By some curious twist of fate, I ended up with two orders of mashed potatoes from Popeyes last night. Maybe God was casting blessings upon me (She works in mysterious ways), or maybe they charged me for a large and used two small containers because they ran out of packaging. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It was a…
This article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 4, "The Foundling."
In season 3 episode 3 of "The Mandalorian," Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) found a way to evade a horde of TIE fighters by traveling through hyperspace to the home planet of The Children of the Watch. "I'm bringing you to a Mandalorian covert. This is how we survived in exile," Din tells Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), as the duo (along with Grogu and R4-D5) disembark on the dusty planet. Season 3 already offered us a glimpse into this rather dangerous secret location — the opening scene of the season premiere features a Children of the Watch oath-taking ritual near the waters, from which a giant space alligator emerges and munches on a few Mandos. With literal foundlings present at the scene, the odds were not in favor of the Mandalorians, who struggled to tame the beast. Thanks to Din's timely rescue, no children were chomped alive, and the alligator (crocodile?) was killed, and most probably eaten.
The latest episode of the show, titled "The Foundling," presents a troubling issue with the location of the Mandalorian covert: It is no place for a child to grow up in. When not being hounded by monstrous space alligators, foundlings are unceremoniously swooped up by huge raptors and taken to the beast's nest, miles away from the covert. The latest child victim is Ragnar, Paz Vizsla's (Tait Fletcher, voiced by Jon Favreau) son, who gets swiped by said raptor after he loses to Grogu in a dart challenge. Poor kid would've been dead if not for Bo-Katan's timely efforts to tail the beast to its nest on her ship.
As Grogu is currently stranded with Din on this hellscape, I wonder what fresh horrors await this kid, along with the other ones.
The Way of The Watch is already a thorny path to embark on, with dogmatic rules in place to never take off one's helmet once a foundling is baptized and being a part of a separatist religious cult that might or might not have nefarious origins. The kid in the season premiere narrowly escaped being eaten alive by the sea beast, and Ragnar had no choice but to flail around helplessly after the raptor flies away with him. The danger of the situation is enhanced by the goofiness of the Children of the Watch, who run out of jet fuel mid-chase and land rather awkwardly in resignation, while Bo-Katan takes the proactive route and charts out a solid escape plan. The Armorer is not much help either, as she simply watches on as the Mandos panic after losing sight of the raptor.
After reaching the beast's nest, Vizsla does not bother scouting the location and jumps into the heart of danger. Three raptor younglings peck at him, while the mother raptor comically throws Ragnar up to feed its hungry children, but Bo and the other Mandos intervene. Imagine being bested by a small, green child who is too young to don a Mandalorian helmet, and then immediately swooped up by a beast who swallows you alive only to feed you to its children later. Even after he's spat out, Ragnar is thrust around by the raptor mid-air but is thankfully saved by Din from sure shot death and guided back to safety. Ragnar's safe return is truly a miracle, and the other foundling kids clanging their armor in celebration is a hilarious, bitter irony. Run away while you can, kids.
New episodes of "The Mandalorian" season 3 air every Wednesday on Disney+.
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The post The Mandalorians' New Home Is Overdue A Visit From Child Protective Services appeared first on /Film.
This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of The Mandalorian.
The new episode of "The Mandalorian" — Chapter 20 - The Foundling — brought a character into the official canon that many of us never expected to see. Kelleran Beq was first introduced in "Star Wars" for a YouTube show called "The Jedi Temple Challenge." This show was a love letter to the obstacle course shows of Nickelodeon from the '80s and '90s, like "Double Dare" and "Legends of the Hidden Temple." Ahmed Best (who portrayed Jar Jar Binks in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy and in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars") hosted the show in character as a Jedi Knight named Kelleran Beq, and it was his job to train Jedi younglings. The show itself followed his lead as a teacher. His character was nicknamed "The Sabered Hand" and he was renowned for his skills. More than that, he wielded a purple lightsaber on the show. That saber, incidentally, was made from the Protection and Defense pieces of lightsabers that you can build at Savi's workshop on Galaxy's Edge.
Purple is a rare color for lightsaber blades in the "Star Wars" universe. So far, we've only seen one on the big screen and it was wielded by Samuel L. Jackson as he played Mace Windu in the prequels.
In an Instagram post, Ahmed Best explained why he chose a purple lightsaber and it all had to do with the concept of balance:
"Balance is one of the challenges in "Jedi Temple Challenge" and something I truly believe in. The inspiration behind the lightsaber has to do with the balance of peace and justice. I chose purple because of the balance between the red and blue kyber crystal. The leather on the hilt is large enough for one hand. I took inspiration from a Filipino Martial Art that I study called Escrima and Musashi Miyamoto for a one handed style of fighting. Kelleran Beq is nicknamed "The Bladed Hand" for his effectiveness with the one handed lightsaber style and the empty hand which wields the Force simultaneously like another Lightsaber."
In another instance, in an interview with StarWars.Com, he said that his choice for a purple lightsaber was also to pay respects to Mace Windu, who wielded the first purple blade in "Star Wars."
When Samuel L. Jackson, the actor behind Mace Windu, asked George Lucas what color lightsabers came in, Lucas responded that good guys got to pick between blue and green and that was it.
"No purple?" Jackson asked.
"You might get purple," Lucas responded on the set of "Attack of the Clones."
You can watch that entire behind-the-scenes exchange here, as easy as it was.
And that's as simple as it was for the first purple lightsaber to make its way on screen. Interestingly enough, the lightsaber boasts a "Pulp Fiction" reference. On an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon," Jackson said that the prop team engraved the letters BMF on the off switch when they gave it back to him to keep. BMF, obviously stands for "Bad Mother F******" which is what his "Pulp Fiction" character's wallet had written on it.
Samuel L. Jackson is the sort of guy who just asks for what he wants and everyone likes him so much they want to give it to him. In fact, that's really how he got the part in "Star Wars" in the first place. In the 46th issue of "Star Wars Insider," Jackson recalled:
"When reporters asked me, 'Are there any directors you want to work with that you haven't worked with before,' I would say, 'George Lucas is about to do the Star Wars thing, I'd really love to work with him.' And I said that often enough that somebody heard it and told him. I got invited to the Ranch to see if I was serious about that. Yeah, sure! You can make me a stormtrooper if you want, I don't care—as long as I know I'm in the movie, I don't care if anybody else knows or not."
That was how he first got the part, though he had no idea who he would be playing. When he showed up for set on the first day and they put him in Jedi robes, he realized he was going to be a Jedi Knight.
The rest was, as they say, history.
So what happened to Kelleran Beq's purple lightsaber? In "The Mandalorian," he's clearly wielding both a green and blue lightsaber, rather than the purple blade he was known for on the "Jedi Temple Challenge."
Well, first, it's important to remember that "Jedi Temple Challenge" isn't canon, even if Kelleran Beq now is. So his purple lightsaber there might just be something they do for the YouTube show and not the "Star Wars" canon in general. It's fair to assume that they wanted to reserve the special nature of Mace Windu's purple lightsaber for Samuel L. Jackson in the on-screen iterations of "Star Wars."
But there's a specific shot in the episode that lets us know that at least one of those lightsabers wasn't his. He picks it up on the floor of the elevator when he retrieves Grogu and uses it to swat away the blaster bolts of the oncoming Clone troopers. These sabers are green and blue, meaning the saber he already had on him was not his purple saber either.
It seems as though Beq fought his way to that landing balcony, there's every chance that we just didn't see him lose his purple lightsaber, too, and these two were simply the ones he picked up to defend himself.
Regardless of the color of sabers he used, Kelleran Beq defended himself and Grogu valiantly as they made their escape from the Jedi Temple as the purge unfolded. He'll remain a hero in the "Star Wars" lore and a vital part of Grogu's history.
"Star Wars: The Mandalorian" is streaming only on Disney+. New episodes come every Wednesday.
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The post Why Is Kelleran Beq Missing His Purple Lightsaber In The Mandalorian? An Investigation appeared first on /Film.
This piece contains spoilers for "The Mandalorian."
Whether we all like it or not, our beloved Grogu is being taught the so-called "true" Way in "The Mandalorian." This, as you can imagine, is a bit of a double-edged sword — while we are all for the Jedi-to-be honing in his skills, it also sets him on a potentially dangerous path full of creepy religious tenets and poor safety precautions. So far, it's not looking like the Children of the Watch are any more sympathetic, but at least they recognize that Grogu has potential for greatness. I, personally, can agree with them on that.
On the bright side, the latest episode of "The Mandalorian" proved that we shouldn't expect Grogu to don the Mandalorian helmet for a while. We see this before his adoptive father Din (Pedro Pascal) puts him in a training exercise with a young Mando foundling – when asked why the little guy is being trained despite not wearing a helmet created by the Watch, Din replies that it's because he's unable to recite the Mandalorian creed. Of course, the obvious rebuttal would be that if he can't recite the creed, he can't train to be a member of the Watch, but that is put to rest when the foundlings and the rest of the group find out what he's capable of. Regardless, he was officially given the foundling status by the Armorer (Emily Swallow), so he's on his way up ... for now.
The fact that Grogu isn't about to become fully initiated into the Children of the Watch isn't surprising for a few varied reasons. For starters, Grogu can barely talk. The only clear word that he's been able to mutter so far throughout the show's three seasons is "patu," the meaning of which is still uncertain. Considering he's around fifty years old, he'll probably only be able to speak maybe one or two sentences by the time he's reached his centennial. There's a good chance that if the Watch is even still around, Grogu will outlive everyone he met as a foundling by the time he's able to recite the creed and thus receive his helmet.
This plot detail also acknowledges a big elephant in the "Mandalorian" room, and that is the fact that Grogu's popularity mostly has to do with how cute he is. I have already written about how portraying him as a puppet instead of a CGI creature is the best call due to his range of emotions, and this episode was far from an exception. We already have to deal with Pascal's kind and loving face being covered up all the time, so what would happen if Grogu's was, as well? Would mass panic spread onto the streets? Would "Star Wars" merchandise sales plummet? Who's to say? Regardless, it's for the best that Grogu isn't fully initiated into the Watch yet, and it's even better that he won't be getting a helmet for presumably a long, long time.
Read this next: Star Wars Deleted Scenes That Could've Changed Everything
The post Don't Expect Grogu To Get His Mandalorian Helmet Any Time Soon appeared first on /Film.
This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "The Mandalorian."
