Wild Cards is headed to television, series creator George R.R. Martin has announced.
In a post on his Live Journal, Martin confirmed that Universal Cable Productions (UCP) has acquired the rights adapt his beloved novel series into a TV show. Melinda M. Snodgrass is on board as executive producer, alongside SyFy Films' Gregory Noveck.
Three novels from GRRM's expansive Wild Cards series, via GRRM's Live Journal
Jared Leto appears disappointed by his lack of screen time in Suicide Squad, especially considering he says there was enough footage for an entire Joker movie.
In an interview with Edith Bowman on BBC Radio 5 Live, Leto said "I think that I brought so much to the table in every scene that it was probably more about filtering all of the insanity, because I wanted to give a lot of options, and I think there’s probably enough footage in this film for a Joker movie."
Leto also mentions he had been lobbying for the film to be rated R, even while they were shooting: “I always wished this film was rated R, and I had actually said that when we were starting. It felt like if a film was ever going to be rated R it should be the one about the villains,” he said.
An hour-long crossover event that brings together the words of New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine will arrive this fall, FOX has announced.
The event will air as back-to-back episodes on Tuesday, October 11, beginning with a new episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine at 8pm ET/PT and continuing into an episode of New Girl at 8:30pm ET/PT. The network plans to share additional details about the crossover at a later date.
Brooklyn New Nine Girl.
The biggest challenge for the showrunners of Marvel's The Defenders is going to be bringing together four separately established heroes into one cohesive story. Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez are currently writing scripts for the eight-episode first season of The Defenders, slated to premiere in 2017, and are having fun figuring out how Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist work together as a team.
"The idea that we get to mix these ingredients is kind of, as a comic book fan and also just as a fan of storytelling, one of the coolest elements of this job -- or of any job I've ever had," Ramirez told IGN at a Marvel press event. "Being able to think about what it means when some of these people are in rooms together for the first time, and how we want to play, and how we want to make it both what fans are expected but also not how they're expected it to happen -- because some of these characters have obviously met each other in the comics -- we just want to make sure that's it as iconic and awesome as it can be."
Despite negative reception from critics, Suicide Squad had an incredibly successful debut at the box office this weekend, breaking Guardians of the Galaxy's August record with $135.1 million.
Warner Bros.' new comic book film soared far past Guardians of the Galaxy's $94.3 million figure after breaking August's Thursday preview night record. In addition, Variety notes that Suicide Squad now serves as the biggest film of Will Smith's career, eclipsing the $77.2 million debut of I Am Legend nine years ago.
Batman's sidekick Robin is dead by the time the DC Expanded Universe kicks off, but who killed him? It turns out there's more to the story than fans inferred from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Spoilers for Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice continue below.
The death of Robin clearly left an impact on Batman. In Batman v Superman, viewers see that Bruce Wayne still displays Robin's superhero outfit in his batcave. On it are the spray painted words, "Hahaha joke's on you Batman." The implication is clear: the Joker, one of Batman's greatest archenemies, murdered his sidekick. As director Zack Snyder told IGN, he imagined Robin had died during a run-in with a "young Joker," and that set up a "fun backstory to play with." In Suicide Squad, we learn there's more to the story.
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Time to replace your glassware
Hot days and melting permafrost
Editor’s Note: This post was not published during our comic con coverage last week as expected.
The cast of Mr. Robot appeared at San Diego Comic-Con for a panel about their second season. Series creator Sam Esmail was not here to answer questions, but the cast gave some hints about where season two is going.
Elliot (Rami Malek) has been using Adderall to try to get his demons under control. The reveal of Mr. Robot was a big twist in season one, but as intense as season two has begun, Malek suggests Elliot might be more reliable a narrator than we’ve come to expect.
