In something out of Black Mirror meets Queen's Gambit, a chess robot accidentally broke the finger of its seven-year old opponent during an exhibition in Moscow, The Guardian reported. The child apparently moved his piece too soon and the robot grabbed his finger and squeezed it, causing a fracture before help could arrive. "The robot broke the child’s finger," said Moscow Chess Federation president Sergey Lazarev. "This is of course bad."
Video shows the robot grabbing the boy's finger and holding it for several seconds a group of people come to free him. It's not clear what went wrong, but Lazarev said the child had "made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried and the robot grabbed him." He implied that the robot's suppliers may need work on the safety aspects, saying the are "going to have to think again."
The boy was identified as Christopher and went on to play the next day, finishing the tournament. His parents, however, have reportedly contacted the public prosecutor's office. Russian chess official Sergey Smagin downplayed the incident, calling it "a coincidence" and saying the machine was "absolutely safe."
In any case, the incident can be seen as a modern parable of the dangers of robots, even in something as innocuous as chess. On a larger scale with things like robotic cars, however, the stakes are considerably higher.
Paramount Pictures and eOne have unveiled the first glimpse at their upcoming fantasy film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves via a series a shots showcasing the cast of the film in full costume.
The images, which feature stars Hugh Grant, Michelle Rodríguez, Chris Pine, Justice Smith, and Sophia Lillis, can be seen in the gallery below.
Little is officially known about the film, but an apparent synopsis discovered back in 2021 indicated the plot would involve a thief assembling a crew in the wake of a botched heist, in order to rob a traitorous conman who stole all his loot.
To hear more from some of the cast and crew of the film, IGN will be hosting a TikTok Live at the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Tavern Experience at San Diego Comic-Con on Wednesday, July 20.
Luke is Games Editor at IGN's Sydney office. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.
A small fleet of Cruise robotaxis in San Francisco suddenly stopped operating on Tuesday night, effectively stopping traffic on a street in the city's Fillmore district for a couple of hours until employees were able to arrive. TechCrunch first noticed a Reddit post that featured a photo of the stalled driverless cabs at the corner of Gough and Fulton streets. Cruise — which is General Motor’s AV subsidiary — only launched its commercial robotaxi service in the city last week. The rides feature no human safety driver, are geo-restricted to certain streets and can only operate in the late evening hours.
Cruise apologized for the incident in a statement, but gave little explanation for what caused the mishap. “We had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together,” a Cruise spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch. “While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.”
The GM-backed AV startup won the first driverless taxi permit in a major US city, and began offering San Francisco residents free rides in February. After launching its paid passenger service on June 24, early reviews from Cruise passengers came pouring in. One passenger noted that his Cruise car took an unusually long route to get to his home. Another passenger seemed to have a more positive experience, even leaving a cash tip for the driverless car.
I got to ride in a @Cruise car (named Falafel) as an early paying customer this week! Falafel was an excellent driver and the whole ride felt safe and smooth. I couldn’t find an option to tip Falafel so I just left some coins in the cup holder - hope that’s ok. pic.twitter.com/OYnyTyleYl
This week’s traffic jam appears to be Cruise’s first major stumbling block, at least for its commercial service. Back in April, police stopped a Cruise car for not having its headlights on. Officers appeared unsure of how to proceed after discovering there was no human behind the wheel.
The State of California requires AV companies to report any collision that involve property damage, bodily harm or death to the DMV, which publishes the data online. A total of 18 reports involving Cruise vehicles have been filed this year.
Following this morning's Supreme Court decision to overturn landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade, video game and entertainment companies are beginning to speak out against the ruling, and in support of reproductive freedoms.
Having previously made a statement of support when the decision prematurely leaked in May, Bungie has updated its blog post on the subject to announce it was implementing a travel reimbursement program for employees and their dependents to access reproductive healthcare that may not be available in their states.
Previously, Bungie also encouraged its audience to donate to charities including URGE (Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equality), Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, In Our Own Voice, and Trans Lifeline to help support rights to essential healthcare.
Bungie CEO Pete Parsons also tweeted the following with regard to the decision:
"This is a difficult day for our country. Good people will be hurt by this decision. Bungie will do whatever we can to protect our people and ensure they can live happy, healthy lives."
This is a difficult day for our country. Good people will be hurt by this decision. Bungie will do whatever we can to protect our people and ensure they can live happy, healthy lives.
Bungie isn't alone in speaking up. Insomniac Games tweeted a statement as well which reads, "We are human beings who make games. Reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy are human rights."
Sony Santa Monica tweeted similarly a few hours later: "We believe that bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom are fundamental human rights. Santa Monica Studio will continue to uphold these values and support our team members in receiving access to the care they need."
These statements are notable given the stance of their (and, soon, Bungie's) parent company Sony when the draft opinion first leaked earlier this year. At the time, PlayStation president Jim Ryan asked PlayStation employees to "respect differences of opinion" and reportedly discouraged internal studios from making public statements. Insomniac pushed back internally, resulting in both Insomniac and PlayStation donating $50,000 each to the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP).
Among Us developer Innersloth has also joined in with links to a number of organizations providing reproductive and essential healthcare, alongside its own statement:
"Innersloth supports reproductive choice and liberty. The ending of the constitutional right to abortion is a gender, racial, economic, and human rights disaster for both present and future generations. There are so many people and local organizations to support. If you can, len them your voice, time, action, money, or privilege. We stand with everyone affected."
And Guild Wars 2 creator ArenaNet, which was one of the first companies to speak out when the draft ruling initially leaked, reiterated its support as well:
Ubisoft has also tweeted support for reproductive rights, and additionally pointed to a longer statement penned by chief people officer Anika Grant and VP global diversity and inclusion Raashi Sikka from June 15 that expresses support not just for reproductive freedoms but also for the LGBTQ+ community amid the potential impact of this decision.
"On behalf of Yves and all of Ubisoft’s leadership team, we want to be clear: at Ubisoft, we believe that women’s rights are human rights, trans rights are human rights, and equal rights for all are essential to creating a world where everyone can be their authentic selves and thrive," the longer statement reads. It goes on to reiterate that it is reviewing its benefits packages for US employees to ensure that women and LGBTQ+ workers and their families "will have access to the quality healthcare [they] need."
Fellow AAA publisher EA has not issued an express statement against the overturning in keeping with its prior reported internal statements that it was "inclusive of all points of view" and thus would not issue a public statement either way. However, it did publish a letter it sent to employees today announcing it too would offer expanded travel health benefits in the wake of the ruling, and encouraging employees to participate in company social impact programs.
More and more companies have joined them throughout the day, including AAA developers such as Bethesda and Niantic:
In addition to individual studios and publishers, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has also issued a statement, alongside a list of suggested resources for reproductive rights, care, and support, which includes the Center for Reproductive Rights, Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood, National Women's Law Center, and United States of Women. Its statement is as follows:
The International Game Developers Association supports and empowers game developers around the world in achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers. We believe bodily autonomy and choice over one's own reproductive and healthcare matters are pertinent to achieving this mission. One must be in control of their own health matters in order to successfully manage their career and life. As a global organization, we understand that not all individuals experience or have access to freedoms and liberties pertaining to bodily autonomy, and we oppose efforts to weaken existing liberties. We are deeply concerned by increased government interventions undermining and limiting reproductive choice and access to care. We applaud and show solidarity with games industry and community leaders who are taking action to support all who are negatively impacted by these attempts.
And in tech, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has shared a statement from Apple affirming its benefits support employees seeking reproductive healthcare that may be unavailable in their home states.
Apple on ruling: “We support our employees’ rights to make their own decisions regarding their reproductive health. For more than a decade, Apple’s comprehensive benefits have allowed our employees to travel out-of-state for medical care if it is unavailable in their home state."
Netflix and other entertainment companies also respond
Gaming isn't the only space that's taking action. While major entertainment companies have refrained from issuing statements as of yet, reports indicate that a number of them are issuing statements to employees and offering healthcare support.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix is offering a $10,000 lifetime allowance for travel reimbursement for, among other things, gender affirming care and abortion. In an email to employees, Paramount CEO Bob Bakish reminded them that company health policies include coverage of travel-related expenses “if the covered health service, such as abortion, is prohibited in your area.” And Warner Bros. Discovery is apparently expanding its healthcare benefits to "include expenses for employees and their covered family members who need to travel to access a range of medical procedures, including care for abortions, family planning and reproductive health.”
Per a Variety report on the same topic, Meta, Sony, and Conde Nast are similarly offering or looking into offering travel reinbursement. And Disney has expressed its commitment to employees to provide access to family and reproductive care "no matter where they live."
Hollywood unions have also spoken up. A report from The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the Directors Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America, IATSE, and Actors Equity have all issued statements to their members offering support for reproductive freedoms to their members, while also demanding legislative action to codify the right to abortion.
In a joint statement, WGA East and West's board of directors condemned the ruling:
“Once again, this court has chosen to ignore public opinion and to violate the privacy and health of a vast percentage of the American population," the statement reads. "This decision will lead to injury, death, and the denial of basic human rights that allow Americans to lead the lives they choose without fear of interference or bodily harm. We now look to the states to enforce existing law or to act to pass new legislation that will protect against the Supreme Court’s misguided and harmful decision.”
It's likely we'll see other gaming and entertainment companies similarly come out in public support given the large number that spoke out when the draft opinion first leaked. We will continue to update this article as more issue statements.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Update 6/24/2022 2:12pm: This piece was updated post-publication to include statements from the Directors Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America, IATSE, Actors Equity, PlayStation London, Ubisoft, Media Molecule, ArenaNet, EA, Bethesda, Niantic, Unbroken Studios, Airship Syndicate, Team Meat, Cold Iron Studios, That's No Moon, Future Club, and Hi-Rez Studios.
It’s official – Harley Quinn is back, arriving on HBO Max this July. The hit animated series starring Kaley Cuoco as the iconic Harley Quinn doesn’t have a confirmed release date just yet – but it will be back at some point in July, according to a Warner Media press release.
That’s good news for fans, who will be dying to see where Harley goes next…
ANIMATION TAKES FOREVER! In the meantime, enjoy my Season 3 teaser filled with gorgeous coloring book pages of me and Ives. #DCFanDomepic.twitter.com/72GBpPND3r
At the end of Season 2, Harley and Ivy (now officially a couple) headed out on the road to cause chaos and mayhem on a cross-country road trip that Harley describes as their “Eat, Bang, Kill Tour.” A spin-off limited comic book series aptly named “Eat, Bang, Kill Tour” depicts their antics as they find themselves pursued across the country by Commissioner Gordon.
Season 3 will pick up where they left off, heading back to Gotham with Commissioner Gordon hot on their heels… and it looks as though we can expect to see even more DC characters, with Nightwing, John Constantine, Mad Hatter, Clock King, and Amanda Waller already confirmed. There’s even a cameo with director James Gunn, so expect it to get a bit meta.
