TwinIon

I think it depends entirely on how the new films do. Star Wars has never been as big overseas (~50-55% overseas gross vs ~60-70% for the MCU). If the upcoming trilogies we know about fail, or start doing numbers closer to Solo than Rogue One, I can see them being cut short in favor of trying to make another "mainline" entry. I'm not even sure what the timeline for that is though. I would think at least 10 years barring absolutely catastrophic failure. The flip side is that I can see a new trilogy potentially quite well. Imagine if either new trilogy is able to increase its appeal overseas as that market continues to expand. A Star Wars film with an Endgame like 70% overseas % could be enough to convince Disney they never need to return to the original well. No matter what, if they do try and make a new mainline trilogy, I hope it's not following the Skywalker bloodline.

Aladdin is an indictment of the entire enterprise of remaking animated films in live action, even as individual elements manage to shine through. At its best, we see a charismatic Aladdin make a meaningful connection with a newly empowered Jasmine, or pal around with an authentically Will Smith genie. At its worst, we see a horrific CG Will Smith do a poor impression of the incomparable Robin Williams, or a live action Jafar fail to live up to the menace of his goofy animated counterpart. At almost every turn, when the remake is allowed to be its own creation, not remaking exact shots or comedic beats, it's actually quite good. The production design feels both fantastic and grounded in real cultures, the increased emphasis on Jasmine pays off in raised emotional stakes and in increasing the depth of her character. Even the scenes that are direct remakes that don't exactly mirror the animation have a real life to their own that makes the remake feel like a worthwhile endeavor. Then there are the all too numerous occasions where the film is just a poor imitation of a classic. Comedy that doesn't work without animation, magic that feels too out of place in the flesh. Will Smith is a pretty good genie, and a very poor Robin Williams. Jafar too felt out of place throughout the film. Whether the result of poor acting, casting, or simply being a character that doesn't translate well, the result is that it diminishes the film as a whole. Overall, the film is perfectly competent, and in the absence of its source material it might garner some more heavy praise. It's just too often unable to escape the shadow of its predecessor, even for someone that hasn't seen the original since it was on VHS.

Detective Pikachu is a bizarre place to begin what could very well become a cinematic universe of live action Pokemon films. It feels more like the kind of spin off that a studio makes long after having made the more traditional entries in the series. X-Men started with the standard heroes, then moved on to solo films with Wolverine and Deadpool. Marvel began with the well known characters before splitting off to do smaller films like Ant-Man or largely disconnected films like Guardians. Sony rebooted Spider-man three times before spinning off Venom. This isn't to say that Pikachu is a minor character, but the choice to do a noir-ish detective film rather than something more identifiable as a "traditional" pokemon story, still feels like the spin-off from a long lasting film series. It functions that was as well. The world is given very much in media res, with virtually no explanations or setup. There are pokemon everywhere, and for someone a decade or two removed from their last pokemon game, the simple joy of seeing them in the world was less compelling than it might otherwise be. To the film's credit, the effects for the pokemon are outstanding. As we've seen with the Sonic trailer, translating simple video game characters to live action can be troublesome, but even the most bizarre and non-sensical pokemon are rendered with consistency and care. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for the plot. The film traverses some typical noir tropes, and plays out like a rather standard mystery, but the mystery itself lacks motivation or logic. Side characters and villains feel like they're straight out of the cartoon, rather than the meticulously rendered PG Blade Runner world of the film. The one character who does seem to match the gravity of the story they're trying to tell is Justice Smith's Tim. Smith is perhaps the only actor who seems like he knows what film he's in, rather than the film that the mere mention of Pikachu would conjure. Ultimately, for whatever dressing of something more, this is a children's film. For any kid that would get a rush out of seeing a sleeping snorelax, I'm sure Detective Pikachu would be a treat. The rest of us will have to ponder why so much care was put into using this world to tell this particular story. *Spoilers* One last bizarre decision is to end the film in a place where Pikachu can no longer communicate with Tim. It seems like it would horribly complicate any potential sequels, and it completely reverses the entire dynamic of the film and the arcs of the main characters.

Thanks for the rec. I started listening to the podcast, and I appreciate hearing the creator talk about what was accurate and what wasn't, and then also being able to provide reasoning and context to those decisions.

I watched the first three episodes, and I've been quite impressed by the show so far. The production design and VFX guys have done an amazing job, and I think the acting overall has been superb. I'll be very interested in seeing where the show diverges from the truth.

The dev being Crystal Dynamics gives me some hope, but I also feel like it'll be a tough ask for anyone.

It seems to me that at the rate that Musk risks everything, he doesn't really need much advice in how to lose billions. Still, Batista has a point on the interiors of Teslas. They're not up to the quality of their competitors. They're spartan and functional, and they have those giant touch screens that seem to be enough for people to forgive them their other failings, but the interior quality is just generally uncompetitive with other $60-$90k vehicles.

So far it doesn't look like it will make any sense or be any fun to play, but it could be fun to read the endless think pieces and watch the youtube dissections that it will inevitably spawn.

