Entertainment

Hollywood mourns the loss of David Lynch

culture, David Lynch, Entertainment, film, Obituaries, television / Kris Guyer / January 17, 2025

The success of Lynch’s next film, Blue Velvet, helped assuage his disappointment, as did his move to television with the bizarrely surreal and influential series Twin Peaks—part detective story, part soap opera, with dashes of sci-fi and horror. The series spawned a spin-off prequel movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and a 2017 revival series, Twin Peaks: The Return, that picks up the storyline 25 years later. Many other TV series were influenced by Lynch’s show, including The X-Files, Lost, The Sopranos, Bates Motel, Fargo, Riverdale, Atlanta, and the animated series Gravity Falls.

His final feature films were an LA-centric trilogy—Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire (2006)—and 1999’s biographical road drama, The Straight Story, based on the true story of a man named Alvin Straight who drove across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower. It was acquired by Walt Disney Pictures and was Lynch’s only G-rated film.

“A singular visionary dreamer”

The director’s filmography also includes an assortment of short films, all bearing his eccentric stamp, including a surrealist short, Absurda, shown at Cannes in 2007, as well as Premonition Following an Evil Deed (NSFW YouTube link), Lynch’s contribution to the 1995 anthology film Lumière and Company. All 41 featured directors used the original Cinématographe camera invented by the Lumière brothers. Lynch was also an avid painter, cartoonist, and musician and directed several music videos for such artists as Moby and Nine Inch Nails. Until his death, he hosted quirky online “weather reports” and a web series, What Is David Lynch Working on Today? He even racked up the occasional acting credit.

Lynch received an Honorary Oscar in 2000 for lifetime achievement at the Governors Awards after three prior nominations for The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive. Deadline’s Pete Hammond called Lynch’s speech “probably one of the shortest for any Oscar acceptance.” Lynch briefly thanked the Academy, the other honorees, wished everyone a great night, then pointed to the statuette and said, “You have a very interesting figure. Good night.” At Cannes, he won the Palme d’Or in 1990 for Wild at Heart and won Best Director in 2001 for Mulholland Drive.

Naomi Watts, who played a dual role as doppelgängers Betty Elms and Diane Selwyn in Mulholland Drive, said that Lynch put her “on the map” as an actor by casting her. “It wasn’t just his art that impacted me—his wisdom, humor, and love gave me a special sense of belief in myself I’d never accessed before,” she said in a statement. “Every moment together felt charged with a presence I’ve rarely seen or known. Probably because, yes, he seemed to live in an altered world, one that I feel beyond lucky to have been a small part of. And David invited all to glimpse into that world through his exquisite storytelling, which elevated cinema and inspired generations of filmmakers across the globe.”

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Heroes, villains, and childhood trauma in the MCEU and DCU

adverse childhood experiences, DCEU, Entertainment, mcu, Mental Health, psychology, Science, sociology / Rejus Almole / January 16, 2025

They also limited their study to Marvel and DC characters depicted in major films, rather than including storylines from spinoff TV series. So Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch was not included since much of her traumatic backstory appeared in the series WandaVision. Furthermore, “We omitted gathering more characters from comic books in both Marvel and DC universes, due to their inconsistency in character development,” the authors wrote. “Comic book storylines often feature alternative plot lines, character arcs, and multiverse outcomes. The storytelling makes comic book characters highly inconsistent and challenging to score.”

With great power…

They ended up watching 33 films, with a total runtime of 77 hours and 5 minutes. They chose 19 male characters, eight female characters, and one gender-fluid character (Loki) as “subjects” for their study, applying the ACE questionnaire to their childhoods as portrayed in the films.

The results: “We found no statistically significant differences between heroes and villains, Marvel and DC characters, or men and women and ACE scores,” said Jackson. “This means that characters who were portrayed as having difficult childhoods were not more likely to be villains. This study somewhat refutes the idea that villains are a product of their experiences. Based on the films we watched, people chose to be heroes and that was what made the difference—not their experiences.”

Notably, Black Widow had the highest ACE score (eight) and yet still became an Avenger, though the authors acknowledge that the character did some bad things before then and famously wanted to wipe out the “red” in her ledger. She “represents resilience of characters who have experienced trauma,” the authors wrote, as well as demonstrating that “socio-ecological resilience, including access to social relationships and supportive communities, can play a mitigating role in the effect of ACEs.” The Joker, by contrast, scored a six and “wreaked havoc across Gotham City.”

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The trailer for Daredevil: Born Again is here

culture, Daredevil: Born Again, Disney Plus, Entertainment, marvel studios, MCEU, streaming television, Trailers, TV trailers / Mike M. / January 15, 2025

In addition, Mohan Kapur reprises his MCU role as Yusuf Khan, while Kamar de los Reyes plays Hector Ayala/White Tiger. The cast also includes Michael Gandolfini, Zabryna Guevara, Nikki M. James, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Clark Johnson, Jeremy Earl, and Lou Taylor Pucci.