Elsewhere, Harley Quinn’s Kite Man will be starring in his own spin-off – a show that’s described as “Cheers for villains” which sees him running a bar where supervillains hang out.
IGN’s Harley Quinn Season 2 review says: “the series looks to be even stronger in its sophomore outing. The new status quo and stronger emphasis on Gotham's villains help create a darker tone while still delivering all the zany, deep cut DC humor fans could ask for. Season 2 may well succeed where Birds of Prey never quite did - exploring what happens when Harley sets out to become her own woman.”
Kaley Cuoco stars as Harley Quinn alongside Alan Tudyk, Lake Bell, Rahul Kohli, Diedrich Baker, Tony hale, Matt Oberg, and Ron Funches. Harley Quinn was developed by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey with Halpern and Schumacker serving as showrunners.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Warning: Full spoilers follow for Westworld Season 3.
Westworld's third season wrapped way back in May of 2020 with the episode "Crisis Theory" (read our Season 3 finale review), capping off the HBO series' journey to the "real world" of the futuristic society where theme parks are populated by robot "hosts." Or so we thought. But now, trailers for Westworld Season 4, which debuts on Sunday, June 26, continue to feature what at least appears to be a world outside the parks. Of course, with Westworld, one never can tell...
Westworld of course stars Evan Rachel Wood as the host Dolores Abernathy, who, having gained sentience over the course of the previous seasons, left the Delos park where she lived for decades as, essentially, a slave, now on a mission to take down humankind for the sake of her fellow 'bots. Or so we thought...
A lot happened in the Season 3 finale of Westworld, so let's delve into some of the key points and try to figure out how they might play in Season 4.
Westworld Recap: Is Dolores Dead?
Year three told the story of what happened to Dolores after she had escaped the Westworld theme park at the end of the previous season. Setting up shop in a near-future L.A., she created a bunch of copies of herself, or more specifically, copies of her mind, but in different bodies, all as part of her grand plan for the season...
But did Dolores Prime die in the Season 3 finale? She seemed to be gone by the end of "Crisis Theory," even if she sacrificed herself in order to achieve her true mission. After being captured by Vincent Cassel's tech genius Serac, Dolores had her mind probed by the uber-AI system known as Rehoboam. It was looking for the key to accessing the "Sublime" (the Valley Beyond artificial reality where many of the hosts escaped to last season). The thing is, Dolores didn't actually have the key -- she had hidden it with Jeffrey Wright's character Bernard (more on that in a second) -- and so as Rehoboam dug deeper, deleting her memories as it went along, it found nothing... except for a trap.
Dolores managed to hack Rehoboam while it was hacking her, and gave control of the AI to Caleb (Aaron Paul). In so doing, Caleb, with some clutch help from Maeve (Thandie Newton) and her samurai sword, commanded Rehoboam to erase itself, which it did and which would now allow for humankind to live out their lives by their own accord -- for better or for worse -- instead of under the guiding influence of Serac's ultimate computer. The last thing we see before the credits roll is Caleb and Maeve watching as the city around them burns. Yes, Dolores' true plan was to free humankind. "This is the new world," says Maeve, while "Brain Damage" from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon plays. "And in this world, you can be whoever the f**k you want."
Yes, Dolores' true plan was to free humankind.
So which Dolores will we be getting in Season 4? When the Season 3 finale dropped, showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy insisted that the Prime version of her was done, telling Variety: "Dolores is gone. We’re not yet discussing publicly the direction the show is taking, but the fun thing about this show is, you know, from the beginning Lisa and I wanted to make a show that constantly reinvented itself, that could be a different show every season. I think it’s important with a show in which death can be impermanent — these are robots, after all — to mark the occasion with Dolores. That version of that character is gone. We love Evan Rachel Wood and we haven’t started talking publicly about exactly what the show looks like going forward. But it looks very different."
Her mind had been wiped last we saw her, a lifeless husk laying on the platform beneath Rehoboam's giant orb. Still, we also know that Dolores duplicated her mind in other hosts in Season 3, creating divergent Doloreses, if you will. Most of those were seemingly destroyed throughout the season, but at least two remain: The Dolores inside a Charlotte Hale host body (Tessa Thompson) who had turned against Dolores Prime by the finale, and seems set to be an antagonist in Season 4. And then there's also Clifton Collins Jr.'s host. He had been a recurring character named Lawrence (a.k.a. El Lazo) in the previous seasons and popped up briefly in the Season 3 finale under the guise of a cop, although Bernard figured out that his body was housing another copy of Dolores. Surely transplanting the Lawrence host's pearl (brain) into a fresh Evan Rachel Wood body wouldn't be too much effort, even though she wouldn't have the same memories from Season 3 that Dolores Prime did.
In the trailers for the new season, we see that Evan Rachel Wood is back as a Dolores... or rather, according to the actress, a character called "Christine." She told EW recently that her character is "much more human this season." She seems to be mirroring her Season 1 version, where she was on the cusp of realizing she was living in an artificial reality, essentially. "This is the story about a girl," she says in the trailer. "Every single day she wakes up, the more she sees it. But nobody else can. There's something wrong with the world, and it's her fault."
William: The Man in Black or The Host in Black?
The Man in Black is dead. Long live the Man in Black! Ed Harris' character, also known as William, Delos' big bad boss, spent Season 3 struggling with his inner demons. He was institutionalized through the trickery of the Charlotte Dolores, where he participated in a therapy session with various versions of himself from the past (and perhaps the future?), including the young incarnation who was a regular character in Season 1 of Westworld and played by Jimmi Simpson. In "Crisis Theory," William is committed to "saving the world" from the host uprising, and we last see him in the first of two post-credits scenes.
It is there that he entered a Delos International facility in Dubai where, after stating that the hosts are "breeding" and shooting a security guard in the head, he made his way down to the basement-level research lab and found exactly what he expected: host shenanigans. The Charlotte Dolores was there, telling William he's right on time, and that yes, he is going to save the world -- for the hosts. A duplicate of William, in full Man in Black get-up, then appeared and, after a brief struggle, slashed William's throat. We then saw that he was right about the breeding thing -- the facility is full of host-making machinery.
The idea that the Man in Black would go full host certainly calls back to many fans' impression of him from before the show debuted.
The idea that the Man in Black would go full host certainly calls back to many fans' impression of him from before the show debuted, as he was clearly designed to evoke the Gunslinger robot played by Yul Brynner in the original 1973 Westworld film on which the show is based. And while it sure seemed as though the real William was a goner after his post-credits run-in, the trailer for Season 4 would seem to indicate that Charlotte/Dolores has somehow kept him alive, if trapped.
Still, existence of a Man in Black host (or duplicate) does track with the post-credits scene from the end of Season 2 where a version of the character still existed in what was apparently some distant point in the show's future. Speaking of which...
Bernard Gets Dusty
Jeffrey Wright's Bernard is the last person we see in the Season 3 finale, in the second post-credits scene. As noted above, while Dolores had led Serac (and the viewer) to believe that she held the key to accessing the Sublime, she had actually placed it with Bernard, apparently because she couldn't fully trust herself with it.
Earlier in the episode, Bernard paid a visit to Gina Torres' character Lauren Weber, who is now an elderly woman but also the wife of the late Arnold Weber, the co-creator of the hosts and the human that Bernard was based on. Back in Season 1, Bernard thought he was actually a human, and part of the trickery engineered by Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) to maintain that illusion was the false memories he had of his dead son Charlie, as well as video calls from Lauren -- or at least the simulation of the same. But here Bernard had the chance to finally meet the older Lauren face to face, which was also a nice chance for Gina Torres to return to the role as the two characters mourned the loss of Charlie.
Returning to the motel where he was hiding out with the injured host Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth), Bernard dons a VR headset to finally access the Sublime. And then he seemingly shuts down and the scene cuts away. But later, in that final post-credits scene of the episode, we see that Bernard comes back online. The only thing is, clearly some time has passed. Like, maybe, a lot of time. He's covered in dust, and it's possibly not just regular old dust but fallout from a nuclear war or some other disaster. It seems clear that the Westworld timeline has jumped far ahead in this scene. After all, this is how Joy described the time period that the Man in Black was in at the end of Season 2: "In the far, far future, the world is dramatically different. Quite destroyed, as it were."
Quite destroyed sounds very dusty, doesn't it? So what do you think all this means for Westworld Season 4? Let's discuss in the comments!
This story orginally ran in May of 2020. It was updated on June 23, 2022, with the latest information about Westworld.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Obi-Wan Kenobi stars Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen are open to the idea of continuing their characters' stories for a second season of the Disney+ Star Wars series.
Speaking with British GQ, McGregor reflected on returning to his Star Wars role for the first time in 17 years on the set of Obi-Wan Kenobi alongside Christensen. He also indicated that he would don the Jedi robes again if the opportunity arose. "I really hope we do another," he said. "If I could do one of these every now and again — I'd just be happy about it."
McGregor also mentioned what it was like to reunite with his Star Wars prequel trilogy co-star after all of this time, and how he felt in his first scene with Christensen suited up as Sith Lord Darth Vader. "I got a jolt of fear that made me six years old again," he admitted. "I've never experienced that before. I just about crapped my pants."
It seems that Christensen isn't quite ready to hang up his helmet either. Speaking to RadioTimes, the actor expressed his desire to reprise his Star Wars role for a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi or another project that involves his character, noting that Lucasfilm billed Obi-Wan as a six-part limited series but there may be more stories to tell yet.
"Well, it was definitely conceived as a standalone story. But I would love to continue with this character. You know, I think there's certainly more there to explore and I would be so excited to get to do so," he told the outlet, adding that if there was a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he "would certainly be open to" returning for more episodes.
The sixth and final part of Obi-Wan Kenobi dropped on Disney+ on June 22, and it featured a major Star Wars cameo that is sure to get viewers talking. IGN scored the episode a 9 out of 10, calling it "a near-essential piece of Star Wars viewing" that "elegantly ties a bow on the stories it began, while enhancing the ones that are yet to come."
If you’re a vinyl aficionado, you’ll probably know that Ikea makes one of the most reliable and affordable record shelves around.
Now the furniture manufacturer is providing something to sit on top of those shelves, adding to its audio range with a turntable.
At 2022 Milan Design Week, the Swedes have announced a new Obegransad range of products which includes a new desk, armchair, and a turntable. They’ve all been designed in collaboration with compatriots, the super group Swedish House Mafia.
The chunky, yet minimalist turntable has a simple design and Ikea says it “celebrates the timeless joy of the listening experience with vinyl records.”
Other than the fact it’ll work with the company’s Eneby speaker, we know very little about the record player. We can see switches for turning the record player on/off and alternating between 33rpm and 45rpm. Stereo outs too.
It doesn’t appear as if there’s a built-in speaker, but we would expect some Bluetooth connectivity if it’s to hook up with the wireless Eneby speaker. It’s also got an Audio-Technica cartridge and a manual tone arm. It’s coming out in the autumn and is yet to be priced.
