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STAR WARS REBELS Recap: When Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi Meet Again

Warning: This recap contains spoilers for the Star Wars Rebels episode “Twin Suns.” Make the jump into hyperspace and away from this page if you haven’t watched the episode yet.

Hype. It’s defined as “extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion” according to Google, and the word one hundred percent applies to the latest episode, “Twin Suns.” The Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi meeting has been on the table since December, and in the past two weeks, the publicity machine has been turned up to 11. As it should be. This is an event worth pushing. But when Disney XD posts almost the entirety of Maul and Kenobi’s brief encounter on Twitter…well, it doesn’t help anything.

That gripe aside, let’s move on to Maul, formerly of the Darth variety. The character was given new life in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. His abrupt demise on Naboo in The Phantom Menace was rectified, as he regained a bottom half, took control of his life, and pursued the ultimate, painful vengeance upon Obi-Wan Kenobi. As long as we’ve known Maul after Episode I, the driving force behind most of his actions has been about exacting revenge.

We’ve followed his journey for years now, and watched him achieve a few successes but also failures. He thought he could find a path back to the Sith lifestyle, but when Darth Sidious slapped Maul down and killed his brother, he had to let those ambitions go. He felt betrayed. When he made his first appearance in Star Wars Rebels, in the season two finale “Twilight of the Apprentice,” he was almost pitiable.

I’m reviewing Maul’s history to emphasize that after all we’ve been through with him, I believe we need to see his end. I don’t want the mystery of what happened to Maul to linger. I don’t want to have discussions about where Maul could possibly be during the timeline of the original trilogy. His journey needed to come to an end, and what better way than by the hand of his nemesis?

The entire encounter between Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi was poetic. It’s been almost 30 years since their first duel, and they’ve both changed. Maul went into the face-off full of spit and vinegar believing he would win. He told Ezra he would be seeing him later. But the Obi-Wan he found was different than the Obi-Wan he knew during The Clone Wars.

This Obi-Wan is calmer. He has a purpose, he’s had a ton of time to meditate during his self-imposed exile, and his fixation on Maul has diminished over the years. Whereas Maul has been thinking about Obi-Wan on a regular basis, Obi-Wan is the ex who’s moved on with Maul rarely crossing his mind. I think Maul was disappointed to find a controlled Obi-Wan.

It took Maul realizing Obi-Wan was on Tatooine protecting something for Obi-Wan’s switch to flip. As he activated his lightsaber, he wasn’t enraged. I wouldn’t even call it anger. He just knew he needed to protect Luke. That kickstarted a duel with a whole lot of posing and very little action. Obi-Wan calmly took Maul down with one subtle strike, like he was batting away a mosquito.

Did the Maul fan in me want a longer fight? Absolutely. Would it have served the story? Probably not. It marked the contrast in their styles and beliefs. And Maul’s last words? They were haunting. He believes the Chosen One will “avenge us.”

Stephen Stanton positively nailed Alec Guinness era Obi-Wan. He was a voice match and infused Obi-Wan’s dialogue with wisdom and import. Sam Witwer, who has voiced Maul since The Clone Wars, has added nuance and layer to the character and did so right to the finish line.

Seeing teenage Luke run across the desert and hearing Aunt Beru’s voice was the perfect emotional note to end the episode.

As moving as the duel was, it was only a small portion of the episode. Maybe three or so minutes were devoted to the Obi-Wan and Maul meeting, with the rest of “Twin Suns” following Ezra and Chopper on Tatooine. It’s not terribly surprising because Rebels always tracks at least one member of the Ghost crew throughout an episode. They didn’t break the pattern for Ahsoka vs. Vader, and they didn’t do it here. But boy, the balance could have been better.

Ezra abandoned his team during their final preparations for the attack on Lothal. Given what we’ve seen of him evolving this season, it doesn’t track. If, as Hera says, he cares about Lothal more than anyone, why leave? It was arrogant of him to think he could be of use to Kenobi.

We did travel over Tatooine’s never-ending deserts with Ezra and Chopper, and it gave the animation and lighting team the chance to shine. They found the beauty of the desolate planet and made you feel like you were walking around with C-3PO and R2-D2 in A New Hope. And as much as I’m not thrilled with Ezra’s presence, I will say I buy into the whys and hows of him being around.

He shouldn’t have run into Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ezra shouldn’t have been there. While his time on Tatooine spurred some moments of growth for the youth, I don’t think it’s worth having the majority of the episode focus on him.

