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Organizations rely on Incident response to ensure they are immediately aware of security incidents, allowing for quick action to minimize damage. They also aim to avoid follow on attacks or future related incidents. The SANS Institute provides research and education on information security. In the upcoming webinar, we’ll outline, in detail, six components of a SANS incident response plan,

Stirring parents up into a paranoid mob is an American tradition, and it's one of our lousiest. The poorly-researched anti-comic book tome "Seduction of the Innocent" led to a public comic book burning in the 1950s and decades of oppressive self-censorship within the publishing world. Violent video games like "Mortal Kombat" were accused of corrupting our children in the 1990s, leading to congressional hearings and a video game rating system.

That these waves of mob mentality are almost universally viewed, years later, as embarrassing ignorance and/or obvious manipulations doesn't seem to stop the cycle from starting up, over and over again. Apparently, nobody ever learns anything. Even when we finally admit that there was nothing terribly sinister about the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons — which was also accused of corrupting kids for many years — and transform it into a family-friendly fantasy movie (for the second time), we find ourselves entrenched in even more harmful frenzies over topics which are clearly little more than shameful scare tactics.

But it's worth remembering that, for a while, the historical moral panics we laugh at today were treated very seriously, and were themselves a part of the cultural landscape. And one of the more curious examples is the film "Mazes and Monsters," which gave us Tom Hanks's first starring role in a movie and taught us that to play Dungeons & Dragons was to play with madness and murder.

No Time To Dice

Tom Hanks wasn't a nobody when he made "Mazes and Monsters." He'd already made his big screen debut in a small but scene-stealing role in the (pretty danged good) slasher "He Knows You're Alone," before co-starring in the briefly popular, but ultimately flash-in-the-pan sitcom "Bosom Buddies," about two men who dress as women so they can live at an affordable hotel that doesn't allow male tenants. In a couple of years, he would be headlining hit comedies like "Bachelor Party" and "Splash." But in the middle, he LARPed his way into terror.

Based on a novel by Rona Jaffe, which was inspired by only somewhat-true events, "Mazes and Monsters" stars Hanks as Robbie, a college student whose brother ran away from home and whose parents hate each other. He was kicked out of his first college for playing too much Mazes and Monsters — the film's fictionalized version of Dungeons & Dragons — and he promises his parents he won't ever play the game again.

This lasts about one day because he quickly finds a notice on a bulletin board -- oh geez, do we have to explain bulletin boards? Try to imagine Twitter on physical media, it was kinda like that -- where a group of M&M enthusiasts (the game, not the candy) are looking for another player. They then proceed to peer pressure the living hell out of Robbie until he finally agrees to join them. Just say no, Robbie! Just say no!

But for a while, Robbie is able to balance his school work, his role-playing games, and even a romance with one of his fellow players, Kate, played by Wendy Crewson ("Air Force One"). Yes, it was the college experience of his dreams... until LARPing turned it into a nightmare.

The World According To LARP

It turns out that, according to the movie "Mazes and Monsters," every single person who's attracted to role-playing games is suffering from extreme mental health issues and/or is the product of a "broken" home. All of Robbie's fellow players are experiencing various forms of psychological strife, including the teenage super-genius Jay Jay, played by Chris Makepeace ("Meatballs"). When Jay Jay finds out that Robbie and Kate are dating, he considers ending his own life in a nearby cavern that's off-limits to students because it's, you know, really cavernous. But instead, he decides to invent a live-action role-playing (LARPing) element for their favorite game and fill the deadly cave with skeletons and other gimmicks.

Unfortunately, when Robbie enters the cavern, he experiences a traumatic hallucination of a giant monster, and even though he's supposed to be playing a peaceful cleric, his first reaction is violence. This, combined with his abandonment issues, leads him to experience vivid dreams where a godlike version of his missing brother tells him to live out the life of his Mazes and Monsters character, break up with Kate, isolate himself from his friends, and pursue a dangerous quest. When Robbie's friends discover that he's disappeared, and figure out that he believes he's his role-playing character, they immediately ditch the evidence that they were LARPing and tell the police they think he's trapped in the caverns.

Except he's not. After a very, very long time, we learn that Robbie actually fled to New York City, where he's attacked in an alley, kills a man, and tries to get to the top of the World Trade Center in pursuit of his quasi-religious quest. And somehow it gets worse.

Hanks For Nothing

"Mazes and Monsters" ends with all of Robbie's friends growing into better people — symbolized by their rejection of role-playing games — and visiting Robbie at his home, where they discover to their horror that his mental health has deteriorated, and he thinks he's a cleric all the time. With no denouement suggesting he'll ever improve, the implication is that Dungeons & Dragons — sorry, Mazes and Monsters — is just too dangerous for sensitive kids. And by extension, probably for anyone.

It must be said that the cast of "Mazes and Monsters," especially Tom Hanks, are taking this material seriously. When Robbie tells Kate about his missing brother, you can catch a glimpse of the dramatic talent that would eventually make Hanks one of the most respected actors of his generation. But this film was clearly produced to capitalize on a wave of paranoia, a condescending melodrama for parents to watch and cluck their tongues at, "knowingly."

Never mind that the real incident Rona Jaffe's story was based on, in which a college student named James Dallas Egbert III disappeared in the steam tunnels underneath Michigan State University, allegedly as a result of a role-playing game, turned out to be misreported. Egbert played Dungeons & Dragons but that wasn't the motivation for his disappearance. He was a troubled youth who attempted self-harm in the steam tunnels due to a variety of mental health issues. Then he stayed with a series of friends and moved to a different city. Tragically, he later took his own life. But there was no evidence that his death had anything to do with games.

But then, why let the truth get in the way of a moral panic? "Mazes and Monsters" touches on the psychological issues of its characters, but it spends so much time demonizing a tabletop game that it never explores those struggles fairly, or realistically. It's a scare film and not a very good one. It would have probably languished in obscurity like so many other flash-in-the-pan TV movies if Hanks hadn't become one of the biggest actors in the world.

Read this next: Fantasy Box Office Bombs That Deserve A Second Chance

The post Tom Hanks's First Lead Role Was in a Movie About How Dungeons & Dragons Will Destroy Your Children appeared first on /Film.

The post Kill Boksoon – Netflix Review (4/5) appeared first on Heaven of Horror.

"The Gaurdian reports on a document leak from Russian cyber 'security' company Vulkan," writes Slashdot reader Falconhell. From the report: Inside the six-storey building, a new generation is helping Russian military operations. Its weapons are more advanced than those of Peter the Great's era: not pikes and halberds, but hacking and disinformation tools. The software engineers behind these systems are employees of NTC Vulkan. On the surface, it looks like a run-of-the-mill cybersecurity consultancy. However, a leak of secret files from the company has exposed its work bolstering Vladimir Putin's cyberwarfare capabilities. Thousands of pages of secret documents reveal how Vulkan's engineers have worked for Russian military and intelligence agencies to support hacking operations, train operatives before attacks on national infrastructure, spread disinformation and control sections of the internet. The company's work is linked to the federal security service or FSB, the domestic spy agency; the operational and intelligence divisions of the armed forces, known as the GOU and GRU; and the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence organization. One document links a Vulkan cyber-attack tool with the notorious hacking group Sandworm, which the US government said twice caused blackouts in Ukraine, disrupted the Olympics in South Korea and launched NotPetya, the most economically destructive malware in history. Codenamed Scan-V, it scours the internet for vulnerabilities, which are then stored for use in future cyber-attacks. Another system, known as Amezit, amounts to a blueprint for surveilling and controlling the internet in regions under Russia's command, and also enables disinformation via fake social media profiles. A third Vulkan-built system -- Crystal-2V -- is a training program for cyber-operatives in the methods required to bring down rail, air and sea infrastructure. A file explaining the software states: "The level of secrecy of processed and stored information in the product is 'Top Secret'."

