‘Castlevania’ and Why the Binge Model is Perfect for Video Game Adaptations

Between Castlevania and The Witcher, Netflix has really cornered the market on mature video game adaptations about monster hunting. Look, everyone needs a niche.

The third season of the former has finally descended upon our Netflix queues (and it’s truly a well-earned capital-m Mature in this season, I might add). Where most video game adaptations miss the mark, the animated series has consistently distinguished itself by doing right by its source material, capturing the gore, atmosphere, and gothic gait of the Konami series with the added bonus of a sharp wit and a deliciously dark charm. Plus, we’ve been spoiled with two more episodes than last season. Lucky us!

Note: light spoilers for Castlevania Season 3 ahead.

The dust has settled after the upheaval of the Season 2 finale. Trevor (voiced by Richard Armitage), the last surviving member of the infamous monster-slaying Belmont clan, has fully abandoned his lone-wolf lifestyle and now roams the country with the powerful, kind-hearted sorceress Sypha (Alejandra Reynoso) killing beasties. While the scheming vampire Carmilla (Jaime Murray) marches homeward in the hope that the captive monster-making Hector (Theo James) will build her an army, the misanthropic Isaac (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) is raising hell, quite literally, in the desert. And of course, there’s Alucard (James Callis), getting used to solitude after killing his own father, Vlad Dracula Tepes.

As with previous seasons, the lead performances in Castlevania remain a complete and utter joy. I didn’t know how they were going to top Peter Stormare’s vocal appearance as a Viking vampire in Season 2, but Jason Isaacs as a tight-fisted mayor whose town is slipping through his grip and Bill Nighy as a mysterious academic will absolutely do the trick. Plus Barbara Steele as a mad witch and Lance Reddick as a story-loving ship captain? My god!

Also, a complete and utter delight to see (well, hear) Navid Negahban, this season’s winner of the coveted “weirdest and most captivating vocal performance” award by a long shot. The night creature who regales Isaac with stories of his previous life as a philosopher in Ancient Greece is a close second.

Season 3’s focus is again split between different storylines. Trevor and Sypha’s chapter is wildly engaging and sees the pair grappling with both monsters and the grim realities of what it means to share a difficult life with someone you love. I am not going to divulge the narrative details because their storyline is really best revealed than retold. Suffice to say: Castlevania may very well have turned in a better adaptation of Color Out of Space than Richard Stanley did.

Isaac’s storyline is another standout, testing and adjusting the boundaries of the forge master’s hatred for mankind as he makes his way across the world with his steadily-expanding army of night creatures. Of course, some subplots are weaker than others. Carmilla’s storyline has one foot stuck in narrative mud, with a quartet of ambitious female vampires unable to do much while they wait to secure Hector’s ability to make them an army.

The scenes between Hector and the vampire diplomat Lenore are compelling, but compared to the other storylines, their pace feels glacial. Alucard’s plot undoubtedly features the weakest writing, pacing, and performances of the season (and arguably the series). And while his final character beat works on paper, the long, tedious, circular walk it takes cheapens what could have been a much stronger moment.

Where Season 2 canters thematically on the consequences of giving up on the world, Season 3 is more concerned with the difficulties of fighting for it: how to process the exhaustion, horror, and frustration of giving mankind a shot and repeatedly coming out disappointed. It is, unfortunately, an evergreen concern. All told, Season 3 of Castlevania delivers the gory, gothic goods. And while we’ve come to expect good things from the series, its success as an adaptation of a video game remains something of an anomaly.

Along with death and taxes, one of the few certainties in life is that video game adaptations tend to be a letdown. While I’m not terribly partial to presuming guilt, the precedent is well-established. We’ve been burned many times. Be it by the notorious string of late-’90s to mid-2000s turkeys (Postal, Alone in the Dark, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, etc.) or by more recent big-budget offenders (Assassin’s Creed, Warcraft, Need for Speed, etc.). A few cult favorites have emerged over the years (Silent Hill is receiving something of a quiet renaissance right now), but let’s just say there’s something to the half-joke that the best game adaptation out there is 1985’s take on Clue.

That said, Castlevania’s ongoing high batting average and the recent success of The Witcher have got me thinking. I’m starting to wonder if Netflix might be especially (if not uniquely) suited to adapting not just video games, but the kind of video games that Hollywood has historically struggled to adapt. To really unpack that, first, we need to talk about video games as a medium versus “video game adaptations” as a genre.