Designer Friso Wierman added: “Today you see a lot of slim record players that are almost trying to hide, but we wanted something very bold, and we wanted the record player to be a very physical manifestation of music.”
Ikea has plenty more to say about the rest of the range. The desk has raised platforms for speakers and a shelf for a keyboard, which suggests it could be handy for making and playing music.
The armchair is described as “the perfect balance of form and function, which is central to this collaboration. The minimalistic design creates a pure elegance, the adjustable straps strengthen functionality, allowing to fine tune the comfort level. The armchair showcases the part of the collection which supports creating a relaxing environment to enjoy your music experience in the home.”
Quantum Brilliance has installed one of its room-temperature, nitrogen-vacancy quantum accelerators on the premises of Australia's Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre, creating a scientific playground for its more than 4,000 researchers to interact with hybrid, quantum-classical systems.
Mike Judge's classic duo's return will premiere internationally on the streaming service Paramount+ on Thursday, June 23. It will be the iconic duo’s first appearance in over ten years.
Beavis and Butt-Head are dipping their toes into sci-fi and Judge says the new film could easily “sit atop all future lists of the Dumbest Science Fiction Movies Ever Made.”
The movie, voiced, produced, and directed by Mike Judge, will have the two not-so-bright characters working at a space camp as part of juvenile sentencing. There they excel and are asked to join the mission to space, but ruin the mission and are left for dead. They eventually make their way into a black hole and travel from 1998 to 2022 and meet an alternative version of themselves.
Beavis and Butt-Head will be returning this year with a brand new movie and more on Paramount+. No exact date yet, but soon. They need some time to get back in shape. pic.twitter.com/tN5rePP9Kn
English jargon has invaded every corner of France, causing consternation among language purists — a trade fair popular with politicians during election season is called "Made in France," for example. Despite widespread usage in business and elsewhere, the government has decided to pick on gaming, officially banning terms like "streamer" and "cloud gaming," according to AFP. Going forward, the far more convoluted terms joueur-animateur en direct and jeu video en nuage must be used for any government communications.
The changes were made in consultation with France's Ministry of Culture, which has in the past touted the gaming industry as a French economic success story. However, it told the AFP it's concerned that English terms could become a "barrier to understanding" for non-gamers. (That's a solid point, as I can attest that many French non-gamers wouldn't have a clue what a term like "streaming" means.) France's language keepers, l'Académie française, has also expressed concern about English jargon in gaming, having published a lexicon of alternate French terms back in 2017.
The changes were issued in the government's official journal, meaning they're binding on all government workers. However, it's hard to see them catching on in daily use or even on French websites or newspapers. Previous efforts by l'Académie française to replace anglicisms have not gone well — its attempt to get people to use l’access sans fil à internet instead of le wifi failed completely, as The Local France points out.
Star Wars Celebration 2022 has officially arrived and it looks to not only reveal what the future holds for the galaxy far, far away, but it also promises announcements for Indiana Jones 5, Willow, and much more.
In 2022, Star Wars Celebration runs from May 26 through May 29, and this roundup will gather all the biggest and best stories out of the show. We will constantly be updating this page throughout the weekend, so check back often to ensure you don't miss a thing!
Star Wars' Andor Trailer and Release Date Revealed
Andor, the Disney+ original series starring Diego Luna's Cassian Andor, will officially premiere on August 31, 2022. Alongside the release date news, Disney also shared the first teaser trailer for the series that will take place five years prior to Rogue One. It was also confirmed that Andor's first season will consist of 12 episodes and a second part is in the works with another 12 episodes.
Star Wars Andor Trailer Breakdown: The Rebellion Begins
“We haven’t been working with Stagecraft at all for our show, no,” says Andor executive producer Sanne Wohlenberg in an interview with IGN at Star Wars Celebration. “It is the first Star Wars show for Disney Plus that has not been leaning into that technology.”
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Officially Announced for 2023 With Jude Law
Disney has officially announced Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, a new Disney+ original series that will launch in 2023 and star Jude Law. Created by Spider-Man: No Way Home's Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will follow a group of 10-year-old kids from a small planet who get lost in that galaxy far, far away and must try to find their way home. The story will take place after Return of the Jedi and will fit within the timeline of The Mandalorian and Ahsoka.
The Mandalorian Season 3 Footage Previews Mando's Redemption and Looming Conflict With Bo-Katan
While it was only shown behind closed doors, IGN was part of the Star Wars Celebration panel that revealed the first footage of The Mandalorian's third season. The footage is a sizzle reel of sorts and reintroduces us to characters we have already met like Emily Swallow's Armorer, Carl Weathers' Greef Karga, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee's Captain Carson Teva, Amy Sedaris' Pelli Moto, and more. However, the big focus was Katee Sackhoff's Bo-Katan Kryze, who looks to be on a collision course with Mando and Grogu.
Obi-Wan Kenobi Production Included a 'Vader Movement Specialist' on Set
Ian McDiarmid on Whether Palpatine Will Appear in Obi-Wan: 'Don't Get Your Hopes Up'
During Star Wars Celebration, Ian McDiarmid himself appeared to address rumors that his character Emperor Palpatine will be part of Obi-Wan Kenobi. For those hoping for a "flesh and blood" appearance by good old Sheev, McDiarmid warns that you shouldn't "get your hopes up."
Ian McDiarmid Says a Palpatine Prequel Series Would Be 'Very Interesting'
Indiana Jones 5 First Image Revealed at Star Wars Celebration
Harrison Ford stopped by Star Wars Celebration to help share the first image of Indiana Jones 5. Unfortunately, there was no trailer or further story details.
Willow Gets a New Trailer At Star Wars Celebration
Star Wars: The High Republic to Showcase Jedha Centuries Before the Empire
Marvel revealed the next two Star Wars: High Republic comics heading to our galaxy, and they look to take place centuries before the Skywalker Saga. Launching in October 2022 as part of Phase 2 of the ongoing High Republic initiative, this series will introduce a new Jedi Character named Vildar Mac and will take place on Jedha, the holy moon introduced in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
There's a Tiny Akira Kurosawa Figure Hidden Somewhere in Certain Episodes of The Mandalorian
Dyson has revealed its next advancements in household robots, which are capable of washing and drying dishes, cleaning furniture and tidying up after messy children.
The reveal at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) showcases prototype robots that can grab household objects without breaking or dropping them, as well as navigate around furniture and clean the upholstery.
The plan is to bring the finished versions of the previously top-secret products to British households by the end of the decade. Chief Engineer Jake Dyson calls it a ‘big bet’ on future robotic tech that will “drive research across the whole of Dyson, in areas including mechanical engineering, vision systems, machine learning and energy storage.”
The advances, which the company says takes its robotic ambitions far beyond the floor-based robots currently sweeping up after humans, can be seen in the preview video published below.
In a blog post written in the third-person, the company said: “Dyson provides further definition to its ambitions in advanced robotics, and signals it is accelerating development of an autonomous device capable of household chores and other tasks.”
Hopefully they’re better than the claws at amusement arcade that suddenly drop the prized cuddly toy the moment its lifted from the pit. Wouldn’t want them smashing grandma’s best china now, would we?
The company is seeking 250-odd experts to join its teams, which will be moving into “the UK’s largest, most advanced, robotics centre at Hullavington Airfield.” Dyson said it has secretly been refitting the hangers over the last six months as part of a £2.75bn investment in the sector.
It is awfully nice of Sir James to do this in the UK, considering the billionaire shifted company HQ to Singapore after spending years championing the potential economic benefits of post-Brexit Britain.
The first trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One has officially released online – and it's every bit as thrilling as we'd hoped.
The two-minute promotional spot, which was initially screened at CinemaCon last month, leaked to social media for several hours on May 21, though Paramount Pictures has now shared the footage worldwide.
You can check it out via the video link above.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One (or Mission: Impossible 7) is scheduled for theatrical release on July 14, 2023, with its sequel, Dead Reckoning: Part Two, slated to follow on June 28, 2024.
Frequent series director Christopher McQuarrie returns to the helm on both projects, with Hayley Atwell, Rob Delaney and Indira Varma among those joining existing cast members Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and, of course, Tom Cruise, on the Mission: Impossible 7 call sheet.
The footage kicks off with a montage of various exotic locales set to the ominous narration of Henry Czerny's Eugene Kittridge: “Your days of fighting for the greater good are over,” we hear him tell Cruise's Ethan Hunt.
“This is our chance to control the truth, the concepts of right and wrong for everyone for centuries to come,” the original Mission: Impossible character continues. “You’ve been fighting to save an ideal that doesn’t exist, [that] never did. You need to pick a side."
We then see a series of shots showing Hunt on horseback in the desert, smashing through the streets of Rome in a rather expensive BMW, evading capture in a bright yellow Fiat 500, running through a candle-lit cathedral... you get the idea.
The trailer really ups the ante, though, in its final moments, when we see Cruise performing a much-hyped motorcycle stunt from a particularly high cliff-edge in Norway. In a 2021 interview with Deadline, the actor said of the sequence: “This is far and away the most dangerous thing I’ve attempted,” adding that the stunt is something he’s “wanted to do since [he] was a little kid.”
By the looks of things, Cruise certainly wasn't lying.
As mentioned in our previous story on the trailer's leak, fans have been quick to proclaim their excitement for Mission: Impossible 7's roof-raising action. "[A] major side effect of watching the Mission: Impossible trailer is that I am no longer looking forward to any other movie this year and now want to fast forward to 2023,” one Twitter user wrote, while another said that the footage "makes the last Bond film look like a commercial for watches." Ouch.
It's certainly frustrating that we'll have to wait until next year for the return of Ethan Hunt and company, though Cruise fans have a perfect distraction to ease the pain in the form of Top Gun: Maverick (which we awarded five-stars in our review).
London has the oldest underground railway in the world, and on May 24th, it will welcome its newest addition to the family. Crossrail is the realization of a dream first mooted in 1941, but one that would only start being built in 2009. It is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the western world, arriving several years late and several more billion pounds over budget. But it’s hoped that this gigantic system will spur growth, relieve congestion on its Victorian-era network and remind the world of what Britain can do when it puts its mind to something. No pressure, then.
The London Underground as it exists today was borne out of a historical railway boom, with competing companies building routes to serve the city’s major economic hubs. Its many quirks are a consequence of nearly 200 years of politics, commerce, geography and geology shaping how things work. It comprises eleven lines, 272 stations and 250 miles of track, which is now under the aegis of a dedicated body, Transport for London.
Despite the wealth of transport links, many of the lines were built to serve a city far smaller than its present population. Not to mention that London is the center of gravity for far more than just the people living within its metropolitan area – it dominates much of the southeast of the country. It’s for this reason that Crossrail was given the green light, as both a way to relieve congestion on its tiny, Victorian-era tunnels, and to recognize just how broad London’s influence had become.
Crossrail Ltd.