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Almost no one can put away drinks like the debaucherous gang from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but legendary baseball player Wade Boggs would give them a run for their money. In the season 10 premiere, the dive bar owners hop on a cross-country flight to tackle Boggs' record of 70 beers in transit. The actual number is disputed — Boggs himself claims it's even higher than legend would have us believe — but the episode's premise remains hilarious.

"[Boggs] was famous for baseball, he was also famous for the amount of beer he could drink," series co-creator and star Charlie Day explained to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show when the episode first aired. "Supposedly, when they would have these cross-country flights, he would drink on average 40 to 50, some say 70 beers. So our characters are trying to break that record in the episode ... and then see if we can hit a baseball the next day, cuz not only would he drink 70 beers, but then he'd go, like three for four."

Day's co-star and co-creator Glenn Howerton doesn't remember exactly who thought that Boggs' triumph would make a great story, but he knows that the story inspired what Vice and many fans would agree was a stand-out episode among all 15 seasons (and counting). "I think somebody was talking about the legend of Wade Boggs and how he drank 126 beers on a cross-country flight, and we realized it would be a great episode to try and break that record," Howerton told Vice in 2019.

You may have already noticed a discrepancy in the number of beers that Boggs reportedly drank. As it turns out, Day and Howerton both had it wrong.

Some Say His Record Is 70 Beers, But Boggs Told Day The Real Number

Wade Boggs himself makes a cameo in "The Gang Beats Boggs" as a hallucination that motivates Charlie to win the competition. When the baseball legend was on set, Charlie Day finally got the true record straight from the boozehound's mouth. "Well, he told me that the actual number," Day revealed to Jimmy Fallon. "He pulled me aside and he was like, 'Charlie, really it was 107.'"

Much to the dismay of Aussies everywhere, Boggs' record puts to shame the legend of the 52-beer-flight set by Australian baseball player David Boon, per Fox Sports Australia.

It might seem like an impossible number, but luckily for us, Boggs also walked Day through the logistics. As it turned out, not all 107 beers were consumed on the plane. "So he would come to the airport about 12 deep," Day explained, "and then he'd be on the plane just firing 'em back, and then they'd have the layover, then they get there, and then they would go out that night."

It would be silly for Boggs to appear on the show without a beer in hand, so he and Charlie crack open a cold one together. Union rules forbid alcohol on-set but, according to Day, it might not have been water that Boggs was knocking back.

"He was great, although I'm pretty sure he was drinking actual beer when we were filming," Day told Fallon. "Because we all had prop beer, but I noticed at one point, he's drinking now."

Howerton Explains The Writing Process

"The Gang Beats Boggs" was a huge creative breakthrough for Glenn Howerton who, by season 10 of the series, was finding it increasingly difficult to think up episode ideas that felt unique and exciting. "This episode is just so funny to me," he told Vice. "It always makes me laugh. We were deep into the series at that point — I think it was season 10 — and this episode felt fresh. It felt new."

For Howerton, the best stories are about the journey, not the destination. Half of the gang doesn't even make it to Los Angeles, and only Mac and Charlie manage to leave the airport. Once Charlie proves that he can hit a baseball, thereby successfully besting Boggs' record, he and Mac head directly back to Philly. "Interestingly enough, [this is] another episode where we're just trying to get from here to there," Howerton added. "It's all the s*** in between that's so interesting and fascinating to me."

Howerton, Charlie Day, and co-creator Rob McElhenney write a lot of the show themselves, but this episode was written by their long-time collaborators Dave and John Chernin, who also co-created the briefly lived comedy series "The Mick" starring "It's Always Sunny" alum Kaitlin Olson. Howerton broke down the show's writing process for clarity:

"We break the stories as a writers' room, and then writers get assigned episodes or we go off and write it. Then the very final part of the process is that me, Rob, and Charlie punch up and rewrite the whole thing. Some require very little rewriting and some require a lot, and I don't remember where that one was. But I know Dave and John are f***ing brilliant, so my guess is we didn't rewrite that one all that much."

How The Gang Got Boggs On Board

Charlie Day said that the "It's Always Sunny" creators were tentative to reach out to Wade Boggs because they were unsure if he would like the episode premise and, if he didn't, they would have to scrap it entirely. "We reached out to him like, 'Is he going to be okay with this?'" the "Horrible Bosses" star recounted on The Tonight Show. "And he was like, 'I'll do it.'"

Glenn Howerton "doesn't remember exactly" how they got the ball player on board, but it probably had something to do with Rob McElhenney. "What usually happens is that Rob reaches out to these people, because he's just the most persuasive of us," he admitted to Vice. "He's just a good salesman."

Boggs' family may have also played a part in convincing him to make a cameo. "It's Always Sunny" appeals mostly to a younger audience, which means that while older celebrities may not have heard of the series, they often have children in the target demographic.

"A lot of times, when something like that goes through it's because, like, Wade Boggs' kids were fans of the show," Howerton explained. "I feel like that's how it's been a lot for us. We can never get the person — but it's always their kid who's like, 'Dad, you have to do this.'"

Whether it was McElhenney or a younger Boggs relative that persuaded the baseball player to participate,"It's Always Sunny" fans, baseball fans, and beer enthusiasts alike are forever indebted to them. It might not be as exciting as drinking 107 beers on an airplane in real life, but it sure is fun to watch.

Read this next: The 15 Best Comedy Duos Of All Time

The post The Origin Of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Wade Boggs Episode appeared first on /Film.

A new "comprehensive toolset" called AlienFox is being distributed on Telegram as a way for threat actors to harvest credentials from API keys and secrets from popular cloud service providers. "The spread of AlienFox represents an unreported trend towards attacking more minimal cloud services, unsuitable for crypto mining, in order to enable and expand subsequent campaigns," SentinelOne security

3CX confirms investigating a security breach as the cybersecurity community is sharing more information on what appears to be a sophisticated supply chain attack.

The post 3CX Confirms Supply Chain Attack as Researchers Uncover Mac Component  appeared first on SecurityWeek.

An Azure Active Directory (AAD) misconfiguration leading to Bing.com compromise earned Wiz researchers a $40,000 bug bounty reward.

