...regardless of how much new footage he put back in or shot, the movie is still designed to set up a sequel and a universe that doesn’t exist anymore.

Let’s look on the bright side. This is hardly the worst-case scenario if Alex Kurtzman absolutely must remake a one of David Bowie’s movies. Can you imagine his take on Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence?

The Man Who Fell to Earth is being adapted by frequent J.J. Abrams collaborator Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet, writer of the film Rachel Getting Married 

Has this system appeared in a game since the Mordor sequel? I keep thinking this system - or even some of its single components - would be a fun addition to other games and even other genres. But it doesn’t seem like other developers have even tried to riff on the idea.

Hell of a year for Chloe Zhao, and it’s February. Meanwhile, I’m exactly the idiot who wants a vampire western in space, even if it doesn’t have the word “Blade” in the title. But I’m kind of beside myself that this is the only way to get a major studio to make a fucking western anymore.

Harrison is wonderful, although I’ve just barely gotten started on his novels. And I’m ambivalent about China Mieville, but there’s no denying that he comes up with interesting hooks for his novels. He’s one of the novelists that I reconsider every few years at the behest of friends. Maybe next time it will stick.

Personally. I wish he never finish the book. So people can accept that GoT especially the series are product of the bygone era. The Era of Hype Fandom

Increasingly, I have tremendous respect for writers like Gibson and Jemisin, who write three books or fewer in a setting, and then move on and never look back.

This is generally why I avoid long-running fantasy series. After three or four books the author gets so involved with their secondary world that the story falls by the wayside. I’ve never been interested in reading Robert Jordan — I didn’t care for his writing style — but that’s clearly what happened to the Wheel of…

Against all odds, I’m interested in this novel again. Sure, the moment has passed: the HBO series ended two years ago, it’s been ten years since the last book, and even before this long hiatus the series had become a narrative quagmire. I’ve lost interest more than once already.

The sequel trilogy of Willow novels written by Chris Claremont (from short outlines by George Lucas) were god awful experiences for me when I read them over 20 years ago. I mostly read them because I loved Claremont’s original run on X-Men but it was a slog even getting through the first book.

Why did I think the nostalgia train would skip this stop? When I finally rewatched Willow, for the first time since grade-school, I spent more time cringing than basking in the nostalgia.

Out of Marvel’s options, I would probably choose Armor. Fun powers, and I don’t think we’re seen a definitive take on her yet. Some of these other characters still exist in the headspace of Chris Claremont or Peter David for me. And I’d sooner leave them there for now. (And Boom Boom will never be more fun than she…

I’m an English teacher. And I think that many of the canonical novels fall victim to their own classic status. Faced with something like Gatsby, students feel the distance between its cultural prestige and the breezy, sordid romance in front of them. The actual novel becomes a barrier to this thing they’ve been…

It’s hard for me to shake the feeling that this series is a watered-down take on something like Twin Peaks. It aims for a similar tone, with images of too-sweet, too-wholesome Americana given an undertone of menace. And it is much more forward in its close-but-wrong recreation of TV artifice.

That’s really neat.

3) This is meta and beyond the trailer. However, nothing I have seen or heard from this yet has convinced me hiring the man who made Netflix’s Death Note to helm one of the biggest kaiju films of all time was a good idea. Hollywood is weird in that it seems you can fail upwards.

Two beloved heroes/IPs fight for 90 minutes, plot contrivance happens, the real threat is revealed to be a resurrected villain from the previous film in the franchise. Also lets throw in Mothra because she is Wonder Woman of the trio in this analogy.

Obviously, The Exorcist II was never going to duplicate the towering success of its predecessor, but the fact that that it fails on so many cinematic levels makes it kind of a miracle in itself. A weird, exhausting miracle that will leave you wondering what in Pazuzu’s name you just saw.

The comics multiverse seems to play two opposite roles. It releases writers (and characters) from the ever-growing burden of continuity, so that they can test ideas that would otherwise be impractical. (I almost said “taboo” — how melodramatic). But it also enshrines the main continuity, so that every variation is…