Crossrail runs from Shenfield, a commuter suburb 35 miles northeast of London in the neighboring county of Essex, via the Great Eastern Main Line. It then runs through the city, connecting to the Great Western Main Line and then on to Reading, a large town 40 miles west of London. When fully running, it is expected to serve 200 million passengers a year, increasing London and the south east’s total rail capacity by around 10 percent in total. Crossrail is primarily an above-ground line, aside from the Central Operating Section (COS); the tunnels that run through London itself.
“It’s hard to fathom how there is space in this city to put in new stations, new infrastructure,” says Olga Konopka, Principal Delivery Engineer at Crossrail. She cited an example of how when the new Crossrail tunnels pass existing Jubilee line tunnels, the gap between them is just two meters (6.5 feet). A fleet of eight 1,000-ton Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) were tasked with weaving a new route through some of the most congested soil anywhere in the world. It’s one of the reasons that Crossrail’s birth hasn’t been an easy one – since you’ve got hundreds of years worth of infrastructure that you can’t touch during the construction process.
The TBMs pulled around seven million tonnes of material out of the ground, but Crossrail’s leaders said that almost all of it was re-used. For instance, around three million tonnes of soil was donated to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. This was used to construct a new wetland nature reserve at Wallasea Island in neighboring Essex. The rest of the clay soil was used to restore landfill, raise land and, in one instance, help build a golf course.
Luca Marino / Crossrail Ltd.
Some 26 miles of tunnels have been dug below the city, which took between May 2012 and May 2015 to complete. Konopka explained that as well as being “the biggest civil engineering project in Europe,” it also produced the largest tunnels dug for the London underground. The Central Line, for instance, has a diameter of roughly 3.5 meters (around 11.5 feet), while Crossrail tunnels are 6.2 meters (around 20 feet) wide. “Crossrail tunnels have an emergency walkway in them, which is a massive improvement to health and safety from the current infrastructure,” she said.
Konopka explained that there was some art and artistry baked into the system to help things run smoother and smarter. For instance, the gradient of the railway line gently inclines in the tunnel sections approaching a station. That way, a train slows down more efficiently since some of its forward motion is being sapped by the hill it has to climb. The situation is reversed when you pull out of a station, the track sloping almost imperceptibly downward in order to give the train a speedy departure.
It should be clear by now that Crossrail, despite the fact that it is an electric railway running under a city, is not a regular subway. It may feature on the Underground Map, and even has a line name – The Elizabeth line – but it’s not an official part of the underground itself. (Pedants beware: Crossrail denotes the project, the Elizabeth line is the thing you’ll actually be riding.) Because it connects to mainline stations at either end, and uses full-size mainline trains, it is a railway unlike anything else in the UK. In fact, the closest comparator is Paris’ Réseau Express Régional (RER), a series of lines that connect commuter suburbs to the city itself, and then moves people between stops in the city – a railway that acts like a subway when it’s in the middle of a city.
Crossrail Ltd.
One thing that was often repeated was the fact that Crossrail was a project designed to marry the very old and the very new into one seamless whole. “Farringdon was the first part of the Underground,” said Konopka, “we need[ed] to somehow marry up the old and the new, and that’s been the biggest struggle.” And making a 21st century railway run in perfect harmony with a pair of railways built in the Victorian era is one of the reasons that Crossrail’s deadline slipped from 2018 to 2022. (COVID-19, of course, was the other.)
“Conceptually, the project is brilliant,” says Colin Brown, Technical Director of the Crossrail project, but “it joins up to railways that were built in Victorian times, and that’s where your problem starts,” he said. “The Great Western was built by [Legendary engineering pioneer Isembard Kingdom] Brunel,” he explained, “and the Great Eastern wasn’t far behind it.” “The technology on those two railways has evolved over many years,” he said “but hasn’t been changed since the ‘60s or ‘70s.”
Britain’s railways, including the two main lines that Crossrail connects, use an antiquated, analog signaling system to communicate hazard warnings to drivers. This system, after a series of fatal train disasters in the ‘90s, was updated slightly to improve safety, but remains a 20th century tool. The digital replacement is ETCS (European Train Control System), which brings digital technology into the railways and promises a much safer network overall. While Crossrail was built with ETCS as standard, it also had to play nice with its analog predecessors.
Subway systems, however, use an entirely different signaling system called Communications Based Train Control (CTBC). Given the density of trains using tunnels under cities, and the need for accurate location data, CBTC is key to run services with small gaps between each train. Crossrail may not be a subway, but it will run 24 trains per hour inside the tunnels, and so needs to behave like one while it’s underground. Not to mention that CBTC is the only system that can also run the more subway-esque functions, like platform screen doors and tunnel vent interfaces.
Brown explained his dismay at the patchwork of systems and why it wouldn’t have been simpler just to pay to standardize the technology. For a variety of reasons, it wasn’t deemed feasible, and so engineers have spent years finding ways to make the old and new, analog and digital, above-ground and below-ground systems work as one cohesive whole. “You’ve [never had] a mainline train morphing into a metro train and then morphing back out again,” said Brown – at least not in the UK.
CBTC is also predominantly automatic, with drivers acting in a more supervisory role while the trains are underground.This automatic system will even operate the train when it needs to reorient itself ready for its next leg of the journey. “When it gets to Paddington,” said Pradeep Vasudev, Head of System Integration, “the driver pushes a button and then he walks from one cab to the other [at the other end of the train] while the train drives itself.” This system is also sufficiently smart that it can help find ways for the timetable to recover when a train breaks down or an incident causes a delay elsewhere on the line.
And because the system is now so much more complex, and broad, means that the timetabling systems are paramount. “For the first time, a train in Bristol [120 miles west of London] breaking down could affect a train on the Great Eastern [Main Line] in Shenfield [Crossrail’s Eastern Terminus, 35 miles northeast of London],” said Vasudev. And, of course, on the software engineering side, all of this information, and calculation, needs to be boiled down to a series of simple commands that a staffer can use to recover the service when things go awry.
One problem that Crossrail was also forced to address was the privatization of Britain’s railways in the early ‘90s. Rather than a centrally-planned and operated railway, the then Government decided to franchise each region’s railway operator. Consequently the Crossrail project had to engage with a variety of operators running different lines and find some happy harmony. “We have MTR driving, we have RFLI who owns the central section of the railway, we have London Underground, who operates a lot of the stations, we have Network Rail on either side, when we go into Heathrow, we’ve got Heathrow Express which is a different operator,” said Vasudev.
“Some of that, you’ll never get away from the fact that an operator is key, regardless of how much information the system can give you,” said Vasudev. Lee Price is one such operator, a former personal trainer and badminton coach who joined the company in 2016. Price’s story is common among new Crossrail drivers, coming from outside the train driving fraternity rather than within. This was because the project opted not to poach drivers from other underground or mainline services to avoid denting staffing levels elsewhere. (Not to mention that it helps bring the economic benefits of the system to more people, creating training and job opportunities.)
Andrew Parish / Crossrail Ltd.
Price is now a veteran of the service, and trains other drivers, although he too isn’t yet rated for the entire route. Since it’s being used as three separate railways, it will only be after the central section is opened that drivers will be running back and forth on a regular basis.
Unlike a mainline train, or a subway, the role shifts depending on where along the route the train is. “On the East and the West, you’ll be physically driving [the train],” he said, while in the COS, “in theory, the train is automatic, but we’re there for more of a safety [role].” “Although you’re doing less, you still have to remain alert,” he added, especially in the dark tunnels that require drivers to “keep their awareness up.”
Crossrail opens to the public on May 24th, with services running between Paddington and Abbey Wood. On the day, the various arms of the service will be rebranded from TFL Rail – a placeholder name – to the Elizabeth line. 12 trains per hour will run along the line, starting at 6:30am and ending at 11:00pm each weekday, with a fuller service ramping up over time. One of the new mainline stations, Bond Street, has yet to open thanks to service delays.
Work on the project is not likely to be complete for a long while yet, but if the railway does help boost London’s fortunes, it won’t be long before eyes look forward to the next project. Crossrail 2 is a proposed line running from Broxbourne and Cheshunt in London’s northeast down to Chessington, southwest of the city. It is designed to join up routes north and south of the city, and relieve congestion on those journeys as much as Crossrail is expected to do from east to west.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 and government funding cuts have put the project on ice for the foreseeable future. But one thing that is clear, is that the expertise, the lessons learned from Crossrail’s slower-than-expected birth, are currently embedded in the team that’s just finishing their work. To let all of that experience wither on the vine would seem like a criminal waste of resources. Then again, there will be voices asking why London deserves yet another expansion of its public transport network when other major cities have nothing. As always, politics, economics, geography and geology will determine the future of the most famous tube in the world.
What happens when animation geeks get the greenlight to produce whatever they want? You get Netflix's Love, Death and Robots, an anthology series that's meant to remind viewers that cartoons aren't just for kids. You'd think that would be a foregone conclusion in 2022, decades after anime has become mainstream, Adult Swim's irreverent comedies took over dorm rooms, and just about network/streaming platform has their own "edgy" animated series (Arcane and Big Mouth on Netflix, Invincible on Amazon Prime).
Still, it's all too common to see the medium being diminished. At the Oscars this year, the best animated feature award was introduced as something entirely meant for kids, prompting the filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), to demand that Hollywood elevate the genre instead. Even Pixar's library of smart and compelling films still aren't seen as "adult" stories.
Love, Death and Robots, which just released its third season on Netflix, feels like a crash course in the unlimited storytelling potential of animation. It bounces from a cute entry about robots exploring the remnants of human civilization (the series' first sequel, 3 Robots: Exit Strategies, written by sci-fi author John Scalzi), to a near-silent, visually lush game of cat and mouse between a deaf soldier and a mythical siren (Jibaro), to a harrowing tale of whalers being boarded by a giant man-eating crab (Bad Traveling, the first animated project directed by series co-creator David Fincher).
Jennifer Yuh Nelson, supervising director for Love, Death and Robots, tells Engadget that the animation industry has certainly made progress when it comes to telling more mature stories. "Everyone that works in animation has been talking about trying to get more adult things done because it's [about] the freedom of exploring the whole spectrum of storytelling," she said. "You're not trying to do things for a certain age group."
Netflix
But, she says, animators were also told the audience for mature projects wasn't necessarily there. "I think it takes a show like [this] to prove that it can [work], and that makes the whole business and the whole company town basically look around and say, 'Oh, this is a viable thing that people actually want to see.’"
Series co-creator Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) also points to the power of video games, which has been telling mature narratives with interactive animation for decades. That's another industry that was initially seen as toys for kids, but has matured significantly with rich storytelling from indie projects, like Kentucky Route Zero, to big-budget blockbusters like The Last of Us. Games and animation are practically evolving together, with audiences demanding more complex ideas and creators who were raised on earlier generations of those mediums. You don't get to the excellent Disney+ remake of DuckTales, or Sony's recent God of War, without a fondness for the simple joys of the originals.
