In Real Life

Modder extraordinaire Benjamin J. Heckendorn always wanted to build his own pinball machine from scratch. So what did he choose as its theme? Playboy? KISS? Nope. Bill Paxton.

The choice seems to be a gut-instinct one, made “several minutes” after deciding four years ago he wanted to build such a table. “I guess I could have gone with a more obvious geek choice like Bruce Campbell but to be honest, Paxton’s more interesting and has made movies people have actually seen.”

*ducks* Hey, he said it, not me.

Moving along, he’s set to designing the table’s artwork before its play, it seems. The backglass has already been put together, and contains these references:

• Can of Hamm’s – he drinks it in several movies.
• Alien holding a Fish Head – 3000 years ago Paxton directed a Barnes & Barnes video called, well, Fish Heads, about, well, Fish Heads.
• Blob of crap from Weird Science.
• Axe from Fraility.
• Cow / truck from Twister.
• Skyline of Paxton’s hometown in the background.
• Crew of Apollo 13.
• Plane from Slipsteam.
• Mountain / photo from Vertical Limit.
• ROV from Titanic.
• Some wives from Big Love.

He’s sketching out four modes of play based off Paxton classics—True Lies will require lots of combos and multipliers “to, I guess, get into Jamie Lee Curtis’ pants.” Others include Twister, Titanic and, naturally, Aliens.

Hold Flipper for Status Update [BenHeck.com]