“I think he’s ultimately more reliable than many would think he is because ultimately, who really wants to go down that path with someone who’s going to be as questionable as he might be,” Malek said. “I don’t know that I would. We’ve questioned his reliability. That’s not something we’ve steered away from. He is an unreliable narrator. As much as you do put the things he’s encountering into question, we’re never trying to make this a show where we’re shocking people. These aren’t gotcha moments anybody’s trying to set up. This is the story Sam wants to tell through his perspective. There are moments where he suffers from some very difficult mental issues. Those things can be difficult for an audience to sit through but if you want to go on his path, you are going to start to have to question things as well.”
Now that Elliot is aware Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) is in his head, Mr. Robot isn’t happy to be ignored. He’s become downright hostile, and Slater is happy to develop Mr. Robot as a more independent character.
“I’m also excited for the opportunity that the character is developing a personality of his own, not just this idealized vision of what he manifested his father to be or what he would have liked him to have been had he lived,” Slater said. “The character is really starting to exercise his own will in a lot of situations and scenarios. That’s a lot of fun. It’s a real power struggle between the two of us.”
Meanwhile, Angela (Portia Doubleday) has taken a job at Evil Corp. She’s doing well-negotiating interviews for Bloomberg. She also speaks positive affirmations to herself in the mirror before work.
“When Sam started talking about the positive affirmations, what interests me is not that she’s doing them but why she has to do them, in order to keep herself together,” Doubleday explained. “That shows up. You find out why she so desperately needs something that becomes quite obsessive that she needs in order to survive there. I think it has to do with repression. Repressing her shame and guilt for being involved, repressing her emotions that she’s basically being told get in the way of her productivity.”
This leaves Darlene (Carly Chaikin) to keep fsociety going. After they’ve pulled off the hack that eliminated debt on a mass level, she has to lead the movement to rebuild society. “We get to see so many different layers to her that we didn’t last season,” Chaikin said. “There’s a big vulnerability and fear going on in there but trying to mask it with having the confidence of we did the right thing. We’re all wearing masks and what we are trying to portray is different than how we actually feel. It’s been great to be able to have all those layers to play with.”
Grace Gummer joins the cast as an agent investigating cyber crimes. So far she has not interacted with Elliot, Angela or Darlene. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t, but Gummer is happy with her storyline as is.
“All of us have our own storylines,” Gummer said. “Some of them intersect and some of them don’t. What’s cool about my character is that mine doesn’t revolve around any other character or any other man. I think that’s true of all the other women on the show which is what I love. My character and my storyline are completely independent of everyone else’s which is cool.”
Mr. Robot airs Wednesdays at 10 on USA.
The post ‘Mr. Robot’ Star Rami Malek Says Elliot Might Be More Reliable Than We Think [Comic-Con 2016] appeared first on /Film.
The end credits for 2012’s The Avengers first introduced Thanos to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and his quest to collect all the Infinity Stones will presumably come to a head with 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War. But don’t look for him to make much progress in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Director James Gunn has stated, in no uncertain terms, that the Infinity Stones will not play a role in the upcoming sequel. Instead, as we saw in the Comic-Con footage, Star-Lord and company will have their hands full with the Ravagers, led by Taserface (Chris Sullivan), and the Sovereign, led by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki).
Thanos has mostly remained in the background of the MCU, but the most screentime he’s ever gotten was in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. He is the adopted father of Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), and allied with Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) in an attempt to get his hands on the Power Stone. In the end credits for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thanos decides to become more proactive in his quest. Some fans wondered if that meant he might return in fuller force for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but Gunn insists that’s not the case.
“There will be no Infinity Stones in Vol. 2,” Gunn revealed on his Facebook page. A nitpicky fan wondered if Infinity Gauntlets could still appear, but Gunn nipped that speculation in the bud as well. “There will be infinity nothing,” he replied. “It’s a story about the Guardians, and isn’t meant to lead to anything else.”
This isn’t completely new information. In December, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige hinted that Thanos would not show up in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. “I wouldn’t look too hard in that movie for Thanos,” he said. And then in February, Gunn just came out and stated that “Thanos will not appear in Vol. 2.” He continued, “Thanos isn’t in this movie. I think he’s gonna have a little bit to do and say when it comes to certain wars and infinity. We’ve got other fish to fry in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2.”