The post Microsoft Cloud Vulnerability Led to Bing Search Hijacking, Exposure of Office 365 Data appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Multi-cloud data storage, once merely a byproduct of the great cloud migration, has now become a strategy for data management. "Multi-cloud by design," and its companion the supercloud, is an ecosystem in which several cloud systems work together to provide many organizational benefits, including increased scale and overall resiliency.And now, even security teams who have long been the holdout

Sometimes you just don’t know what you’re missing. For years I thought I was a maximally efficient suitcase-packer, and scoffed at packing cubes. How could they possibly improve upon what I’m already doing? But one day I got a set, and realized I’d been living like a fool. If you’d like to have a similar experience, …

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A Manhattan grand jury has issued the first-ever indictment of a former US president. Buckle up for whatever happens next.

Water pumping systems made by ProPump and Controls are affected by several vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to cause significant problems.

The post Unpatched Security Flaws Expose Water Pump Controllers to Remote Hacker Attacks appeared first on SecurityWeek.

In the climactic scene of "The Mandalorian" season 3, episode 3, "The Convert" -- a "Brazil"-influenced, Coruscant-set cautionary tale about the machines of power and the stubbornness of evil -- poor Dr. Penn Pershing has been betrayed, while acting with good intentions. Now he's strapped to a table, about to be brainwashed by a feared former Imperial tool called the "mind flayer." In the depths of his terror and despair, he pleads for mercy with the Mon Calamari doctor, telling him: "It was a trap!"

You know, like Admiral Ackbar? Remember when Admiral Ackbar said "it's a trap!" in "Return of the Jedi"? And people liked that line, and when internet memes were invented it became a meme? It's just like the meme, except now someone is saying it to a Mon Calamari character instead? Isn't that funn-- Oh, Dr. Pershing just got his brain fried.

The latest chapter of "The Mandalorian," "The Pirate," drops in another unpopped popcorn kernel of fan service when Greef Karga and pirate king Gorian Shard have an argument about Gorian's reasons for attacking Nevarro. When Gorian accuses Greef of gunning down his minions in the street, Greef retorts: "He shot first." 

Remember, like when Han shot first? And then George Lucas went back 20 years later and re-edited the scene so that Greedo shot first? And then "Han shot first" became a whole thing? Now a "Star Wars" show is joking about the "Han shot first" thing!

In isolation these Easter eggs wouldn't be cause for much complaint, thuddingly unsubtle though they might be. But in "The Mandalorian," they're symbolic of how a once-promising show has tragically fallen prey to its parent franchise.

This Is The Way

Let's address something right up front: if you're a hardcore "Star Wars" fan and you've seen everything the franchise has to offer, including the animated series "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels," and even the kids' game series "Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge" where Kelleran Beq made his debut, "The Mandalorian" season 3 may be delivering everything you could possibly want from a "Star Wars" series. This one is going out to my fellow filthy casuals, who enjoyed the "Star Wars" movies well enough but have only seen them once or twice, and are fairly ignorant of the canon beyond that. 

"The Mandalorian" season 1 threw its arms wide open and welcomed in everyone: hardcore fans, filthy casuals, and your dad who has never watched a "Star Wars" movie and is only half-watching this show. All you really need to know to start watching is that there used to be a big evil Empire and now there's not, and even if you don't know that you can pick it up along the way from context clues. Mandalorians had been seen before in the "Star Wars" universe, but Din Djarin's covert is unique and follows its own set of rules that, conveniently, need to be explained to the audience. 

After the disappointment of "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," which concluded the sequel trilogy by clinging anxiously to the original trilogy's skirts, "The Mandalorian" felt bold and fresh and interesting. Once the series premiere closed with that indelible image of the tough lone wanderer reaching out to the adorably ugly green baby in the floating crib, everyone was hooked.

Is This The Way?

Somewhere in the middle of "The Mandalorian" season 2, the show seemed to grow concerned that the Lone Wolf and Cub weren't enough by themselves; they needed deeper ties to the rest of the franchise. Bo-Katan Kryze and Ahsoka Tano showed up (to find out more about those characters, watch 200-plus episodes of the "Star Wars" animated shows, plus the "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" animated film). Somehow, Boba Fett returned (to find out how Boba Fett returned, watch "The Book of Boba Fett"). And then the crowning jewel: Luke Skywalker himself, appearing via a body double, a digital simulation of Mark Hamill's voice, and a digital simulation of Mark Hamill's face.

Oh, you thought that watching "The Book of Boba Fett" was just a suggestion? Nope. Anyone naïve enough to try watching "The Mandalorian" season 3 immediately after the second season will experience the whiplash of Din Djarin and Grogu's heart-rending goodbye, followed by the two of them being back together again with zero explanation. Even the "Previously on..." recap omits the explanation of how and why Grogu returned. To catch up on the adventures you missed, you'll need to watch episodes 5-7 of "The Book of Boba Fett." Just don't expect to see much of Boba Fett in those episodes.

It might be years before we get the tell-all book about exactly what went wrong with "The Book of Boba Fett," and how it led to the show mostly dropping Boba Fett halfway through and turning into a weird mini-season of "The Mandalorian." Perhaps it simply proved too difficult to write a whole TV show about a legacy character who only had four lines of dialogue in the original trilogy. But whatever the reason, it meant that "The Mandalorian" went from gently nudging viewers towards other "Star Wars" shows to making one of those shows mandatory viewing.

Error 404 Way Not Found

The common retort to complaints that "The Mandalorian" doesn't really seem to be about the Mandalorian any more is, "well, they didn't say which Mandalorian." And it's true, double meanings are part of the show's personal brand. The episode title "The Convert," for example, refers both to Dr. Pershing as a convert to the New Republic, and Bo-Katan as a new convert to the Children of the Watch. Based on what we can from this odd, disjointed season so far, the titular Mandalorian of "The Mandalorian" season 3 is Bo-Katan, not Din Djarin.

That's not necessarily a bad concept. "The Wire" also drew criticism when it completely shifted its focus in season 2, but it was part of the overall design for the series, which is now considered one of the best TV shows ever made. However, "The Wire" season 2's new main characters were fully developed inside "The Wire." There isn't an animated series in the "Wire" cinematic universe featuring a Frank Sobotka origin story that you can watch for extra credit. 

As far as "The Mandalorian" is concerned, Bo-Katan Kryze hasn't actually done all that much. She teamed up with Din Djarin for a couple of missions in season 2, sulked on a chair until season 3 arrived, and then sulked on a chair some more. Grogu eventually dragged her away from the chair to help rescue his dad, and she went for a swim and saw a mythosaur. There was the weird dinosaur bird episode. And now the Armorer has proclaimed Bo-Katan to be the Mandalorian who will unite all other Mandalorians and restore Mandalore to its former glory. It's not unearned in the wider context of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars Rebels," but it feels very unearned in "The Mandalorian."

Meanwhile, Din Djarin has been reduced to just kind of hanging out in the background (where he's presumably fuming about the Armorer giving Bo-Katan a Get Out Of Helmet Free card just three episodes after he had to go to Mandalore, almost get desiccated by a cyborg, and then almost drown in his quest to be "redeemed" for removing his helmet). 

Friendship Ended With Mando, Now Andor Is My Best Friend

Perhaps there's some unspoken rule that there can only be one great standalone "Star Wars" TV show at any given time. If that's the case, I'm happy to leave "The Mandalorian" and take "Andor" in exchange. Based on current trends, Grogu's first full sentence is probably going to be "got a bad feeling about this, I have" -- but at least we have Stellan Skarsgård delivering his "I've made my mind a sunless space" monologue. 

