The Most Underrated Twilight Zone Episodes

While The Twilight Zone solidified its place in the cultural canon decades ago, there are times when it feels like we’re only scratching the surface of Rod Serling’s revolutionary series. Many of us know classic episodes like “To Serve Man,” “Time Enough at Last,” and “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” due to their TV rerun presences and the countless references to them in other works over the years. Those episodes deserve all the acclaim they’ve acquired (if not more), but it sometimes feels like we really only talk about 20-25 episodes out of The Twilight Zone‘s original run of 156 episodes when we talk about that series.

In those other 130+ episodes, you’ll find not just some hidden gems but the heart of the show. At its core, The Twilight Zone was a variety series that often took some big creative risks. Not all of those risks paid off, but those that did often showcase sides of The Twilight Zone that aren’t always on display in that handful of episodes that remain syndication staples. When you watch these underrated episodes that are often left out of the popular cultural conversations about this series, you may start to wonder if we’ve also been underrating The Twilight Zone itself.

Perchance to Dream – Season 1 Episode 9

For the last several nights, Edward Hall has endured a series of nightmares that play out like a movie. More than just bad dreams, these subconscious stories are starting to trigger Hall’s heart condition and cause him physical pain. Hall confesses to a psychiatrist that he has stopped sleeping altogether out of fear that the next dream he has will be the one that finally kills him.

This episode feels remarkably close to that incredible scene in Mulholland Drive in which Patrick Fischler describes a nightmare he’s been having in tremendous detail and then is forced to confront it. Anyone who has suffered through a prolonged period of repeated bad dreams will find themselves captivated and horrified by Hall’s exhausted description of an incredible scenario that certainly seems real enough to him. Much like that scene in Mulholland Drive, this episode ends on a genuinely shocking beat that reminds you how dark The Twilight Zone could be.

I Shot An Arrow Into The Air Twilight Zone

I Shot An Arrow Into The Air – Season 1 Episode 15

Four astronauts find themselves in a terrifying scenario. They’ve just crash-landed on what seems to be an asteroid, they’re low on supplies, and they have no way to call for rescue. As they desperately search for aid, the most cowardly among them begins to kill his friends to claim the few remaining resources for himself. Though he survives long enough to reach help, he makes a shocking discovery. The astronauts never made it off of Earth and instead crashed in a desert somewhere on their home planet.

Granted, this episode isn’t quite as compelling as some of the other classic Twilight Zone episodes that deal with the dangers of desperation, but there is a mystery box element to the story that soon proves to be irresistibly compelling. Actually, between the mysterious drawing in the sand that later proves to be a crude sketch of power lines and the scenes of increasingly desperate attempts at survival, this episode often invokes the very best of Lost in a Twilight Zone way.

The Howling Man – Season 2 Episode 5

David Ellington has a truly incredible story to tell. When he was a younger man walking through Europe, he suddenly found himself caught in the middle of a raging storm. He sought shelter in a local castle that proved to be a kind of monastery filled with devotees who decided to let him in despite their mistrust of strangers. Once inside, he hears a strange howling noise that seems to be coming from a man who claims the monks have imprisoned him. The monks, however, tell a different story. They say that the man they captured is the devil himself.

This episode has gotten a little more love over the years, but it deserves to be considered an all-time classic. Despite some moments of era and format forgivable corniness, this gothic horror story often plays out like a classic Hammer Horror movie. The debate between right and wrong is easy to get caught up in, and the ending is a warm hug of diabolical genre goodness.

The Trouble With Templeton The Twilight Zone

The Trouble With Templeton – Season 2 Episode 9

“The Trouble With Templeton” is one of those Twilight Zone episodes that explores the eternal warning “Be careful what you wish for.” In it, we follow famous Broadway actor Booth Templeton as a particularly frustrating day in his life causes him to wish to go back to the way things were. He suddenly finds himself 30 years in the past when things seemed simpler and when the love of his life, Laura, was still alive and by his side. As you may have guessed, Templeton soon discovers that finding happiness isn’t always as simple as going back to the way things were.

It’s a timeless and powerful message highlighted by scenes in which Laura and all of Templeton’s old friends behave in ways he seems to have forgotten about. Those cold water interactions drive home the message that Templeton just doesn’t belong there anymore. As Templeton leaves that nightclub, though, Laura and the rest of the ghosts stop to stare at the door with pain in their eyes. We soon learn that they were putting on a play designed to show Templeton that he still had a life worth living. They would love to be with him as much as he would love to be with them, but Templeton isn’t done living quite yet. It’s a gut-wrenching twist that puts a painful spin on a familiar theme.

Shadow Play – Season 2 Episode 26

After being found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, Adam Grant starts to freak out in court. Hey, who wouldn’t? The strange thing is that Grant seems to believe that he’s been through all of this before and will go through all of this again when he is executed. His only hope of breaking the cycle is to convince the District Attorney to grant a stay of execution before the switch is flipped yet again.

Yes, you could consider “Shadow Play” to be a shockingly early example of what we now refer to as the time loop genre. While it is certainly effective and historically noteworthy as just that, the thing that makes “Shadow Play” so interesting after all these years is its bizarre ending in which Grant wakes up in court yet again only to find that the people from the previous incarnation of this scenario are playing different roles. Is he really just dreaming? Is he stuck in some kind of purgatory for his presumed crimes? The ambiguity of this finale makes it one of The Twilight Zone’s most compelling twists.

The Arrival – Season 3 Episode 2

Flight 107 has just completed its scheduled landing at a small airport. It was a textbook arrival complicated only by the fact that the plane landed without anyone on board. There are no pilots, no passengers…not even a piece of luggage. It is now up to Inspector Grant Sheckly to uncover the mystery behind this seemingly impossible occurrence.

Much of this episode consists of one of my favorite styles of sci-fi and horror: people trying to find logical explanations for supernatural scenarios. It is fascinating to watch Sheckly and his crew slowly eliminate every logical possibility in an effort to locate the truth of the matter. While this episode doesn’t quite stick the landing with its twist ending, the idea that Sheckly is still haunted by the one case he never quite figured out is an effective reminder that the ghosts of the past are permanent residents of The Twilight Zone.

The Grave – Season 3 Episode 7

Bounty hunter Conny Miller has just learned that the outlaw he has been chasing (the notorious Pinto Sykes) has been captured and killed by the residents of a small town. Miller should be celebrating, but he bemoans the fact that he didn’t get to bring Sykes to justice. What’s worse, Sykes accused Miller of being a coward on his deathbed, and the residents of the town are starting to believe that Miller may have indeed been running from Sykes rather than chasing him. The only way for Miller to prove himself is to go to Sykes allegedly cursed grave and plant a knife in the dirt so everyone knows he was there.

Although The Twilight Zone often traveled to the Old West, “The Grave” is one of the only episodes of the show that feels like a proper Twilight Zone version of a classic Western. Granted, this story and its horrifying finale are actually based on an old folk tale, but the atmosphere of the Old West and that thick air of misplaced machismo that goes with it feel like the perfect companions to this often child-like fable about the price of fear.

The Midnight Sun – Season 3 Episode 10

A mysterious event has caused the Earth to shift out of orbit and gradually move closer to the sun. There is no more nighttime, and the days are getting hotter and hotter. Now, two women in a small New York City apartment must try to make the most out of what seems to be humanity’s final days.

“The Midnight Sun” is one of the more acclaimed episodes on this list, but I genuinely believe it deserves to be considered among the very best Twilight Zone episodes ever. It is a hauntingly intimate story that seems to be dealing with the terror of global warming long before we ever put those words to that fear. Its ending, in which we learn that one of our protagonists has dreamt the events of the episode and lives in a reality in which the world is moving away from the sun, both solidifies its environmental message and thrusts us into a darkness as pervasive as the one that doomed woman now lives in.

The Jungle – Season 3 Episode 12

If you’re anything like me, you may have skipped “The Jungle” based on its description alone. The Twilight Zone was often remarkably ahead of its time, but this story of an executive named Alan Richards who believes he has been cursed by a Witch Doctor in Africa feels like it could go wrong in a hundred different ways regardless of its best intentions.

While there are a couple of moments in this story that perhaps would be reexamined under a modern creative light, “The Jungle” is ultimately a story about the dangers of interfering where you don’t belong that is bolstered by some surprisingly strong themes of environmentalism. More importantly, this episode features one of the most effective sequences in Twilight Zone history; a Cat People-like prolonged walk through the city in which Richards is pursued by the persistent noise of drums and an unseen predator. That final shot is also just a chef’s kiss bit of absurdity.

The Changing of the Guard The Twilight Zone

The Changing of the Guard – Season 3 Episode 37

After 51 years of service, Professor Ellis Fowler (played by the delightful Donald Pleasence) has just been informed that he will be forced to retire. Suddenly struck by the idea that he failed to do anything meaningful with this time in his life that is almost over, he decides to kill himself on Christmas Eve. Before he can go through with it, though, he is confronted by students from the past and present who are here to show him the true value of his considerable efforts.

The Twilight Zone is often remembered for its shocking twists that typically deliver a cruel piece of fate to the deserving and undeserving alike. Every now and then, though, the series would demonstrate something truly extraordinary: hope for the world and the people in it. “The Changing of the Guard” is one of the most poignant examples of that powerful (if often forgotten) side of the show. If you’re looking for more Twilight Zone Christmas tear-jerkers, be sure to check out the equally incredible “Night of the Meek.”

The Thirty-Fathom Grave The Twilight Zone

The Thirty-Fathom Grave – Season 4 Episode 2

While on patrol, a U.S. Navy vessel detects a strange noise coming from the ocean. A closer inspection reveals that the noise originates from a sunken submarine. It seems that someone, or something, is stuck inside the submarine and is banging on its walls. As the officers discuss ways to investigate the interior of the vessel, one nightmare-plagued crewmembers suggests that whatever is down there should be left alone.

The hourlong episodes of The Twilight Zone’s fourth season often go overlooked. They rarely even appear in syndication these days. While it’s true that the show’s fourth season is a largely failed experiment filled with misfires, “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” is one of that season’s brightest hidden gems. It presents a compelling scenario and uses every bit of that extended runtime to explore its many possibilities. It’s also one of the absolute scariest Twilight Zone episodes ever.

On Thursday We Leave for Home The Twilight Zone

On Thursday We Leave for Home – Season 4 Episode 16

Years ago, colonizers from Earth settled on a remote planet to form a new society. When they discover that the planet is less hospitable than previously anticipated, they decide to send a message to Earth asking for assistance. Decades later, a spaceship crew finally arrives to take them home. The only problem is that the leader of the colonizers, Captain Benteen, doesn’t wish to leave this little corner of the galaxy where he is beloved and in command.

This story is certainly a warning about the corruption of power. It is remarkably easy to sympathize with Benteen’s plight, though. Benteen isn’t necessarily a bad person; he’s just terrified of starting over and losing the cause and the people that he has dedicated his life to. Yet, as we watch Benteen regret his decision to stay as the only rescue ship he will ever see leaves him stranded on that planet forever, we are reminded that even the noblest intentions can be twisted by fear.

The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross Twilight Zone

The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross – Season 5 Episode 16

Salvadore Ross is, to use the parlance of our times, a real asshole. He is also in love with a woman named Leah Maitland who wisely denies him a second chance. One day, Ross wakes up to realize that he has the power to trade aspects of himself with others. Ross believes he can use this power to acquire the means and traits Maitland believes he lacks, though he soon finds that Maitland may have been right about those parts of him that can’t easily be washed away.

Interestingly, Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to direct an episode of Tales From the Crypt called “The Switch” which features a remarkably similar premise. I only mention that to emphasize the ways this episode sometimes feels a little too dark even for the later seasons of The Twilight Zone. It’s a twisted and clever story that forces us to confront our perception of self-improvement. Do we really wish to make ourselves better people, or do we just want to see our worst qualities magically vanish so we can quickly get the things we want?

I Am the Night - Color Me Black The Twilight Zone

I Am the Night—Color Me Black – Season 5 Episode 26

A man named Jagger has been convicted of killing a bigot in a small town and is sentenced to be executed in the morning. The strange thing is that the sun refuses to rise over the town that day. That occurrence causes the local sheriff to start asking a lot of tough questions about the investigation into that murder that he conveniently chose to ignore before. He and others grow to believe the strange darkness may be related to the upcoming hanging, but can they convince anyone else that is the case?

Though The Twilight Zone regularly addressed several social and human issues throughout its incredible initial run, Rod Serling was always especially passionate about using his platform to address the horrors of racism and prejudice. Yet, few episodes in the original run of The Twilight Zone address those topics as directly as this one. Granted, the ending is a little heavy-handed, but the message is frighteningly relevant. We’d like to think that if all the hatred, prejudice, and anger we put into the world manifested itself as literal darkness, we’d maybe stop to reexamine our ways. Time and time again, though, we are reminded that there is no omen so obvious that it can’t be twisted or simply ignored by those who refuse to change.

The Jeopardy Room – Season 5 Episode 29

Major Ivan Kuchenko is a political defector who is biding his time in a shabby hotel room while he waits to be taken to his new home. This purgatory period between the past and future is interrupted by a message from an assassin who informs Kuchenko that he has placed a bomb somewhere in his hotel room. Kuchenko has three hours to find and disarm it before it goes off. If he tries to leave the room, he will be shot by a sniper positioned directly across the street.

This single-room (mostly) thriller hardly even feels like a traditional Twilight Zone episode. There are no supernatural/sci-fi elements, no deeper hidden meanings, and while there’s a slight surprise at the end, it’s hardly a twist. Instead, this episode is simply a finely tuned thriller that was directed by none other than Richard Donner and stars a young Martin Landau. It’s an incredible piece of television that also happens to remind us how versatile the Twilight Zone could be.

The Bizarre Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Game You Probably Never Beat

It’s the 35th anniversary of the first-ever video game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While fans might have fond memories of the arcade title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time from 1991, or perhaps a sense of nostalgia for the 1990 Game Boy release Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan, it was that NES that initially debuted the titular crime-fighters in the medium.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of 1989 fame is an infamous entry into the comic book characters’ video game library. Developed by Konami and released by Ultra Games in North America (and Palcom and U.S. Gold throughout European territories), the game was both utterly bizarre in its concepts and nearly impossibly difficult in its execution. This retro experience from a bygone era left many players frustrated.

Although its place in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle timeline is undeniably important (the NES earned over $125 million worldwide), it already started to feel forgotten by the end of 1990. It certainly hasn’t aged well when compared to its TMNT contemporaries. But what made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stand out from the pack, and why has it earned a reputation for being so unbeatable?

The NES Hit Invented Its Own Mythology

Look across the boss battles featured in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES and you’ll notice familiar names like Rocksteady, Shredder, and…Big Mouser? The 1989 video game broke all the conventions and started adding characters that had never previously appeared in turtle lore.

Big Mouser and Mechaturtle are notable examples, with players getting baffled by these odd additions that lacked clear continuity. It was almost as if the developers hadn’t actually seen or read any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tales. One theory suggests that the source material the developers were working with was so varied that it led to confusion when they came to putting together the narrative. What’s more, the influence of the 1987 title Getsu Fūma Den may have also been an underlying factor, with elements of that Konami game seemingly inspiring the first TMNT. The similarities between the two are numerous, leading to the conspiracy that TMNT acted as an overlay on or variation of that title.

Those strange inclusions didn’t end there. Of all the location choices available, players found themselves fighting through a level based on JFK Airport and across the rooftops of Wall Street. At the conclusion of the game, Splinter turns into his human form, shedding his rat appearance thanks to the player’s victory. Why? Well, most of the game’s plot revolves around the theft of the Life Transformer Gun, which is never really expanded upon, aside from its ability to apparently transform a rat into a man.

Each creative decision made throughout the title is full of strange nuances that don’t really reflect the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles canon. Many of these ideas and concepts that were introduced in the title were never seen again across the franchise, perhaps speaking to how they were received. Interestingly, the game was also the first major piece of TMNT media ever released in Japan. As a point of introduction, it’s an obscure one, going by a different name and including odd additions to the lore of its own (including a suggestion that April was Splinter’s daughter). Yet, the NES entry does have an important impact on the legacy of Turtlemania on a global stage, despite these strange alterations.

The Mechanics Made The Most Of Its Roster

Perhaps what was most intriguing about this NES game was that it emphasized the team dynamic of the turtles. Although this was a single-player game, Konami was clearly keen to allow and encourage players to control each of the individual turtles.

The player could switch between each of the four lead characters, and there would be benefits and setbacks for doing so. Just like in the comics and shows, each turtle boasts different talents and wields alternate weapons. The game informed players of those strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to make their decisions based on the challenges they faced. Each character was well suited to different scenarios and some of the difficulty of the title came from getting that selection process right and ensuring the right turtle was available at the right time.

But, if a turtle was defeated during combat, the player didn’t just switch to the next suitable alternative. Instead, the character was captured by the enemy, resulting in the player having to rescue their team member from the third level. It’s a fun idea in theory, but one that complicates the game further.

If all four turtles are defeated then it’s game over. However, players could get stuck in the loop of saving each character, as they face the most notorious levels of the game. Although characters could only be rescued once, your chances of progressing were limited if the team wasn’t intact. You really needed their varied skills. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles therefore emphasized an almost tactical edge. Konami would later develop that concept further in successor games, with their more acclaimed arcade-like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles outings perfecting that idea with their beat-em-up mechanics that better focused on how each character was portrayed.

That Dam Level

Most games possess an infamously challenging level that very few are able to overcome. Unfortunately for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES, it was the second level that posed such a threat.

Players were tasked with traveling through an underwater maze with a ticking timer in the background. The challenge was to disarm bombs before the turtle ran out of breath. The mission was intentionally tense, but inaccurate controls and a general clunkiness to the design of the level’s mechanics made the level a nearly impossible challenge for most. Even TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman couldn’t beat that level, though he says that fans would sometimes blame him for it.

If players were, by some miracle, able to find a way to claim victory in that aquatic arena, they were then faced with an array of boss battles and territories to navigate that posed larger dangers. Levels five and six were notorious in their own right, and it was almost laughable to suggest that a player could complete the game without expert knowledge, hours of commitment, and nearly flawless execution.

There are plenty of theories as to why the developers made the game so famously difficult. It may well be because the game took more of its inspiration from the comics, which initially had an adult audience in mind. Aiming for an older target market, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had to be challenging to keep that age group entertained. An alternative theory suggests that because the game only consists of six levels (and is therefore pretty short), audiences would feel like they got more value for their money if those levels offered a larger sense of victory after surpassing such unbelievable odds. It would also make the game feel so much larger than it actually was.

Irrespective of the reason, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ level design was laughably tough, with spikes shooting out of surfaces far too close to one another, enemies spawning in inconvenient places and levels benefitting from a specific turtle without any clues to say so. There is a good chance you never beat it when you were young, which means that the NES game is often best remembered for its often absurd difficulty alongside its reputation for bizarre storytelling. But it’s not all bad!

The Legacy Of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninjas Turtles game on NES took risks that arguably paid off. People were talking about the game, and although the franchise element pushed sales, no press is bad press.

Critically the game received mixed reviews at the time, with its odd choices splitting players who loved the title’s unique qualities. Of course, the continued popularity of the turtles meant that other video games were always going to be produced in the line.

But some of those core mechanics and ideas paved the way for other releases. There were some genuine high points for TMNT on NES. Visually it was stunning, with the 8-bit adventure making the most of the console’s graphical potential. An energetic soundtrack compliments even the dullest moments, bringing enthusiasm to each sequence. What’s more, there are some genuinely great level designs mixed in with the infamous areas that tested players’ ability to maneuver through the combat controls and side-scrolling through the complex environments. Indeed, the very essence of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES would go on to cultivate a line of beloved gaming experiences. Elements of that first iteration have filtered into its successors, so despite its flaws, it made a positive mark and cemented the turtles as power players in any medium.

