Lucasfilm has been quite busy preparing various projects to expand its Star Wars universe. It looks like we can add one more to the list, as Bespin Bulletin has shared the news on a secret project with the codename “Grammar Rodeo” that is seemingly preparing to start production sometime in June. They inquired with their sources if this is potentially one of the previously announced projects The Acolyte or Lando, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Yet, there is a recent report that seems the most fitting.
A week ago we learned about a potential series based in the High Republic era that will release on Disney+. Cinelinx’s Jordan Maison shared that the series was going to be the Star Wars equivalent to Netflix’s Stranger Things. Our own sources have hinted that this project is currently casting someone between the age of ten to twelve, which might be a hint that these projects are connected. We also heard that the production would end in December, which is the usual timeline for these productions.
There’s a lot of potential to explore a storyline during the High Republic, but if they are taking a route similar to Stranger Things, we might join a group of young pre-teens as they uncover the mystery surrounding the Jedi of that timeline. There’s still a chance that this may end up being a mother project like the leaked Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, but there were hints that this might be a children’s animated series. So, if it starts production in June we might get an announcement sooner rather than later.
Joe and John are back to discuss episodes four to six from Peacemaker, as James Gunn reinvents what it means o be a hero and John Cena convinces them that the season just shouldn’t end.
Fandango has just dropped an exclusive interview with the cast of The Batman, as they shared some insights into what to expect from the film. We’re only a few more weeks away and the tickets are finally up for sale. During the interview, the cast is asked who their favorite incarnation of Batman was, and got a surprising reveal from its main star Robert Pattinson, who got a chance to actually wear most of the suits from the former films.
I weirdly got to try on every single Batman outfit for my screen test to see actually which Batman I was. […] The only person who had a large enough head to fit into the cowl was Clooney. I did not realize everyone else had quite small heads. So you can judge it, the most important thing is the cowl, but his suit I could not fit into.
Robert Pattinson
He does reveal that there was one exception, as he didn’t have the chance to try on Adam West‘s costume, but his costume probably would break at this point if someone would try to put it on. It’s kind of a great idea to let Pattison try on the costumes to get a feeling for which one fits him best. It’s funny to think that only George Clooney‘s cowl fit his head. Sadly, we might not get to see the photos of him wearing the costumes but there’s always a chance the blu-ray release, later on, might include it.
We’re only a few more weeks away from the release of The Batman and the potential of exploring a new franchise surrounding the new iteration of the character. We’ve already heard about potential spinoffs that explore the different corners of this noir take on the classic character. In a new exclusive interview with Fandango, Robert Pattinson was asked about his thoughts on tackling the character long-term and it seems he’s already ready to tackle a trilogy.
I’ve talked to Matt [Reeves] about the idea of doing a trilogy and that would be wonderful. I really, really enjoyed the process and it’s such a fun character to play.
Robert Pattinson
We’re certainly all in as well to join a new Batman trilogy, especially if they are taking a Cinematic Universe approach to this take on the character. There are many different corners that can be explored, especially with the unique take teased in the trailers. So, we’ll see what it might have in store for us once the film releases and how it may open the window to future storylines.
The release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League will go down as one of the rarest instances of fans willing a project to exist. Given the success of that project, it comes as no surprise to see Suicide Squad director David Ayer follow suit with the ongoing campaign to get his Ayer cut released.
Suicide Squad star Will Smith voiced his support for the prospect last night and shared his excitement if it ever happened.
Could Smith be the first of the many Suicide Squad actors to voice their support for this project? He could very well start a domino effect with these comments.
Stats recently surfaced showing just how lucrative the Snydercut was and the numbers indicated a mostly successful endeavor. But at the end of the day, it was a very expensive project to make and was greenlit to boost HBOMax’s subscribers when the service began. There’s no telling what could happen with the Ayer cut as more people come out in support of it but the project may not be so enticing for HBOMax.
The Book of Boba Fett has just ended its run, and Diseny+ followed up with the release of the first poster teasing Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s upcoming series. Lucasfilm has been quite busy working on their various projects, as The Mandalorian‘s third season is also currently underway. It looks like there’s a good chance that they are also currently preparing to start production on Ahsoka, as Bespin Bulletin has shared that the series will start in April or at the latest early May under the production title Stormclaw.
