Author: Trafficblast

The first season of YouTube Premium’s Cobra Kai came out of nowhere and blew everyone’s expectations out of the water. Really, a TV show that follows the story of a movie as beloved as The Karate Kid that comes out 30 years after the franchise launched doesn’t immediately spark confidence. Thankfully, the show was excellent and got well-deserved critical appraise.

Now, as the show enters its second season, the surprise factor is gone and expectations are through the roof. The first two episodes of the season premiered at SXSW, picking up right where Season 1 left off, reintroducing us to evil sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove), as well as teasing a full-on confrontation between the rebooted Cobra Kai dojo and the newly revived Miyagi-Do Karate.

GameSpot had the opportunity to sit down with the cast and executive producers of Cobra Kai shortly before the special screening of the first two episodes at SXSW. The show’s creators–Hayden Schlossberg, Josh Heald, and Jon Hurwitz–revealed that while they had to fill in the blanks to what happened to the characters after the movies, they did have some help from the original 1984 movie.

“When we first sold the show, we told Sony, what if we dig up all the old material and see if there’s anything we can use? And we found a ton of deleted scenes, different takes and angles from the original movies,” Jon Hurwitz recalled. “And, you know, in the very first episode of Season 1 we see that iconic fight between Johnny and Daniel but edited in an entirely different way. The scene in our show gives you more of Johnny’s point of view, instead of focusing on Daniel’s lens.”

“We reintroduced sensei Kreese in the earliest moments of that very first episode,” said Hayden Schlossberg. “John [Avildsen, director] shot that final fight in the first movie with six cameras, with dedicated cameras on Martin Kove, Billy [Zabka], and the Cobra Kai kids. We were able to use that footage to see a different angle of Johnny walking back onto the mat after his infamous talk with Kreese. We didn’t go in with Daniel, we were with this kid who is now about to make his mistake that was going to influence the rest of his life. That kind of re-edited perspective certainly helped tell our story.”

When I told the producers that I originally had very low interest in the show prior to watching the first episode, co-producer and co-creator Hayden Schlossberg seemed unsurprised–and even pleased.

“That’s the best thing ever,” Schlossberg said. “To have low-to-zero expectations was the best place for us to show up with this show, because we knew that we were bringing an intentional gravitas and respect, and we caught people off guard.”

When it came to expectations going into Season 2, Ralph Macchio, who reprises his role as Daniel LaRusso, thinks it’s all about the characters. “I think Season 2 is truly a continuation,” Macchio said. “We’re just making another section of the movie, that is hours and hours long. It’s not about figuring out how to surprise the audience this time, but about being true to these characters, and just adding to them and diving deeper into their arcs, but bigger and better.”

That certainly seems to be the approach, at least according to producer Josh Heald. “The truth is we didn’t want to change anything coming into this season,” Heald told GameSpot. “The analogy we used is, we were in the kitchen making food. People seem to like the food, so let’s just keep making it, you know? Don’t change anything. We were confident in that we had a lot of storylines and characters that didn’t get that much time in the spotlight last season, that we just kept them for this season. Like what’s going on with Kreese? We didn’t do much with him last season, so that’s what this one is for. We’re fans, this is fan fiction. It’s super high-end fan fiction, but still. Our approach was, it if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Season 2 of Cobra Kai expands on some of the storylines from last season, and certainly on some of the characters. Not only do we see more of fan favorites like Hawk, but even Daniel’s wife, Samantha, gets more to do this time. “That’s one of the things we enjoy about the show being on a streaming service,” Josh Heald said. “The episodes run for as long as they need to be, so this season we see more of those characters.”

“Karate Kid, if you go back to it, it’s largely a high school soap opera,” said Schlossberg. “The only way these two kids can deal with their rivalry over this girl is through karate. So with this show, we wanted to honor that. There are rivalries, and humor, and of course, karate. But at the heart of it all is a high school soap opera about high school rivalries.”

Besides new characters, avid fans can notice new references to the movies–not only the 1984 original, but the sequels too. And Schlossberg teased plenty more nods to come: “Any movie with Mr. Miyagi is part of our canon. So any character in those movies is fair game in terms of cameos, or even storylines coming back. It’s all part of the show, having fun with these little nods.”

Cobra Kai Season 2 hits YouTube Red April 24.

When Batman finally swings into Gotham during the Fox show’s series finale on Thursday, it will be in a brand-new costume. While there are many Batsuits made for live-action Batman films and TV shows, none of them were available to the Gotham production team. So instead, they built their own–and it’s one true to the show.