"Animation has grown so much and reflects a taste of the people making it and the people that are watching it," Nelson says. "It's a generational shift. People demand a certain level of complexity in their story, and so it's not princess movies anymore."
With every season of Love, Death and Robots, Nelson says that she and Miller are focused on finding stories that evoke a sense of "nerd joy." There's no overarching theme, instead they look out for projects with scope, emotion and a potential to be visually interesting. And while none of the shorts have been turned into standalone series or films yet, Nelson notes that's a possibility, especially since some authors have explored other ideas within those worlds. (I'd certainly love to see those three quirky robots poking fun at humanity for an entire season.)
The series also serves as a showcase for a variety of animation techniques. Some shorts show off meticulously crafted CG, while others like Bad Traveling use motion capturing to preserve the intricacies of an actor's movement or face. Jerome Chen, the director of military horror short In Vaulted Halls Entombed, relied on Unreal, which makes his piece seem like a cut-scene from a game I desperately want to play. And there's still plenty of love for more traditional 2D techniques, like the wonderfully bloody Kill Team Kill (directed by Nelson, a far cry from her playful Kung Fu Panda sequels).
Netflix
"The tech doesn't replace the art, but the experimentation allows these studios to find ways of doing things better," Nelson said. "[The show gives] freedom for all these different studios to try their own language."
Miller has a slightly different view, saying on some level it's like "tech is the art and they somehow mixed together." While he agrees with Nelson, who was quick to point out "artists can make art with a stick," Miller said you'll still need a certain level of sophisticated technology to create photorealistic stories.
The great thing about an anthology series like Love Death and Robots? Both of those philosophies can co-exist while equally demonstrating the power of animation.
Oh glorious day! It appears as though the 'Man Without Fear' will finally be returning to our screens in the near future, with Variety reporting that a brand new Daredevil series is currently moving forward at Disney Plus.
According to the report, the new Daredevil series will be written and executive produced by Matt Corman and Chris Ord, known for their work on such shows as Covert Affairs and Containment, though the duo's representation has declined to comment on the matter.
Marvel's Daredevil previously enjoyed three successful seasons on Netflix before being unceremoniously cancelled back in 2018 along with all the streaming giant's other Marvel shows at the time.
As for this new series, actor Charlie Cox is expected to reprise his role as Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer who moonlights as the vigilante brawler Daredevil, as is Vincent D’Onofrio, who played the villainous crime lord Wilson Fisk, better known as Kingpin.
Daredevil in the MCU: what to expect
Although Netflix's Marvel adventures always occurred adjacent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, its characters never really crossed into the MCU proper until Kingpin's arrival in the first season of Hawkeye. That was followed almost immediately by Matt Murdock's brief appearance as Peter Parker's lawyer in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
If Variety's report is to be believed (and it probably should, given the longstanding publication's reliability), Cox will surely get his chance to don the Daredevil costume and resume his criminal-pummelling duties.
That said, we suspect Disney's version of Daredevil will be far less violent and brutal than the one that debuted on Netflix, going by Hawkeye's far less menacing take on the character of Kingpin (who was last seen wearing a goofy white suit and Hawaiian shirt combo).
In truth, that seems like a reasonable trade-off to us – it's entirely possible for Daredevil to engage in brilliantly staged fight scenes without revelling in blood and guts, and softening the character will make it easier for him to interact with other heroes from the MCU – could Matt Murdock team up with fellow lawyer She-Hulk on a case? It seems likely!
Additionally, it would also open the show's creators up to Daredevil comics outside of the usual Frank Miller / Brian Michael Bendis orbit, such as Mark Waid's utterly fantastic 2011-2014 run, which had a tone much closer to what we've seen from the MCU.
That said, nothing has been confirmed at this stage, so we'll have to wait until Marvel or Disney makes an official announcement. In the meantime, you can stream the first three seasons of the previous Daredevil series on Disney Plus right now. Not a Disney Plus subscriber? You can sign up now by clicking on one of the options below.
Last week, Costa Rica declared a state of emergency following a massive Conti ransomware attack on its government. Now, Conti has boosted its threat, saying its aim is nothing less than to overthrow the government, The Associated Press has reported. "We have our insiders in your government," the group said. "We are also working on gaining access to your other systems, you have no other options but to pay us."
The group, which also doubled its ransom demand to $20 million, may be trying to take advantage of the fact that Costa Rica's President Rodrigo Chaves has only been in office for a week. "We are at war and that’s not an exaggeration," Chaves said, adding that officials were dealing with a national terrorist group with collaborators inside the nation. He says that the scale is broader than thought, with 27 government institutions, including municipalities and state utilities, affected.
The US State Department has declared a $10 million bounty on Conti, saying the attack "severely impacted the country's foreign trade by disrupting its customs and taxes platforms." It's reported to have affected Costa Rica's ministries of finance, labor and social security, among other bodies.
Conti was also in the news recently after attacking Parker Hannifin, a major component supplier for Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It reportedly infiltrated current and former employees, stealing information like their social security numbers, passport numbers, bank and routing numbers and more.
However, the threat to overthrow Costa Rica's government is likely just a ruse to extort more money, according to a ransomware analyst cited by the AP. "I believe this is simply a for-profit cyber attack," said Emisoft's Brett Callow. "Nothing more."
Sony has released PlayStation's ultimate list of popular, gaming-related terms, and while that might conjure up images of someone twice your age explaining what "pwning some noobs" means, it turns out it's actually incredible useful.
Published as a part of Sony's "This Month On PlayStation" blog, the list contains well over 100 words and phrases that are all regularly used in gaming spaces. While it does contain more than a few dated phrases (see: "git gud" and "noob-tube"), the list delves into plenty of useful terms as well.
For example, the list might be helpful to those trying to understand certain game design elements or genres, as it explains things such as what it means for a game to be procedurally generated as well as the differences between RPGs, ARPGs, JRPGS, and CPRGs. It also covers quite a few more technical and hardware-driven terms, including haptic feedback, ray-tracing, resolution, frame rate, and more. For those new to certain genres or online gaming, it also explains concepts like "farming," "min-maxing," "camping," and "juggling." Not sure what it means when your teammates tell you to "pull aggro" or ask you about your loadout? Sony's dictionary covers that too.
It's been three years since the fifth season of Black Mirror debuted on Netflix, and word on the sixth season has been very quiet... but we finally have some news.
According to Variety, Netflix has begun casting the show's sixth season, though no names are linked with the series as yet.
The report also details that creator Charlie Brooker and Netflix are operating on a grander vision for this new batch, which is set to have more episodes than 2019's three-episode run, and promises that they will be "even more cinematic in scope, with each instalment being treated as an individual film." Color us excited.
Brooker has been tight-lipped on what's next for Black Mirror in recent months. His most recent release has been Cat Burglar, which was released on Netflix earlier this year. The show is an interactive, old school Hanna-Barbera style cartoon, where the viewer answers questions to help a guard dog named Peanut protect a priceless work of art from a cat burglar named Rowdy.
It was Brooker's second interactive effort for Netflix, after he pioneered a choose-your-own adventures style experience with his Black Mirror spin-off Bandersnatch.
Now though, it seems he's back focused on his day job, which is especially welcome as the last time Brooker discussed Black Mirror with the Radio Times back in 2020, he cast doubt on whether the show would ever return, saying: "At the moment, I don’t know what stomach there would be for stories about societies falling apart, so I’m not working away on one of those. I’m sort of keen to revisit my comic skill set, so I’ve been writing scripts aimed at making myself laugh.”
Analysis: Will Black Mirror work as a feature-length offering?
Since their departure from Channel 4 for Netflix in 2015, Brooker and his producing partner Annabel Jones have enjoyed the benefits of Netflix and its lack of limitations on running times, but they have only gone feature-length twice; once in 2018's choose-your-own-adventure Bandersnatch, and on Hated In The Nation, the final episode in the show's first run on Netflix.
Even in those two cases, the running time hasn't pushed 90 minutes, so if Brooker is feeling "cinematic" in the literal sense of the word, we could be looking at two hours plus. It's no wonder it's taken him so long to produce this new season, then.
It's strange in one sense, because since his move to Netflix, you've never got the sense that Brooker felt inhibited by running times. Some, like the Maxine Peake-led Metalhead, are just 41 minutes, while the classic USS Callister ran to 76 minutes.
If the idea demands two and a half hours, let him have it. Every new season of Black Mirror is an event and we can't wait for it to return.
Yesterday (May 12) proved to be a bloodbath for US TV dramas and comedies as no fewer than 14 were canceled in a single day.
The brunt of the cancelations was given out by The CW, the network jointly owned by Paramount and Warner Bros, with no less than seven shows given their marching orders.
As well as the CW, CBS and NBC also had a cull, with a number of high-profile dramas and comedies given the boot, leaving stars like Jason Isaacs, Morena Baccarin and Jay Hernandez with a lot more space in their diaries.
Early summer tends to be when the US networks announce what is staying and what is going in anticipation of work beginning again after the summer. Unlike Netflix, which seems to announce cancelations constantly, these cancelations tend to come in bursts, at precisely the same time as the pilots of new shows are competing to make it to series.
Sadly for 14 such shows, their last rites have now been performed...
So what got canceled?
We won't be seeing any more of the reboot of teen drama Charmed as that received its marching orders after four seasons on the air, meaning its run lasted exactly half as long as the original series.
Charmed wasn't the only high-profile reboot to be given the elbow, the Jay Hernandez-led Magnum P.I. is at an end after four seasons on CBS and Paramount Plus, while Dynasty, the reimagining of the highly-strung 1980s drama is done too after seasons.
Roswell, New Mexico, which followed on the success of 1990s sci-fi saga Roswell, has also been axed after a four-season run.
As well as that, Legacies, the spin-off of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, has been canceled after four seasons, marking the first time in 13 years that some iteration of that franchise has not been on the air.
Naomi, Ava Duvernay's comic book adaptation where a teenager who runs a Superman fan site and discovers that she has superpowers, is done after just one season. The show joins Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman and Supergirl, which were previously confirmed to be coming to an end on The CW.
In The Dark, the Ben Stiller-backed drama which follows a blind woman who attempts to turn her life around while solving a friend's murder, is done after four seasons, as is The 4400, with the post-apocalyptic drama only getting one season.
The 4400 wasn't the only show to be one series and done, Good Sam, which starred Sophia Bush and Jason Isaacs and followed Bush's Dr. Samantha Griffith, a heart surgeon who is forced to step up after her boss and father, Dr. Rob Griffith (Isaacs), falls into a coma, is done after one season, as is The Endgame, the Morena Baccarin-led thriller where a criminal mastermind and an FBI agent face off.
The cancelations were so vast and sweeping that Julie Plec, the veteran showrunner and executive-producer behind Roswell, New Mexico, The Endgame and Legacies, quipped it was a day reminiscent of Game Of Thrones' brutal episode The Red Wedding. She was not wrong...