The timing would match with Mandalorian potentially ending its production by the end of March, which would give them some time to prep for the next entry. Rosario Dawson recently made her return as the character in Boba Fett‘s spinoff series and it’s uncertain if we can also expect her in the upcoming third season. So, we might not see her return as The Clone Wars character until 2023 when the series is expected to release. The series was originally rumored to enter production in the Winter of 2021, but the delay in Mando’s production could be a reason for it not starting until April.
Murphy’s Multiverse was provided with an early review copy of the game by publisher Private Division.
There’s an evergreen charm to the video game genre of skateboarding. We have the Tony Hawk franchise to thank for the enduring legacy of the genre in the mainstream but also have smaller games like SKATE to thank for innovating and keeping it on its toes. This year’s OlliOlli World aims to celebrate the craft and canon of its predecessors and progenitors in one technicolored, whimsical, stylish, and challenging explosion of a video game.
OlliOlli World might as well be a Saturday morning cartoon. You, the protagonist, are trying out to be the Skate Wizard, the herald of the five skating gods in Gnarvana. The current Skate Wizard wants to retire and is looking for a replacement. With the help of a kooky cast that includes characters named Suze, Gnarly Mike, and a man named Dad, you must prove your mettle across the five gleefully hand-drawn regions of Radlandia.
https://gfycat.com/powerfulsoulfulkoodoo
It won’t take long for anyone to figure out that the game’s biggest draw lies in its vivid world and vibrant aesthetic. The regions of Sunshine Valley, Sketchside, Los Vulgas, Burntrock, and Cloverbrook have their own distinct looks. For example, Sunshine Valley is all about California sun and sand while Cloverbrook is nestled deep within lush green forests. Within these regions are creatures and beings straight out of a Pendleton Ward cartoon. You have to race a grizzly bear floating on a river at one point. There’s a fish inside a fortune teller machine that gives you challenges. There’s a group of hulkingly buff seagulls that you have to impress. All of these things are hand-drawn and colored to match one’s acid trip.
The game’s true secret flex, however, is the level design. Every level in OlliOlli World feels like an otherworldly roller coaster designed by a 5-year old in the best way possible. The way the game fuses staple skateboarding environments with wacky and maximalist layouts is so seamless. One minute, you’re skating downhill at breakneck speed, the next minute you’re wall-grinding a billboard held up by bees, and you finally land on a curved rail that takes you to a hidden path where a talking bird compliments you.
https://gfycat.com/ficklequickallosaurus
As for the gameplay loop, it’s simple: you go from one level to another and try to get to the finish line while ticking all the bonus challenges. The more bonus challenges you tick, the more unlockables you have. You rinse and repeat until you eventually become the Skate Wizard. There’s a lot of figurative and literal wheel-spinning in the dozen hours you’ll spend trying to unlock the countless shoes, hats, tattoos, emotes, and outfits. This won’t be the performative gaming experience of the year but it’s a damn fun world to waste time on.
Despite the simplicity of the loop, OlliOlli World does boast a certain level of difficulty when it comes to mastering the game. There’s a depth to the combination of tricks one can pull off. Certain challenges in the game require an immense amount of pinpoint precision. With one universal difficulty level for all players, it may be apt to say this is a game players will need to “git gud” at to get the most out of it.
https://gfycat.com/ashamedgiftedkestrel
Getting good at OlliOlli World wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the occasionally painful thumbstick controls. The breakneck pace of the game means your left thumb is constantly mapping out crazy patterns with little rest. This isn’t a complaint about the game’s control system but rather, it’s something for gamers that are prone to carpal tunnel issues like myself to keep an eye out for. Thankfully, the game doesn’t demand the most of one’s hands. Players can finish levels without exploring the spectrum of tricks afforded by the game. You can literally ollie your way through obstacles and the game won’t punish you for it.
Lastly, It’s impossible to play OlliOlli World and not be arrested by the game’s soundtrack. Straight out of a “Chill Vibes/Lo-fi Beats For You To Study To” playlist on Youtube, OlliOlli World’s music is unapologetic with what vibe it wants. If the Tony Hawk soundtrack signified the alt-punk ethos of the early 2000s, OlliOlli World’s is about embracing the laid-back and easy-going mantra of the modern millennial. It’s good vibes only for the world of Radlandia.