The only prominent legacy character in "Andor" is Mon Mothma, but crucially her storyline never feels like it's resting on the laurels of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (a show that "Andor" creator Tony Gilroy probably hasn't watched). Instead, it gives her a rich and complex arc that's integral to the broader theme of the show: exploring the reasons why people from all walks of life choose to rebel against the Empire, and what price they pay for that choice.

You can, feasibly, go into "Andor" without having seen anything else that the "Star Wars" galaxy has to offer, and follow the plot without feeling like you're missing out on any vital details. Hell, if you don't have time to watch the whole show, episodes 4-6 and 8-10 independently function as self-contained stories about a grand heist and a prison break, respectively.

Yes, it's a bit surprising that a prequel to a prequel to the very first "Star Wars" movie is the most accessible and self-contained story the franchise has to offer. And yes, "Andor" reportedly has the lowest viewership out of all the "Star Wars" show on Disney+. But who cares? It was created with a two-season plan and season 2 is already filming, so ratings have no power over "Andor" any more. Besides, no one watched "The Wire" either.

Read this next: Every Star Wars Project Currently In Development

The post Star Wars Is Ruining The Mandalorian appeared first on /Film.

When J.J. Abrams' feature film "Star Trek" was released in theaters in 2009, there seemed to be a clear creative mandate at work. "Star Trek" was set prior to the events of the 1966 TV series on which it was based, telling an alternate timeline version of how the well-known "Trek" characters all first met. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the rest of the crew were all depicted as younger, hotter versions of themselves, each one more youthful and impulsive than their adult counterparts from 1966.

Given the hot-headedness of the Enterprise crew and the entire 2009 film's "action-packed" vibe, the mandate mentioned above seems to have demanded the filmmakers kick everything into OVERDRIVE. It's as if they wanted critics to respond with the phrase, "This ain't your grandpa's 'Star Trek.'" 

It's worth noting that the writers of "Star Trek" -- Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman -- were basing their characters not on how they appeared in "Star Trek," but on a general, unfamiliar pop culture interpretation of them. Kirk, to cite the most obvious example of this, was depicted as a young, horny, arrogant ladies' man who winks at danger and is generally rude and reckless. The "reckless cowboy" image of Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) perhaps originated from a mere handful of 1960s behavior examples, paired with a healthy comparison to the far more studious Capt. Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." In observation, Kirk was in fact a much more reasoned, restrained character than the pop image of him might have non-Trekkies believe. And yet, the cowboy was what a mass audience knew, so that's what the 2009 filmmakers went with. 

The real reason for Kirk's behavioral change, however, may be something far nerdier that can fit handily into "Trek" canon.

Kodos The Executioner

Yes, delving into the fineries of "Star Trek" canon is one of the dweebiest intellectual activities imaginable. But activating that particular neural gland gives Trekkies no small amount of pleasure, and good-natured nitpicking is one of our most edifying joys, so delve we shall, fellow nerds. Spreading headcanon amongst ourselves is the thing that brings us together. Indeed, credit goes to William Bibbiani for initially making this post's central observation. 

Trekkies may recall the original series episode, "The Conscience of the King" (December 8, 1966). In that episode, the Enterprise is called to a distant planet to investigate the identity of a local actor named Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss). Karidian is appearing in a local production of "Macbeth," and has spent the last few decades building his profile as a performer of classics. An old friend of Kirk's (William Sargent), however, strongly believes that Karidian is, in fact, Kodos the Executioner, a murderous monster who somehow escaped apprehension decades before and who changed his identity.

Years before, Kodos was the mayor of a distant Federation colony that was rapidly running out of food. The starships with supplies were so far behind, the colonists began to starve. Rather than let the colony waste away, Kodos elected to murder half the population. As it so happens, Kirk was present for the massacre of Tarsus IV. Kirk had moved away from Earth, only to witness the deaths of 4,000 people. By Trek's timeline, he was only 13 or 14 years old. 

In "Conscience," Kirk has to investigate Karidian to see if he is actually Kodos and also stem the rash of rage from other officers who also witnessed the killing. 

Surely, witnessing a massacre would change a child.

Trauma Versus No Trauma

Indeed, if Kirk has witnessed a massacre as a teen, having escaped being murdered himself, he would likely be a soberer, more wounded figure. He likely spent many years in counseling. It may also be what drew him to an organization like Starfleet, a peacekeeping outfit that is devoted to structure and exploration. Kirk was willing to engage in military tactics if the situation called for it (see: "Balance of Terror"), but he rarely went in with guns blazing and clearly had no taste for killing or for military conquest. 

The 2009 version of Kirk, meanwhile, was brash, lascivious, and rebellious. According to the timeline of the 2009 film, a vengeful Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) traveled back in time to 2233, on the day of James Kirk's birth. He attacked the U.S.S. Kelvin, which was being piloted by Kirk's father George (Chris Hemsworth). In killing Kirk's father, the timeline shifted, and the entire "Star Trek" universe changed. In the parallel universe, a fatherless Kirk became an unsupervised brat, stealing vintage cars and listening to vintage music. His life of rebellion led others to encourage him to enlist in Starfleet (not apply for Starfleet Academy, weirdly), sensing that he is destined for great things. He never left Earth to live on Tarsus IV, and never witnessed a massacre. 

As such, this new version of Kirk wouldn't be marked by that trauma. He would, instead, experience a very general sense of 20-year-old ennui. 

(Curiously, Nero's time travel shenanigans also somehow changed where starships are built. In "Trek" lore, Starfleet vessels are constructed at the Utopia Planitia Feet Yards orbiting Mars. For some reason, in the Kelvin timeline, they're constructed on Earth only a few miles from Kirk's home).

The New Kirk

When the new Kirk became a Starfleet captain, it was without the sobering experience of youthful trauma, and without years of counseling. Shatner's Kirk was not immature nor rash. He did often rely on his masculine wiles to escape desperate situations, and did occasionally rip apart entire civilizations because they were, say, run by the malevolent computer Landru, but for the most part he was practical. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) was too logical to lead, and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) was too passionate. He was the balance between the two. 

Conventional wisdom may dictate that the Enterprise crew as they appeared in the 2009 film were driven by their youthful energy and uncontrolled, immature impulses. This, I think, is only part of the story for Kirk. He's not just young in the 2009 film, but an entirely different character. When young Kirk cheats on the unpassable Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet, he doesn't even pretend that he's being tested. Instead, he eats an apple and flippantly walks out of the room when he passes. Shatner's Kirk may have also cheated at the Kobayashi Maru, but surely he would not have been so brash about it. When it comes to growing up, Chris Pine's Kirk had a longer way to go. 

Also, the Kelvin-verse eventually saw the destruction of both the Romulan homeworld (in Nero's future timeline) and the destruction of the Vulcan homeworld (in the past). The Kelvin-verse "Star Trek" movies took place in an era of enhanced military preparation and constant violence. Pine's Kirk, then, would never be allowed to grow into a calm-minded, diplomatic leader. He would, rather, become a tactician, a winking military general, willing to take action. 

That is quite far from where Shatner's Kirk would end up.