It’s the Red Wedding at WBTV/CW today. Much more to say, but not today.Loads of gratitude coming for fans and cast and crew in future tweets. But today, we mourn.May 12, 2022
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So many canceled dramas, what about comedies?
Plenty of those hit the buffers too.
Kenan, the comedy built around Kenan and Kel and Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson, where he stars as a single dad and local news anchor trying to balance his kids and his career, is over after two seasons, while Mr. Mayor, in which Ted Danson starred as a retired businessman who decides to run for mayor of Los Angeles and somehow wins, is also out after two seasons.
Two comedies from Chuck Lorre, the man behind megahits like The Big Bang Theory, Roseanne and Cybil, have also been culled.
The United States Of Al, which told the story of the unlikely friendship between a Marine combat veteran and his unit's interpreter as they tried to build a new life in the US, is done after two seasons. As well as that, B Positive, which starred Annaleigh Ashford and Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch, has only lasted for two seasons.
How We Roll, the comedy which starred Crashing’s Pete Holmes as a middle-aged man who decides to pursue his dream of becoming a professional bowler after being laid off, is also at an end after only one season.
The official trailer for Love, Death & Robots volume 3 has landed online – and it looks like it'll be the show's most bizarre season yet.
Released on Netflix's social media channels on Monday (May 9), the trailer reveals the episode titles for season 3's nine episodes before giving us a brief look at, well, how they'll look. Based on the footage within, fans best prepare themselves for more sci-fi, horror, dystopian, existential, and humorous antics from the near-10 episode season.
We already knew that Love, Death & Robots volume 3 would land on Netflix on May 20. With its release less than two weeks away, it's high time that we saw more about what its episodes would entail.
Check out the official trailer below:
The teaser confirms that acclaimed director David Fincher (Mank, Mindhunter) will make his animated directorial debut in the Netflix show that he co-executively produces alongside Tim Miller. Here's hoping that Fincher's iconic filming style and techniques are on show in the entry he's helmed.
Alberto Mielgo, whose season 1 episode The Witness won three Emmys, is also back to helm the third season's final entry called Jibaro. Meanwhile, the season opener – Three Robots: Exit Strategies – marks the first time that a season of Love, Death & Robots has contained a direct sequel to a previous episode.
Studios including Miller's Blur production company, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Pinkman.tv – who have previously animated multiple entries in Love, Death & Robots – also return to deliver gorgeous and grotesque visuals in equal measure.
Here's a full rundown of every Love, Death & Robots volume 3 episodic title, plus those involved in each one's production:
Three Robots: Exit Strategies (Director – Patrick Osborne; Writer – John Scalzi; Studio: Blow Studio)
Bad Travelling (David Fincher; Andrew Kevin Walker; Blur Studio)
The Very Pulse of the Machine (Emily Dean; Philip Gelatt; Polygon Pictures)
Night of the Mini Dead (Robert Bisi and Andy Lyon; Robert Bisi and Andy Lyon; Buck Studio)
Kill Team Kill (Jennifer Yuh Nelson; Philip Gelatt; Titmouse Inc.)
Swarm (Tim Miller; Tim Miller; Blur Studio)
Mason's Rats (Carlos Stevens; Joe Abercrombie; Axis Studios)
In Vaulted Halls Entombed (Jerome Chen; Philip Gelatt; Sony Pictures Imageworks)
Jibaro (Alberto Mielgo; Alberto Mielgo; pinkman.tv)
Fans who want to catch a glimpse of Love, Death & Robots volume 3 can do so by signing up to watch a livestream Q&A with Tim Miller, David Fincher, and Jennifer Yuh Nelson, too. The event, which will take place on Wednesday, May 10, will be shown at multiple Alamo Drafthouse locations across the US. Those wishing to tune in can do so by signing up via this link.
Analysis: will Love, Death & Robots volume 3 be the best season yet?
(Image credit: Netflix)
It's possible. The volume 3 teaser trailer suggests that the upcoming batch of episodes will be some of the most intriguing (from a plot perspective) and beautiful we've seen so far. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will be. But, with the likes of Mielgo returning, Fincher directing an episode, and each standalone tale tapping into each studio's unique and aesthetically pleasing animation style, we're confident that volume 3 will be the best season yet.
There's data (albeit a small amount) implying that Love, Death & Robots volume 3 could be the best season in the animated show's history, too, based on how volume 2 was better received (by critics) than the first volume was. According to review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the 18-strong first volume holds a 77% rating among critics. Meanwhile, volume 2 – with its eight episodes – is rated even higher; the second instalment accumulating an 85% rating from multiple reviewers.
Take a look at the accumulative scores from general TV aficionados, however, and you may worry about volume 3's chances of maintaining that upward trajectory. Audiences adored the show's first instalment, with its 92% certified fresh score confirming as much. Volume 2, though, received a paltry 57% rating by comparison. It's unclear if Love, Death & Robots' second outing was affected by the lack of episodes it contained (18 in volume 1 compared to 8 in volume 2), or whether its stories simply didn't resonate with viewers.
Whatever the reason, Love, Death & Robots volume 3 could end up splitting critics and fans' opinions on the series more so than its predecessor. Based on what the trailer teased, plus Mielgo and Fincher's involvement in specific episodes, though, we're quietly confident that volume 3 will deliver a season that professional critics and animation fans will equally enjoy.
The New York Times has apologized after Monday’s Wordle included a solution for some players that may have been offensive due to its connection to recent political events in the US. Some Wordle players woke up today to find out the solution to the daily puzzle was “fetus,” a selection The New York Times said was “entirely unintentional and a coincidence,” in a note the outlet’s Games team published at 12:01AM.
According to The Times, the word was loaded into the game “last year,” meaning its selection predates both the company’s purchase of Wordle and the May 2nd leak of a draft decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. When The Times Games teamdiscovered last week that Monday’s puzzle would feature the word fetus, it said it did its best to alter the answer for “as many solvers as possible.” However, due to the way Wordle loads data, those who keep the game running in a tab that they never refresh still saw the old selection. The Times said it hopes to avoid a similar situation occurring in the future.
“We’re now busy revamping Wordle’s technology so that everyone always receives the same word,” the outlet said. “We are committed to ensuring that tens of millions of people have a gratifying and consistent experience, every day.” The Games team added that it wants Wordle “to remain distinct from the news,” a stance that has drawn criticism from some players.
Lincoln College says it will close this week in the wake of a ransomware attack that took months to resolve. While the impact of COVID-19 severely impacted activities such as recruitment and fundraising, the cyberattack seems to have been the tipping point for the Illinois institution.
The college has informed the Illinois Department of Higher Education and Higher Learning Commission that it will permanently close as of May 13th. As NBC News notes, it's the first US college or university to shut down in part because of a ransomware attack.
Lincoln says it had "record-breaking student enrollment" in fall 2019. However, the pandemic caused a sizable fall in enrollment with some students opting to defer college or take a leave of absence. The college — one of only a few rural schools to qualify as a predominantly Black institution under the Department of Education — said those affected its financial standing.
Last December, Lincoln was hit by a cyberattack, which "thwarted admissions activities and hindered access to all institutional data, creating an unclear picture of fall 2022 enrollment. All systems required for recruitment, retention and fundraising efforts were inoperable," the college said in a statement posted on its homepage. "Fortunately, no personal identifying information was exposed. Once fully restored in March 2022, the projections displayed significant enrollment shortfalls, requiring a transformational donation or partnership to sustain Lincoln College beyond the current semester."
Barring a last-minute respite, the one-two punch of the pandemic and a cyberattack have brought an end to a 157-year-old institution. Lincoln says it will help students who aren't graduating this semester transfer to another college.
Game of Thrones fans have finally been treated to a second trailer for HBO’s long-awaited prequel series, House of the Dragon.
Arriving exactly seven months after the first, this latest teaser gives audiences a better look at the dirty politics, awe-inspiring locations and dragon-induced destruction we’ve come to expect from George R. R. Martin’s celebrated fantasy universe.
The 10-episode series, based on Martin’s 2018 novel Fire and Blood, will begin streaming in the US and other HBO Max territories on August 21. Those in the UK will be able to access episodes at the same time as their US counterparts (on the morning of August 22) on Sky Atlantic and Now TV.
Set 200 years prior to the events of the original show, House of the Dragon will tell the inevitably bloody backstory of the Targaryen dynasty, charting the fallout of King Viserys Targaryen’s decision to choose his daughter, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, as successor to the Iron Throne over rightful heir Prince Daemon Targaryen.
Paddy Considine, Matt Smith and Emma D'Arcy star as Viserys, Rhaenyra and Daemon, respectively, though the trio will be joined by the likes of Rhys Ifans, Olivia Cooke and Steve Toussaint as part of a vast ensemble cast. You can find a more detailed rundown of all the show’s characters – and their respective roles – in our dedicated hub.
House of the Dragon’s latest trailer also gives fans a first look at HBO’s famous fire-breathing dragons, which look every bit as menacing as we remember, and ends with an ominous warning: “History does not remember blood. It remembers names.” It’s a sure bet, then, that we’ll be treated to a fair amount of back-stabbing barons and warring warriors come August.
Alongside the trailer, HBO shared a series of new character posters to its Twitter account, which you can check out via the link below.
Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. First of His Name. #ViserysTargaryen#HouseoftheDragon pic.twitter.com/u7xUPJCaFEMay 5, 2022
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The series is being helmed by George R. R. Martin and Ryan Condal, with Game of Thrones alumnus Miguel Sapochnik on the majority of directing duties.
Given the film's two-hour runtime, there aren't as many as we initially expected. However, diehard Marvel fans – whether you're a comic book aficionado or a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fanatic – will get a kick out of who turns up in the Marvel Phase 4 project.
There may be some of you, though, who aren't clued up on who these individuals are and want to find out more about them. That's where we come in. Below, we run through every character who makes a cameo appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, including where they crop up, which actor portrays them, whether they're alive at the end of the superhero film, and more. Oh, and if you want a breakdown of what happened in the film's climax, check out our ending explainer article.
Unsurprisingly, we're about to dive into major spoiler territory for Doctor Strange 2. Don't scroll past the image below if you haven't seen it yet, otherwise you'll ruin the surprise. Or, rather, surprises.
Doctor Strange 2 is packed with cameos from across the Marvel multiverse. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)
Billy and Tommy Maximoff
Billy and Tommy return in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)
Actors: Jett Klyne and Julian Hilliard.
Do they survive? Yes, the duo are alive at the film's end.
After initially appearing in WandaVision, Wanda Maximoff's twin boys make a few appearances throughout Doctor Strange 2. We see them alive and well in an alternate universe with a Wanda Maximoff variant in a number of key scenes, including the one where Scarlet Witch realizes she's become a monster in her quest to become reunited with them.
It's unclear if we'll see Billy and Tommy again in the MCU. After all, Scarlet Witch seemingly sacrifices herself at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Given that she destroys Chthon's castle on Mount Wundagore and eradicates chaos magic from the multiverse, there's no way for anyone (America Chavez aside) to traverse the multiverse and track them down. So their fates are currently up in the air.