When Ezra made it back to Atollon, how were the first words out his mouth not: “Obi-Wan Kenobi is alive!”? If Ezra knows about the Jedi on Tatooine, how does the whole of the Rebellion not know? Maybe something happened off screen between Kenobi and Ezra with Kenobi asking his existence to be kept a secret, but it was a distracting thread to leave dangling.

Now, how about an off the wall theory before we go? Ahsoka’s final moments weren’t clear. I’m of the mind she transcended the limits of death and is now an avatar of the Daughter—the avatar of the light side of the Force who we met on Mortis in The Clone Wars. Maul died–I don’t think there’s any room for interpretation there–but what if he also goes to a place beyond death and becomes an avatar of the Son? If Ahsoka’s to ever reappear in Rebels (and she’s supposed to in some form, according to Dave Filoni), maybe it would be alongside Maul as Daughter and Son?

I’m dying (too soon?) to hear what you thought about this episode. Tell me in the comments or come talk to me on Twitter.

Featured Image: Disney XD

How would Captain Phasma fare against Maul?

Director Confirms No Songs in Disney’s Live-Action MULAN

As if Disney didn’t already have enough guaranteed cash cows with their original animated films, Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Star Wars, they now have also found another key to surefire success with adaptations of their beloved animated classics into live-action. This started with Alice in Wonderland in 2010, and has continued to great monetary success with Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and now Beauty and the Beast, which is breaking all kinds of box office records as we speak.

Among the upcoming live-action adaptations is a new version of Disney’s 1998 animated hit Mulan, from director Niki Caro. Caro is maybe best known as the director of films like Whale Rider, McFarland, USA, and the upcoming The Zookeeper’s Wife.  In an interview with the folks over at Moviefone, Caro described her approach to adapting Mulan into live-action, and said that this time, there would be no songs. “From what I understand, no songs right now, much to the horror of my children” she said. She also described the film as “a big, girly martial arts epic. It will be extremely muscular and thrilling and entertaining and moving.”

Disney seems to be taking a different tack with each of their live-action adaptations when it comes to the songs. For Maleficent, they only included a cover of that film’s signature song “Once Upon A Dream” by Lana Del Rey in the closing credits, but no one in the film burst out into song. The same approach was taken with Cinderella. But with The Jungle Book, director Jon Favreau decided it just wouldn’t be the same without the original film’s iconic hits, so he included some of them. Beauty and the Beast and the upcoming Aladdin are incorporating the entire original Alan Menken/Howard Ashman musical scores, which is wise, since those scores are so acclaimed and memorable.

Considering the only really memorable song from Mulan is “I’ll Make A Man Out of You,” it doesn’t seem like such a crime to cut the musical score from the movie. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear a version of that number used in the closing credits, as it was done for Maleficent and Cinderella. Of course, Disney still has time to change their minds about this one–Aladdin was originally not going to include the score, until someone wised up at the decision making level and decided to include them.

If a more gritty and realistic approach is being taken for this particular adaptation, I can’t help but wonder if this also means the removal of Mushu, Mulan’s dragon sidekick/comic relief from the original animated film, who was voiced by Eddie Murphy. Mushu is one of the fan’s favorite aspects of the classic movie, so it will be interesting to see how they incorporate him into a gritty live-action take on the material. Although I imagine this time around, they would get an Asian actor to provide the voice.

Mulan is set to be released on November 2, 2018.

How do you feel about a non-musical Mulan? Does this have you more excited for it, or less? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Walt Disney Company

Trailer for Marvel’s X-MEN: RESURRXION Oozes Retro Flavor

The X-Men were originally second stringer characters when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created them back in 1963, eventually getting cancelled after a few short years. But when Marvel Comics resurrected the title the first time, they became the publisher’s marquee characters, and easily the biggest selling comics of the ’80s and ’90s.

But the last few years of comics have put the beloved mutants through the wringer – they got depowered, lost their school/home, their leader Cyclops went psycho, and they all eventually had to live in another dimension due to a deadly Inhuman plague. The X-Men started to barely resemble the team everyone who grew up with them loved.

Now Marvel is planning to go back to basics with the X-Men universe, and is relaunching the titles under the banner of “ResurrXion.” Among the titles are X-Men: Gold, featuring a retro ’80s line-up that includes Old Man Logan, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Kitty Pryde, and Rachel Grey; and X-Men: Blue, which features the original five members, or at least the teenage versions of themselves, brought forward into the present day and under the guidance of Magneto.

