John Boyega Has the Best Response to His Star Wars Haters

Star Wars’ John Boyega took to Instagram, posting an elaborate music video response to toxic tweets that he’s received over the past few weeks.

Boyega has been dealing with s*** fans since The Force Awakens, when some viewers took umbrage with the notion of a black Stormtrooper. This round of negativity however came mostly from people on Twitter berating Boyega after he took a playful jab at “Reylo” shippers back on New Year’s Eve…

ENJJGTcW4AE2uCf

The Instagram post, set to music, shows Boyega slicing up tweets, that’s he’s still receiving now, weeks later, with a lightsaber – as well as chopping them and running over them with a scooter. Boyega capped it all off with “Glad I got that out of my system.”

Check out the Instagram video here…

Screen Shot 2020-01-11 at 7
Click to see video on Instagram!

Right now, with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker close to topping a billion bucks worldwide, fans are wondering about a possible “JJ Abrams cut” of the film, which would include a lot of deleted footage and information that’s canonically addressed in the Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary.

Here are the Best and Worst Star Wars movies, according to IGN readers, as well as why Babu Frik encapsulates the spirit of Star Wars.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/10/which-franchise-stuck-the-landing-the-best-star-wars-game-of-thrones-or-marvel-what-to-watch”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.

Star Trek: Picard — Short Trek Episode Reveals A Clue About Picard’s Past

Details surrounding the story of Star Trek: Picard are still pretty hazy. We know it concerns the storied Starfleet captain, Jean-Luc Picard, 15 years after his retirement from Starfleet. But we know very little about why Picard retired from the rank of admiral.

Ahead of the Star Trek: Picard release date on January 23, CBS All Access has filled in the gaps–at least slightly. The streaming service released an episode of its Star Trek short film series, Short Treks, that works as something of a setup for the events of Picard. In “Children of Mars,” we see some of the events that eventually spur Picard to leave Starfleet and take on a more reclusive life.

The episode follows two girls in a Martian school who have a tumultuous relationship. Their animosity grows throughout the episode, until they’re together during a tragic attack on Mars by a group of powerful ships. While it’s not clear that the two characters will play a role in Picard, we do know a few things about the situation in which they find themselves.

“Children of Mars” takes place some 15 years before the start of Picard, and it’s this attack on Mars and the trauma surrounding it that’s had such a profound effect on the legendary captain. From a news cast that plays during the attack, we now know that it’s executed by “rogue synthetics.” You might also spot a shot of Picard on those screens as well–as an admiral in Starfleet during the attack, he’s a major figure in responding to the attack.

So we know that a tragedy perpetrated by these “rogue synths” is a big part of the setup for Picard, although it’s still not clear what synths are or how they relate to the bigger picture of what’s going on in the series. It’s worth noting, however, that a big part of Picard’s story is his relationship with Data, the android who served on the Enterprise in The Next Generation and spent his life endeavoring to be more human. Data sacrificed himself to save Picard and the Enterprise at the end of the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films, Star Trek: Nemesis, and the trailers for Star Trek: Picard suggest that event still haunts Picard as well.

Disclosure: CBS is the parent company of GameSpot.

Now Playing: 11 Star Trek: Picard Theories – The Borg, Data, and Everything We Know So Far

The Best Retro Gaming Hardware From CES 2020: Gigantic NBA Jam, Hyperkin Retron Jr., Digital Pinball, And More

What’s Old Is New At CES 2020

The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.

Lucasfilm Initially Wanted Respawn’s Star Wars Game To Avoid Jedi and Lightsabers

Lucasfilm originally wanted Respawn to stick to blasters and make a first-person shooter, according to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Director Stig Asmussen.

In the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with Asmussen to talk about Respawn’s pitch for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and, according to Asmussen, he was very clear about what he and his team wanted to do when he first met with Lucasfilm.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/17/how-stig-built-god-of-war-and-star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-ign-unfiltered-47″]

“‘We want to make a game with Jedi and lightsabers and Force powers.’ and I could feel that the room kind of gasped for a moment. That’s when I realized; Jedi are really big… I mean, of course they are a big deal… but it’s a really big deal. It’s like the Holy Grail here.” Asmussen also discussed Lucasfilm’s reverence for Jedi in the latest episode of the AIAS Game Maker’s podcast, when he sat down with Insomniac’s Ted Price.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”legacyId=20096150&captions=true”]

“There was a little bit of people eye-balling each other and somebody, I don’t remember who, on the Lucasfilm side said, ‘What about making a game with blasters? Something more like a shooter?’ They didn’t mention any games in particular and I said, ‘You know, part of my background is melee and the team that we built is melee-action… I think you wouldn’t be really happy with the results of what we’d make for that, because I’m not super comfortable with doing that.’ And I said, ‘but, you know… lightsabers.’”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/11/15/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-review”]

That was far from the end of the discussion, Asmussen said. “They talked a little bit more about it, and we went back and forth and they said, ‘Here’s the deal; we can do something with lightsabers and Force powers, but we can’t… we can’t talk about Jedi. We’ve got to refer to them as “Force-users.”’” Asmussen shrugged, “As long as we’ve got lightsabers and Force-powers, I’m cool.”