Trump says he'll put in an order so that the next carrier we build will use steam. I think the safe assumption is that he'll forget, and the formal process for this will never actually start. However, if it did, there is one more Ford class carrier scheduled to launch this year, and another scheduled to be laid down next year. After that the next ones won't be laid down until 2023 and 2027. So I suppose it's possible for this crazy order to actually affect one carrier, maybe two if he wins re-election.

That's an interesting idea, but it's also the setup for a very different film than the Alien movies have typically been. If Scott isn't getting money to make these movies, I doubt he's getting it to do a film that would require significantly more funding.

That's a surprise to me. It's not shocking to me that someone running a site like that would quit, but it is a surprise that a site like that, owned by Curse (and therefore Twitch and Amazon), would just go away. The game might not be growing in popularity, but it's far from dead, and Hearthpwn seems like the best of breed.

I was unimpressed by the Pixel 3, so I'm still using an OG Pixel XL. I considered picking up a Samsung, but didn't. The 7+ Pro has quickly become a real consideration.

I was in the opposite camp. I really disliked Prometheus, but I quite enjoyed Covenant. At this point, I guess I'm rooting to see Scott end the prequel trilogy.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "holds up." Are we talking about films from the early 90s what are just as good today as they were then? Because that's a rather large pool. Are we talking about VFX heavy films that are still convincing 25 years on? If so, Jurassic Park falls into an odd place. As one of the first CG heavy movies, I think many films before it hold up better than the films immediately after. Regardless, it's one of my favorite films of all time, and I'd argue it holds up under pretty much any metric.

About a dozen attempted Brexits too late.

The other thing about these subsidies, is that they just can't go on forever, but much of that market will be gone for a long time, if not indefinitely. After a full year of finding other sources for these products, ending the trade war isn't suddenly going to fix everything.

Wow. I didn't think that teams made any money, but I'd have thought that Riot at least made money from their esports. It's been going for so long now, do they just see it as an advertising thing? Something to keep the game going? This is an obvious problem with esports that will take a long time to change. Games are beginning to have a more broad appeal, but I'd have to expect that even as games have wider audiences, the competitive scene is going to lag behind any progress. I remember seeing that on twitch, but I had no idea how shadey those numbers were. When I'd see people say things like "LOL got more viewers than the superbowl," I always assumed that was BS, but I wasn't aware of how much the meager numbers on a twitch stream are gamed. All the comparisons to standard sports feel pretty misguided. I haven't seen a game that people would watch, but not play. Certainly DOTA and League are basically incomprehensible. Overwatch is a nightmare of fast paced action that I can't really watch. Other FPS games like CS are slightly better, but I still can't imagine them finding an audience beyond their player base. The same holds true for Hearthstone (the only esport I actually follow) or Magic. Rocket League is perhaps the closest I've seen to something non-players could watch, but I don't think it's ever been particularly successful in that way. I think it's conceivable that a future video game will become the next NBA/NFL/MLB, but I don't think that game exists yet. In the meantime, there's the question of what esports are even for. I think most of them exist simply as promotional tools for the games, and that's fine, but it does get pretty silly when you see the money getting poured into the scene. Where investment is justified is in sponsored streams. Forbes had a piece on how much sponsored streamers get paid, which fits along with this video I saw a while back. Esports don't seem worth the investment, but I can easily see how paying Ninja $1M to play a game for 20 hours will be a better investment than putting that money into traditional advertising.

It's kinda a tech demo, but they were supposedly running the real Spider-Man game. I agree with you that it's not representative.

Good article, terrific photos. What exactly does Abrams being Abrams look like? I've very much enjoyed his work, but I've (perhaps unfairly) always felt like he was doing directorial impressions. Sometimes, they're great (TFA), other times, less so (Into Darkness).

They suddenly don't seem concerned about where the money will come from.

This franchise should never have continued after T2. That said, Mackenzie Davis is great, having Linda Hamilton back is awesome, and Tim Miller directing gives me some hope. Still, this is one of those franchises that I feel like a really talented cast and crew still can't save. Tell me those folks are making a new action movie and I'm hyped to hell and back. Make it a Terminator film and I'm less than convinced.

Ok, so the assumption is that they're talking about things we haven't seen on screen, but are the direct results of things we did. That makes sense, giving them more freedom to set things up the way they want to.

Sony was showing off loading times recently, demonstrating what Wired had talked about: Turns out that SSDs are indeed much faster. Of course, they're loading a PS4 game here, so you'd have to imagine that a PS5 game would have more significant assets and take longer, but still.

Barry is really excellent. It's a wonderful mix of dark comedy and drama in a half hour show. There's an episode in season 2 that I think might be the best episode of anything this year. Everyone should check it out.

I think the inevitable evolution of the Quest is to replace the Rift by wirelessly connecting to a PC. Of course that's not possible with this first version, but imagine a Quest 2 (or 3 or 4) that can also act as a wireless PC based HMD. They could easily sell the PC connector for an extra $100-$200 and it would be an instant buy for me. I agree that $400 is not low enough to fly off the shelves, but I think at $200 it sells millions and even at $300 it could challenge the PSVR if the library grows. The PSVR has sold 4M units at $300 + a playstation. The $200 Go has sold a million or two units, and it's not even close to the same experience.