"Star Wars" fans had to go without "The Mandalorian" for more than two years following the conclusion of season 2 and, for many of us, it felt like forever. Now, it somehow feels like it's been no time at all as we're rolling right along through season 3. The latest episode, "The Foundling," is a relatively short adventure, but one that gave us much to chew on. From a big Order 66 flashback to yet another monster that Mando and his clan need to deal with, it's jam-packed. Perhaps overlooked in the proceedings is the fact that we learned a little bit more about the helmet rule that the Children of the Watch hold onto, and we now have a great many questions.
During a somewhat quiet scene towards the end of the episode, Bo-Katan and a group of other Mandalorians are about to eat some food around a campfire before going to rescue Paz Vizsla's son. Bo-Katan, who is not accustomed to the old ways, asks Din how they are supposed to eat? He then casually explains that once they get their rations, they all head off away from one another to take their helmets off and eat like a normal person would, only without the benefit of company. Seemingly, this is so that everyone's faces can still stay hidden from one another.
Whatever the case, this is a pretty telling reveal. The Armorer throughout the series has had to ask, "Have you ever removed your helmet?" Heck, Mando had to go to a supposedly poisoned, dangerous planet to bathe in waters that may not have ever existed just to redeem himself for taking off his helmet a couple of times. Yet, everyone takes off their helmets several times a day to eat?
Viewers have probably wondered how Mandalorians are supposed to eat, or perform other basic functions, with this helmet rule. But regardless of the logic behind it, the rule has always seemed very steadfast and unshakable for those who subscribe to the "old ways." But are there other exceptions? Just how flexible is this rule? /Film's own Sarah Milner attended a panel at the Toronto ComiCon where Armorer actor Emily Swallow explained that, when in close proximity, the show's actors actually bang into each other quite a bit because of the helmets:
"The two of us trying to sit at the table and that's Pedro [Pascal], and then that's also, Brendan Wayne, who is one of the Mandos in the suit. And we realized if we tried to sit at the table at the same moment, then our heads would hit. There's so many moments that like you could make a Three Stooges show about Mandalorians, which, you know, if they ever get tired of this one, they've got enough footage for, for something else."
While this is a real-world practicality, it does raise in-universe questions. Do they also get to take the helmets off for intimacy reasons? After all, Paz has a kid, we learn, which means he has performed certain, shall we say, functions in his life. Wouldn't that be pretty awkward with a helmet on all the time? Do Mandalorians never kiss if they are in a relationship? Where does this rule bend and what is bending it too far? What requires redemption and what doesn't? Many questions, precious few answers.
We can ask ourselves somewhat silly questions about this helmet rule all day, but the way of the Mandalorians is, ostensibly, a religion within the "Star Wars" universe, and a pretty serious one at that. But with this bending of the helmet rule we are seeing shades of pretty egregious religious hypocrisy at play. Rules are rules so long as they are convenient. It's always been, "Have you ever removed your helmet?" Not, "Have you ever removed your helmet, except for while performing a normal, daily function?" Previously, it seemed very much like there was no wiggle room here.
This is why Bo-Katan had to ask such a silly question about how to eat. It's also why Bo-Katan and her Night Owls never subscribed to the old ways like Din and his clan do. They see it as outdated and unnecessary. It's like seeing various denominations of Christianity squabbling with one another over what is right and what is wrong under the word of God. Maybe this all sounds a little grandiose, but it's not like religious themes in "Star Wars" are anything new. Just go back to the whole "virgin birth" thing with Anakin Skywalker. Now it seems, this show is taking us down another road that mirrors religion, and it will be interesting to see how/if this is addressed further as the season continues to unfold.
"The Mandalorian" season 3 premieres new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.
Read this next: The Biggest Questions The Mandalorian Season 3 Needs To Answer
The post The More The Mandalorian Explains Its Helmet Rule, The More Questions We Have appeared first on /Film.
This post contains spoilers for episode 4 of "The Mandalorian" season 3.
Our main takeaway from this week's episode of "The Mandalorian" is that it's probably a good time for the Children of the Watch to find some other planet to live on — one where there are less giant monsters trying to eat them. The first episode of season 3 opened on a tasty looking, giant alligator creature attacking the tribe. In episode 4, there's yet another natural threat waiting just a mountain over.
After our brief interlude to Coruscant under the New Republic last week, "The Foundling" refocuses back to our core cast. After physically seeing the Mythosaur in the Living Waters, Bo-Katan continues her new crisis of faith as she takes new comfort in living by the creed. Now that Din has returned to his people as a redeemed man, he plans to integrate Grogu into the orthodox tribe as well. How does he plan to do that when Grogu is far too young for his own set of Beskar armor? The answer is pure, dad-like faith in Grogu's abilities. Using the Force, Grogu bests one of his peers in combat, who happens to be the son of Paz Vizsla (voiced by showrunner Jon Favreau), named Ragnar (Wesley Kimmel), the boy who had just taken the creed back in the season 3 premiere's opening minutes.
Ragnar, embarrassed by his defeat at the hands of baby Grogu, runs away from the tribe and right into trouble. Little did he know, in the outskirts of their desert planet oasis is yet another creature with a hunger for fresh Mandalorian. All of a sudden, a giant bird monster swifts Ragnar away to feed its nest of baby birds, and it's up to the rest of the tribe to find and rescue him.
So, what's the name of the bird creature that attacks Din's clan, and is there any basis for it in canon? At first glance, it appears to be the pterodactyl-like Pterosaur from Star Wars Legends. Upon further inspection, however, it seems to be an entirely original creature made for the show. As for now, it is also unnamed, just like the mega-gator that made its appearance in the season 3 premiere. Still, both these two creatures represent something that makes this season of "The Mandalorian" feel a lot more authentically "Star Wars"; the wide variety of non-human creatures, both those familiar and new. From the tree of Kowakiaan Monkey Lizards on Nevarro to the threats around every corner of the desert planet the Children of the Watch hide on, it makes the show's universe feel much more textured and alive despite its budgetary limitations.
In the end, Din and his tribe are able to defeat the bird creature and save Ragnar from its nest. They even take the three children and decide to raise them for their own. (Is this barbaric? Either way, the mother attacked first.) It's Bo-Katan's contribution to the fight that is especially honorable. Two episodes ago, she deemed Din and the Children of the Watch cultists, and now she's fighting beside them and protecting their own. In a short amount of time, we've watched Bo-Katan internally battle everything she once previously believed in. Is ruling Mandalore and taking possession of the Darksaber still her ambition? Or has she finally found belonging in the Mandalore diaspora?
Whatever happens next, it would do everyone good if the Children of the Watch found a safer home. Maybe third time's the charm?
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 Mandalorians Meet Yet Another Monster Neighbor That Wants To Eat Them appeared first on /Film.
This article contains spoilers for The Mandalorian season 3, episode 4, "The Foundling."
In the latest chapter of "The Mandalorian," Grogu is left at home while his dad goes off to rescue a foundling from a space pterodactyl (between this and the giant space alligator, the Children of the Watch appear to be have made their home in Jurassic Park). While Din Djarin is battling a real-life monster, Grogu finds himself fighting his own demons: traumatic memories of his narrow escape from the Jedi massacre of Order 66.
It's here that the show introduces Kelleran Beq (Ahmed Best), aka "The Sabered Hand," a Jedi character from the children's game show "Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge," which released 10 episodes on the Star Wars Kids website and YouTube. Even the most die-hard "Star Wars" fans may not be familiar with "Jedi Temple Challenge," but they will be familiar with Best, who made first contact with the franchise when he voiced and provided motion capture for Jar Jar Binks in the prequel trilogy.
The disproportionate rage from a certain contingent of the "Star Wars" fandom had a nasty fallout for the cast of the prequels. Jake Lloyd, who played the young Anakin Skywalker in "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" retired from acting just a couple of years after the film came out, and later cited bullying over the role that had made his life "a living hell." While Lloyd is unlikely to ever return to acting, let alone in this particular franchise, Best has popped up in many places across "Star Wars" media -- and not just as Jar Jar Binks and Kelleran Beq.
Jar Jar Binks has a complicated legacy (to put it mildly). For years, the character was held up as the pinnacle of everything that went wrong with the "Star Wars" prequels, and was the target of both jokes and more serious accusations of racial stereotyping, due to his manner of speech and comic relief klutziness. As Best explained in a video interview for Participant, it was the accusations of racism that hit him the hardest:
"Growing up, being Black, and wanting to be an artist — which is a very challenging and brave thing to do, it's not easy — we're always faced, as Black artists, with this idea of being a sellout. We have our guard up when it comes to being portrayed as an Uncle Tom, a racist stereotype, or anything that makes you, as a Black person, look less than ... It hit me. It came right for me."
In the immediate wake of the backlash, Best said that it felt like his life was over, and in one particularly hopeless moment he even contemplated suicide. When he opened up about this on Twitter, years later, he was taken aback by the supportive response that he got, and from the number of people who reached out to him:
"It was surprising because I never really thought anybody would care. We talk a lot about things going viral, and usually when things go viral, it's something negative. I didn't feel like what I posted went viral. I feel like it went communal ... because of the support that I got, that I never thought was there."
The negative response to Jar Jar Binks led to the character having a much smaller role in "Attack of the Clones" and "Return of the Jedi," but in the middle chapter of the prequel trilogy Best was given an on-screen cameo role as a Jedi called Achk Med-Beq (a play on his real name). In an interview about "Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge," Best explained that the cameo had been pretty spontaneous, and was actually thanks to C-3PO actor Anthony Daniels grabbing him and saying, "We're going to be in it, let's go." (Daniels also has a cameo in the scene.)
Best's character in "The Mandalorian" was born out of that last-minute decision to play a live-action Jedi in "Attack of the Clones." Following his brief on-screen appearance, Best explained:
"People kind of created this lore behind that character. I really love that, and that's one of the things about 'Star Wars' fans that I dig. Like, as soon as a character shows up, all of a sudden people want to know history. People want to know backstory ...So doing Kelleran Beq, this new Jedi, what excited me the most was where the history was going to go. Who was he? How is he going to be a part of the 'Star Wars' universe in a way that created these long-lasting stories?"
The name "Kelleran Beq" was chosen by Best himself, and is an intentional tie to his character in "Attack of the Clones" ("Kelleran and Achk Med are related. I'll leave it at that"), and he even got to design his own lightsaber. Seeing Kelleran brought into the fold of the core "Star Wars" universe via "The Mandalorian" is a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
New episodes of "The Mandalorian" release Wednesdays on Disney+.
