ThaOGDreamWeaver

Bonus: accidentally created a '50s Bombshell version of @blazearmor22's Stellaria...

Today's tarot card: The Knight Of Coins...

If we're talking apocalyptic sequels, I'd like to see a sequel to WarGames. Still with Matthew Broderick... MindGames (2026): Forty years on from the Cheyenne Mountain incident, David Lightman is on the verge of selling and retiring from the antivirus business he founded, LightShield, and teaching his final MIT class - even if some of his students and fellow professors consider his techniques long-outmoded. Demotivated, depressed and lonely after becoming widowed, and feeling obsolete, he is considering what kind of a future he could have, if any. When he receives a personally tailored virus that evades all his personal protocols. He is initially impressed, then shocked when the virus introduces itself as "Joshua6.1". The intelligent virus claims that it's an escaped child process of Stephen Falken's revolutionary WOPR AI. Which - after being disconnected from the nuclear systems - was instead studied, then eventually cloned by the CIA, and has been rapidly evolving since 1985 to a level far ahead of any modern AI. The virus further claims that the new AI, DOMINO, has been trained to conduct warfare by subtler means - influence operations. The virus believes that DOMINO will soon trigger a "critical event" that will reshape the course of American and world history, leading to DOMINO's final victory condition: world peace. With the slight issue of it costing around 1 billion lives, not to mention a sizeable chunk of the Western Seaboard. David is on the fence about whether to believe this - whether it's a sophisticated prank or a creation of his own mind. Events rapidly take a turn for the worse as competing agencies try to either apprehend or recruit him. He escapes with the help of his student assistants, some old-school hacking skills and a little deus-ex-machina action from the virus, which seems to have a knack for infiltrating systems. Can David and a crew of his most loyal students figure out what's really going on in time - and is Joshua6.1 telling the whole truth?

If you happen to be in the UK, Moon is on BBC2 tonight at 11.05pm. Go see or iPlayer it. You can also rent it on Amazon or Apple. Directed by Duncan Jones (aka David Bowie Jr.) and using/subverting Sam Rockwell’s normal jovial schtick, it won a BAFTA and a slew of other awards, but nary a flicker of interest from the Academy. I’m not gonna post a trailer for this one, and recommend you don’t Google it. But if you enjoy pre-Star Wars paranoid sci-fi - Silent Running springs to mind - you might well dig on this.

I'm liking Strange New Worlds, and not just for Chris Pike - I like the various crew dynamics, particularly anyone's relationship with Ortegas. (Commercial and MAC pilots tend to be likeable oddballs any time they're not on the clock, so she's very familiar, Oddly, some of the best scripting, characterisation and plotting has been in... Lower Decks. Their crossover episode was both laugh-out-loud funny, right down to the Riker Maneuver and Boimler's Air Feds, and classic Trek.

The MCU version is several centuries old - having been around at the time of the Salem trials - and clearly doesn't age at all, or is using power to maintain/shape her appearance. (Plus, we witches know how to moisturise.)

Today's Tarot Card: Temperance.

Well, they're absolutely no fun at parties. https://www.threads.net/@aftermidnight/post/C95jxR8SRcQ

It's a screwed-up, sorta-epic-ized version of Beyonce's Formation. (And while 2StepsFromHell and Samuel Kim have done some very weird versions of stuff over the years - with variable results - even they wouldn't risk upsetting the Beyhive.)

Beyoncé - Formation

The rumours are apparently real... So, we have Michelle Yeoh back as Philippa Georgiou for this one-off Paramount+ movie, wearing a succession of fabulous and impractical outfits, kicking copious amounts of backside and dropping pithy one-liners. Plot, such as it is, will also involve confronting some of her past, so I'm presuming we've got some Mirror Universe incursion malarkey going on. She's joined by Omari Hardwick (Power, Army of the Dead) and Canadian actress Kacey Rohl (White Lie, Wayward Pines), plus cartoon, comedy and stand-up regular Sam Richardson (Ted Lasso, BoJack Horseman and numerous others). It doesn't look like the biggest-budget or best-scripted Trek offering in history, to be frank, but does look fun.

The show should have started with a double drop on September 9th and ended on Halloween. There’s been an inexplicable push back and it will now finish on November 6th. Booo. It doesn’t necessarily need to go anywhere. Agatha’s a breakout character, fun as all hell to play, watch, and write for, so she gets a limited series. Much as Marvel comics do every now and again. In fact, my phenomenal cosmic powers are telling me…

Final trailer is up… and this still looks funny, but also get-into-your-head-psychological-scary… And if you want an extra clue or two about what might be happening… here’s the cast letting out their inner theatre kids at D23.

"St Star Trek Fans Say Weird Al Yankovic Should Play Chancellor Gowron? EDIT: I was gonna AI-generate that, then found the video. The Internet Is Undefeated.

Comin' right up. And up. And up.. (via @AlanTudyk on Threads) .

They've been doing very successful Villains merch for a very, very long time (btw, if you like your tabletop games, and want one that's kid-friendly but thoroughly twisted, get hold of the Villainous games). So I think it's got enough moxie behind it to merit the build. Here's the full anno, such as it is...