However, we all know things can change during pre-production and shooting — and that filmmakers of highly anticipated blockbusters will straight-up lie about plot twists if needed. So in case you were still skeptical, it’s worth repeating that there will be no Infinity Stones in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. But don’t worry, not all the MCU heroes have forgotten about the Mad Titan. As we learned last week, Detective Thor is on the case.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 arrives May 5, 2017. Thor: Ragnarok opens November 3, 2017. And Thanos will finally get his day when Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters May 4, 2018.
The post ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ Will Not Involve Infinity Stones appeared first on /Film.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a new leader, and it’s Batman. Or at least a guy who sounds a lot like him. Marvel announced today that Jason O’Mara — who, among other things, is known for voicing the Dark Knight in Warner Bros.’ animated DC projects — has been cast as the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the fourth season of the ABC drama. His name has yet to be revealed, but the official description of his character has us wondering if he might be somehow linked to another Marvel Studios TV series.
The third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ended with Coulson (Clark Gregg) revealing that S.H.I.E.L.D. had a new director. Now we know what he’ll look like, but who exactly he is remains unclear. Marvel describes O’Mara’s role as “a character whose Marvel roots go back to the 1940s.” The wording is a little ambiguous — was the character created in the 1940s in our real world, or does his history go back to the 1940s in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If the latter, could he be connected somehow to ABC’s now-cancelled program Agent Carter?
Marvel isn’t saying, but they are more than happy to let fans know how thrilled they are about the new casting. Here is Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb chiming in with the usual PR hype:
Bringing Jason into the mix as the New Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. forces everyone, particularly Coulson, to reevaluate their role in the Agency. Jason has both the physical presence and acting dynamics that will connect with and challenge even the most loyal agent.
And O’Mara got on Twitter to share his excitement.
Beyond excited to be joining the @AgentsofSHIELD team as the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Can't say anything else or I'll get into trouble ????
— Jason O'Mara (@jason_omara) August 1, 2016
The news follows last month’s big Comic-Con reveal that Gabriel Luna would be joining Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Robbie Reyes a.k.a. Ghost Rider.
O’Mara’s small-screen resume includes the short-lived Complications, the short-lived Vegas, the short-lived Terra Nova, and the short-lived Life on Mars. (I don’t think anyone blames him for those cancellations, but man, the guy has had some bad luck.) He has been voicing Batman since 2014’s Justice League: War, and you may have heard him recently in Batman: Bad Blood and Justice League vs. Teen Titans. He’ll reprise that role again for Justice League Dark. He will next be seen in the war movie Jadotville, with Jamie Dornan and Mark Strong.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 4 premieres Tuesday, September 20 at 10 PM on ABC.
The post ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Casts Jason O’Mara as the New Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. appeared first on /Film.
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Prime directive
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Readers, here’s my piece on sex offender laws that’s in today’s New York Post. If you have sons, it might give you pause.
Bogus ‘sex offender’ labels are ruining lives
by Lenore Skenazy
What’s the most common age of sex-offenders?
It’s not a trick question, but unless you follow this stuff closely you’ll almost certainly answer wrong.
In fact, most people are shocked to learn that the most common age of people charged with a sex offense isn’t a creepy 39, or 51.
It’s 14.
That’s right. As the US Bureau of Justice reports: “The single age with the greatest number of offenders from the perspective of law enforcement was age 14.”
Why so young? Because people tend to have sex with people around their own age, which means young people tend to have sex with other young people. And much under-age sex is illegal.
So we keep throwing kids on the registry and labeling them sex offenders, as if they’re incorrigible monsters. But in Britain, a study recently commissioned by Parliament has recommended a totally different course: Trying to understand, treat and refrain from labeling the kids, since children often “make mistakes as they start to understand their sexuality and experiment with it.”
What happens when we turn teens and even tweens into sex offenders?
The punishment and stigma can follow them for years, even decades. A study by Human Rights Watch gave the example of Jacob, a boy found guilty of inappropriately touching his sister when he was 11.