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The post The Mandalorian Welcomes Back One Of Star Wars' Most Unfairly Maligned Actors appeared first on /Film.
Renowned overclocker, Der8auer, managed to kill an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU after he pushed the voltages on the chip too far beyond what it could handle.
Der8auer took his audience to ASUS headquarters in Taiwan to test components and work on overclocking using the Intel Sapphire Rapids server processor. This was the first time he had a chance to visit since COVID, and he was looking forward to seeing friends and in-depth testing. But the real story occurred in the middle of the week when he was handed an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU to test. The chip did not survive long as the overclocker altered the voltage and killed the CPU from AMD.
The intention of Der8auer's trip to ASUS headquarters in Taiwan was to test and benchmark the Intel Sapphire Rapids server chips. He was asked if he would like to take the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU and do some stress tests and benchmarks with ASUS's equipment.
Utilizing the company's ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme motherboard, he started things off slowly by testing the standard voltage levels of the chips, which idle around 1V. It is well known that AMD has gone to lengths in previous chips, such as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, to lockout certain OC features and warn consumers of the dangers of stressing the chips. With the Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs, AMD has become more open about allowing enthusiasts to manually tweak the CPUs with technologies such as PBO and Curve Optimizer. However, the voltage and thermal limits are still meant to be in place.
During the overclocking session, Der8auer noticed that the ASUS ROG X670E Crosshair Extreme motherboard allowed voltage tuning but not clock tuning on the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU. So voltages were pushed to 1.35V and after a successful boot under LN2 cooling, the voltages were pushed further to 1.55V which seemed to be just too much for the chip to handle. Since the 3D V-Cache is a sensitive piece of silicon, it is possible that the higher voltages passing through it may have been just enough to kill it entirely as the chip was unable to boot afterward.
It should be noted that Der8auer did not make any conclusions about this test due to the circumstances. He could not fully explain how this could have happened, especially at the rapid death rate of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Still, he did wonder if the voltage not being locked by AMD to board partners was unintentional and could have been something AMD missed upon sending samples. It should also be noted that AMD has stated before that the chipset can be OC to 2.5V. Der8auer wondered if it was specific to the one CPU he had to work with and if it would happen to others. ASUS still felt it necessary to note the voltage level and limit it to below the 2.5V levels.
Now it is entirely possible that ASUS and other board makers will place a voltage limit when the board is equipped with a Ryzen 7000 X3D or any 3D V-Cache CPU in their upcoming BIOS. The video is quite long, just over thirty-five minutes, and we have placed the video below at the point where he begins testing the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. If you would like to watch the full video, we have also provided a link to the beginning of the video.
Using an all-in-one liquid cooler, Der8auer could adjust the voltage to 1.35V while watching the temperatures stay less than 90°C with the aid of liquid nitrogen. Feeling safe, he decided to increase the voltage by .20V, which would be considered the next ramp up from the level he achieved but was much more of a significant leap from nominal levels, especially compared to chips that do not offer 3D V-Cache as an option. Unfortunately, this was where the testing would halt, as the system flatlined with the motherboard reading the "00" error code. Right before the system stopped, he did see the BIOS for a few seconds, but no other processes had time to begin before the processor gave out. It is also worth noting that other processors were tried on the motherboard without problem, and Der8auer did an extensive examination to determine if the CPU was destroyed.
You can check out our full review on the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which we called it the "most efficient high-end CPU" and "that performs exceptionally well at gaming."
The post AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU Dies After Overclocker Pushes The Voltages Too Hard by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.
While "Star Trek" takes place in a technological utopia -- a utopia wherein people can teleport great distances, live in holographic environs, or replicate any food or drink they should want -- there still appears to be room for old media. While the characters on "Star Trek" are typically military officers, they are often careful to attend the theater to see plays, where Shakespeare might still be performed.
On "Star Trek: The Next Generation," there are many, many classical music concerts, and performers still seem to have access to traditional brass, woodwind, and string instruments. Entire libraries may be accessed on a PADD, and Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating) once noted that he was attempting to make his way through James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake." But other characters may be more comfortable holding an actual printed book on bound paper. One might be able to create a force field in the future, but rest assured that there will still be "old book smell."
But while viewers may find a recognizable comfort in watching "Star Trek" characters reading books or attending the theater, they may find themselves noticing the marked absence of one particular form of media: cinema. Movies are sometimes referenced in "Star Trek," of course, as when Data (Brent Spiner) whistles "If I Only Had a Heart" from "The Wizard of Oz," but there are hardly any mentions of a character having seen "Rear Window" for the first time last night, or mention of grabbing a movie.
There are likely several reasons why cinema appears to be dead in the future, some of which are merely practical, but at least one of which may be very grim to cineastes. Let us investigate.
To address the issue right away, movies are not completely absent from "Star Trek," as they were actually regular occurrences on "Enterprise" and were resurrected for "Star Trek: Discovery." On the former program, Capt. Archer (Scott Bakula) liked to hold regular screenings, partly as a pastime the crew could share, but also to expose the Vulcan T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) to human art and culture. She was particularly intrigued by James Whale's "Frankenstein." It's implied, however, that the database of movies is limited, and the films they discuss are from Hollywood's Golden Age. This will go into a theory about the fate of cinema in the "Star Trek" timeline that I shall explore below.
Also, when the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery found themselves in a strained position, the ship's commanders boosted morale by hosting an impromptu movie night in a cargo bay wherein everyone watched Buster Keaton's "Sherlock, Jr." But while the Discovery had access to the comedy classic, one might note that the Starfleet officers merely stood around or sat on storage boxes to watch the movie. There was no "screening room" setup. This was clearly not an activity that was regularly indulged in. Sometime between "Enterprise" (set in the 2150s) and "Discovery" (set in the 2250s), films fell out of vogue.
On "Star Trek: Voyager," officers regularly visited the holodeck to reenact a black-and-white sci-fi serial created in the 1950s. See the episode "Bride of Chaotica!" (January 27, 1999). It seems the general language and influence of cinema will remain in the human consciousness as far ahead as the 2370s when the show is set. But, one might note, that the officers don't merely watch the sci-fi serial, preferring to perform in it. Which brings me to a theory:
The first and most obvious reason for the absence of cinema in "Star Trek" is that they have been supplanted by holodecks.
The kind of space needed to house a theater on a starship would be too great to be practical. All the larger spaces that could be used as a screening room, as mentioned above, would have to be repurposed work areas, and there will be few moments when someone isn't working. The larger recreational facilities are either communal (game rooms, Ten Forward, etc.), or they're a holodeck. It seems like if one wanted to watch a movie, there is a handy-dandy technology they could use.
So let's enter the holodeck and create a simulated movie theater. One might program in the popcorn smell, the bored teenage employees, the badly-mixed Coca-Cola. If the starship archive reaches deeply enough, one could even program Nicole Kidman's infamous AMC ad. Or, better yet, why not program a simulation of the actual Nicole Kidman performing it for you live? Then you could reprogram the movies themselves to make them 3-D, but they're holograms, so actual 3-D so they physically stick out at you.
Or, if you're already going that far, you could just enter the movie.
Watching images play themselves out on a screen almost feels moribund when you can literally step inside whatever movie you want. A holodeck is too tantalizing a technology to resist, and cinema merely evolved into an interacted, performative past time. Why watch a Dixon Hill mystery when you can actually be Dixon Hill? Why watch a superhero when you can fight villains yourself? Why watch a sex scene ... Wait, is that allowed on a starship? It's entirely possible that cinematic interactivity has altered by the 24th century.
In a previous "Star Trek" essay, I posited that creator Gene Roddenberry's future features no modern pop music. While modern pop will likely be in the public domain by Trek's timeline, it still requires royalty payments in ours. As such, there is going to be a commercial dimension to contemporary pop hits that is kind of inescapable. Modern viewers would know that some money had to exchange hands to get the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" onto the show or into a film, and that knowledge would taint the anti-capitalist leanings of Roddenberry's utopia. In the future all art is free. In the present, it isn't. Only once music or art becomes public domain will "Star Trek" writers feel comfortable including it in an acceptable future artistic canon. As such, a lot of classical music and older books appear on "Star Trek."
While there are many movies in the public domain -- great horror movies like "House on Haunted Hill," "Carnival of Souls," and "Night of the Living Dead" are free -- the vast bulk of them are still commercially owned by a studio. Images and music from films would need to be licensed to show on "Star Trek," and viewers know this. This is why the movies on "Enterprise" and "Discovery" were both from the 1930s and the 1920s respectively. One couldn't show a modern 20th Century Fox logo on "Star Trek" without viewers thinking 1) of the recent acquisition of the studio by Disney, and 2) that Paramount owns "Star Trek." There would be far too much internal politicking going on to assume that everything is clean in terms of money. The commercial aspect of modern cinema is too thick to untangle from a post-capitalism future.
The grimmest reason that cinema may be absent from "Star Trek," however, could possibly be that all films were destroyed in future wars. Part of the lore of "Star Trek" is that modern humanity needed to drive itself to the brink of nuclear extinction before it was able to build its utopia. Humanity went through the Eugenics Wars, as well as World War III, and wiped out a great deal of its own population, driving survivors into a country-less wasteland surviving on scraps. It was during this post-apocalyptic time that Zefram Cochran built the very first vessel capable of faster-than-light travel. When taking his ship on its inaugural run, it attracted some traveling Vulcans who happened to be nearby. The Vulcans landed, humanity was humbled that they weren't alone in the universe, and the timeline on utopia began.
It's entirely possible that all digital film prints and even physical 35mm celluloid prints were wiped out during this time. There are records of films, and Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) from "Star Trek: Voyager" often talked about early 20th century cinema, but his access to it might have been limited. Paris managed to arrange old-world TV broadcasts using a recreated television set in his quarters, but none of the other crew members seem to share his nostalgia for such ancient objects. When most of an art form is wiped out, and new technologies provide superior experiences, why bother tracking down the old? Unless you are a history buff or a museum curator, cinema can like be seen as dead. After all, how many of us in 2023 are bothering to track down old zoetropes?
It's kind of heartbreaking. But then, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.
Read this next: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order
The post Why Are There No Movies In the Star Trek Universe? An Investigation appeared first on /Film.