When we’re talking about aesthetic and narrative taxonomies, thinking of “video game adaptations” as a genre is not actually that helpful. Affiliating Borderlands and Street Fighter makes about as much sense as lumping Dune and Emma together on the basis that they’re both books. And yet, the classification persists.

Different games have different tropes, different appeals, different contexts of creation, and different approaches to storytelling. But when it comes to “video game adaptations” as a genre, none of that really matters. Instead, when people use “video game adaptation” as a genre, they usually mean two things: first, that these are films based on content from an interactive medium; second, that most of these films are garbage.

The latter point has become the assumed qualifier of the genre, in large part because of the former point. In other words: adapting video games is often an exercise in trying to shove a round peg through a square hole. Film and television are passive entertainment, games are active, and as a result what makes a game special tends to get lost in the sauce.

So why is Netflix a better space for adapting video games?

Most video games don’t have linear narratives. They don’t stick to “and then.. and then… and then…” storytelling and often have side missions, tangents, and fetch-quests that don’t immediately serve the main narrative. And it can be difficult for movies to account for the episodic nature of gameplay. But TV series are different: there’s an in-built fragmentation that allows for less one-track way-finding.

An example of this from Castlevania: Trevor and Sypha are basically living out a gothic cowboy serial, roaming from town to town, battling hellish beasties du jour. Likewise, Isaac also has a more intermittent trajectory, and his arc this season operates as unique chapters with their own challenges distinct from his larger, big-picture goal. I have to wonder if this amount of deviance from the beaten path would be possible in a film with a 90-minute runtime.

Another reason I think streaming, specifically, is well-suited to video game adaptations is that binge-watching has a similar mouth-feel to how folks tend to play video games. Most games have “checkpoints” of some kind where a task/mission/goal is accomplished and you have an implicit opportunity to stop playing. But most folks don’t; they lie to themselves and say “just 15 more minutes” and push forward. Sound familiar? Obviously watching Netflix in bed is still passive entertainment, but repeatedly indulging the “next episode” prompt is an added wrinkle that feels a bit like an echo to the rhythms of gameplay.

In any case, regardless of whatever supportive boons the streaming format affords, the real reason Netflix has cracked video game adaptations has a lot to do with the show-runners’ evident understanding and respect for what makes their source material tick. With Castlevania specifically, there is a real sense that the folks behind the scenes have tapped into the timbre of how the games feel.

The plot of most Castlevania games (and most games for that matter) could fit on a post-it note. So much of the appeal and the storytelling that goes on in games happens in places outside of “and then…and then…and then…” narratives. It’s in the art design, the mechanics, the difficulty, and the details — things you wouldn’t have a chance to notice if you were sprinting towards the finish line through a dramatized Wikipedia plot summary. Netflix’s Castlevania may deviate from its source material in some respects, but it has always been spiritually and emotionally faithful. And that’s what sets it apart.

So, if Netflix continues to hire folks who care about preserving the unique feel and storytelling of game titles, and if I’m right that there’s something about streaming that is especially suited to video game adaptations, then we’re in for a treat. Because Netflix is reportedly developing animated adaptations of Devil May Cry, Assassin’s Creed, and Hyper Light Drifter. And wouldn’t it be great to look forward to adaptations of video games rather than auto-bracing for disappointment? I think so.

All three seasons of Castlevania are currently streaming on Netflix.

The Effect of the Voyeur Camerawork in ‘The Invisible Man’

Leigh Whannell‘s reimagined Invisible Man is a more terrifying and menacing Universal Monster for modern times. Before his “death,” he was an abusive, controlling husband to a trapped Cecilia Kass, played by Elisabeth Moss. Knowing that he is capable of real evil makes waiting for him to inflict that evil on Cecilia and the people she loves excruciating to watch but in the most thrilling way. Whannell’s monster is not the only thing that keeps the audience on edge throughout The Invisible Man. The strategic cinematography of Stefan Duscio never lets the audience relax; it even makes a complacent witness out of anyone who watches the film.

The remake starts off depicting Cecilia’s escape from her deranged and violently abusive husband, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), and the camerawork stands out from the very first scene. There are languid shots of Cecilia as she tip-toes through the mansion while Adrian sleeps, unaware that she is leaving him. Adrian may be unconscious, but one shot as Cecilia hastily dresses and grabs her things still makes the audience feel like someone else is watching. The camera pans from a wide frame from the hallway to a shot of the long hallway, but it’s empty.

This is a great way to keep the audience wondering, waiting for Adrian to wake up and hurt her. He never comes to, but that anticipation for something lying in the empty spaces that are deliberately shown onscreen lingers with the audience. Some filmmakers might have chosen to stay close to Cecilia, to focus on her face in order to show the audience how nervous she is and to relay that emotion to them. Duscio stays back, unafraid to show the story from the point of view of the hidden corners.

Once Cecilia is safe with James (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter Sydney (Storm Reid), the camera still never allows the audience to enjoy the relief that the characters are feeling in the scenes. They watch as the characters celebrate Christmas but look on from another room. There are several moments like this in the film, where the shot is framed as to exclude the audience from being in the scene itself.

This creates a few feelings for the audience. One effect is the framing makes the audience feel much like the Invisible Man. They know he is lurking somewhere close by, even if they cannot see him. That is evident by the holds on empty space and pans to parts of the house other characters aren’t occupying. However, they are looking in on Cecilia from a distance, just as he is. These moments when they are watching her are when she is most vulnerable and it makes the audience uncomfortable. As they become the voyeur in the situation, they are not far from being the monster, too.

The other effect it has on the audience is giving them complete powerlessness. They observe from a distance, see more than just what Cecilia can see, but they cannot do anything about it. Like her friends who cannot see what she worries about, they cannot help her, only watch the destruction Adrian causes. It’s torturous for the audience, in a way that makes for a great horror film.

It’s also incredibly fitting considering the subject of the movie. Cecilia’s abusive relationship is based on the experiences women face in real relationships. How many of us have sat idly by when there were clear signs that a woman is being physically or emotionally abused? In The Invisible Man, they must watch and think about all the ways they would help if only they could. It’s frustrating for the audience, but in a way that should stay with them after they walk out of the theater. Perhaps they will choose to be more than a witness to the abuse and step further into the frame to help.

Where this camerawork could be a gimmick for the sake of style, it is rightfully pulled off in The Invisible Man. Focusing on blank space makes the audience search the frame for signs of the Invisible Man. They might catch a glimpse of a knife he is wielding, or the shot might create a diversion to surprise the audience when they are focused on something else. This works because what they are scared of in the film is that which they cannot see.

Whannell and Duscio use the camera to create anticipation in a way that serves the tone of the film as well. There is just enough restraint in the cinematography that the camerawork doesn’t get in the way of the story but keeps the audience interested in what is invisible to them. What ends up being the most terrifying aspect of the film is not what is invisible, but the audience’s complacent role in Cecilia’s story as they are forced to witness her torture as a not-so-innocent bystander.

The Many Misadventures of the ‘Uncharted’ Movie

The long-gestating Uncharted movie appears to be moving forward finally. Variety recently reported that Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas has joined a star-studded cast that includes Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Ali, and Tati Gabrielle. The video game adaptation, which will be directed by Ruben Fleischer, certainly has no shortage of star power in front of the camera, and hopefully, they’ll be enough to bring Nathan Drake’s globetrotting adventures to the big screen in the near future.

Video game movies are usually more miss than hit, but if an Uncharted adaptation reaches its potential, the result could be this generation’s Indiana Jones. The video games are heavily inspired by the adventures of Harrison Ford’s iconic archaeologist, and that’s not a bad thing by any means. The cinematic landscape needs more pulpy blockbusters.

Of course, this movie has been stuck in development hell for so long that any optimism about the project should be of the cautious variety. The first attempt to get Uncharted off the ground and onto the big screen happened in 2009, with Kyle Ward tapped to write the script. However, he had other projects to wrap up first, and Sony wasn’t willing to wait around. That marked the end of Ward’s involvement.

Following Ward’s departure, Sony hired Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, who came to the studio’s attention due to their work on Sahara, which is similar to Uncharted in some ways. Sony was quite happy with their script as well, and David O’Russell was hired to bring the story to life. Wahlberg was subsequently cast as Drake, and Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci were approached to play the character’s relatives. Everything looked well, until…

As documented by Digital Trends, Russell wanted to reinterpret the source material and make Drake an international art thief as opposed to a treasure hunter. His version would also have focused on his extended family. The studio didn’t agree with his vision, though, and negotiations between both parties broke down in 2010. Russell then made Silver Linings Playbook and began courting other projects, ending his involvement in the Uncharted saga as a result.

