervillain, Ra's al Ghul has also come into conflict with Superman and other heroes in the DC Universe. He is the son of Sensei, the father of Talia al Ghul, Nyssa Raatko, and Dusan al Ghul, and the grandfather of Damian Wayne. His name in Arabic has been translated in the comics as "The Demon's Head".
Ra's al Ghul has been featured in various media adaptions, most notably Batman: The Animated Series, where he was voiced by David Warner, Batman: Arkham City, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, the films Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises where he was portrayed by actor Liam Neeson, and the TV Series Arrow where he is portrayed by actor Matt Nable.
IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time List ranked Ra's as #7.
Ra's al Ghul, literally translated from the Arabic as Head of the Demon, is an international immortal eco-terrorist and an enemy of Batman. Believing that humanity is a blight on the planet, his extremist environmentalism has led him to seek the destruction of modern society. Born centuries ago, he has sustained his life through usage of restorative Lazarus Pits. These centuries of experience have made him an incredible tactical expert and physical combatant, allowing him to establish the League of Assassins. His daughter Talia al Ghul has been romantically involved with Batman, leading to a child between the two named Damian Wayne. Ra's al Ghul was created by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams, first appearing in Batman #232. (1971)
The FIFA Club World Cup, commonly referred to as the Club World Cup, is an international men's association football competition organised by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship was first contested as the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship. It was not held between 2001 to 2004 due to a combination of factors, most importantly the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner International Sport and Leisure. Since 2005, the competition has been held every year, hosted so far by Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
The first FIFA Club World Championship took place in Brazil in January 2000. It ran in parallel with the Intercontinental Cup, a non-FIFA affiliated competition first disputed in 1960 by the winners of the European Champions' Cup and the Copa de Campeones de América. Initially created as Intercontinental Champions Clubs' Cup, since the 1980 season the competition was renamed the European/South American Cup and also knowns as the Toyota Cup following a change in format which saw Toyota become the main sponsor of the competition until it was discontinued in 2004. In 2005, the FIFA Club World Championship absorbed the Toyota Cup and the competition's pilot edition and in 2006 took its current name.
The current format of the tournament involves seven teams competing for the FIFA Club World Cup at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks; the winners of that year's AFC Champions League (Asia), CAF Champions League (Africa), CONCACAF Champions League (North America), Copa Libertadores (South America), OFC Champions League (Oceania) and UEFA Champions League (Europe), along with the host nation's national champions, participate in a straight knock-out tournament. The host nation's national champions dispute a play-off against the Oceania champions, from which the winner joins the champions of Asia, Africa and North America at the quarter-finals. The quarter-final winners go on to face the European and South American champions, who enter at the semi-final stage, for a place in the final.
Airwolf is an American television series that ran from 1984 until 1987. The program centers on a high-tech military helicopter, code named Airwolf, and its crew as they undertake various missions, many involving espionage, with a Cold War theme.
The show was created by Donald P. Bellisario. The first three seasons star Jan-Michael Vincent, Ernest Borgnine, Alex Cord, and (from the second season onwards) Jean Bruce Scott. After the original series was cancelled, a fourth season, with an entirely new cast and on a much smaller budget, was filmed in Canada for the USA Network.
Airwolf (TV Series):
The full 50 second narration, as spoken by actor Lance LeGault, is as follows: "This briefing is from file A56-7W, classified top secret. Subject is Airwolf, a mach one plus attack helicopter, with the most advanced weapons systems in the air today. It has been hidden somewhere in the Western United States by it's test pilot, Stringfellow Hawke. Hawke has promised to return Airwolf only if we can find his brother, Sin Jin, an MIA in Vietnam. We suspect that Archangel, deputy director of the agency that built Airwolf is secretly helping Hawke in return for Hawke flying Airwolf on missions of National concern. Stringfellow Hawke is 34, a brilliant combat pilot, and a recluse since his brothers disappearance. His only friend is Dominic Santini, who's air service is the cover for their government work. With Hawke and Santini flying as a team at speeds rivaling the fastest jets, backed by unmatched firepower, Airwolf is too dangerous to be left in unenlightened hands. Finding it is your first priority. End of file."
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