SXSW 2023 had several big movies which took up a lot of space in the larger conversation surrounding the festival. From the world premiere of "Evil Dead Rise" to the closing night unveiling of Ben Affleck's long-awaited return to the director's chair in the form of "Air" (which I reviewed), there was much to talk about. But film festivals such as this are often a great place to discover the next big thing. One film that may well pop coming out of the festival this year? Director Aristotle Torres' "Story Ave," which took home the Special Jury Award for Cinematography.
Critics have been very kind to the film following its premiere. It tells the story of a South Bronx native, Kadir Grayson (Asante Blackk), a very talented teenage artist who is floored by the grief of losing his younger brother. Kadir runs away from home and escapes, attempting to become a key member of his graffiti gang Outside The Lines, which is equal parts criminal operation and artistic endeavor. To prove himself, Kadir attempts to rob Luis (Luis Guzmán), an older Puerto Rican MTA conductor on the subway platform. Not to spoil it, but things don't go as one might expect, setting a heartwarming, grounded story in motion.
I had the good fortune of speaking with Luis Guzmán on behalf of the film during SXSW. Not only does the "Wednesday" and "Boogie Nights" actor have a major (and, might I add, excellent) supporting role in the film, but he also serves as an executive producer. We discussed how he got involved, how he brings a layer of reality to so many of his characters, his upcoming Gareth Evans movie "Havoc," and much more.
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
You're an executive producer on this movie. You're more than just an actor. How did this come your way? How did you get involved, and how did you decide you'd take on a bigger role in it?
It came about in a roundabout way. Sometimes management people get a script and they don't see any attachments or any money behind it, so they never show it to you. So Aristotle Torres was trying for a year to figure out how to get in touch with me. Finally, one of our boys that we know called me up and said, "Yo, there's this great script," blah, blah, blah. So I said, "Yeah, send it to me. I'll read it." I read it in one sitting. I absolutely loved it. I called Aristotle. We got together, and I said, "Hey man, I would love to do this movie."
I called my people and kind of gave him a little bit of a spanking because it should never always be about money. This is art that we do. We're storytellers. We spoke to some people that we knew and we brought in some money for this project because we pretty much said how passionate we were about -- it's a New York story, man. It's a great story. It's not a "bang-bang, shoot 'em up" type of story that you always see [where] somebody dies in the urban setting. This was a real story. It was a story about this young kid who lost his family, lost a brother, had an extended family, which wasn't the best family, and ended up with a mentor in me who was not the best role model in the world. But he tried, and he saw something in this young man, and he didn't want him to make the same mistakes that maybe his own son in the story made. So it just had all these great ingredients to it.
Unfortunately, I don't get to see enough of these types of roles. Listen, I've had a great career. I've always worked and stuff. But to be in a position that you are actually helping a character to grow, that you are in a position to nurture, and then on the flip side, as an executive producer to help the project along, it was something very welcoming to me. It did pose its challenges, yes, but we got it done. The old adage, a labor of love.
Well, the movie speaks for itself. I've loved movies as long as I can remember. The only reason I do this is because I love movies. And like you said, you've worked forever. I've seen, I don't know how many movies I've seen with you in them and you're always great.
Thank you.
But from your first scene in this movie, I was floored, because it's not what you expect. I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but your first scene in this movie, there's compassion, and it takes an unexpected turn. From then on, this is the best performance I've ever seen from you. Can you talk a little bit about your character in this movie? You are driven by compassion, it seems, and we find out why a little later.
This character, for me, is people that I've seen growing up in my days in New York City. So that resonated. That's the first thing. I've had neighbors that work for the MTA. It's a job and it's not the most prestigious job to have. There's nothing scientific or really challenging about it. It's something that you do day in and day out. I saw these people, but they also have their own stories of when they go home. I wanted to exemplify that persona, a working class person, but also someone that had their own issues in life.
When this kid shows up and he points that thing at me, I'm over there saying, "Oh, come on, man." That, to me, is real. Because I don't think this guy was suicidal in the sense of, "Go ahead, just take me out." I've been held up numerous times. Sometimes I just talk myself out of it. "Here, bro, here's $10. Just go." I saw something, I saw this human being who didn't fit that mode of what I had gone through with others. "Come on, for real?" That was a sensibility to that Luis character. But it was also because it just felt really real to me. Asante was this real kid. I didn't know what his story was when we first met up, but I know he was in some kind of pain. You are a token booth operator, you see all the personalities. You see someone that says, "I ain't got no money. I'm just trying to get home. I just got fired from my job." It becomes emotional. It's very organic; it's real in my mind. That's how I approached it all. That's how I took it all in. This was not acting to me, this was exemplifying life as I see it, as I have lived it. I've seen those people. I sat next to those people. I have conversed with those people. Those people have conversed with me. You see?
Yeah, totally.
Don't get me wrong, it is acting, but it affords you an incredible reality to dive into.
You're also in the movie "Waiting," and I spent my life working in restaurants. As funny as that movie is and as over the top as your character is in that movie, that's what working at a restaurant is like. I think you're very good at bringing that slice of life to a role, whatever that requires.
Well, I didn't know half that stuff went on in restaurants.
You wouldn't believe it.
Oh, that's what I say. And people were like, "Yeah dude, this s*** is real. This really does happen like this." So in that sense, for me, I thought it was great. I understood what it was like to walk into a restaurant 10 minutes before closing. I said, "No, we're never going to do that." You're going to treat that server with respect. Listen, if you order a New York strip steak and it comes out tough, you can say, "Excuse me, this -- I mean, you can taste it," and they'll know. They'll know you're not being difficult.
Kindness, for sure. If you've ever done it, you'll never be mean to those people, ever.
As opposed to, "What's wrong with you people selling this s*** as food? I pay for this s***. Give me another steak!" You don't want to do that.
Another thing you touched on is the money point. You get a better paycheck sometimes. But at this point in your career, you've done so much. What motivates you from project to project? How do you decide now what to take on?
Sometimes it's just as simple as getting a letter from a director. Sometimes it's as simple as who you're going to be working with. Sometimes it's about reading the script and saying, "Oh wow, this is really cool." Sometimes reading something or saying, "I'm not going to do this." Because sometimes it's not about the money, either. I've turned down a few roles recently because that's not the path I want to go. And that's okay, because somebody else could do it. What's the saying? "Been there, done that."
Sometimes it could be friends of mine that say, "Oh, have you looked into this?" And sometimes, yeah, you're going to get paid, but sometimes you're not going to get paid, because you are invested in it emotionally and personally. This movie was, we had a limited budget. But that's not what I was thinking about. I was thinking about how beautiful it was written, the great characters, the story, and also elevating a group of people, because it's the "we" that made this movie. And it's a great story.
It really is.
It's a great story. It's really cool, man. You can believe this type of story.
I'm not from New York, but we've seen movies about people that live in New York and maybe get on what you might call the wrong side of the tracks. But this felt more authentic, in a way that I fully believed this could happen.
Yeah, I can relate to this. And that's how I felt about it. I've seen these people, I've sat with them, they've sat with me. That was the big difference maker. As an executive producer, even on my days off, I will go by set, and I will thank everybody for being there because that's what you do. Because you've got to show people, too, that you care, that you're just as human as they are. It's not about being a star. It's, "Yo, we're human."
I know you probably can't talk about it too much, but you were in "Wednesday," of course, which ended up becoming a gigantic hit and they're doing a second season now. I know you weren't in it a ton, but are we going to see maybe a little more Gomez this time around? A little less? Do you have any idea?
That's been requested. Not by me, but by the fans. We'll see. Listen, however I fit in, I fit in. I mean, you've got to bring that back, that character, because that character's iconic to the story. You know what I mean? So whatever will be will be, but I'll be there.
The other thing I noticed, again, I don't know if you can talk too much about it, but I saw you're in Gareth Evans' new movie, "Havoc."
Yes.
He is about as good as it gets, as far as action goes.
Oh yeah.
Can you talk at all about that? What your experience was, what the movie's about?
Well, Gareth is, man, he's into detail like I have never seen before. You shoot his movie, it takes two years or so to come out because he is so meticulous at his editing and what works, what doesn't work, feels right, doesn't feel right. "We've got to go back and reshoot this," and stuff like that. So I respect that, man, because anybody could put out an action movie, but not like him.
God, no. He is on another level.
It takes a while for his movies to come out. But like I said, there's a reason, because he's king of what he does. Also Tom Hardy is very much into the whole detailed aspect of it, too. So I'm really proud of it. When it's coming out, I couldn't even tell you, because again, he's very meticulous and it's just got to be right. But when it comes out, it's going to hit pretty good.
I was really excited to see that, because I don't know if you've seen any of "The Raid."
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, "meticulous" is the word. It's incredible.
Right. So you appreciate that, you know what I mean?
I want to circle back to "Story Ave" real quick. You're here at SXSW for the premiere. How are you feeling now? You said you had a small movie, limited budget, kind of fighting the whole way to get it done. Now you're at one of the biggest film festivals in the world with this movie. How does that feel leading into the premiere?
Oh man, I feel honored. I feel it's a homage to this genre of films, to these types of films, because there's so many stories out there. You got a studio movie that's $20-$30 million, and you wonder, "Why the hell did they make that movie?" Then you see a movie like this and say, "Oh man, this is what we need right now. This type of movie." I felt and I feel strongly that "Story Ave" is that kind of movie, because, you know what? It leaves you with a good feeling. It leaves you with this faith to have in people. It's done really well. Even though we have a limited budget, what we have is an incredible cast, everybody put in the work, it was great. I'm proud of it. I'm proud to be a part of it.
"Story Ave" does not yet have a release date set.
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The post Luis Guzmán Talks Story Ave At SXSW, Wednesday Season 2, Gareth Evans' Havoc, And More [Exclusive Interview] appeared first on /Film.
Raja Koduri, who's contributions to Intel's graphics technologies, Arc line of graphics cards and helped bring forth three product lines to Intel, was announced by Pat Gelsinger this morning to leave the company, along with Randhir Thakur, at the end of this month.
Raja Koduri will be working with Thakur on "a new software company around generative AI for gaming, media, and entertainment," tweeted Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel. Koduri does not mention anything about the new venture in detail other than he plans to announce more in the coming weeks. He may wait until his time with Intel has concluded before publicizing his new venture. However, Koduri is on the board of directors and the chief technical officer for Makuta VFX, which deals in animation and visual effects.