Read this next: Every Star Trek Movie Ranked Worst To Best

The post The Real (Nerdy) Reason Why Chris Pine's Captain Kirk is so Different From William Shatner's appeared first on /Film.

A Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group tracked as RedGolf has been attributed to the use of a custom Windows and Linux backdoor called KEYPLUG. "RedGolf is a particularly prolific Chinese state-sponsored threat actor group that has likely been active for many years against a wide range of industries globally," Recorded Future told The Hacker News. "The group has shown the ability to

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 7 of "Star Trek: Picard." 

The best thing about the third season of "Star Trek: Picard" is getting to see all of our old friends (and foes) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" again. Some fans had a difficult time with the first two seasons of the series (myself included), but season 3 has been like the "Next Generation" movie we always wanted, giving us some truly satisfying interactions between some of the franchise's most beloved characters. Occasionally the fanservice gets a bit overdone, but the simple joy of seeing the cast perform together overrides it all. After rescuing the Data/Lore human hybrid (Brent Spiner) from the basement of Daystrom, his former crewmates might have hoped to just boot him up and talk to Data, but things are never that simple. Geordi (LeVar Burton) explains that Data and his evil brother, Lore, are entwined within the same mind, and Lore's personality is just too strong. Booting them up could very easily mean Lore taking over and deleting Data, something Geordi says he simply couldn't bear. 

"Star Trek: Picard" has dealt with some pretty heavy problems that we encounter as we age, including inflicting generational trauma, the power of legacy, and how grief shapes us. Geordi's grief over the first death of Data has made him more protective over his daughters and more cautious in his own life, and it changed him as a man. Burton and Spiner get the chance to dig into that pain, and it's one incredibly emotional moment. 

Life Rarely Gives You Second Chances

When the situation on the U.S.S. Titan becomes dire as the villainous Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and her goons board, Geordi and his daughter Alandra (Mica Burton) hook DataLore into the ship's computers in hopes of defeating Vadic. Unfortunately, Lore does what Lore does best, and he unleashes chaos on the starship by assisting Vadic wherever he can. He also taunts poor Geordi while he does it, knowing full well that his other daughter, Sidney (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), is in grave danger. Geordi breaks down and starts appealing to Data, trying to get him to fight his way past Lore. He also seems to confess things that he's always wanted to say but never had the chance, and it's heartbreaking. He tells Data:

"Life rarely gives you second chances to say what you should. You made me better. You made me a better man, a better father, a better friend. And when you died, it broke me."

He goes on to explain how the memory of Data was the thing that kept him going even in his toughest moments, and Burton's voice cracks with grief. It's a stellar performance, and while Spiner has to give him almost nothing back because he's Lore, he does give brief moments of Data's recognition before the kinder, gentler mind is able to take over. It's a deeply nuanced performance that works perfectly counter to Burton's bigger, more emotive one, and the two play off of one another beautifully. 

'The Memory Of You'

Almost everyone on "The Next Generation" had some kind of personal relationship with Data, because he served as sort of the heart of the ship. He was like the Enterprise's tin man, forever looking for a heart despite the fact that he really had a huge heart all along. Geordi was one of the more reserved members of the crew and could be rather shy, especially compared to the boisterous Riker (Jonathan Frakes) or the theatrical Picard (Patrick Stewart), but Data could bring out his fun side. The two had an innocent and funny friendship that countered all of the seriousness of the series, and thinking of the loss Geordi must have felt when Data died the first time is devastating. 

Almost anyone who's ever lost someone has regrets or things they wish they could have said. The things that went unsaid are a huge part of grief, and when Geordi gets the chance to maybe tell Data those things, it's a healing moment for him. Data manages to pull himself out of the void and override Lore because of his love for Geordi, and it's powerful without being overbearing. Geordi's line about "the memory of you" is an all-timer and has the same kind of weight as Kirk and Spock's goodbyes at the end of "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan." "Star Trek: Picard" has had an emotionally resonant season 3 with lots of great moments, but Geordi and Data's heartfelt and heartbreaking reunion is one of the best.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Picard" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.

Read this next: The Strongest Star Trek Villains Ranked

The post Levar Burton and Brent Spiner Just Gave Star Trek One of Its Most Emotional Moments Ever appeared first on /Film.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is "exploring" putting ads in the responses given by Bing Chat, its new search agent powered by OpenAI's GPT-4. Microsoft confirmed this is happening, albeit in an experimental form, in a blog post published today. Here's the relevant bit from the very end after "a bit of context" explaining no one should be surprised: "We are also exploring additional capabilities for publishers including our more than 7,500 Microsoft Start partner brands. We recently met with some of our partners to begin exploring ideas and to get feedback on how we can continue to distribute content in a way that is meaningful in traffic and revenue for our partners. As we look to continue to evolve the model together, we shared some early ideas we're exploring including: - An expanded hover experience where hovering over a link from a publisher will display more links from that publisher giving the user more ways to engage and driving more traffic to the publisher's website. - For our Microsoft Start partners, placing a rich caption of Microsoft Start licensed content beside the chat answer helping to drive more user engagement with the content on Microsoft Start where we share the ad revenue with the partner. We're also exploring placing ads in the chat experience to share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier today, more than 1,100 artificial intelligence experts, industry leaders and researchers signed a petition calling on AI developers to stop training models more powerful than OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 for at least six months. Among those who refrained from signing it was Eliezer Yudkowsky, a decision theorist from the U.S. and lead researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He's been working on aligning Artificial General Intelligence since 2001 and is widely regarded as a founder of the field. "This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium," writes Yudkowsky in an opinion piece for Time Magazine. "I refrained from signing because I think the letter is understating the seriousness of the situation and asking for too little to solve it." Yudkowsky cranks up the rhetoric to 100, writing: "If somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect that every single member of the human species and all biological life on Earth dies shortly thereafter." Here's an excerpt from his piece: The key issue is not "human-competitive" intelligence (as the open letter puts it); it's what happens after AI gets to smarter-than-human intelligence. Key thresholds there may not be obvious, we definitely can't calculate in advance what happens when, and it currently seems imaginable that a research lab would cross critical lines without noticing. [...] It's not that you can't, in principle, survive creating something much smarter than you; it's that it would require precision and preparation and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers. [...] It took more than 60 years between when the notion of Artificial Intelligence was first proposed and studied, and for us to reach today's capabilities. Solving safety of superhuman intelligence -- not perfect safety, safety in the sense of "not killing literally everyone" -- could very reasonably take at least half that long. And the thing about trying this with superhuman intelligence is that if you get that wrong on the first try, you do not get to learn from your mistakes, because you are dead. Humanity does not learn from the mistake and dust itself off and try again, as in other challenges we've overcome in our history, because we are all gone. Trying to get anything right on the first really critical try is an extraordinary ask, in science and in engineering. We are not coming in with anything like the approach that would be required to do it successfully. If we held anything in the nascent field of Artificial General Intelligence to the lesser standards of engineering rigor that apply to a bridge meant to carry a couple of thousand cars, the entire field would be shut down tomorrow. We are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we actually do this, we are all going to die. You can read the full letter signed by AI leaders here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Star Wars actor Mark Hamill has lent his voice to a Ukrainian air raid app to warn citizens of incoming attacks during the ongoing conflict with Russia. The Verge reports: "Attention. Air raid alert. Proceed to the nearest shelter," says Hamill over Air Alert, an app linked to Ukraine's air defense system. When the threat has passed, Hamill signs off with "The alert is over. May the Force be with you." Invoking his beloved Luke Skywalker character, some of the lines contain recognizable quotes from the Star Wars franchise like "Don't be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness." You can hear a few lines in the following video starting around 56 seconds in [here]. The crossover of sci-fi fandom might feel like it's trivializing the real-world conflict, but some Ukrainian residents have found solace -- or perhaps the Force! -- in Hamill's Star Wars-influenced voiceover. "It's a very cool phrase for this situation," said Olena Yeremina, a business manager in Kyiv, in an interview with The Associated Press. "I wouldn't say that I feel like a Ukrainian Jedi, but sometimes this phrase reminds me to straighten my shoulders and keep working."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post contains spoilers for season 1 of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