“[The suit is] pieces of everything. It’s a highlight reel of the comic,” executive producer Danny Cannon told GameSpot at the TCA press tour. “Because that’s what we’d think the show was, really. [It] was building up to the best of what it could be, and so we just took the best of everything and made our own.”

Of course, producers did ask DC and Warner Bros. if they could simply borrow one of the existing costumes. “It’s just to show you how things work,” Cannon continued. “When we first said to them like, ‘Hey you guys must have so many Batman suits now. Can we have one of those?’ They were like, ‘No.’ So we went and asked the movie place, ‘Hey, can we have one of your things.’ They went, ‘No.'”

In the end, though, the team behind the show is pleased with the costume they’ve put together for the series finale. What’s more, they’re happy with the man behind the cowl–David Mazouz, who’s played young Bruce Wayne throughout the show’s run.

It was previously revealed that the finale would see Mazouz suiting up as Batman in some scenes, while a larger body double would be used for others. Upon first seeing the finished product, executive producer John Stephens called it “unnerving.” He explained, “I mean really it is unnerving when you watch what they do with his face to make it look that way, you know? It’s an odd thing, [because] David’s also been practicing that voice for a long time, so I’ve heard him do it in the background a lot.”

It won’t just be Batman making an impact in the series finale, though. As previously revealed, the final evolution of Gotham’s take on Joker will appear. The final episode will also see versions of Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), Riddler (Cory Michael Smith), and Catwoman that are closer in line with the comics.

It was previously revealed by Camren Bicondova, who plays Selina Kyle in the series, that actress Lili Simmons would take over the role for the series finale, which is set 10 years later. “I firmly believe that part of leaving a legacy and being a part of a legacy means knowing when to pass the torch to someone else,” Bicondova said in a statement. “I was blessed to be the vessel for Selina Kyle for her formative teen years, and it only felt right to give someone else the torch for her adult self.”

Gotham’s series finale airs Thursday, April 25.

A new update for Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts III is coming soon. As announced on Twitter, the new update is coming during morning hours PT on April 23. It adds the Critical Mode.

If it’s the same as in previous Kingdom Hearts titles, Critical Mode is a new, more challenging difficulty level, above Proud Mode. As IGN reminds us, Critical Modes in previous Kingdom Hearts titles added things like more damage taken and dealt by enemies, and other things. It remains to be seen how Kingdom Hearts III’s Critical Mode varies from past games.

Critical Mode is free for all players; there is no word yet as to exactly when in the morning PT time the update will arrive, but keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.

Kingdom Hearts III launched back in January for PS4 and Xbox One. The game quickly shipped more than five million copies, making it the fastest selling game in the series.

GameSpot’s Kingdom Hearts III review score the game an 8/10.

“What sticks with me is the exciting battle against elemental titans with Hercules, taking Rapunzel out into the unfamiliar wide world for the first time, snapping selfies with Winnie the Pooh, and going toe to toe with Davy Jones,” critic Tamoor Hussain wrote in GameSpot’s review. “In 2002, as Sora, I left Destiny Islands to travel across the universe and make new friends. In 2019 I brought old ones home, and I had so much fun doing it.”

Now Playing: Game Of Thrones Season 8 Episode 2 “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” Breakdown!

If you missed your first chance to catch Shiny Meltan, players will be able to catch the shiny form for a limited time starting April 24 – May 5. Meltan will only appear in Pokemon Go if you have opened the Mystery Box, an item that you get after transferring Gen 1 Pokemon to Let’s Go Eevee or Pikachu. With this event, you’ll be able to re-open the Mystery Box after three days instead of the usual seven, allowing for more chances to catch Meltan.

HBO has released a new teaser for next week’s episode of Game of Thrones–and it is very dramatic and foreboding. The teaser for Episode 3 shows the Night King’s army preparing to face off against Dany, Jon, and the rest of the gang at Winterfell. In one sequence, Jon remarks, “The Night King is coming.” Dany then says to him, “The dead are already here.”

That line is intriguing, given that it could be Dany referencing a theory about the Night King bringing the dead back to life from the crypt inside Winterfell. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out what happens, but it’s clear that the battle at Winterfell is upon us.

Next week’s Episode 3 is 82 minutes long, which is the longest of the entire Season 8. The battle scene said to be one of the longest battle sequences in the history of film or TV, eclipsing the 40-minute Battle of Helm’s Deep from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

For lots more on this week’s episode of Game of Thrones, check out the stories below: