culture – Page 25

You had us at “friendly alien space spider”: Netflix drops Spaceman trailer

adam sandler, culture, Entertainment, film trailers, netflix, spaceman, Spaceman of Bohemia, streaming television, Trailers / Mike M. / January 16, 2024

There’s a star-spider waiting in the sky —

“Six months in isolation, you start thinking too much.”

Jennifer Ouellette – Jan 16, 2024 6: 56 pm UTC

Adam Sandler stars as a lonely astronaut on a solo mission who befriends an alien spider in Spaceman.

Some people were not pleased when Netflix and other streaming platforms began making feature films. But in an industry in which smaller or medium films tend to be squeezed out in favor of big-budget fare, there’s a solid argument to be made that Netflix and others could help fill that niche. That certainly seems to be the case with Netflix’s forthcoming sci-fi film, Spaceman, judging by the official trailer. Adam Sandler stars as an astronaut who is not coping well with the isolation and disintegration of his marriage while on an eight-month solo mission and strikes up a friendship with a friendly alien space spider who wants to help him work through his emotional distress. Honestly, Netflix had us at friendly alien space spider.

(Some spoilers for the 2017 novel below.)

Directed by Johan Renck (Chernobyl, Breaking Bad), the film is based on the 2017 novel, Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfař. Kalfař has said he was inspired to write his novel after a childhood experience of becoming briefly separated from his grandfather while on a nighttime walk through the woods. The “perfect darkness, with nothing but the stars” made a strong impression, as did the silence and sense of loneliness. Spaceman of Bohemia started as a short story about an astronaut stranded in orbit as his wife filed for divorce and eventually became a novel that incorporated not just the theme of loneliness, but also Kalfař’s formative experiences growing up in the Czech Republic.

In the novel, a Czech astrophysicist named Jakub Procházka accepts a solo mission to collect samples from a strange dust cloud called Chopra, believed to have been created by a comet lurking between the Earth and Venus. He hopes the high-profile mission will make him a national hero and redeem the family name following his father’s membership in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. But it means leaving his pregnant wife, Lenka, back on Earth, who feels abandoned and decides to end their marriage. Jakub becomes depressed and starts drinking excessively. His sanity comes into question when he begins hearing voices and then starts seeing a giant talking alien spider around the shuttle. The two gradually bond. But is the spider real or a figment of Jakub’s imagination?

The Netflix adaptation looks like it will follow that basic plot pretty closely. Per the official premise:

Six months into a solitary research mission to the edge of the solar system, an astronaut, Jakub (Adam Sandler), realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth. Desperate to fix things with his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship. Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano) works with Jakub to make sense of what went wrong before it is too late.

The cast also includes Isabella Rossellini as Jakub’s commanding officer. Kunal Nayyar as a technician named Peter, and Lena Olin as Zdena.

Spaceman drops on Netflix on March 1, 2024. It will make its world premiere a few weeks earlier at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival.

Listing image by Netflix

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I found David Lynch’s lost Dune II script

culture, David Lynch, Dune, Dune: Messiah, Frank Herbert, syndication / Rejus Almole / January 11, 2024

Better than Dune: Messiah? —

The unfinished script, found in an archive, shows Lynch’s enthusiasm for Dune.

Max Evry, wired.com – Jan 11, 2024 2: 24 pm UTC

Kyle MacLachlan in Dune — Enlarge / Kyle MacLachlan in *Dune*, 1984.

Everett

David Lynch’s 1984 sci-fi epic Dune is—in many ways—a misbegotten botch job. Still, as with more than a few ineffectively ambitious films before it, the artistic flourishes Lynch grafted onto Frank Herbert’s sprawling Machiavellian narrative of warring space dynasties have earned it true cult classic status. Today, fans of the film, which earned a paltry $30 million at the box office and truly bruising reviews upon its release, still wonder what Lynch would have done if given the opportunity to adapt the next two novels in Herbert’s cycle: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

Franchising was the plan before the first film crashed and burned, with Lynch and star Kyle MacLachlan (playing Paul Atreides) set to shoot both Dune sequels back-to-back in 1986. Miniature spaceship models, costumes, and props from the first film were placed in storage by producer Dino De Laurentiis for use on these follow-ups, while the director hammered away on a Dune II script. “I wrote half a script for the second Dune. I really got into it because it wasn’t a big story,” he says in Lynch on Lynch, “more like a neighborhood story. It had some really cool things in it.”

During the two years I spent putting together my book A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune—An Oral History, I had no luck uncovering Lynch’s script for Dune II, despite Frank Herbert telling Prevue magazine in December 1984 that he possessed a copy and was advising Lynch on it. “Now that we speak the same ‘language,’ it’s much easier for both of us to make progress, especially with the screenplays,” Herbert told the publication. Then, in July 2023, within the Frank Herbert archives at California State University, Fullerton, I came across a slim folder with a sticky note declaring “Dune Messiah script revisions,” addressed to the second floor of VFX man Barry Nolan’s office in Burbank where Lynch supervised the final effects shoots and editing on Dune.

Inside the folder lay the stuff of fans’ dreams, never made public until now: 56 pages dated “January 2nd-through-9th, 1984,” matching Lynch’s “half a script” statement. Complete with penned annotations by Herbert, the Dune II script shows Lynch was still enthusiastic about the material, lending new significance to minor details in the ’84 film. He also cracked a way to tell the complex story of Herbert’s 1969 novel Dune Messiah, easily the least cinematic book in the series due to its emphasis on palace intrigue over action, along with the inner turmoil of a reluctant dictator (Paul Atreides) in place of a traditional hero’s journey. It may ring of sacrilege to some, but Lynch’s Dune II would have bested Herbert’s book—and been one hell of a movie.

While writing this piece I reached out to Lynch for comment, since his Dune II script had never been discussed in detail publicly. He stated, through an assistant, that he “sort of remembers writing something but doesn’t recall ever finishing it.” As Dune is “a failure in his eyes and not a particular time that he likes to think of or talk about,” he politely declined to speak to me.

