Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2028

Watch STAR WARS: FORCES OF DESTINY’s Rey-Centric First Episode

Most Star Wars fans jumped for joy when Lucasfilm revealed plans for their Forces of Destiny initiative, which would feature toys, books, and animated shorts showcasing the bad ass ladies of that galaxy far, far away. Now Lucasfilm and Disney have premiered the first animated short from the series, which puts the spotlight on Rey and BB-8, in what amounts to a fun little “missing scene” from The Force Awakens.

Actress Daisy Ridley returns to voice Rey in this sequence, which is titled “Sands of Jakku.” The episode is so much fun, you’ll actually wish it had been part of the movie. The short takes place not long after Rey encounters BB-8 for the first time, and shows how the pair bonded during a dangerous situation. You can watch the entire short down below:

For years, Star Wars was criticized for having essentially one female character of importance, that of Princess Leia. But in the past several years, Lucasfilm has worked toward remedying that problem, adding a ton of new female characters to the mythology, and having the last two Star Wars films headlined by women.

Now, Leia Organa is but one in a much larger assortment of iconic female characters, including Rey and Maz Kanata from The Force Awakens, The Clone Wars’ Ahsoka Tano, Rogue One’s Jyn Erso, Rebels’ Sabine Wren and Hera Syndulla, and the prequel trilogy’s Padmè Amidala, all of whom will appear in Forces of Destiny. (Hopefully down the line we get some Captain Phasma action as well).

You’ll be able to see new episodes of Star Wars Forces of Destiny on Disney YouTube soon, and you can also catch the series on Disney Channel beginning July 9.

What did you think of the Rey-centric first episode of Star Wars: Forces of Destiny? Do you want a series of full length episodes for the second season? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Lucasfilm

Funko Announces Exclusive STAR WARS Ewok and Ugnaught 3-Packs

We’re old enough to remember when Ewoks were considered thoroughly uncool, deemed by fans of the era as the worst thing about the Star Wars universe. But time has been kind to the fuzzy creatures. Who expected that we’d miss the “Yub-Nub” song after it was gone? Nowadays, we find ourselves remembering the li’l teddy bear warriors of Endor fondly. In fact, not even spear attacks and hidden forest traps will keep us away from this Walmart exclusive Funko Pop! three-pack of Logray, Teebo, and Chief Chirpa:

I believe we think they’re some sort of… godly. This Ewok three-pack will be hitting stores in July. Come August, however, Walmart’s getting a Bespin-themed three-pack:

Lando sure did rely on an interesting crew to run his town, didn’t he? Security guards in little caps, angry pig-men, and a bald dude whose head was remotely controlled. Maybe the Han Solo movie will explain away some of that weirdness.

One trio saw C-3PO as a god, the other considered him junk. The truth lies somewhere in between. Pick a side–or perhaps both–if you feel you need these Star Wars Pops to truly complete your Original Trilogy collection. Let us know which of these new figures you’re most excited about–hey, even the Ugnaughts have their share of fans out there!–and click on over to Funko to place your order.

In the meantime, where do you stand on Ewoks? Still firmly against? Born late enough to be a lifelong defender? Share your thoughts!

Images: Lucasfilm, Funko

The Jackie and Laurie Show #79: Never Email Me Again

This week on the Jackie and Laurie show they discuss holding forth, the numbers are up but percentages are the same, and no, it went better than that. Plus, they discuss Jackie’s upcoming set for Conan!

Comic of the Week: Riley Silverman @ryesilverman

Follow @jackiekashian and @anylaurie16 on Twitter!

Follow the show! @JackieandLaurie

Is GAME OF THRONES Building Up to a White Walker Invasion of Westeros?

We weren’t thrilled when we learned that Game of Thrones‘ upcoming seventh season would only have seven episodes instead of 10. However, that was slightly mitigated when we found out they would have much longer runtimes than past years, including the two longest episodes in show history. Still, that didn’t help make us feel better about the even shorter, six-episode final season.

But this report from Amazon journalist David Chen does. According to Chen, Thrones sound designer Paula Fairfield said the eighth and final season could have feature-length episodes, and that could point to a huge, terrifying development for the Seven Kingdoms.

Fairfield just said the Season 7 finale of GAME OF THRONES will be 82 mins. Final season they're considering making each ep feature length!

— David Chen (@davechensky) July 1, 2017

We have to point out that this is just one person from the show saying what they are “considering.” This is far, far, far from a guarantee at this point. At the very least though, the idea that they are even discussing such a possibility points to an incredible ending, even if they don’t end up going through with it.

 

 

 

Feature-length (a term that, generally speaking, translates to a 90-plus-minute runtime) episodes could indicate huge battles, of which the coming Great War with the White Walkers will surely have. We know from the season seven trailers that we’re getting some giant fights soon, likely the biggest yet to hit Game of Thrones. That might be the biggest reason this coming penultimate season will have a longer than normal run time, and the two longest single episodes yet (the last two of the season).