Dr. Randhir Thakur, Senior VP and President of Intel Foundry Services, played a significant role in Intel's IDM 2.0 strategy. He previously held the position of executive vice president at SanDisk Corp., leading NAND design and fabrication worldwide. He has also held leadership roles with Micron and Steag. He will be exiting as well. Stuart Pann will be replacing Dr. Randhir as the senior vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Services, reporting to Pat Gelsinger.
Thank you @RajaXg for your many contributions to Intel tech & architecture-especially w/high-performance graphics that helped bring 3 new product lines to market in ‘22. Wishing you success as you create a new software co. around generative AI for gaming, media & entertainment.
— Pat Gelsinger (@PGelsinger) March 21, 2023
Raja Koduri joined Intel back in 2017 as the Chief Architect for Discrete GPUs and more. He held the role of Vice President and Chief Architect at Intel, focusing on graphics and technical advancements for the company. His work spanned AI, graphics, and processor technology to assist with Intel's zettascale initiatives and to advance memory and various architectures.
Before his role as VP, Koduri was the general manager of Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group. He led the way to HPC and graphics solutions for discrete and integrated use that span consumer, business, and data center structures. He also led the development and production of Xe, oneAPI, and many other high-performance aspects.
He has held roles at ATI and AMD, as well as graphics director for Apple. He has led many advancements for Intel, Apple, and AMD, focusing heavily on graphics and AI.
Thank you Pat and @intel for many cherished memories and incredible learning over the past 5 years. Will be embarking on a new chapter in my life, doing a software startup as noted below. Will have more to share in coming weeks. https://t.co/8DcnNdso3r
— Raja Koduri (Bali Makaradhwaja) (@RajaXg) March 21, 2023
The industry is responding well to our systems foundry approach and we’re seeing strong momentum, including the recent announcement of a significant cloud, edge and data center solutions provider as a customer for our upcoming Intel 3 process. With deep expertise in capital and capacity strategies, supply chain management, and sales and operations planning across internal and external manufacturing, Stuart is an ideal leader to accelerate this momentum and drive long-term growth for IFS.
— Gelsinger on Pann
Koduri's replacement has yet to be named, and it is unknown to the extent of this new company that he will be joining with Thakur in the coming weeks.
The post Raja Koduri, Chief Architect & Founder of Arc GPUs, Leaves Intel, Stuart Pann Taps In As IFS Leader by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.
343 Industries has recently released a new patch for Halo: Infinite that prevents PC gamers of specific GPUs to launch it. So, if you have a GPU that has less than 4GB of VRAM, you should know that you can no longer play the game. Yes, even if previously you were able to, the game’s … Continue reading Halo Infinite’s latest patch prevents owners of GPUs with less than 4GB of VRAM to play the game →
The post Halo Infinite’s latest patch prevents owners of GPUs with less than 4GB of VRAM to play the game appeared first on DSOGaming.
In "John Wick: Chapter 2," there is a scene where Keanu Reeves' titular assassin meets with a man simply known as the Sommelier, played by Peter Serafinowicz. His speciality is not wine, though. It's guns. And the Sommelier goes onto present Wick with a smorgasbord of firearms as if he was recommending them for a multi-course meal of violence. When I saw the film back in February 2017, each presentation of a new gun accompanied by lines referring to them as "robust" or "dessert" generated a delighted guffaw from the audience. Meanwhile, I was squirming in my seat.
I hate guns. Living in the United States, a day doesn't pass where some horrific tragedy occurs involving a gun. To me, they are instruments of chaos and destruction, and the way so many people in this country fetishize and obsess over their weapons disturbs me deeply. I grew up with a fairly conservative father, and even he knew that guns didn't need to be around. The closest I ever got to one was a Super Soaker, and I never seemed to be having as much fun as anyone else playing with it. This belief that guns are cool never sits right with me.
Consequently, I struggle with a great number of action movies heavily reliant on their use of firearms. Movies that want you to marvel at the size of a gun or feature someone taking out a large number of bad guys with pinpoint precision do very little for me. So, while everyone was rejoicing at the arrival of the "John Wick" series, I was left feeling icky instead of thrilled. However, with "John Wick: Chapter 4" around the corner, I find myself incredibly excited to return to that world ... with "world" being the important word there.
My issues with guns are not simply limited to the carnage they cause in the real world. Cinematically, guns are often inert and, frankly, boring. When I like an action film, rarely do they prominently feature firearms. Take what I believe to be the three high watermarks of action cinema of the last 10 years: "Mission: Impossible — Fallout," "Mad Max: Fury Road," and "The Raid 2." These are films that thrive on their kineticism that let us marvel at the choreography. Car chases, hand-to-hand fights, jumping out of airplanes. These are the thrills best suited to action cinema. Always moving, always changing, and always carefully choreographed.
The first two "John Wick" films occasionally implement these sequences, but they are extremely gun-focused. Yes, these sequences are precisely put together, but there is a limit to my enjoyment when ultimately it is a guy standing and shooting at another guy who is standing and shooting. Making it even more distancing is that John Wick is in a completely bulletproof suit, thus minimizing any chance of him sustaining severe gunshot wounds. Combine these kinds of action set pieces with an overall adoration of guns, and I just found myself lost amongst the praise and adulation.
A regular person who hasn't particularly enjoyed the first two entries of a film series would probably just stop seeing them. Well, I am no ordinary person, and out of a sense of obligation to the cinematic medium, I went back to the theater to see "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum." And it was watching that movie that my entire perspective on the series flipped.
The first "John Wick" film established that the world of the series is not exactly the one we live in. It set up an underground society of assassins that abided by its own rules and codes, with Ian McShane's Winston acting as its ringmaster. But that film could only introduce these elements in small doses, as it was a relatively small-budgeted action picture capitalizing on its high concept premise: John Wick takes revenge on the people who stole his car and killed his dog. I always appreciated the world building elements of the first two films, but it wasn't until the third that they let it bloom. With "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum," the budget nearly quadrupled ($75 million compared to the original's $20 million), and the filmmakers have been given the license to go hog wild with the world they've created.
We see that this society isn't strictly limited to New York City, as Wick makes his way to Casablanca. We are introduced to characters like Asia Kate Dillon's The Adjudicator, Anjelica Huston's The Director, and Saïd Taghmaoui's The Elder. The further the film stepped outside the realm of real life and into this fantastical crime space, the more I gravitated to the story and characters populating it. And the more I can connect to those things, the more I can appreciate with the action set pieces they are involved in, whether Wick's fighting off katana-wielding henchmen on motorcycles, killing NBA nice guy Boban Marjanović with a book, or, yes, even shooting people with guns. With this lens, I could go back to the first two films and see the guns as an extension of this fantasy world and not as the real world death machines they are.
Look, I am still not completely accepting of the "John Wick" series' love of guns. In the trailer for "John Wick: Chapter 4" (which I am still annoyed doesn't add an extra element to the title, thus making each title longer than the last), one of the big moments — one that causes the music to drop out to signal its importance — is for John Wick to say to Laurence Fishburne's The Bowery King, "I'm going to need a gun." It's one of those moments that is meant to make everyone in the audience go, "Oh, f*** yeah," and fist pump into the air. Me? I still wince at it.
But I can also see all the imagination around it. This neon-tinged underground continues to reveal itself with new subgroups, new rules, new allegiances, and new histories, and I am eager to learn all about them. For some people, this world expansion has pulled the films away from the original film's emotional core that hooked them at the beginning. From my perspective, the less real the "John Wick" series becomes the more successful it is. And the less real these movies are, the less its use of guns feels like a celebration of an instrument of destruction. "John Wick: Chapter 4" sports a nearly three-hour running time, and if you would have told me a few years ago that I would be beaming with excitement to see it just a few hours after this piece gets published, I wouldn't have believed you in the slightest. Yet here we are, and the "John Wick" series is now one of my favorite franchises. This is a good reminder to always be open to changing your mind, especially about movies.
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The post The John Wick Movies, Or How I Learned To Put Aside The Gun Fetishization And The Love The Series appeared first on /Film.
Is there something supernatural in the remote wilderness? Or was the most evil creature of them all man this whole time? It's possibly the biggest mystery "Yellowjackets" fans have been trying to unravel since season 1. We already know the show's protagonists will eventually commit horrendous acts in their efforts to survive being stranded in the great Canadian north as teenagers. But is there also an entity in the wild egging them on? Perhaps, though it's pretty clear by now the members of Wiskayok High School's 1996 girls' soccer team are more than capable of breaking bad by themselves.
With season 2 right around the corner (read /Film's review here), co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco spoke to SFX Magazine about all those fan theories regarding that enigmatic sigil that keeps popping up on the series. If there is a sinister presence out there in the wilderness — something Lisco was very careful to avoid either confirming or denying — it's definitely not the beginning and the end of the Yellowjackets' problems. "It's not about an external monster in the woods who is going to eat our teens," he said. "And it's not exclusively about some supernatural force in the present which is making them do things."
There's a telling moment in "The Banshees of Inisherin," wherein Brendan Gleeson's Colm postulates, "Maybe there are banshees, too. I just don't think that they scream to portend death anymore. I think they just sit back, amused." His meaning, of course, is that we humans don't need magical forces or otherworldly creatures to spur us into destroying ourselves. The same could be said for whatever may or may not be chillaxing in the woods with the Yellowjackets. For all we know, whatever's out there (if there's anything at all) is content to hang back and watch, bemused as these young women tear each other apart.
"The question of whether or not it is imposed by some dark force — and I'm not saying that's not possible — or whether or not it is alchemically generated by the proximity of these specific women together in the world, I think that's a really interesting question to continue to mine," Jonathan Lisco added. It's certainly encouraging to hear him say that, too. The worst thing "Yellowjackets" could do would be to repeat the mistake of other mystery box series and get caught up in its labyrinth plotting at the expense of its engrossing themes and ideas. Whichever way he and his co-showrunners ultimately go, Lisco assured they "don't want to manipulate our audience" and are "not playing games." What they're really invested in is exploring what makes the Yellowjackets tick (as they should be).
"We want it to be something that lives inside of people because they understand it on a deep, human level," he explained. "And they understand that the darkness and the light exists in all us of. This is a profound excavation of that question."
"Yellowjackets" season 2 premieres on Showtime on March 26, 2023.
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The post Yellowjackets Is Not About A 'Monster In The Woods,' Says Showrunner appeared first on /Film.