Because this got him placed on the sex offender registry, he was not allowed to live near other children, including siblings. So he was sent to live in a juvenile home, and eventually placed with foster parents.
Now 26, Jacob is still on the sex-offender registry, still unable to live near a school, playground or park.
(Even though study after study has shown these residency restrictions do not make the public any safer.)
Meantime, he has had a hard time finding work, because who wants to hire a sex offender?
And so, concluded Human Rights Watch, “his life continues to be defined by an offense he committed at age 11” — an offense that most likely didn’t indicate anything other than a young man in need of guidance.
Then I go on to describe an incident you read about here in 2011: Two 14-year-olds pulled down their pants and, disgustingly, sat on two 12-year-olds’ faces. Gross and reprehensible. But the punishment was even moreso.
Under Megan’s Law, they are now sex offenders, on the registry…for life.
An appellate court upheld the sentence in 2011, so both young men will be on the sex-offender registry until they die. As 40-year-olds, heck, as 80-year-olds, they’ll be treated as perennial perverts for something they did in junior high.
This is not only horrifying, it flies in the face of what we have learned about sex offenders (and not just the young ones), which is that contrary to public perception, the vast majority of people on the registry never offend again.
In short: Not only is the age that people get on the registry appalling, but so is the registry itself, which has been shown over and over again not to make our kids any safer. At this point, our children are more likely to end up ON the list than to be molested BY someone on it.
The sex offender laws keep getting more extreme and over-reaching, because pointless excess is an easy way for politicians to act as if they care about kids and safety…while actually ruining people’s lives.
Including a lot of lives starting at age 14. – L.
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Young kids make up a great number of registered sex offenders. (Photo by Husin.Sani)
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Just a few months ago, directors Anthony & Joe Russo were making the publicity rounds for Captain America: Civil War, and conversation turned to the forthcoming two-part sequel that would bring The Avengers back together yet again for another big screen battle. At the time, they indicated that The Avengers: Infinity War – Part I and The Avengers: Infinity War – Part II would each have different titles because, “The movies are two very different movies. It’s misleading.”
At the time, Anthony & Joe Russo confirmed that they would give a new title to each of the sequels, but there was no indication as to what they would be called. That changes today as Disney has confirmed the official title for The Avengers sequel arriving in 2018. Find out The Avengers Infinity War title after the jump.
According to Deadline, the first sequel from Anthony & Joe Russo will simply be called The Avengers: Infinity War. Yep, that’s it. But honestly, it’s a bit surprising that they kept the title for the first part, because that implies that Thanos will get his hand on the Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlet before the end of the first movie. Sure, we all knew that would happen anyway, but we weren’t sure when that would happen. Of course, the ultimate cliffhanger would be for Thanos to get his hands on the powerful stones and the glove to wield them at the end of the movie, but we’re betting he uses it in the climax of the first movie.
As for the movie formerly known as The Avengers: Infinity War – Part II, that now has the temporary moniker of Untitled Avengers. Perhaps the title will be held back until The Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters. But even if Disney tries to keep it under wraps, someone will probably find out about it ahead of time.
So despite the fact that The Avengers sequels were positioned as a two-part event, it’s clear that Anthony & Joe Russo want to establish them as two different movies. However, this could merely be a marketing change that the studio wanted to make so it didn’t look like they were splitting a single movie into two parts. That’s a move that has been perceived as a cash grab by studios for awhile now, so giving each movie a different title may change the audience perception on that front.
With The Avengers: Infinity War still a couple years away, we don’t know much about what to expect in the sequel beyond the basic plot points that come from the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War storylines from Jim Starlin‘s comics. But since we’ve seen how Marvel Studios played with big comic stories like Civil War on the big screen, there’s bound to be plenty of differences between what’s in the comics and what we see in the movies. Plus, Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy has been referenced to be involved and Captain Marvel (confirmed to be played by Brie Larson) has been tipped off to be part of the sequel too.