But where exactly is season seven ending and season eight beginning?

Winter is here, officially arriving at the end of season six. All of the marketing for season seven has promoted the arrival of the Great War too. It’s hard to imagine that, by the end of season seven, that ultimate fight will not have at least begun. So even if the show uses all of this year to put the final players in place to fight it, we would guess by the beginning of season eight, whatever major event will have taken place to start the White Walkers invasion (like The Wall coming down maybe), will have occurred.

Which means the final season may actually take form as a six-part war. After Hardhome, Jon did call the White Walker army the largest in the world, and it only gets bigger every time it strikes down an opponent. It’s not going to be quick. But it’s hard to imagine a war of that magnitude and length would be waged only at or near the Wall. Does anyone think a war with blue-eyed ice demons and dragons is going to be fought in trenches?

In fact, if every episode needs to be movie-length, that doesn’t feel like it would be a static setting near the Wall. Instead, we may see major battles at different locales. That would mean a White Walker army marching through the Seven Kingdoms.

Sort of like Daenery’s visions in the House of the Undying pointed to way back in season two.

If you don’t remember, she entered the mysterious structure in Qarth after her dragons were taken, and there she walked into a snow-covered Throne Room in King’s Landing, where the roof had been destroyed. She then walked out a door that turned out to be the gate at Castle Black into a blinding snow storm north of the Wall. Her visions seemed to directly tie King’s Landing and the Iron Throne (and therefore the “game of thrones” the living have been playing) to winter and the coming Long Night.

Did Daenerys see where the White Walkers are heading and the damage they will do? Or was that a warning of what would happen if they weren’t stopped? Whatever it means, Game of Thrones will surely go out with a bang worthy of its story and place in television history. And if it goes out with six of them, it could mean the biggest, most terrifying invasion anyone has ever seen. Winter is coming and with it comes the Long Night. And it could be coming all the way to King’s Landing.

But what do you think? Could feature-length episodes in the show’s final season mean? Tell us your best guesses in the comments below.

Images: HBO

X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX Details Hint at New Direction for Magneto

The original X-Men trilogy ended with X-Men: The Last Stand, a movie that was widely criticized for screwing up “the Dark Phoenix Saga.” Now, 2oth Century Fox is getting a mulligan thanks to X-Men: Days of Future Past and its reboot of the timeline. X-Men: Dark Phoenix is going to be the fourth film in the prequel series, and this time, it may actually be going intergalactic. For our holiday edition of Nerdist News, we’re sharing a few new details that may shed some light on Magneto’s role in this adventure.

There may be potential spoilers ahead for X-Men: Dark Phoenix! Consider this your last chance to turn back!

If you’re a comic fan, you may recall that Magneto didn’t play a role in “the Dark Phoenix Saga,” although he did encounter Jean Grey when she was still simply “Phoenix.” A source close to the film has told us that Michael Fassbender’s new Magneto costume is meant to suggest the imagery commonly associated with cult leaders. We’re thinking this means that Magneto is feeling particularly messianic and he may have attracted followers who buy into that. This probably means that the Acolytes will make their first live-action appearance in this movie. That’s fitting, considering that the X-Men comics introduced that team in the early ’90s, which just happens to be when the film is set.

But there’s more! Our source also tells us that Dark Phoenix will introduce Genosha to the X-Men movieverse. In the late ’80s, writer Chris Claremont created Genosha as a fictional country that had Mutant apartheid. In the ’90s, Magneto eventually seized control of Genosha and declared it to be a new mutant homeland. That worked out just fine… at least until Sentinels wiped out most of the population.

That’s a lot to unpack in a single movie, and we would hope that director Simon Kinberg is still aware of the mistakes made during X-Men: The Last Stand. Having said that, we do think there’s a way that this can work. Since the Hellfire Club is off the table after X-Men: First Class, it could be Magneto’s mutant movement that leads Jean Grey astray and sends her on the path of cosmic annihilation.

What do you think about the latest developments with X-Men: Dark Phoenix? Let us know in the comment section below!

Images: Marvel Comics/20th Century Fox

Half Hour Happy Hour #139: Money Money Money

In this episode the team talk automation in the fast food industry, what to do in traffic and the podcast is now officially powered by the SUN!

Follow @HalfHourHappyHr and hosts @alisonhaislip, @alexalbrecht and Tom “Super Volcano” Krajewski on Twitter

FANTASTIC BEASTS Sequel Reveals Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald Plot, New Characters, and More

Why wait for The Daily Prophet to break news from your movie set when you can beat them to the punch and announce it yourself? That might be why, with principal photography for the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them sequel starting today, Warner Bros. Studios and Pottermore revealed a whole semester’s worth of information about the film.