The legacy of the NES game might be infamous, but there’s also a sense of nostalgia attached to it. It’s certainly one of a kind, but it showcases many of the things its successors would do, and, more importantly, not do with the property. Perhaps the 1989 release should be viewed not as part of the turtle line but instead as an entity unto itself. One that pushed players at every stage and is still talked about to this day as a creatively colorful experience.

The Planet of the Apes Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

Who knew that French author Pierre Boulle’s slim, satirical 1963 novel, Le Planete des Singes, would lead to one of the most successful science fiction franchises of all time? Consisting of 10 films (to date), two TV series , comic books (including a magazine series from Marvel), toys, games, merchandise and more, Planet of the Apes remains one of the most enduring and unique sci-fi sagas in cinematic history.

The success of the original film, 1968’s Planet of the Apes, led studio 20th Century Fox (which finally made the movie after years of development and stalling) to launch a series of sequels. That wasn’t necessarily unheard of back then, but those sequels—which include Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)—told one complete story, unlike anything done on film before. The later TV series filled in a few gaps in the timeline while the recent reboots that started in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes have acted as loose remakes of the later films, albeit infused with tones, themes, designs and styles all their own.

Now with the arrival of the 10th film in the 56-year-old saga, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, filmmakers and actors continue to explore new, previously uncharted areas of the vast fictional history that has always been one of the Apes movies’ most fascinating aspects. Yes, some of the movies are stronger than others, and while most fans probably agree on the best and the worst, the middle tier’s rankings may be interchangeable or up for debate. Judge for yourself as we rank the entire Apes franchise from the bottom of the barrel (of monkeys) to the top.

10. Planet of the Apes (2001)

Look, this is a high-class, glossy, expensive production like only Hollywood can do. The result of years of 20th Century Fox trying to develop a modern version of the Apes saga, this Tim Burton-directed reboot features fantastic practical makeup effects by the legendary Rick Baker, excellent performances in that makeup by Tim Roth, Paul Giamatti, and Helena Bonham Carter, and a propulsive Danny Elfman score.

On the other hand, it’s led by a terrible, miscast Mark Wahlberg, the script makes some of the weaker Apes films look like Shakespeare, the ending is senseless, and all the charm and weirdness of the original films is missing. That leaves the kind of soulless, forgettable Tinseltown cash grab that has sullied the reputations of many a director and franchise. It’s perhaps no coincidence that it ushered Burton into a long creative decline from which, with two or three exceptions, he’s never quite climbed out of.

9. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

The fifth and last entry in the original series, Battle for the Planet of the Apes was not only hampered by the lowest budget of the series at that point ($1.2 million!) but also a sense that despite the films still being a box office draw, there was not a clear of idea of where the story could go. Set a number of years after the events of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the film finds the ape leader Caesar (Roddy McDowall) trying to maintain a fragile peace between the apes and humans who live in the community he’s created in the aftermath of the ape revolution and subsequent human nuclear war.

The shabby production values really hamper Battle. While it contains some interesting ideas and features another solid performance from McDowall (along with fun turns from Paul Williams and Claude Akins as Caesar’s right-hand orangutan and gorilla nemesis, respectively), the titular battle amounts to a fight among some treehouses between Caesar’s apes and a ragtag band of mutated human survivors from the ruins of the nearby city—who literally pull up to the ape village in a school bus. Battle also attempts to bring the entire franchise full circle, although whether Caesar succeeds in changing the course of Earth’s doomed history or not is deliberately left ambiguous, to the frustration of some fans.

8. Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

The dirty little secret among longtime Apes fans is that, even though Beneath is considered one of the weakest entries in the series, many of us love it. That’s because the movie is absolutely off its rocker: it begins with a Charlton Heston lookalike (James Franciscus) following Heston’s ship to the exact same future location in time and space, meeting the exact same apes, and getting the exact same shock of his life when he learns what planet he’s really on. From there, Franciscus and eventually Heston—who shows up for the first and last 10 minutes of the film—get caught up in a war between the apes and human mutants living in the ruins of New York City. It ends quickly though after Heston decides he’s had enough and blows up the Earth with a handy bomb that the mutants worship as a god.

The development of the first Apes sequel is almost as batshit crazy as the movie itself, which had its budget cut in half just before production and swapped Oscar-caliber director Franklin J. Schaffner for TV journeyman Ted Post. The script went through numerous iterations before writer Paul Dehn (Goldfinger) tied it all up into the hodgepodge we see today, and series staple Roddy McDowall is missing from this one as well. Yet it’s so weird, the mutants are so creepy, and that ending works so damn hard to out-bleak the original, that we can’t help but love how brazenly ridiculous the whole thing is.

7. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Disclaimer: the placement of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes relatively lower on this list does not reflect on the film’s quality at this point. It merely means that while it is certainly a very good movie—and clearly far better than the weaker entries in the franchise—it’s too early to tell where it might finally land in relation to the rest of the films (the movie is literally just coming out as you read this). Future viewings may well change its placement in either direction, although we suspect it will do just fine.

Following the modern 2010s Apes trilogy that chronicled the journey of Caesar (Andy Serkis) from experimental lab ape to wise yet determined simian leader, Kingdom does not pick up from Caesar’s death at the end of War for the Planet of the Apes. Rather it’s set several hundred years later, with a small community of apes leading a simple yet peaceful agrarian life that’s disrupted by a ruthless simian leader who has dictatorial intentions for all apes. Humans are still around too, mostly in a feral state, but there may be more dangers out in the world than even the apes realize. Full of interesting ideas and characters, as well as some terrific action and visual effects, Kingdom does leave some of its concepts underdeveloped, which may end up keeping it out of the top tier of Apes films.

6. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Very loosely patterned after 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Rise interestingly starts with the emphasis on its human leads (James Franco, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow) before switching its point of view to the apes. Franco’s scientist is developing a viral drug that may cure Alzheimer’s, but when a lab ape named Caesar is exposed to the drug through his mother, it enhances his intelligence levels to that of humans. Forced into an ape “sanctuary” run by a cruel father and son, Caesar eventually breaks himself and the other apes out, leading to a rebellion in which they flee into the forests outside San Francisco while the virus—now found to be harmful to humans—spreads in a global pandemic.

There was a decade of silence between the Tim Burton Apes fiasco and this, a reboot/remake/relaunch that was one of the biggest surprise hits of 2011. It was a surprise because 20th Century Fox didn’t seem to have much confidence in it at first: even press screenings at the time were rather low-key affairs. But with empathic, even-keeled direction by Rupert Wyatt and an intelligent script from Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, not to mention the unbelievable motion-capture work by star Andy Serkis and visual effects shop Weta, Rise caught the public and even diehard Apes fans off guard with its sensitive yet compelling narrative that provided a new origin story for the saga.

5. War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

War for the Planet of the Apes brings the saga of Andy Serkis’ Caesar to a clear and powerful close. After leading his fellow apes out of captivity in Rise and planting the seeds of their own civilization while attempting to peacefully co-exist with what’s left of humanity in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar finally guides his people toward freedom while battling a human militia led by the unhinged Colonel (Woody Harrelson). Caesar is overcome by his wounds and dies quietly at the end of War, somberly seeing his tribe arrive to their promised land but never entering it himself.

While a bit less tightly scripted than its two predecessors, War manages to pay homage to both the Apes franchise and classic Hollywood cinema overall. There are clear nods to films like Apocalypse Now, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and, in its final third, The Ten Commandments, as Caesar evolves into a Moses-like figure. Matt Reeves’ direction and screenplay (co-written with Mark Bomback) are thoughtful and thrilling, even if the narrative is not as well formed as that of Dawn. Meanwhile the digitally enhanced acting by Serkis and other ape performers like Karin Konoval and Terry Notary is just as stunning as ever. War was seen as a bit of a letdown after Dawn upon release, but is still an engaging finale to Caesar’s story.

4. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Easily the most violent and politically explicit of the Apes franchise, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes follows the original series’ Caesar (an outstanding Roddy McDowall), the son of apes-from-the-future Cornelius and Zira, as his exposure to human society—a totalitarian state where apes are now slaves to cruel human masters—turns him from a frightened circus performer into a fiery revolutionary. Caesar escapes death at the hands of a vicious governor (Don Murray) and leads the other apes in a rebellion that presages the inevitable downfall of humankind.

Written by Paul Dehn (who penned three of the original Apes sequels and worked on the fourth) and directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone), Conquest leans fully into its racial metaphor with the film’s ape revolt patterned in some scenes after footage of race riots that had occurred in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. The result is perhaps the darkest Apes movie of them all, the first one to earn a rating other than a G (it was rated “GP” back then, the predecessor to “PG”), and the first one in which the ending was reshot to make it slightly less bleak. Although as usual it’s hampered by a low budget, Conquest is still a visceral, frequently shocking entry that fully aligns its sympathies with the apes.

3. Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

The fact that a second Apes sequel was even produced, following the destruction of Earth itself in 1970’s Beneath, is something of a miracle. But what screenwriter Paul Dehn does is nothing short of brilliant, finding a way to not only extend the story but make it a self-perpetuating cycle and a fully developed cinematic saga. Escape acts as sequel, prequel, and reboot, delivering the best script of the original sequels, tight direction and a witty tone from journeyman director Don Taylor, and winning performances from series stalwarts Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall.

Hunter’s Zira and McDowall’s Cornelius, having escaped Earth’s demise in Charlton Heston’s salvaged ship, are flung back in time to the present where they are initially embraced as celebrities. But when it’s divulged that Zira is pregnant—with what could be the forefather of the intelligent ape species that will eventually overthrow humankind—things take a sinister turn. Cleverly, the story makes the apes the protagonists of the cycle, switching the allegiance of the viewer from humans to simians. It also brings the shape of that cycle fully into focus with the idea that Cornelius and Zira are essentially their own ancestors. With its smart script, nice balance of satire and suspense, and generally fresh spin, Escape is easily the best of the original sequels, even if it took ending the world to make the picture happen.

2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is not just a superior successor to Rise, but in terms of sheer quality filmmaking, storytelling, character-building, and thematic depth, lands right near the top of the franchise. Director Matt Reeves (taking over from Rise helmer Rupert Wyatt) delivers a work that is both a brilliant Apes film and a great piece of science fiction, period: Dawn is rich, gripping, frightening, and ultimately moving with a thoughtful, melancholy tone that is the hallmark of this series at its very best. Andy Serkis continues his groundbreaking work as Caesar, abetted by fellow ape performers Toby Kebbell and Karin Konoval. Meanwhile Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, and Gary Oldman provide the human leads.

Ten years after the events of Rise, the same lab-produced virus that boosted the intelligence of the apes has wiped out most of the world’s human population and led to the collapse of civilization. Caesar has established an orderly society of apes in the forests outside of San Francisco, but his attempts to work peaceably with a nearby community of human survivors eventually leads to conflict. Just as Rise loosely followed the narrative arc of Conquest, Dawn is even more lightly inspired, in the most bare-bones sense, by Battle. But Dawn expands on the story in much bigger and bolder strokes, complete with a trademark bleak ending. The imagination, intelligence, and storytelling power at work in Dawn is a rare achievement for the eighth film in a franchise that, at the time of its release, was nearly 50 years old.

1. Planet of the Apes (1968)

It may not have the budget, visual effects, or even production values of the more recent entries in the franchise, but there’s no question that the original Planet of the Apes remains the first and best of the entire series, as well as a bona fide science fiction classic. It provided not just the weird, surreal tone that would infuse the rest of the films, but it broke new ground in film makeup, helped elevate sci-fi cinema beyond drive-in fodder, and provided the template for the idea of a movie and its sequels telling a single, large-scale, continuing story instead of a new, unrelated adventure with each entry.

It’s also a knockout of a film, with Charlton Heston as the misanthropic astronaut George Taylor who travels 2,000 years into the future where he must defend himself (and by extension, the human race) after being captured by a society of highly intelligent, talking apes. Heston gives one of his best performances while the ape actors—Kim Hunter (Zira), Roddy McDowall (Cornelius), and Maurice Evans (Dr. Zaius)—create full, three-dimensional characters under John Chambers’ still-impressive prosthetics. And then there’s that final scene, one of the greatest twist endings in film history, where Taylor comes upon the buried Statue of Liberty and realizes he’s been home the whole time. Planet of the Apes is, in many ways, a perfect movie, and will likely remain the gold standard for all Apes films to come.

Doctor Who’s Rebooted “Season One” Is Doubling Down on Its Most Controversial Canon

This Doctor Who article contains spoilers.

From 1963 to 2020, the title character of Doctor Who belonged to an alien species from Gallifrey, generally known as Time Lords. Throughout the wibbly-wobbly Who canon, not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords, but all Time Lords were certainly two-hearted Gallifreyans, and the Doctor was always both. That is, until they weren’t. In the 2020 Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) episode “The Timeless Children,” it was revealed that the Doctor was actually the first Time Lord, and that the ability to regenerate was harvested from them, and then integrated into Time Lord culture. Basically, the Doctor was still a Time Lord, but the actual background of the originating species they hailed from, became a retroactive mystery.

And now, in the 2024 Doctor Who “season one” (or series 14, or season 40) the newly bi-generated Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) is mentioning this new canon a lot. Here’s how Doctor Who is honoring this controversial continuity change, and what it might mean for the future.

Back during the 2023 David Tennant and Catherine Tate specials, the Fourteenth Doctor referenced the idea that he didn’t actually know where he was from, a change from the last time he traveled with Donna as the Tenth Doctor. “Wild Blue Yonder” unpacked a lot of this for the new era of Who, essentially reasserting the idea that the canon created by former showrunner Chris Chibnall would be carried over into the second era of Russell T Davies. Then, the 2023 Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road” — the first full episode featuring Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor — continued this idea with the Doctor stating very clearly, “I was adopted.”

But, now that the new season is underway, it seems that the mysterious retcon of the Doctor’s origin isn’t being pushed to the background at all. If anything, the new episodes are bringing it up even more! In “Space Babies,” right off the bat, the Doctor makes note of the connections between events: Ruby is an orphan, the Doctor was an orphan, and all the space babies in “Space Babies” are orphans. Why are the Doctor’s new adventures already showing him echoes of his mysterious past?

In “The Devil’s Chord,” Maestro seems to know a lot about the Doctor, and even plays the Doctor Who-theme as in-universe diegetic music. They refer to the Doctor as “timey-wimey,” implying some knowledge of the Tenth or Eleventh Doctor’s use of that phrase, and also drop tantalizing hints about “The Oldest One” and “The One Who Waits.”

While it’s not a foregone conclusion that these mysterious characters will be tied to the Doctor’s background as “the Timeless Child,” it’s also very possible that’s exactly where some of this is leading. In a recent interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Davies said this of the Doctor’s new-ish status as a mysterious space orphan with several hidden lives: “That storyline’s a gift handed to me by Chris Chibnall, and it’s an honor to take it on from him…There’s so much story in it! We’re dealing with it in what we’re shooting now for Season 2.”

So, while Doctor Who will likely continue to make references to the idea that the Doctor is an orphan in the new season one, it also sounds like the “Timeless Child” canon will continue to unspool well into season two. For some fans this might be frustrating. As epic as the season 12 finale was back in 2020, nearly everything we’ve ever assumed about the Doctor was changed. And now, it seems, the new era will continue to change it further.

Then again, the revelations in “The Timeless Children,” did help explain the wonky continuity of “The Brain of Morbius,” in which the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) was revealed to have several faces which predated William Hartnell’s Doctor. Essentially, “The Timeless Children” took the 12-regenerations rule from “The Deadly Assassin,” and the mystery Morbius Doctors from “The Brain of Morbius,” and said yes, these are both canon.

In “Space Babies,” in explaining his background, the Fifteenth Doctor tells Ruby that the Time Lords “were posh, they used titles like the Doctor, or the Bishop or the Rani, or the Conquistador.” We’ve heard of the Rani, but, on the TV show at least, not the Bishop and the Conquistador. Because the Doctor’s past lives — the ones from before the First Doctor — are still in play, we could be getting hints about that hidden era through these brief asides.

Either way, throughout the new season of Doctor Who, and well into the next, the controversial canon shifts from the previous era of the show will endure. And if some fans don’t like it, it won’t matter. As several Doctors have pointed out “change” comes to the series all the time, and the thing about some changes is that those changes lead to even more…changes.

Doctor Who airs on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ in the US and around the world.

Doctor Who Series 14 Episode 2 Review: The Devil’s Chord

Warning: this Doctor Who review contains plot spoilers.

To use some technical musical terminology – this one’s a banger.

Like most fans, I was very intrigued when I heard that Russell T Davies would be returning as showrunner. Having decisively brought Doctor Who into the 21^st century, remade it in his own image and delivered a bona fide cultural phenomenon, Davies had subsequently gone on to make several other successful shows. It’s not like he needed to come back. He had nothing to prove. So it seemed safe to assume that if he was going return, it was because he had new ideas, new things he wanted to say, new experiments he was hungry to try out.

That was an exciting prospect. The Tennant specials had swagger, but they were something of a victory lap – comfortable 60^th anniversary reunions tying up loose ends, though obviously not without surprises (like bi-generation, something this episode suggests we probably won’t be seeing again for a while). Then “The Church on Ruby Road” and “Space Babies” were both preoccupied with setting up the new Doctor and companion, with interesting hints of a new direction.

But with “The Devil’s Chord”, it feels like the new era has decisively arrived. The swinging 1960s setting is a great choice, and not just because of the fashions (though they are naturally on point). It’s familiar enough to ground us, but not somewhere the show has spent much time since, well, the 1960s. And the focus on music, and its integration into the narrative and visuals, feels fresh and invigorating.

The episode doesn’t do a huge amount to unpack the concept that music is the only thing holding the human race together, but it’s a great concept regardless, and leads to some genuinely innovative places. We’ve seen Doctor Who villains suck the life out of people, but we’ve never seen them suck the music out of them, to be consumed like food, or wielded like a magic spell from a wand. We’ve never seen the Doctor trapped inside a drum, or the companion trapped inside a double bass. We’ve never seen Doctor and companion furiously duetting on a piano imbued with the potential energy of future Beatles albums while a demented god strikes back with vicious counter melodies from a violin.

Honestly, this review could just be a bullet point list of the episode’s cool details. The knocking from inside the piano, so simple yet so effectively creepy. The spine-chilling scene where the Doctor removes all the sound from the area, leaving Maestro silent and intrigued, which again feels like something we’ve never seen in this show before. Maestro using a tuning fork like a sonic screwdriver. The unsettling, fantastically realised flash forward to apocalyptic 2024 – and Millie Gibson’s heartbreaking “Where’s my mum”. The clever use of musical concepts like the titular chord, building on the ongoing theme of superstition intruding on reality, and Aeolian tones – set up as a throwaway, very Doctor-ish explanation (because of course he’d know the proper name for the phenomenon) then paid off with universally destructive consequences. Delightfully cheeky touches like Maestro playing the first notes of the theme tune to lead into the credits, and the Doctor’s “I thought that was non-diegetic” line. I could go on.

It’s a huge relief in some ways, because there were reasons to be apprehensive. Back in February, when it was announced that Sam Mendes would be directing four inter-linked Beatles biopics, it sounded like the toughest casting assignment of all time. There are few other bands where the general public is so intimately familiar with every member – whose voices, mannerisms and interpersonal dynamics are as well-known and beloved as their music. Then we heard that Doctor Who would also be casting versions of the Fab Four, and alarm bells started ringing – casting can be hit and miss, and if the Beatles were going to be a major presence in the episode, a misstep could conceivably have sunk the whole enterprise.

Happily, they pulled it off. George and Ringo have basically no lines – which I guess is appropriate – but Chris Mason and George Caple make a pretty solid John and Paul. While neither looks that much like their respective Mop Top, they capture just enough of their personalities to maintain the illusion, while also bringing a level of nuance that helps sell the quieter, more emotional moments – Mason’s voice cracking on “Why do I wake up crying” is particularly effective. It’s debatable whether the performances could have sustained heftier screen time, but they’re used just enough to resonate.

And ultimately, The Beatles aren’t actually the headline here – that’s Jinkx Monsoon.

