Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 1801

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR Unleashes 5 New Posters

In just over a month, Avengers: Infinity War will bring the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s various heroes together for the ultimate battle against Thanos. This will be the first live-action crossover for several of these characters, and a new series of posters highlights the smaller team-ups which will occur throughout the film. And each of the five new Avengers: Infinity War posters features the colors of the Infinity Stones, except for the still elusive Soul Stone. The first poster puts Iron Man in the spotlight with Doctor Strange, Wong, and Spider-Man. Or should we call him Iron Spider in that outfit?

Captain America and Bucky, a.k.a. White Wolf are reunited in the second poster, which also includes Shuri, as well as Mantis and Nebula from the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The rest of the Guardians, Star-Lord, Gamora, Teen Groot, Drax, and Rocket, are featured with Thor in the third poster.

The next poster has many of the characters who will take part in the Battle of Wakanda, with Black Widow and Black Panther leading the way for Hulk and Okoye.

The fifth poster gets especially interesting. The art gives Scarlet Witch the featured slot, which is reserved for A-list Avengers in the previous posters. This suggests Scarlet Witch will have a much larger role in the film. While Vision, Falcon, and War Machine round out the image, Hawkeye is still conspicuous by his absence. At this point, we have to wonder if Hawkeye’s new costume is such a big spoiler he can’t even show up for the film’s posters.

Avengers: Infinity War will smash its way into theaters on Friday, April 27.

What do you think about the new Infinity War posters? Let us know in the comment section below!

Images: Marvel Studios

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THE OREGON TRAIL Handheld is a Blast of Nostalgia

If you’re a gamer who is old enough to remember floppy disks, then chances are good that you’ve played The Oregon Trail. Since launching in 1974, The Oregon Trail computer game series has been one of the most popular educational tools, and it has also become internet famous for the “You have died of dysentery” meme. Now, Target is offering gamers a chance to experience some true old school thrills with a handheld version of The Oregon Trail.

Via The Verge, Target began selling the Oregon Trail handhelds last month, and the package even features a call out to the dysentery meme! This is a throwback to a very low tech version of the game, with big clunky buttons and graphics that won’t make anyone forget their Nintendo Switch. But this is a nostalgia title which pits players in the role of an expedition leader who is tasked with getting his party to Oregon alive. However, that’s much easier said than done, as random deaths can strike at almost any time in the game.

One of the biggest features in this handheld is it still allows players to freely move when hunting for food. From experience, we can say a well-fed party has a much better chance of survival. This handheld doesn’t radically reinvent the game, but if you’ve ever enjoyed the original title, then this may be for you.

The Oregon Trail handheld can be found in local Target stores, or you can order it online here.

Are you eager to revisit The Oregon Trail? Let us know in the comment section below!

Images: Target

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Alert: HARRY POTTER Mobile Game Includes Puppy Fang and Young Tonks

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is giving me two things I didn’t know I wanted from the world of Harry Potter but now desperately need: a puppy Fang and a young Nymphadora Tonks. The upcoming mobile game will put players in the robes of a student attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the first time. In short, you can live all your Harry Potter dreams–including being schooled by Professor Snape in potions. And one of your school buddies will be Tonks, a.k.a. the witch you’re okay with never being as cool as.

Tonks will attend many of the same classes as you in the game, and you’ll get to watch her develop and harness her Metamorphmagus powers. I hope she has a different hairstyle and color ever single day of school.

And the maybe most exciting thing about Hogwarts Mystery so far is the inclusion of a puppy Fang! Look at the face on this little boarhound. I cannot.

Little Fang spends the bulk of his time with Hagrid (obviously) but can be seen in the game running around the school’s massive grounds. He’s puppy-sized, but he still looks like he’s capable of stumbling into so much trouble. Though who could stay angry at that face?

Is the presence of puppy Fang making you more likely to download Hogwarts Mystery when it’s released this spring? Let us know in the comments.

Images: Jam City

Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist and a proud Hufflepuff. Follow her on Twitter.

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CAPTAIN MARVEL Movie Will Bring Back Several Dead Characters

As we gear up to watch over 60 Marvel characters duke it out with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, we are also looking forward to what happens after, specifically to Captain Marvel, the looooong-awaited outing for Carol Danvers starring Brie Larson. It’s slated to hit cinemas in March of 2019, and Monday saw the announcement that principal photography had begun, with Half Nelson directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck at the helm. But in addition to this news—and a cool publicity still of Larson getting hands-on fighter pilot training from Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt, 57th Wing Commander—we also got word several old (and dead) characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be returning.