Thor: Love and Thunder will introduce Gorr the God Butcher, and it made us wonder just how many different pantheons we might get introduced to. Russell Crowe gave away that he was in the film as the Olympian ruler Zeus. Outside of our leading Norse gods, we don’t know much else even though the latest Moon Knight trailer did hint at the addition of the Egyptian pantheon in the form of Khonshu. Well, it seems a new rumor is to believe, we might even get to meet another familiar deity in the upcoming film, Bastet.
A new listing on the site Showcast has started making the rounds, as Akosia Sabet included the upcoming Taika Waititi film in her filmography. What stands out, however, is that she also added her role as Bastet, the Panther Goddess that the Wakandans worship. We only briefly got a look at her in the opening credits to the first Black Panther film, where we revisited the history of the fictional nation. Hopefully, her inclusion does not mean she’ll meet up with Christian Bale‘s God Butcher but she could also become an ally to our heroes eventually in the film.
There’s a lot of potential to further explore the mythology of the MCU, especially as many of the gods are, in fact, real. We’ll see just how they introduce them, as they could explore their history as other alien beings or even ones that live side-by-side with humans under a disguise, as the Eternals did in their own film. Perhaps we even get a short appearance of Khonshu or other Egyptian gods in the upcoming film. Either way, it’s an exciting prospect.
Peacemaker’s penultimate episode resolves one of the two major series storylines, which exposes the strength of the Auggie storyline but also makes it feel like it was gone too soon. Stop Dragon My Heart Around hits peaks in terms of emotional impact with Peacemaker’s relationship with his father and leaves the Project Butterfly plotline as the clear, ultimate threat for the finale.
The Auggie/White Dragon/Peacemaker’s dad storyline turns out to be quite the sleeper. After being almost exclusively a racist piece of garbage on the sidelines, Auggie steps into his White Dragon supervillain suit one last time to kill his son. While from the series alone it is not entirely clear what exactly the White Dragon got up to in his prime, now is apparently his moment to rock a killer suit while lightly jogging through the woods with an army of discount white-pillow-case-wearing skinheads. While pretty cool to look at, a more keen eye would notice that the White Dragon suit is more reminiscent of a KKK-inspired Frank rabbit from Donnie Darko.
The ending of the White Dragon story packs more of a punch than anything else in the series. While Peacemaker’s dad was interesting until now, his role was mostly to passively provide context for Peacemaker’s existence and redemption. Early in this episode, we get the full picture of how Peacemaker caused his brother’s death when they were children, providing ample motivation for Peacemaker to do what he does—unceremoniously and abruptly execute his father. The cold nature of the killing combined with the emotional impact it clearly has on Peacemaker is a wonderfully-staged moment where the character truly has to decide who he is. It is underscored by conversations throughout the series that Auggie is beyond all saving, yet Peacemaker could never kill him. Considering that Peacemaker is simultaneously coming to terms with how he does not want to kill anyone, it’s a very strong moment for Peacemaker.
At this point, it is all too clear that the Auggie aspect of the series carried likely much more weight and impact than pretty much anything else going on. It feels a bit like there is lost potential—had this storyline been given more attention the combination of the darkest corners of White Dragon, the brightest spots of Peacemaker, and the greyest spaces of the real world surrounding them could have been electric. Giving a relatively new character a white supremacist-based story (one where he willfully ignores his dad’s famous racist beliefs and crimes) right off the bat probably is not the best strategy. But it just doesn’t fully find its place within this series, which is a shame.
While the Butterfly Project plot is off to the races, it still is not exciting. And now, compared to the resolution of its companion plotline, it looks even less inviting. As generic as it has felt, Murn’s death this episode is it at its best. After butterfly Murn got a bit more of the spotlight last episode, it feels like it matters a bit that the character is gone. The final moments with Murn as the sad and crumpled butterfly are actually heartbreaking, even if only because we have more sympathy for a dying animal-type creature than a human. Either way, Murn’s death is a classic “we’re really a team now” tragedy—Phil Coulson would be proud.