Consistently funny and charming, Monsoon was the underdog winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season five. Her subsequent rise to Drag Race’s “Queen of All Queens”, Broadway star and now Doctor Who villain has been gratifying to see, and she is without a doubt the MVP of this episode.

Maestro is a big, meaty role, a showboating, show-stopping antagonist, and a character that could have been completely unbearable in the hands of a performer with less control of tone. But Monsoon knows when to go big and when to dial it back, when to laugh and when to snarl, when to be hilarious and when to be genuinely menacing, and needless to say she has the pipes for the singing. She brings a sardonic, capricious energy reminiscent of Michelle Gomez as Missy – in fact, like many, I wondered at first if the name “Maestro” was a clue that this was a new incarnation – though the character in no way feels like a retread. Connecting her to the Toymaker makes much more sense, and adds nicely to the foreboding sense of forces lurking out there beyond anything we’ve seen before.

All that said, not everything quite worked. Having the Doctor initially running and hiding from Maestro makes sense in context – as he says, his last encounter with a being like her “took everything, it literally tore my soul in half … I can’t survive that again”. However, coming immediately after “Space Babies”, in which the Doctor running and hiding from a monster was used as a plot point specifically because it felt wrong to him, the impact here is somewhat diminished.

Of course, this could just be a consequence of watching these two episodes back to back, and it was compelling to see the Doctor’s fear push him to think on his feet and adapt to the challenge of a villain operating on the level of mythology and metaphor. But when Ruby said “You never hide”, I found myself thinking… he kind of does, actually?

The episode’s continuity references were also hit and miss. While it was nice to have the Doctor point fondly over at Totter’s Lane, Susan – the granddaughter that the Doctor left, against her will, in a war-torn 22^nd century – feels like a can of worms best left unopened. Like the genocide of the Time Lords, the weight of the accumulated lore risks being a destabilising force, and while Davies might well be going somewhere with all this, in the context of this particular episode the moment feels too throwaway to satisfy veteran fans, while simultaneously raising a lot of questions that might confuse newer viewers.

And then there’s the twist at the end. Does it make sense to finish this episode, with all its musical references and multiple breakings of the fourth wall, with a big production number? Sure! But while the choreography is impressive, and full of fun little visual references to movies like Singin’ in the Rain and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the song itself is a bit lacklustre. As with the musical number from the Christmas special, it’s not really a strong point for Russell T Davies – so while this didn’t fall completely flat for me, like “The Goblin Song” did, it does feel like the show hitting a bit of a ceiling in terms of what it’s able to pull off.

But honestly, that’s okay. I respect big swings, and it’s great to see the show try new things. And ultimately there is so much to love in this episode – like the Doctor and Ruby taking turns to comfort each other, or little musical references to the likes of “Danse Macabre” and “Rhapsody in Blue”, or Maestro saying of Ruby that “this creature is very wrong”, or gleefully winking at us before viciously murdering a sweet old lady, or absolutely devouring the line “Lovesick songs for heartbroken lesbians”, or basically anything Maestro does, to be honest – it’s easy to forgive the odd bum note.

The orchestra has finished tuning up. On with the show.

Oh, and “The One Who Waits”? I’m calling it – it’s Rory Pond.

Doctor Who continues next week with “Boom” on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK, and on Disney+ in the US and around the world.

Doctor Who Series 14 Episode 1 Review: Space Babies

Warning: this Doctor Who review contains spoilers.

In the parlance of the times, we are so back.

After the three triumphant Tennant/Tate specials, I’ll confess that “The Church on Ruby Road” left me feeling slightly apprehensive. While an effective showcase for Ncuti Gatwa’s charisma, as a forecast for the new era I found it to be overly frenetic, bordering on slapdash. Christmas specials are always going to be broader affairs, but this one frequently felt like a first draft held together with little more than the raw enthusiasm of all involved.

Happily, “Space Babies” is more solid in every respect. It’s well structured, economical and – crucially – very entertaining. And while I doubt it will be topping many all-time favourite lists, that’s fine, because that’s not really its job.

A Doctor Who premiere, especially one doubling as the entry point into a new era, has a very specific set of goals to fulfil. It needs to establish something resembling the tone we can expect going forward (Matt Smith’s debut “The Eleventh Hour” is a great example of this – a comprehensive statement of intent that laid out a clear approach, even if certain elements ultimately didn’t stick). It needs to reiterate the core tenets of the show for new viewers, while simultaneously not harping on them too much in case veterans get bored. And it needs to show us why this Doctor and companion should want to spend the next however many episodes together – and why we should care.

In terms of setting up the premise, the opening of “Space Babies” is incredibly efficient. Picking up immediately where “The Church on Ruby Road” left off, the episode spends about five minutes setting the table, explaining the Doctor, the TARDIS and the Time Lords, while also whisking us off to a beautifully rendered prehistoric vista – mostly to show off the budget and bag some nice shots for the trailer, neither of which is a bad thing. It’s a sign of the show’s confidence that the gag with the butterfly and Ruby’s transformation, which could conceivably form the plot of an entire episode, is done and dusted inside of a minute. There’s even a mention of The Rani, for people who like that sort of thing.

And come minute six, we’re on the space station where we’ll spend the rest of the episode.

Efficiency really is the word here. This could have been a breathless jumble of continuity and exposition, but it’s delivered almost like screwball comedy, with Doctor and companion energetically bouncing lines off one another, Gibson’s mounting incredulity plays nicely against Gatwa’s easy confidence. Writer and showrunner Russell T Davies also takes a moment to set up one of the key themes of the episode (and, presumably, the season), that of adoption and orphanhood, seeding them as a handy means of connection for the Doctor and Ruby – and, later, the babies and the Bogeyman.

It’s an effective use of series 12’s Timeless Child revelation, and more emotionally resonant than the ‘Last of the Time Lords’ stuff, which Davies also gets out in the open pretty early. The Doctor emphasises that he’s “so glad to be alive”, but while it’s a smart choice to contrast this Doctor’s more philosophical perspective with the Ninth Doctor’s rage and the Tenth Doctor’s survivor’s guilt, it still feels somewhat like diminishing returns. Having already seen the Doctor dealing with the fallout of their people’s destruction for multiple seasons of New Who, it can’t help but carry less weight the second time round.

The efficiency continues once we land on the space station. As with “Wild Blue Yonder”, Davies shows how adept he is with this sort of setup, slowly piecing together what’s gone wrong, seeding little clues and details like the terrible smell and the Doctor’s unexpected fear of the Bogeyman. It works nicely on a structural level, but also in terms of character dynamics, giving Ruby the opportunity to ask questions and allowing the Doctor to fill her (and us) in on his two hearts, the broken chameleon circuit, the translation matrix, and so on. We also get some cracking dialogue, particularly from Gatwa – “No such thing as monsters, just creatures you haven’t met yet” and “Push the button” are vintage Doctor lines that you can fully imagine being spoken by previous incarnations, while “Most of the universe is knackered, babes” also feels very Doctor-y, but in a way unique to this one.

You’ll notice that I’ve made it nearly 1,000 words without really discussing the babies (sorry, space babies. That was one running gag that probably didn’t need so many repetitions). I imagine they’ll be a deal breaker for some viewers, as they are extremely goofy – though very much in the Russell T Davies vein of goofiness that gave us the Adipose, so not unprecedented (series four opener “Partners in Crime” is probably the key blueprint for “Space Babies”).

Personally I’m fine with goofiness – Doctor Who contains more multitudes than most, which is why I love it – and while the decision to cast real babies and dub them over with zero attempt to sync the dialogue with their mouths is certainly a choice, uncanny CGI mouths (or god forbid entirely CGI babies, à la The Flash) would have been orders of magnitude worse. Ultimately it’s just one of those effects that you have to get used to, and the episode gives the babies and their world enough personality that I was able to look past it.

The actual story, once we get to the meat of it – baby making space station abandoned due to a financial crisis but not switched off because of some warped ‘pro-life’ philosophy – isn’t hugely consequential, though I welcomed the episode making it clear that this system is a problem. It’s more about interesting world-building, like the Bogeyman’s (enjoyably disgusting) true nature, and character beats – guest star Golda Rosheuvel doesn’t have a huge amount of screen time but she makes the most of it and gives us a sense of a real person under tremendous stress, which makes her tearful breakdown at the end feel earned.

In terms of showing us why this Doctor and this companion should go off and travel time and space together, it really works. Gatwa and Gibson both get lots of different moods to play, and both bring their A-game. Gatwa absolutely inhabits his Doctor, who is by turns playful, commanding, introspective, soulful and alien, and gives us lots of lovely little moments – I loved him weaponising his beaming, irresistible smile to distract Ruby from the mysterious snow. The character also felt consistent with previous incarnations while being very much himself – it’s hard to imagine Peter Capaldi hugging Poppy, for example, but Gatwa’s quietly empathetic response to her heart-breaking “Are we wrong?” is easy to imagine coming from Jodie Whittaker or Matt Smith.

Gibson, meanwhile, gets to be inquisitive, terrified, angry, sassy, maternal and melancholy, all of which she manages to weave together into a coherent personality. Ruby is also believably competent, and the first to start putting the pieces together about the nature of the Bogeyman with her observation that “it’s a children’s story come to life”. By the end of the episode, you can see why she wants to travel with the Doctor, and why the Doctor would want her to come with him.

And what of the signs for the season in general? Mostly positive. The editing is occasionally over-caffeinated – particularly in dialogue scenes, weirdly – and Murray Gold frequently does his Murray Gold thing of leaving zero ambiguity about the emotional content of a scene. I’m also not sure we needed all those repeated lines and flashbacks to tell us why the Doctor chooses to save the Bogeyman – there’s thematic clarity and then there’s unnecessary hand-holding.

But it was good that the episode took some time to slow down for quieter moments, like Ruby’s awed reaction upon seeing space for the first time, and the pretty electrifying flashback with the snow, so if the production team can find a happy medium between these moods, we should be golden. The whole thing also looks gorgeous, and Davies is clearly having a lot of fun, teasing out some of the threads from last year’s specials about superstition and storybook logic intruding on reality (while also finding room for a fart gag). I’m also intrigued by the hints of conflict between Doctor and companion over Ruby’s desire to go back in time and find her mother. Did we need another Impossible Girl with a mysterious backstory to be uncovered? Maybe not, but the seeds are compelling enough that I’m happy to wait and see where it goes.

I’m pretty happy in general, in fact.

We’re so back.

Doctor Who airs on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, and on Disney+ in the US and around the world.

Shogun Season 2 Just Inched Closer to Being Confirmed

The possibility of a second season for FX’s brilliant drama Shōgun just increased dramatically.

While rumors of a hypothetical second season have persisted since season 1 wrapped on April 23, Shōgun season 2 is now closer to reality than ever. Today Deadline reported that FX had cut a deal with Shōgun producer and lead actor Hiroyuki Sanada to return for a second season. Obviously, there are many other line-items that must be checked off before creating a season of television, but getting the star to put pen to paper on a contract suggests that the network (and its corporate parent Disney) is serious about this thing. The news also comes as somewhat of a surprise given the show’s ending.

In our own breakdown on the potentiality of a Shōgun season 2, we noted that it would be difficult to continue the story of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Sanada) and his establishment of the Edo Period. The 10-episode series ends confidently and concretely as does James Clavell’s 1975 book of the same name upon which it is based. Even Shōgun‘s first adaptation in 1980 was a TV miniseries that received no followup. One thing that we forgot, however, is that where there’s a will, there’s a way. And when there’s a lot of money involved, it’s pretty easy to find a will.

Shōgun was a major success for Disney, pulling in millions of viewers across FX, Disney+, and Hulu. But that doesn’t make moving past the source material any less risky, as the latter seasons of Game of Thrones could tell you.

Given the fact that Sanada is back in the fold, it does seem as though Shōgun season 2 will be a direct continuation and not an anthology as many suspected. Including Shōgun, Clavell wrote six historical books set in Asia known as “The Asian Saga.” One of these books, Gai-Jin, is set in Japan during the 1860s and features one on Lord Yoshii Toranaga’s descendants. If Sanada is to return as the actual Toranaga, that precludes the series from depicting his descendant in a 200-year time jump.

Deadline‘s story about Sanada returning to Shōgun season 2 was accompanied by reporting that FX is seriously considering submitting the show in the “Outstanding Drama Series” category at the Emmys rather than the “Outstanding Limited Series” category. With HBO juggernaut Succession no longer on the air, the drama category has become up for grabs. Meanwhile, the Limited Series roster looks to be as competitive as ever with shows like Baby Reindeer, True Detective: Night Country, and Ripley all vying for the trophy.

This raises the possibility that FX is engaging in some shrewd politicking that would make Toranaga proud. There is no such thing as the “Industry Awards Show Police Department.” Nothing is stopping Disney from submitting Shōgun as a drama even if it was intended to be a limited series. Still, Shōgun winning the drama award and then never producing additional seasons could rub many folks in the industry the wrong way. By signing a contract with Sanada and creating a paper trail for a second season they may never intend to create, Disney would be buying good will and generating plausible deniability.

Is that what’s happening here? Probably not. Is it far more likely that a network merely wants another season of a successful show? Almost definitely. Has conspiratorial thinking rotted my brain down to the stem? Absolutely. But that doesn’t change the fact that enacting a grand Crimson Sky-esque plot to win an award would be the perfect way to pay homage to Lord Yoshii Toranaga and Shōgun.

Link Tank: Frank Grillo Joins the Cast of Peacemaker for Season 2

Frank Grillo is no stranger to comic book properties, and he should be a perfect fit for season 2 of Peacemaker.

“Frank Grillo has been cast in Season 2 of James Gunn‘s popular DC series Peacemaker. Gunn announced the news Friday on Instagram, revealing Grillo will reprise the role of Rick Flag Sr. the character he voices in Gunn’s upcoming animated series Creature Commandos.”

The Fantastic Four Movie Must Feature the Most Tragic Galactus Moment Ever

It’s official. Galactus is coming to the MCU.

After months of speculation, Marvel officially announced that they’ve found their Galactus. Ralph Ineson, a Game of Thrones veteran known for standout supporting roles in The Witch and The Green Knight, will portray the Devourer of Worlds. Ineson’s casting comes on the heels of other compelling announcements for its upcoming film The Fantastic Four, including Paul Walter Hauser and John Malkovich. Marvel hasn’t yet disclosed which characters those two are playing, but the smart money has Hauser down for the Mole Man. Malkovich could fit a number of characters, including minor baddies Puppet Master or Diablo, including just a grouchy official. Heck, maybe he’ll finally get to play a version of the Vulture, as he was slated to do in Sam Raimi’s abandoned Spider-Man 4!

While any of those baddies would be fun, the Galactus casting deserves the most attention. As readers likely remember (whether they want to or not), Galactus graced the screen in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. But of course he was visualized there as just a giant cloud—more of an impersonal entity than the character beloved by fans. In fact, that previous big screen Galactus only briefly took the big guy’s iconic shape, with a shadow in the cloud vaguely suggesting the beloved silhouette designed by Jack Kirby.

With the exception of Doctor Doom and the X-Men, Galactus has been the most highly anticipated character to come out of Disney’s purchase of 20th Century Fox, even more than the FF themselves. Still bitter about the Galactus cloud from Rise of the Silver Surfer, fans have wanted to see a comic’s accurate take. But the casting of Ineson suggests something even better, a richer and more tragic version of Galactus, as seen in some underrated Marvel Comics.

The Birth of Galactus

Galactus came from a high point in the first wave of 1960s Marvel Comics when Kirby and Stan Lee were at the peak of their powers. Fantastic Four perfectly combined Kirby’s high-concept storytelling with Lee’s melodramatic dialogue, embodying everything great about the Marvel Revolution. Stretching across Fantastic Four #48-50, The Galactus Saga introduced both Galactus and the Silver Surfer in a tale that felt more massive than any other comic book saga before it.

As wonderful as that story was, the Galactus in those issues wasn’t much of a character. He was simply an unknowable force. Which makes sense, as Kirby drew the story to be a battle between the Fantastic Four and God, something that Lee changed in the dialogue. However, in later tales, Galactus grew to be an actual person and, therefore, more pitiful.

Lee and Kirby revealed Galactus’ origin not in Fantastic Four, but in another favorite of theirs, Thor. In Thor #169 (1969), Galactus agrees to share his sad tale with the God of Thunder. Galactus was born Galan, an explorer from an advanced utopian planet called Taa. Despite all their achievements, Taa could not forestall the destruction of the universe. In a plot development that recalls not just the origin of the Silver Surfer, but that of Superman (a connection made explicit in the 1999 crossover Superman/Fantastic Four), a desperate Galan searches for a way to protect something of Taa.

Galan succeeds, after a fashion. Bathed in cosmic rays, Galan experiences the collapse of his universe and birth of the new universe. But when he awakens, he has changed, overcome with an insatiable hunger. Christened “Galactus” by the Watcher Uatu, Galan must now feed on planets to stay alive and preserve the glories of Taa.

The Sad and Lonely Death of Galan

As that story suggests, there’s a deep sadness in Galactus, a pathos within his awesome power. The best Galactus stories acknowledge that sorrow, including a moving single issue within a larger Silver Surfer series. Written by Donny Cates and illustrated by Tradd Moore, and with colors by Dave Stewart and letters by Clayton Clowes, the 2019 miniseries Silver Surfer Black mostly followed the Surfer’s battle against Knull, god of the Venom Symbiotes, deep within a black hole.

However, in Silver Surfer Black #4, the Surfer goes back in time to the source of his suffering. There he finds Galactus freshly emerged from his incubation chamber and just now realizing his new fate. The Surfer wants to kill Galactus, which would prevent him from losing his identity as Norrin Radd and let him stay on his planet Zenn-La with his beloved Shalla-Bal. But the Surfer pauses for a moment and allows Galactus to speak.

For most of the the series, Moore and Stewart combined to make psychedelic visuals, blending round, liquid line-work with vibrant colors, overwhelming the reader. But when the Surfer asks Galactus to remove his helmet and show his true face as Galan, Stewart mutes his colors and Moore chooses wide shots with symmetrical shapes. The change in art style gives the conversation between the Surfer and Galactus a sober tone, heightening its emotional stakes.

“What do I become?” Galan asks the Surfer, his plaintive face off-set by a light tan background. “Death,” answers the Surfer, looking fierce and righteous. The conversation lasts only a few pages, but it’s long enough for Galan to convince the Surfer that good does not spring from evil done against evil. These few pages reveal the depth of Galactus’s sorrow. In his desire to protect a planet he loved, he lost his identity as Galan. Worse, he must now inflict upon other planets the same fate done to his own, becoming what he hates.

The Multiversal Tragedy of Galactus

So necessary is this tragedy to the Galactus story that it reappears even in tales that don’t feature Galan as Galactus. In the 1999 alternate universe story Earth X by Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, and John Paul Leon, Reed Richards puts the universe in peril when he transforms Galactus into a star. Realizing that Galactus must be a universal constant, Reed’s all-powerful son Franklin takes the role, finally giving up his humanity.

During Jonathan Hickman’s wonderful Fantastic Four run from the 2010s, the team seeks help from Reed and Sue’s grown children Franklin and Valeria, who have been time-traveling with their father Nathanial. As in Earth X, Galactus is a universal constant, something that must be retained to defend reality from the Celestials. When the Celestials defeat Galactus, Franklin uses his powers to revive him and defeat the invaders. As a result, the adult Franklin takes the World Devourer role while Galactus becomes his herald.

Although out of main continuity, those last two instances may be important for The Fantastic Four. After all, we already suspect that the movie takes place during the 1960s in a universe alternate to the mainline MCU. And early plot rumors have suggested that Franklin plays a key role. Furthermore, we know that The Fantastic Four will feature Julia Garner’s Shalla-Bal as the Silver Surfer, not the traditional Norrin Radd. And Shalla-Bal’s most notable tenure as the Silver Surfer occurred in Earth X, as a herald for Franklin as Galactus.

