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Actor Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings film series, has revealed that Peter Jackson filmed another scene with Aragorn and Arwen (Liv Tyler) that aimed to show more of their young love, but it was ultimately cut.

Asked by NME if there was any part of Aragorn’s story that he would have liked to explore more, Mortensen referenced a flashback scene with Aragorn and Arwen. Aragorn was dressed like an elf in this scene, he he was clean-shaven and “prettied up” for the flashback sequence.

“There was a scene that we shot as a sort of memory flashback. It was from the courtship days when he first met Arwen–and we shot it just before we were taking a break so I was clean-shaven and prettied up,” he said. “They’d tried to make me look as young as possible. I had different hair and I was dressed like an elf.”

The scene in question featured Aragorn and Arwen walking through a flowery meadow, meant to further demonstrate the love and the bond between the two characters. Mortensen remarked that this was a “beautiful sequence,” but he agreed that it wasn’t essential to telling the story.

“I’ve never seen it but I enjoyed shooting that scene. It’d be nice to see it actually, it’s not in the extended editions either,” Mortensen said.

The recent 4K re-releases of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit do not contain any new scenes or bonus features, but in 2021, the two packages are being bundled together with extra “bonus content.” Whether or not this includes previously unreleased scenes like the one Mortensen is talking about remains to be seen.

Mortensen came to Lord of the Rings very late. Peter Jackson began filming with a different actor, Stuart Townsend, playing Aragorn, but he was replaced by Mortensen who was whisked away to New Zealand to film the trilogy at the last minute.

Aragorn is now one of Mortensen’s most iconic roles. He has also earned Academy Award nominations for his leading roles in Eastern Promises, Captain Fantastic, and Green Book.

No new Lord of the Rings movies have been announced, but Amazon is producing a new TV series. Just recently, the TV show added 20 new cast members.

Gaming giant Activision is taking Netflix to court over what the Call of Duty company says is a pattern of unethical and illegal behaviour on the streaming company’s part for poaching executives. This is all related to Spencer Neumann, the former Activision CFO who left the gaming company in 2018 to join Netflix as its top finance executive.

In its lawsuit, which was obtained by Deadline, Activision said, “Netflix unapologetically recruits talent without regard to its ethical and legal obligations. To shape its workforce to its desires, Netflix not only ruthlessly fires its own employees that it deems ‘adequate,’ but is engaged in a years-long campaign of unlawfully poaching executives from Netflix’s competitors regardless of their contractual obligations.”

Activision claims Netflix is disregarding California law, including the Labor Code, with its actions. According to Activision, Netflix “knowingly induced Neumann to breach his employment contract with Activision.”

“Making matters worse, Netflix engaged in its tortious conduct when Activision–with Neumann’s assistance–was negotiating with Netflix over a commercial partnership to distribute Activision’s linear media content,” Activision said. “Netflix then proceeded to induce Neumann to breach his fiduciary obligations to Activision, thereby obtaining yet another an unfair and unethical advantage over Activision, one of Netflix’s competitors.”

Activision’s lawsuit goes on to say that this behavior with Neumann was not an isolated incident. The gaming company says, “Netflix has a demonstrated pattern of caring only about attracting and employing whoever Netflix wants, regardless of whether it violates the law along the way.”

Activision is seeking a permanent injunction for Netflix for soliciting Activision’s employees who are under contract or from inducing them to break their contracts. Activision also wants to be paid compensatory damages, consequential damages, and punitive and/or statutory damages.

Since 2001’s Halo: The Fall of Reach, novels set within the Halo universe have released at a rate of over one a year. On March 2, 2021, Halo: Point of Light will release, and this novel will bring the Halo series up to 30 novels.

Halo: Point of Light ends a trilogy that began with Halo: Smoke and Shadow in 2016, then continued with 2019’s Halo: Renegades. All three books were written by Kelly Gay, who also featured in the Halo: Fractures short story compilation (which is separate from the 30 novels). The novel has been announced on Halo Waypoint.

The book, which will pick up in August 2558, is about Rion and the crew aboard Ace of Spades, as they outrun the fallout from previous books. The Office of Naval Intelligence is after them, and the synopsis provided says that they’ll be “unlocking untold secrets and even deadlier threats that have been hidden away for centuries from an unsuspecting universe.

The novel’s cover image has been designed by William “Pixelflare” Cameron; you can check the art out below.

The Halo novel series is made up of various standalone adventures, trilogies (Forerunner Saga, Kilo-Five, A Master Chief Story) and young adult novels (Battle Born and Meridian Divide).

The next Halo fan, Halo Infinite, is releasing in 2021 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. Much is still unknown about the game, which was originally scheduled for the Series X/S launch; developer 343 Industries has said that it will be more communicative with fans in the coming months.

A Maine man recreated the scene from Jon Favreau’s modern classic Christmas movie Elf, dressing up like an elf and greeting his biological father with a song when meeting for the first time.

Doug Henning, who is in his 40s, met his biological father, Raul, for the first time recently at Boston’s Logan Airport dressed up like Will Ferrell’s Buddy the elf, but unfortunately for him, his dad hadn’t seen the movie and didn’t get the joke. Still, it sounds like a pleasant encounter in the Boston.com report.

