Universal Studios Orlando is preparing to launch the latest addition to its Wizarding World of Harry Potter with Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. The “immersive” roller coaster puts visitors on Hagrid’s motorcycle as they journey through the Forbidden Forest and come face-to-face with a number of magical creatures from the world of the Harry Potter books and films. The creatures aren’t all that’s in store, though.
Universal Orlando has unveiled its first look at the animatronic figure of Hagrid that will be seen in the coaster, and it’s scarily realistic. Like, a few steps removed from a Harry Potter-themed version of Westworld realistic.
According to a press release, Hagrid’s face was sculpted by hand, while actor Robbie Coltrane’s mouth was scanned to recreate the character’s teeth. Coltrane also recorded new dialogue for the animatronic, while the character’s costume was designed by the team that dressed him in the films.
“Hagrid is such an iconic character and an integral part of the Harry Potter franchise, so we were excited to develop a truly innovative and authentic animated figure to bring him to life for this experience,” Universal Creative senior vice president Thierry Coup said in a statement. “We worked tirelessly to make sure Hagrid’s full essence was captured with the utmost attention to detail for our guests to feel completely immersed in this all-new adventure.”
You can see just how detailed the Hagrid animatronic is in the images above and in the trailer below. Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure opens at Universal Orlando on June 19. Between this and the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom parks, it’s an exciting summer to be a theme park fan.
Warner Bros.’ live-action Detective Pikachu movie hits theaters later this week, and Niantic is celebrating its premier with a special event in Pokemon Go. Beginning tomorrow, May 7, at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET / 9 PM BST (6 AM AEST on May 8), players will have a chance to capture Pokemon from the upcoming film–including a new Shiny Pokemon and Detective Pikachu itself.
From May 7-17, Pokemon that star in the Detective Pikachu movie, such as Bulbasaur, Snubble, Psyduck, Jigglypuff, and Aipom, will appear in the wild more frequently than normal. Some movie Pokemon will also appear as Raid bosses, and players will have a chance of coming across a Shiny Aipom. On top of that, a Pikachu wearing a detective’s hat may photobomb any Go Snapshots you take; if that happens, you’ll have a chance to catch it.
Beyond the increased Pokemon spawns, you’ll earn twice the usual amount of XP for every Pokemon you capture during the Detective Pikachu event. Niantic is also distributing special Field Research tasks at Poke Stops, and there are Detective Pikachu-themed clothing items for purchase from the Style Shop, including a shirt featuring the film’s logo and a detective hat with Pikachu ears.
Detective Pikachu hits theaters on May 10. The movie is based loosely on the 3DS game of the same name and stars Ryan Reynolds as the voice of the titular Pokemon. “Detective Pikachu should prove enjoyable for any and all Pokemon fans, young or old,” Michael Rougeau wrote in GameSpot’s Detective Pikachu review. “As the first official live-action trip to the world of Pokemon, Detective Pikachu presents characters I want to see again and a setting I’d like to return to.”
In other Pokemon Go news, the Legendary Lake trio–Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie–have started to appear in Raid Battles around the world following their unexpected appearance in the wild earlier this month. The game’s next Community Day event, meanwhile, is scheduled for Sunday, May 19. The featured Pokemon this time will be Torchic, the Fire-type starter from Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire.
After Daenerys legitimizes Gendry, he immediately goes to find Arya, professing his love for her and asking her to marry him. Gendry is now lord of Storm’s End, and wants Arya to be his lady–but everybody knows asking Arya to be a lady is a bad call. “That’s not me,” Arya tells him, letting him down easy. It’s a callback to two key moments: First, Arya told her father Ned Stark “That’s not me” when he talked about her marrying and being a lady. The conversation was what led Ned to signing Arya up for water dancing lessons, setting her on the path of assassinhood.
The line got another mention in Season 7, when Arya was heading to Winterfell to find Jon, Bran, and Sansa, after she’d dealt with the Freys. While Arya was traveling through the woods, she was surrounded by a pack of wolves, led by a direwolf that turned out to be Nymeria. Back in Season 1, Arya released her direwolf into the woods near the King’s Road after she bit Joffrey, because Arya knew Queen Cersei would have the wolf killed. When Nymeria reappeared, wild and apparently in charge of the smaller wolves of the area, Arya tried to get Nymeria to come with her to Winterfell. She realized the wolf needed to be free, muttering, “That’s not you,” as Nymeria turned and headed back into the forest.
Of course, that might not actually be the case, given the situation. We learn this juicy detail thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio, who is apparently from an alternate Earth. Apparently the fabric of reality itself was punctured by Thanos and his snap–though we can’t be completely sure exactly what that means or how deep the damage may go.