Lastly, the current Multiverse Saga climaxes with the sixth Avengers movie, currently titled Avengers: Secret Wars. The most recent Secret Wars storyline, the one the MCU will most likely adapt, stems from Hickman’s Fantastic Four run, in which Galactus became Franklin’s Herald.

Sorrowful Galactus on the Silver Screen

Whether or not Ineson’s Galactus will be Galan the explorer or a future Franklin Richards, one thing is clear: his World Devourer cannot be a vast, unknowable force, but rather a person who continues to suffer for his mistake.

It’s hard to think of an actor better suited for that take than Ralph Ineson. Obviously, his rumbling baritone suggests power, as one would expect for Galactus. But Ineson excels at mingling pathos if not outright sorrow into his line deliveries. Take the warnings that his self-righteous Puritan William hurls against teen Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) in The Witch, which almost quiver with the fear of God and fear for his child. Take the declarations his Green Knight makes to Sir Gaiwan (Dev Patel) when the latter returns to face the creature after a fruitless yearlong quest in The Green Knight.

In each of these cases, Ineson’s performance communicates great strength. But he also includes a level of sadness, as if already regretful for the actions he must take. Even if The Fantastic Four doesn’t outright adapt Silver Surfer Black #4, that story and others provide a model for Ineson’s Galactus performance, helping him imagine the character as at once terrifying and heartbreaking.

After all, that’s the real Galactus, the one fans have wanted to see for so long.

The Fantastic Four releases to theaters on July 25, 2025.

Blood of Zeus Season 2 Ending Explained

This article contains spoilers for Blood of Zeus season 2.

Netflix has increasingly become the top place to turn for hard-hitting adult animation and Blood of Zeus immediately made waves upon its 2020 release. The Powerhouse Animation production remixes Greek mythology into an engrossing dark fantasy that feels like God of War meets Game of Thrones. Heron, the demigod son of Zeus, embarks on a bold and bloody journey for identity, autonomy, and authority that concludes the first season on an apocalyptic note where supernatural Giants storm Olympus and challenge its Gods. Blood of Zeus season 2 reaches such extreme heights that its freshman year almost seems quaint in comparison.

Zeus’ tragic death precipitates a terrifying power vacuum that throws Olympus into unprecedented chaos and lights a fire under Hades to steal his brother’s throne and claim what he believes to be his birthright. The growing war between Hades and Zeus, and Heron and Seraphim, reaches a frightening fever pitch by the end of the season that threatens to leave Olympus in even greater ruin than when the Giants attacked. Blood of Zeus’ second season repeatedly disrupts the status quo and concludes on a foreboding note that teases irrevocable consequences for the Greek pantheon.

Do Heron & Seraphim End Their Sibling Rivalry?

One of Blood of Zeus’ most rewarding dynamics is the rivalry between half-brothers, Heron and Seraphim. Their clash at the end of season 1 results in Seraphim’s death by Heron’s hand (and Zeus’ lightning), but this hardly means that Seraphim is out of the picture in season 2. Seraphim and Heron’s relationship grows more complicated as Blood of Zeus progresses and their parallel journeys are brilliantly juxtaposed against each other. Seraphim masters the bipdent’s true potential and is able to shift into a more sinister state that’s comparable to Heron’s own godly powers that continue to blossom. Seraphim comfortably fit the role of antagonist back in season one. However, he’s much of a dark deuteragonist in season two.

The season’s climax revolves around both Heron and Seraphim heading into the mysterious Hidden Realm to complete Gaia’s three trials, obtain the Eleusinian Stone, and rule over Olympus in the process. Both half-brothers excel through these trials, albeit in their own ways, before their paths finally cross at the end of their mission. Their personal journeys get interrupted by the rest of the Olympian Gods, but Heron and Seraphim understand that the most important lesson from the Three Trials is forgiveness. Leading a life that’s void of anger and resentment is the hardest trial of all and one that lasts for a lifetime. Heron initially seems to grasp this message more than his sibling, but Seraphim is there to protect Heron during the season’s final conflict. It’s a complete reversal of their dynamic in the first season’s finale.

Who Acquires The Eleusinian Stone & Becomes The Ruler Of Olympus?

The final episode of Blood of Zeus’ second season, “The Three Trials,” pits every faction against one another for the Eleusinian Stone. However, when the dust settles, it’s Heron who’s claimed the Stone and he seems ready for the steep challenges that come with ruling Olympus. Heron pledges a clean slate of forgiveness where everyone is able to finally ditch their destructive betrayal and duplicitous backstabbing. It looks like a Zeus-led Olympus may finally breed a conflict-free future, where everyone accepts their lots in life.

Unfortunately, Hades can’t stand the thought of being banished to the Underworld and separated from Persephone, so he strikes back and takes what he believes is owed to him. Hades slays Heron to acquire the Eleusinian Stone and become Olympus’ new leader. It’s a devastating blow and Hades isn’t even able to enjoy his victory before Gaia crashes the party and condemns his selfish insolence. Olympus still lacks a proper ruler when Blood of Zeus’ second season comes to a close.

Zeus’ extremely short-lived tenure as Olympus’ new leader indicates that the true challenge in Blood of Zeus’ third season will not be who takes over Zeus’ throne, but who’s able to maintain said position in the face of turmoil, treachery, and Gaia’s judgment. Seraphim’s journey through the second season indicates that he may be destined to sit upon this royal throne, especially now that Heron is evidently eliminated. This could be the start of a rewarding redemption arc for the conflicted character where Heron’s death lights a fire under Seraphim that helps him see the light when it comes to his father’s wicked ways and his half-brother’s heroism.

Who Is Typhon?

Blood of Zeus season 2 begins with a reminder of how pernicious the Giants were when they last threatened Olympus’ Gods in combat. However, Gaia teases one supreme Titan who’s a greater threat than all 12 giants combined — Typhon. Typhon gets teased early in the season as a destructive fail-safe measure. Typhon is such a formidable threat that Gods aren’t even allowed to utter his name, lest he be summoned back into existence. Blood of Zeus’ second season ends with a disappointed and disgruntled Gaia reciting Typhon’s name three times and bringing him back to Olympus. This ritual seemingly shatters the Eleusinian Stone and its magic is used to resurrect Typhon the Titan.

Typhon is traditionally viewed as Zeus’ archenemy and the one being who’s managed to conquer Zeus by tearing loose his divine tendons. Typhon’s full history has yet to be revealed in Blood of Zeus, but it’s a series that gleefully remixes Greek mythology as it sees fit. Mythology describes Typhon as a monster that’s a chimera of man and snake, albeit with one hundred heads and elemental powers like the ability to breathe fire and manipulate wind.

Typhon’s appearance in Blood of Zeus is largely obscured, especially during the finale’s concluding moments. However, he exudes raw power even if his design strays from his mythological roots. Typhon’s express purpose is to eliminate the Olympian Gods and usher forth the Titans’ freedom, which is exactly what seems to be in motion as the climactic season comes to an end.

What’s Ahead For Blood of Zeus Season 3?

The brief context that Blood of Zeus has provided for the Titans is that they were once equals to the Gods, before they were defeated and banished to darkness. This previous war between Gods and Titans resulted in the birth of the Giants, who came to be when the last Titan’s blood made contact with the sea.

Zeus and his Gods were narrowly able to defeat the Giants during the Gigantomachy conflict, but it stands to reason that Typhon and his Titans will pose an even greater challenge, especially now that major Olympian players are out of the picture. Survival might very well come down to Heron’s return to Olympus and unprecedented cooperation taking place between not only Heron and Seraphim, but also Hades and Zeus, and Hera and Persephone.

Gaia celebrates Typhon’s rebirth as the end of the Olympians and a new age of Titans. This may seem severe, considering that Gaia has guided Heron to success through the season, but the Gods’ perpetual follies and greed pushes Gaia past her breaking point and into judgment day. This seemingly triggers Blood of Zeus’ own Ragnarok-style armageddon narrative that could ostensibly explain how these Gods meet their end and why they’re not around anymore.

Creators Charley Parlapanides and Vlas Parlapanides have stated that they have a five-year plan for Blood of Zeus, which would put this Titan and God war at a crucial turning point in the series’ narrative. Blood of Zeus season 3 – which has yet to be confirmed by Netflix – promises more than simply the blood of Zeus on the Titans’ hands. There’s the potential for all-out deity death, doom, and destruction.

Blood of Zeus season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.

How Mega Man Ended Up With the Worst Video Game Box Art Ever

When a property runs long enough, there are adaptations and versions of the characters that become infamous for being so off the mark and bizarre. There’s that time when Dennis Hopper played Bowser as a politician with silly hair in a dinosaur dystopia. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles once went on tour as a rock band. The United States made a Godzilla movie so bad that the monster was later killed within seconds in a fight against the true Godzilla. The animated series Captain N: The Game Master once introduced Alucard as a radical skateboarding teenager with sunglasses.

Captain N also gave us a terrible take on Mega Man, making him an annoying toddler-looking guy with a froggy voice. That isn’t the most infamous version of the Blue Bomber…even if he wasn’t even blue. No, that honor goes to the character on the cover of the first Mega Man game.

Oh, no, no, no. That’s Rock Man for the Famicom. Totally different in that it looks like a good rendition of the hero and his enemies. We’re talking about this North American box art for the NES version of Mega Man:

It’s the thing of legends. Imposed over the 80s-as-hell grid design is this watercolor quagmire featuring a middle-aged man who vaguely looks like Mega Man in front of a burning cityscape that is both overly busy and ugly. Mega Man himself has the sleeve equivalent of Hammer Pants, a handgun, and a yellow and blue color scheme. Strangely, Mega Man’s powers are all about him changing color schemes, but none of his seven options in the game include this color combination.

It’s not just the accuracy of the design. The anatomy of the stance is all out of whack, from Mega Man’s lack of neck to the asymmetric nature of how his legs apparently work. Even the watercolor choice fails to make this pop as a futuristic action adventure, instead feeling more like a page of a coloring book about the Easter Bunny. That background laser grid is doing some heavy lifting.

It’s a baffling beginning for one of gaming’s most famous characters that raises a very important question…

How Did This Happen?

Who is the artist behind this infamous box art? Oddly enough, nobody seems to know for sure, even with there being a signature under the rightmost yellow dome…platform…thing. What the hell even is that?

The “Who?” of this cover may be a mystery, but we do know a little more about the “How?” and “Why?” In 2003, G4 released an Icons episode about the Mega Man series, which was even included as an unlockable in the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. Briefly, Chris Beiniek of Tips & Tricks went into the story behind the box art.

“The box art for the first Mega Man game in the US was done very quickly. The President of Capcom US said to his marketing guy, you know, ‘We need a cover done TOMORROW,’ and he went and got a friend of his to do it in like six hours, and that’s the reason why it turned out so bad.”

There is no source to these claims, but again, this was thrown onto an official Mega Man release, so there’s at least an air of legitimacy to it. Luckily, the story is mostly corroborated nearly a decade later, as former Capcom USA Vice President Joe Morici shared his perspective in an interview with Game Developer.

“The reason it was so bad was because we had literally 24 hours to turn it around. Nintendo said, ‘We need your artwork by tomorrow.’ Somebody worked all night long to come up with this garbage-looking box, and then we released it because we had no choice.”

Still nothing about the identity of the crunched artist, but I’m sure whoever they are, they’re probably perfectly fine with keeping it that way.

The Overshadowed Back of the Box

Something that rarely gets talked about with the otherwise infamous North American box for Mega Man is that the back is nearly as unhinged as the front. The rush job (no pun intended) goes together with some really rough translations of what the game is about.

“It’s MEGA MAN versus the powerful leaders and fighting forces of Monsteropolis – that strange multi-layered land of robot-like Humanoids created by the wrongly-performed experiments with human beings by Dr. Wily,” reads the opening of the game’s description. “For he dares to single-handedly penetrate Monsteropolis’ seven separate societies to stop the rapid expansion of strange misrepresentations of humans.”

That word salad goes on for a few paragraphs, accompanied by a single in-game image, which is merely the boss menus select screen. If the front of the box doesn’t make it clear that Mega Man’s NES packaging was the result of several miscommunications or a complete lack of relevant information, the back of the box certainly will.

Mega Man isn’t the only bizarre Capcom hero appearance here, as this release is part of the “Captain Commando Challenge Series.” What that means is that failed Capcom mascot Captain Commando appears on the back cover and in the manual. It was basically just fancy branding for any and all Capcom NES games released during its early years. Interestingly, Captain Commando has yet to adopt his more well-known design from his self-titled beat ‘em up game where he looks like Scott Summers as a blond cyborg sheriff. Here, he’s some kind of elderly gunslinger from space with gold medallions around his neck and a popped collar.

Later releases dropped the Captain Commando branding, added a few more in-game screenshots, and cut some of the text. The text that remains is still a mess and includes the above paragraph about “robot-like Humanoids,” but hey, progress is progress.

The damage done by this box was more than superficial. Mega Man was not a best seller for Capcom. Some sources claim it sold somewhere around half a million copies, but that includes international sales and later purchases when the franchise had started to catch on. Game artist and later series producer Keiji Inafune would claim in interviews for Play and Nintendo Power that he thought the North American box art did a ton of damage on that front, though he might have only been half-joking. Luckily, the game had good word of mouth and didn’t die on the vine.

The Road to Improvement

North American Mega Man box art never hit the lows of that first entry, but it still took a little time for them to become truly accurate. The cover for Mega Man 2 is notable for being off in its own way, as Mega Man, Quick Man, and Crash Man come off as more Western superheroes than stout robot men. The thing that sticks out is that once again, Mega Man is wielding a pistol instead of an arm cannon.

This time, we have some real answers behind what’s going on with this one, as artist Marc Ericksen explained the artistic choice in a 2012 interview with Nintendo Age. As he put it, he and the art director were shown a beta run of the game with no reference to the Japanese art. Ericksen was confused at the pixel art of Mega Man shooting because it wasn’t apparent to him that Mega Man’s gun was an extension of his arm. He was confused by what he was firing out of.

The art director shrugged and assumed Mega Man was using a pistol as it certainly couldn’t have been a rifle. Luckily, Ericksen had a day and a half to work on his cover, so it wasn’t quite as rushed. Plus, it looks pretty cool in its own right and successfully illustrates that Mega Man is a colorful action game much better than its predecessor.

The following games finally figured out how to display the proper Mega Man look, though Mega Man tended to sport that Sonic the Hedgehog-style smirk. He was also typically portrayed as being incredibly jacked for…reasons.

That isn’t the end of the road for the original Mega Man art style, though. When the retro-style Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 were released in 2008 and 2010, they debuted with mock box art in the style of those early releases. Granted, this time they were intentional artistic misunderstandings of the source material.

Actually, there was a bit of a renaissance of that “classic” Mega Man art style throughout the 2010s. In 2010, a stop-motion animated trailer for Mega Man Universe depicted the game as a kind of customizable remake of Mega Man 2. Box Art Mega Man made a stinger cameo, revealing that he would be playable. A month later, a demo was playable at New York Comic Con, allowing you to play as Box Art Mega Man, as well as other incarnations of the Super Fighting Robot.

Around that same time, Street Fighter X Tekken was announced. Not only would the game feature heroes and villains from the two fighting games, but the PlayStation 3/Vita versions included exclusive fighters, such as Pac-Man in a Mokujin mech and Mega Man. Not just any Mega Man, though, but a fat, gun-toting human designed to look like Box Art Mega Man.

A joke for sure, but one that shouldn’t have stung due to the then-upcoming releases of Mega Man Universe, Mega Man Legends 3, and Maverick Hunter. The problem was that all three of those games were eventually canceled. To rub a little more salt in the wound, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and its Ultimate upgrade made jokes about keeping Mega Man out of the game. So the only playable Mega Man we’d see for years was this dumpy, middle finger of a guest character. Fans were not happy.

The Box Art Mega Man Legacy

Box Art Mega Man would continue to receive the occasional reference, like making cameos in both the first and final issues of Archie’s Mega Man comic series. More recently, he appeared as a poster and action figure in the Resident Evil 3 Remake.

It’s funny, there are countless video game box cover designs out there and there are only a few that have us scratching our heads and wondering what the story was behind them. We’re talking about the nightmarish orb faces on Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition or the confused, old man playing a banjo on Phalanx. Yet, Mega Man had one of the worst, ugliest, most inaccurate, and potentially detrimental pieces of box art in gaming history, and fan culture has learned to laughingly celebrate it.

Just because something was dumb at the time doesn’t mean it needs to be hidden away forever. Such things should be flaunted as part of a greater whole. Make it fun. Have Deadpool make regular references to how silly his mouthless Baraka design was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Have Star Wars characters bring up Life Day and Jaxxon the Rabbit like it’s a normal thing. Make the ugly Sonic the Hedgehog design from the first movie trailer his own character.

Once upon a time, a rushed artist armed with pastels on a paintbrush turned a dynamic, wide-eyed video game sprite into a badly-dressed, squatting gunman who looked like he was way too old for this shit. And you know what? At the end of the day, we as a society are better for it.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Easter Egg Is the Best Callback to the 1968 Movie Yet

This article contains spoilers for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

At the end of Planet of the Apes, the human astronaut who strove to understand the strange, simian-occupied planet made a shocking discovery. Horror overwhelms him as he struggles to make sense of the honored American monument before him, now barely recognizable.

Of course, that description can refer to the twist ending of the 1968 sci-fi classic, in which Charlton Heston falls on his knees at the sight of a decimated Statue of Liberty, realizing that he has been on a post-nuclear Earth the whole time. However, it also describes the less loved 2001 Planet of the Apes, directed by Tim Burton. In that film, Mark Wahlberg’s astronaut makes it back to the past only to find an ape version of the Lincoln Monument.

On a narrative level, the ending of 2001 Apes makes no sense, not even to Burton. But the explanation for the Lincoln reveal is obvious. The 2001 movie is calling back to the 1968 film.

Although much better than Burton’s outing, the modern Apes franchise that started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes has plenty of nods to the original, complete with a charge against a “damn dirty ape.” But the funniest and most effective callback of all may be found in the latest entry, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Throughout the film, young Chimp Noa of the Eagle Tribe has encountered a human woman (Owen Teague). Like most apes, Noa dismisses the woman as a nuisance, an unspeaking example of what he calls “Echoes.” Noa’s views start to change through the teachings of the wise Orangutang Raka (Peter Macon), whose faith in Caesar compels him to treat them with mercy. That kindness emboldens the woman to get close to Raka and Noa, allowing them to see her in full.

With joy in his eyes and the score rising, Raka declares, “We shall call her… Nova.” Director Wes Ball allows a pause after Raka’s statement, allowing the audience to take in what they have just heard. “Nova” is of course the name of the feral human woman played by Linda Harrison in the 1968 movie, who is befriended and named by Heston’s Taylor. The space allows audience members to nod in recognition, to feel good about the connection between the two films, or explain the line to their watching partners (whether they want to or not).

But no sooner does the familiarity set in than Raka continues. “We call them all ‘Nova,'” he says with resignation. “I don’t know why. It must be something from Caesar’s time.”

First of all, we must acknowledge that this is a very funny joke. Following the style of the other modern Planet of the Apes movies, screenwriter Josh Friedman favors big literary and Biblical allusions that aid philosophical arguments about the nature of society. This isn’t to say that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is completely devoid of humor (it is, after all, a movie about talking chimps). But it is capital “S” serious science fiction.

In fact, the “Nova” gag serves two important functions. When Raka attributes the naming convention to “Caesar’s time,” he continues the practice of misremembering the past, which both he and the villain Proximus (Kevin Durand) do as they deify Caesar. Although relatively harmless, suggesting that Caesar gave all human women the name Nova only reminds the viewers that interpretation comes less from first-hand knowledge and more from individual interpretation.

However, on a more functional level, the joke puts callbacks into perspective.

In this era of constant remakes, sequels, and legacy sequels, references and callbacks have become an expected part of modern blockbusters. And in almost every single instance, they’re terrible.

Why in the world does Batman walk into the cave and say, “You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts” in The Flash? Why would John Harrison shout his name “Khan” in Star Trek Into Darkness, even though that means nothing to this version of Kirk and Spock? Why does at least one character in every Terminator movie need to say “I’ll be back” or “Come with me if you want to live”?