The first season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" has a Blu-ray set to be released into the universe, which includes (among other things) a gag reel of the cast breaking down on set. Jess Bush, who plays Nurse Chapel on the show, especially loves that gag reel. "I get all warm and fuzzy watching it," she told me in a recent interview. "There's the story and then there's behind the scenes moments that touch a special place in your heart." 

I talked with Bush about that gag reel (including who the actor was that made her laugh more than everyone else) as well as what we might see of Chapel in season 2 of the show, particularly in her relationships with M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and Spock (Ethan Peck).

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

'We're There For So Many Hours A Day That You Start To Go A Little Bit Cuckoo'

I know you're doing these interviews to help promote the season 1 home video release. Have you seen any of the extended features on that at all?

I have. I have seen the gag reel, which is so fun. I get all warm and fuzzy watching it, because we get to see what was really going on for us. There's the story and then there's behind the scenes moments that touch a special place in your heart.

I would love to hear your thoughts about what it really was like on set between takes. Was it jovial?

I think it depended on what exactly we were shooting, whether the stakes were very high and there was a lot of moving parts. I think for more complicated scenes, people had to just be a little bit more focused. It also depended on who was working that day. Everybody has a different chemistry together. But most of the time, we're having as much fun -- it's a good time. Everybody's there creating something really special. And there's lots of time spent on set where we're waiting around and can chat. There's definitely some very silly, funny times. We're there for so many hours a day that you start to go a little bit cuckoo.

Is there one actor that always just cracked you up more than others?

Celia [Rose Gooding, who plays Uhura on the show]. She's just got the best spirit and is so passionate and dedicated to her work and also embraces the lightness. She's just a ray of sunshine always, singing always, laughing always, but also so heartful. I love her energy on set.

With Nurse Chapel — and I know you've talked about this before, about how you're taking on a legacy character and we're seeing different facets of her. But one thing I love about what we saw on season 1 was the relationships she forms with other crew members. She has very distinct and meaningful relationships with everyone, but especially with M'Benga, with Ortegas, and Spock, of course. I know you can't get into details too much about season 2, but I wondered if you could tease anything about how those relationships play out or interact in the upcoming episodes.

How can I do this without spoiling anything? I think Chapel's relationship with M'Benga is very special and very deep and almost familial, and that really gains more color in the second season. Her relationship with Spock gets a lot more complicated and deepens, as well. I think you just start to see a little bit more deeply into what Chapel provides in a relationship, whether that be platonic, familial, or romantic, both strengths and weaknesses. I really enjoyed fleshing that out in season 2.

'Let's Just Say Chapel Gets To Be A Total Badass'

We also saw in season 1 that there's some action scenes for Chapel. I wonder if there's anything you can say about your direct involvement in any action-related scenes for season 2.

Let's just say Chapel gets to be a total badass. I was very excited when I started to read the script for season 2 for that reason.

What was that like for you, preparing for that? Have you done a lot of action before, or is that something new for you?

I haven't done a lot. In an independent film I did when I was much younger, there was a bit of combat. But not in my work have I done a lot of action. I'm a very active person and naturally athletic, so I tend to take pretty quickly to choreography and physical challenges, which I feel very fortunate to have that natural ability. It was really fun to explore that more in an acting sense. I loved it.

And it must have been fun using the "Star Trek" props that are available to you for those things.

Yeah, totally. So many "pinch me" moments of being like, "I am doing X, Y, Z on a spaceship set. Wow. I'm 30, and I'm on a spaceship in Canada doing this crazy stunt."

'It Was Like A Sparkly Breath Of Fresh Air'

One episode we do know is coming in season 2 is the crossover with "Lower Decks." What was it like for you in that episode, that dynamic on set of having the "Lower Decks" folks there? How was that whole experience?

It was like a sparkly breath of fresh air. It was so, so fun. I remember in a table read when the folks from "Lower Decks" were in there, it just injected this whole other energy into our cast and everybody in the room lit up in this different way just because the tone of "Lower Decks" is so different to ours. So it was very exciting to have this new concoction of energy on set. It was so much fun. And [Jonathan Frakes, who also plays Will Riker in "Picard"] is so wonderful as a director. They were an absolute hoot, total professionals. So warm and inviting, and we had a great time.

Do you have a favorite scene from season 1 that just stuck with you?

There were a couple. Hemmer's funeral was really beautiful just because it was really moving. What we were shooting was very moving and very sad as [actor Bruce Horak] was also leaving the show, so it had some real weight to it. But also we were all there and we're not often all there at one time. So the days when we're on set and everybody's there are really special. And the director had an old record player and was playing old blues music between takes, so it had this very surreal, heartfelt vibe about the day.

But there was also a day on episode 9 — it was a whole day of scenes that were just me. It was all of the intense terror moments for that episode. It was an amazing acting challenge and so thrilling to tackle that on my own for the whole day. It was very rewarding. I loved that episode.

The first season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is now streaming on Paramount+ and available on Blu-ray.

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The post Strange New Worlds' Jess Bush Says The Chapel/Spock Relationship 'Deepens' in Season 2 [Exclusive Interview] appeared first on /Film.

The return of actor, Ahmed Best, to the Star Wars franchise has sparked a new theory for The Mandalorian suggesting the actor’s original character, Jar Jar Binks, will return alongside Best’s Jedi role as Kelleran Beq.

Star Wars fans will know that Best first appeared as Kelleran Beq in the game show, Jedi Temple Challenge, wielding a purple lightsaber, which caused fans to think Mace Windu had returned in episode 4.

Created by Jon Favreau for Disney Plus and starring Pascal as the titular bounty hunter, The Mandalorian follows Din Djarin who is hired to track down a child known as Grogu – more commonly Baby Yoda – but ends up doing everything he can to protect him from Imperial forces.

• MORE MANDO: The Mandalorian actor Matthew Bellows previously worked stunts in Hereditary

The Mandalorian Jar Jar Binks theory

Shared by the TikTok user, Bombastic, this Mando theory picks up after the events of episode 4, The Foundling, within the Order 66 arc.

Kelleran Beq saves Grogu from the Jedi Temple, and the Jedi reassures the child that they are going to meet up with some friends of his.