Or, honestly, Mysterio could just be completely full of it. The character’s comic book history doesn’t exactly bode well for his honesty, which left us wondering: Is Mysterio just a liar? Or is there more to the story than we originally assumed?
We took a closer look at all of Mysterio’s, uh, mysteries and crafted some conspiracy theories (conspirios) to fit the bill.
In all of gaming, you’d be hard pressed to find a messier lawsuit (and subsequent fallout) than that of Epic vs. Silicon Knights. Back in 2007, Silicon Knights formally sued Epic for allegedly failing to address issues with Unreal Engine 3, which Silicon Knights was using to develop Too Human. For a multitude of reasons, Silicon Knights effectively lost that lawsuit, and as of a 2014 report, still somehow owes Epic $9.2 million in legal fees. Though Silicon Knights is no more, former president Denis Dyack says that, knowing what he knows now, he would likely reconsider going through with the lawsuit.
The comic book industry had its strongest sales year ever in 2018, with total sales topping a previous record set in 2016. That’s according to a joint analysis by ICv2’s Milton Griepp and Comichron’s John Jackson Miller.
Grieep and Miller estimate that total comic book and graphic novel sales in 2018 amounted to $1.095 billion. A little under half of those sales came from traditional comic book shops, while the remainder were through book channels (bookstores, online retailers, Scholastic book fairs, etc.), digital downloads and crowdfunding services like Kickstarter. This is the first time crowdfunding data has been included in Grieep and Miller’s annual report.
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Here’s some good news for anyone who’s keyed into the Amazon ecosystem: a handful of Amazon devices are on sale right now, and some of them are at the lowest prices they’ve ever been. You’ll find discounts on Fire tablets, Amazon Echo devices, and the fantastic Kindle Paperwhite, which was recently updated with great new features. Better yet, Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and these make great gifts. Keep that in mind.
For the entirety of Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen has held a huge trump card as she worked her way across Essos and, finally, to Westeros to take the Iron Throne: dragons. The incredible power of dragon fire can melt castles and ravage armies, and their ability to fly has put them out of reach of anybody who would try to fight back against them.
Having air superiority has made Daenerys nearly unbeatable in recent seasons, but she lost one of her dragons in the war against the Night King and the White Walkers. That left her with only two.
Qyburn, Cersei Lannister’s Hand of the Queen, also developed a weapon that could take down dragons, giving Cersei a chance to fight back against the otherwise unbeatable creatures. The giant crossbow, known as a scorpion, can knock dragons out of the air–and in Episode 4, “The Last of the Starks,” Euron Greyjoy and the Iron Fleet manage to use them, mounted on their ships, to kill Rhaegal, the dragon Jon Snow rode in the Battle of Winterfell. That means Daenerys just has Drogon, her largest and most fearsome dragon, remaining.
But is that really it? Dragons have been a game-changer in the world, which raises an additional question: Could there be more?
Up until Dany’s three dragons were born, it was common knowledge the world over that the species had gone extinct. But there are potentially more dragon eggs out in the world, left behind by the Targaryens at various points in history. If Daenerys’s eggs were formerly stones (or appeared to be stones), those others could potentially still be viable as well.
In George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” books, on which Game of Thrones is based, there are a number of dragon eggs mentioned at various points. Targaryens used to give their young princes dragon eggs even as infants, to try to get the dragons to bond with them as early as possible. But not all of those dragon eggs hatched, and at various times, Targaryens took eggs with them to different places, like the Vale–and we don’t know what happened to them all. There’s also a mention in the companion book “The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones” of a rumor that a Targaryen dragon laid eggs in the Winterfell crypts almost two centuries before the events of the show, near the hot springs there. So there are at least a few dragon eggs supposedly lost and scattered throughout Westeros.
The interesting thing is that the return of dragons has had larger effects on the Game of Thrones world than their incredible power and military superiority. There’s a big implication in both the books and the show that the return of dragons has also meant the return of magic to the world. We saw as much in Qarth in Season 2, when Daenerys dealt with the sorcerers there, and there’s speculation that the time was right for White Walkers to make their push against the realms of men after centuries of no one having heard from them at all because of the rebirth of dragons. So while it’s a bit speculative, it does seem possible that while Daenerys has lost two of her three dragons, they won’t necessarily be the last.
For the time being, though, there’s just one for sure dragon left in the world, and that’s Drogon, since Viserion was killed by the Night King, turned into a wight, and killed again when Arya destroyed the White Walkers, and Rhaegal is now apparently at the bottom of the sea with a scorpion bolt in his neck. Dragons changed the world of Westeros once before, and while Daenerys’s dragons haven’t had the same effect that Aegon the Conquerer did when he took over Westeros and started the Targaryen dynasty 300 years before the events of the show, it still seems possible that they could change it again in the future.