Limitless director Neil Burger then accepted the reins to the project in 2011. The director also decided to ignore the previous scripts because he wanted to incorporate elements of the video games into the story. Burger believed the games were cinematic in their own right, with rich stories and developed characters that could inspire a great film treatment. He said all the right things, but he didn’t last a crack.

Burger quietly dropped out of the project in 2012, and National Treasure’s Marianne and Cormac Wibberley were recruited to rewrite the screenplay. As with Donnelly and Oppenheimer before them, the Wibberleys’ experience with blockbuster adventure fare likely landed them the gig. Unfortunately, nothing really came of it, as the movie’s progress entered another down period until two unlikely names were approached to take over.

In 2013, news broke that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg had been approached several times to write a script. The duo weren’t interested, however, as the studio wanted them to write an Indiana Jones-esque adventure movie, and they didn’t want to take the movie in that direction. As talented as they are, Rogen and Goldberg probably weren’t the best choices for an Uncharted movie as they don’t come across as fans of the games who’d be passionate about making a complementary movie adaptation.

However, the movie gained some momentum in 2014 when Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon signed on to direct, while David Guggenheim and Mark Boal were hired to write a script. Wahlberg was supposedly approached to star again but nothing came of it. Chris Pratt — who many fans believe would be the perfect Drake — also passed on the lead role. Gordon then dropped out, with reports stating that cuts to the film’s budget led to his decision.

In 2016, Joe Carnahan was hired to write another script, but he was unable to accept the directing duties due to his commitment to other projects. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the studio to find a willing participant behind the camera, as Stranger Things director Shawn Levy took the job. In 2017, Holland accepted the starring role, but since this movie can’t move forward without taking more steps back, Levy stepped aside to focus on making Free Guy, which is one of our most anticipated movies of the year.

2018 was also the year that saw an unofficial Uncharted short film starring Nathan Fillion hit YouTube. This was a dream come true for many fans as the Firefly star is arguably the perfect candidate to play an adventurer like Drake. The movie captured the hearts of millions and impressed Sony chiefs and the game developers. Furthermore, director Allan Ungar is a diehard fan of the games and showed that he knew how to interpret them for the screen. But he didn’t get the gig, and neither did Fillion.

It didn’t take long for Sony to find a replacement director, though. Dan Trachtenberg was brought in at the start of 2019, and a release date of December 2020 was proposed. But it wasn’t to be, as he dropped out last August. His reason for leaving is unclear, but if the history of this movie is anything to go by, it’s possible that he had creative differences with the studio or chose to focus on something else.

With Trachtenberg out of the picture, the studio turned to Bumblebee’s Travis Knight to get things moving. Around the same time, Wahlberg returned to the fold when he was cast as Drake’s mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. Once again, though, the small amount of momentum was stopped in its tracks when Knight became the latest victim of scheduling conflicts and had to step down.

Of all the directors to be attached to the movie, Knight was the most exciting choice. Between his leadership of the animation studio Laika and helming a Transformers flick that’s actually good, his body of work is impressive. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d love to see him direct a big-budget treasure hunting movie.

That said, Fleischer is a solid hand behind the camera, and he is more than capable of delivering entertaining movies. Now that the cast is starting to take shape, here’s hoping that shooting will begin in the near future and the director lasts until the end of it. Uncharted has been in the works for over a decade now, and if it encounters any more bad luck, people will assume that the movie is cursed.

‘Little Fires Everywhere’ is a Scorching Take on Privilege

If Oscar-bait movies have taught us anything, it’s that some people love uncomplicated takes on race, class, and other intersections of privilege. “We’re more alike than different!” these movies scream, alongside such basic lessons as “stereotypes are untrue” and “good intentions can right any wrong.” The same spoon-fed, simplistic feel-good morals have haunted our screens for decades, ignoring nuanced and evolving cultural conversations to instead deliver the same low-bar lessons again and again.

Little Fires Everywhere is here to call bullshit on all that. Hulu’s latest is a complicated, uneasy, occasionally soapy but always searingly insightful family drama. Based on Celeste Ng’s popular 2017 novel of the same name, the miniseries stars and is co-executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Showrunner Liz Tigelaar (Casual) put together a diverse group of largely female writers to adapt the story about four mothers whose lives are shaped by their social standing, and the result is a prime-time domestic saga that’s engrossing, surprising, and yes, fiery.