The answer is simple. The audience expects them. The callbacks are ways to flatter the audience’s ability to recognize things they know. It’s the equivalent of a hipster t-shirt for a band “you’ve probably never heard of,” even though the wearer really, really wants you to have heard of the band and acknowledge their great taste.

To be sure, references can be powerful, as when they reframe a familiar line in a new and exciting context. Surprisingly, just such an example occurs in the 2001 Planet of the Apes. When Charlton Heston repeats his famous line “Damn them all to Hell” for that movie, this time as an aged ape talking about a gun, the line regains a power lost since it was used to describe a nuclear weapon—not least of which because of Heston’s role in the NRA.

However, these are outliers. In most cases, even harmless references clang and distract. When Tom Felton’s character gets overwhelmed by the hooting apes in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he shouts, “It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!” The line is nothing like the authentic expression of a real character and exactly like a movie quote. Which, of course, it is.

When Raka pauses after stating the name “Nova,” he lets the audience have their self-satisfied moment. But then he crushes that sense of superiority by dismissing the reference as unimportant outside of its role in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. In other words, it tells the audience to stop looking elsewhere for meaning and enjoy the movie itself.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is in theaters now.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Ending Might Have Set Up Fan Favorite Character

This article contains Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes spoilers.

The penultimate scene in Wes Ball’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes might be its most important. The chimpanzee they call Noa (Owen Teague) and the young human woman he learns is Mae (Freya Allan) stand at a crossroads for their characters and their species. Despite Noa generally disliking humans, or “echoes,” for their smell and their ignorance, he’s grown attached to Mae, perhaps not least of all because she’s revealed herself to be as intelligent as an ape—if not more so.

Yet Mae, as we learn over the course of the movie, not only retains the intelligence of the species that once dominated this planet but is also the daughter of a thriving remnant of human civilization—men and women who keep the history of what the world was before the Simian Flu reduced us to cattle. And she too has come to care for Noa. But she’s ultimately only human. Hence how in the climactic sequence of the movie, upon realizing that Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) was about to gain access to human firearms, Mae chose to flood the entire silo. She told Noa “I’m sorry” beforehand and then detonated an explosive that could—and very well nearly did—drown the chimp and his entire tribe.

Which brings us back to that bittersweet reunion. At the end of the movie, they are each able to recognize the soulfulness in a species they previously considered lesser, but there can be no trust. Mae in particular has revealed humanity’s intelligence goes hand-in-hand with their duplicity. Look no further than the telling shot of a pistol hidden in Mae’s hand… just in case she needs to put Noa down. It’s the Planet of the Apes franchise in a nutshell. Humans are by our nature covetous and dangerous.

And humanity still has a much bigger role to play in future POTA movies than viewers might have expected when they walked into the cinema. While Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was sold as a new beginning of the series with apes fully in dominance of the Earth, the closing moments of the new film reveal a persistent strand of humanity is hoping to stage a comeback—and before flooding that Silo, Mae might’ve obtained a critical weapon. While we do not know exactly what the technology she stole involved, it clearly gave smart humans the ability to use satellites and communicate with… someone.

What the Ending Cliffhanger Means for the Series

“I thought it was a cool idea that in the beginning you think this is an ape story, and it turns out it’s actually an ape and a human story,” writer-director Ball said when speaking with our own Don Kaye. “The relationship between them is going to be crucial and very important moving forward. And in the end, literally a door opens to reveal there is a much larger world to be explored in the future.”

Ball remains cryptic on what that ending exactly means, and indeed wants audiences to puzzle over where these humans have been. “I imagine there are still many out there, and they’ve somehow been able to survive and they’re starting to move back into places, and trying to turn things back on, to bring back [that] former glory.” But what does former glory mean in a world ruled by monkeys? Well if you paid close attention to the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ending, you might have gotten A PRETTY BIG CLUE.

During the closing montage, as Mae watches ancient satellite dishes move into position for the first time in centuries, and the control room she aided makes contact with someone out there who has been desperate to hear another human voice, Noa is meanwhile returning to the decrepit observatory he and Mae discovered near the start of the movie. Back then, Noa became fascinated with something he could see in a telescope. It likewise caught Mae’s attention. We never did learn exactly what they were looking at, but when Noa returns to the observatory the film jarringly cuts to a faded mural of an astronaut on the wall. At the same time we see that astronaut floating there, we hear a disembodied human voice express relief at discovering another soul is out there in the aether.

… In other words, there seems to be a strong implication that Mae’s human colony is radioing not someone else across the globe, but someone among the stars. Could Planet of the Apes be bringing some astronauts from centuries past back into the narrative? For those mostly familiar with this franchise thanks to the recent 2010s trilogy starring Andy Serkis, the idea might sound bizarre. After all, we are told “many generations” have passed between the events of War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) and Kingdom. Some press material suggests even more than 300 years have gone by. How could anyone be alive up there?

The answer, of course, is this wouldn’t be the first time Planet of the Apes relied on Einstein’s theory of relativity to bring the 20th century man (or maybe now the 21st) into contact with a world ruled by apes.

“In less than an hour, we’ll finish our six months out of Cape Kennedy, six months in deep space. By our time that is,” Charlton Heston’s Col. George Taylor famously muses in the first scene of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes. “According to [the theory of relativity], the Earth has aged nearly 700 years since we left it while we’ve aged hardly at all.” By arguably being the first science fiction film to address the mind-bending effects of time dilation on space travel, Planet of the Apes was able to set up the motherlode of all twist endings when Taylor eventually discovers the alien planet ruled by apes he crashed onto is actually Earth.

Now nearly 60 years later, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes appears eager to deliberately leave the door ajar for the franchise to go the long-way round to the same narrative setup, with our idea of modern humans coming to a planet ruled by apes. Only this time, we are seeing the situation from the apes’ point-of-view. This has already been teased once before with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes featuring a newspaper headline asking if beloved astronauts have become “lost in space.”

There seems every reason to speculate that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is picking up on that thread, and the mysterious object Noa and Mae were watching is the same source of that satellite communication at the end: found astronauts who will bring a distinctly different perspective on Noa’s world.

Batman: Caped Crusader Just Revealed New Versions of Classic Dark Knight Characters

As wonderful as X-Men ’97 has been, even the most devoted Marvel Zombie has to admit that the gold standard of superhero animation remains Batman: The Animated Series. Created by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski, the show told some of the all-time greatest stories about the Dark Knight, and even launched an ongoing universe with Justice League, Batman Beyond, and Static Shock.

So when Warner Bros. announced Batman: Caped Crusader from Timm, fans took notice, especially with J.J. Abrams and The Batman director Matt Reeves on board as producers. Despite a near disaster when Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav declined to distribute the completed series, as is his wont, the show found a home on Amazon Prime Video.

Even better, we now know when the series is premiering on the streamer: Aug. 1. We also have our first look at the characters and setting of Batman: The Caped Crusader, which blends the familiar with the all-new designs.

Batman: Caped Crusader - Dr. Harleen Quinzel — Photo: Prime Video

Gotham City

Where Batman: The Animated Series, like the Tim Burton Batman movies that inspired it, remained ambiguous about its time frame, Caped Crusader is committing. Leaning into the character’s roots in early DC Comics and film noir, the show will take place in the 1940s.

“James [Tucker, character designer] and I are both really big fans of movies from that era, so we decided to really lean into that in terms of the clothes, the cars, the architecture, and the level of technology,” Timm told EW. “Early on, we decided there would be no computers and no cell phones. That changed everything.”

Thus, there’s a classic Hollywood gleam to the characters and the city, complete with matinee idol and screen-siren charm of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.

Batman

With a lithe body instead of the barrel-chested figures of The Animated Series, the new Batman certainly jumps out at viewers. Then again, “new” may not be the right word. With his tiny gloves and outwardly pointed ears, this Caped Crusader has a lot in common with the original Bill Finger and Bob Kane design that debuted in 1939’s Detective Comics #27.

At this point, it’s not clear if Caped Crusader will be another Year One-type story, but with Timm and Tucker taking their cues from Golden Age comics, it seems likely. To that end, the show will avoid the psychological complexity that writers have given Bruce Wayne over the years, making him a distinct and interesting character. Timm has a more straightforward take for Caped Crusader.

“He’s a really weird human being. He’s not obsessed with his parents’ murder, but it changed him in a way where he’s still not adjusted to being a human being,” Timm explained. “He’s literally Batman; inside, that’s who he is. Whenever he’s Bruce Wayne, that’s not just him with a mask off, that’s him wearing a person suit. He’s trying to pretend to be something that he’s not.”

Catwoman

Like Batman, Catwoman goes back to her roots. Gone are the black or gray skin-tight suits she sported in other shows and movies.

Instead, she’s wearing a stylish purple dress, which is very similar to her second costume in the comics. This version of Catwoman retains her green cape, a delightful element quickly dropped from later outfits on the page.

“We didn’t want to do the B:TAS Catwoman or the version that Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke did in the early 2000s with the practical leather jumpsuit,” Timm admitted. “So we thought, well, let’s go all the way back to the beginning. I love the original look that she had in the ’40s. It’s purple!” While they didn’t quite go all the way back, as the OG Selina called herself the Cat and wore a fuzzy kitten head over her face, looking kinda like a sports mascot, her Caped Crusader costume is still a stylish get-up.

Commissioner Jim Gordon

Commissioner Gordon is African American in the show, but he otherwise follows the usual model, with glasses, mustache, and neat brown suit.

In most Batman stories, Gordon is a voice of moral clarity (give or take an extra-marital affair or two), the one good cop in Gotham City. The Gordon of the first comics by Finger, Kane, and Jerry Robinson featured an even less dynamic Gordon, a stodgy old man with a pipe who shared case details with his friend Bruce Wayne.

That said, Caped Crusader‘s other key influence has a very different approach to the police. In film noirs such as The Maltese Falcon and The Big Heat, the line between cops and criminals is thin. If the show adopts the shades of gray from those movies, then it will indeed be a very different take on Gordon.

Clayface

The Clayface moniker has been used by many different baddies in the Batman universe. Viewers of Batman: The Animated Series probably best know Clayface as Matt Hagen, an actor whose use of face-altering chemicals change him into a big goopy monster that can (briefly) take any form.

Hagen comes from the comics, as do various other figures who become the goopy version of Clayface. But the very first Clayface, introduced in 1940’s Detective Comics #40, had a more grounded origin. In that story, actor Basil Karlo would disguise himself as his movie characters to commit crimes.

Harley Quinn

Easily the most the most radical change involves a character who does not have a Golden Age counterpart. Of course, if anyone can change Harley Quinn, it’s Bruce Timm, who co-created the character with Paul Dini for Batman: The Animated Series.

In addition to making Harleen Quinzel Asian American, Timm and Tucker gives the personality “a basic flip.” As he told EW, “The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she’s Dr. Quinzel, she’s a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she’s Harley Quinn, she’s scary.”

The new design reflects that switch, with Harley forgoing her bright red togs for yellow and black. The most frightening part is her her face make-up, with dark black colorings over her eyes making her much scarier.

Batman: Caped Crusader debuts on Amazon Prime on Aug. 1.

Xbox Figured Out Its Biggest Mistake Too Late in the Game

Recently, Xbox decided to shut down developers Alpha Dog Games, Roundhouse Games, Arkane Austin, and Tango Gameworks. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier is also reporting that Xbox is expected to make further studio cuts and consolidations within the coming weeks and months.

This news sent shockwaves through an industry that has become sadly accustomed to reports of layoffs and studio closures. The closures of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks feel particularly baffling. While Arkane Austin’s latest project (Redfall) was a notable disappointment, the studio previously contributed to the development of several highly acclaimed games. Tango Gameworks, meanwhile, most recently released Hi-Fi Rush: one of the best-reviewed games of 2023 and one of the titles that Microsoft decided to port to PlayStation 5 as part of their expanded publishing program.

As many began to ask increasingly angry variations of the question “Why?” Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty offerred something you could callously call an answer.

“Today I’m sharing changes we are making to our Bethesda and ZeniMax teams,” said Booty in a leaked email acquired by IGN. “These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades…We are making these tough decisions to create capacity to increase investment in other parts of our portfolio and focus on our priority games”

Interestingly, those comments about high-impact titles and further investments in Bethesda were made shortly after Microsoft insider Jez Corden reported that Xbox may be interested in expediting the development of Fallout 5 to capitalize on the success of Amazon’s Fallout series. Even if it feels like too much of a stretch to connect those dots, Booty’s statement seems to make it clear that Xbox wants to devote more resources to its highest-profile projects and biggest current studios.

It is, in many ways, an absurd attempt at justifying this decision. It’s particularly infuriating that Booty would suggest finite investments are a factor given that Microsoft is a $3 trillion company that just posted a record revenue of nearly $212 billion. No, not all of that is coming from (or flowing to) the Xbox division, and yes, managing resources on that level is an inherently complex topic. But when one of the biggest companies in the history of humanity dares to mention prioritizing investments in their decision to close down celebrated studios, it’s kind of hard not to submit to the will of that pessimistic voice that says “No amount of good work will save you.”

If you allow yourself to push aside the human costs of this decision for only a moment, though, you may find that there is a harsh truth in Booty’s message. Xbox has been struggling on a global stage since the end of the Xbox 360 era, and for quite some time, it’s been apparent that a lack of major new releases is part of the problem. There are many individuals, outside factors, and internal decisions that have contributed to that problem, but it is a major problem nonetheless.

Xbox has been searching for major blockbuster exclusives since the critical and market decline of the Halo and Gears of War franchises. While that relative lack of system-selling titles has hardly been Xbox’s only market problem over the last couple of generations, it has certainly been one of their most consistent issues.

Yes, Xbox and its many partner studios continue to make great games. When you look at the best Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S exclusives, though, you may struggle to identify the generational must-have titles that rival the kinds of exclusives Nintendo and PlayStation have put out during that time. As we’ve said elsewhere, it’s no longer just an argument about the comparative quality of those games. Xbox has a decade+ long exclusives quantity problem as well.

I hate talking about the value of blockbuster franchises almost as much as I hate even temporarily suggesting there is some kind of point to these layoffs. The modern entertainment industry is obsessed with franchises in ways that have become boring at best and horrifying at worst. I’d rather talk to you about the many significantly more interesting initiatives Xbox has launched over the last decade or so. Game Pass, expanded backward compatibility, expanded cross-play, a carbon awareness program, best-in-class cloud gaming options, revolutionary accessibility features, the release of several excellent smaller titles, and the generally excellent design of the Xbox Series X/S hardware. Xbox has been at the forefront of several incredible programs and initiatives that should be industry standards yet largely remain limited to that platform.

That’s the problem, though. All the great things that Xbox has been doing in recent years sometimes feel like they live in the shadow of the company’s consistent lack of notable new releases. Sadly, they kind of do.

I don’t love the idea that the video game industry (or any corner of the entertainment industry) is dependent on new releases in major franchises to the point that the lack of said releases can negate so much other good work. What’s even more frustrating is that companies seem so willing to give up on new properties just because they don’t immediately compete with the sales of those legacy franchises. People often say “Call of Duty” when they refer to the kind of modern juggernaut gaming franchise that is seemingly locked into best-seller status regardless of quality, but the first Call of Duty game sold less than 5 million copies, and its early sequels only did slightly better. In today’s industry, there are no guarantees that Call of Duty would have even gotten the chance to grow into that juggernaut.

But bemoaning our dependency on and fascination with legacy franchises is different from respecting their power. While I don’t necessarily believe that Xbox would be outselling Nintendo and PlayStation right now if their franchise output had been more consistent over the last 10 years or so, it’s hard to ignore the fact that their global market decline runs nearly parallel to the decline in their production of such titles. So much good work and so many worthwhile causes have been squandered by bad decisions or perhaps just the wrongheaded belief that people will follow you outside the box en masse without needing to be lured by something familiar first.

And now, Xbox is putting more and more studios in the position of having to watch their incredible work be effectively negated by bad management decisions and market miscalculations. Matt Booty is right. Xbox could really use a game like Fallout 5 right now to get people into an Xbox ecosystem that otherwise has so much to offer. The trouble is that it’s becoming difficult to tell how many of those good things will be left by the time those games finally come out.

Discovery Season 5 Just Brought Back a Lost Piece of Star Trek Voyager Canon

This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers.

Since its inception in 2017, Star Trek: Discovery has been compared to various aspects of the Star Trek franchise. But, perhaps the show it most closely resembles, at least tonally, is Deep Space Nine, the gritty ‘90s spin-off of The Next Generation. And, with its fifth and final season, it feels like Discovery knows it’s the Deep Space Nine of modern Trek, and has leaned into that feeling more than ever.

The series has also taken on the mantle of being the new DS9 by simply making a ton of references to that series, as well as continuing huge storylines from that series. In the 7th episode of season 5, “Erigah,” Discovery makes a ton of references to the breadth of the Trek canon, with a specific focus on DS9. Here’s all the best easter eggs and shout-outs you might have missed.

The Return of Nhan

At the top of the episode, we get the first appearance of Rachael Ancheril as Nhan since season 4 episode “Rubicon.” Nhan’s journey is unique within Star Trek, and Discovery specifically. Originally a part of the crew of the USS Enterprise under Pike, Nhan joined the Discovery in season 2 during the search for the Red Angel. She stayed with the crew when they jumped to the future in season 3, making her seemingly the only Enterprise crew member from the 23rd century who now lives in the 32nd century. Nhan is from Barzan II, a planet established in the TNG episode “The Price.”

Dominion War Medical Research

Culber says he’s doing a deep-dive into Dominion War medical research, in order to learn more about the Breen, noting, “We don’t know much about Breen physiology.” This is accurate since, although the Breen appeared for the first time in DS9, they never took their helmets off in that series. Culber’s deep dive into Dominion War research is also interesting in light of Star Trek: Picard season 3. It was in that season that we learned Starfleet was secretly experimenting on Changelings. Did Culber stumble on any of that research?

“Never Turn Your Back on a Breen”

Reynar reminds President T’Rina of the Romulan saying, “Never turn your back on a Breen.” This comes from the DS9 episode “By Inferno’s Light,” and was uttered by an unnamed Romulan prisoner. Although T’Rina is seemingly Vulcan, the Vulcans and Romulans are essentially the same people in the time of Discovery. As revealed in season 3’s “Unification III,” all Vulcans and Romulans live together on the planet Ni’var, previously known as the planet Vulcan.

Breen Attack on the Federation

In this episode, we’re reminded that “the last time the Breen paid a visit to the Federation, they destroyed an entire city.” This references the Deep Space Nine episode, “The Changing Face of Evil,” in which the Breen attack Starfleet Headquarters on Earth, directly, and nearly destroy all of San Francisco. Most of the city was rebuilt by the time of the Picard flashbacks in season 1 of that series, and certainly, is fully rebuilt by seasons 2 and 3 of Picard. But, it seems like the Federation has not had a direct battle with the Breen in Federation space since the DS9 era.

Tilly Is Worried About Her Cadets

In another reference to DS9 and “The Changing Face of Evil,” Tilly expresses concern about her cadets safety if the Breen attack Federation HQ. In the DS9 era, Starfleet Academy was still located in San Francisco, though now it’s at Fed HQ. That said, the upcoming show, Starfleet Academy, set in the Discovery timeline, will move the Academy back to Earth, and San Francisco.

2371

We learn in this episode that the next piece of the Progenitor puzzle is a book called Labyrinths of the Mind, a Betazoid manuscript written by Dr. Marina Derex. “Marina” is almost certainly a reference to Marina Sirtis, the beloved actress who has played the half-Betazoid character Deanna Troi in all of The Next Generation and Picard, a few cameos on Voyager, and the Enterprise finale.

The book was also written in 2371, which is the same year that the USS Voyager left space station Deep Space 9 for the Badlands. It’s also the same year that Thomas Riker stole the USS Defiant from the same station. It’s also the year that the USS Enterprise-D crash-landed its saucer section on Veridian III in Star Trek Generations, which also means it’s the same year that a time-displaced Captain James T. Kirk was killed. Big year!