The Avengers: Infinity War arrives on May 4, 2018 while Untitled Avengers is slated for May 3, 2019.
The post The First Title of the Two ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Sequels Has Been Revealed appeared first on /Film.
Casey Bloys, president of HBO Programming, spoke to the Television Critics Association on Saturday. As always, there were many questions about Game of Thrones. The show’s creators, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have stated their intentions to end the series after eight seasons, and that the final two seasons would only comprise of 13 episodes. Now the HBO executive has confirmed that Game of Thrones final season will be the eight, but he also discussed the possibility of spin-offs happening as well.
With season seven of Game of Thrones intended to only have seven episodes, that would mean the final season will only have six. But Bloys could not specifically nail the episode count down. “The exact number for the seventh season is locked at seven,” Bloys said. “For the eight I’m not sure yet. The guys know we’ll take as many as they can give us.”
However, Bloys could confirm that the eighth season would definitely be Game of Thrones’ last:
“[Weiss and Benioff] have a very specific plan about the number of seasons they want to do. If I could get them to do more, I would take 10 more seasons. We take their lead on how they think they can do the best version of the show.”
There is a finite story to Game of Thrones. Even though the television show has overtaken George R.R. Martin’s books, they are still following the story Martin is telling. Both the books and the series are approaching a definitive ending. That doesn’t mean there can’t be more stories told in Westeros though, and Bloys has kept the flame alive on a possible spinoff to follow Game of Thrones:
“We’ve talked about it. It’s something I’m not opposed to but it has to make sense creatively. The guys weren’t opposed to it but there are no concrete plans.”
Game of Thrones leads HBO’s Emmy nominations for 2016, but they won’t be eligible for 2017. Production on the seventh season will delay the show from Emmy consideration in 2017, an unfortunate side effect of producing the best show possible. “Our main goal is to do the best show for our subscribers and fans,” Bloys said. “Shooting in cold climate is what they need. The byproduct is we’re not going to be in Emmy consideration. That’s something we’ll have to live with.”
Game of Thrones is expected to return in 2017 on HBO.
The post ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 Will Be the Last, But There’s Still A Chance for Spin-Offs appeared first on /Film.
Roumen.ganeffAmazin stuff
Samsung started to ship its PM1633a SSD with 15.36 TB capacity to select customers in March and recently it began to supply the drive to select resellers as well. The enterprise-class SSD is now offered by two U.S.-based retailers and can be purchased for ~$10,000, which makes it one of the world’s most expensive commercial solid-state drives. Meanwhile, Samsung officially expanded its PM1633a family of SSDs with many lower-capacity models and has begun to ship the 7.68 TB version to at least one reseller.
The Samsung PM1633a drives are based on the company’s third-generation 256 Gb TLC 3D V-NAND memory chips introduced last year. Samsung stacks 16 of such ICs to form a single 512 GB package and then uses 32 of them to build its flagship 15.36 TB SSD, leaving about 1 TB of NAND flash for overprovisioning. Typically, high-capacity SSDs do not provide very high performance, because of peculiarities of their internal architecture and limitations of contemporary controllers (which cannot simultaneously access many high-density chips, or multiple controllers in a RAID-0 stripe configuration). To speed up its most spacious PM1633a drive, Samsung had to develop a new proprietary controller that can concurrently access large amounts of high-density NAND flash with the help of a special firmware. For its flagship PM1633a 15.36 TB SSD, the manufacturer declares sequential read performance up to 1200 MB/s as well as sequential write performance up to 900 MB/s using the SAS-12Gbps interface. As for random read and write operations, the 15.36 TB SSD can deliver up to 195,000 and 31,000 IOPS respectively (which is slightly lower than the company advertised back in March).