In fact, there’s so much we need to break it down and what it all might mean.

Newt and Dumbledore Will Team Up (Much Sooner Than We Might Have Guessed)

We knew Dumbledore would appear in the movie, with Jude Law stepping into the role of the younger (but still middle-aged) professor at Hogwarts. But it won’t be in some mere cameo, as he’s reportedly going to team up with Newt. That’s because apparently Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald–last seen being arrested by MACUSA–will make “make a dramatic escape,” which will force Dumbledore “to join the wizarding world’s efforts to stop him.”

Dumbledore might feel some urgency to help because the Dark Wizard’s army will be growing thanks to his promise of “elevating wizards above all non-magical beings.” That idea of magical superiority is the plan a young Grindelwald and Dumbledore discussed as ambitious teenagers.

This news of a Dumbledore/Scamander team up isn’t surprising, but Harry Potter readers will remember Dumbledore telling Harry how he procrastinated facing off against his former friend until he had no choice. But that infamous duel, the one we believe this entire five-part film series will end with, didn’t take place until 1945. This movie will start a few months after the first ended, in 1927, meaning Dumbledore’s counter-measures could be much more covert and behind-the-scenes, or that someone else–like Newt–might be in the most danger facing Grindelwald.

In the first film, Grindelwald (disguised as the American Auror Percival Graves), asked Newt why Dumbledore was “so fond” of him, and why Dumbledore had argued against Scamander’s expulsion from Hogwarts. We don’t have those answers yet, but clearly Dumbledore sees something special in his former student, and there is a close bond between them.

That bond could be strained though, because “the mission against Grindelwald will test their loyalties as the wizarding world becomes more divided and dangerous.” A test other characters, new and old, will also face.

New Characters and a Magical Circus!

If you appear in a movie, but only as a (moving) picture, were you really in it? That’s a question for SAG, but as viewers the news that Zoë Kravitz’s Leta Lestrange will truly be in this movie is all that matters. That’s because her troubled past relationship with Newt, which was only vaguely referenced when Queenie read his mind in the first film, was one of the movie’s great mysteries. We wouldn’t trust a Lestrange, especially when dark forces are gathering.

(This is in addition to the earlier news of a casting call for a young Leta Lestrange, as well as a young Newt, and teenage versions of Dumbledore and Grindelwald.)

Also joining the cast will be Yusuf Kam as a wizard, and Icelandic-actor Ingvar Sigurdsson as a bounty hunter. Normally the idea of a magical Boba Fett would be the most exciting casting news of the day, but that’s overshadowed by the fact Ólafur Darri Ólafsson will play Skender, “the owner of a wizarding circus,” with Claudia Kim starring as “one of the circus’s featured attractions.”

A freaking magical circus? Why didn’t one of these already exist? And why isn’t this idea already being spun off?

Also new to the cast will be Callum Turner, who will play Theseus Scamander, Newt’s older brother who was mentioned in the first film as being an Auror and famous war hero. With Grindelwald’s expanding army testing the loyalties of wizards everywhere, it’s tough to know who among this group will be friend or foe. That even includes Newt’s brother.

Returning Characters, Mysterious and Not

Sisters Tina (Katherine Waterston) and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol) will both be back, but two characters whose fates weren’t as clear at the end of the first film will also be returning, one more mysterious than the other.

No-Maj American Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), whose journey through the world of magic was obliviated from memory, will be back. Although his mind was wiped clean, there did seem to be a “flicker” when Queenie visited him at his magical-creatures inspired bakery at the end, so that might not be a permanent condition.

But the more mysterious return will be that of the troubled young Obscurial Credence (Ezra Miller). He was last seen (seemingly) being destroyed, but Newt did see a “tendril of black matter” leave the train station, indicating he survived his dangerous explosion.

Most telling–or rather not telling–is that Credence will be back “in a mysterious way.” Does that mean no one else knows he is still alive, Grindelwald included? Or that he is working with someone in secret? Considering how shy and awkward Credence was in the first film, and that Grindelwald (as Graves) revealed he didn’t care about him, we’d lean towards him being alone, like a sad nuclear bomb with a mind of its own.

But where might that bomb go off?

New York, London, and Paris

The first movie ended with Newt Scamander on a boat back to Europe, and we’re going to see two major cities there in the second film, with both London and Paris being major locales. But with the Goldstein sisters, Jacob Kowalski, and a MACUSA-escaping Grindelwald prominently involved, the first movie’s setting of New York will also play a part.

Grindelwald’s threat mirrored that of Hitler’s in Europe, during the same time period (both wars ended in May of 1945), so the films were always going to move there. Most telling here is what location isn’t mentioned: Ilvermorny in Massachusetts, the American Hogwarts.