While Episode 7 is strong, a few elements of Peacemaker still feel out of place. Top of that list still is Judomaster, who once again ends up unconscious after fleeting moments of screen time. The character is great, but what is his point? How is he related to anything other than working as security for the Goffs? Why did he “ding dong bitches” our main team after hanging out at a gas station? Another is Adebayo and her Amanda Waller connection—it is too significant of a thing to not have greater meaning or consequences, but it has only served as extremely minimal background information for Adebayo’s character. Amanda Waller is a major character in this universe, but quite frankly, Viola Davis herself is on another level. Surely cameoing in a FaceTime conversation is not the full extent of her involvement.
Honestly, the finale of Peacemaker might end up being less interesting than this episode. The penultimate installment rightfully draws a hard line between its two stories but it ends up highlighting the strength and the greater potential of the one it ended. Project Butterfly as we know it falls short in comparison, but perhaps it still has some meaningful surprises up its sleeve. The finale is set to feature some violent, over-the-top, last-stand-type action no doubt, which could be phenomenal. In any event, after Murn’s death, Task Force X is in its best place in terms of team dynamics going into the final battle.
How I Met Your Fatherseems to be off to a great start. Each episode so far has been better and better, aside from episode 4 being a bit of a slide in quality. Episode 5, entitled “The Good Mom”, is exactly as you’d expect: about Sophie’s mom. Obviously How I Met Your Mother explored similar ”parent” episodes, like Ted learning of his mom and dad’s divorce and the beginnings of their relationship basically being a mirror to that of Ted and Robin’s. I do feel that just like before, How I Met Your Father is seemingly borrowing tropes and plots from the original, but adding new spins to make them their own. Episode 5 is a perfect example of this.
While the episode had antics from the rest of the cast, it was obviously focused on Sophie and her relationship with her mom. What started out as what seemed like a traditional happy mother-daughter relationship developed further and further as the episode progressed. As Sophie learns more about her mom, she starts to think back on moments of their life, ultimately getting a clearer picture of what was going on when she was young. The relationship, although only being developed over one episode, truly felt like one of the most developed relationships in the show so far. I hope to see the mother again, as the history there is very interesting to Sophie’s development. I’m glad the other characters had a bit of a light story to the episode, with most of the cast trying to get over their fears, and Valentina being attached to Sophie for the duration of the episode, it really gave Sophie and her mom time to shine.
I always think back to How I Met Your Mother, not for the humor, although funny, but for the emotional moments that truly made the show great. The ones that shook a character to their core. Spoilers for How I Met Your Mother, but Barney and Robin getting engaged, Ted reuniting with Victora, the countdown to Marshall’s dad dying. Those are the moment that made the show stand out. This episode was one of those moments for How I Met Your Father. The episode developed Sophie’s character and made her finally do something for herself, as we learned was hard to do for her when it involved her mom. I absolutely loved the moment she took that leap, and as a result, the moment she shared with Drew at the end. I walked away from the episode with the same smile and reaction as I have had with those favorite episodes of mine from the original show, and that was the moment that this evolved for me from a sitcom recapturing the feel and tone from How I Met Your Mother, to a proper successor that deserves the fan’s attention.
Although having a rough start, I truly feel audiences should give the show another chance at this point if they have dropped off. This episode has me excited for this story to unfold more and more. If they can have a great episode like this in the first half of season 1, and so quickly developing the two characters involved in this moment with Sophie, I can only imagine what is in store for us as more relationships evolve, grow, end, and deepen. Sophie’s love story seems great, although it is early, she is a very easy character to cheer for, similar to how Ted immediately grasped me. Her ability to build with the rest of the cast seamlessly, and have deep and impactful relationships with them, has me clapping for the writers, as well as Hillary Duff for her performance. Although there have been some questionable acting in the show so far, I do find Sophie’s character charming and ultimately a great showing.
I am definitely excited for the future of the show, one good episode is all it takes for a show to start to grow, and I feel like this can be that episode for the show. I hope they can capitalize on that feeling for the second half of the season. There are still so many plot threads currently dangling in front of us with no resolution. I cannot wait for them to be explored. The show is shaping up to be an early favorite of mine for 2022, and if it can keep up with episodes like this, maybe it might stay in my favorites.
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