Monthly Archives: January 2016
Why Was the Original Final Fantasy So Seminal?
It's the weirdest thing. I've always considered myself a big Final Fantasy fan, but in reality, I've only ever played a small number of the core entries since Final Fantasy VII brought both series and genre into my awareness back in 1997. Worse still, I realised, after smashing through the HD Remaster of Final Fantasy X and its direct sequel a year back, that I've completed even less of them; only three if I disregard spin-offs and sequels.
This got me thinking: How big a fan could I really be?
That thought has stayed with me for a while now, leading to an overwhelming urge to go back to the series' humblest beginnings. With entries I-X all playable via PSN in some form, I decided to do just that, and recently jumped right into the 2007/2008 remaster of the original, genre-defining Final Fantasy, interested to see how well it holds up today…
The 100 Cast/Creator Talk Season 3
At the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today, The 100’s executive producer and showrunner, Jason Rothenberg, was joined by cast members Eliza Taylor (“Clarke”), Paige Turco (“Abby”), Marie Avgeropoulos (“Octavia”), Lindsey Morgan (“Raven”), Adina Porter (“Indra”) and Alycia Debnam-Carey ("Lexa") to discuss the CW series.
While the group wanted to protect secrets from Season 3, a few tidbits were revealed. We’ll be learning much more about the Grounders this season, with Debnam-Carey saying we’ll see aspects of, “Their politics. Their spiritual history. How they’ve adapted things from what the world use to be.”
Rothenberg noted, “We tell a lot of stories in
The TV Winners of the 2016 Golden Globes
The Golden Globes declared what they consider the best of TV in 2015, and a wide swath of series earned recognition from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
USA's breakout hit Mr. Robot took home the Outstanding Drama Series and Supporting Actor awards, while Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle won top Comedy Series awards. Meanwhile PBS's Wolf Hall took home two awards in the Outstanding Miniseries or Movie categories. Check out the full winners list below.
(For the winners of the Golden Globes in the movie categories, click here!)
- Empire
- Game of Thrones
The Golden Globe Movie Winners Revealed
The 73rd Golden Globe Awards revealed the winning films and artists tonight during a broadcast hosted by Ricky Gervais.
Winners are marked in red and will be updated throughout the ceremony.
(For the winners of the Golden Globes in the TV categories, click here!)
- Carol
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- The Revenant
- Room
- Spotlight
- The Big Short
Affleck Says Being in Suicide Squad is Like Having a ‘Cool Cousin’
Warner Brothers Pictures is gearing up to unite the DC Universe in two upcoming films, Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and David Ayer's Suicide Squad.
Ayer revealed that we'll see Batman scrap in his anti-hero film. "We made him fight," Ayer told USA Today. "He's awesome
."
Affleck told the publication he's "bound by nondisclosure clauses a mile long," but did mention that he's "really impressed" by Suicide Squad. "It felt like I have such a cool cousin," he added. The actor is excited to be a part of "a constellation of things," something he's never felt about a film before.
9 Things to Know About DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
With only 11 days left until DC's Legends of Tomorrow makes its debut on The CW, the cast and creative team behind the latest DC universe series on the network attended the 2016 winter Television Critics Association press tour to present what makes the new spinoff unique.
Legends of Tomorrow takes an array of key side characters from the Flash and Arrow worlds and sends them on their own save-the-world mission as time traveler Rip Hunter takes them through the ages to stop Vandal Savage. The producers behind the project spoke at length at how the stakes remain high even with the time travel element, while the cast opened up about what going on a timey-wimey journey means for their characters.
Force Awakens Crosses $800M, Opens Huge in China
Despite The Revenant's impressive $38 million debut, Star Wars: The Force Awakens retained the top spot at this weekend's North American box office.
Director J.J. Abrams' record-breaking space epic earned $41.6 million this weekend, bringing the film's domestic grand total to a whopping $812 million, making history as the first film to ever surpass the $800 million milestone stateside.
Additionally, Star Wars: The Force Awakens made its debut in China this weekend, earning an estimated $53 million, setting a new record as the nation's best Saturday or Sunday opening ever.
Which Hero Will Die in Marvel’s Civil War 2?
Marvel is finally shedding more light on their upcoming Civil War 2 comic and the latest conflict that will split the Marvel Universe down the middle. According to The New York Daily News, this new story will center around a clash between Iron Man and Captain Marvel and a philosophical debate over personal accountability.
Civil War 2 opens with the debut of a mysterious new superhuman figure that has the power to predict the future with near perfect accuracy, sparking a Minority Report-esque conflict. “A mysterious new Marvel character comes to the attention of the world, one who has the power to calculate the outcome of future events with a high degree of accuracy,” reads Marvel's official synopsis. “This predictive power divides the Marvel heroes on how best to capitalize on this aggregated information, with Captain Marvel leading the charge to profile future crimes and attacks before they occur, and Iron Man adopting the position that the punishment cannot come before the crime.”
The 100 Performing Well on Netflix; CW Hopes Season 3 Increases
In the past year, critical acclaim and online chatter has increased for The 100, with a lot more buzz for the series as it heads into Season 3, premiering January 21st on the CW. At the TCA (Television Critics Association) press tour today, I asked CW president Mark Pedwotiz about his hopes for the show in the long-term.
Said Pedowitz, "One of our strategies moves we made was to hold it back for midseason to allow year two to go up on Netflix. And it's performing, I just was told before I got onstage, very, very well in terms of binging for Seasons 1 and 2."
The 100 will air back-to-back with Legends of Tomorrow on the CW, with the two sci-fi series paired on Thursday nights. With more people catching up on The 100 now, Pedowitz said, "I'm hoping we get, and this was the game plan, a Breaking Bad effect, so the audience comes back to watch it. Particularly putting it behind Legends, so we're delivering a very make-skew audience anyway."
Uncharted 4: Naughty Dog Teases Potential End for Drake
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End could very well mark the end for Nathan Drake, if a recent hint dropped by Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann is any indication.
In an interview with The Sun, Druckmann noted that while Drake is "at the height of his popularity" right now, they want to honor the character by wrapping up his story. In fact, he went so far as to tease that by the end of Uncharted 4, "it will be really hard to do a sequel with Nathan Drake."
Druckmann also discussed Uncharted 4's new approach to set piece sequences. While the original trilogy of games "had this trajectory of going bigger and more badass," the studio "didn't want to continue with that trajectory" and "become a caricature" of itself. As such, Naughty Dog is aiming to "better tie set pieces with story so they come in at the right time to mirror some kind of personal conflict in the story."