Awesome kid and awesome family make awesome Metroid halloween costume

Hat-tip: KOTAKU

Joe DeRosa, age 11, wants to be Samus Aran - the armor-suited lead character from the "Metroid" video-games - for Halloween. Not exactly something you can buy at Target, and not exactly simple on a design level. Fortunately for Joe, based on the DeRosa Family Blog, he comes from a whole family of DIY tech-wizards and MakerFaire afficionados... and they're building a Varia Suit from scratch.

Below the jump... MAGIC.

Here's the video, from the kid's YouTube Channel, of him and his father making the Arm Cannon. I say again: Here's a kid and his dad, building the Arm Cannon from Metroid in the garage.


I'm literally speechless - it's like if Norman Rockwell illustrated an issue of Scott Pilgrim.

The rest of the project (still in-progress) can be seen on their Family Blog, which also shows their construction of a previous project: An animatronic replica of the dragon from "Eragon" - yes, it breathes fire.

Obviously, the final layer of coolness/interest in this is that the one thing "everybody knows" about Metroid is that, under the armor, Samus Aran is a woman. This fact does NOT appear to be a big deal (or even matter at all) to Joe, his father, or anyone else involved (it's not mentioned anywhere on any of their sites.) That shouldn't be surprising or even worth noticing, but, let's face it: It is... and it's all kinds of kickass. Gender-role-ignoring cosplay as a father/son bonding experience for a postcard-perfect American Family... it's like a time-traveling transmission from a better tommorrow.

There is NOTHING about this video, this project, this kid and his family that is not just incredibly awesome. I'm going to sleep now - I haven't gone to sleep feeling good about the human race in forever, and I want to try it.