Dwayne Johnson might be a massively successful and beloved figure, but a new report from The Wrap claims he could also be partly responsible for "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" underperforming at the box office. Johnson is a relentlessly positive man. His Twitter feed is an endless series of success stories, motivational aphorisms, and cry laugh emojis. Just this past week the wrestler turned movie star celebrated setting an attendance record for his XFL football league, writing, "Step by step we're building for the long haul for our fans and player opportunities." It calls to mind a phrase he used during his bewildering refusal to publicly acknowledge that 2022's "Black Adam," in which he starred, wasn't quite the mega hit Warner Bros. and DC were hoping for.
In December of last year, he infamously tweeted that he was, "building [his] new franchise step by step," celebrating the "fact" that his film was set to make a profit of "between $52M-$72M." That was despite the fact that Variety reported the film would lose between $50 million and $100 million, and sources confirmed to /Film that "Black Adam" had to hit $425 million just to break even. The film ended up making $391 million globally.
Johnson's persistent positivity makes sense considering his success elsewhere. He parlayed a career as a wrestling superstar into becoming a Hollywood superstar, building successful businesses in the process and all the while staying in better shape than anyone has ever been in their life. It's almost as if the concept of failure does not register in his brain. But everyone makes missteps here and there. And if The Wrap's report is to be believed, Dwayne Johnson's "Black Adam" saga was even more full of them than we thought — to the extent that it affected the "Shazam!" sequel.
The Rock may be a big fan of building things "step by step," but according to The Wrap he also undermined "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" in a similarly systematic way. James Gunn is set to kick off his vision for the DC Universe in 2025 by directing his "Superman: Legacy" film, but in the meantime, Warner Bros. and DC are having to churn through the remaining vestiges of the Snyderverse. The latest example to hit theaters is director David F. Sandberg's "Shazam!" sequel, which debuted with a $30.5 million opening weekend and such disappointing box office numbers that it probably killed the franchise.
There are a lot of explanations for the film's poor financial performance. General superhero movie fatigue appears to be setting in hard across the board, while DC Studios co-heads Gunn and Peter Safran's planned soft reboot has everyone generally confused about where these movies are going. "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" also garnered some pretty lackluster reviews, even while its audience score remained high.
But it seems there was another problem plaguing the Zachary Levi-starring sequel. And that problem was, according to The Wrap's report, Dwayne Johnson. It's well known that Johnson was pushing to reorganize DC's on-screen universe around, well, himself. "Black Adam" was his passion project, which he relentlessly promised would see "the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe" change. And as the film came together, he seemingly believed in his project so much that he started playing the role of studio exec, going over the head of then president of DC Films Walter Hamada to secure a Henry Cavill Superman cameo. And in the process, Johnson may well have undermined not just his future at DC, but the "Shazam!" franchise, too.
According to The Wrap, Dwayne Johnson's focus on establishing a battle between Black Adam and Superman went a long way to kneecapping "Shazam! Fury of the Gods." Citing "high-level Hollywood insiders," the report claims this attempt to shoehorn the Man Of Steel into "Black Adam" came at the expense of a planned post-credits scene wherein Zachary Levi's Shazam would have been recruited to the Justice Society of America. That scene was designed to build anticipation for "Fury of the Gods," but according to this latest report, it was nixed in favor of Henry Cavill's appearance, shortly before James Gunn announced that Cavill would not be returning as Superman any time soon.
Some of the claims in the article are fairly damning, with one "high-ranking Hollywood executive" quoted as saying, "Dwayne tries to sell himself as bigger than the movie. He's one of the few people who always thinks he's the most important person in any situation or room." The crux of it all comes down to a claimed desire on Johnson's part to build his own brand even at the expense of undermining his own films and other franchises connected to them. As The Wrap claims, once the "Black Adam" star decided he was going to be the center of the DC Universe going forward, that necessitated a showdown with Superman, leaving Levi's lesser-known Shazam out in the cold.
On top of all that, the report states Johnson vetoed the use of "Black Adam" actors in a post-credit scene that would have seen Shazam finally come face-to-face with Black Adam. (SPOILER WARNING) That scene now shows up midway through the credits of "Fury of the Gods." However, thanks to Johnson's meddling, it now features "Suicide Squad" and "Peacemaker" actors Jennifer Holland and Steve Agee instead.
Most of the claims made in The Wrap article relate to stuff we knew. Dwayne Johnson has been vocal about his desire to remold DC in his image and has consistently refused to acknowledge that "Black Adam" didn't perform all that well. At this years' Oscars, he told Variety, "It's almost like when you have a pro football team and your quarterback wins championships and your head coach wins championships and then a new owner comes in and says, 'Not my coach, not my quarterback. I'm going to go with somebody new.'"
He's clearly referring to James Gunn and Peter Safran's future plans for DC and the decision to shelve "Black Adam" sequels. But it's the inability to acknowledge "Black Adam" wasn't the hit it needed to be that gives credence to The Wrap's report. So while The Wrap has just added to what we knew about Johnson's startling inability to call a spade a spade, it also demonstrates that his relentless positivity in the face of unfortunate facts has the potential to hurt other franchises and individuals indirectly connected with his brand-building enterprise. Following the poor response to his film, "Fury of the Gods" director David F. Sandberg tweeted that he'll be returning to his horror roots, which is actually great news as his talents are wasted on superhero movies.
But it didn't have to happen this way. And the irony is that in pushing his own agenda, Johnson has seemingly damaged his own reputation as well as the "Black Adam" and "Shazam" franchises. As one "Hollywood insider" told The Wrap, "By alienating the established property that his character was born out of, and refusing to integrate with other established characters, [Johnson] systematically crippled two franchises, and has harmed DC in the process."
Read this next: Every DC Movie Made Prior To The DCEU Ranked From Worst To Best
The post Shazam! and Black Adam Were Both Torpedoed by Dwayne Johnson (and His Ego), According to New Report appeared first on /Film.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Antivirus software has been a staple investment for protecting enterprise and consumer endpoints alike from cyberthreats. As these attacks have evolved from sending funny messages across the screen of your personal desktop to now holding entire organizations to ransom with the click of a button, a traditional, signature-based approach is no longer good enough to detect and respond to modern day threats.
Today Microsoft is pleased to announce that AV-TEST has awarded Microsoft Best Advanced Protection 2022 for both Corporate Users and Consumer Users categories. After a year of extensive lab evaluations made up of live testing and step by step in special attack scenarios, such as ransomware, we are honored that AV-TEST has recognized Microsoft Defender AV for its exceptional performance against malware.
Figure 1 – Best Advanced Protection 2022 for Corporate and Consumer Users awarded to Microsoft Defender AV
To combat the evolving threat landscape, Microsoft transformed what we once knew as antivirus by supercharging it for the next generation. These innovations resulted in advanced detection engines carefully tuned by Microsoft’s world class threat research organization to provide an endpoint security solution for all platforms including macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and Windows. By fueling these client and cloud capabilities with 65 trillion daily signals curated from Microsoft’s global portfolio of products and services, Microsoft Defender AV provides the best level of protection for organizations and consumers looking to stay protected from sophisticated threats, as attested by the most recent awards from AV-Test.
During the announcement, Andreas Marx, CEO of AV-TEST had this to say about Microsoft Defender AV:
"When it comes to ransomware, Microsoft seems to have developed a special strength. The quite new Advanced Threat Protection tests extend far beyond classic detection. Not every provider was able to handle the extended attacks, mostly through ransomware, in the 2022 tests. That's why the AV-TEST Institute was pleased to present the two important consumer user and corporate user awards for Best Advanced Protection 2022 to Microsoft."
Read the full announcement from AV-TEST
The importance of a holistic endpoint security strategy goes far beyond antivirus capabilities. With more devices connected to the corporate network than ever before and thousands of cybersecurity jobs left unfilled each year, organizations require an endpoint solution that allows security teams to confidently detect and respond to even the most advanced threats without overextending their staff and resources. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities that tackle these challenges and empower security teams to achieve more while focusing on the incidents that matter most. Defender for Endpoint can also help security teams scale their efforts, by investigating and remediating threats using our fully automated, multi-stage approach that mirrors the methodologies of real-world security analysts.
For organizations looking to expand their security capabilities beyond endpoint workloads, Microsoft 365 Defender combines our best-of-breed endpoint, identity, email, and cloud app security products into an end-to-end XDR solution. It enables organizations to respond more effectively with prioritized incidents, disrupts attacks automatically, and provides detections using industry-leading threat intelligence.
Late last year, Hellboy Web of Wyrd, a new action-adventure game starring the iconic paranormal investigator, was announced. The game seemed to capture the look and feel of Mike Mignola’s original comics, but not a ton of information about the game was revealed and it dropped out of the public consciousness rather quickly.
Well, Hellboy Web of Wyrd has now taken on new relevance for an unfortunate reason. Last week, Lance Reddick, one of the stars of the Wire and John Wick movies, who has also done extensive video game work for games such as Destiny 2 and Horizon Forbidden West, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 60. It turns out Reddick will be adding another video game to his list of credits posthumously, as it’s been revealed that he’ll be playing the red guy himself in Hellboy Web of Wyrd.
“Our hearts are with Lance's family, friends, colleagues, and fans. Lance was a brilliant performer, generous with his time and his attention — he had talent beyond compare, and we remain honored to have him as our Hellboy.”
The debut trailer for Hellboy Web of Wyrd only featured a single line from Hellboy himself, so it wasn’t widely known Reddick was playing the character. That said, it’s extremely obvious now when you rewatch the trailer, which you can do, below.
Hellboy creator Mike Mignola also commented on Reddick’s passing.
“I'm stunned. I was just with him a couple weeks ago as he was doing the voice of Hellboy for a new computer game -- he was so great and such a nice guy. And just so young! Just too sad.”
Hellboy Web of Wyrd is being developed by Upstream Arcade, who previously made the well-received isometric shooter with a Mignola-esque art style, West of Dead. Here’s a description…
“Developed by Upstream Arcade, Hellboy Web of Wyrd is an original story created in partnership with Dark Horse Comics and creator Mike Mignola. This roguelite action adventure game features monstrous toe-to-toe brawling. Like the comics, the game sends Hellboy on a series of vastly different and wholly unique adventures; and while those stories stand on their own, they are all tied to the mysterious legacy of The Butterfly House.”
Hellboy Web of Wyrd is coming to PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and Switch. A release window has yet to be set, but if it comes out in 2023 or 2024, that will surely make it one of Reddick’s last projects (aside from, perhaps, additional cameos in Destiny 2).