There’s also a new Generation X, featuring Jubilee; a Weapon X series featuring the deadliest mutant killers, as well as ongoing series for Cable, Iceman,  and Jean Grey. Both Old Man Logan and the All-New Wolverine, best known to fans of the movie Logan as Laura/X-23, will continue their current numbering under the ResurrXion banner. Now Marvel has released a special ResurrXion trailer, which features the ’90s X-Men: The Animated Series theme, and which is sure to hit all your nostalgia buttons. You can watch the new trailer above.

The new era of mutant books begins this spring, with the launch of X-Men: Prime #1, which sets the status quo for the mutant heroes before the launch of their new titles. The new comics will launch in April, although Astonishing X-Men will launch in July. That title will feature another all-star line-up, featuring Logan, Archangel, Gambit, Rogue, Mystique, Bishop, Psylocke and Fantomex. It seems that Marvel is making sure that all their heavy hitter X-Men are going to be part of at least one of the line-ups. No room for filler mutants this time like Marrow and Stacy-X (remember Stacy-X? No? Exactly.)  You can check out the covers for each of the first  ResurrXion issues down below in our gallery.

Are you excited (or is that X-cited?) to see Marvel’s Merry Mutants go back to basics? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Marvel Comics

Quench Your Dessert Thirst With Beard Papa’s Drinkable Cream Puff

We’re constantly on the search for the most efficient ways to get desserts inside our tum-tums. And, if you’re anything like us, you’ve learned microwaves just don’t seem to melt donuts the right way, and countless blenders get ruined chasing the elusive taffy smoothie we’re certain can be a thing. But while we’re still working out the kinks in our personal snack-ovations, Beard Papa has gone and cracked the code on making their signature cream puffs drinkable.

Did we mention they’re only in Japan? We probably should have mentioned that. Apologies. However, you’re in luck should you find yourself on a Japanese vacation, have a spare 130 yen ($1.15USD), and the insatiable urge to think, “What even was that!?” for an entire day after downing can after can of the drinkable dessert. The canned confection is fairly similar to the cream puffs you’d get from a chain but tweaked slightly for drinkability, according to a recent post on Rocketnews24.com and a slightly jumbled Google-translated of a page on PRTimes.jp.

Go home, Google Translate. You’re drunk.

Considering all the unorthodox and weird things one can find in Japanese vending machines, a drinkable dessert is actually relatively tame. Plus, we probably shouldn’t judge since the U.S. are pioneers in the field of making strange food decisions. We’re looking at you, Burger King Mac’N’Cheetos.

What are your thoughts on the canned Beard Papa cream puff? If it ends up getting distributed world-wide, will this be your go-to pre-workout energy drink? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Images: Beard Papa | PR Times

Featured Image: The Phantom Gourmet

Somebody Made a Real-Life SPIDER-MAN Mask With Shutter Lenses

When Spider-Man (played by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland) appeared in Captain America: Civil War, one of the most notable changes about the new Spidy vs. the older silver screen incarnations was his emotive eyes—which are possibly camera lenses. The shutter lenses or emotive eyes are the kind of effect that CGI can handle for a big-budget film, but for somebody like Spider-Man mega-nerd Lenses Factory HK, who’s definitely working with a smaller budget, it’s go practical or go home.

Spider-Man’s eyes having an emotive quality are a staple of the comic books, and now with Holland’s Spider-Man they’re going to be on the big screen as well. But in real life, it’s not like this level of detail and ingenuity shows up at any given Con. (Maybe Lenses Factory HK has more in common with Tony Stark than Peter Parker?)

According to Lenses Factory HK’s Facebook page, “You can see, even if I’m singing, the lenses won’t move except [if] I trigger the mechanism behind the faceshell with my jaw…” Which is definitely ingenious, although there has to be some wear on your jaw after a few too many surprised! faces.

The masks with the shutter lenses will be available in April, and you can find more details on Lenses Factory’s Facebook page. He also apparently offers a ton of other variations on the suit and mask, although no word about any Hulkbuster suits.

What do you think about these real life mechanical Spider-Man shutter lenses? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Images: Sony Pictures/Marvel Studios

Don’t make web-shooters without watching this.