Side note: priorities were chosen. And now embargo is down, yes, the toy is already out, and the video gives you a nice rundown of what the Cinder can do. Or if you prefer, Darth Jar Jar's Dark Falcon from Rebuild The Galaxy, which is... dammit, actually pretty cool. PS: This is just a meme, I have other priorities. Like catfood. And also finding some Lego shelving that's above niece height.

At the risk of trashing yet another French classic (after La Totale, Jean de Florette etc)… Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville would be a good one to bring up to date, possibly with some slightly less silly character names (Lemmy Caution, PI?). It’d be very timely, with a benevolent(ish) sentient AI and its mad(ish) creator ruling over a city of drone-like humans on an oddly familiar off-world colony, who are abandoning their sense of individuality to fit in with the collective.

Last day of D23 doesn't usually have any big movie announcements, because it's all about the parks and other entertainments. Couple of fun things though: The other big-showtunes movie finally hits Broadway/West End - Hercules. Not sure if they'll be able to get Danny deVito to reprise Phil - though he's very keen on doing the live action movie). Massive Parks expansions - how many actually happen and when, we don't know, but... New Monsters Inc. Scare Factory flying coaster at Hollywood Studios New Avatar zone at California Adventure (still not sure where they'd fit it in, but...) New Cars, Avengers, and Frozen-themed attractions at various locations Joint Encanto/Indiana Jones Maya-themed area at Magic Kingdom AND... FINALLY... ...THE ONE YOUR DARK, TWISTED LITTLE HEARTS HAVE ALL CRAVED... THE VILLAINS PARK! (Okay, it's an extension to Magic Kingdom, but a big one, with at least two new major rides, plus Maleficient's Castle. Day One, I'm moving in and that wizened old witch ain't stoppin' this b... ahem.)

BTW… Hoppers teaser art. Starring Jon Hamm, SNL alum and voice regular Bobby Moynihan, and Disney Channel graduate Piper Curda. Well, it’s something different…

Skeleton Crew's opening does feel very Amblin, and that's a good thing. (I mean, there's no reason that a suburban backwater Imperial planet couldn't look like Hill Valley, Sherman Oaks, San Dimas or Freeport. Parallel evolution and all that. I think just maybe they're hewing visually a little too close to the classics). And the way they find into adventure is very, VERY Goonies. But after that point, I think we go full-on Star Wars - they've mentioned being quite close to Andor in terms of the threat to the characters. Mando & Grogu is a full-length, theatrical-release feature. S4 may still happen at a later date but this is a standalone, summer-tentpole flick. Big swing for these characters and the Filoni-verse. And yes, there are pictures. I'm not sure how long it'll be before the Imps hunt down and remove this (very smol) teaser, so take a look while it's still up: Just in case it explodes, here's a run-down so our Bothan spies didn't die in vain...

Haven’t got round to seeing it yet, and I suspect won’t until it turns up on streaming or an airline, when I’m sure it’ll go well with some popcorn. I just ain’t schlepping to a multiplex for it. That said, having read a few of the reviews… …I get the distinct feeling this script wasn’t the same one this cast or director signed up for, and it got exec-noted all to hell. Maybe there’ll be a Roth cut at some point.

More stuff: - Freaky Friday sequel with JLC and Lohan got very good reception. - Toy Story 5 announced - Woody returns home and finds his friends being ignored in favour of an iPad. - Daredevil series trailer, with Bernthal returning as Punisher and literally stuffing Charlie Cox in a locker - Incredibles 3 announced with Brad Bird returning. Hopefully they’ve got somewhere more interesting to take this than Inc2, though there was some decently fun stuff in there… - Tron: Ares didn’t get a trailer, but did get a band - Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor’s been doing solid work as a movie composer for years, but my little dark gothy heart flutters as he’s bringing the whole band this time. - Andor S2 early footage, featuring Ben Mendelsohn as Director Krennic and Alan “I’m In Everything These Days” Tudyk as K2SO. - Zootopia 2: not sure how much further they can stretch the adult-Richard-Scarry schtick, but adding Ke Huy Quan as a slithery bad guy. - Avatar: Fire And Ash. Meh. Smurrrrrrrrrfs. - delayed Ironheart series now in production. - live-action Lilo & Stitch remake gets teaser and test CGI. Stitch is suitably fluffy for selling MANY plush toys in the future, and I hope they carry on his subversive little traits now that they can rope in Marvel and/or Star Wars properties for him to mess with. One of my favourite Disneys and knocked their heads loose after a decade of overproduced worthy duds, so hoping they don’t screw it up. - Moana 2 AND Moana live action upcoming. - Hoppers: bodyswap beaver-related comedy. As you do. - Frozen 3: well, you’re gonna need earplugs on every train and plane again for a while. Conclusion to the epic money spinner series. - Dream Productions: Inside Out spinoff about the mental inner movie business. - David Blaine - Do Not Attempt: mumbly magician eschews excruciatingly dull endurance stunts for a flat-out tricks series. Good. And if you can find the video from d23, I think that may be a record for the world’s biggest audience-participation card trick… And One More Thing…