Production has begun on Marvel Studios’ #CaptainMarvel. @BrieLarson receives instructions from Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt, 57th Wing Commander, on a recent visit to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to research her character. pic.twitter.com/i5brzZH852

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) March 26, 2018

It’s no secret that Captain Marvel is said to take place in the ’90s and would feature Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury with both of his eyes intact. But this is only the beginning. The casting announcement mentioned Lee Pace would reprise his role of Ronan the Accuser from the first Guardians of the Galaxy, along with Djimon Hounsou, who’s back as his ally Korath. This makes sense, obviously, since Captain Marvel takes place way before their death, and will deal directly with the Kree/Skrull conflict. (Ronan is, of course, a Kree.)

In addition, Clark Gregg is set to return to the big screen as Agent Phil Coulson, who famously died in The Avengers but was brought back to life to be the lead in ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. This would mark Coulson’s first appearance in a feature film since then.

Other cast announced includes Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Lashana Lynch (Brotherhood), Gemma Chan (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Algenis Perez Soto (Sugar), Rune Temte (Eddie the Eagle), McKenna Grace (Gifted), and Jude Law. Mendelsohn is likely playing the villain, a Skrull fellow, while Law will play Mar’Vell, the original Captain Marvel who bestows the title upon Danvers.

It’ll be exciting to see what the Marvel landscape looked like in the ’90s, and how they’ll manage to tie it and ’90s Carol Danvers into the current timeline. Since we’ve seen green-suited Brie Larson already, and if Captain Marvel hadn’t started shooting until this week, it’s a pretty good bet we’ll get our answers in Infinity War.

Images: Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

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Gina Rodriguez’s CARMEN SANDIEGO Reboot is Now a Live-Action Movie

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Only geography geniuses ever seem to know. But last year we found out where she would be going, when Netflix announced the famous fugitive from the beloved ’90s kid’s game show would be returning in an all new animated series from the streaming site, with Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez voicing her. But it looks like the red trench coat enthusiast’s grand plans for a return are much bigger than that, because Rodriguez will now also be starring in a live-action film about the character.

Deadline reports that Netflix has acquired the live-action rights to the elusive thief and they have plans to make a “standalone Carmen adventure that will embrace the beloved ’90s property.” Rodriguez, who earlier this year appeared in Alex Garland’s sci-fi thriller Annihilation, will pull double duty after being tapped last year to play the character in the new cartoon series expected to debut sometime in 2019.



No writer or direct has been hired yet for the project, but we imagine whomever signs on will be seeking out the best social studies students from around the globe to fact-check the script. (What? Do you not realize how hard it was to actually win that game? Those kids were super smart!)

Next year will also see a related series of new books from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt about the character, which means we actually do know where in the world Carmen Sandiego is now: everywhere.

What do you hope to see from a live-action Carmen Sandiego movie? What do you think of Gina Rodriguez playing her? Don’t make us have to search for your thoughts, share them with us in the comments below.

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Featured Image: Paramount Pictures

NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION is Becoming a Broadway Musical

Back in 1983, Clark Griswold took his family on an infamous trip in National Lampoon’s Vacation. The sequels have taken the Griswolds all over the world, and even given Clark’s son, Rusty, his own family and misadventures in the Vacation relaunch film from 2015. Now, the Griswolds may finally be ready to take on the Big Apple in a new Broadway musical.

Via Deadline, Broadway producers Ken Davenport and Kurt Deutsch have secured the rights to bring the Vacation film franchise back to life as a new musical production. The title will be Broadway Vacation, and it seems like a fitting name. According to Deutsch, the musical will be an original story that chronicles the Griswolds’ first trip to New York.

via GIPHY

In the announcement, Davenport and Deutsch didn’t specify whether Broadway Vacation would be a period piece with Clark and his family, or if it will be a contemporary tale with Rusty and his wife and kids. Alternately, Broadway Vacation could take a timeless approach with either Griswold brood, or even feature three generations of the family. There are a lot of possibilities!

While the film franchise was anchored by Chevy Chase’s Clark and Bevery D’Angelo’s Ellen Griswold (not to mention Randy Quaid’s Cousin Eddie), their kids were recast in every subsequent movie. We’d love to see that become a recurring gag on the Broadway show, especially on the nights when the understudies get to fill in as the children.

What do you want to see from Broadway Vacation? Sing us a traveling song in the comment section below!

Images: Warner Bros.

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This Disney Pixar March Madness Bracket Forces Hard Decisions

March Madness isn’t a seasonal disease—not technically. It’s the month when college basketball heads into tournament season and fans celebrate by making brackets to choose the winners and place bets. But the bracket is applicable to so many things besides basketball: Dungeons and Dragons monsters, Star Wars characters, evil villains, and Disney and Pixar animated films. Twitter user @yeeitsanthonyy shared a bracket pitting all your favorite heart string-pulling stories against each other in vicious battle.