Black Bolt
Anson Mount reprises his role as Black Bolt in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: ABC)
Actor: Anson Mount
Does he survive? No. Scarlet Witch alters reality to remove his mouth during her confrontation with the Illuminati. Screaming inside his own head out of shock and fear, he blows his own brain out with his quasi-sonic scream, killing himself.
Reprising his role as Black Bolt from the much maligned Inhumans TV show, Anson Mount appears as part of the Illuminati on Earth-838. We only hear him speak once – he says "I'm sorry" to Supreme Strange as he kills his friend on Titan after the Illuminati defeat their universe's version of Thanos. But, while he doesn't (or, rather, can't) say much, it's cool to see Mount portray Black Bolt in the MCU, even with his 1990s-style, comic accurate spandex wingsuit.
Will we see him again? Maybe not for a while, but we're sure Marvel Studios will want a do over on its previous attempt at a live-action Inhumans TV series.
Captain Carter
Captain Carter was first introduced in Marvel's What If...? anthology series. (Image credit: Disney Plus/Marvel studios)
Actor: Hayley Atwell
Does she survive? No. She's cut in half by her own vibranium shield by Scarlet Witch during the latter's battle with the Illuminati.
Hayley Atwell is an established MCU actor at this point. We've seen her in a couple of Captain America solo movies, her own TV show (which originally aired on ABC in the US), and heard her voice an animated Captain Carter in Marvel's What If...? anthology series.
It's highly satisfying, then, to see her portray a live-action version of Captain Carter, complete with a United Kingdom-embroidered suit, shield, and jetpack. She more than holds her own against Wanda, too, until the latter gets hold of Carter's weapon of choice and slices her in two. As big fans of Atwell, here's hoping we see another variant of Captain Carter in the future.
Captain Marvel
Maria Rambeau's Captain Marvel may not have died in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)
Actor: Lashana Lynch
Does she survive? Maybe. Her fate is undetermined after her bruising encounter with Scarlet Witch.
Lashana Lynch's Maria Rambeau didn't have a major role in 2019's Captain Marvel. And, by the time we saw her daughter Monica all grown up in WandaVision, Maria had died after a long battle with cancer.
So it's equally pleasing to see Lynch portray an alternate universe's version of Captain Marvel. She certainly has a more serious demeanour about her than Brie Larson's Carol Danvers and, just like Atwell's Captain Carter, she goes toe to toe with Wanda during the latter's fight with the Illuminati.
The fate of Lynch's Captain Carter is unclear following her one-on-one with Wanda, too. Sure, Scarlet Witch drops a giant statue on her, so chances are she perished alongside her fellow superheroes. But, as any film fan will know, unless you see someone actually die on screen, there's a chance that they're still alive. Maybe we'll see Lynch's Captain Marvel appear in the superhero's second solo outing, which arrives in July 2023. You know, if The Marvels ends up being another multiverse-centric movie.
Clea
Clea makes her live-action MCU debut in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: Marvel Comics/Jed Mackay/Lee Garbutt)
Actor: Charlize Theorn
Does she survive? Well, considering she appears in the film's mid-credits scene, yes.
A sorcerer like Doctor Strange, Clea makes her live-action debut in the MCU in the Multiverse of Madness' first post-credits stinger.
The character, who has major ties to the Sorcerer Supreme in Marvel comics, turns up in the MCU to locate Stephen Strange, who she accuses of causing an Incursion Event. You can read more about that in our ending explainer article, which is linked in the introduction of this piece.
Clearly, Clea will have a big supporting role in Doctor Strange's third solo flick, but it could be a while before we see her in action. Benedict Cumberbatch has revealed (via IGN) that he's taking a break from acting, so don't expect Doctor Strange 3 to arrive in theaters any time soon.
Master Mordo
Master Mordo isn't what he seems in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)
Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Does he survive? Yes. He's still alive after his fist fight with Doctor Strange.
This isn't much of a surprise, given that Chiwetel Ejiofor's Master Mordo appeared in the film's many trailers and TV spots. Still, it's cool to see the actor play a variant of his character from Doctor Strange's first solo movie, albeit one who has equally nefarious plans as his MCU counterpart.
Unless Lynch's Captain Marvel survived her ordeal with Scarlet Witch, Master Mordo is the only Illuminati team member who is still alive after Scarlet Witch's attack on the supergroup's headquarters. So we'd expect him to assume total control of the Illuminati's research and the Sanctum Santorum. You know, unless Earth-838's Christine Palmer has anything to say about that...
Mr. Fantastic/Reed Richards
John Krasinski plays the MCU's first version of Mr. Fantastic. (Image credit: Marvel Comics)
Actor: John Krasinski
Does he survive? No. He's turned to spaghetti and then killed by Wanda at the Illuminati's headquarters.
Marvel fans have long called for John Krasinski to play Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in the MCU. And, with Doctor Strange 2's arrival, those fans have had their wishes answered by Marvel Studios.
Like Mount's Black Bolt, Krasinski's Reed Richards doesn't play a big part in proceedings. He's one of the few Illuminati members who is honest with Doctor Strange (about Supreme Strange and other multiverse aspects), and seems to have his universe's best intentions at heart.
It's a shame, then, that he's unceremoniously killed off by Scarlet Witch when she rocks up at the Illuminati's headquarters. He's the only one who tries to reason with her but, after she kills Black Bolt, he realizes she can't be talked down. Krasinski's Richards doesn't even get to use his powers properly before he's turned to spaghetti and has his head popped by Wanda, too. Fingers crossed that Krasinski is officially cast to play the MCU's Reed Richards for Marvel's Fantastic Four movie, then, so we can see more of him in action.
Pizza Poppa (also in post-credits scene)
Bruce Campbell reunites with long-time collaborator Sam Raimi in Doctor Strange 2 (the image above is taken from Spider-Man 2). (Image credit: Sony Pictures)
Actor: Bruce Campbell
Does he survive? Yes, he's never in danger of dying – despite the fact that he punches himself in the head.
The long-time collaborator of director Sam Raimi has a cameo appearance in Doctor Strange 2. Disappointingly, though, Campbell doesn't play a major character. Instead, he portrays a simple street vendor going by the name of Pizza Poppa, who winds up getting more than he bargained for when he runs into Doctor Strange and America Chavez.
Accusing Chavez of stealing food from his stall, Pizza Poppa verbally lashes out at the duo. Not standing for his rudeness, Strange casts a spell that causes Pizza Poppa to repeatedly punch himself in the face for "around three weeks". It's an amusing moment, but we would've liked to see Campbell have a greater role in proceedings.
Professor X
Patrick Stewart's Professor X finally makes his MCU debut in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: Fox/20th Century Studios)
Actor: Patrick Stewart
Does he survive? No. Scarlet Witch snaps his neck after he tries to stop her rampage.
The legendary Patrick Stewart reprises his role as the iconic leader of the X-Men for the first (and potentially last) time in the MCU. Stewart had played Professor Charles Xavier in Fox's X-Men universe, and it had seemed that he'd hung up Cerebro for the final time after 2017's Logan.
Clearly, though, he was brought back for one last outing – returning to the role he'd inhabited for nearly 20 years – in Doctor Strange 2. Like Krasinski's Reed Richards, Professor X seems to think Doctor Strange is worth keeping alive. He's the one who tells Strange to go in search of the Book of Vishanti to try and stop Scarlet Witch's rampage across the multiverse, buying the sorcerer time when he goes to confront Scarlet Witch as she attacks the Illuminati's headquarters.
And he's almost successful in stopping Wanda, too. Using his powers to enter Wanda's mind, Professor X nearly rescues Earth-838's Wanda from the Scarlet Witch's dreamwalking spell. However, Scarlet Witch overpowers Professor X, snapping his neck inside her mind and in the real world. Who's going to pop wheelies in his yellow chair now...
Rintrah
Rintrah doesn't have a large role in Doctor Strange 2. (Image credit: Marvel Studio)
Actor: Adam Hugill
Does he survive? Yes. We see him at the end of the film helping to rebuild Kamar-Taj.
Like Master Mordo, we knew that Rintrah – a magic minotaur who's an ally of Doctor Strange in the comics – would appear in the Multiverse of Madness. He has more of a bit-part role than we initially thought, however, and only appears for a couple of brief moments at Kamar-Taj.
Given how powerful the extraterrestrial R'Vaal magician is in Marvel's source material, it's a pity he isn't utilized to full effect here. With the sheer amount of other characters who crop up, plus the manner in which the film's plot plays out, it shouldn't be a major surprise to see Rintrah only have a small role in proceedings. We'd definitely like to see him appear in Doctor Strange's third flick, though, and maybe have a greater say in what may play out during that superhero flick.
Looking to jettison off to a galaxy far, far away? Here’s the chronological timeline you need to follow to watch the Star Wars films and TV shows in order.
You know what day it is – May 4th, marking what is now officially known as Star Wars Day (sadly not a Bank Holiday).
Given that you’ve got three trilogies, multiple spinoffs and a growing raft of TV shows that are all considered canon, trying to figure out where to start with it all can feel like finding a needle in a Mos Eisley cantina.
Not to worry though as we’ve painstakingly outlined, in a chronological timeline, the right order to watch the entire Star Wars saga in. And as they are all available on Disney Plus, what better time than to rewatch the whole saga.
How to watch all the Star Wars films and TV shows in the UK
All the Star Wars content is available to stream through Disney Plus and this is also home to the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi show that’ll start on May 27. See below for how to sign up to Disney Plus.
Sign up for Disney+
Disney+ offers access to loads of original shows like The Mandalorian and Hawkeye, classic films and content from big brands like Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar.
Although The Phantom Menace wasn’t the first Star Wars film to be released theatrically, it does mark the beginning of the Skywalker saga from a chronological perspective, following a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, an even younger Anakin Skywalker, and one of the series’ most terrifying villains to date: Darth Maul.
The film might be a bit of a marmite pick for most Star Wars fans, but there are pockets of greatness here and there that still make it an entertaining watch.
2. Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones
Jumping forwards a whole decade after the events of the Phantom Menace, Episode 2: Attack of the Clones sees tensions at an all-time high, with a separatist movement seeking to cause disruption throughout the galaxy, while Anakin and Obi-Wan are caught in the middle of it all as they’re tasked with guarding the life of Senator Padmé Amidala.
Admittedly, initially watching the film at the ripe old age of nine meant that a lot of this plot detail went right over my head, but even now, the film is still a tough watch and largely landed with a thud among fans.
3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
To be fair to George Lucas, the concept of the Clone Wars was an interesting idea, but Attack of the Clones just couldn’t quite do the story justice. Years later however, The Clone Wars TV series would aim to give the conflict its dues with superb animation and a surprisingly adult tone, one you wouldn’t expect to find in a children’s TV show.