The buildup to the first film included J.K. Rowling’s history of Ilvermorny, which was then only briefly talked about in the movie. This news doesn’t guarantee that it won’t appear in this first of four sequels (it’s showing up at some point, it’s Chekhov’s school at this point), but considering all of the news released by Warner Bros. Studios and Pottermore today, if it does it could end up being very important, and it’s exclusion today was meant to keep an important development or moment secret.

With the movie still over a year away (scheduled for a release of November 16th, 2018), much of this news would have leaked anyway. While we could have guessed the movie would have “many nods to the world of Harry Potter,” most of today’s information would have been leaked anyway.

It’s almost impossible to protect your set secrets when ruthless Animagus beetles are running around.

But what do you make of all this news? What are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below.

Images: Warner Bros. Studios

Space Is Worth a Whole Lot of Money

Elon Musk might be working on making space travel a lot cheaper, but our dream of being intergalactic jet setters still won’t be financially feasible any time soon. Unless we accidentally get accepted into NASA’s astronaut program, those of us lacking comic-book-villain bank accounts can’t plan on zipping around the stars. What makes that even worse is that we’d easily be able to afford to go to space if we could just get to space, because it turns out space is worth a whole heck of a lot of money.

In the latest video from the great YouTube channel Life Noggin, they try to figure out the dollar value of space itself. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot. In fact, the moon itself is filthy rich.

Forget cheese: the moon is basically made out of dollar dollar bills.

When a single asteroid can contain metals worth trillions of dollars, the technical answer to this video’s question is “infinity”: space is worth infinity dollars.

But on a practical level, the one that might actually make traveling to space as feasible for a normal person as taking a commercial flight cross country, the resources available in space are the real value to mankind. Without having to commit money and space to getting necessities like water from Earth to space, mankind might be able to start leaving our home planet like walking to the corner store.

But creating the technology to do that won’t be cheap, so we’re still far away. That’s why the worse thing about all of this is knowing that our space money needs can easily be solved out in space. Space irony is the second worse thing.

What do you think space is worth? Your thoughts are worthy of our comments section below.

Images: Comedy Central, Fox

Alex Ross Explains Batman’s Scars

For nearly 80 years, Batman has given Gotham’s criminals a reason to fear the night while offering a beacon of hope to the citizens of his city. Bill Finger and Bob Kane’s comic book creation has proven to be a timeless hero across all media, even though Batman himself is ultimately human. He can be hurt and he can be killed.

One of the most famous illustrations by comic book painter Alex Ross is a striking black and white image of Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, with his shirt off and several scars running down his body. It’s the cost of being a superhero, as explained by Ross in a recently released video.

As noted by Ross, the original illustration appeared in the Batman: Black and White anthology. Here’s a better look at the image.

The story that Ross cites as his primary inspiration was from The Brave and the Bold #197; which featured a story by writer Alan Brennert and artist Joe Stanton. In that tale, Batman enlisted the help of Catwoman to find his missing friends and loved ones after an encounter with the Scarecrow. After Batman was burned, Catwoman helped him treat his wounds when she finally saw the scars for herself.

Note that readers never actually saw the scars that shocked Catwoman. However, variations on this scene have played out in other Batman comics over the years. More recently, Batman actually lost most of his scar tissue during Bruce Wayne’s most recent return to the cape and cowl. This means that Batman will just have to get more “reminders” of his never-ending battle against evil.

What did you think about Ross’ new video? Let us know in the comment section below!

Images: DC Comics

Mountain or Valley? Why It’s Hard to Tell on a Map

If you are standing near a mountain it’s pretty clear you are looking at a mountain. The same goes for a valley; it’s not difficult to comprehend you are near a big hole. But what about when you look at them on a topographical map? Can you identify something sticking up versus something that is below ground?

“Of course!” Then would you be willing to bet your house on whether or not this photo shows a series of plateaus or the Grand Canyon?

Uh…forget your house, would you even be willing to bet a pack of gum on getting it right? Maybe not.

But don’t feel bad, because there’s a very good reason that map is playing tricks on your eyes. And that “Mountain or Valley” optical illusion is the subject of the latest video from the great YouTube channel minutephysics. It has to do with perspective, the sun, and how shadows can fool us into seeing the opposite of what is really there.

Beyond the “shadow” science behind why these photos are so tricky for our brains to read, it’s amazing to learn that almost every map we’ve ever looked at has been intentionally misleading. That’s not how the sun works!

Although in fairness to cartographers everywhere, at least they only lied to us to protect us from our lying eyes.

Oh, and that photo? Flip it around and you’ll see it was actually the Grand Canyon.

Hopefully none of you lost your house because of some tricky shadows.

What other optical illusions would you like to have explained by minutephysics? We want to see your best suggestions in our comments below.

Images: minutephysics