The Lynch touch

“I’m writing the script for Dune II. Dune II is totally Dune Messiah, with variations on the theme. … Dune Messiah is a very short book, and a lot of people don’t like it, but in there are some really nifty ideas. I’m real excited about that, and I think it could make a really good film. It starts 12 years later, and this creates a whole new set of problems. … It should have a different mood. … It should be 12 strange years later.” —David Lynch, Starburst #78 (January 1985)

Of the many differences between Dune Messiah in novel form and David Lynch’s script, the biggest lay in the opening pages, which detail what happens in the aftermath of the scene in the first Dune movie when the Harkonnens bombed the Atreides’ fortress in Arrakeen, the capitol of the desert planet Arrakis. In the hallway where Duncan Idaho (Richard Jordan) was shot in the head, his shielded dead body still floats on the floor, humming and sparking.

From out of the shadows emerges a familiar face: the Baron’s Doctor (Leonardo Cimino). Thought to be the only speaking part created specifically for Dune by Lynch, we learn this Doctor was actually Scytale, a shape-shifting “face dancer” crucial to the plot of Herbert’s second book. Going back to Dune ’84, you may not have noticed Cimino’s Doctor accompanied Baron Harkonnen during the Arrakeen attack. The Doc is absent after that, even as the Baron yells creepily, “Where’s my doctor?” That’s because Doc/Scytale absconded with Duncan’s body. This Easter egg is Lynchian world-building at its best.

Scytale’s 12-year odyssey reanimating “dead Duncan Idaho” into the ghola named Hayt on the nightmarish Bene Tleilax world (mentioned by Paul in Dune) constitutes the entire opening 10 minutes of the script. Lynch calls the planet Tleilax “a dark metal world with canals of steaming chemicals and acids.” Those canals, Lynch writes, are lined with “dead pink small test tube animals.” Initiating Dune II with a focus on Scytale foregrounds him to primary antagonist, unlike Herbert’s book where myriad conspirators work against Paul.

“Lynch’s favorite set during production of Dune was Giedi Prime, with machinery and flesh alterations fitting his artistic sensibilities,” says Mark Bennett, founder of the DuneInfo website, after reading the unearthed script. “For Messiah, Lynch decided that Bene Tleilax could be co-opted for his style, since it isn’t described in the novel.”

The planet itself is run by the Tleilaxu, sadists whose mere language (“Bino-theethwid, axlotl”) signals their bizarre nature, giving Kenneth McMillan’s grotesque Baron from the ‘84 Dune a run for his money. Here’s a particularly surreal/Lynchian passage, where Scytale sings a haunting “boogie tune”:

Scytale’s friends are laughing and wildly rolling marbles under their hands as they watch Scytale sing through eighteen mouths in eighteen heads strung together with flesh that is like a flabby hose. The heads are singing all over the pink room. One man opens his mouth and a swarm of tiny people stream out singing accompaniment to Scytale. Another man releases a floating dog which explodes in mid-air causing everyone to get small and lost in the fibers of the beautiful carpet. Though small they all continue to laugh, a laughter which is now extremely high in pitch. Scytale (now with only one head) crawls up a wall laughing hysterically.

“The Bene Tleilaxu make for deliciously strange villains, right up Lynch’s alley,” says Dune scholar Kara Kennedy (Frank Herbert’s Dune: A Critical Companion), who I also provided with a copy of the screenplay. “He lets loose with them in his script.”

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It’s rebels vs Imperialist forces in Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver trailer

culture, Entertainment, film trailers, netflix, Rebel Moon, Zack Snyder / Paul Patrick / January 3, 2024

She’s a rebel —

“Their nightmare is us fighting together to defend something we love.”

Jennifer Ouellette – Jan 3, 2024 2: 49 pm UTC

Prepare yourself for Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver.

Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon Part 1: Child of Fire racked up an impressive 63 million views over its first ten days on Netflix, despite decidedly negative critical reviews. Now we’ve got the first full trailer for Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver, continuing the saga of our intrepid heroine Kora (Sofia Boutella) and her plucky band of allies as they take on the imperialist Motherworld.

(Spoilers for Part 1 below.)

As we reported previously, years ago, director Zack Snyder had an idea for an epic Star Wars movie that he pitched to Lucasfilm. That project never panned out for a variety of reasons. But the idea continued to germinate until Netflix got on board. Apart from Star Wars, Snyder has said his influences include the films of Akira Kurosawa, especially Seven Samurai, and The Dirty Dozen. He has set his epic saga in a universe controlled by the ruthless and corrupt government of the Mother World (the Imperium) with an army led by one Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee). The rebel moon of the title is called Veldt.

The band of allies that Kora assembles in Part 1 includes a former Imperium general named Titus (Djimon Hounsou); her farmer friend Gunnar (Michiel Huisman); Tarak (Staz Nair), a blacksmith who can bond with animals to rally them to a fight; a cyborg sword master named Nemesis (Doona Bae); a warrior named Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher) and his sister Devra (Cleopatra Coleman); a spider warrior named Harmada (Jena Malone); and Jimmy, the last of a race of mechanical knights from a fallen kingdom, voiced by Anthony Hopkins. Ingvar Sigurdsson plays Kora’s friend Hagen, and Ed Skrein plays Admiral Atticus Noble, right hand to the tyrannical Regent.

In the climactic battle, both Darrian and Noble were killed, but Noble had an astral plane experience with Balisarius that somehow revived him. Noble’s new mission is to capture Kora alive and bring her to Balisarius, who longs to execute her himself. Snyder has said in interviews that the second film will delve a bit deeper into the histories and backstories of the main characters, which should help flesh them out a bit more (the thin characterization was a common criticism of Part 1). The official premise seems to confirm that:

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver continues the epic saga of Kora and the surviving warriors as they prepare to sacrifice everything, fighting alongside the brave people of Veldt, to defend a once peaceful village, a newfound homeland for those who have lost their own in the fight against the Motherworld. On the eve of their battle, the warriors must face the truths of their own pasts, each revealing why they fight. As the full force of the Realm bears down on the burgeoning rebellion, unbreakable bonds are forged, heroes emerge, and legends are made.

Much of the trailer focuses on the rebel villagers preparing for the big battle against the Realm: gathering weapons and ammunition, and training a formerly peace-loving people in the ways of combat. These scenes are offset by ominous shots of the Motherworld forces gathering its vastly superior military technology, equally determined to annihilate the rebellion. Although Jimmy tells Kora she must know they cannot win, she is determined. “Their nightmare is us fighting together to defend something we love,” she says.

