When Avengers: Age of Ultron hit theaters this past May, it marked the release of Marvel’s biggest film yet—in more ways than one. Not only was the scale of Age of Ultron massive, but the ensemble itself was stacked with brief appearances by fan favorite MCU characters, ranging from Idris Elba to Hayley Atwell. The ability to include so many different characters—from various worlds and time periods—was made possible by a series of dream sequences thanks to one Scarlet Witch. It added a wonderfully strange flavor to the Age of Ultron proceedings, and gave Joss Whedon the opportunity to have some fun with the headspace of his various Avengers.
But quite possibly the most popular MCU character of all was also supposed to be included, only to have his cameo nixed in post-production. We learned earlier this year that the Thor dream sequence initially had Tom Hiddleston’s Loki in the mix, but his character doesn’t appear in the final film. Speaking with Digital Spy recently, Hiddleston explains why:
“I was part of the dream sequence for the character of Thor. I shot for a day and enjoyed it very much, and then I received a phone call from Kevin Feige [who] said that in test screenings, audiences had overemphasized Loki’s role. They thought that because I was in it, I was controlling Ultron, and it was actually imbalancing people’s expectations so Joss and Kevin were like, ‘Let’s cut it because it’s confusing people.’… It made sense to me when I saw that film.”
Indeed it does make sense. Loki is really the only genuinely good villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and is quite possibly the most popular character aside from Iron Man. So it makes sense that the arrival of such a beloved character would elicit expectations that he was somehow involved in the film’s overarching proceedings. But we’ll get to see Hiddleston’s Loki in all his glory return for Thor: Ragnarok, which recently landed a director in Taika Waititi. The Dark World sequel opens in theaters November 2017.
Pokémon Go may have already overtaken Tinder and be creeping up on Twitter, but look up from catching that Dratini for just a second and pay attention! If you think finding a dead body during a stroll is bad, here are 12 Pokémon conspiracies that might just ruin your childhood – from mass genocide to possessed PokéBalls, the Pokémon fans sure have a warped mind when it comes to the cute pocket monsters. Whilst we patiently await Pokémon Sun & Moon, here is a run down of some of the craziest theories to come out of the long grass in the past 20 years…tin foil hats at the ready!
1. War Of The Worlds
Wow, there sure are a lot of children wandering around here, maybe it is because adults playing with anthropomorphic monsters is a bit weird, or maybe it is something all together more sinister! There is a theory that our heroes are left to potter around unsupervised because there simply aren’t enough adults around following a ‘Great War’. In fact, this one is so widely accepted, the theory has theories about the theory! It all comes from what Lt. Surge says to you way back when:
Hey kid! What do you think you’re doing here? You won’t live long in combat! That’s for sure! I tell you what kid, electric Pokèmon saved me during the war!
Are Surge’s words just a coincidence? Well, let’s look at the facts. In the original games you play Red (you have no father), and your rival is an orphan. Most of the adults you meet are either very old, gym leaders, or have a military background. At this point, you realise there was the Great Kanto War, where the majority of adults were killed off! This would also explain the alarming amount of nurses and hospitals, plus why everyone is constantly battle-ready.
2. Bones
No, this isn’t a case for David Boreanaz, this is the rather grim tale of Cubone and its rather unusual headwear. When a mother Kangaskhan dies, the poor orphan is left to fend for itself. The orphan wears its mothers skull and becomes Cubone – when Cubone evolves into Marowak, the skull fuses with the head. Female (and only female) Marowaks can later evolve into Kangaskhans and the cycle starts again. The morbid theory hypothesises that as Pokémon is a kid’s game, this story was too much to take and so Kangaskhan was separated into its own form. You can go on to back up the theory with the fact that Kangaskhan relates to the word ‘kangaroo’ and Cubone knows the move ‘boomerang’…struth Sheila! There in a nine -minute video here for those who want to go into greater depth!
3. Koff It Up
Team Rocket’s Pokémon choices were never going to be the best of the bunch, but a big purple ballooon…really?!? Both Koffing/Weezing can only be found in the Pokémon Mansion – an abandoned lab from the original games, so what was T.R. up to in there? Reddit tells us that evil Team rocket were trying to recreate a ghost-type Pokémon by cloning their gaseous forms. Whatever they were cooking up in there, it looks like they ballsed it up, ending up with two gaseous fart bags instead of the intended ghost-type. Also, if you look at the skull and cross-bones on the Pokémon’s chests, it would suggest man-made. The symbol is the universal mark for toxic, so unless Koffing/Weezing have some pretty clever birth marks, it looks like someone made them this way!