DISNEY PIXAR MOVIE MADNESS! pic.twitter.com/u73fEcTqUf

— AP (@yeeitsanthonyy) March 22, 2018

I’m not positive, but friendships may have been ruined by this bracket. I mean, how do you even put Hercules against Aladdin from the beginning? Or The Incredibles against Wall-E? If you asked me about the Pixar film I love most, I’d say Brave without question. But when it’s against Up, I don’t know what to do. Do I choose with my heart, or do I choose based on which film is better and more popular?

Those are just a couple of deep questions you’ll have to ask yourself while completing this bracket. Luckily some decisions are simple: Ratatouille is empirically better than A Bug’s Life, but most of these require a lot of consideration. In fact, sorry co-workers, but I’ll be working on completing this bracket for the rest of the day.

You know we want to see your completed bracket. Show it to us on Twitter and feel free to share all your arguments.

Image: Disney/Pixar

Amy Ratcliffe is an Associate Editor for Nerdist. Follow her on Twitter and keep up with her Disney food adventures on Instagram.

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New FEAR THE WALKING DEAD Season 4 Trailer Puts Morgan in the Mix

We saw on tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead that Morgan appears to be gradually distancing himself from everyone else, hallucinating dead Gavin and questioning his own commitment to violent pole-fighting. Now, on the new trailer for Fear the Walking Dead, we see where this mental journey is going to take him. And it looks like a zombie water park.

While Fear has so far been set in an earlier time period than The Walking Dead, it looks like season 4 will catch it up to the regular timeline. The zombies look more like the walkers we’re used to rather than mere infected, and Morgan seems to be the badass zen stick fighter we know him to be now. References to a battle back east sound like they back that up, unless the show is messing with us and he’s referring to something out of timeline that we never saw.

For many of us who started with The Walking Dead, investing in a new show with totally new characters in a setting that requires ignorance of the walker threat was, at first, an uphill proposition. But seeing Morgan ready to beat some sense into everyone with sticks…well, that screams second chance. And this viewer is going to give it one. After all, if Jericho and Blade Runner 2049 taught us anything it’s that Lennie James knows how to survive the apocalypse like a boss.

Per AMC: “In season four, we will see the world of Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and her family through new eyes — the eyes of Morgan Jones (Lennie James), who is joining the story from the world of The Walking Dead. The characters’ immediate pasts mix with an uncertain present of struggle and discovery as they meet new friends, foes and threats. They fight for each other, against each other and against a legion of the dead to somehow build an existence against the crushing pressure of lives coming apart. There will be darkness and light; terror and grace; and the heroic, mercenary and craven, all crashing together toward a new reality for Fear the Walking Dead.”

Are you excited to see new characters mix it up with the familiar cast? Let us know with your comments below.

Images: AMC

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Is THE WALKING DEAD Setting Up Maggie and This Character as The Future of Hilltop?

Warning: Spoilers are ahead for the season eight of  The Walking Dead . Keep reading at your own risk.

This week’s episode of The Walking Dead brings us back to the Hilltop, where Negan’s original plan–of covering the Savior weapons in walker guts to infect Rick and company–ends up melding with Simon’s belief that the Hilltop just needs to be wiped out entirely. While Maggie largely thwarts Simon’s plan with a clever ambush, the resulting scuffle is still all out carnage. Several Hilltoppers are gunned down in battle, and then, more tragically, several more become midnight snacks when the wounded suddenly die in the night and turn to walkers right beside their sleeping friends. In the end Maggie is forced to dig way more graves than expected, and we see Maggie wracked with guilt. She’s not just “the Widow” but the leader of Hilltop now, and she practically led her people to slaughter.

The episode title, “Do Not Send Us Astray,” comes from a line Siddiq says to Rick early on. It’s a part of an Islamic prayer for the dead, and the full line goes, “O Allah, do not forbid us their reward and do not send us astray after them.” Siddiq seems to be reminding Rick that the dead would not want their loved ones to be consumed by revenge over their deaths, especially if it puts them in danger of dying too.

Though it’s spoken to Rick, it serves as a fitting theme for Maggie this episode. We see Maggie is still very much driven by the need for vengeance for Glenn. It’s why she sends a coffin to Negan in “The Lost and the Plunderers”; she openly admits to wanting to lure Negan to Hilltop so she can make her husband’s grave the last thing he sees. By the end of the episode Maggie realizes the selfishness of this action. “We’re lucky we have you,” one of the wounded Hilltoppers says to Maggie. “If Gregory was in charge, this place wouldn’t be here anymore. He was about himself. What he wanted. That’s not you.”

