Author: Trafficblast

Star Wars: Episode 9 was originally set to be directed by Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow. However, Disney fired him over creative differences, and not long after, the company hired The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams to come in and finish the trilogy that he started years prior.

In a new interview, Abrams recalled being pitched on coming back to direct Episode 9–and his initial response was no. He told Fast Company that he had some trepidation over returning because “it was almost, on a personal level, a dangerous thing to get too close to something that you care that much about.”

With The Force Awakens, Abrams was happy with creating new characters and building a new story as the foundation for the new trilogy. It felt like playing with fire to come back to direct another Star Wars film, Abrams recalled.

“Though of course I’m aware that there are critics of that movie, it felt to me like we dodged a bullet. Like we got in there, we got to do something,” Abrams said. “And I left loving Star Wars as much as I did when I got there. Like, somehow, it was on a personal, selfish level something I was really happy to have done. Not just excited about doing but happy to have done. And to ask to have that happen again, I felt a little bit like I was playing with fire. Like, why go back? We managed to make it work. What the hell am I thinking?”

Abrams literally said, “No,” to Kennedy at one point, but his wife, Katie, convinced him.

“I think that she felt like it was an opportunity to bring to a close this story that we had begun and had continued, of course,” he said. “And I could see that even though the last thing on my mind was going away and jumping back into that, especially with the time constraints that we were faced with.”

According to Abrams, there was no script for Episode 9 when he came aboard, which suggests the version Trevorrow was working on was thrown out. He had the challenging job of creating a script and getting the movie made in a two-year window to hit the December 2019 release window that Disney wanted.

“You’ve got two years from the decision to do it to release, and you have literally nothing … You don’t have the story, you don’t have the cast, you don’t have the designers, the sets,” Abrams said. “There was a crew, and there were things that will be worked on for the version that preceded ours, but this was starting over.”

Because it was such a “mega job,” Abrams said he knew he wanted to bring on a co-writer. He ended up hiring Chris Terrio, who won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Ben Affleck’s Best Picture winner Argo.

One possible benefit of having less time to work on a project is that there is little time to overthink, Abrams said. He said he learned that working on Lost, which he and the team had just 12 weeks to write, cast, shoot, and cut for the pilot episode.

“Truly, finally–now that I’m back, the difference is I feel like we might’ve done it,” Abrams said about Episode 9. “Like, I actually feel like this crazy challenge that could have been a wildly uncomfortable contortion of ideas, and a kind of shoving-in of answers and Band-Aids and bridges and things that would have felt messy. Strangely, we were sort of relentless and almost unbearably disciplined about the story and forcing ourselves to question and answer some fundamental things that at the beginning, I absolutely had no clue how we would begin to address.”

Now that it’s done, Abrams said he thinks Episode 9 will be “something incredibly special.”

“I feel like we’ve gotten to a place–without jinxing anything or sounding more confident than I deserve to be–I feel like we’re in a place where we might have something incredibly special. So I feel relief being home, and I feel gratitude that I got to do it. And more than anything, I’m excited about what I think we might have.”

The full Fast Company interview is incredibly in-depth and fascinating; read it here.

Episode 9, or whatever the film ends up being officially titled, hits theatres in December. In other news, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson recently said he wouldn’t be bothered if Abrams decides to retcon Rey’s parentage.

And in Star Wars video game news, Apex Legends developer Respawn is planning to reveal its new Star Wars game, Jedi Fallen Order, at Star Wars Celebration this weekend.

Red Dead Online Beta’s latest Showdown Mode, Plunder, is now available. Along a new mode, new clothing, items, weapons and horses are available at lower ranks for limited time. In Plunder, up to 16 players can form teams and battle to capture supplies. Until April 15, all coats, holsters, boots and gloves up to rank 40 will be available to all players.

Easter is just around the corner, and Niantic is celebrating by bringing back its annual Eggstravaganza event in Pokemon Go. The week-long event returns next week beginning Tuesday, April 16, and this year it’ll give players their first chance to capture Shiny Buneary.

Throughout the Eggstravangaza, you’ll be able to hatch baby Pokemon like Pichu, Smoochum, and Magby from 2 km Eggs, and you’ll receive twice the typical amount of Candy for every Egg you hatch. On top of that, Incubators will be twice as effective for the duration of the event, while Lucky Eggs will last twice as long as normal.

Beyond that, Niantic will also be distributing special Field Research tasks revolving around Eggs at Poke Stops. Buneary will also appear in the wild much more frequently than normal, and if you’re lucky, you may come across its Shiny version. You can find more details about the event on the Pokemon Go website.

In the meantime, Pokemon Go’s second Legendary Lunch Hour event is set for April 10. Shortly after that, Niantic will host this month’s Community Day. The monthly event returns this Saturday, April 13, and will feature the rare Dragon Pokemon Bagon. Then, starting April 15, the Legendary Latios will make an encore appearance as part of a special week-long Raid event.

In addition to all of the upcoming events, Niantic has a couple of new features on the way for Pokemon Go, namely the Lucky Friends mechanic. Each day, you’ll have a chance to become Lucky Friends with a player you’ve become Best Friends with, which will guarantee you both receive a Lucky Pokemon in one trade. The developer is also adding avatar poses to Pokemon Go’s in-game store. These run for 500 coins apiece and let you customize your Trainer’s pose in the game.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard about Ubisoft’s long-awaited Beyond Good & Evil 2. Ubisoft isn’t sharing any further details about it yet, but now Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has at least provided an update on how the project is coming along.

He told IGN that he just recently spoke with creative director Michel Ancel, and in their discussion they might have discussed “another direction” for the game.

“I spoke with Michel last week about it to see where it was going; how we should move in one or another direction,” Guillemot said in a video that was apparently recorded in March. “We see the potential of this universe is fantastic, and Michel is really passionate [about it]. It’s going to be fantastic, I think.”

Ubisoft showed off a new look at Beyond Good & Evil 2 last year at E3, and the title could be among those that Ubisoft reveals more about at E3 this year.

In an intriguing bit of news, Joseph Gordon Levitt’s creative company, HitRecord, is partnering with Ubisoft for the tools so anyone can create content for Beyond Good and Evil 2.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 is a prequel to the 2003 original. It’s been in the works for a long time, but there is still no release date or announced platforms.

What are you hoping to see from Beyond Good & Evil 2? Let us know in the comments below!

This past weekend’s episode of The Simpsons ended in a very strange and amazing way. The world’s first Ned Flanders-themed metal band, Okilly Dokilly, aired a portion of the music video for their song “White Wine Spritzer” over the show’s end-credits.

This really happened. And it was incredible. Here’s the video:

Okilly Dokilly is a “Nedal” band from Phoenix whose members dress up like Ned Flanders. The lyrics are pulled from things Ned said on the show. White Wine Spritzer itself comes from the Season 10 episode where Ned throws caution to the wind and orders himself a white wine spritzer while in Vegas with Homer.

Simpsons showrunner Al Jean told Rolling Stone that the team noticed the White Wine Spritzer video and “knew they had to be on the show.”

“We do not endorse their message of indiscriminate drinking of white wine spritzers,” he said.

Frontman Head Ned, which is his stage name, told Rolling Stone that he’s “very much in disbelief” about his band appearing on The Simpsons in this way.

Okilly Dokilly is currently in the midst of a huge US tour with stops all around the country. You can see a list of tour stops and get more information about the band here on their website.

It appears Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is adding a new stage-builder mode. A new commercial for the game released by Nintendo shows what appears to be the new Stage Builder mode from the main menu. You can see this for yourself at 0:02 in the video below.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U also featured stage-builder modes, so it’s not a big surprise that it could be added to Ultimate. What’s more, the stage-builder mode was already leaked thanks to a data-mine. Another new mode, Home Run Contest, is also reportedly coming to Ultimate, according to Source Gaming.

A Nintendo Direct briefing is reportedly coming on Thursday, April 11, so it might be there that Nintendo officially announces new modes for Ultimate. Nothing is confirmed at this stage, however, so for now consider this a rumour.

Ultimate has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, making it the third best-selling Switch game of all. It’s only behind Super Mario Odyssey (13.76 million) and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (15.02 million).

On Sunday, April 14, the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones will premiere. If you don’t have cable, you can sign up for HBO Now, a standalone subscription that costs $15 a month. HBO Go is free, if you have HBO in your cable or satellite TV package. With Go or Now, you can stream Game of Thrones on supported phones, tablets and more. Game of Thrones airs in America on Sunday evening at 9 PM Pacific and Eastern time.

Inspired by the success of games like PUBG, Fortnite, and Apex Legends, a very rich person is looking to buy an island and bring 100 people to it for a real-life game of battle royale.

IGN spotted a listing on the luxury marketplace Hush Hush from an anonymous person who is looking to hire someone to design an arena for a 100-person battle royale game.

Contestants will compete with Airsoft guns, and shots will be detected by touch-sensitive armour. Under the current plan, competition will take place 12 hours per day over three days until only one person remains. Competitors can camp for the night, while food, camping gear, and all equipment will be provided to contestants.

The untitled contest is still in the early stages of planning, so there is no word on yet on how to sign up or other key particulars like a prize for the winner or what island will be used or details on the safety measures and rules to be implemented. Whatever the case, the person who gets hired as gamemaker will get £1,500/day for six weeks to create the event.

“Battle royale games have become incredibly popular over the last few years ago and our customer is a huge fan who wants to make the game a reality in the safest way possible,” Hush Hush founder Aaron Harpin said. “If the championship is a success this year, it’s something he wants to make an annual event moving forward, which is very exciting!”

IGN reports that the sponsor of the event is an anonymous millionaire; his identity is unknown.