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver drops on Netflix on April 19, 2024. We can also expect a director’s cut of Part 1 sometime in 2024, as well as a four-issue prequel comic expected this month, set five years before the events of Part 1, focusing on Devra and Darrian Bloodaxe. Also in development: a narrative podcast, an animated comic book, and an animated series telling the story of the Kai, all prequels.

Listing image by Netflix

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This bird is like a GPS for honey

Behavioral science, Biology, birds, culture, honeyguide, language, Science / Mike M. / December 30, 2023

Show me the honey —

The honeyguide recognizes calls made by different human groups.

Elizabeth Rayne – Dec 29, 2023 6: 00 pm UTC

A bird perched on a wall in front of an urban backdrop. — Enlarge / A greater honeyguide

With all the technological advances humans have made, it may seem like we’ve lost touch with nature—but not all of us have. People in some parts of Africa use a guide more effective than any GPS system when it comes to finding beeswax and honey. This is not a gizmo, but a bird.

The Greater Honeyguide (highly appropriate name), Indicator indicator (even more appropriate scientific name), knows where all the beehives are because it eats beeswax. The Hadza people of Tanzania and Yao people of Mozambique realized this long ago. Hadza and Yao honey hunters have formed a unique relationship with this bird species by making distinct calls, and the honeyguide reciprocates with its own calls, leading them to a hive.

Because the Hadza and Yao calls differ, zoologist Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge and anthropologist Brian Wood of UCLA wanted to find out if the birds respond generically to human calls, or are attuned to their local humans. They found that the birds are much more likely to respond to a local call, meaning that they have learned to recognize that call.

Come on, get that honey

To see which sound the birds were most likely to respond to, Spottiswoode and Wood played three recordings, starting with the local call. The Yao honeyguide call is what the researchers describe as “a loud trill followed by a grunt (‘brrrr-hm’) while the Hadza call is more of “a melodic whistle,” as they say in a study recently published in Science. The second recording they would play was the foreign call, which would be the Yao call in Hadza territory and vice versa.

The third recording was an unrelated human sound meant to test whether the human voice alone was enough for a honeyguide to follow. Because Hadza and Yao voices sound similar, the researchers would alternate among recordings of honey hunters speaking words such as their names.

So which sounds were the most effective cues for honeyguides to partner with humans? In Tanzania, local Hadza calls were three times more likely to initiate a partnership with a honeyguide than Yao calls or human voices. Local Yao calls were also the most successful in Mozambique, where, in comparison to Hadza calls and human voices, they were twice as likely to elicit a response that would lead to a cooperative effort to search for a beehive. Though honeyguides did sometimes respond to the other sounds, and were often willing to cooperate when hearing them, it became clear that the birds in each region had learned a local cultural tradition that had become just as much a part of their lives as those of the humans who began it.

Now you’re speaking my language

There is a reason that honey hunters in both the Hadza and Yao tribes told Wood and Spottiswoode that they have never changed their calls and will never change them. If they did, they’d be unlikely to gather nearly as much honey.

How did this interspecies communication evolve? Other African cultures besides the Hadza and Yao have their own calls to summon a honeyguide. Why do the types of calls differ? The researchers do not think these calls came about randomly.

Both the Hadza and Yao people have their own unique languages, and sounds from them may have been incorporated into their calls. But there is more to it than that. The Hadza often hunt animals when hunting for honey. Therefore, the Hadza don’t want their calls to be recognized as human, or else the prey they are after might sense a threat and flee. This may be why they use whistles to communicate with honeyguides—by sounding like birds, they can both attract the honeyguides and stalk prey without being detected.

In contrast, the Yao do not hunt mammals, relying mostly on agriculture and fishing for food. This, along with the fact that they try to avoid potentially dangerous creatures such as lions, rhinos, and elephants, and can explain why they use recognizably human vocalizations to call honeyguides. Human voices may scare these animals away, so Yao honey hunters can safely seek honey with their honeyguide partners. These findings show that cultural diversity has had a significant influence on calls to honeyguides.

While animals might not literally speak our language, the honeyguide is just one of many species that has its own way of communicating with us. They can even learn our cultural traditions.

“Cultural traditions of consistent behavior are widespread in non-human animals and could plausibly mediate other forms of interspecies cooperation,” the researchers said in the same study.

Honeyguides start guiding humans as soon as they begin to fly, and this knack, combined with learning to answer traditional calls and collaborate with honey hunters, works well for both human and bird. Maybe they are (in a way) speaking our language.

Science, 2023. DOI: 10.1126/science.adh412

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TV Technica 2023: These were our favorite shows and binges of the year

culture, end of year content, Entertainment, Features, streaming television, tv series, TV Technica / Paul Patrick / December 29, 2023

Warning: Although we’ve done our best to avoid spoiling anything major, please note this list does include a few specific references to several of the listed shows that some might consider spoiler-y. The segment for The Great contains major reveals, so skip it if you haven’t watched the latest season. (We’ll give you a heads-up when we get there.)

Everything was coming up mystery in 2023, judging by our picks for Ars Technica’s annual list of the best TV shows of the year. There’s just something about the basic framework that seems to lend itself to television. Showrunners and studios have clearly concluded that genre mashups with a mystery at the center is a reliable winning formula, whether it’s combined with science fiction (Silo, Bodies, Pluto), horror (Fall of the House of Usher), or comedy (Only Murders in the Building, The Afterparty). And there’s clearly still plenty of room in the market for the classic police procedural (Dark Winds, Poker Face, Justified: City Primeval). Even many shows we loved that were not overt nods to the genre still had some kind of mystery at their core (Yellowjackets, Mrs. Davis), so one could argue it’s almost a universal narrative framework.

Streaming platforms continue to lead, with Netflix, Apple TV+, and FX/Hulu dominating this year’s list. But there are signs that the never-ending feast of new fare we’ve enjoyed for several years now might be leveling off a bit, as the Hollywood strikes took their toll and the inevitable reshuffling and consolidation continues. That would be great news for budgets strained by subscribing to multiple platforms, less so for those who have savored the explosion of sheer creativity during what might be remembered as a Golden Age of narrative storytelling on TV.

As always, we’re opting for an unranked list, with the exception of our “year’s best” vote at the very end, so you might look over the variety of genres and options and possibly add surprises to your eventual watchlist. We invite you to head to the comments and add your own favorite TV shows released in 2023.