“That’s the day that I learned; every step of the way, we have to earn it. We can’t just come in and say, ‘This is the game that we’re making.’ It’s gotta be a conversation. It’s gotta be a collaboration, and we have to earn the respect, and that works both ways. But here we are, years later, and the name of the game is ‘Jedi: Fallen Order.’”

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Brian Barnett writes news, features, wiki guides, deals posts, and much more for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian’s antics on Twitter and Instagram (@Ribnax).

No, The New Mutants Isn’t an MCU Movie

A D23.com news briefs article spotlighting the upcoming Fox Marvel movie The New Mutants got fans in a tizzy when it seemingly revealed groundbreaking information connecting the X-Men universe movie to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but we’re here to let you know that it was not true.

The article referred to The New Mutants as the “seriously electrifying new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” and while the former very well may be the case, IGN can confirm that the latter is not. No, The New Mutants isn’t an MCU movie, though it is the first Fox Marvel movie to be released since Disney’s acquisition of the studio.

The D23.com article has since been removed from the official Disney fan club website, but you can see the original comment in the screenshot below:

new-mutants-mcu-marvel-d23
D23.com incorrectly referred to the upcoming X-Men universe film as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When the purported MCU connection started spreading around social media, fans were intrigued, though doubtful of its accuracy:

Directed by Josh Boone, The New Mutants is finally hitting theaters on April 3 in the US (April 8 in the UK) after being delayed for almost two years. While promoting the new trailer’s release, Boone confirmed that this was the original version of the movie that he shot for Fox, despite the Disney acquisition.

If you haven’t already, be sure to watch the recently released trailer for The New Mutants below:

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/06/the-new-mutants-official-trailer-2″]

The New Mutants’ release is interesting because, as mentioned earlier in this article, it is the first X-Men universe movie to be released since Disney acquired Fox, and since that acquisition, the future of the X-Men franchise has been unclear. While Dark Phoenix seemingly brought the core X-Men franchise to a close and Gambit is well and truly dead, The New Mutants was designed to expand the scope of Fox’s X-Men movies with a more standalone story using other characters from the X-Men comics pantheon — a move conceived in a pre-Disney/Fox world.

Because of its delayed release and the acquisition leaving X-Men’s Disney future unclear, there was a concern that The New Mutants might be shelved permanently, though fortunately, that was not the case. This is standalone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s pantheon of characters, though, which is why the seeming confirmation of its existence within the MCU earlier Friday would have completely recontextualized The New Mutants movie’s function and purpose.

Even though they haven’t been announced, Marvel’s Kevin Feige confirmed he does have plans for the X-Men to join the larger MCU. At San Diego Comic-Con, he told IGN, “Whatever we do will be quite different than what’s been done before.” You can watch our full interview with Feige below:

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/07/21/kevin-feige-on-x-men-plans-no-avengers-movie-in-phase-4-comic-con-2019″]

The New Mutants stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Magik, Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane, Henry Zaga as Sunspot, Charlie Heaton as Sam Guthrie, Blu Hunt as Danielle Moonstar, Alice Braga as Dr. Cecilia Reyes and Antonio Banderas as the film’s villain.

While The New Mutants may not be a part of the MCU Phase 4 lineup, plenty of other titles are. Refresh yourself on what’s coming for Marvel over the course of the next few years by clicking through the gallery below:

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=marvel-phase-4-official-lineup&captions=true”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Terri Schwartz is Editor-in-Chief of Entertainment at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.

Venom Director ‘Top Choice’ to Helm Uncharted Movie

After losing its sixth director, it seems the upcoming Uncharted film might have landed its newest one in Venom and Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Fleischer is Sony’s ideal choice to join Tom Holland and potentially Mark Wahlberg in the project as the seventh, and hopefully final, director.

Fleischer is no stranger to Sony, as Venom and Zombieland are both its properties. So, it doesn’t come as a huge surprise that executives would like him to head up this major project — however, negotiations have not yet begun.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-strange-history-of-the-uncharted-movie&captions=true”]

At the end of December, the news broke that Travis Knight would no longer be directing the film due to scheduling issues, which have been rumored to be a result of Holland’s busy schedule with the upcoming Spider-Man movie planned for 2021. Despite the set back, reports still state that the film is on track with no major changes.