The post Hellboy Web of Wyrd Will Star Lance Reddick in One of His Final Roles by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.
![[Movie Review] HOLY SHIT!](https://i0.wp.com/www.nightmarishconjurings.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HolyShit_horizontal.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1)
Ah, the portapotty, a corporeal nightmare of the modern world. What is more viscerally horrific than a giant plastic box with limited circulation in which one can not only smell but also see in lurid detail the combined blood, shit, and piss of several strangers? For those who would like to explore the depths of their fear regarding these claustrophobic contraptions, boy do I have a film for you. From the bowels of Lukas Rinker comes HOLY SHIT!, a German comedy-thriller about an architect stuck inside an upturned porta potty on an active demolition site. Clocking in at exactly ninety minutes, the film leans fully into the silliness of its premise, sprinkling droplets of campy toilet humor amidst cheek-clenching survival drama.
Largely a one-man show, HOLY SHIT! is carried by the performance of TV actor, Thomas Niehaus, who excellently portrays our doomed architect Frank. With one arm pinned down by a piece of metal scaffolding, Frank’s range of motion is severely limited as he gathers his bearings and attempts to escape. The suspense, though predictable, is revealed gradually through environmental context clues, occasional flashbacks, and ongoing narration of the site demolition by Horst, Frank’s business partner and (spoiler-alert) nemesis.
Horst and his continual monologue are certainly a highlight of the film, striking the comically evil tone of a Scooby-Doo villain. Played by Gedeon Burkhard (who viewers may recognize as one of the basterds from Tarantino’s iconic nazi-killing flick), Horst takes great drunken pleasure in counting down the minutes until the demolition, all the while diabolically taunting Frank and his efforts to escape. It’s a wonder none of the onlookers suspect anything with how pointed his comments are, but hey, this is not a film that demands such scrutiny.
Rinker’s camerawork is snappy and visceral, placing us firmly within Frank’s perspective as he uncovers new clues and struggles to maintain his sanity while managing the pain from his skewered arm. We learn more about Frank’s life, including his prioritization of work over his wife Marie, and his conflict with an environmental activist who opposed his latest architectural venture. His situation then begins to represent a purgatorial reckoning for his misdeeds, and Frank vows to make amends once he escapes. Psychologically aiding him is his subconscious, personified by a sardonic disembodied voice emanating from a toilet lid.
As the clock ticks on, his escape attempts become both more creative and more desperate. Rinker has a knack for finding physical humor and irony in Frank’s various attempts, which break up both the monotony and the relentless gore of the singular set piece. At Frank’s disposal are his watch, the contents of his briefcase, a pickaxe he conveniently finds in his pocket (perhaps, a staple item for architects?), his phone (which fell inside the toilet and is covered in shit), a tape measure, some soap, and a first aid kit attached to the wall of the porta potty. The action teeters on the edge of realism and situational convenience, with notable attempts involving a hungry rabbit roaming around outside the potty as well as the world’s most flammable pair of pants.
With Frank’s time (and my patience) rapidly wearing thin, the film builds plausible tension up until the cartoonish climax, which forgoes any remaining semblance of realism and opts fully for comedic shock value. Delivering twist after labored twist, Rinker seems determined to subvert expectations or cliches. Frank experiences some resolution regarding his relationship with his wife, and a modicum of vengeance is delivered to Horst, but despite this, the ending fails to provide the relief that survival dramas inherently demand when putting their viewers through so much pain. However, I can’t say that HOLY SHIT! is a complete waste. Indeed, my buttcheeks were sufficiently clenched. Let’s just hope that next time, Rinker remembers to not only flush the toilet but spray some air freshener too.
You can stream HOLY SHIT! on March 21st on SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com.
The post [Movie Review] HOLY SHIT! appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.
As part of the press tour for his new film "Creed III" -- whose fight scenes bring the franchise into anime territory -- Michael B. Jordan listed his five favorite anime series on BBC Radio 1: "'One Piece,'" "Dragon Ball," "Naruto," "Bleach," and "Hunter x Hunter." These are all worthy picks, even though it "would take the average person over 957 hours ... to complete Jordan's top five anime recommendations," as Isaiah Colbert said at Kotaku. "One Piece" has lasted for over a thousand episodes. "Dragon Ball" remains one of the most popular anime ever. "Naruto" featured some of the wildest fight scenes in anime history, while "Bleach" at its best was just cool. "Hunter x Hunter" is messier, spanning two adaptations and a source comic that has yet to finish. But its creator Yoshiharu Togashi has over 3 million followers on Twitter, and his dedicated fans haven't given up on him yet.
These five shows follow a particular formula. Each is about a boy who wants to become the best at his chosen hobby. He overcomes challenges and makes friends while angling for the top. Eventually, he reaches a plateau, only to realize that even stronger foes lie in wait. This is the bread and butter of shonen anime and manga -- Japanese for boys' comics. It's a structure that makes perfect sense for a boxing film like "Creed III," which by its nature is all about overcoming the limits and fears of the body to win in the ring. But casual filmgoers may not recognize that Jordan's five favorites are linked by theme and publication history. All five started as comics published in Weekly Shonen Jump, the best-selling comics magazine in Japan.
Japanese publishing giant Shueisha launched Shonen Jump in 1968 to compete with Weekly Shonen Sunday ("Urusei Yatsura") and Weekly Shonen Magazine ("Hajime no Ippo.") It distinguished itself from the competition by what Takeo Udagawa, in his cultural history "Manga Zombie," calls the "Great Two" system. The first was "watertight contracts binding artists exclusively to the publication." The second was "comprehensive reader surveys." Each magazine carried a poll in which readers voted for their favorite comics and characters. If artists fared poorly, they had to change or face expulsion. That's not to say Jump was against racy or experimental material. One of its first big hits was "Harenchi Gakuen," a controversial sex comedy by "Devilman" creator Go Nagai. Per Mainichi Daily News, "school PTAs across Japan campaigned strongly against it." But the comic sold well, and kids wrote in to say their parents "were reading much raunchier stuff than [Nagai] was producing."
Jump had other successes in its early days, including the comedy series "Gutsy Frog" and the boxing saga "Ring ni Kakero." But it wasn't until the 1980s that the magazine truly erupted. Akira Toriyama's "Dr. Slump" was the most innovative comedy of its time and inspired a 1981 anime series that lasted for over 200 episodes. In 1983, "Fist of the North Star" combined martial arts with "Mad Max" costuming to phenomenal effect. Then came Toriyama's 1984 series, "Dragon Ball," the blueprint for all subsequent action comics published in the magazine. Its paneling, story structure, and stylized designs inspired a generation of artists. Toriyama himself would always prefer the anarchic "Dr. Slump" to the comparatively structured "Dragon Ball." But there was no doubt what Jump's readers loved best.
In the following years, Shonen Jump became a cultural force. 1990's "Slam Dunk" made Japanese teenagers want to play basketball. 1999's "Hikaru no Go" taught kids how to play Go. 2003's "Death Note" led to a moral panic when children started buying death notebooks of their own. Each of these comics inspired anime series that were similarly popular and remain influential today. Last year's "The First Slam Dunk," directed by the comic book's creator Takehiko Inoue, just won animation of the year at the Japan Academy Film Prize Association. A new live-action "Death Note" series is now in the works at Netflix, with the involvement of "Stranger Things" showrunners The Duffer Brothers. Even "Hikaru no Go" was adapted into a terrific Chinese drama in 2020.
Shonen Jump was also exported to the U.S. The very first English-language issue of the magazine was published in 2005, featuring popular series like "One Piece," "YuYu Hakusho," and "Yu-Gi-Oh!" Toonami propelled anime adaptations of "Dragon Ball Z" and "Naruto" to superstar status. Fans watched their favorite shows on television, bought the DVDs, and read collected volumes in the graphic novel section of Borders. (Or they pirated them, but that's another story.) Legal anime streaming became increasingly accessible and inexpensive through sites like Hulu, Funimation, and official YouTube channels. Crunchyroll especially became popular following its transformation from a pirate site to an industry-sanctioned streaming company in 2009. Today, Shonen Jump anime is among their most popular offerings. Crunchyroll listed "Jujutsu Kaisen" and "My Hero Academia" as the most-watched anime on its platform by folks in North America in 2020.
Shonen Jump has continued to evolve in recent years. A mobile app released in 2019 made thousands of issues accessible to readers for just $1.99 a month. While the price increased this year to $2.99 a month, it's still one of the best deals in comics. Many of Jump's biggest contemporary hits, such as "Spy x Family" and "Akane-banashi," hail from the web-based Shonen Jump+ branch rather than the magazine itself. The artist that best embodies the spirit of Jump+ is Tatsuki Fujimoto. While his series "Chainsaw Man" began serialization in the magazine, his debut "Fire Punch" was serialized in Jump+. Fujimoto followed the first part of "Chainsaw Man" with two Jump+ exclusive one-shots, "Look Back" and "Goodbye Eri." After a hiatus, the second part of "Chainsaw Man" has since been released on Jump+. Artists like Fujimoto have benefited from the looser content restrictions of Jump+, allowing for weirder and wilder material that might otherwise be out of place next to "One Piece."
Anime based on Shonen Jump properties have also changed. In the early 2000s, series like "Naruto" and "One Piece" ran for hundreds of episodes alongside the ongoing manga. Today, while some ongoing series like "Boruto" remain, others like "My Hero Academia" are made and released seasonally. The quality of each episode is relatively consistent, and in the case of "One Piece," exceptional. Films based on Shonen Jump properties have also been unusually successful in recent years. "Demon Slayer: Mugen Train" rode the popularity of its previous TV adaptation and the stresses of post-Covid Japan to become 2020's biggest film. While previous Shonen Jump films were non-canonical playgrounds for animators to go wild, "Mugen Train" was a canonical new installment based on manga material.
Considering all this good news, you might question the headline: "A bigger problem? What bigger problem?" I have no bone to pick with Michael B. Jordan's taste. The five series he picked are five of the most successful entertainment franchises. But the manga and anime world has always been broader than Shonen Jump. The best-selling manga series of all time in Japan include "Golgo 13" (Big Comic), "Detective Conan/Case Closed" (Weekly Shonen Sunday), and "Doraemon" (CoroCoro Comic). Not to mention comics published in shojo (girls) magazines, like "Boys Over Flowers." The longest-running anime series in history is not "Naruto" or "One Piece" but "Sazae-san," a gentle family comedy that has aired 2,684 episodes as of January 2023. Shonen Jump remains a big player with many famous and artistically successful anime adaptations to its name. But it is not the only game in town.