Borderlands 3 has found itself embroiled in another controversy. Randy Pitchford, the CEO of developer Gearbox Software, has called out David Eddings, the original voice actor for the franchise’s mainstay robot character, Claptrap, as being “bitter and disgruntled” amid news that he won’t return for Borderlands 3. This drama comes not long after Pitchford made heated comments criticising a media publication’s coverage of the game’s implementation of microtransactions (more on that later).
This all started when Eddings himself confirmed on Twitter that he won’t reprise his role as Claptrap in Borderlands 3 after the game’s big reveal event last week. Eddings said it came down to a matter of payment. Eddings voiced Claptrap, a wise-cracking, sarcastic robot, in all of the previous Borderlands games when he was an employee of Gearbox. He reportedly did not receive a fee beyond his normal salary to do this when he was working at the studio; Gearbox says this kind of arrangement is normal.
No. For the first time, I insisted on getting paid for my performance and all of a sudden they couldn’t afford me. Now I’m not telling them how to run their business but maybe next time they should put the $12M payment from 2K in the Gearbox bank account instead. Just sayin’…
Eddings was a decade-plus executive veteran at Gearbox before he left in 2017 to take a job at Rooster Teeth. In his tweet about Borderlands 3, Eddings said he insisted that he be paid, unlike in previous games where he reportedly recorded lines for no extra remuneration.
“For the first time, I insisted on getting paid for my performance and all of a sudden they couldn’t afford me,” Eddings said.
He added, “Now, I’m not telling them how to run their business but maybe next time they should put the $12M payment from 2K in the Gearbox bank account instead. Just saying’…”
That line is presumably in reference to the $12 million that Pitchford is alleged in a lawsuit to have received as a secret bonus that went to himself instead of the studio. For its part, Gearbox said this claim has “no basis in reality or law.”
Regarding the Claptrap controversy, Pitchford himself commented on Twitter. He said Eddings is “bitter and disgruntled” about his departure from Gearbox. Pitchford said Eddings was terminated but did not discuss the specifics surrounding his departure.
Pitchford added that Gearbox offered Eddings twice the standard union voice actor rate to return for Borderlands 3, but he refused. “I don’t want him to do it unless he wants to do it, as motivation affects performance,” Pitchford said.
Gearbox released a statement regarding the Borderlands 3 Claptrap situation that attempts to clarify the facts. The company clarified that it offers its salaried employees the opportunity to do voice work in its games, but this is never a mandatory responsibility for their job requirements. “In this particular case, now that [Eddings] was no longer an employee, we offered him an industry standard rate, but were not able to reach an agreement,” Gearbox said to IGN.
Stepping in for Eddings as Claptrap in Borderlands 3 is Jim Foronda. Gearbox said it is “confident and happy” with Foronda, who previously voiced Mighty Mask in the Dragon Ball Z Kai anime series.
Here’s my official announcement saying what many of you already figured out: I am voicing Claptrap in #Borderlands3. Thanks for your support– I promise you all that I’ll be the best Clappy I can be! And with that, I present my LEGO render of @GearboxOfficial‘s voiceover booth. pic.twitter.com/no2tUEe813
It’s not just Eddings who won’t return for Borderlands 3. Prolific voice actor Troy Baker isn’t coming back to voice Rhys. The character Rhys appeared in Tales from the Borderlands voiced by Baker, but he’s new to the mainline series. Baker also called out Pitchford, telling Only Single Player, “I think it’s interesting that Randy Pitchford tweeted out that I turned it down and then he said he heard that I turned it down. I would fact-check before I tweet it out to the internet, is all I’m saying.”
Voice actor Ray Chase, who is perhaps best known for voicing Noctis in Final Fantasy XV, is stepping in to voice Rhys in place of Baker.
This is just the latest controversy surrounding Borderlands 3. After confirming that Borderlands 3 will feature microtransactions, Pitchford called out Game Informer for what he deemed as a “shi**y clickbait headline” regarding the game’s microtransactions, going on to question why the publication would “f**k me on this.” Game Informer has stood by its original reporting, and Pitchford faced backlash for his comments.
As for Borderlands 3 the game, we recently spent a good amount of time with it and came away impressed. You can check out GameSpot’s hands-on preview in the video embedded above, which also contains lots of new gameplay footage.
Borderlands 3 launches on September 13 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 4, titled “The Last of the Starks,” in a way had it easy: It couldn’t have possibly been worse than the nonsensical Episode 3, “The Long Night,” which many fans feel betrayed the very core of what Game of Thrones is. With the bar set so low, Episode 4 was always going to seem better in comparison. And sure enough, it wasn’t the worst episode so far in Season 8.