WWE’s New Web Series Is a Spot-on Parody of ’80s Local Wrestling

If you have been a wrestling fan as long as I have, then you know that it hasn’t always been the massive pop culture spectacle it is today. Before WWE took over as a international entity, wrestling was split up into “territories” throughout the country, each with their own champions, heroes, and villains. Suffice to say, these regional promotions didn’t exactly have the production budget WWE currently has.

The company has not forgotten where it came from, and has created a hilarious web series to not only parody but pay homage to those wrestling companies of yesteryear (Are the ’80s really “yesteryear”?). Welcome to Southpaw Regional Wrestling. The premise of the web series is that someone found an old VHS tape in the WWE archives chronicling February 1987 in SRW, and it’s the only known remaining footage of the promotion. Current WWE stars such as John Cena, Chris Jericho, and Fandango take on the roles of some of these throwback characters.

Old school fans will notice many tropes synonymous with this type of wrestling. For one, rather than taking place at an arena like RAW or Smackdown, the shows were filmed at an old TV studio with nothing but a curtain and a sign to signify what you were watching. The production value itself wasn’t much better. Unlike the HD product we get today, wrestling of the time looked more like a public-access TV show, or something that a high school class would make for a final project. Take a look at this interview with Jimmy Valiant. From the stage to the announce team’s suits, no detail has gone unspoofed.

Wrestling is full of crazy characters aimed to suspend a fan’s disbelief. The most famous of these types of characters is arguably the Undertaker, who has taken the same character and evolved it for almost 30 years where fans, even though they know he is just a guy from Texas, buy into the possibility he takes the souls of his opponents to Death Valley. Now there is a huge difference between suspending disbelief and insulting intelligence. Old school wrestling was notorious for that. Here is a promo of Kamala, who we were supposed to believe came from Uganda to Memphis, Tennessee.

Isn’t it weird how the jungles of Uganda look EXACTLY like the woods in Tennessee? Interesting…

Southpaw Regional Wrestling couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have their own ridiculous character, so please check out the Sea Creature. The Creature…from the Sea.

When watching regional wrestling on TV, fans would notice how everything going on in the studio was to set up matches for their big events at the local arenas. It wasn’t that cool because they rarely showed those events on TV, just highlight clips. Southpaw Regional Wrestling has their own such event, Lethal Leap Year. If you watch the series from the beginning, you’ll be able to figure out the “twist” regarding this event by the end.

You can binge all four episodes of Southpaw Regional Wrestling on the WWE’s YouTube channel here. This is one of the most “outside of the box” ideas the WWE has ever had, and I think they did a great job of it. Whether you are a fan of wrestling or a fan of silliness, Southpaw Regional Wrestling shouldn’t be missed.

So what do you think? Should the WWE continue with these types of web series? What do you think of paying 16.99 shipping for a 10 dollar shirt? Let me know on Twitter or sound off in the comments below.

Image: WWE/YouTube

You Can Create an Airship in THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD

Earlier this week, Nintendo released a behind-the-scenes documentary about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that discussed, among other things, how important it was to the developers for all of the objects in the giant open world to be able to interact with each other. The video expressed how this functionality would lead to gameplay possibilities that even they didn’t plan on. It turns out they were totally right, since a few Breath of the Wild players have figured out how to actually create an airship in the game (via Kotaku).

It’s a pretty simple process. First, you kill at least a few Octoroks and collect the resulting Octo Balloons. Then, you find yourself a raft and attach the Octo Balloons to it.

That’s it. Get a few balloons on your raft and it’ll start floating. The improvised vehicle is by no means precise, since the placement of your balloons has to be pretty spot on in order for your flying raft to stay level. The balloons will also pop after a short while, so for sustained flight, it’s important to have a bunch of them in your inventory.

It might seem like a bit of a silly tool, but it’s actually pretty useful. In the video above, for instance, the player used his own airship to fly directly to Ganon. The world is huge, so there are surely other hard-to-reach areas that are now a lot more accessible thanks to this fun trick. This leads to the question, though: What else can we attach Octo Balloons to? We can only imagine how useful this item will be once we unlock its full airborne potential.

Featured image: Nintendo, BeardBear/YouTube

Could an anime nosebleed turn you into a rocket?