The Last Kingdom (Netflix)

I came late to the Netflix series The Last Kingdom, which is based on the historical fiction books by Bernard Cornwell and set amid the Viking invasions of Anglo-Saxon England during the time of King Alfred. The TV series was initially released in 2015 and technically wrapped up in March 2022. However, a movie to cap the series was released in April of this year, so it qualifies for our year-end list. I’m not sure why this television show has not gotten more attention because it is outstanding, both in bringing to life a fictionalized version of the turbulent late 800s and early 900s in proto-England and in its development of characters and friendships. If you liked Game of Thrones and are looking for something to watch before season 2 of House of the Dragon, The Last Kingdom should be your first choice.

—Eric Berger

The Last of Us (HBO)

Enlarge / Pedro Pascal stars as Joel, who befriends Ellie (Bella Ramsey) during a zombie apocalypse.

HBO

Given the hit-and-miss nature of adaptations from video games to the world of TV and film (with misses more plentiful than hits), I was more than a little apprehensive about HBO’s Last of Us series. It was remarkably easy to envision the TV adaptation ruining one of my favorite character-based narratives in all of gaming in order to create some sort of lowest-common-denominator zombie-of-the-week dreck. Instead, we got a loving and authentic take on the game.

HBO’s version of The Last of Us does a great job toeing the line between faithfulness to the source material and deviations that still feel authentic to the world of the game. Many of the key scenes are literally shot-for-shot and music-cue-for-music-cue live-action recreations of original Naughty Dog cut scenes, and it’s a testament to Naughty Dog’s cinematic skill that they’re just as effective in a new “prestige TV” context. But then there are new creations like the third episode, where supporting characters from the game are given surprising and heartwarming depth. Through it all, the surrogate parent-child relationship between Joel and Ellie shines through, driving the narrative and leading to one of the most arresting final scenes in gaming (and now, in a TV season).

There were relative narrative shortcomings in The Last of Us Part II, so I feel the showrunners have a bit of an uphill battle ahead of them in adapting future seasons for TV. But the care they took with season 1 gives me some confidence they’ll be able to thread the needle and make more compelling post-apocalyptic television going forward.

—Kyle Orland

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It’s “shakeout” time as losses of Netflix rivals top $5 billion

culture, max, netflix, paramount, paramount_, peacock, streaming, syndication / Paul Patrick / December 29, 2023

Not so great for consumers —

Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers.

Anna Nicolaou and Christopher Grimes, Financial Times – Dec 28, 2023 3: 25 pm UTC

The world’s largest traditional entertainment companies face a reckoning in 2024 after losing more than $5 billion in the past year from the streaming services they built to compete with Netflix.

Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Comcast and Paramount—US entertainment conglomerates that have been growing ever larger for decades—are facing pressure to shrink or sell legacy businesses, scale back production and slash costs following billions in losses from their digital platforms.

Shari Redstone, Paramount’s billionaire controlling shareholder, has effectively put the company on the block in recent weeks. She has held talks about selling the Hollywood studio to Skydance, the production company behind Top Gun: Maverick, people familiar with the matter say.

Paramount chief executive Bob Bakish also discussed a possible combination over lunch with Warner CEO David Zaslav in mid-December. In both cases the discussions were said to be at an early stage and people familiar with the talks cautioned that a deal might not materialize.

Beyond their streaming losses, the traditional media groups are facing a weak advertising market, declining television revenues and higher production costs following the Hollywood strikes.

Rich Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners, said Paramount’s deal discussions were a reflection of the “complete and utter panic” in the industry.

“TV advertising is falling far short, cord-cutting is continuing to accelerate, sports costs are going up and the movie business is not performing,” he said. “Everything is going wrong that can go wrong. The only thing [the companies] know how to do to survive is try to merge and cut costs.”

But as the traditional media owners struggle, Netflix, the tech group that pioneered the streaming model over a decade ago, has emerged as the winner of the battle to reshape video distribution.

“For much of the past four years, the entertainment industry spent money like drunken sailors to fight the first salvos of the streaming wars,” analyst Michael Nathanson wrote in November. “Now, we are finally starting to feel the hangover and the weight of the unpaid bar bill.”

For companies that have been trying to compete with Netflix, Nathanson added, “the shakeout has begun.”

After a bumpy 2022, Netflix has set itself apart from rivals—most notably by being profitable. Earnings for its most recent quarter soared past Wall Street’s expectations as it added 9 million new subscribers—the strongest rise since early 2020, when Covid-19 lockdowns led to a jump.

“Netflix has pulled away,” says John Martin, co-founder of Pugilist Capital and former chief executive of Turner Broadcasting. For its rivals, he said, the question is “how do you create a viable streaming service with a viable business model? Because they’re not working.”

The leading streaming services aggressively raised prices in 2023. Now, analysts, investors and executives predict that consolidation could be ahead next year as some of the smaller services combine or bow out of the streaming wars.

Warner, home to HBO and the Warner Bros movie studio, has made a small profit at its US streaming services this year, in part by raising prices, aggressively culling some series and licensing others to Netflix. However, this has come at a price: Warner lost more than 2 million streaming subscribers in its two most recent quarters.

The company, which merged with rival Discovery last year, has long been rumored as a potential takeover candidate, with Comcast seen as the most likely buyer. But Zaslav in November hinted that his group wanted to be an acquirer instead of a target.

“There are a lot of . . . excess players in the market. So, this will give us a chance not only to fight to grow in the next year, but to have the kind of balance sheet and the kind of stability . . . that we could be really opportunistic over the next 12 to 24 months,” he said on an earnings call.

The terms of the Warner-Discovery merger barred the group from dealmaking for two years. That period expires on April 8.

Disney, the largest traditional media company, is in the midst of a gutting restructuring that has featured 7,000 job cuts and attacks from activist investors. It lost more than $1.6 billion from its streaming businesses in the first nine months of 2023, during which its Disney+ service gained 8 million subscribers. The company says it will turn a profit in streaming in late 2024.

Bob Iger, Disney chief executive, this year openly pondered whether some of its assets still fit within the company, prompting speculation that he was considering disposals. But no deals emerged, leading some investors to conclude there is little appetite among private equity or tech companies for acquiring legacy businesses.