From the report:

“As Raul, Henning’s father, strode toward him at the airport, Henning broke into Buddy’s familiar song about father and son finding each other. He couldn’t get the whole thing out before Raul wrapped him in a hug.

“When he came out of the airport, he probably thought I was a lunatic,” Henning said. “It was a really good way to break the ice.”

In the movie Elf, Buddy grew up on the North Pole in Santa’s village. In this story, Henning was raised by his adoptive parents, but he was interested in learning more about his life, so he used Ancestry.com to get answers.

A cousin eventually sent him an email, and connected him with one of his biological sisters. This sister then put him in touch with his father, who, like James Caan’s character in Elf, did not know he had a son.

Everyone involved got a COVID-19 test, and then Raul got onto a plane to visit Henning in Boston where they had the meet-up. As it happens, Henning had only seen Elf just days before meeting his father; watching the film prompted him to dress up to recreate the scene.

Check out the full story at Boston.com, and be sure to watch the video there, too, as it may warm your heart.

2003’s Elf was a big success at the box office (it earned $223 million at the global box office against a $33 million budget), and it’s always very popular around the holidays, but a sequel was never made. According to Caan, Ferrell and Favreau clashed, and this is one of the reasons why the sequel never got off the ground.

With Christmas coming and global stock shortages continuing, those of us without a PS5 have to face facts–there probably won’t be a new console beneath the Christmas tree this year. In the latest episode of SNL–hosted by Jason Bateman–the long-running sketch show included a filmed segment about wanting a PS5 for Christmas–and it’s also a parody of Eminem’s 2000 hit Stan.

This version is called Stu, and features Pete Davidson doing his best Slim Shady impression (which is, honestly, pretty good). He’s reaching out to Santa (Bateman) because there’s just one thing he wants for Christmas this year–a PlayStation 5.

While SNL can be very difficult to access outside of the US, the Twitter video of Stu is currently not geoblocked–you can watch it below. We won’t spoil how they handle the Dido section from the original song, suffice to say that it’s pretty funny.

The PlayStation 5 is limited, but it looks like, at the very least, there’s one floating around 30 Rockerfeller Plaza, where SNL is shot.

Keep an eye on GameSpot’s PS5 buyer’s guide for more stock–but expect to be waiting until 2021.

The Lord of the Rings actor Viggo Mortensen has shared his thoughts on Amazon’s new Middle-earth TV show, which is currently filming in New Zealand with a big cast.

Speaking to NME, Mortensen responded to the interviewer’s suggestion that Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV show might be more adult-themed, not unlike Game of Thrones. Mortensen, who played Aragorn in Jackson’s movies, said he’s not over the moon about the idea of a Lord of the Rings TV show adding “arbitrary violence.”

But overall, Mortensen said he’s optimistic about the series because of the talent behind the camera, including director J.A. Bayona, along with the fact that it’s filming in the closest thing we have to Middle-earth: New Zealand.

“That they would try to be like Game Of Thrones and have a certain level of arbitrary violence and stuff like that? I dunno. I know it’s J.A. Bayona, who is a Spanish director who’s very talented. They are doing it in New Zealand, so I would imagine they would have the benefit of Peter Jackson’s advice and maybe some of the crew members. I would think that they have every opportunity to do it right. They have a good example to follow.”

For what it’s worth, Jackson is not involved in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show in an official capacity. The show has, however, hired artist John Howe, whose illustrations served as the inspiration for the look of Jackson’s movies. Amazon was working with renowned Lord of the Rings scholar Tom Shippey, though he is said to have left the project.

Jackson worked with the New Zealand-based props and digital effects company Weta on the Lord of the Rings series, but it’s unknown if Weta is working on Amazon’s show. Jackson is a co-owner of Weta.

There is no word yet on when the Amazon Lord of the Rings series will premiere. Work on the show is progressing along, with more than 20 actors recently joining the cast. The show takes place in the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is long before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Amazon is also working a new Lord of the Rings MMO, but it doesn’t tie into the game. We recently learned a lot about this game, including a targeted release date and more.

The Crown, Netflix’s hit show about the still on-going reign of Queen Elizabeth II, is based on true events, but is dramatized in many ways–the show’s creators don’t have unfettered access to over 50 years of royal life, after all. Because of this, there has been some call for Netflix to put a disclaimer at the start of the show, but the streaming giant has stated definitively that it has no plans to do so.

In a statement to Variety, Netflix has stated that there’s no need for such a thing. “We have always presented ‘The Crown’ as a drama–and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events,” a spokesperson said. Thus, Netflix can “see no need” to explain that the show is fictionalized in places.

The UK Culture Secretary has previously claimed in an interview with The Daily Mail that Netflix should implement a disclaimer, and has contacted Netflix privately about his concerns.

There’s going to be a bit of a break between the recently released Season 4 of The Crown and the upcoming Season 5–don’t expect the show to return until 2022. The show will end with Season 6, and the final cast will include Imelda Staunton (Queen Elizabeth II), Jonathan Pryce (Prince Phillip), Lesley Manville (Princess Margaret), Dominic West (Prince Charles), and Elizabeth Debecki (Princess Diana).

Queen Elizabeth II hasn’t been the only queen doing big numbers on Netflix–The Queen’s Gambit recently became the streaming service’s biggest ever miniseries.

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