This Guy Made a CD Gun And Turned Your Favorite Music Into A Weapon

Here’s a quick, fun story from my childhood: My brother and cousin once decided to start throwing CDs at each other, having a big ol’ CD fight around my uncle’s house. With the laws of physics working together in perfect harmony, my brother flung a CD at my cousin, who just entered a different room and was closing the door behind him. The airborne disc tilted so it fit vertically through the crack in the door, made it through, and sliced my cousin’s cheek. It wasn’t a serious injury, thankfully, and the story proves that while digital, non-physical forms of media are on the rise, CDs still have great potential as weaponry.

I bring this tale up because YouTuber JZSlenker also realized the destructive potential of CDs, and decided to create a gun that uses them as ammunition.

His creation works a lot like those battery-powered foam disc shooters we had growing up, but, you know, beefed up. Instead of batteries, this contraption is powered by a Harbor Freight angle grinder, and the mechanism for feeding the CDs into the firing chamber, again, is a lot like foam disc shooters. The CDs sit on a stack, and an actuator pushes a thin blade that looks like a hockey stick. This blade pushes the bottom-most CD into a position where it can be grabbed be the grinder’s wheel and flung pretty dang fast.

The original video is above, but JZSlenker also decided to make a follow-up clip that explains how his device works. It’s a fun piece of creative design, so check it out above and below.

Featured image: JZSlenker

MinutePhysics Explains How to Teleport Schrödinger’s Cat

Everybody hopes that the future will be full of jetpacks and rocket cars, but if you ask me, it’s teleportation that’s gonna be the real gamec hanger. Haven’t you ever seen an episode of Star Trek that takes place on Earth? They can literally go from San Francisco to Paris in almost seconds. Who doesn’t want that to make their morning commute easier?

Unfortunately, teleportation as it exists for the United Federation Of Planets does not yet exist for us. But as Henry Reich of MinutePhysics explains in the video above, the theoretical principle by which quantum teleportation works has already been used by scientists to move electrons, photons, and atoms back and forth using quantum entangled pairs of particles. Also, it won’t create a clone of you like in that movie where Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are magicians, but it will technically be destroying a version of you to create a new “you” in another location. (Of course, if you’ve seen other MinutePhysics videos on this site then you already knew all about that.)

As fun as “quark” is to say, however (and as fun a character as he is on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), visualizing how quantum teleportation works using the building block of atoms is kind of difficult for the average person. Instead, MinutePhysics posits a different thought experiment for explaining the phenomenon: sending Schrödinger’s cat to the Moon.

As we all know, Schrödinger’s cat exists in a quantum state where it is both alive and dead. By linking the cat to a one particle in an entangled pair of particles — say, one flea on the Earth and another on the Moon, where one is alive and one is dead but we don’t know which is which — we can figure out how to beam the correct information about how the cat’s particles relate to the flea’s particles, to someone who can then recreate the cat on the Moon.

Obviously it’s more complicated than that, but MinutePhysics does a great job of breaking down the algebra that goes into figuring out how this could be possible. Be warned, though… you might have to watch the video a few times to get it. There are a lot of variables flying around!

What do you think about MinutePhysics’ latest video? Are you scared off of the idea of teleportation forever, or are you still totally down to attach yourself to some quantum entangled particles? Let us know in the comments below!

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Fan Art Will Enchant You

Fan art is a hobby as old as time–that’s how the saying goes, right? With the release of the live-action Beauty and the Beast upon us, it seemed like the proper time to showcase fan art inspired by this new version of the movie and the animated film from 1991. Belle resonates with the audience because of her curiosity, bookworm tendencies, and her sense of adventure. It’s no wonder she’s inspired artists to depict her in a variety of mediums. I adore this take by Naariel Illustrations:

Belle by Naariel Illustrations

And we can’t forget the Beast. Jacob McAlister created this visually striking piece featuring the prince. The style is inspired by the work of Gustav Klimt.

Beast by Jacob McAlister | Instagram, Website

We need some live-action action, and this art by Annalisa Mignone fits the bill:

A post shared by Annalisa Mignone (@lamatitadargento_art) on Mar 17, 2017 at 7:56am PDT

You’ll find more a few more versions of Belle in the gallery below. Head to the comments and tell me about the illustrations you like best!

Do you create any sort of fan art? If so, I want to see it. Whether you focus on a specific fandom or pull inspiration from multiple stories and mediums, I’d like to highlight what you do. If you’re interested in being featured in a future edition of Fan Art Friday, get in touch with me at alratcliffe@yahoo.com with examples of your work. If you’re not an artist, feel free to email me with recommendations for Fan Art Friday!

Featured Image: Naariel Illustrations