Seven of Limes

Reno mentions a cocktail called “Seven of Limes.” This can only be a reference to Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), the former Borg drone turned Fenris Ranger and Starfleet Captain. Because Discovery is set several centuries beyond Picard Season 3, we can only assume that Reno and the crew now have knowledge of events well beyond the early 2400s.

“A Holodeck Adventure for the Littles”

Reno jokes that the entire premise of the current clue—connected to a library card—makes everything sound like “something out of a holodeck adventure for the littles.” The most prominent holodeck adventure for children that we’re aware of in Trek canon is The Adventures of Flotter, which first appeared in the Voyager episode “Once Upon a Time.” In Picard season 1, Soji had a Flotter lunchbox.

The Badlands

By the end of the episode, the Eternal Gallery’s location—and thus the location of the book Labyrinths of the Mind—is revealed to be in the Badlands. This is an unstable area of space that was first mentioned in…you guessed it…Deep Space Nine! Although the Badlands is most famous as the area where the USS Voyager went missing in its 1995 debut episode, “Caretaker,” the concept of the Badlands was introduced about a year earlier in 1994, during DS9’s second season, specifically in the episode “The Maquis Part 1.”

The Badlands is located near what used to be Cardassian space, so in its next episode, Discovery will literally be traveling directly to the neighborhood of Deep Space Nine. We have no idea if the wormhole is still there in this time period, or if that old station is still kicking. But, as Discovery continues to drop surprises in its final season, we can all keep our fingers crossed for a glimpse of a very special space station.

Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum Is a Great Choice for a Spinoff Movie

A new Lord of the Rings spin-off movie has been announced, and it’s getting the old gang back together; the producers/writers of both film trilogies, Peter Jackson, Phillipa Boyens, and Fran Walsh will be producing once more, and directing duties will be taken over from Jackson by Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in both trilogies and who was also second unit director on The Hobbit films. Since then, he has directed three movies (2017’s Breathe, 2018’s Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage) so he is well prepared to take on this one.

Serkis will also star in his original role of Smeagol/Gollum, and the film is currently tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. If that title means what we think it means, it could be a really exciting prospect.

The (Presumed) Story

We are assuming, on the basis of the title, that this film will cover Gandalf and Strider/Aragorn’s search for Gollum, after Gandalf realized that Bilbo’s ring was a Ring of Power and that Sauron would be looking for Gollum for questioning. Gandalf wanted to question Gollum himself to establish exactly which Ring Bilbo had, as well as keep him away from the Dark Lord.

In the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring, this was glanced over very quickly during Gandalf’s conversation with Frodo before leaving the Shire. Gandalf tells Frodo, “I looked everywhere for the creature Gollum. But the enemy found him first. I don’t know how long they tortured him. Amidst the endless screams and inane babble, they discerned two words” – these two words being “Shire” and “Baggins,” and we catch a brief glimpse of poor Gollum being tortured on a rack and screaming them out. If you haven’t seen the film in a while, these are the lines that are immediately followed by Frodo’s astute observation, “Shire – Baggins – but that will lead them here!”

However, the books and of course, because this is J.R.R. Tolkien, the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings give a bit more detail. Gandalf tells Frodo that he has seen and spoken to Gollum, and that “I tried [to find him] long ago; but I have managed it at last.” Their conversation by itself, even though it is only reported second-hand, is both drily humorous and mildly horrifying; Gandalf tells Frodo that he “endured him as long as I could, but the truth was desperately important, and in the end I had to be harsh. I put the fear of fire on him, and wrung the true story [of his and Bilbo’s riddle game] out of him, bit by bit, together with much snivelling and snarling.” Gandalf also found out from Gollum that he had been to Mordor, and that Sauron therefore knew Bilbo’s identity.

Later, during the Council of Elrond, Gandalf provides more details of the search for Gollum itself, and this is where we find out that Aragorn had helped him—in fact, that it was Aragorn’s advice that they should look for him. The two of them “explored the whole length of Wilderland, down even to the Mountains of Shadow and the fences of Mordor,” until eventually Gandalf gave up and switched his focus to working out how to identify the One Ring, and Aragorn continued alone. Appendix B, “The Tale of Years,” adds that Gandalf and Aragorn searched “in the vales of Anduin, Mirkwood, and Rhovanion to the confines of Mordor” and that “at some time during these years Gollum himself ventured into Mordor, and was captured by Sauron.”

Aragorn had also just about given up on the search, after lengthy wandering around the Black Gate and the Morgul Vale of Mordor, when he found Gollum in the Dead Marshes and wrangled him into submission, telling the Council “he bit me, and I was not gentle.” He brought Gollum to Gandalf, and “was glad to be rid of his company, for he stank.”

After Gandalf questioned Gollum, he handed him over to the Wood Elves, King Thranduil and his son Legolas, who promptly lost him—Gollum somehow managed to engineer his escape in cahoots with some Orcs. “The Hunt for Gollum” could, in theory, refer to the Elves’ failed attempts to recapture him before dispatching Legolas to Rivendell to ‘fess up to their mistake, but we think that is unlikely. Gandalf and Aragorn’s long search for him, looking for answers about Bilbo’s Ring, seems much more likely movie material.

The Drawbacks

There are, of course, some drawbacks to this choice. First and foremost is the timescale. With the same team producing the film and the same star, we have to assume that this will be a direct prequel (or inter-quel? It does take place after The Hobbit trilogy) to the 2001-2003 Lord of the Rings films. Those films greatly condensed events between Bilbo’s birthday party, when Gandalf begins to realize there is something seriously off about Bilbo’s Ring, and Gandalf’s visit to Frodo that results in him leaving the Shire and heading for Rivendell.

In the book, 17 years pass between these two events. Frodo is 33 years old at Bilbo’s birthday, and 50 by the time he goes off on his own adventure (the same age Bilbo was when he went on his in The Hobbit). The films had good reason for changing this—for one, Elijah Wood, playing Frodo, was 19 when filming started and could not really pass for 50 (though we admit, he’s 43 now and looks pretty much the same). More importantly, the opening scenes of The Fellowship of the Ring were long enough as it is, and a movie needs different pacing than a book. Cutting down 17 years to an implied length of time of a few months gives the story a much greater sense of urgency.

The problem this leaves for doing a film about the hunt for Gollum, though, is that Gandalf and Aragorn’s desperate search is supposed to take eight years, not a few months. Middle-earth is a big place and they are getting around on foot (we won’t speak of seasons 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones, and how the plausibility of your fantasy world comes crashing down if people can suddenly cross it as quickly as if they had personal transporters from Star Trek: Discovery).

Having said that, the planned production here is a film, not a television series. A television series on this topic—one of many Amazon was once rumored to be looking at before they settled on the Second Age for The Rings of Power—would be expected to cover a long period of time and have different episodes set in different places. But a film, just like The Fellowship of the Ring back in 2001, needs sharper, tighter pacing, so cutting the journey down from eight years to a few months might not be a bad thing after all.

The other slight niggle is casting. Andy Serkis’ Gollum is filmed using motion capture and the character itself created using CGI, so Serkis can continue to play Gollum for as long as he likes, or at least as long as he can move and speak. But Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortenson are both more than 20 years older than when they first went to Middle-earth—not only might they be reluctant to throw themselves into Tolkien’s world again (this would be the seventh film for McKellen, who did not have the greatest time filming The Hobbit according to the DVD extras), but they would look much older in a story meant to be set during the first half hour of The Fellowship of the Ring. They would probably have to be re-cast, which is fine, but slightly confusing when new actors are put together with Serkis in the same role. Still, that isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker—just ask viewers of the 2019 version of The Lion King, which saw the return of original Mufasa James Earl Jones alongside an otherwise new cast. Of course, Jones didn’t have to appear in the flesh…

Why This Is a Great Choice

The benefits to doing this story are huge. For one, it follows established and beloved characters on a quest that is central to the main story of The Lord of the Rings. The Rings of Power has aimed to do something similar, but because its main characters are Elves who we are seeing in their youth rather than in the much later period of The Lord of the Rings, the writers have made some choices about their characters in their younger days that some fans have not been too happy with. The Hunt for Gollum, if we are right about what that means, would be following Gandalf the Grey and Aragorn in his Strider persona—beloved characters we didn’t get to see as much as we wanted in those roles before the Council of Elrond saw Strider come out as royal heir Aragorn, and that ill-fated trip to Moria saw the end of Gandalf the Grey.

The title also implies exciting action. It is a hunt, a chase, across the darkest and most sinister parts of Middle-earth, during which Gollum will either be captured (if they follow the film’s implication) or simply walk into Mordor (the book’s version, but unlikely to be followed in the film! After all, one does not). There, he will be tortured, and then released and found by Strider in the Dead Marshes, and tortured some more but by the “good guys” this time. Never forget, Tolkien can be shockingly dark when he wants to be. Gandalf and Strider will fight over whether they should carry on searching or give up and focus on research in Minas Tirith; Gollum will bore them both to tears with his whining; they could even cover Legolas losing him if they want to. The possibilities are endless!

The fact that this will be a completely different setting from Amazon’s The Rings of Power is a good thing, too. We like The Rings of Power (other opinions may differ, all are valid) but two Lord of the Rings productions from different companies, with different actors, covering the same material really would melt our brains. This way, we can have two largely separate stories set in Tolkien’s rich world, which can complement, rather than compete with, each other. All in all, this is a story we’re excited to see brought to life.

Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will hit theaters in 2026.

Furiosa Director Confirms Whether a Post-Mad Max: Fury Road Sequel Will Ever Happen

It is fair to say that in its later years, George Miller‘s Mad Max franchise truly has become a saga. The term is used now boldly and often in the marketing for Furiosa, a film which marks the 79-year-old filmmaker’s fifth sojourn into the glories and horrors of the Wasteland. Yet what once was a series of standalone adventures in the life of Max Rockatansky and his post-apocalyptic travails has become something altogether grander thanks to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. For it was in this film that Miller introduced viewers to a new and instantly iconic protagonist, the Master of the War Rig and Scourge of the Citadel, Imperator Furiosa (played unforgettably by Charlize Theron).

By the end of the movie, it was Furiosa’s triumph that stuck with viewers as she ascended to the Citadel’s throne of power, promising a new and hopefully fairer matriarchal world than the bleak dystopia created by Immortan Joe. In the nine years since that movie’s release, it is also Furiosa’s story which has fascinated Miller, who is at last ready to tell it in full with his latest release, a sprawling two and a half hour odyssey that spans decades of pain and anguish. At last we have the full legend of how Furiosa (now played by an equally ferocious Anya Taylor-Joy) came to be.

Epic where Fury Road was minimalist, and trenchant in its worldbuilding where Fury Road was deliberately sparse, Furiosa gives our most trenchant glance yet into the Wasteland. And as Miller has confirmed elsewhere, it even leaves the door open for another Mad Max movie set between the events of Furiosa and Fury Road. However, after all the worldbuilding and jumping around the timeline that Miller’s committed to, it’s fair to wonder if in addition to another traditional Mad Max flick if the director also has any interest in exploring what Furiosa’s life is like some years after she came to power. Is there room for a sequel to the events of Fury Road?

“People have speculated,” Miller says with a wry smile when we raise the thought. “Is Furiosa going to improve [the Citadel]? Can she improve it? Or is she going to do what often happens in many stories where there is some revolution. As [Joseph] Campbell said, ‘Often yesterday’s hero becomes tomorrow’s tyrant.’ And that’s a story told over and over again as well.”

It’s a deliberately cryptic and thought-provoking tease about what a Furiosan rule might look like in this brutal world—or what it might not. Be that as it may, Miller admits he rather likes leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

“I’ve honestly thought a lot about what happens to Furiosa when she takes over the Citadel,” Miller says. “Yeah, I have thought about it. But I’d rather other people speculate because stories are in the eyes of the beholder. They’re not for the storyteller to insist that this is exactly what happens. All stories, whether they’re a fairy tale or some sort of religious story, or basically folklore, they are there for us to interpret them or to try to interpret them according to our own belief.”

Elsewhere in our conversation though, Miller might offer some advice for how to interpret this world: look at the full scale of human history. After all, Furiosa in particular draws on images from medieval, Roman, and even biblical history and mythology, right down to its focus on praetorian guards and imperator commanders.

“It’s a reduced future we have here,” Miller says. “[The apocalypse] starts next Wednesday with all the things we read in the press sort of happening at once… That simplicity allows you basically to examine behaviors that are constant throughout the human narrative. In all cultures, nooks, and crannies of the world, these same stories are told, and it’s true you see these behaviors over and over, and over again.”

The thought raises questions about what Furiosa’s future might be. No matter what, it seems like an epic worth telling, but for the time being, Miller seems happy to let viewers set their own canons for themselves.

Furiosa is in theaters on Friday, May 24. Be sure to check back at Den of Geek in the coming days for more of our interview with George Miller, as well as stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth.

X-Men ’97’s Wolverine Twist Sets Up a Controversial New Version of the Character

This article contains spoilers for X-Men ’97 episode 9.

Wolverine has always been a mystery, ever since he stalked the Hulk through the Canadian wilderness in his 1974 first appearance. Over the years, readers got occasional glimpses into his past, from his real name(s) to his shady black ops missions.

One of the most shocking reveals came in the aftermath to 1993’s X-Men #25, the climax of the crossover event Fatal Attractions, when an incensed Magneto ripped out Wolverine’s Adamantium skeleton.

X-Men ’97 has already run through some of the most important events in X-Men history, covering Inferno, Mutant Massacre, and E is for Extinction in the span of nine 22-minute episodes. But the series set up something much bigger when it pulled from Fatal Attractions in the penultimate episode of the first season, “Tolerance is Extinction Part Two.” By that episodes end, a desperate Magneto stops Wolverine the only way he knows how, by pulling the Adamantium from Logan’s body.

Wolverine #75 (1993), written by Larry Hama and penciled by Andy Kubert, deals with the immediate aftermath of Magneto’s attack, in which the X-Men hurry to save their friend. The issue builds to a shocking moment when Wolverine pops claws made of bone, revealing that they’ve always been part of his mutation, not just an extension of the Adamantium.

The more important discovery took longer to unfold, and struck at the heart of Wolverine as a character. In his first appearances, Wolverine was a wildcard on the X-Men, given to berserker rages that drove him wild with anger. An unrequited love for Jean Grey gave Wolverine a degree of depth, but otherwise he was the monster you wanted on your side.

Over the years, writer Chris Claremont and his collaborators leavened Wolverine’s bestial side with a haunted nobility. That came to the fore with the first Wolverine miniseries from 1982, written by Claremont and penciled by Frank Miller. That miniseries presented Logan as a ronin, a failed samurai who could never obtain the honor he so richly deserved. The best Wolverine stories explored that tension, presenting him both as a man capable of great good, as when he mentors young people like Kitty Pryde and Jubilee, and capable of tremendous violence.

In light of that tension, Wolverine #75 found Logan at his most tragic. At first, the loss of the Adamantium seemed to also take away his healing factor, leaving Wolverine the most vulnerable that he’s ever been. He left the X-Men and traveled the world, picking fights with old enemies such as Lady Deathstrike to prove he still had it in him.

But after a near-death experience with Deadpool, Wolverine’s healing factor came back with a vengeance. No longer needing to focus on mitigating the effects of the Adamantium in his body, the healing factor started to change Wolverine.

At first, his fellow X-Men assumed that he grew more angry because of the traumatic experience and that he fought harder to regain an edge that the unbreakable metal once provided. But then the truth came out: Wolverine was becoming feral. After seemingly killing Sabertooth, Wolverine effectively devolved, growing hairier, angrier, and losing his ability to speak. In fact, his face even became more animalistic, with his nose disappearing and his teeth sharpening.

For many fans at the time, the feral Wolverine era was a low point for the character. The massive change in Wolverine was one of many extreme status quo changes for popular comic book characters, such as the Death of Superman and Batman’s back-breaking. Turning Wolverine into an actual beast seemed like one more desperate gimmick.

Re-reading the issues now, however, it’s clear that writer Larry Hama understood the character stakes involved in Wolverine’s change. It’s not just that Wolverine wasn’t the tough guy he once was. It’s that his worst fear came to life, that at the end of the day, no matter how much good he did with the X-Men and alongside other heroes, he was nothing more than a beast, an animal.

Fans breathed a sigh of relief when Elektra and Daredevil’s mentor Stick used Hand Ninja magic to restore Wolverine to his normal state in 1997’s Wolverine #111, written by Hama and penciled by Anthony Winn. But the greater relief belonged to Logan himself, happy to be free once again of his worst aspects. It would still take two more years, however, for Wolverine to get his Adamantium back.

As in X-Men: The Animated Series, X-Men ’97 largely uses Wolverine as a heavy, only hinting at his tragic and noble qualities. If the series follows the comics, then we could get a more interesting take on the character over the next season.

But that is a big “if.” As he’s done throughout the season, X-Men ’97 show runner Beau DeMayo recently tweeted a “homework assignment,” a piece of media that helped inspire the upcoming episode. For the season one finale “Tolerance is Extinction Part Three,” DeMayo recommended the Star Trek: The Next Generation season five episode “Cause and Effect.”

Here’s some extra credit homework for next week’s episode #xmen97 #startrek pic.twitter.com/JeWE8v4aOE
— Beau DeMayo (@BeauDemayo) May 8, 2024

Written by Brannon Braga and directed by Jonathan Frakes, “Cause and Effect” finds the USS Enterprise in a time loop after getting destroyed by colliding with another ship. After realizing that they’re in a loop, Data (Brent Spiner) leaves a message for himself, allowing them to avoid the crash. At the end of the episode, they discover that the other ship is the time-displaced USS Bozeman, under the command of Captain Morgan Bateson (Kelsey Grammer).

While that hint might point to a surprise Grammer cameo as live-action Beast, like The Marvels, it probably means that the coming of Onslaught and/or the Phoenix will result in a time loop. Wolverine might go feral in the process, but he may very well be back to his old grouchy self by season’s end.

Whatever happens, we can count on one thing: with or without Adamantium, Wolverine is the best at what he does. But what he does isn’t very nice.

X-Men ’97 is now streaming on Disney+.

The Streaming War Is Over and All It Cost Was the Entertainment Industry

“They’re just gonna accidentally create cable again.”

That’s been a frequent joke about the streaming landscape in media circles of late. You see it pop up in Slack windows and tweets every time one entertainment conglomerate gobbles up another and consolidates their respective video on demand apps. CBS All Access and Showtime synthesize into Paramount+. HBO becomes HBO Max and then becomes Max. Hulu and Disney+ are suddenly one and the same. The joke works every time because it’s not a joke—it’s a prophecy. The “cablefication” of streaming was always going to happen. And now it has.

This week, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney Entertainment announced that they will be launching a bundled option of the companies’ three biggest streaming services: Disney+, Hulu, and Max. There will now be a subscription plan that consolidates content from multiple corporate interests and projects them into your living room with (optional) ads. So, you know: cable.

The press release reads, in part: “Beginning this Summer in the U.S, the streaming services will be offered together, providing subscribers with the best value in entertainment and an unprecedented selection of content from the biggest and most beloved brands in entertainment including ABC, CNN, DC, Discovery, Disney, Food Network, FX, HBO, HGTV, Hulu, Marvel, Pixar, Searchlight, Warner Bros., and many more. The new bundle will be available for purchase on any of the three streaming platform’s websites offered as both an ad-supported and ad-free plan.”

Naturally, Warner Bros. and Disney have pitched this as a win for consumers and shareholders alike. In reality, it’s a surrender—a tacit acknowledgement that all attempts to disrupt the entertainment industry damn near broke it instead.

Ever since Netflix pioneered the VOD streaming subscription game, everyone else has been eager to get in on the action. Yes, the traditional media models of network television, cable television, pay cable, theatrical releases, and physical media were working just fine in concert with Netflix’s streaming accompaniment but in the corporate world “doing just fine” only means “not growing fast enough.” Despite the fact that Netflix rarely posted eye-popping profits come earnings season, the entertainment gatekeepers came to believe that the growth potential provided by the internet was infinite.