Little Fires Everywhere frames its opening scene with a mystery: who burned down the Richardson family’s perfect home? And although it hits some of the same sweet spots as another prestige mystery adaptation featuring Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies, this series aims for interpersonal exploration more than whodunit thrills. The flames that lick at the edges of these lives are largely metaphorical.

The miniseries is headed up by two strong performances. In meme terms, Witherspoon’s Elena Richardson is a “Karen,” a white woman whose instinct to speak to the manager is as strong as the cut of her 1997 lady power suit. Elena enthusiastically follows the nonsense rules of her picture-perfect planned neighborhood of Shaker Heights, Ohio, and her favorite pastimes include “helping people” and talking about how she isn’t a racist. She has a nice enough husband (Joshua Jackson), and four kids, each a year apart; popular Trip (Jordan Elsass), geeky-kind Moody (Gavin Lewis), rebellious black sheep Izzy (Megan Stott), and preppy Lexie (Jade Pettyjohn). Elena and Lexie both wear their privilege like a crown, passing out casual microaggressions that at times feel rather macro.

Here’s where Little Fires Everywhere gets interesting: the series affords each of the Petersons, even the worst of them, moments of empathy without ever letting them off the hook for their brattiness and bigotry. Mia Warren (Washington) is the push to Elena’s pull, a single mother who’s both bohemian and broke, and some of the best scenes of the series involve her verbally eviscerating the Petersons, from whom she and her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood) are renting a house. Mia doesn’t come away smelling like roses either. Her sense of dignity and righteous fury are excellent, but she also harbors a penchant for making impulsive decisions that don’t take the feelings of others into consideration. Washington and Witherspoon were both perfectly cast and often carry the weight of heavy scenes in their faces alone.

In short, Little Fires Everywhere tells a powerful story of the haves and the have nots while refusing to settle for oversimplified comparisons or hollow allegory. The series makes big points about class and race without ever sacrificing the specificity of its own plot, and it gives us characters to root for and just enough high drama to keep us hooked. The series eventually begins to hinge on a second set of mothers, and while their circumstances are at times too on-the-nose to feel believable, the emotional details of those stories hit hard, too. At its best, Little Fires Everywhere isn’t afraid to lay bare the costs of motherhood for all moms, nor does it shy away from interrogating the important, often-ignored ways in which some are given more choices than others.

Little Fires Everywhere isn’t perfect, but it packs an undeniable punch and excels in little ways that — like the titular fires — make an impact when counted up together. Directors Lynn Shelton, Michael Weaver, and Nzingha Stewart shoot the series with admirable clarity, refusing to give in to the more opaque filmmaking trends of their moody prestige TV contemporaries. The opening credits take the overused idea (see: Game of Thrones, The Crown, Westworld) of a parts-of-a-whole visual motif and make the whole thing riveting by lighting it aflame. Meanwhile, the series’ younger characters deal with serious stories of their own, and the teen actors tackle them with aplomb, especially Underwood and Tiffany Boone, who appears in flashbacks as a young Mia.

Hulu’s latest offering interrogates the world in which its set so well and thoroughly that by the time it gets around to revisiting the burning of the Peterson house at the series’ climax, you might just be happy to watch something so terribly perfect burn.

We Can’t Escape ‘King Kong’

Humans are fantastic narcissists. We look upon the world, and we see it as ours. The animals are there for our bellies. The trees are there for our lumber. The land is there for the taking. We stepped out of our caves and immediately went to plundering, snatching more than what was needed because why have one ivory carved couch when you can have two? This bearskin rug really ties the room together.

King Kong is the first cinematic beast to buck against our ravenous consumerism. He’s a wonder to worship, not cage. The big gorilla monster may eventually succumb to our technological terrors, but before he plummets from our greatest city spire, Kong makes sure to take plenty of us with him. It was beauty that killed the beast? No, man. It was those synchronized machine guns mounted to a half dozen biplanes.

Ray Morton has spent a lifetime thinking about the original King Kong from 1933. He first caught the film as a kid, like most of us, playing on television. His dad explained he was about to watch a big monkey movie, and boy howdy, did he love monkeys. What he saw was a film that both terrified and titillated. The kid was entranced, and the adult that came out of him was a King Kong obsessive.