4. Million Dollar Bill
Think before you heal! Ever wonder how the Poké-Center will heal your Pokémon and let you go on your way without so much as a dime? Sure, we have Obamacare, but what pays to keep the lights running and the Nurse Joys joyful? You may just be a child, so you aren’t going to foot the bill, but someone has to! Enter mommy dearest. As you trot around having the adventure of your life, your mom waits at home as the bills pile up. Now not only a widow, but in over her head with hospital bills!
5. Ground Zero
WhilstPokémon Go is currently getting itself into hot water for people collecting at the 9/11 memorial, this isn’t first time the games have caused controversy at Ground Zero. If great wars and bankrupting your mother weren’t bad enough, how about a Poké-world where 9/11 still happened, thanks to the twisted theory sets the Black and white games in a post-9/11 aftermath. The theory is so controversial, Cracked did an article including it in ‘The 9 Most Offensive 9/11 References in Pop Culture’. Director Junichi Masuda even revealed that the Unova was based on New York City, but was the mistake intentional? You can clearly see Unova’s pond match up to Central Park, but what about that desolate wasteland in the middle…is this Ground Zero?
6. Mew Gotta Be Kidding Me?
What would you rather be, a wobbly blob of jelly, or the rarest Pokémon of them all? Sure, Ditto can mimic the other 721 Pokémon, but by all accounts this little sludge monster is a failed clone of Mew. Mew contains the DNA of all other Pokémon and can reproduce asexually…you know who else can do that?!? Ditto! If you still aren’t convinced, both share nearly identical colour palettes, have a common weight of 8.8.lbs and are the only two Pokémon who can learn the transform move naturally. The difference is that Mew in incredibly rare, whilst Ditto is in abundance on Cinnabar island, could the experiments have escaped the lab? Ditto isn’t exactly a positive case for cloning – it is Dolly the Sheep all over again.
7. Clefable The Friendly Ghost
The ghost Pokémon have always provided us with more questions than answers, like are they just other Pokémon in dead form? There are some pretty great theories, like that Voltorb is simply a possessed Poké-ball after a Haunter became trapped inside, however, our favourite ghost theory is Clefable and Gengar. Ever noticed how Gengar and Clefable look oddly similar? Well Creepypasta has cracked the mystery – your angry Gengar is just a Clefable shadow! Known as the shadow Pokémon has lead people to ask, “Just what is Gengar the shadow of?” Not quite as simple as Peter Pan and his shadow, but Gengar bears more than a slight resemblance to the giant Kirby wannabe. To put the icing on the cake, before the release of Pokémon X and Y, both Gengar and Clefable were unable to hit each other with STAB attack…have you ever tried to stab your shadow?
8. The Missingno-Link
An abbreviation of ‘missing number’, Missingno was the more than helpful glitch in the original games. Aside from the joy of getting one over on the game and giving you unlimited Master Balls or Rare Candy, Nintendo actually acknowledged the existence of the mystery Pokémon. It is believed that Missingno was an underdeveloped Pokémon that creators tried to remove from the game, but ultimately got stuck in the code. A more disturbing theory is that a Missingo is what happens to a Pokémon when it spends an extended amount of time trapped in its Pokéball, which would also explain why Pikachu is so reluctant to go inside.
9. Fly Me To The Moon
Of all the places to visit in the Pokémon world, Mt. Moon is one of the strangest, but also most rewarding locations in the Kanto region. Who can pass up on finding a Helix Fossil, or grabbing a Moon Stone, but where did it all come from? Some people hold that Mt. Moon was once an active volcano, hence all the Pompeii style fossils. However, I always prefer the theory that Clefairies came from space and populated the mountain. The Clefairies landed in their spaceship and brought their precious Moon Stones with them to feel more like home.
10. You Rock My World
So, in Reddit’s warped world, gym leader/travelling companion Brock is in fact Pokémon’s very own Medusa – cursed with the mystic eyes of a Gorgon. If you have ever wondered why Brock’s eyes always appear closed, it is because he has the ability to turn you to stone. The wacky doesn’t stop there – ‘Medusa Brock’ also explains why he is the owner of the rock gym and would imply that Onix was never actually a rock-type.
The theory does tend to lose traction though, as on several occasions you see Brock open his eyes. Just like above, Officer Jenny manages to escape rock free. Another joker says that maybe Brock’s eyes always look closed because he is constantly being maced for his advances on women!