Some two decades later, precisely no one has made real money in the streaming space. Netflix’s winnings have been limited due to the sheer amount of pricey programming it has greenlit. Amazon, NBCUniversal, and Paramount have all yet to enjoy a profit from their premier streaming services (though Paramount projects one for Paramount+ in 2025). Disney and Warner Bros. actually have posted profits for their streamers but Disney’s came along with a steep ESPN+ loss and Max’s profits came only due to a price increase amid a shedding of 700,000 subscribers. As these companies have found out, while the internet might be theoretically limitless, the attention span and pocketbooks of the consumers expected to watch all this stuff isn’t.

Fixating on the boundless potential of what a business could be rather than enjoying the bountiful reality of what it actually is has long been a feature of the corporate economy, but the mindset has grown more acute as the magical thinking of Silicon Valley spreads to boardrooms across the country. The effects of this misplaced ambition haven’t been painful solely for executives on earnings conference calls, they’ve also been downright ruinous to the health of the entertainment industry overall.

Perhaps you’ll recall a recent bit of Hollywood news when both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) went on strike to receive an equitable contract from the studios, streamers, and companies represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Like all work stoppages, there were many disparate reasons for these strikes. But at their core, they both came down to the same thing: the math just didn’t add up anymore.

While the major players in both creative professions have always been and always will be taken care of, the sizable “middle class” of actors and writers could only watch as their compensation and benefits began to dwindle. That shrinking began, not coincidentally, with the dawn of the streaming era. Before streaming, TV writers could rely on institutions like writers’ rooms that created more jobs and lengthy episode orders that provided career stability. Similarly, the pre-streaming world provided benefits to actors like theatrical releases that generated reliable success metrics to use in contract negotiations, rather than the locked box of proprietary data that streamers hold close.

To the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, and AMPTP’s credit, the new collective bargaining agreements signed in 2023 alleviate many of these issues. But the corporate world’s insistence on following a streaming pipe dream hurt a lot of people for a very long time. And in the end it was up to the labor force to save the industry that employs them, simply by demanding a return to something resembling the status quo.

A return to that status quo will likely be beneficial to viewers as well. The streaming era has blended the concepts of “film” and “television” into a gray content sludge. Anecdotally, many of the young people I’ve met don’t know whether to categorize a given streaming property as a “movie” or a “TV show.” In a streaming context, each medium often takes on the unfavorable aspects of the other. Movies feel smaller and TV series abandon episodic storytelling. It’s telling that basic cable’s competent but unremarkable legal drama Suits became a streaming phenomenon last summer.

With all that context in mind, certain passages of Warner Bros. and Disney’s cable recreation announcement are particularly infuriating. The statement is peppered with text like “first of its kind offering,” “ad-supported plan,” and “a powerful new roadmap for the future of the industry.” All of these, of course, describe entertainment media before streaming.

We all knew that the arrival of cable-style bundles was the only way this very silly era could end. The tragic part is that it took so long for the powers-that-be to realize that. And in their haste to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place, they caused irrevocable damage.

Marvel Really Does Need to Become the Underdog Again After MCU Phase 4 and 5 Failures

“I’m much more comfortable being the underdog,” Kevin Feige recently told Empire.

If anyone has lost the right to call themselves an underdog, it’s got to be Feige, right? After all, he’s the head of Marvel Studios, the architect of a film franchise that dominated box offices for over a decade. He’s a key member of Disney’s corporate empire, a byword for a producer who knows how to please fans and executives alike.

Why in the world would he use that word to describe himself? Well, you don’t have to look much further than recent Marvel movie reviews and disappointing box office showings to find the answer. A degree of superhero fatigue has set in, and audiences no longer automatically line up for an increasingly unwieldy number of new Marvel entries.

Sure, some dedicated fans will disagree, but Feige clearly knows and accepts the truth. “You’d have to live under a rock not to know that the last few Marvel movies have failed to ignite the world in the way that so many did,” he told Empire.

To be sure, there’s more than a little bit of executive bluster in Feige’s claims. But, believe it or not, he’s earned it. After all, the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with an indie film. The 2008 movie Iron Man might have been distributed by Paramount Pictures, but it was produced by Marvel Studios.

Today, Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics are both owned by Disney, one of the most powerful corporations in the world. But the House of Mouse did not buy the House of Ideas until 2009. To fund their first self-produced film, then Marvel Studios took a $525 million loan from Merrill Lynch. For collateral, the company offered the full rights to several of its biggest characters, including Captain America and Black Panther.

In other words, they bet everything on Iron Man. And that wasn’t the only gamble. Everyone from Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon to star Tom Cruise had tried to make an Iron Movie in the past, but the company finally turned to Jon Favreau. While we all know Favreau for his work on big-budget Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney films, at the time he was an indie director whose biggest hit was the holiday comedy Elf.

Then, Marvel hired Robert Downey Jr. to play Tony Stark, a one-time promising rising star brought low by his substance abuse problems. Now Downey was clean and ready to prove himself, but no insurance company would back a project with him in the lead. On an even more shocking note, Downey and Favreau immediately threw out most of the dialogue for the script, letting the actors ad-lib instead.

Obviously, it paid off. Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow charmed fans with their screwball banter, the movie had a human heart that wasn’t overshadowed by its rock ’em sock ’em ending, and the Avengers tease at the end left viewers excited, not exhausted.

That’s the type of attitude that Feige hopes to recreate now that the MCU has come down from its 2010s highs. Co-president of Marvel Studios Louis D’Esposito agrees with Feige’s position. “It’s been a rough time,” he admitted to Empire, before taking a more positive stance on the state of the MCU. “If we just stayed on top, that would have been the worst thing that could have happened to us. We took a little hit, we’re coming back strong.”

For D’Esposito, that coming back strong means pairing down Marvel’s output, something that Disney CEO Bob Iger has talked about quite a few times since he took back the big chair. “Maybe when you do too much, you dilute yourself a little bit,” D’Esposito said, echoing Iger. “We’re not going to do that anymore. We learned our lesson. Maybe two to three films a year and one or two shows, as opposed to doing four films and four shows.”

Of course, that’s easier said than done, as Marvel has several projects already in production, including the TV series Agatha and the movie Captain America: Brave New World, and should not follow the lead of its rival Warner Bros. and shelve these entries. But even if we won’t see the pared-down execution for a few more years, it’s clear that Marvel wants to cut down on output, which hopefully means more time to improve story and special effects.

In the meantime, Marvel is positioning itself as a rough-and-tumble outsider again, particularly while promoting its sole cinematic release of this year, Deadpool & Wolverine. “It’s nice to be able to rally behind one feature project this year,” said Feige. “We do come along at an interesting time. And we are decidedly something different.”

Feige’s saying the right things. And, without question, the first few trailers for Deadpool & Wolverine have generated a lot of interest, helped along by the excellent cartoon series X-Men ’97.

Then again, “different” and “underdog” seem to describe Deadpool & Wolverine as poorly as they do Feige himself. Ryan Reynolds may smirk like a very naughty boy when he looks at the camera after quipping about pegging, but the fact that he does it during a Super Bowl trailer in a Disney movie proves that he’s no outsider. And as much as we all like seeing Hugh Jackman in full Wolverine costume, the return of his Logan, alongside a bunch of other faces from pre-MCU movies, is the exact opposite of different.

Feige’s right about the underdog mentality. That perspective allowed them to make Iron Man into an engaging and exciting film. But if Deadpool & Wolverine is nothing more than self-satisfied in-jokes, empty edginess, and multiverse madness, then it won’t be the scrappy up-and-comer that the studio needs.

You can check out the full schedule of upcoming Marvel movies and TV series here.

Star Trek Discovery Season 5 Episode 7 Review: Erigah Reveals New Breen Secrets

This Star Trek: Discovery review contains spoilers.

After a couple of extremely mediocre installments (particularly given that this is the show’s final season), Star Trek: Discovery bounces back to excellent form with “Erigah,” a tense and surprisingly political hour that finally gives the season-long Progenitors clue hunt some higher and more immediate stakes. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s the first episode in ages that’s had genuine tension—sorry, “Whistlespeak,” we all knew nothing was actually going to happen to Tilly—and a plot that wasn’t immediately predictable from the jump.

Look, I still don’t care all that much about the desperate interspecies Romeo & Juliet vibes this show seems to want to believe Moll and L’ak possess, but unlike the clunky flashback hour that broke down their backstory, “Erigah” makes the wise decision to turn their relationship into a political flashpoint that wraps in multiple characters and story arcs. The Breen make for a genuinely interesting enemy, given how little we know about their species and culture, Rayner’s constant combativeness is given an intriguing new context, and even though Saru’s stuck on some offscreen diplomatic mission, T’Rina still gets to be her most impressive, commanding self as the leader the Federation clearly deserves. What’s not to love?

The premise is fairly straightforward: The Discovery captures Moll and L’ak thanks to an S.O.S. message begging for help on a courier-only frequency. L’ak is grievously injured and Culbert’s not sure if they’ll be able to save him, given how little they know about Breen physiology. The crew hightails it back to Federation HQ to fetch a cryo device that will hopefully lower his temperature enough to allow him to heal naturally. Breen have some regenerative abilities, who knew? They arrive to find a Breen dreadnought headed their way and one of their ruling Primarks insistent that the new prisoners be turned over so that the titular erigah—or blood bounty—on the pair can be fulfilled. Diplomatic tension predictably ensues.

Like “Face the Strange,” “Erigah” is also an episode that treads water when it comes to season 5’s overarching plot. The Discovery crew spends most of the episode trying to figure out where the final clue is hidden and almost all of its action takes place in orbit around Federation Headquarters. Yet, thanks to the capture of Moll and L’ak and the subsequent arrival of a massive Breen battleship, the hour still feels as though it’s moving the story forward in a way that its predecessor did not. There’s plenty to side-eye when it comes to Moll and L’ak’s choices: Their initial decision to flee the I.S.S. Enterprise two episodes ago, the fact that their actions since then appear to have involved little more than watching L’ak bleed to death, their determination to flee the Discovery despite Michael repeatedly proving their willingness to help them. But at least this time their actions have actual consequences and will undoubtedly cause ripples that will resonate through the rest of the season.

L’ak’s death by way of accidental overdose was genuinely surprising, and while I certainly don’t put it past Discovery to find a way of somehow reviving him, either through the application of the Progentors’ supposed all-powerful technology or a heretofore unknown bit of Breen biological regeneration magic, he’s much more interesting as a political pawn than he ever was as Moll’s wayward love. The direct descendant of the dead Breen emperor, the squabbling Primarks are all eager to use him to justify their claims to the throne in their ongoing succession wars, his uncle most of all, and they’re determined to reclaim him from Federation custody. What follows is a remarkably entertaining bit of political brinksmanship that sees T’Rina, Vance, and Burnham face off against a squad of very creepy Breen soldiers threatening war if their demands aren’t met.

Tara Rosling doesn’t get enough credit for her performance as T’Rina, but she’s at her absolute best here, showing off both the Vulcan president’s smarts and her spine of steel as she faces down a dangerous enemy she knows almost nothing about without flinching. If this series doesn’t end with her somehow renouncing her role on N’Viar to lead the entire Federation instead I’ll be so upset. (The fact that T’Rina can apparently translate Breen is hot, is what I’m saying.) But it’s Callum Keith Rennie who steals much of this episode, as Commander Rayner finally gets his turn in the Talking About Feelings chair, and shares the horrific backstory of his family and homeworld of Kellerun, which suffered under Breen occupation for years.

Because Rayner is who he is, the story is fairly matter-of-fact, though its details remain horrific. He’s the only member of his family who survived an attempted uprising against them and knows firsthand about the Breen’s capacity for violence and sheer determination to get what they want. It’s an infodump that explains so much about who Rayner is—why he doesn’t trust the Breen and why he believes in action over negotiation. Rennie’s performance throughout this episode is impressive, as he captures Rayner’s fear-tinged insistence that the Federation should attack while it has the chance, to his vaguely self-loathing boast that the reason a Primark kept him alive was because he fought with a Breen-like relentlessness. It’s a shame we’ll only get to spend a single season with this character because he’s really grown on me over the past seven episodes.

In the end, Moll uses her marriage bond to force the Breen to take her with them despite their obvious loathing of her, telling them about the existence of the Progenitors’ technology and promising it can help her uncle-in-law claim the throne. That she’s plotting something is obvious, that Michael’s guessed rightly she’s hoping whatever ancient power the Progenitors had can somehow bring her dead husband back even more so.

But that’s a problem for another week, when the hunt for the final clue sounds like it’s going to take us to an ancient space library dedicated to protecting knowledge. The revelation that the hint pointing to the final clue is some sort of high-tech library card is the sort of Star Trek nerdiness I love, and maybe we’ll finally get some answers about whatever this thing is we’ve been chasing all season actually is.

The Most Underrated Action Movies of the 2000s

The 2000s saw the action genre in a state of flux. The Matrix revolutionized everything at the end of the previous decade, The Bourne Supremacy would make shaky cameras standard practice in 2004, and the MCU would take flight with Iron Man in 2008. At the same time, Michael Bay reached his ultimate form with Bad Boys II, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Kill Bill made kung fu classy, and Oldboy changed the way we look at hallways.

Within those changes came a host of greats that didn’t get the same attention. Some of these movies represent the first steps in the development of those who would define the genre, such as Scott Adkins and Gareth Evans. Some find stars at the height of the powers, such as Donny Yen and Michael Jai White. And some are just cool, because that’s really all an action movie needs.

If you’ve seen all the hallmarks of the first decade of the new millennium, check out the best that most people overlook.

Whiteout (2000)

Ever since the John McTiernan classic made Bruce Willis into an action icon, execs and screenwriters have pitched movies with the simple sentence, “Die Hard in X.” Whiteout follows that grand tradition, presenting itself as Die Hard in Japan — which kinda make sense, given Nakatami Plaza. More specifically, Whiteout is Die Hard in a dam (in Japan), in which engineer Togashi Teruo (Yūji Oda) must fend off terrorists invading the Okutowa Dam in the middle of a blizzard.

Director Setsurou Wakamatsu makes excellent use of both the dam’s tunnels and its massive exterior face. His camera trails behind Teruo running through dark hallways, almost strangled by the walls around him, and then cuts to a wide shot of Teruo minuscule against the outside, highlighting his loneliness. Cutaways to bureaucrats arguing about the situation drag, but Wakamatsu wins viewers back with kinetic gunfights between Teruo and the terrorists.

Battle Royale (2000)

For a while, Battle Royale was the movie insufferable movie bros would mention while condescending to fans of The Hunger Games. Like the hit YA series, Battle Royale features a group of school-aged children sent to kill one another in a vicious tournament. Unlike The Hunger Games, however, Battle Royale doesn’t skimp on the violence and gore. Almost immediately, a teacher (Beat Takeshi) beloved by the young contestants murders a kid in cold blood. Toward the climax of the film, a quiet girl loses her cool and becomes a Jason-like slasher.

That explanation, along with a strong endorsement from Quentin Tarantino, shows why bros loved Battle Royale. But the movie has much more to offer than a long-past sense of cool. Adapting the manga by Koushun Takami, director Kinji Fukasaku and writer Kenta Fukasaku balance shock violence with humor and humanity. The satirical elements about Japan’s disregard of its youth population blend well with its surprisingly rich characters, ratcheting up the tension of the action scenes.

Tokyo Raiders (2000)

Although the action movies of the 2000s would soon turn to gritty realism, many movies retained the snarky humor of the 1990s. The Hong Kong hit Tokyo Raiders, starring Tony Leung and directed by Jingle Ma, provided martial arts action with big budget gloss. An early scene shows Leung’s Detective Lam Kwai-yan disarming assailants with an umbrella and cigars, set to a punchy Latin score.

Writers Susan Chan and Felix Chong write Tokyo Raiders as a twisty caper farce, with absurd characters such as an interior designer and (of course) the Yakuza. To be honest, some American viewers (well, me) might find some of the reversals hard to follow. However, between Leung’s movie star charisma and the outrageous fight sequences, plot details won’t matter.

Faust: Love of the Damned (2000)

Although the decade would end with the MCU on the rise, foretelling the genre homogenization that followed, the 2000s began with quite a bit of variety in the genre. Blade II, Spider-Man, and Hulk had little in common with each other, or with the MCU entries of the 2010s. But no superhero movie stands out more than Faust: Love of the Damned, an adaptation of the hyper-violent indie comic from director Brian Yuzna, featuring Jeffrey Combs and Andrew Divoff, with effects by Screaming Mad George.

If that last line sounds amazing, then let me pump the breaks a bit. Combs and Divoff really have supporting parts. The true star of Faust is Mark Frost. No, not the co-creator of Twin Peaks, but the English actor now best known for Coronation Street and Doctors. As John Jaspers, a man who makes a deal with the satanic M (Divoff) to get revenge on the gangsters who killed his girlfriend, Frost looks more like Jim Carrey than Christian Bale, resulting in unconvincing brooding that not even Combs, who plays a detective on the case, can rescue. However, once Jaspers takes his grotesque superhero form as Faust, with a fleshy-costume that looks like a mix of Wolverine and Batman, plot goes out the window and absurdity reigns supreme.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)

The 2000s would see the launch of the Underwold franchise, perhaps the decade’s most enduring horror/action mashup. But the best genre crossing occurred overseas, with the French period piece Brotherhood of the Wolf, directed by Christophe Gans. Set in 1764 France, Brotherhood of the Wolf has a pulpy premise, in which the knight Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and his Iroquois sidekick Mani (Mark Dacascos) investigate what appear to be wild animal attacks in a small village.

What follows from their is a conspiracy thriller that may or may not involve werewolves. Gans and his co-writer Stéphane Cabel play fast and loose with the specifics of the threats, but they make up for it with a delicious cast, which includes Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci. Even better are the stylish fight scenes, as Grégoire and Mani battle their mysterious adversaries, without truly understanding what they’re up against.

The One (2001)

Like Faust, The One also foreshadows a subgenre all the rage today: the multiverse. The One comes from the creative duo James Wong and Glen Morgan, known for some of the best episodes of The X-Files ever. Wong directs a script he and Morgan wrote, in which Jet Li plays Gabe Law, a policeman hunted by his malevolent double. Wong and Morgan go deep with the sci-fi worldbuilding, which involves the MultiVerse Authority (MVA, surely inspired by Marvel’s Time Variance Authority, then still a minor concept from Thor and Fantastic Four comics) and rogue agent Gabriel Yulaw (also Li).

Despite embracing The Matrix just a few years earlier, audiences in the 2000s found the dense world-building of The One baffling. However, modern viewers have been trained by Spider-Man: No Way Home and Everything Everywhere All At Once to accept such outrageous premises. And once they don’t have to worry about exposition, viewers are free to watch the martial arts spectacle of not one, but many Jet Lis.

The Musketeer (2001)

Peter Hyams is the quintessential 3-star director. All of his movies exceed expectations while failing to live up to their full potential, and The Musketeer is no exception. On the surface, The Musketeer sounds like the most 2000s concept of all time, a parkour-heavy, wuxia-inspired take on the Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers. Below the surface, well, that’s exactly what The Musketeer is.

And that’s not a bad thing at all. Hyams leans into the big stupidity of the concept, taking full advantage of the choreography from Hong Kong performer Xin-Xin Xiong, whose name gets dropped in the trailer. While none of the Musketeers, led by future Gray’s Anatomy star Justin Chambers as d’Artagnan, will stick in the memory, Tim Roth, Stephen Rea, and Catherine Deneuve all understand which movie they’re in and adjust the performances accordingly. Is The Musketeer a classic? No. But it’s the closest you can get to reliving the early 2000s without an eyebrow piercing.