The truth behind Maggie’s provocations will likely come out by the end of this season. While things will look pretty grim once the Hilltoppers realize Maggie bartered their lives away to avenge her dead husband, the comics tell us that Maggie isn’t unseated from leadership, and she doesn’t die in this arc, either. Maggie continues to lead Hilltop to battle alongside Alexandria, and we see Maggie is still the leader when the comic skips forward two years. It’s a bumpy time, undoubtedly, as Maggie clashes with Rick–sometimes violently–and ends up even executing Gregory after he attempts to poison her. If we’re going by the comics, it’s a hard road ahead for Maggie, but fans can rest assured that Maggie will continue to learn and grow, and we’re likely to see her around for a while. 

And what of the Savior prisoners at the Hilltop? Maggie keeps them inside and protected during the initial assault–a notable decision, as we can assume Rick wouldn’t have even bothered at this point. It’s only afterwards that they’re brought back to the cage, and then very unfortunately let out by a gun-toting Henry at night. (Truly, Henry has become the newest iteration of the “Dammit Carl/Get Back in the House Carl” meme). The result is that by the next day Maggie has lost not only her own people in the battle but most of her leverage as well.

Not all the prisoners leave though–a perhaps unsurprising development since Simon tells them they became worthless to Negan once they got themselves captured. The most notable prisoner to remain is Callan McAuliffe’s Alden, the younger, seemingly more gentle prisoner who entreated with Maggie several times on behalf of the men. Is he a nice guy caught up in a bad group, or is he putting on an act out of preservation? It’s been hard to tell this season, but this episode seems to put those questions to rest. He ends up assisting in dispatching the newly-turned walkers and closing the front gates.

It’s difficult to tell where Alden and the other former prisoners will go from here. This is the first time we’ll be seeing actual Saviors living among Rick’s people, and it’s undoubtedly going to cause tension. It’s also unclear how much Alden will have a role going forward; prior episodes made a point of making him a central prisoner to focus on besides Gregory and Jared–the ass who killed Henry’s brother, who is also somehow still alive–so one would assume he has a bigger role to play.

It’s possible Alden may even be Dante in the comics; Dante isn’t a former Savior, but the two have the same kind of witty and relaxed nature, and Dante ends up becoming a trusted advisor to Maggie. Dante also has a crush on Maggie from the outset, and the two later begin a relationship. With Alden interacting as much as he has with Maggie, that doesn’t feel like a total impossibility for future seasons.

Suffice to say, it feels like we’re about to see some intriguing storylines unfold at the Hilltop. What are your hopes for Maggie this season? And who is Alden? Will he lead Hilltop alongside Maggie or just become walker bait? Sound off in the comments!

Images: AMC and Image Comics

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A Neural Network Created D&D Monsters and the Results Are Spectacular

We’ve seen neural networks create some amazing–and amazingly weird–things, from bizarre candy heart messages to designing dinosaurs out of flowers. You might remember research scientist Janelle Shane from her algorithm-generated last year. She’s at it again, this time using a neural network to create creatures you might find in the weirdest game of D&D you’ve ever played.

(Although with creatures with names like Walfablang and Giant Dwarf, it might also be the best game of D&D you’ve ever played.)

I trained a neural network to generate new Dungeons and Dragons creatures, based on a dataset of 2,205 from the 2nd edition monster manual.https://t.co/8EuHt6dNXk pic.twitter.com/lbZ2SHeEHB

— Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) March 23, 2018

On her blog post, Janelle goes into a little more detail about both the neural network and the monsters it generated. “Colin Fredricks, who created the RPG Sufficiently Advanced, was kind enough to send me the names of 2,205 creatures from the 2nd edition monster manual,” she wrote. She then trained her algorithm with the dataset, and it made magic.

The neural network created a long list of magical creatures, from dragons to unicorns to slugs, that we’re already dying to battle. Some of them include:

Spectral Slug
Goblin Dog
Hatfright
Jabberwont
Memeball
Purple Fang Dragon
Bat Unicorn

And there’s even more, if you sign up for email updates. You’ll get neural network humor delivered straight to your inbox, including even more D&D creature names–like the Giant Cobra Elf or Winded Genie.

Janelle is already hard at work at her next neural network dataset to generate D&D character names, and she needs your help! Enter your character’s info to help train the algorithm, and who knows what kinds of heroes you might meet in your next adventure.

Which of these crazy creatures do you want to fight? (Or keep as a pet?) Tell us in the comments.

Featured Image: Wizards of the Coast

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