11. R.I.P Raticate
Finally, these last two take the conspiracies to an all together darker area of the Poké-world (you have been warned). Back to the original games and oh, this guy again! Blue/Gary Oak was a pain in the backside of the Pokémon games, always popping up with a Bulbasaur to whip your Squirtle just when you least expected it. With some cunning tactics and a well stocked Poké-army, Blue wasn’t that hard to defeat. Blue’s Ratatta is at the forefront of his battle team all the way up until your fight on the S.S. Anne, where it becomes a Lv.16, newly evolved, Raticate – think of the pride on your rival’s face with his sparkly new Raticate.
You (obviously) kick his ass and carry on with your luxury cruise. The next time Blue pops up, where is Raticate? When you meet after the S.S. Anne it is in Lavender Town, the last resting place for dead Pokémon – in the madness of the cruise and overcrowding, Blue/Gary couldn’t get Raticate to a Pokémon Center in time and he passed away. Why the S.S. Anne wouldn’t have somewhere to heal on board is beyond me, but if it didn’t, and Raticate really did die, are you the game’s ultimate douchebag?!? Redditor WideEyedEspurr has since gone on to debunk the popular theory, mainly pointing out a kids game is unlikely to paint the main hero as a rat-squashing killer!
12. Grey’s Ashatomy
The first rule of storytelling is that it is never just a dream. Finally, for the biggest mindf**k of all theories and one that is pulled straight from the pages of some St. Elsewhere storyline – the whole series is taking place in Ash’s coma. After Ash is attacked by a group of Spearows, then struck by lightning during Ep. 1, he is rushed to the nearest hospital, but never wakes up. All those he meets on his travels represent a part of his life. Brock is his repressed sexuality, Pikachu his humanity and Team Rocket the parts of himself that he doesn’t like. Like the constants from LOST, Jenny and Joy were two women he knew before his accident, helping him remain grounded as he travels further into his own coma psyche.
Mewtwo, everyone’s favourite psychic cat, is an electronic impulse that the doctors apply to Ash’s brain to help bring him from the coma – this is how Mewtwo is able to ‘talk’. Coma theory also nicely explains why all the Jenny and Joy’s are all the same, as well as why Ash never ages, or accomplishes becoming a Pokémon master. Probably the most easily debunked of all the theories, but the one which ties up the lose ends that the other theories leave as question marks Maybe all of Pokémon takes place inside a young boy’s snow globe?
Aside from the may ghosts and goblins, the world of Pokémon can be a pretty scary place – it appears you can’t go for a cycle without ending up locked in a coma, or fighting a great war. Why can’t everyone just go back to swapping shiny Charizards and trying to train an unruly Pikachu. Ok, article over, back to discovering Dugtrios in the maternity ward and Sandshrews down your pants in Pokémon Go.
If you’re old enough to remember the original PlayStation launching, then you’ll know how big of a deal switching to optical media was. Rather than shipping an expensive cartridge full of chips, games were burnt on to cheap spinning discs. It didn’t take long for other home consoles to follow and discs have been the preferred media for home consoles ever since.
With the launch of the Switch$299.99 at Amazon, Nintendo is reverting back to cartridge media for a home console. Nintendo handhelds have stuck with cartridges ever since the Game Boy launched, but there wasn’t really any alternative. For a home console, though, it poses a big problem in the form of pricing.
Inevitably, cross platform games will be released targeting the Xbox One$296.88 at Amazon, PS4, and Switch. You only have to look at listings for Puyo Puyo Tetris to see the challenge Switch developers (and Nintendo) face. On PS4 the game costs $29.99, but on Switch it’s $39.99.
The reason, as highlighted by Eurogamer, is one of manufacturing cost. Optical media, even Blu-ray discs, are very cheap to mass produce. Cartridges are relatively-speaking much more expensive. They also aren’t a set cost.
Regardless of whether you burn 5GB or 40GB to a Blu-ray disc the media costs the same. Switch cartridges on the other hand, escalate in price depending on whether you need 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of storage. They also get more expensive per cartridge the smaller the batch ordered.
If you only own a Switch, then the price difference doesn’t really matter as you are stuck paying $39.99. However, many gamers will own, or plan to own, a PS4 and a Switch, much like many have owned a home console and a 3DS. In that case, Nintendo will lose out on cross-platform game sales to the PS4 or Xbox One due to the price differential. The PS4/Xbox One are significantly more powerful than Switch meaning the same game will inevitably look better and run faster while also being cheaper.
The pricing issue is compounded by the fact Nintendo insists that digital versions of a game offered through the eShop must be priced the same as physical versions. So opting to invest in a large SD card and only downloading games won’t save you any cash.
With time and the continued success of the Switch, economies of scale should see manufacturing costs fall. But for the foreseeable future, Switch games are going to be more expensive than the same game on another platform. In fact, manufacturing costs will mean they are always more expensive to produce than the optical disc equivalent.