Paramount’s shares have risen almost 40 percent since early November as sale speculation mounted. The stock rose sharply after the Skydance talks were reported, but both Paramount and Warner shares fell after news of their discussions came to light.

Analysts said the two companies’ high debt levels were an immediate concern for investors. “We suspect investors will focus on pro forma leverage above all else,” Citi analysts wrote in a note last week. They estimated that an all-stock combination of Warner and Paramount could yield at least $1 billion of synergies.

But Greenfield said merging two companies with lossmaking streaming services and large portfolios of declining television assets was not the answer to their problems.

“The right answer should be, let’s stop trying to be in the streaming business,” he said. “The answer is, let’s get smaller and focused and stop trying to be a huge company. Let’s dramatically shrink.”

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You’ll be paying extra for ad-free Prime Video come January

Amazon Prime, business, culture, prime video, streaming services / Paul Patrick / December 28, 2023

might want to level up —

Subscribers will have to opt-in to a pricier ad-free plan.

Jennifer Ouellette – Dec 27, 2023 4: 26 pm UTC

Amazon Prime Video

Amazon confirmed today in an email to Prime members that it will begin showing ads alongside its streaming Prime Video content starting January 29, 2024. The price will remain the same, but subscribers who don’t wish to see any ads will have to pay an additional $2.99 per month on top of their monthly or yearly Amazon Prime subscription. The change was first reported back in September.

“Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements,” Amazon wrote in an email sent to Amazon Prime subscribers. “This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership.”

Subscribers who want to avoid ads can sign up for the extra monthly fee at the Prime Video website.

Prime Video isn’t the only streaming platform looking to increase revenues via ad-supported tiers and price hikes in a challenging economic environment: both Disney+ and Netflix, among others, have hiked their prices in recent months. HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount+ all introduced lower-priced ad-supported options, and Netflix launched an ad-supported tier last year for $6.99 per month.

Netflix did recently grant subscribers an ad-free episode for every three episodes watched, as well as downloadable content. However, this was apparently designed to help advertisers “[tap] into the viewing behavior of watching multiple episodes in a row,” per the November Netflix announcement.

Disney+ and the Disney-controlled Hulu increased prices starting in October. The ad-free tier of Disney+ rose from $11 to $14 a month, while ad-free Hulu increased from $14 to $18 a month. Both services are also offered together for $20 a month, and the ad-supported tiers maintained their current pricing; both strategies seem intended to drive viewers to either sign up for multiple services or drop down to an ad-supported tier. This is the second price hike for both services in the last calendar year.

Apple TV+ announced monthly price hikes for several online services in October, including its catchall Apple One subscription service in October. Apple TV+ jumped from $6.99 to $9.99 per month, while Apple Arcade went from $4.99 to $6.99 monthly. Apple News+ used to cost $9.99 per month, but now it’s $12.99. “Raising these prices helps Apple stay attractive to shareholders even amidst the tricky economic context—or at least it will if consumers agree to keep paying,” Ars Senior Editor Sam Axon wrote at the time. “Raising prices too much could drive customers away; Apple seems to be betting that that will not be the case this time.”

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Film Technica: Our favorite movies of 2023

best of 2023, culture, end of year content, Entertainment, Features, films / Paul Patrick / December 26, 2023

Warning: Although we’ve done our best to avoid spoiling anything too major, please note this list does include a few specific references to several of the listed films that some might consider spoiler-y.

It’s been an odd couple of years for film as the industry struggles to regain its footing in the wake of a devastating global pandemic, but there are reasons to be optimistic about its future, both from a box office and variety standpoint. This was the year that the blockbuster superhero franchises that have dominated for more than a decade finally showed signs of faltering; the Marvel and DC Universe releases this year were mostly fine, but only one (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) made our 2023 year-end list. There were just so many of them, one after the other, adding up to serious superhero fatigue.

We still love our blockbusters, of course. This was also the summer of “Barbenheimer,” as audiences flocked to theaters for the unlikely pairing of Barbie and Oppenheimer, breaking a few box office records in the process. It was also a good year for smaller niche fare—including two re-imaginings of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—as well as a new film from the legendary Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon).

D&D: Honor Among Thieves.” height=”426″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/dungeons1-640×426.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez star as Elgin (a bard) and Holga (a barbarian) in D&D: Honor Among Thieves.

Paramount Pictures

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Over two decades later, I am still a bit bitter about paying good money to see the 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie with a group of friends on opening night. To this day, we’ll still parody Empress Savina dramatically proclaiming something along the lines of “I declare all people equal!” at the end of the movie (spoilers for a decades-old bad movie, I guess). Honor Among Thieves didn’t have a high bar to clear to wash the taste of that horrible adaptation out of my mouth. So it was nice to find that this new take on the D&D world leapt miles over that bar with a madcap, character-driven adventure that would be the envy of many a dungeon master.

While Honor Among Thieves drops in a few references to familiar D&D items and creatures (hi, owlbears!), the movie wisely realizes that it can’t lean on those references to make an interesting movie. Instead, it uses D&D’s class system as the basis for some broad, trope-y characters to get thrown into an unlikely partnership. Chris Pine’s winning take on a bard is the driving force here, but Michelle Rodriguez’s barbarian and (an underutilized) Regé-Jean Page’s paladin steal plenty of scenes by really hewing true to their characters’ alignment chart.

The plot won’t win any awards for originality or surprise, but that character work and some well-paced action set pieces make this a thrilling family adventure, even for those who’ve never touched a D&D character sheet.

—Kyle Orland

Film Technica: Our favorite movies of 2023 Read More »

PAX Unplugged 2023: How indie devs build and sell new board games

ars cardboard, culture, Features, gaming, PAX, pax unplugged, Role-Playing Games, RPG, Tabletop, tabletop games, tabletop gaming, ttrpg / Mike M. / December 24, 2023

PAX Unplugged 2023 —

Tabletop is bigger than ever. What’s it like trying to get your game out there?

Kevin Purdy – Dec 23, 2023 1: 00 pm UTC

“You don’t want Frenzy. Frenzy is a bad thing. It might seem like it’s good, but trust me, you want to have a blood supply. Frenzy leads to Consequences.”