After Beq crash lands and meets with a member of the Royal Naboo Security Force, he then flies off in an H-type Nubian yacht.

This sparked the theory that Beq’s next location will be Naboo and one of the friends he plans to meet up with is Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar Binks is from the Gungan race and served as a military commander and politician on his homeworld of Naboo, later assuming an important role during the Invasion of Naboo and the Clone Wars.

The creator explained how the people of Naboo are currently open to uniting with the Jedi against the opposing forces at this point in the timeline and Jar Jar is a prominent figure who could help.

Having Ahmed Best return to not only his Jedi role in The Mandalorian, but also his voice role as Jar Jar Binks, would be a monumental moment in the franchise. 

@staybombastic

Do you think they’re going to do this? #starwars #starwarstiktok #fy #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #gaming #gamingontiktok #gamingdaily #starwarsmemes #disney #starwarsfan #mandalorian #themandalorian

? original sound – Bombastic

• MORE MANDO: Star Wars fans still hope Hondo Ohnaka will appear in The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian episode count and release schedule

The Mandalorian season 3 is confirmed to have eight episodes, following the episode count of its previous two seasons.

Season 3 will follow the pattern of most Disney Plus shows and release weekly, with new episodes airing on a Wednesday.

Each episode lasts between 30-50 minutes and the season 3 finale is confirmed to take place on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

Season 3’s full release schedule reveals when you can catch every new episode of The Mandalorian until the finale.

By Jo Craig – jo.craig@grv.media

The Mandalorian season 3 is now streaming on Disney Plus.

The post The Mandalorian theory suggests Jar Jar Binks will return with Ahmed Best appeared first on ForeverGeek.

Chinese cyberespionage group Mustang Panda was seen targeting maritime, shipping, border control, and immigration organizations in recent attacks.

The post Over 200 Organizations Targeted in Chinese Cyberespionage Campaign appeared first on SecurityWeek.

A group of academic researchers devised an attack that can intercept Wi-Fi traffic at the MAC layer, bypassing client isolation.

The post New Wi-Fi Attack Allows Traffic Interception, Security Bypass appeared first on SecurityWeek.

I love all things The Last of Us, so it pains me to report that the PC port of The Last of Us Part I, which launched yesterday, is a buggy mess. Thousands of reviews on Steam are categorized as "mostly negative" and are filled with mentions of frequent crashes and poor hardware utilization. Meanwhile, Steam Deck users are reporting that it takes more than an hour for the game to compile shaders on its initial launch — and even once that's done, performance is an issue. 

I don't have a powerful gaming PC, but I do have a Steam Deck and can confirm these issues. Once I got the game installed and waited around 90 minutes for the shaders to compile, I started playing the standalone DLC Left Behind, and the game crashed during the opening cinematics. Once I started playing the game, I saw it was using 102 percent of the Steam Deck's VRAM. Dropping all graphics settings to low got me under 100 percent, so crashes will probably be less frequent going forward. I only played for a few minutes, so I can't say how things work once you're taking on Infected, but I won't get my hopes up. 

A few hours after this story was first published, Naughty Dog released the game's first patch, a hotfix for some of the stability issues. The company didn't have a ton of details on the specifics, but it says that more updates will be coming soon. I spent an hour playing the first part of the game on the Steam Deck, and it feels a lot more solid than it did yesterday, though I still haven't gotten to the most graphically intense sequences yet. Still, things seem to be moving in the right direction — playing on medium with the frame rate set to max out at 40fps, things ran pretty smoothly.

It's worth nothing that Sony didn't provide reviews with a demo code for the game until launch day, something that often means the game is either being worked on right up until the last minute or the experience isn't very good (or both). This made a bit nervous about how The Last of Us Part I would run, and it seems like my fears were well-founded.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Developer Naughty Dog didn't waste any time addressing the problems, tweeting out last night that they're "actively investigating multiple issues" that players have reported. The company also has a "known issues" page running, which acknowledges the shader loading issue as well as a potential memory leak, older graphics drivers leading to instability, and the game being unable to boot despite systems that meet the minimum requirements.

A number of high-profile PlayStation games from Sony's first-party studios have been ported to PC, including 2017's Horizon Zero Dawn and 2018's God of War, as well as Naughty Dog's own Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection (which includes remastered versions Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy). Both Horizon and the Uncharted collection had pretty serious issues at launch, as well. Since then, updates have made the games work much better, but it's still a disappointing trend. 

Even after delaying the game about a month from its original March 3rd date, things were clearly not ready to go. Sony likely wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the HBO series, which wrapped its first season earlier this month, but a delayed launch is probably better than a launch that no one can play. As of now, Naughty Dog hasn't released an update for The Last of Us Part I, but we'll be keeping an eye out for any fixes. I've been dreaming of having this game on-the-go since it was announced, so my fingers are crossed Naughty Dog can make it work on the Steam Deck — not to mention for the many people who want to play it on their powerful gaming PCs.

Update, 3/29/23 3:25PM ET: Added details about the first patch that Naughty Dog just released to address performance issues.

Update, 3/29/23 4:20PM ET: Added details about how the game plays on Steam Deck following the patch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-last-of-us-part-i-for-pc-is-a-buggy-mess-144036281.html?src=rss

When you’re roaming online, you must use ad blockers or privacy extensions to keep those annoying ads away. Ad blocking DNS is necessary to stop those pop-ups in your browser. Currently, cybercriminals are even using pop-ups, ads, phishing sites, and malicious domains to target people on the internet. Luckily, you can rely on the right ad-blocking DNS as they will help you prevent those pop-up ads and eliminate the malicious ones that can harm you. With plenty of tools available in the market, choosing the right DNS service becomes difficult. The most important thing to search for is that the

7 Best Ad Blocking DNS [Free & Paid] is a post from: Raymond.CC Blog

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of "The Mandalorian."

Series creator Jon Favreau certainly knows that the Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal, et al) and Grogu duo is a huge reason why viewers continue to tune in to "The Mandalorian" on a weekly basis -- but the show isn't solely about their (mis)adventures. Throughout the course of a little over two and a half seasons, the pair have come across several fan-favorite characters who could easily shoulder the weight of their own entire spin-off shows. Some of these guest stars, such as Temuera Morrison's Boba Fett and assassin Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), have already gone on to headline "The Book of Boba Fett." Others, such as Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth or Katee Sackhoff's Bo-Katan Kryze, have stolen the spotlight during their many appearances yet remain supporting players. With the latest episode, however, we may have just received our biggest hint yet at what a since-shelved spin-off could've looked like.

Early on in "Chapter 21: The Pirate," the assault on Nevarro by the pirate warlord Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie) motivates the reluctant Magistrate (er, make that High Magistrate) Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) to send out a distress call to the New Republic. Who else but our old friend Captain Carson Teva, the X-wing pilot portrayed by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee in season 2, should respond with the urgency the situation requires. But as he struggles to get the slow-moving New Republic bureaucracy on Coruscant to approve sending reinforcements and protect the planet, this plotline can't help but recall Lucasfilm's plans for a very different "Star Wars" show altogether.

In effect, "The Mandalorian" is giving us a glimpse into what the now-scrapped "Rangers of the New Republic" spin-off series could've been.

Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It...

In a better world, Disney and Lucasfilm would've originally cast a much less vitriolic (and, dare I say it, slightly more talented) actor than Gina Carano as Cara Dune, the ex-Rebel soldier featured in the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian" who was meant to lead "Rangers of the New Republic." In light of her terribly offensive comments, the studios made the wise choice to part ways with her entirely and cancel any plans for her spin-off series. But while all that storytelling potential seems to have been squandered, "The Mandalorian" might have repurposed some of that original concept into its latest episode.

The indications of what this spin-off could've been start when we visit Carson Teva in a ramshackle bar populated by other former Rebels and now-current Rangers of the New Republic. Alerted to the message sent by Greef Karga, Teva happens to be the one to spring into action in honor of their past shared history. But it's easy to imagine an entire series where Dune, Teva, and other do-gooder adventurers respond to distress calls scattered throughout the galaxy, operating as the law people of the Wild West -- an apt comparison in an episode featuring pirate kings and other criminals running roughshod in a chaotic, post-Empire galaxy.

While Teva's rescue efforts get caught up in the muck of New Republic politics, stonewalled from helping because of petty bureaucracy, that only makes the prospects of a ragtag and technically law-breaking group of renegades acting in the best interests of the defenseless all the more exciting. Without the help of the New Republic government and free to choose their own missions, I for one would've been on board with the "Star Wars" version of Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Mission Force.

Filling In The Gaps

While the overall reputation of the sequel trilogy has been soured by the thoroughly divisive "The Rise of Skywalker," there's one major oversight from "The Force Awakens" that may have kneecapped the new movies before they ever really got off the ground. Decades after the fall of the Empire, the state of the galaxy and its new political reality without an evil emperor calling all the shots anymore were never really explored at all. Sure, we knew that the First Order had risen from the ashes of the Empire, the Rebellion had been replaced by the Resistance, and somewhere in the middle of it all was some government entity known as the New Republic. Otherwise, however, "The Force Awakens" never really stopped to explain any of this.

Now, it seems that "The Mandalorian" has decided to help tie up some of those loose ends, paying off Kathleen Kennedy's prior comments that "Rangers of the New Republic" would "...figure into future episodes, I'm sure, of the next season of 'The Mandalorian.'"

That seems to have come to fruition, as season 3 dives further into the new status quo of a recently-freed galaxy. Just because the Empire is (mostly) no more, naturally, doesn't mean that bandits and pirates and certain overambitious Imperials no longer pose a threat. By bringing Teva back into the action and finding himself at the whims of a corporate quagmire on Coruscant, "The Mandalorian" continues its interest in paralleling the New Republic with the Empire. In the process, season 3 may be killing two birds with one stone: providing important world-building context for the New Republic while giving us more insights into the paths left untraveled in "Rangers of the New Republic."

New episodes of "The Mandalorian" premiere on Disney+ on Wednesdays.

Read this next: Star Wars Movie Villains Ranked Least To Most Powerful

The post The Mandalorian Reveals What The Canceled Rangers Of The New Republic Spinoff Could Have Been appeared first on /Film.

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of "The Mandalorian."

The question of what, exactly, "The Mandalorian" is about has eluded the first live-action "Star Wars" show. It is not about bringing Grogu "home," since the series already did that in season 2. It is not about discovering the fate of Mandalore, because that happened early on in season 3. So, the only logical conclusion is that the show is about Mandalorian culture as a whole, and the slow process of reclaiming the Mandalorians' lost homeland and its massive treasure of precious metal beskar. In a way, that makes it the "Star Wars" equivalent of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," which would make Grogu the show's Bilbo Baggins — in a matter of speaking.

It makes sense, then, that the show has shifted focus from Din Djarin to Bo-Katan, the most capable Mandalorian, the one who actually knows Mandalorian culture, had seen the planet Mandalore before its destruction, and has a personal stake in its retaking, as well as experience in leadership. We have seen her struggle in the fight to reclaim Mandalore — and get so sad about losing her squad that she didn't leave her chair for nearly two whole episodes — and we just saw her get tasked with uniting the different Mandalorian clans for whatever this show's answer will be to the Battle of the Five Armies.

There is just one problem: The main Mandalorian clan we know in the show, the one we are seemingly meant to follow and support, is a violent extremist cult of religious zealots that caused a civil war on Mandalore and even supported Darth Maul. And how do characters on "The Mandalorian" react to this information? With the shrug emoji, basically.

Wasted Possibilities

In season 2, when we met live-action Bo-Katan, she explained that the group of Mandalorians we had been following on the show up to that point (the ones who had saved Din Djarin as a kid and given him shelter) were not like the rest of the Mandalorians, but actually an extremist cult called the Children of the Watch. They are obsessed with restoring the Way, an ancient faith of the first Mandalorians that they deemed had been lost by the rest of their kin.

This explains why this particular group of Mandalorians never remove their helmets when everyone on Mandalore was fine with it during the Clone Wars. Indeed, they are extremely weird about the whole helmet rule (which the more we find out about, the less it makes sense), and why they kicked Din Djarin out for removing his helmet despite it being in front of his adopted son, who is now an official Mandalorian foundling!

This prompted many (including me) to assume that the show was going to go on a deprogramming arc for good old Din, who was going to realize that his adoptive family was full of cultists and he had to learn what it truly meant to be a Mandalorian, without the whole indoctrinating children thing. Except, the series appears to be headed in a different direction.

Instead, season 3 has seemingly forgotten all about the Children of the Watch being zealots. Instead, they've become major characters we are supposed to care about and who have welcomed Din into their ranks full-time now that he bathed in some special water. Paz Vizsla, who once tried to kill Din, is now his biggest fan, and we are apparently meant to simply forget he's descended from an infamous Mandalorian terrorist from the Clone Wars.

Forgotten Threats

For the uninitiated, the Death Watch was a terrorist splinter group of Mandalorians during the Clones Wars that was fixated on restoring what they believed to be the true way of Mandalore -- one they felt the planet's pacifist government led by Bo-Katan's late sister, Satine Kryze, had strayed away from. They even attempted to take over the planet several times and eventually resorted to allying with Darth Maul to seize control. Paz Vizla's ancestor, Pre Vizsla, was the leader of this terrorist group, and Bo-Katan herself was a member at one point.

Considering Death Watch was a huge part of the animated "Clone Wars" TV series, it's kind of baffling to see "The Mandalorian" tease some kind of reckoning for the organization, only to apparently swerve in the opposite direction. What's more, season 3, episode 5 ends with The Armorer charing Bo-Katan with uniting all Mandalorian tribes, yet there's no mention of whether they are going to make a truce or if the intention is to indoctrinate them all into the Children of the Watch.

The fact that we don't know, coupled with the show's apparent lack of interest in exploring what the Children of the Watch even stand for anymore, is a huge wasted opportunity at best, a betrayal of "Clone Wars" at worst.

New episodes of "The Mandalorian" premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.

Read this next: The Biggest Questions The Mandalorian Season 3 Needs To Answer

The post The Mandalorian Season 3 Really Wants Us to Like the Extremist Group, Doesn't It? appeared first on /Film.

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