Earlier this year, Sony announced PlayStation Productions, an in-house development studio responsible for turning Sony’s games into movies. Shawn Layden, previous Chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios told The Hollywood Reporter, “We feel that now is a good time to look at other media opportunities across streaming or film or television to give our worlds life in another spectrum.”

Layden continued, “We’ve got 25 years of game development experience and that’s created 25 years of great games, franchises and stories.” While nothing has been announced, Sony owns tons of different franchises that it could turn into movies, such as The Last of Us, God of War, and Spyro the Dragon, just to name a few.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/31/uncharted-every-director-the-video-game-movie-has-lost-and-why-ign-now”]

In the upcoming Uncharted movie, Holland will be portraying a young Nathan Drake while Wahlberg will play Drake’s mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. You can catch Sony’s Uncharted in theaters on December 18, 2020. In the meantime, be sure to check out the strange history of the Uncharted movie.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.

Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector Premiere Review

Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector premieres Friday, January 10 on NBC.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Whisking us back to the ’90s heyday of elaborate serial killer “cat and mouse” games, which began as a gourmet meal with The Silence of the Lambs and then devolved into fast-food fare with Striking Distance, Kiss the Girls, Copycat, The Watcher, and many more (it’s the genre David Fincher’s Se7en knowingly knocked on its ass), Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector brings, arguably, the most ridiculous of all these tales to TV.

Based on the first Lincoln Rhyme novel by Jeffery Deaver, which was previously turned into a perfectly passable movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, The Bone Collector is bananas. It features a hyper-brilliant, bedridden forensic investigator being pitted against a genius killer who leaves clues so onerous and vague that they can only be solved by Holmes-ian intellect possessed by someone who relishes the thrill of the solving perplexing puzzles. “Everything means something with the Bone Collector” is a quote that’s equal parts intriguing and exhausting.

Obviously, this type of killer doesn’t exist. It’s a pure construct of paperbacks and the movies based on those paperbacks. These are glossy, sanitized murders devoid of deviant sexual pleasure. No, for a real peek inside the minds of serial murderers, outside of a true-crime docu-series, you’ll have to check out Netflix’s Mindhunter. This show is pure popcorn. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re looking for fast-paced pulp.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=lincoln-rhyme-hunt-for-the-bone-collector-pilot-photos&captions=true”]

Some tweaks had to be made to the story to slide it into a TV setting – the biggest being that Lincoln Rhyme and his bone collecting adversary go way back. In fact, it was three years before our story begins that Rhyme was paralyzed while trying to save one of the Collector’s victims. Obviously, in both the book and the movie, the Bone Collector, in different ways, is revealed to have some connection to Rhyme but here they’ve turned him into our hero’s Moriarty. We even get to see him in action, played by Brian F. O’Byrne. The smallest, and funniest, change from the books seems to be that the Bone Collector now collects bones, and torments Rhyme, because Rhyme was briefly rude to him a decade earlier. For wrestling fans, this is the “cup of coffee spilled on Kane” start of a feud.

Speaking of Moriarty, the series doesn’t hide its newly adopted Sherlock-ian sheen. Holmes himself, as a literary character, is directly discussed during flashbacks to Rhyme’s elite forensic academy schooling. And when Rhyme, played capably and grouchily by Grimm’s Russell Hornsby, puts his talents for observation to work, we get a slew of imagery and graphics letting us know that his crime-busting brain is working overtime. None of this is terrible, but it’s also not great. It’s just a slick superhero story nestled nicely into network TV.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/01/08/netflixs-locke-key-season-1-official-trailer”]

Arielle Kebbel (The Vampire Diaries, Midnight Texas) plays Rhyme’s newly-recruited eyes and ears and legs, beat cop Amelia Sachs (the character gets to keep her book name, which was changed for the movie). The basic dynamic between Rhyme and Sachs is a solid one, with the ornery veteran molding and scolding a keen apprentice, and Kebbel is very good, but things get so rushed due to pilot-itis that Rhyme is already cracking smiles and warming up to Sachs by the time the credits roll. Sure, for the movie it takes the entire runtime, but the show should have sat with Rhyme’s bitterness a bit longer.

I suppose it doesn’t help that this Rhyme isn’t in as much of a rock bottom mindset as the original version. This Rhyme actually has people he cares about and he actually might walk someday. It’s a far cry from the Rhyme at the beginning of the old story who was entertaining the thought of medically-assisted suicide. A man whose anger you could understand a bit more clearly when it came to him lashing out at others. This Rhyme was apparently a prick even before he was paralyzed. It’s just his way.

A Closer Look At Alienware’s Concept UFO Switch-Like PC Gaming Device