Collateral Damage (2002)

Part of The Musketeer‘s failure owes to its release the weekend before 9/11. But the movie most undone by the terrorist attacks was the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Collateral Damage. Even after Warner Bros. pushed the release date back from October 5, 2001 to February 2002, the public still had no appetite for a terrorism-heavy film.

Revisited decades later, Collateral Damage stands out as an effective two-fisted thriller. Directed by Andrew Davis, he of the equally excellent Under Siege and The Fugitive, Collateral Damage follows firefighter Gordy Brewer (Schwarzenegger) as he battles terrorists and bureaucratic morass to find the Colombian cartel that bombed the consulate. Davis’ instincts give the movie hints of a political thriller, adding depth to what remains a satisfying revenge flick.

The Rundown (2003)

Today, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is an action movie mainstay. But in the early 2000s, he was still more of a wrestler than an actor and worked hard to win over audiences. Johnson had no problem playing the heel if it resulted in an entertaining film, as seen in The Rundown. As bounty hunter Beck, Johnson put his million-dollar smile to good use, playing a thoroughly unlikeable character whose charms make him all the more irritating.

Hired to retrieve Travis Walker (Seann William Scott), the ne’er-do-well son of a mobster, Beck gets entangled in a mess of intrigue and power plays centered around a mine in the Brazilian town El Dorado. Director Peter Berg leans into the flashy style of the era, complete with freeze frame and video game-style graphics. However, writers R.J. Stewart and James Vanderbilt focus on the classic qualities of the story, making The Rundown more of an old-time buddy action comedy than a modern star vehicle.

S.W.A.T. (2003)

In 1969, the American public got their first proper look at the newly designed S.W.A.T. (special weapons and tactics) team in a highly televised attack on a Black Panthers headquarters. Although a tactical failure, the mission looked good on TV, so producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg got to work. S.W.A.T. only ran for two seasons in 1975 and 1976, but that was enough for movie producer Neal H. Moritz to commission a big-budget version in 2003.

To be clear, 2003’s S.W.A.T. has the same reprehensible politics as its predecessor. The team deals out the same mass destruction as classic cop flicks form the ’70s and ’80s, and director Clark Johnson—best known as an actor in Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire—shoots the weapons with a slickness that reaches Tom Clancy levels of military porn. That said, Johnson gets interesting performances out of his cast, which includes weird leading men Colin Farrell and Jeremy Renner, alongside character actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Reg E. Cathy, and Josh Charles.

House of Flying Daggers (2004)

Thanks to the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and greater international distribution, Americans had unprecedented access to martial arts films. While that helped draw attention to films that they would otherwise miss, such as the nationalist epic Hero, too many missed out on the beautiful House of Flying Daggers.

Directed by Zhang Yimou, House of Flying Daggers stars Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro as Leo and Jin, policemen working for a corrupt government, ordered to arrest Mei (Zhang Ziyi), the blind daughter of the leader of rebel group House of Flying Daggers. As they fall for Mei, Leo and Jin find their loyalties to one another and to their leadership challenged. Zhang, working with cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding and choreographer Ching Siu-tung present the internal and external conflicts with poetic imagery, fully transforming fight sequences into dance scenes.

Unleashed (2005)

Americans may have embraced Jet Li’s Hero, but his follow-ups Cradle 2 the Grave, a two-hander with DMX, and Unleashed didn’t get the same attention. A EuropaCorp production written and produced by Luc Besson and directed by Louis Leterrier, Unleashed lacks the shiny qualities of Besson’s best work and leans more toward the director’s gritty visuals. That approach suits the unpleasant story, in which Li plays a dehumanized mob enforcer called Danny the Dog, treated as an animal by his boss Bart (Bob Hoskins). After Bart’s death, Danny comes into the possession of kindly Sam (Morgan Freeman), a blind piano tuner who helps Danny find his humanity.

To be clear, Unleashed doesn’t reach the heights of its noble ideals. No, we don’t want to see Danny stuck on a leash and treated like an animal. But we don’t want to see him take up the cause of pacifism either. In order for Unleashed to work, strangely, Sam has to fail and Danny needs to give into his basest instincts. All thematic issues aside, Unleashed turns into a rollicking good time once Danny is indeed unleashed, resulting in awesome martial arts mayhem.

16 Blocks (2006)

16 Blocks is the type of meat and potatoes action flick that would get shoved to Redbox or Netflix these days, but works best in a packed theater. The premise is simple: burned out cop Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) must escort witness Eddie Bunker (Yasiin Bey) to the courthouse 16 blocks away. Legions of gangsters stand in between points A and B, doing everything they can to prevent Mosley from completing that simplest of missions.

16 Blocks is the final movie from Richard Donner, the venerable director behind Superman: The Movie, The Goonies, and Lethal Weapon. Even at this late point in his career, Donner has all of his skills at the ready, and presents the story in real time to up the tension. As crazy as the fight sequences get, with bullets flying and debris exploding, Donner never loses sight of the central players, taking full advantage of the chemistry between Willis and Bey.

Severance (2006)

Some might object that Severance works more like a horror comedy than an action movie, and with good reason. Not only does writer-director Christopher Smith, who co-wrote the film with James Moran, largely make horror films, but the movie often feels like a slasher flick. Severance involves a group of English office workers (who just so happen to work for an arms company) who go on a team-building retreat in the Hungarian mountains, organized by their priggish manager Richard (Tim McInnerny).

The pain of forced social interactions soon turns into physical pains as masked killers invade and start taking apart the pencil-pushers. With a cast that includes Danny Dyer, Claudie Blakley, and Toby Stephens, Severance leans into winking jokes among the gore. But when the victims start fighting back, the story takes a turn toward action, despite the lack of attention from genre fans.

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Today, it’s hard not to see Undisputed II: Last Man Standing as something of a torch-passing film. Not so much between Ving Rhames and Michael Jai White, as the latter takes over in the role of George “Iceman” Chambers, which the former played in the 2002 Walter Hill film Undisputed. Rather, between White and Scott Adkins, as the English martial artist begins his rise in Undisputed II, currently occupying the place in B-movie royalty once held by White.

Undisputed II finds Iceman fighting in a series of underground matches in a Russian prison, which draws the attention of the mob. Iceman’s only help comes in the form of his drunken cellmate Yuri Boyka (Adkins), who helps him take on the increasingly brutal hordes. What could be a dull cash-in becomes an exhilarating exercise in bone-crushing battles, thanks to direction from Isaac Florentine, who would go on to work with Adkins in Ninja and Ninja II: The Shadow of a Tear.

Flash Point (2007)

The 2000s marked the decade that Americans learned about Donnie Yen, one of the most exciting Hong Kong action stars working today. His U.S. debut Highlander: Endgame didn’t give him the attention he deserved, and Jet Li overshadowed him in Hero. But those who found Yen’s 2007 Flash Point know why he’s a living legend.

Flash Point reunites Yen with director Wilson Yip, who made the 2005 hit SPL: Sha Po Lang and would collaborate again in the international breakout Ip Man franchise. Yen plays Detective Sergeant Ma Jun, who interjects in a gang war between three brutal brothers, played by Collin Chou, Ray Lui, and Xing Yu. The twisty plot by screenwriters Szeto Kam-Yuen and Nicholl Tang keeps your attention, but the real draw comes with watching Yen cross his co-stars in kinetic and thrilling fight scenes.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

As you might guess from the title, the real appeal of Tokyo Gore Police is the gore. Special effects supervisor turned director Yoshihiro Nishimura fills the screen with unholy visions and plenty of splatter, enough to turn the most steely of stomachs. But all the icky imagery comes via a standard action plot, written by Nishimura with Kengo Kaji and Sayako Nakoshi.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future in which grotesque post-humans called Engineers run rampant on the streets, Tokyo Gore Police follows Ruka (Eihi Shiina of Audition fame) of Tokyo PD’s Engineer Hunter Unit. Rather than arrest the offending Engineers, Ruka prefers to cut them into gooey pieces with her samurai sword. Ruka slices a path to the mad scientist behind the Engineers, creating awe-inspiring and gut-wrenching action scenes along the way.

Speed Racer (2008)

Time has been kind to Speed Racer, Lana and Lily Wachowski’s unexpected follow-up to The Matrix trilogy. The same movie goers who complained about the bloated self-seriousness of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revelations dismissed their candy-colored update of the 1960s anime series. Fans accustomed to wrap-around shades and kung fu didn’t know what to do with Sprittle and Chim Chim breaking the fourth wall with corny jokes.

It turns out, Speed Racer encapsulates the Wachowskis worldview better than almost any other of their works. An incredibly earnest work about the power of community and love to overcome the demands of capitalism, Speed Racer uses even wooden actors such as Emil Hirsch and Matthew Fox to great effect, alongside a perfect John Goodman and Susan Sarandon, as well as Christina Ricci as a living anime character. Together, they craft a story that’s revolutionary on a wholesome level, something somehow even more thrilling than The Matrix with its steadfast belief in good overcoming evil.

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

The first Punisher film from 2004 sometimes gets lumped in with Daredevil, Jonah Hex, and other 2000s comic book movie misfires, despite serving up a solid bit of throwback action. No one would make the same mistake with Punisher: War Zone, the absurdly violent follow-up directed by Lexi Alexander. Drawing from the tone of Matt Fraction’s gonzo Punisher: War Journal comics of the time, War Zone makes no attempt to humanize Frank Castle. Instead, he’s an unrepentant murderer who lives to dismember his enemies.

The prime enemy in this case is Jigsaw, played by a scene devouring Dominic West. The late, great Ray Stevenson steps in for Thomas Jane, making for the perfect Castle for the film, grim to a cartoonish degree. Punisher: War Zone bathes the viewer in chaos, which might be a bummer for those who see a noble dignity in the Punisher, but is great fun for everyone else.

Death Race (2008)

If the the 2008 Death Race didn’t exist, the universe would have somehow manifested it. No other film could be a better confluence of creative team, material, and time, as Paul W.S. Anderson and Jason Statham teamed to give a post-9/11 spin on Roger Corman’s classic Death Race 2000, about a deadly cross-country spectacle.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, when America’s economic collapse has reverted the country to barbarism, Death Race focuses on a sport in which prisoners subject themselves to mortal harm for the sake of cheering viewers. The innocent but still awesome Frankenstein (Statham) must overcome the machinations of evil warden Hennessey (Joan Allen), who makes dirty money with the race’s success. A thoroughly unpleasant piece of late-2000s grime, Death Race is exactly what you’d expect from the above description, and all the better for it.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

At the time of its release, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra got lumped in with the dismal Transformers franchise, leading many to dismiss the film as another ugly, incoherent cash in based on ’80s toys. Worse, the film came after two disappointments for director Stephen Sommers, who followed the beloved The Mummy with The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing. Yet, those who did catch up with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra found a fun adaptation and a (near) return to form for Sommers.

Rise of Cobra feels very much like the product of ’80s kids smashing their dolls… I’m sorry, action figures, together. Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans play Duke and Ripcord, a pair of top-level soldiers recruited for a top-secret team under the command of Hawk (Dennis Quaid). With their new high-tech weaponry, the team must take down a terrorist organization led by Destro (Christopher Eccleston, delightful but not silver-headed until the end) and his lieutenants Baroness (Sienna Miller), Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun), and the Doctor (Joseph Gordon Levitt).

Merantau (2009)

In 2011, director Gareth Evans would signal a new era of action movies with The Raid: Redemption. But first, he closed out the previous decade with Merantau, the film debut of his frequent collaborator and star Iko Uwais. Uwais plays Minangkabau youngster Yuda, who leaves the village and experiences the world, as part of the titular rite. When local warlords terrorize one of the villages he hopes to visit, Yuda takes action against the oppressors.

Merantau plays very much as a rough draft for The Raid: Redemption, lacking the same polish and tension that would make that film so great. However, Evans and Uwais already have a strong creative rapport, making Merantau a thrilling film in its own right.

Pretty Little Liars: Every ‘A’ Ranked

This article contains spoilers for the TV series Pretty Little Liars.

Several characters took on the villainous mantle of ‘A’ across Pretty Little Liars’ seven seasons. Some were the true masterminds behind the plans for the Liars’ downfall, while others served as minions on the ‘A’ Team, there to do ‘A’s’ bidding and keep tabs on what the Liars were up to. Not every ‘A’ or member of the ‘A’ Team is equal though, with some being significantly more terrifying than others.

Here’s every person who was officially part of the ‘A’ conspiracy ranked by general scariness as blackmailers, stalkers, and criminal masterminds and by how satisfying their reveal was in the series.

13. Lucas Gottesman, Melissa Hastings

Lucas (Brendan Robinson) and Melissa (Torrey DeVitto) are tied for last place because both really only joined the ‘A’ team because they were being blackmailed themselves. Lucas does work with Mona to try and stop Allison’s return later in the series, but he doesn’t ever really do anything to physically harm the Liars like others on this list have.

Melissa may have been antagonistic toward Spencer (Troian Bellisario) on numerous occasions, and had every motivation to join the ‘A’ team for real, but even though she doesn’t always get along with her sister, joining the ‘A’ team actually proves that she’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep her safe. Like Lucas, Melissa never really does anything that puts the Liars in danger, she mostly dresses up in costumes to get them off ‘A’s’ trail.

12. Spencer Hastings, Aria Montgomery

Spencer and Aria (Lucy Hale) have both been members of the ‘A’ team at different times, with Spencer working during Charlotte’s turn and Aria during A.D.’s, but both did so under duress and to find out more information about their adversaries. Spencer was trying to find Toby (Keegan Allen) and learn the identity of Red Coat while Aria was trying to keep a file about her and Ezra’s (Ian Harding) relationship from going public. Yes, Aria does destroy Emily’s nursery and hide a body, but neither of them are particularly believable as criminal masterminds. They wouldn’t betray the other Liars for real so easily.

11. Toby Cavanaugh

Toby is a bit more believable as a member of the ‘A’ team, given his past with Alison (Sasha Pieterse). He took the fall for the accident that blinded Jenna and became a pariah in their small town because of it. But by this point, he and Spencer have already begun to develop feelings for each other, and it’s hard to believe that he would give that up for revenge on someone that, at the time, almost everyone believes is dead. His motivation to join the team in the first place is to keep Spencer safe and uncover information, and it’s hard to blame him for doing the exact same thing she is.

10. Sydney Driscoll

Sydney Driscoll (Chloe Bridgers) was never much more than a pawn in A.D./Uber A’s game, and didn’t really do much to harm the Liars either. Sure she admits to being the one who shot Spencer, but A.D. later reveals that Sydney was lying in an effort to convince Aria (Lucy Hale) to join the team and was a “one off” who happened to fit the signature ‘A’ hoodie. Her relationship with Jenna (Tammin Sursok) makes her a bit of a wild card, but nothing more than the Liars can handle.

9. Darren Wilden

Sure, Darren Wilden (Bryce Johnson) was also blackmailed into joining the ‘A’ Team, but he is also a grown-ass man getting caught up in the drama of teenage girls. He is the epitome of a dirty cop, and honestly deserved his fate. His position on the police force makes him more dangerous than the previous entries on this list, because he proved that the Liars couldn’t trust law enforcement to take their side and had to handle all of the threats, stalking, blackmail, psychological torture, etc. themselves. He also slept with Allison the summer she went missing when she was only 14 or 15, adding to Wilden’s creep-factor.

8. Wren Kingston

Don’t let his charming accent fool you. Wren (Julian Morris) is just as much of a creep as Wilden, if not worse. He not only kissed Spencer, the sister of the woman he was actually dating, while she was still in high school, but also later fell in love with her secret twin that was conspiring against her. He willingly donated his sperm in a plot to impregnate Alison after her return. He shot Alex at her behest so that she would have the same scar as Spencer. He’s not higher on the list, because he did try to talk Alex out of her maniacal plot to take over Spencer’s life. He tried to convince her that she didn’t need revenge, because they had each other. But he was too blinded by love to see that he wasn’t much more to her than a tool for revenge, and ended up paying the ultimate price.

7. Mary Drake

It’s really not a surprise that the troubled twin sister of Jessica DiLaurentis, Mary Drake (Andrea Parker), would have a stake in the ‘A’ game. As the biological mother of Charlotte, Spencer, and Alex and aunt to Alison, of course she would want to find her way back into their lives. Of course you’d think there would be easier ways to do that than helping two of your daughters with their elaborate plot to torture and manipulate you other daughter and her friends, but this is Pretty Little Liars after all. She helps Alex kidnap Spencer and hold her captive, proving once again how dangerous it is for mothers to play favorites.

6. Alex Drake

You’d think that one of the three big ‘A’s’ in the series would be higher on the list, especially the final “Uber A,” as she was sometimes called. But after waiting seven seasons to find out who the ultimate mastermind of mastermind’s was, discovering that A.D. was Spencer’s secret evil twin was a bit much, even by Pretty Little Liars’ standards. The series had already done the evil twin thing with Mary Drake, Jessica DiLaurentis’ troubled sister, so to do this again felt repetitive and unsatisfying as the series was coming to a close.

5. Noel Kahn

Noel Kahn (Brant Dougherty) was always a bit of a jerk, but rarely did he seem to be much more than your typical privileged jock. But not only was he a part of the ‘A’ Team, he also took part in torturing the Liars while they were held captive in Charlotte’s “Dollhouse.” His part in Charlotte’s plan was one of the series’ best reveals, and even had the Liars thinking that he took over and became Uber A after her death. It turns out that the journey from privileged jock to murderous creep is more of a slippery slope than one might expect.

4. Jenna Marshall

While never fully taking on the mantle of ‘A’ herself, Jenna has always had it out for the Liars. Which makes sense considering that they blinded her attempting to pull a prank before Alison’s disappearance. Her involvement with various ‘A’ teams isn’t a surprise to the audience or the Liars, but she remains one of their best foils. Jenna joined Charlotte’s team because she promised to fund a surgery that would help her regain her sight, but I’m sure it didn’t take too much convincing for her to help work toward the Liars’ downfall.

3. Sara Harvey

Like Alison, Sara Harvey (Dre Davis) went missing and wound up in the clutches of ‘A.’ After spending two years locked up in her “Dollhouse,” she gained the sympathy, support, and even affections of some of the Liars, and became a trusted ally as they worked to uncover the identity of the person who held them all captive. But unbeknownst to them all, Sara was secretly working with Charlotte the whole time, claiming that Charlotte saved her. Even though she does try to warn the Liars about the bomb that Charlotte planted in Radley, it doesn’t excuse her actions. As Charlotte’s right hand, Sara Harvey is one of the Liars’ most formidable adversaries. If there was a gold medal for manipulation, Sara would win, hands down.

2. Cece Drake a.k.a Charlotte DiLaurentis

The Cece Drake/Charlotte DiLaurentis (Vanessa Ray) reveal remains one of the series’ best, but also the series’ most problematic. Charlotte kidnapped the Liars, tortured them in her “Dollhouse,” and tried to kill herself and Alison by blowing up the Radley out of some misguided attempt to reconnect with her sister (who is actually her cousin). But it’s not necessarily her deeds that make her a problematic villain, it’s the fact that her backstory falls into the villainous queer trope. Charlotte didn’t have to be trans to make her story more compelling or shocking. There’s of course nothing wrong with her being trans, but the fact that the show uses that as part of her villainous motivation is. It plays into the (very wrong) idea that queer and trans people are inherently unstable and dangerous, and honestly undercuts how badass and terrifying she is as a villain on her own.

1. Mona Vanderwaal

It’s hard to beat the original ‘A’ Mona Vanderwaal (Janel Parrish). Aside from blackmailing Lucas and Melissa into doing some of her bidding, she did most of the psychological torture, stalking, manipulation, etc. of the Liars all on her own. She didn’t need an entire legion of lackeys to make them suffer, all she needed was a burner phone and a dream. Because Mona was the first ‘A,’ it’s also almost impossible to fully trust her again. Even after she goes to Radley (pre-hotel transformation) and acts like she’s healed, it’s hard to tell if she wants to help the Liars to make amends or for her own ulterior motives. Mona was the first person to try and break the Liars out of revenge for how they treated her in the past, and for that, she’ll always be the best.