When Samsung announced its PM1633a SSD earlier this year, it only introduced one model with 15.36 TB capacity. Since then, the company has officially expanded the PM1633a family with 480 GB, 960 GB, 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB and 7.68 TB models (see flyer for details). The expansion of the lineup demonstrates Samsung’s confidence that its third-generation V-NAND TLC memory is reliable enough for enterprise usage scenarios. In fact, the PM1633a series consists of six SKUs, whereas the PM1633 family based on the second-gen 32-layer V-NAND includes only four configurations (up to 3.8 TB capacity, but they are faster than the PM1633a). Both lineups are aimed at enterprise storage applications with SAS 12Gbps interface.
| Samsung PM1633a SSD General Specifications | |||
| Capacity | 480 GB, 960 GB, 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB | ||
| Controller | Samsung proprietary controller | ||
| NAND | Samsung's 256 Gb 48-layer TLC NAND | ||
| DRAM Cache | up to 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM (15.36 TB model) | ||
| Sequential Read | 1200 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 900 MB/s | ||
| Random Read | up to 195,000 IOPS (15.36 TB model) | ||
| Random Write | up to 31,000 IOPS (15.36 TB model) | ||
| Power Consumption (active/idle) | 11W/4.5W (15.36 TB model) | ||
| MTBF | 2,000,000 hours | ||
| Endurance | 1 DWPD (Drive Writes Per Day) | ||
| Power Loss Protection | Based on tantalum capacitors | ||
| Warranty | 5 Years | ||
| Interface and Form-Factor | 2.5"/15mm SAS-12 Gbps (15.36 TB model) | ||
Back in March, Samsung only began to ship its PM1633a to select clients. We suspect that these clients are those that run large cloud data centers, and require such drives to run their specific workloads. Now,the manufacturer has started to ship its flagship SAS SSD to a broader range of customers. For example, the Samsung PM1633a 15.36 TB drive (MZILS15THMLS) is now offered by CDW for $10,311.99 as well as by SHI for $9,690 on preorder. Both retailers ask to contact them for actual availability, depending on when stock is available (which is not surprising, given the price of the SSD as well as its very special positioning). In addition, CDW also offers the PM1633a 7.68 TB (MZILS7T6HMLS) drive for $5,729.99, which ships within 11–13 days.
The price of Samsung’s PM1633a 15.36 TB SSD may seem excessive, but for large cloud data centers (which always try to maximize their storage capacity) as well as mission-critical storage applications such drives make a lot of sense. For example, Supermicro has 2U machines that can fit in 48 SAS3/12G storage devices (1, 2). Each of such servers can store 737.28 TB of data (if fully populated with Samsung’s 15.36 TB SSDs), whereas storage capacity of a 42U cabinet featuring 21 of such servers will be 15482 TB (15.4 PB). By contrast, a standard 42U storage rack featuring 360 3.5” 10 TB hard drives can store around 3600 TB. Moreover, given very high sequential and random read/write performance of the PM1633a, just one such device can substitute many 10K or 15K mission-critical HDDs (each of which can cost $400 – $700). Hence, there will be numerous customers interested in buying the Samsung PM1633a 15.36 TB for its price-point.
Sources: Samsung, CDW (via PC World), SHI.
The Samsung 850 EVO 4TB SSD Review
Samsung's 850 EVO 4TB Now Available at $1500
Roumen.ganeffBlack Mirror yay
At the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today, Netflix announced the premiere dates for nine of its upcoming series, as well as new casting announcements and renewals for several series.
Season 3 of Charlie Brooker's acclaimed anthology series Black Mirror, now a Netflix original series, will debut on October 21. Netflix's Gilmore Girls revival series, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, with returning cast members Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Scott Patterson, Jared Padalecki, Milo Ventimiglia and many more, will premiere on November 25.
Pete's Dragon is a remake in all the right ways, taking cues from the original but reimagining the story for a very different audience living in a very different era. A film for children that isn't afraid to deal with real issues in honest ways, but also steeped in magic and whimsey, the David Lowery-directed movie refrains from hewing too closely to the 1977 live-action and animated musical hybrid of the same name to great success.
The new Disney film rebuilds the story of Pete's Dragon from the ground up. Here, Pete (Oakes Fegley) becomes an orphan after his parents die in a car accident. He lives in the woods for five years with his dragon friend Elliot, a sweet, empathetic beast that is as playful as a puppy but can be as terrifying as his dragon nature promises. One day, a forest ranger named Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) comes deep enough into the woods that Pete hears her, the first human he's seen in years. He's enamored with her as a mother figure from the start, and when the time comes for him to trust her, he does with limited hesitation.
In a summer seemingly defined by how disappointing so many movies have been, Star Trek Beyond is an oasis. It’s crowd-pleaser that has something on its mind, a sequel that’s not painfully beholden to massive franchise plans, and a story about the power of positivity overcoming darkness. In short, it’s a unique release for 2016…and the right antidote for 2016.
And since it’s Monday and you’ve had a chance to see it, let’s take a deeper dive into what makes this movie tick.
When Star Trek Beyond first began screening, an old argument was dragged into the public yet again: what is Star Trek? And who is it for? And does this, the latest iteration of a 50-year old franchise, actually count as Star Trek or is it something the more serious fans, the aficionados who have studied Enterprise blueprints, should write off as not mattering in the grand scheme of things?
The truth is that this discussion is inherently silly. Star Trek isn’t so easily identifiable as a single thing. It’s too big for that. Even creator Gene Roddenberry couldn’t make up his mind and his original “wagon train to the stars” pitch evolved over the years, transforming from heady, spacey, pulpy science fiction into something of a social document that used sci-fi as a backdrop for a utopian portrait. The original series is a different beast than Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a different beast than most of the movies. The Kelvin Timeline, the rebooted series created by J.J. Abrams, is its own animal.
And it is an animal that suits new director Justin Lin‘s sensibilities just fine. Although he grew up a Star Trek fan, Lin’s interests are more varied. In Star Trek Beyond, you can see the other facets of his personality shining through. He likes fast vehicles and intense action. He has a soft spot for goofy humor. The blockbuster-friendly pacing that he perfected while transforming the Fast and Furious series from a terrible movie franchise into a hugely entertaining one is on display here. Lin may like Star Trek, but he’s a jock at heart, the kind of kid who left the house to play basketball when other Trek fans cracked open those technical manuals. Star Trek Beyond is the obvious work of a casual fan – he’s aware of the iconography, but nothing is sacred. Him blowing up the Enterprise in act one feels like statement.
Star Trek Beyond is Star Trek because it doesn’t feel quite like what came before. That’s the whole point of Star Trek. There are shades of the original series in how Kirk and the crew solve a trick problem on the Planet of the Week. There are shades of The Next Generation in how it holds humanity’s unlimited potential up on a pedestal. There are even shades of Deep Space Nine, a show that continuously questioned the purpose of the Federation and Starfleet and explored what it means to function in a society where perfection is the norm. But most of all, Star Trek Beyond is a spirited adventure, an optimistic romp, a tale of colleagues, a makeshift family, coming together and fighting for what they believe in. Lin is a jock. His Captain Kirk, who even gets to drive a motorcycle like a more traditional action hero, is also a total jock. However, they’re the kind of jocks who fraternize with the nerds and rely on them and treat them with the utmost respect. Star Trek Beyond isn’t Trek at its smartest, but it’s the first Trek movie in a long time that stands in awe of what a mixed team of experts from all different backgrounds can accomplish.
Whenever I start watching a new television show, I give it a simple test. Could you take any two characters and separate them from the rest of the ensemble and enjoy their interactions? For the best shows, the answer is generally yes. A strong cast isn’t made up of individuals – it’s a team. Each actor, each character, serves a unique function. Watching those functions mix and match and bounce off one another must be a pleasure.
The crew of the Enterprise has been the chief draw of Star Trek since 1966. Watching this assortment of personalities gel on the bridge or on an away mission has always been a delight. At its best, Trek has always been an ode to teamwork. Remove one member of the bridge crew and watch things start to crumble. Everyone has one another’s back. J.J. Abrams recognized this. Even through 2009’s Star Trek struggles through its myriad of story speed bumps, Abrams inspires great joy by showcasing people doing their jobs well. Orders are issued and actions are performed and everyone looks like they know exactly what they’re doing. There is a great deal of pleasure to be had in watching a well-oiled machine.
Star Trek Beyond shakes up the formula by removing the bridge, and the entire Enterprise, from the picture. Simon Pegg and Doug Jung‘s screenplay scatters the Enterprise crew across an uncharted planet, creating a few odd couples. Kirk and Chekov set out to locate the rest of the crew. Dr. McCoy struggles to save an injured Spock. Uhura and Sulu do some detective work from prison. Scotty meets a new ally in Jaylah, a stone-faced survivor and warrior. While all of these people are a blast in the same room, the dynamics that are created when they are paired off is immensely satisfying. Without backup, they must rely on one another and the film finds joy in how everyone steps up to fill the void of their missing crew mates. The temptation to create artificial drama in each pairing much have lurked over Pegg and Jung at all times, but they craft drama from characters coming together in the face of a desperate situation. It’s a breath of fresh air after the overbearing negativity of Star Trek Into Darkness. People, Star Trek Beyond argues, can and will rise to the occasion.
While each pairing is fun, it’s the McCoy and Spock scenes that rise to the top. There has always been a natural friction between these two – one lets his emotions lead the way while the other is, by the nature of his species and upbringing, a being of pure logic. The dynamic here isn’t about these two coming to an understanding or learning that they’re friends. They are already friends. They’ve reached an understanding ages ago. These two push each other’s buttons in ways that only people who have been working together for three years can get away with. Their loyalty to one another is paramount and their affection obvious. They bicker and debate and insult like only true friends can. Star Trek Beyond‘s action scenes are already fading from my mind, but Spock and McCoy’s conversations and gripings continue to linger. Cooperation is a thrilling thing, especially when its two parties with such different world views.
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Even though he wasn’t born until four years after the series ended its original run in 1969, director Justin Lin grew up watching episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Reruns would come on at 11pm on Channel 13 in Los Angeles, and from 10 years old until he was 18 years old, he and his family would watch Star Trek after they closed their fish and chips shop and had dinner. So it should come as no surprise that Justin Lin attributes his connection to Star Trek to the connection his family had with the show.
More specifically, the filmmaker believes his father lived vicariously through Star Trek because of the sacrifices he made for that family. Lin explained that his father was a pilot back in Taiwan among plenty other things, but when he decided to give his family a shot at a better life in the United States, he didn’t get a chance to do some of the things he wanted to do back home. As Lin tells Deadline, “He latched on to Trek because of the sense of exploration and discovery, and hope.” Therefore, there was only one way that Justin Lin felt he could honor his father in Star Trek Beyond, and while it’s an obvious tribute, you probably didn’t even notice.
Find out about the Star Trek Beyond tribute to Justin Lin’s father after the jump, but beware of some spoilers.
In Star Trek Beyond, the crew of the USS Enterprise finds themselves stranded on a planet in deep space when a race of aliens and their swarm of ships tears apart the Federation ship completely. It appears they have no way to get off the planet until Scott (Simon Pegg) meets an alien woman named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) who has a hidden ship she’s been trying to repair in order to get off the planet. It’s an abandoned Federation ship, and it’s the only chance they have of getting off the planet.
Do you remember the name of that ship? It’s called the USS Franklin, and Trek Core points out that the nameplate on the ship has the named situated in such a way that it’s a clear tribute to Justin Lin’s father, whose name is Frank Lin:
Notice that little extra space between Frank and Lin on the ship nameplate? That’s a nice touch. And funnily enough, this kind of tribute isn’t something new for Star Trek. Director J.J. Abrams always fits in his grandfather’s name Kelvin into his movies somehow, and the name of the Federation ship from the opening sequence of the movie is the USS Kelvin. That’s the ship under the command of Captain Kirk’s father, George Kirk, a role that will be reprised by Chris Hemsworth for Star Trek 4.
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