Morton went on to write King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson. The deep-dive exploration of Kong’s attraction positioned him as the go-to guy for publicists looking to pair journalists with screenings (Fathom Events, by the way, is re-releasing King Kong theatrically on March 15th, get your tickets HERE). The author lost himself on Skull Island, and these days acts as a tour guide for those brave enough to venture amongst its fog and frequent dinosaur attacks.

Part of King Kong‘s great appeal is the devastating conclusion. “I don’t know that I was sophisticated enough to be able to explain it at the time,” says Morton, “but the ending was really tragic. Spectacular to look at when he’s battling the planes on top of the Empire State Building, but also just really sad when he finally dies.”

Fay Wray lets the audience know that Kong is something to be feared thanks to her non-stop screaming, but when the brute ultimately lands lifeless on the streets of New York City, and Robert Armstrong utters his climactic quip, our sympathies suddenly align with Kong. He didn’t deserve to be gunned down. He was the beauty. We were the beast.

“There’s something very archetypal about the story,” says Morton. “Something that feels ancient and mythic.” King Kong contains the kind of authenticity one finds in fairy tales. While fantastical and askew from reality, the emotions exhumed are genuine, and they linger for decades. With their camera, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack seem to be writing their story in a great narrative that came before their time and will last long after.

“Often you’ll hear people refer to it as Beauty of the Beast,” says Morton, “but the interesting part is that it’s not actually Beauty and the Beast.” This idea would not be explored in the King Kong context until the 1976 version with Jessica Lange taking over for Fay Wray and developed even further with Naomi Watts and Peter Jackson in 2005.

“Beauty and the Beast is the story of a beauty who sees the beauty in a beast,” adds Morton. “In this film, she never sees the beauty in the beast. She’s just scared of him all the time, but he’s in love with her. It’s its own story. It’s an original idea in that respect.”

King Kong is a gift given to us by cinema. While Cooper and Schoedsack are certainly playing on ideas explored in Edgar Rice Burroughs and various other Lost Continent stories, Kong is a wholly original creation. There is no beast quite like him before or since.

“Dracula and Frankenstein and the Wolf Man and all of those guys came from either literature or legend, or a little bit of both,” says Morton. “Kong is the only one of those well-known creatures who is purely a creation of cinema. He has no antecedents in literature. He’s a totally made-up creature and totally made-up story. The character feels timeless, and yet the film isn’t even 90 years old yet. That’s a real tribute to the power of cinema and for the film in particular.”

King Kong does only what a movie can do: it places the audience on the boat with its crew. You live in the muck alongside the critters of Skull Island. You go to the top of the Empire State Building and look over as the beautiful wonder descends to his death. You sit on the street with the rest of the gawkers and contemplate your role in Kong’s destruction.

“Cooper’s goal was to get all the exposition out of the way in the first 45 to 50 minutes,” says Morton. “So that the minute Kong shows up on the screen, until the end, the movie never stops. The momentum is always barreling forward. There’s always something exciting happening.”

For most of its life, King Kong has lived on a tiny box television. Obviously, it’s power cannot be diminished in such confines, as there is where most folks experience their first love with the Eighth Wonder of the World. Yet, when an opportunity to bask in Kong’s beauty on a screen worthy of his gargantuan frame presents itself, you must take it.

“The film was designed by Cooper to be a spectacle,” says Morton. “An action-adventure, that’s an exciting, thrilling spectacle. The big screen is the only place you’re going to fully get the impact of it. The size of the image is going to allow you to really experience the detail, experience the visual effects on a much greater degree than you could on TV.”

Like Robert Armstrong as Carl Denham, when we see Kong, we want him. He’s magnificent. Marvelous. We know Skull Island is not some puppy mill we passed in the mall. We can’t yank him from his serenity and expect he’ll reward us with licks and love. He’s a beast, a beautiful one, but one we don’t deserve. Our reckless need is not only his end but the end of a lot of our neighbors, stomped flat on the streets or crumpled in cars.

Our call to adventure is just our boredom by another name. The more advanced we become as a species, the more time we spend sitting on our thumbs, dreaming of the greener grass on the other side of the world. It takes a lot to get us off our couch these days, and while the outside gets further and further away, movies can take us there.