It’s mid-afternoon in early December in downtown Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Convention Center, and I’m in the Unpub room at PAX Unplugged. Michael Schofield and Tim Broadwater of Design Thinking Games have booked one of the dozens of long card tables to show their game Corporate Vampire to anybody who wants to try it. Broadwater is running the game and explaining the big concepts while Schofield takes notes. Their hope is that after six revisions and 12 smaller iterations, their game is past the point where someone can break it. But they have to test that disheartening possibility in public.

I didn’t expect to spend so much of my first PAX Unplugged hanging around indie game makers. But with the tabletop industry expanding after some massive boom years, some Stranger Things and Critical Role infusions, and, of course, new COVID-borne habits, it felt like a field that was both more open to outsiders than before and also very crowded. I wanted to see what this thing, so big it barely fit inside a massive conference center, felt like at the smaller tables, to those still navigating their way into the industry.

Here are a few stories of parties venturing out on their own, developing their character as they go.

How much vampire influence is too much?

Corporate Vampire (or “CorpVamp”) has been in the works since summer 2022. The name came from an earlier, more Masquerade-ish idea of the game, in which you could take over a city council, build blood banks, and wield political influence. But testing at last year’s Unplugged, and the creators’ own instincts, gradually revealed a truth. “People really like eating other people,” Schofield says.

Along with input from game designer Connor Wake, the team arrived at their new direction: “More preying, more powers that make players feel like mist-morphing badasses, more Salem’s Lot, less The Vampire Lestat.”

By the end of the weekend, they’ll have taken up a playtester’s naming suggestion: Thirst. But for now, the signs all say CorpVamp, and the test game is a mixture of stock and free-use art, thick cardboard tiles, thin paper tokens, glossy card decks, generic colored wooden cubes, and a bunch of concepts for players to track—perhaps too many.

Hand-cut tokens and make-do squares for an early version of <em>Thirst</em>.” height=”960″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/IMG_3964-Large.jpeg” width=”1280″></img><figcaption>
<p>Hand-cut tokens and make-do squares for an early version of <em>Thirst</em>.</p>
<p>Kevin Purdy</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>The way <i>CorpVamp</i>/<i>Thirst</i> should go is that each night, a vampire wakes up, loses a little blood, then sets out to get much more back by exploring a Victorian city. In populated neighborhoods, a vampire can feast on people—but doing so generates a board-altering Consequence, such as roving security guards or citizens discovering bodies. Vampires accumulate victims and hypnotize them for Influence, depending on who the victims are (“Judge” versus “Roustabout,” for example), turn them into “Baby Vampires,” or simply keep them as blood stock. You win by accruing victory points for various misdeeds and achievements.</p>
<p>One player, who told the designers that a different game’s play-test saw him “break the game in 10 minutes,” seemed bothered by how Consequences can be triggered by a single player’s actions but affect all players. Another has a hard time keeping track of the tokens for influence, movement, and blood, and when to move them on and off the board. That’s called “mess testing,” Schofield tells me, and he’s working on it. Some things will be easier to learn and use when the pieces have better designs and materials. But the <i>CorpVamp</i> team can’t jump to that stage until the mechanics are locked down.</p>
<p>As that group finishes a test, another group sits down immediately, having stood nearby to ensure their chance. Schofield and Broadwater won’t lack for players in their three-hour slot. That tells the team there’s “evidence of a market,” that their game has “stopping power” and “shelf value,” despite its obscurity, Schofield says. But there’s lots of work still to be done in alpha. “The costs of powers are too high, the powers aren’t <i>badass enough</i> [emphasis his], and the tactile movement of placing cubes and flipping tokens isn’t quite right,” he later tells me.</p>
<p>After more iterations and some “blind” play tests (players learning, playing, and finishing the game without creator guidance), the game will be in beta, and the team will get closer to pinning down the look and feel of the game with illustrators and designers. Since their schedules only afford them roughly three hours of dedicated collaboration time every week, they lean on what they’ve learned from their product-oriented day jobs. “Frequent iterations and small feedback loops will iron things out,” Schofield says. “Process wins.”</p>
<p>Then they can “enjoy the problems of production and distribution logistics.” After that, “We’ll sell copies of <i>Thirst</i> at the next PAX Unplugged.”</p>
<figure><img loading= — Kevin Purdy

“Don’t do miniatures for your first version”

I played a few different games at PAX Unplugged that were at various stages before publication. One called WhoKnew? was on its second year at the conference. The first year was simply designer Nicholas Eife tagging along at a friend’s booth, bringing only a piece of paper and asking people who wandered by if they thought a trivia game based on the origins of idioms would work. This year, there was an actual table and a vinyl sign, with an early-stage board and trivia cards laid out.

I drew the phrase “The whole nine yards” and I chose “British Artillery” as its origin. Eife congratulated me (The length of a Vickers machine gun’s ammo belt as the origin of the phrase is far from a solved matter, but I will not concede my point.) I asked the designer what state the game will be in next year. “I guess we’ll have to see,” he said, displaying the slight grin of a person working entirely within their own timeline on a purely passion-driven project. It was almost uncomfortable, this calm, patient demeanor amidst the murmuring chaos of the show floor.

An Indie Game Alliance member demonstrates “Outrun the Bear” at the IGA booth at PAX Unplugged 2023

Indie Game Alliance

Perhaps looking for a less idyllic counterpoint, I asked Matt Holden, executive director of the Indie Game Alliance, what it’s typically like for new game makers. For a monthly fee, the Alliance provides game makers with tools typically reserved for big publisher deals. That includes international teams for demonstrating your game, co-op-style discounts on production and other costs, connections to freelancers and other designers, and, crucially, consulting and support on crowdfunding and game design.

Holden and his wife Victoria have been running the Alliance for more than 10 years, almost entirely by themselves. At any given time, the Alliance’s 1,800-plus current and former members have 30-40 Kickstarters or other crowdfunding campaigns going. Crowdfunding is all but essential for most indie game makers, providing them working capital, feedback, and word-of-mouth marketing at the same time. Holden can offer a lot of advice on any given campaign but has only one universal rule.

“Don’t make miniatures for your first version of your game, no matter how big your campaign is getting. Just don’t do it,” Holden said, then paused for a moment. “Unless you worked for a company that made miniatures, and you’re an expert on them, then go ahead. But,” he emphasized, “miniatures are where everyone gets stuck.”

Has the burgeoning interest in tabletop and role-playing changed how indie games get made, pitched, and sold? Holden thinks not. The victories and mistakes he sees from game makers are still the same. Games with unique and quirky angles might have more of a chance now, he said, but finding an audience is still a combination of hard work, networking, product design, and, of course, some luck.

An IGA member demonstrates <em>Last Command</em> at PAX Unplugged 2023″ height=”1928″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/iga2-scaled.jpg” width=”2560″></img><figcaption>
<p>An IGA member demonstrates <em>Last Command</em> at PAX Unplugged 2023</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>“I can’t tell somebody what’s going to guarantee their [crowfunding] campaign works. Nobody can,” Holden said. “But you do enough of them, and you see the things that the campaigns that work, and those that don’t, have in common.”</p>
<p>Patience would seem to be one of them. As I sat talking to Holden at the Alliance’s booth, game demo volunteers gently interrupted to ask for advice or the whereabouts of some item for their table. Putting in the time at conventions, game stores, and friends’ tables, testing and demonstrating, is critical, Holden said, and it’s a big part of what the Alliance helps newcomers coordinate.</p>
<p>I later traded emails with Eife of <i>WhoKnew</i> (a title that also seems to be in flux). He was eager to tell me that, after two weeks of conventions, including PAX Unplugged, the feedback and enthusiasm “gave us that boost of confidence and the desire to push.” So he and his team “put our nose to the grindstone and immediately started making corrections and changes.”</p>
<p>I realized, at some point over that weekend, that I’d been holding onto an idea about board game success that was dated, if not outright simplistic. I’d held out the story of <a href= — Cassi Mothwin, working the +1EXP booth at PAX Unplugged 2023

Cassi Mothwin

Cassi Mothwin, working the +1EXP booth at PAX Unplugged 2023

Cassi Mothwin

PAX Unplugged 2023: How indie devs build and sell new board games Read More »

Debt-laden Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount consider merger

culture, max, movies, paramount, paramount plus, streaming, Tech, TV, warner bros. discovery / Rejus Almole / December 21, 2023

Game of Thrones — Enlarge / Media firms are looking for allies to help them take the coveted media throne.

The CEOs of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Paramount Global discussed a potential merger on Tuesday, according to a report from Axios citing “multiple” anonymous sources. No formal talks are underway yet, according to The Wall Street Journal. But the discussions look like the start of consolidation discussions for the media industry during a tumultuous time of forced evolution.

On Wednesday, Axios reported that WBD head David Zaslav and Paramount head Bob Bakish met in Paramount’s New York City headquarters for “several hours.”

Zaslav and Shari Redstone, owner of Paramount’s parent company National Amusements Inc (NAI), have also spoken, Axios claimed.

One of the publication’s sources said a WBD acquisition of NAI, rather than only Paramount Global, is possible.

Talks to unite the likes of Paramount’s film studio, Paramount+ streaming service, and TV networks (including CBS, BET, Nickelodeon, and Showtime) with WBD’s Max streaming service, CNN, Cinemax, and DC Comics properties are reportedly just talks, but Axios said WBD “hired bankers to explore the deal.”

It’s worth noting that WBD will suffer a big tax hit if it engages in merger and acquisition activity before April 8 due to a tax formality related to Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia (which formed Warner Bros. Discovery) in 2022.

A union of debts

Besides the reported talks being in very early stages, there are reasons to be skeptical about a WBD and Paramount merger. The biggest one? Debt.

The New York Times notes that WBD has $40 billion in debt and $5 billion in free cash flow. Paramount, meanwhile, has $15 billion in debt and a negative cash flow. Zaslav has grown infamous for slashing titles and even enacting layoffs to save costs. But WBD is eyeing greener pastures and declared Max as “getting slightly profitable” in October. Adding more debt to WBD’s plate could be viewed as a step backward.

Additionally, Paramount is even more connected to old, flailing forms of media than WBD, as noted by The Information, which pointed to two-thirds of Paramount’s revenue coming from traditional TV networks.

Antitrust concerns could also impact such a deal.

WBD stocks closed down 5.7 percent, and Paramount’s closed down 2 percent after Axios’ report broke.

Of course, these details about a potential merger may have been reported because WBD and/or Paramount want us to know about it so that they can gauge market reaction and/or entice other media companies to discuss potential deals.

Debt-laden Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount consider merger Read More »

Restored 478-key, 31-tone Moog synthesizer from 1968 sounds beautifully bizarre

Cornell, cornell university, culture, david rothenberg, electronic music, experimental music, moog, moog synthesizers, robert moog, synthesizers, Tech / Rejus Almole / December 19, 2023

You know that new sound you’re looking for? —

Cornell staff finish the job with new technology but keep Moog’s work in place.

Kevin Purdy – Dec 19, 2023 6: 24 pm UTC

Shadowed photo of the Moog-Rothenberg keyboard — Ryan Young/Cornell University

Mathematician and early AI theorist David Rothenberg was fascinated by pattern-recognition algorithms. By 1968, he’d already done lots of work in missile trajectories (as one did back then), speech, and accounting, but he had another esoteric area he wanted to explore: the harmonic scale, as heard by humans. With enough circuits and keys, you could carve up the traditional music octave from 12 tones into 31 and make all kinds of between-tone tunes.

Happily, he had money from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and he also knew just the person to build this theoretical keyboard: Robert Moog, a recent graduate from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was just starting to work toward a fully realized Moog Music.

The plans called for a 478-key keyboard, an analog synthesizer, a bank of oscillators, and an impossibly intricate series of circuits between them. Moog “took his time on this,” according to Travis Johns, instructional technologist at Cornell. He eventually delivers a one-octave prototype made from “1960s-era, World-War-II-surplus technology.” Rothenberg held onto the keyboard piece, hoping to one day finish it, until his death in 2018. His widow, Suhasini Sankaran, donated the kit to Cornell in 2022.

Because of that noble garage-cleaning, there now exists a finished device, one that has had work composed and performed upon it: the Moog-Rothenberg Keyboard.

Cornell’s telling of the Moog-Rothenberg keyboard, restored by university staff and students.

The project didn’t start until February 2023, partly because of the intimidating nature of working on a one-of-a-kind early synth prototype. “I would hate to unsolder something that was soldered 50 years ago by Robert Moog,” Johns says in the video.