Sure, there are seven seasons to wade through (plus a slightly dodgy feature-length film), but given just how much The Clones Wars ties in with later projects like The Mandalorian, The Bad Batch and Rogue One, it’s definitely worth a watch to wrap your head around the lore.
4. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
While the film has since become the source for plenty of memes, Revenge of the Sith was intended to be the big dramatic payoff for the prequel series and the narrative segue into the original trilogy.
Opinions of the film only seem to have soured over time, but there’s no denying that it still has one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the entire series. Without spoiling anything, I’d say it’s highly recommended that you never let Anakin Skywalker babysit your children.
5: Star Wars: The Bad Batch
Acting as a sequel series to the Clone Wars, the Bad Batch retains the fantastic animation style and ramps up the production quality even more. The titular Bad Batch consists of a team of Clone Troopers and we follow them through their adventures around the galaxy.
One season of this show has already aired, with a second expected to follow later in 2022. If you’re a fan of The Clone Wars, it’s an easy bet you’ll enjoy this too.
6. Solo: A Star Wars Story
It’s no secret that Solo had an extremely tumultuous production and ended up being a major box-office bomb, but if you accept the film as nothing more than a rather daft action flick starring one of the Star Wars series’ most beloved characters in his youth, then you’re in for a good time.
7. Star Wars: Rebels
Another multi-season animated show, Star Wars: Rebels brings in a number of iconic characters from Star Wars lore and is a worthy watch for filling in some of the gaps between the prequels and original trilogy.
8. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Now, this is how you do a Star Wars spin-off. As the first cinematic offshoot in the Star Wars canon, there was a lot riding on Rogue One, but the film’s decision to focus on a varied bunch of characters and take some serious risks along the way paid off greatly.
There’s definitely a case to be made that not enough time is spent in fleshing out some of the main players, but the film does an amazing job of seeing what all these intergalactic events might look like to the nobodies on the ground. The ending also immediately transitions into the opening moments of A New Hope, so the two films could be paired for an afternoon double bill.
9. Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope
It’s almost surreal to think that the film that started it all now sits at the number seven spot on this list, but that’s what you get when you have a billion-dollar franchise that craves new content.
Watching A New Hope today, it’s hard to ignore the film’s slower pace and sometimes twee acting, but you just can’t knock its scale and sense of ambition. After all, A New Hope came out in 1977 and still boasts several practical effects that put modern CGI to shame.
10. Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back
The crown jewel of the Star Wars saga, The Empire Strikes Back upped the ante and set the standard for what a sequel could be.
Between the rebellion’s fight against the AT-ATs, Yoda training with Luke and the now historic twist, so many iconic Star Wars moments happen here that it’s too difficult to pick a favourite. In fact, if you just start your Star Wars binge with Empire, there’ll be no hard feelings.
11. Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi
Even to this day, the debate rages on as to which is the better movie: Jedi or Empire. Given how the most recent trilogy turned out however, that’s not a bad argument to be having. Return of the Jedi managed to do the one thing that so many sequels fail in doing (particularly in trilogies), and that’s to simply stick the landing.
12. The Mandalorian
The show that launched a thousand memes. Tentatively titled ‘Baby Yoda’s Super Happy Space Time’, the hype surrounding The Mandalorian is certainly justified.
Taking place in a galaxy now adjusting to the epic events of the preceding trilogy, the show follows a lone bounty hunter – and proud member of the Mandalorian tribe – named Din Djarin, as he navigates the galaxy’s seedy underworld in search of his next cheque.
13: The Book of Boba Fett
While we didn’t get the heavily rumoured Boba Fett spin-off film, we did get to see the iconic character’s arc expanded in this Disney Plus series. While it’s far from the best-written piece of Star Wars content, it is worth a watch just for the latter episodes and how it ties into the next instalment of The Mandalorian.
14. Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens
Picking up a whole 30 years after Return of the Jedi, the Force Awakens kicked off a brand new trilogy, of which modern Star Wars fans are no doubt familiar. While the film does boast a few familiar faces including Han Solo, Princess Leia and Chewbacca, the Force Awakens’ cast is largely made up of newcomers, such as the scavenger Rey, and Finn, a defector of the First Order – a new band of antagonists moulded in the shadow of the Empire.
12. Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi
Taking barely any time for a breather, The Last Jedi starts almost immediately from where The Force Awakens left off, with Rey being taken under Luke Skywalker’s wing (eventually), while the rest of our heroes are stuck in an intergalactic car chase, fleeing from the First Order. The Last Jedi is probably the most divisive Star Wars film to date, having been lauded by critics and slated by fans.
13. Star Wars Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker
The Rise of Skywalker, or as I like to call it, ‘The Return of JJ Abrams’ Script’, is the final chapter in the long-running Skywalker saga, but it’s also a hot mess to boot. It’s not that The Rise of Skywalker isn’t entertaining – there’s enough going on to keep you distracted for over two hours – but once it’s over, you’ll be left wondering if that’s really the best finale the filmmakers could’ve come up with.
Of course, the film’s rushed pacing is reactionary to the backlash of The Last Jedi, which saw director Rian Johnson abandon JJ Abrams’ original overarching narrative in favour of something completely different. Given how well Marvel Studios has done by comparison, I sincerely hope that Kevin Feige is put in charge of any more Star Wars films from here on out.
Moon Knight episode 5 has arrived on Disney Plus. And, as you wipe the tears from your eyes – if you've seen it, you'll know why – you may have forgotten about a certain Easter egg that officially ties the TV show to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Before Moon Knight debuted on Disney Plus, there was plenty of discussion about how closely it would link to other MCU productions. But, one particular reference made by Tawaret, the Egyptian god of childbirth and fertility – you can read more about her in our episode 4 explainer – ensures that Moon Knight has major ties to a couple of Marvel movies.
We're about to dig into where you can find this Moon Knight episode 5 Easter egg and how it links to former and future MCU superhero flicks. Turn back now if you haven't caught the episode yet – why would you be here if you haven't? – and don't want anything spoiled.
Tawaret holds the key to Moon Knight episode 5's MCU links. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
The reference in question can be found in the episode's opening act. After we're properly introduced to Tawaret (alongside Marc and Steven), we find out that the latter duo aren't in a psychiatric hospital at all. Instead, it's a figment of their imagination and they're actually on their way to the Egyptian afterlife – aka the Field of Reeds.
That is, if they pass the Weighing of the Heart trial by balancing their souls on the scales of truth against a giant ostrich feather. We could elaborate on that further, but it'll take a while to explain, so let's just move on to the Marvel Easter egg that Moon Knight episode 5 contains.
As Tawaret begins to explain that Marc and Steven are traveling to the afterlife via the Egyptian underworld, Marc asks if the psychiatric ward is a stand-in for said underworld. Tawaret says "This is an afterlife, not the afterlife. You'd be surprised how many intersectional planes of untethered consciousness exist."
It's during this part of the conversation that Tawaret drops a major Marvel movie reference: the Ancestral Plane, aka a parallel dimension where souls exist outside of a person's physical body.
In the MCU, the Ancestral Plane is also known by two other names: the Astral Plane and the Astral Dimension. These names are interchangeable and, as such, they're all important for the deep dive we're about to embark on.
Moon Knight has dropped a number of other MCU Easter eggs throughout its episodic run so far, but this is the most obvious one of all. Why? Because we've seen this Plane in multiple Marvel movies, including Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The Astral Plane featured prominently throughout Doctor Strange, with the Ancient One and Stephen Strange conversing in it at one point, while Strange battled one of Kaecilius' followers in this alternate reality. Meanwhile, we see the Ancestral Plane – a psychadelic, afterlife-inspired version of this dimension – in Black Panther. Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa and Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger visit it whenever they ingested Wakanda's legendary purple herb – i.e. the source of Black Panther's superpowers.
The Astral Plane was also touched upon in Endgame – Bruce Banner and the Ancient One discussed branching timelines during the Avengers' time stone heist. Finally, the Astral Dimension was briefly featured No Way Home during Doctor Strange and Spider-Man's fight over a spell box that would've sent the webslinger's villains back to their original universes.
With Tawaret namedropping the Ancestral Plane in Moon Knight's fifth entry, it's clear that the latest Marvel Phase 4 project has closer ties to the MCU (through its mentioning of the Astral Dimension) than we initially realized. Hopefully, that means we'll see Moon Knight team up with other superpowered beings in the future. That is, if he survives the season finale's expected showdown with Arthur Harrow, or if Oscar Isaac is even interested in returning as the character down the line.
Moon Knight episode 5's Easter egg also ties it to future Marvel movies
Bast the Panther God has ties to Moon Knight's Egyptian gods. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
Tawaret's reference to the Ancestral Plane doesn't just link Moon Knight to previously released Marvel movies – it also ties to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and, perhaps more surprisingly, Thor: Love and Thunder.
The links to Black Panther 2 are pretty obvious. The Ancestral Plane played a key role in the 2018 MCU flick, with T'Challa and Killmonger able to talk to their fathers and other ancestors in this parallel dimension. Given that Wakanda Forever will likely see the christening of a new Black Panther – Boseman died in August 2019 after a four-year battle with bowel cancer – we can expect to see the Ancestral Plane feature at some point in the sequel.
Thor 4 is a different story. The god of thunder's MCU journey has made no reference to the Ancestral/Astral Plane thus far, but Love and Thunder is sure to change that in two major ways.
Firstly, Love and Thunder will introduce Gorr the God Butcher (played by Batman's Christian Bale), a powerful villain whose Necrosword weapon – in Marvel comics, at least – has the ability to kill gods.
You don't need us to tell you that gods walk among mortals in the MCU. Thor, Loki, Odin, and other Norse gods have appeared throughout Marvel Studios' various productions over the past decade. Moon Knight has introduced a number of Egyptian gods into the fold, but it was Black Panther that initially brought the Egyptian deities (i.e. the Ennead) into the MCU with Bast, the Panther God who bestowed the original Black Panther – Bashenga – with superpowers.
Secondly (but by not means least) it's Bast who may bridge the gap between Moon Knight, Black Panther, and Thor 4 together once the god of thunder's fourth solo movie arrives in theaters this July. According to The Cosmic Circus, Bast is set to appear in Love and Thunder; a move that would further cement ties between these MCU movies and TV shows.
Moon Knight episode 5's Ancestral Plane reference, then, isn't just a throwback to previous Marvel films. It also sets up the possibility of linking the Disney Plus show to upcoming MCU flicks, thus linking it to the wider MCU and ensuring that it isn't a wholly standalone property.
Will Moon Knight episode 6 contain further MCU ties? We think so, but we don't expect them to take center stage. It's the series finale, after all, so we suspect there'll be a major showdown between Marc Spector and Arthur Harrow, a few more revelations about the duo's past endeavors, and maybe even a post-credits scene that sets up Moon Knight's MCU future. Here's hoping, anyway.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect incorrect information concerning the Ancestral Plane's appearance in Doctor Strange. We apologize for not catching this error sooner.