‘Picard’ Explained: We Just Have To Pretend It Works on ‘Nepenthe’

This article is part of our ongoing Picard Explained series, featuring the insights of our resident Starfleet officer Brad Gullickson.

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Where does the man of science place his faith? With humanity? When Starfleet rescinded their aid to the Romulans and placed a ban on all Synthetic experimentation after the Mars rebellion, Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) shriveled into despair. He quit the game and took his bat and ball and went home to sulk. In choosing to pout, he merely met Starfleet’s disgrace with is own. Tantrums only result in extending lethargy. They must be purged before progression can occur.

These last seven episodes of Star Trek: Picard have been a great emotional expulsion. Dahj’s arrival and subsequent execution during the first episode rekindled the memory of the man he was before. Picard was never meant to pick grapes from the vine. His home is the stars and the people who need him out there. Dahj died as a result of the decade-plus apathy he allowed to fester within. He would be damned if he let it happen again.

Soji (Isa Briones), Dahj’s twin sister, is Picard’s purpose. Condemned an anti-christ by the Romulan Zhat Vash, Soji appears not long for this world. To assist her, Picard needs others to assist him. Friends would be nice, but strangers must do. A crew of outcasts formed. In their willingness, Picard found his faith. They are the antidote to the cancer of fear running through Starfleet.

At the climax of last week’s episode, Picard found his hide against a (Borg Cube) wall. His crew got him where he needed to be, but it would take an assimilated McGuffin to see him through. Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) hot-wired a transporter that would make Scotty blush. This device will take him anywhere within the range of thought. Soji, freshly activated, was at his side and ready to follow wherever. Elnor (Evan Evagora) had their back and stood his ground against the incoming Romulan goon squad. With certain doom looming, Picard took only a second to consider his portal escape. Nepenthe was the answer.

Fear for their safety, and probably a good deal of pride, kept Picard at a distance from his old Enterprise shipmates. With nowhere else to go and a magic door before him, he ran to the only family he has left: Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). The husband and wife are surprised to see their former captain at their door, but they take him in with open arms…and shields raised. Where Picard walks, trouble follows.

In the last twenty years since we saw them, sorrow has shadowed Riker and Troi as well. They lost their first-born son Thad to a silicone-based disease that could have been treated if not for the positronic ban established by Starfleet. Their younger daughter Kestra (Lulu Wilson), spends her days scurrying about the woods, speaking in the numerous imaginary languages conjured by Thad, fighting her pain in his words.

The planet Nepenthe, with its restorative soil, was meant to rescue Thad from his end, and replace the homeworld he was denied as a child raised on starships. He left his parents and sister, but they remain to tend to the garden he brought them. Their unity in loss is a hard slap for Picard. How can he whimper and gripe and despair when they stand firm having experienced the ultimate attack?

The family has each other. When Picard was spurned by Starfleet, he turned his back and walked away. He chose isolation, and in that isolation, he found utter darkness. Dahj was the first light. Soji, the second. The pirate crew of La Sirena the third.

We are watching Picard reconnect with humanity. If he can find his faith in others, then he can be the next spark to reignite the engine of Starfleet. He can return them to the station in which we, their most idealistic audience, strive: a species working for the betterment of itself for the sheer purpose of betterment. Yes we can.

It’s understanding that Soji doesn’t quite trust the old man who appeared in the nick of time to steal her away from the Borg Cube. The sudden realization that she is not who she thought she was, and the reveal that her lover Narek (Harry Treadaway) was merely siphoning her for clues to her mysterious planet of origin, has opened up the possibility that everyone around her could be an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the Romulans. Her world has collapsed, and she finds herself absolutely alone. Isolated.

Soji keeps a wall between her and Picard, but she lets Kestra over. The young girl tells her stories of Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner), the android Picard believes to be her father. She tells Soji about her brother and his knack for languages. Kestra reveals to Soji that Picard is as equally displaced as she is, and if nothing else, “You could both have each other.”

Trust is earned, not given freely. Soji chooses to stay with Picard, and follow him to his ship, where they will seek out the planet with the two moons and the sky filled with red lighting. Soji is trepidatious, and Picard’s smile, no matter how genuine it may be, is not comforting. Kestra plops her broken compass in Soji’s hand and offers one last bit of wisdom, “You just have to pretend it works.”