Johns and his students and staff at Cornell sought to honor the original intent and schematics of the device but not ignore the benefits of modern tech. Programmable micro-controllers were used to divide up an 8 MHz clock signal, creating circuits with several octaves of the same note. Those controllers were then wired, laboriously, to the appropriate keys.

Original designs for the Moog-Rothenberg keyboard.

Ryan Young/Cornell University
Travis Johns works on some of the newer pieces of the restored (or replicated) Moog-Rothenberg keyboard.

Ryan Young/Cornell University
Switches and microcontrollers for the fully realized keyboard.

Ryan Young/Cornell University
A bit closer up with some of the original wiring for the one-octave prototype Moog prepared in the late 1960s.

Ryan Young/Cornell University
Even closer to those circuits and keypads.

Ryan Young/Cornell University

As Johns notes, it’s hard to categorize the synthesizer now as the original object, a re-creation, or a “playable facsimile” of a planned device. It’s also a particularly strange instrument. His team followed every mathematical and electrical detail of the original plans but found that the keyboard took on “a life of its own,” creating unusual timbres, resonances, and even volumes as soundwaves synchronized and fell away. This is, of course, the kind of thing Rothenberg originally hired Moog to make possible.

By October, the 31-tone synth was ready to play some music. Cornell professors Xak Bjerken and Elizabeth Ogonek performed and composed for it, respectively, and they were joined by members of Cornell’s EZRA quartet, themselves no stranger to strange instruments and new styles. Bjerken described his set as “bluegrass meets experimental improvisation.”

You can certainly hear the experimental come through in bits of the performance captured by Cornell. Ogonek manually controlled the instrument’s filters during the concert to create sustained tones. It requires more than two hands to control the output of 478 keys. The synthesizer now resides in Cornell’s Lincoln Hall for the Department of Music.

Restored 478-key, 31-tone Moog synthesizer from 1968 sounds beautifully bizarre Read More »

The future of Arrakis is at stake in latest trailer for Dune: Part Two

culture, denis villeneuve, Dune: part 2, Entertainment, film trailers, Frank Herbert, Timothée Chalamet, Trailers, Warner Bros. / Paul Patrick / December 12, 2023

“You are not prepared for what is to come” —

“This is a form of power that our world has not yet seen.”

Jennifer Ouellette – Dec 12, 2023 10: 19 pm UTC

Dune: Part Two is the next chapter in director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s celebrated novel.

We didn’t get to see Dune: Part Two—the second film in director Denis Villeneuve’s stunning adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic—last month as originally planned since the film’s November release was delayed until next March due to the Hollywood strikes. But Warner Bros. doesn’t want us to completely forget about Dune in the meantime, so it dropped another trailer for the holiday season.

(Spoilers for Dune: Part One below.)

As reported previously (also here and here), Herbert’s novel Dune is set in the distant future and follows the fortunes of various noble houses in what amounts to a feudal interstellar society. Much of the action takes place on the planet Arrakis, where the economy is driven largely by a rare, life-extending drug called melange (“the spice”). Melange also conveys a kind of prescience and makes faster-than-light travel practical. There’s betrayal, a prophecy concerning a messianic figure, giant sandworms, and battle upon battle as protagonist Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) contends with rival House Harkonnen and strives to defeat the forces of Shaddam IV, Emperor of the Known Universe.

Part One‘s finale left Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), presumed dead in the harsh desert of Arrakis, having fled their home when Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) betrayed the Atreides family and killed Paul’s father, Leto (Oscar Isaac). They were taken in by the Fremen, the planet’s native inhabitants, who include Chani (Zendaya), a girl appearing in Paul’s dreams/visions.

All the surviving principles from Part 1 reprise their roles in Part 2: Chalamet, Zendaya, Ferguson, Skarsgård, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, Charlotte Rampling as the Reverend Mother Mohiam, and Stephen McKinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat. New cast members include Christopher Walken as Shaddam IV, emperor of House Corrine; Florence Pugh as his daughter, Princess Irulan; Austin Butler as Harkonnen’s younger nephew, Feyd-Rautha, the presumed heir on Arrakis; Lea Seydoux as Lady Margot, a Bene Gesserit who is close with the Emperor; and Souheila Yacoub as a Fremen warrior named Shishakli.

Love blooms between Paul and Chani in the midst of pending war.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
Paul is having recurrent nightmares.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
Christopher Walken plays Shaddam IV, Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe and head of House Corrino.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen does love his knives.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
Florence Pugh plays the Emperor’s daughter, Princess Irulan.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Paul’s mother.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
“Silence!” Paul is starting to come into his power.

YouTube/Warner Bros.
Beware of sandworms!

YouTube/Warner Bros.

The first trailer dropped in May after being unveiled in an exclusive sneak peek during CinemaCon in Las Vegas. The highlight was a sequence showing Paul’s first ride on a sandworm. It’s a major rite of passage in Fremen culture, and the scene demonstrates that, in Part 2, Paul is well on his way to becoming Muad’Dib, prophet of the Fremen. A second trailer arrived in June, showing Paul offering to fight with the Fremen against their common enemy, though not everyone welcomes his inclusion. We also saw a reunion with Halleck; Shaddam IV learning that Paul is still alive; Feyd-Rautha’s lethal knife-fighting skills; and love blooming between Paul and Chani.

That love story is a major focus of this latest trailer after two that mostly highlighted the war for the future of Arrakis. The trailer opens with Paul having one of his recurring nightmares and Chani comforting him. He can only remember fragments but later tells Chani that he sees “possible futures all at once. And in so many futures, our enemies prevail.” He said, “There is a narrow way through.” Meanwhile, the Emperor orders assassins to “deal with this prophet.” One person who might get the job done is Feyd-Rautha, described as psychotic as we see him staring someone down while licking a sharp curved blade and brutally stabbing an opponent in an arena while a crowd cheers wildly.

There’s a fantastic battle scene involving Fremen warriors riding sandworms, and we catch a glimpse of the darker side of Paul when he screams “Silence!” after Mother Mohian asks him to carefully consider his planned course of action. Despite the war, he vows to love Chani “as long as I breathe.” She claims he will never lose her “as long as you stay who you are.” But fans of the books know that the romance has its complications, and given one new cast member in particular, we can expect to see the beginnings of those complications.

Dune: Part Two hits theaters on March 1, 2024.

Listing image by YouTube/Warner Bros.

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