Will this impact a publisher’s decision to release games on Switch. Potentially, yes. But Switch sales will be key. If Nintendo continues to sell millions of units then the market exists to make releasing on the platform viable. And the more Switch sold, the bigger the cartridge orders can be, and therefore the cheaper they become.
Steven Spielberg changed the game 22 years ago when he released the dinosaur epic Jurassic Park, which remains one of the most successful and popular movies Hollywood has ever seen. Among those featured in the movie were kid actors Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards, who played the forever-traumatized grandchildren of Richard Attenborough. In the two decades since becoming famous for running from velociraptors, where are they now? We dug up some pretty interesting facts to catch you up to (carbon) date.
Now, here’s something that’ll make you feel super-old: Richards, now 36 (!) tied the knot with her hubby, Mark Bolton, in 2013, and is currently expecting her first child, due in November 2015. “My husband and I are thrilled,” Richards told PEOPLE in June. “This is really a wonderful moment for us. It’s super exciting.”
According to PEOPLE, over the years Richards shifted from acting to painting, which is now her main professional focus. “I love to work with people in the art and express their story on canvas and my impression of them and what they want to express and use oils, brushes, canvas to create something that will last the generation,” she revealed. Now reportedly in South America for her art tour, Richards says she’s living a “much quieter” but “still very rich” life compared to her days in the glitz and glamor of Hollywood. “My life story these days, I still experience the red carpet as an artist,” she said. “But on a day-to-day basis I live kind of a country life.”
According to a 2011 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Richards sent Spielberg a watercolor self portrait of herself that was inspired by one of the scenes in Jurassic Park, which now hangs in Spielberg’s office. For his part, Spielberg is a pretty good gift-giver, too. “He never fails to send me something around Christmas,” Richards said. “When he finds people he likes, he’s really good at keeping in touch.” And here we thought we couldn’t love Spielberg more than we do already.
Richards’ movie career pretty much began and ended with the Jurassic Park franchise. She last appeared in a movie in the 1997 sequel, The Lost World. Subsequent acting gigs were on an incredibly smaller scale; TV movies like Broken Silence: A Moment of Truth Movie (1998) and Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001) are among the titles. No, we’ve never heard of them either.
Also in her interview with The Wall Street Journal, Richards—who graduated from Skidmore college in 2011—admitted she hasn’t altogether ruled out a return to acting. “Sometimes I’m on the the pulse of what’s happening in Hollywood,” she said, “but other times, I’m just totally absorbed by what I’m creating on the easel.” Adding to PEOPLE, she said: “If some great role or project finds me, absolutely that could be a nice thing to do, for sure.” Here’s hoping she paid attention to Jurassic World’s record-breaking box office returns…
In 2011, GK Films acquired the movie rights to Tomb Raider, with the plans of rebooting the iconic video game franchise on the big screen. Several years later, things have finally come together: fans are getting a new Tomb Raider movie come 2018. Here’s what we know about the reboot so far.
Several women have voiced Lara Croft in the various video games, but the only woman to play her on the big screen was Angelina Jolie in the early 2000s. Many actresses in Hollywood were after the iconic role, and Warner Bros. wanted to make sure it got the right person for the job. After reportedly meeting with several actresses, including Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley, the studio settled on Alicia Vikander. Judging from these set photos from last week, it looks like Vikander is doing just fine so far.
Once it cast the leading role, the studio began looking into the supporting cast, which includes Dominic West as Lara’s father (Lord Richard Croft), Daniel Wu as ship captain Lu Ren, and Walton Goggins as villain Father Mathias Vogel. Not much is known about the film, except for its basic premise. However, Goggins had a few words to say about his unconventional antagonist.
“[Like other characters] I have been so lucky to have the opportunity to play over the course of my career, there are real reasons behind his antagonism, and it’s not what you’d expect. He is very complicated, and his motivations are pure,” Goggins told Yahoo. Talking to Collider, Goggins added that his character is “confused, angry, and desperate.”
Rounding out the crew is Norwegian director Roar Uthaug, whose 2015 disaster film The Wave put him on the map when Norway submitted it as its official entry for the 88th Academy Awards’ best foreign language film. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the cut. Uthaug is helming the project based on a script from industry newcomer Geneva Robertson-Dworet, with MGM and GK Films partnering to produce the films.
An origin story to define the franchise
After years of waiting, fans finally got their hands on a new Tomb Raider game in 2013, thanks to the folks at Crystal Dynamics, who rebooted the franchise with a franchise-defining origin story. Now, Warner Bros., whose interactive entertainment arm co-published the game’s sequel, wants to do the same for the franchise on the movie side. And to do that, it’s basing the upcoming reboot on the video game’s story. After all, Tomb Raider is a video game franchise at heart.