Fake it till you make it. Is that how faith operates? The hope that the compass is pointing in the right direction is the first step. The hope that this old man will not lead you astray is about as good a gesture as Picard could ask for at this point. In her hope, he finds his own. As do we. We may never see our old Picard again, but we should recognize the one by season’s end.

‘Amazing Stories’ Is Back With Optimism, Romance, and That Killer John Williams Theme

The announcement that Apple TV+ would be bringing back the beloved Amazing Stories was met with positive response across the board. For many, the joy of another genre-themed anthology show was enough to get excited, but for some of us the excitement was more specifically tied to memories of the Steven Spielberg-produced original that ran from 1985 to 1987. Spielberg’s name brought respectable budgets and big names, but the show also found its niche as something of a Twilight Zone without the edge — that’s not a knock as instead it just means the show was home to stories about wonder, weirdness, and an eternal optimism. Rather than end with a twist of the knife, classic episodes like “Mummy Daddy” and “The Mission” fill the screen with hope and heart in equal measure.

The question, in a world filled with anthology shows that lean bleak and brutal like Black Mirror or overtly political like the Twilight Zone reboot, became whether or not this new Amazing Stories — once again produced by Spielberg — would retain the original’s boundless love and hope for humanity. The question, for now at least, is answered with the reboot’s first episode, “The Cellar,” which kicks off with John Williams’ unforgettable title theme set to new visuals.

Jacob (Micah Stock) and Sam (Dylan O’Brien) are brothers who flip houses for a living. It’s Jacob’s company, unsurprisingly, as he’s also married with a husband and new daughter showing him to be a man with a plan for his future. Sam is younger and a bit more of a wildcard. He can’t — or won’t — commit to officially joining Jacob’s company, he frequents dating apps as he doesn’t make the time to build traditional relationships, and he’s more than a little unmoored in life. Their latest job sees them working to restore an old farmhouse, and shortly after Sam finds a hidden box with trinkets and a black & white photograph of a young woman, a siren sounds indicating a storm approaching. A shift in the air pressure, a piercing headache, and Sam suddenly finds himself one hundred years in the past. He meets Evelyn (Victoria Pedretti), the young woman from the photo, and as he searches for a way back to the future over the coming days and weeks Sam also finds himself falling in love. She’s heading into an arranged marriage with a man who disapproves of her interest in music and values her more as arm candy than an equal. As his only opportunity to return home approaches, Sam realizes a life-altering decision awaits him.

Writer Jessica Sharzer and director Chris Long tell a romantic tale with “The Cellar” that doesn’t quite go the direction you’re expecting. Well, it does for a little while, but a late shift leaves you appreciating some of the story’s bigger themes that succeed without undercutting the more obvious ideas. It’s a nice, little tale that acknowledges simple feelings like love and kindness both for ourselves and others, but is that sweetness enough for viewers looking to fill nearly an hour of their day in today’s world?

That running time — this first episode clocks in at just over fifty minutes — is the second hurdle as the story’s simple warmth lacks big moments, flashy visuals, or emotionally heavy gut punches. It never drags, necessarily, but some of its second-act plot points seem slightly drawn out for the sake of filling time. The pacing doesn’t suffer for it, but there’s a definite flat feel with some of the expected villainy from Evelyn’s betrothed. It’s mitigated in large part by the romance between Sam and Evelyn, though, as their performances feel alive even when the story slows. Small moments between O’Brien (The Maze Runner, 2014) and Pedretti (The Haunting of Hill House, 2018) shine on their faces and in their banter, and it adds just enough weight to what’s coming next in the story.

As mentioned, what comes next in the tale refocuses things in an interesting way, and while it’s bound to leave some viewers with unanswered questions it feels a part of the whole. Sharzer’s script is never really all that interested in explaining things, necessarily, meaning we’re meant to take events at face value without detailed breakdowns of the hows and whys. Some elements feel a bit glossed over as a result, but the bigger picture remains satisfying.

Judging by this first episode, it’s clear that Spielberg and friends are interested in maintaining the heart and soul of what made Amazing Stories‘ initial run so memorable for so many. Its rebirth seems to once again prioritize family-friendly tales blending warmth, humor, and love with whatever genre beats the story dictates. Ideally, though, future episodes from this new season will find stories with a bit more pep in their step or go deeper with suspense, action, or humor. “The Cellar” is an enjoyable, heartwarming watch, but no one will be talking about thirty-five years from now.