By comparison, manga and anime fandom in the U.S. are cast in the image of Shonen Jump. Young millennials grew up watching "Naruto" and "Bleach." These shows have since become nostalgia icons due to careful marketing by companies like Crunchyroll and Toonami. The massive popularity of these series has also led younger audiences to seek them out as their first anime experiences. While some folks eventually move beyond Jump, many are satisfied to live in the house that "Dragon Ball" built. Evan Minto, the co-founder of the online manga service Azuki and an ex-Crunchyroll employee, recently commented on Twitter that "it's wild seeing so much stuff like this where anime basically means a single genre from a single publisher." This raises the question: is America in the middle of an anime boom or a Shonen Jump boom?
Before I raise anybody's hackles, I should add that many of the most popular anime abroad has nothing to do with Jump. "Attack on Titan," the series that inaugurated the legal anime streaming boom in 2013, began in the pages of Bessatsu Shonen Magazine. (Shonen Jump rejected his initial one-shot, which I imagine haunts the magazine to this day.) "Fullmetal Alchemist," which began my love affair with anime and manga, ran in Square Enix's Monthly Shonen Gangan. Not to mention "Sailor Moon," which remains a generational touchstone despite being poorly served over the past few years. Or "Pokémon," which is its own beast entirely.
Other mediums have inspired popular anime adaptations in recent years. Light novels, a vein of anime-inspired young adult fiction published in Japan, inspired anime franchises like "Sword Art Online" and "Monogatari." The web fiction site Shosetsuka ni Naro (Let's Become a Novelist!) has been highly influential recently due to high-profile adaptations of "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" and "Mushoku Tensei." Crunchyroll partnered with the Korean comics publisher Webtoon to adapt "Tower of God" and "The God of High School" in 2020. Meanwhile, the success of "Castlevania" on Netflix led to a glut of animated video game adaptations. One of these, "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners," walked away with anime of the year at Crunchyroll's 2022 Anime Awards.
Still, "popular anime" is inevitably cast in the mold of Jump: the boy hero who must train rigorously to become the best, make friends and overcome increasingly powerful foes. It doesn't help that anime streaming has a presentist bias. Ongoing series are heavily promoted, while older shows are allowed to sink into obscurity. Outside of "Fullmetal Alchemist" and the rare original series like "Cowboy Bebop," older shows that survive to be marketed to the next generation of anime fans inevitably hail from Shonen Jump. Meanwhile, in comics, bestseller charts are dominated by Jump's catalog. Nineteen of 20 entries in NPD Bookscan's 2022 top-selling manga list are from Shonen Jump. Four of the five manga volumes that made it to The New York Times's graphic books and manga list for February 2023 are Jump comics.
Shonen Jump is, of course, popular outside of the U.S. as well. Per Comics Beat, a 2022 consumer survey by GfK and Livres Hebdo included "One Piece," "Spy x Family," and "Naruto" among France's five most popular manga series of the year. The 1986 anime adaptation of "Saint Seiya," a series about heroes beating each other up while wearing mythological armor, remains a smash hit in Europe and South America. But Shonen Jump did not necessarily mark the beginning of anime fandom in these countries. It was instead 1974's "Heidi, Girl of the Alps," 1976's "3000 Leagues in Search of Mother" and others of their ilk that were first exported to foreign markets. These were not the exciting action series of today. Instead, they were children's stories dubbed into multiple languages as part of Nippon Animation's "World Masterpiece Theater" initiative.
There are reasons to be nervous about Shonen Jump's grip on the imaginations of anime and manga fans abroad. The first and most pressing is the magazine's historical role in corporatizing manga production. In "Manga Zombie," Takeo Udagawa writes manga have always been "works of art and commercial products at one and the same time." Even so, the epochal success of Jump in the '80s represented something new: the mastery of manga as a commercial product, shifting the balance of the whole industry in the process. "The only expertise publishers now cared about was how to sell manga in greater volumes," Udagawa says. "What mattered was pressing the reader's buttons with pinpoint accuracy."
Another reason is that despite its significant female readership, Shonen Jump remains a sexist institution. In 2019, an anonymous Twitter user quoted HR from the magazine's publisher Shueisha. While a woman could be hired as an editor at Shonen Jump, the HR representative said, "You have to understand the hearts of boys." This sounds eerily similar to the words of former Ghibli producer Yoshiaki Nishimura, who told The Guardian that compared to women, "men ... tend to be more idealistic — and fantasy films need that idealistic approach."
Yet both statements are quaint compared to Jump's history. In 2020, "act age" writer Tatsuya Matsuki was charged with committing "a coerced indecent act on a female middle school student." In 2017, "Rurouni Kenshin" creator Nobuhiro Watsuki was charged with possession of child pornography. In 2002, Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro was caught paying a 16-year-old girl for sex. Not only has "One Piece" creator Eiichiro Oda continued to give Watsuki a platform, but Shimabukuro went on to publish popular series like 2008's "Toriko" in the magazine. Only Matsuki has so far been blacklisted.
The emphasis on "friendship, effort, and victory" in Shonen Jump inevitably stifle the type of stories that are told. Naruto and his friends might struggle with cruel authority figures in the same way that Deku and his friends discover the contradictions of the superhero world in "My Hero Academia." But these hierarchical systems are almost always proven correct in the end. Naruto learns that his father was the Fourth Hokage and that his journey to becoming Hokage is an act of inheritance rather than an underdog story. Endeavor, the father of Shoto in "My Hero Academia," is introduced as an abusive father only to slowly change his ways throughout the series. While men are allowed to be complex, women are rarely afforded that same privilege. With some exceptions, such as "Jujutsu Kaisen," the bar is on the floor when it comes to the handling of female characters in Shonen Jump comics.
Jump+ has allowed for comparatively varied storytelling. "Akane-banashi," for instance, has a rare female heroine for a Jump comic. The second part of "Chainsaw Man" follows the story of Asa, who is uniquely weird, off-putting, and relatable. (Kotaku's Sisi Jiang called her "the 'femcel' we need, not the one we deserve.") Even so, I can't help but worry about the potential reader who catches up with "Chainsaw Man" only to search in vain for similar comics on the Shonen Jump app that are comparably weird. Sure, Jump's website features "Dandadan" by former Fujimoto assistant Yukinobu Tatsu. Other unconventional titles, like "Takopi's Original Sin" and "Oshi no Ko," may be found on Shueisha's Manga Plus website.
But the world of manga is so much bigger than "Shonen Jump." You don't need to look that far afield to find comics in the vein of "Chainsaw Man." The work of Shuzo Oshimi, whose breakthrough "Flowers of Evil" was published alongside "Attack on Titan" in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, is similarly preoccupied with adolescence, sexuality, and the apocalypse. Elsewhere, Weekly Shonen Sunday has been serializing Q Hayashida's "Dai Dark," which features grotesque monster designs and a quirky sense of humor "Chainsaw Man" fans might recognize. Hayashida's earlier series, "Dorohedoro," was adapted into an anime produced by "Chainsaw Man" studio MAPPA in 2020. All of these works are now available in translation for English-speaking audiences. They might not be available in a web app, but you may be able to find them at your local library.
The great strength of Japanese manga is its variety. There are comics about cooking, business management, and soap. There are award-winning series for children and adults filling every possible niche. Many of these do not sell as well as comics published in Shonen Jump or other heavy hitters of the manga industry. But many sell just enough to establish themselves as viable alternatives. Each small success empowers the business as a whole. This same dynamic can be seen in countries like France, where comics are treated as a medium rather than a genre. Shonen Jump is famous there, but they've also published avant-garde artists like Atsushi Kaneko. Not to mention that France has its share of comic legends, including Jacques Tardi and Manu Larcenet.
By comparison, the comics industry in the U.S. was heavily damaged by the reign of the Comics Code Authority. It's only in the past decade that a varied, sustainable comics culture has grown up around graphic novels for middle-grade and young adult readers. Of course, these works straddle the boundary between art and commerce that Takeo Udagawa wrote about in "Manga Zombie." But they at least cover a wider range of subject matter and techniques than Shonen Jump. If today's manga publishers want to capture the heart of this new generation raised on Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, they should be licensing series beyond the action comics that made Jump famous. Publishers like Seven Seas Entertainment and Denpa Books have been doing just that.
A comics and anime industry built on Jump and its ilk are on borrowed time. "Demon Slayer" and "Jujutsu Kaisen" may be entertaining works of commercial art in their own right. But the commercial and critical success of "Chainsaw Man" abroad indicates fans exist who want something spicier than the magazine's average. Should Shonen Jump fail to meet that demand, these viewers may very well cast Jump aside. The anime world, as well, stands on thin ice. Anime adaptations are as popular as ever, but original series are few and far between. Because conditions in the industry are so bad, there are not enough skilled animators to meet demand. A recent shortage of contract workers has led to several anime series this winter being delayed mid-season. An industry where smaller productions eat each other for resources while larger ones become stultifyingly conservative is no industry at all.
For manga and anime to truly be viable abroad, they must thrive outside the walls of Shonen Jump. Thankfully, there are comparative examples to draw upon in the manga publishing industry. One of the most popular horror comics artists in the U.S. is Junji Ito, who has transformed from a cult artist to a publishing sensation. Viz has released so much of his back catalog to meet this demand that they've arguably diluted the appeal of his work. Not everything he's produced is at the same level as "Uzumaki," after all. But other publishers like Kodansha have capitalized on Ito's success by publishing work by other Japanese horror artists, including Masaaki Nakayama and Kanako Inuki. Even small publishers like Star Fruit Books have gotten in on the action, returning the likes of Hideshi Hino to print.
In a speech at the 2020 Golden Globes, "Parasite" director Bong Joon-ho said that "once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films." You could say the same for anime and manga. There is so much more on offer than just Shonen Jump. Sure, the app is convenient. I suspect the magazine's editors have more respect for the art form than their harshest critics admit. The best anime adaptations have enough great episodes to dissect for years. Not to mention that revisiting old favorites with friends can be fun in its own right. But Shonen Jump should be the beginning of your journey through the medium, not the end. Great wonders exist elsewhere. You just have to be willing to open the door and travel that world without roads.
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