But there’s just something off about the way Game of Thrones’ final conflict–the one between Cersei, Dany, and Jon/Aegon–is taking shape. Jon’s explanation that he has no desire to make a claim to the Iron Throne (which apparently took place offscreen at some point) isn’t good enough for the Dragon Queen, and what do you know? This episode proved Dany’s worst fears right: Now that Jon’s secret is out, there’s already talk of how much better he’d be at ruling.
But why? Is that conversation justified? Jon has proved time and time again that he has what it takes, but so has Daenerys. They’re in the endgame, and now is no time to be sowing inner conflict on your own side. Characters like Sansa and Varys should be smarter than this (although they weren’t smart enough to remember that crypts are full of corpses, so who knows?).
The easiest resolution to this whole conflict would be for Jon and Dany to get married, announce his identity to the whole Seven Kingdoms, and be stronger than ever, together, a united front of Targaryens here to take their rightful seat back. Obviously, it’s Game of Thrones, so it can’t be that easy, but the show hasn’t presented an adequate reason why not. Because Sansa and Arya still don’t trust the queen who sacrificed half her forces to defend their home? Because Varys worries that Dany would wear the pants in the relationship? All this scheming and plotting and self-sabotaging feels contrived, because in this case, there’s one clear path that makes the most sense, and no one’s managed to come up with any adequate justification for why they can’t just do this one thing the easy way.
The blame for that falls squarely on this episode’s writers, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who also wrote the previous episode (and the next two, which isn’t a great sign for the rest of the final season). It’s clear what they’re trying to do, and it’s clear that they failed at it–because I just can’t figure out why Jon and Dany wouldn’t just make the smart choice, unite the North and South, and usher in a new age of Targaryen rule.
Elsewhere in Winterfell, “The Last of the Starks” was full of fan service–although much of it was misplaced. Ghost showed up for the third time this season, only to immediately be written off the show, without so much as a pat from Jon. The suits at HBO breathed a sigh of relief for the show’s CG budget, while fans cried out at the injustice of Ghost being treated like he’s just as unimportant as Daario F***ing Naharis. Ghost’s casual dismissal was almost as bad as the episode cutting away from Jon telling his sisters his true identity–a conversation fans have been awaiting for decades. Considering how much fan service this season has featured, it’s frankly shocking that we didn’t get to see the rest of that chat.
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Game Of Thrones Season 8 Episode 2 Recap And Breakdown Of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”
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Jaime and Brienne got together–but only, it turns out, to make it more of a gut punch to her when he went riding back to Cersei anyway. Jaime knighted Brienne in Episode 2, and it was a beautiful culmination of both characters’ arcs, fulfilling their relationship without needing to shoehorn in a romance. This final twist of the knife was, arguably, unnecessary. The fact that Jaime is most likely riding south to kill his sister himself is the plotline’s saving grace–and leaving his intentions ambiguous does a decent job of keeping that tension going.
And another dragon died. Once again, Game of Thrones put cinematic showiness over plausibility, as it’s hard to believe that Dany somehow failed to glimpse Euron’s fleet hiding behind a rock from her vantage point hundreds of feet in the air. The camera was pointed up toward the sky when the fleet apparently came into view of the dragons, which leaves it just vague enough to be somewhat believable. But even if you buy that, it’s insane that no one saw that attack coming in a figurative sense; they know about Euron’s fleet, they know about Cersei’s scorpions (Drogon caught a bolt back in Season 7’s “The Spoils of War”), and they know that King’s Landing and Dragonstone are a stone’s throw from one another. Why wouldn’t Euron be waiting to ambush them?
Losing yet another dragon is a massive blow to Dany, and it hurts even more because it could have easily been avoided. Maybe that’s another case of the writing being bad, or maybe all the greatest minds in Westeros really are just that dumb. Who can say at this point?
With two episodes of Game of Thrones left, it feels safe to say that the show probably doesn’t have many big surprises left. Some fans are disappointed the White Walkers were easily defeated in a single skirmish, while others may still hope that Jon and Dany will make peace with each other and figure out that a united Targaryen front is the strongest, easiest, and smartest way forward. Whatever you think, there’s no denying that this season has been surprising so far, and despite all our gripes, there’s something deeply enjoyable about that.
I believe that with the end in sight, what we’re seeing is what we’re getting: Jon and Dany and Cersei will vie for the Iron Throne, and whichever of them is left standing at the end will get it. It’s going to be exciting, there will be plenty of fire and blood, and at this point nobody can predict what will happen next. I have plenty of complaints with the path we’ve taken to get here, but when it comes down to it, I’m looking forward to seeing how this all ends. Once it does, maybe George R.R. Martin can finally write the rest of the books and finish things his way. Until then, let’s just try to enjoy this for what it is.