“They told me they were doing the film based on the reboot of the game from 2013,” Vikander told Uproxx. “That is more of an origin story. You get into an emotional aspect of getting to know Lara hopefully in an in-depth way.” With the reboot following the basic premise of the video game reboot, the question arises: will the movie’s sequel, should it happen, be based on the story of the game’s sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider? Let’s hope there are at least a few twists we don’t see coming.
A psychological adventure to mess with your head
We know that the movie will take inspiration from Crystal Dynamics’ video game reboot, but what kind of film will it be? According to Walton Goggins, the story is like “Raiders of the Lost Ark meets a genre version of the Joseph Conrad novel Victory: An Island Tale.” Once he read the script, he said “jumped at the chance” of doing it.
Although there have been countless adventure movies over the years, the film to beat these days is Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first Indiana Jones movie. It’s the prototypical treasure-adventure flick. It’s one of those movies that inspires a multitude of directors, including Roar Uthaug, to join the filmmaking industry. Uthaug expressed to IGN his desire to make an adventure movie like Indiana Jones, which is one of the reasons he signed on as director. “I think we’ll want to make it feel like a modern action movie and to make what’s going on feel like it’s going on for real,” Uthaug said.
If you aren’t familiar with the novel Goggins mentioned, Victory: An Island Tale is a 1915 psychological tale about a man who ends up living on an island in what is now Indonesia due to a business mishap. Though complex, the story deals with the effects of isolation (especially on an island) and how that can blur the lines between what is civilized and what is barbaric. Since Tomb Raider deals with someone being stranded on an island, perhaps we’ll see how Lara Croft breaks through her misfortunes.
A different kind of Lara Croft
Those who don’t play the Tomb Raider video games may not be well-versed in Lara Croft’s history–her characteristics, her background, or her the reason she does what she does. She’s an iconic video game character, but is she someone people can aspire to be (other than the abandonment on a remote island bit)? That hasn’t been explored on screen before, which is something Roar Uthaug is looking to change.
“I think making Lara Croft feel like a real human being, that’s definitely something we want to bring to the big screen as well,” Uthaug told IGN. “I think we’ll want to make people relate to Lara as a character.”
It’s no secret that the video game industry tends to oversexualize its female characters, a trend that arguably began with the first Tomb Raider game over 20 years ago. Critics can’t seem to agree on whether Lara is a positive or negative female role model for young girls (and gamers). Sure, she’s a strong character who relies heavily on her wits to survive extraordinary situations, and that is what drew Uthaug to the project in the first place.
“I’ve always been a fan of strong female characters,” Uthaug added, “and I think I’ve had strong female characters in all my previous movies.” Perhaps the new reboot will purge the belief that Lara might be a “cyberbimbo” and restore her image as a strong female human character.
Potential shared universe?
Shared universes are all the rage in Hollywood these days. Thanks to the overwhelming success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, everyone’s getting in on the trend–Warner Bros. with its DC Extended Universe and MonsterVerse (Godzilla, King Kong, etc.), as well as Universal with the plainly and cyclically named Universal’s Monsters Universe. If producer Adrian Askarieh had his way, there would be a shared universe consisting of Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus Ex, Thief, and Just Cause–all Square Enix-published video games that have film adaptations already released or in development.
He said he would put Just Cause, Hitman, and Tomb Raider in the present time frame of the universe. “Deus Ex would be the future of that universe and Thief would be the past,” Askarieh told IGN. “Unfortunately, I don’t have Lara Croft, and [Hitman: Agent 47] needs to be a big hit for that to happen.” Unfortunately, Hitman: Agent 47 scored an abysmal 8 percent critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Another problem is that the movie rights for most of those properties have been sold to multiple Hollywood studios, not just one. And if watching the MCU pass right by all those years of X-Men movies taught us anything, it’s that it’s hard to make crossovers happen under these circumstances. for now how difficult it can be for stories to cross over when the characters exist with different studios (see: X-Men and MCU). But hey, Spider-Man made it in, so maybe there’s a chance.
The release date is right around the corner
Tomb Raider began filming on January 23, 2017, right on schedule for the film to meet its March 16, 2018, release date. Upcoming superhero movie The Flash was previously slated for a March 2018 release date, but The Flash’s numerous production delays and director changes have made that unlikely. And it’s good for Warner Bros., which is distributing both The Flash and Tomb Raider–and dropping them too close to each other would hurt both films. So we get Tomb Raider first, and we even get it in IMAX.
