Lin-Manuel Miranda, Stephan King, Kerry Washington and more react to the deadly Las Vegas shooting, sending prayers and calling for stricter gun control laws.
Whatever your political leanings, we’ve all wondered at one point whether reality was starting to split in different directions. Full Frontal’s Samantha Bee has gone to that post-election well once before, and now goes full-on Man in the High Castle for her Not The White House Correspondents’ Dinner vision of Hillary’s America.
Next May, CBS will play host to Star Trek: Discovery, a spinoff of the landmark sci-fi series about the USS Enterprise’s galaxy-hopping crew. But even with the premiere date still months away, the project has already begun to cause a stir in the industry; Discovery will break new ground in the Trek universe by introducing a new openly gay character with a homosexual Starfleet officer portrayed by Anthony Rapp of Rent fame. And today, Variety reports that none other than George Takei — a man who knows a thing or two about being gay in space — has weighed in on the show’s forward-thinking gesture.
Well this is certainly unexpected. Earlier today, we learned that Star Trek Beyond will reveal that John Cho’s Sulu is gay, a move partially intended to honor the legacy of George Takei, the actor who originated the iconic role in the classic television series and who himself came out as gay in 2005. You’d think that Takei of all people would be thrilled by the decision, but that’s not exactly the case.
Some very cool news about this summer’s Star Trek Beyond, via the Australian newspaper the Herald Sun: They report that Beyond will reveal that John Cho’s Hikaru Sulu is gay. The character is also revealed to be “the loving father of a daughter with a same sex partner. And in typical trailblazing Trek fashion - it’s just not a big deal.” At least the daughter aspect fits with what little the previous Star Trek series revealed of Sulu’s private life; in 1994’s Star Trek Generations, Sulu’s daughter, Ensign Demora Sulu, serves as the helmsman on the Enterprise-B.
This summer hasn’t been a great one for movies (we even have actual data to back that up), and even if the rest of this month turns out to be as disappointing as June, we still have August to look forward to — and Kubo and the Two Strings, Laika’s latest stop-motion animation adventure, which looks like the studio’s most epic and visually stunning project yet. Even though the previous trailer was said to be the last we’d see before the film’s release, Laika has delivered one more sneak peek to tide you over until August.
This is definitely the coolest piece of marketing for X-Men: Apocalypse, and whoever came up with it over at Fox most certainly deserves a raise. Inspired by the classic In Search Of docuseries hosted by Leonard Nimoy, this promo for a fictional series titled In the Footsteps Of… briefly explores the origins of Oscar Isaac’s X-Men villain. But the best part is definitely the choice to have Nimoy’s former Star Trek co-star George Takei serve as narrator.
We’ve been looking forward to Laika’s upcoming fantasy adventure Kubo and the Two Strings since the first trailer surfaced back in December. The fledgling studio has accrued a ’00s-Pixar-level spotless track record in the past seven years; their releases Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls dazzled critics and audiences alike with their blend of ceaselessly clever humor and stop-motion wizardry. There’s no reason to believe Kubo won’t continue this hot streak for Laika, and the latest trailer to appear online cements this as one of the year’s most exciting animated releases. (Though the potential for crossover appeal in the world of furries is not quite as great as that of Zootopia. Point, Disney.)
The studio behind ParaNorman, Coraline and The Boxtrolls returns with the beautiful new stop-motion animated project Kubo and the Two Strings, an action-fantasy-adventure that, uh, pulls out all the stops. But seriously, the first trailer for Laika’s latest looks more epic and stunning than anything they’ve attempted before.