The trailer mostly consists of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk (now the mayor) having a tense conversation in a diner now that they’ve both, in Fisk’s words, “come up in the world.” Their conversation is interspersed with other footage from the series, including the trademark brutal fight scenes—complete with bones breaking in various unnatural ways. And yes, we get a glimpse of a bearded Frank Castle/The Punisher in attack mode (“Frank! Would you mind putting the hatchet down?”).

Fisk insists that as mayor, his intent is to serve the city, but Matt “can’t shake the feeling that you’re gaming the system.” Matt admits he abandoned his vigilante ways after “a line was crossed.” Fisk naturally believes we all have to “come to terms with our violent nature” and insists that sometimes “peace must be broken and chaos must reign.” As for Matt, sure, he was raised a devout Catholic to believe in grace, “but I was also raised to believe in retribution.” We’re ready for another showdown between these two.

Daredevil: Born Again drops on March 4, 2025, on Disney+.

poster art showing the faces of Fisk and Daredevil, one in gray, the other in red — Credit: Marvel Studios

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Meet Squid Game S3’s new killer doll

culture, Entertainment, netflix, squid game, streaming television, teasers / Tim Belzer / January 2, 2025

S2 is set three years later, and by the end of the second episode, Gi-hun has successfully finagled his way back into the game after winning Russian roulette against the game’s recruiter and tracking down game overseer Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) at a Halloween party. The desperate players this time include a YouTuber who launched a failed crypto scam and a couple of victims of said scam bent on revenge. There’s also a compulsive gambler and his mother, a rapper addicted to ecstasy, a loud and neurotic self-appointed shaman, a former Marine, and a transgender woman who once served in special forces.

Meanwhile, Front Man’s police officer brother, Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), has hired mercenaries to track down the island where the game is staged. As in the first season, alliances form and shift as the games proceed, and betrayals abound, culminating in a cliffhanger ending. That’s because series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk conceived of S2 and S3 as a single season, but there were too many episodes, so he split them over two seasons.

Squid Game S3 will premiere on Netflix later this year. Other than the new killer doll, we don’t know much about what’s in store for Gi-hun and his quest to destroy the game other than that it will pick up where S2 left off and will most likely end with a final showdown against Front Man. Is the cynical Front Man right about human nature ensuring that the game will never end?

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The perfect New Year’s Eve comedy turns 30

Coen brothers, culture, Entertainment, film, film anniversaries, Sam Raimi, The Hudsucker Proxy, Warner Bros. / Tim Belzer / December 31, 2024

There aren’t that many movies specifically set on New Year’s Eve, but one of the best is The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Joel and Ethan Coen’s visually striking, affectionate homage to classic Hollywood screwball comedies. The film turned 30 this year, so it’s the perfect opportunity for a rewatch.

(WARNING: Spoilers below.)

The Coen brothers started writing the script for The Hudsucker Proxy when Joel was working as an assistant editor on Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981). Raimi ended up co-writing the script, as well as making a cameo appearance as a brainstorming marketing executive. The Coen brothers took their inspiration from the films of Preston Sturgess and Frank Capra, among others, but the intent was never to satirize or parody those films. “It’s the case where, having seen those movies, we say ‘They’re really fun—let’s do one!’; as opposed to “They’re really fun—let’s comment upon them,'” Ethan Coen has said.

They finished the script in 1985, but at the time they were small indie film directors. It wasn’t until the critical and commercial success of 1991’s Barton Fink that the Coen brothers had the juice in Hollywood to finally make The Hudsucker Proxy. Warner Bros. greenlit the project and producer Joel Silver gave the brothers complete creative control, particularly over the final cut.

Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is an ambitious, idealistic recent graduate of a business college in Muncie, Indiana, who takes a job as a mailroom clerk at Hudsucker Industries in New York, intent on working his way to the top. That ascent happens much sooner than expected. On the same December day in 1958, the company’s founder and president, Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning), leaps to his death from the boardroom on the 44th floor (not counting the mezzanine).

A meteoric rise

Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) gets a job at Hudsucker Industries Warner Bros.

To keep the company’s stock from going public as the bylaws dictate, board member Sidney Mussburger (Paul Newman) proposes they elect a patsy as the next president—someone so incompetent it will spook investors and temporarily depress the stock so the board can buy up controlling shares on the cheap. Enter Norville, who takes the opportunity of delivering a Blue Letter to Mussburger to pitch a new product, represented by a simple circle drawn on a piece of paper: “You know… for kids!” Thinking he’s found his imbecilic patsy, Mussburger names Norville the new president.

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How the worlds of Dune: Prophecy got their distinctive looks

cinematography, culture, Dune: Prophecy, Entertainment, Frank Herbert, HBO, max, streaming television / Mike M. / December 23, 2024

a peek behind the curtain

Ars chats with Dune: Prophecy lead cinematographer Pierre Gill about color palettes, lighting, and other challenges.

Credit: Attila Szvacsek/HBO

Director Denis Villeneuve’s stunning two-part film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune has received many well-deserved accolades—with Dune: Part 2 being crowned Ars Technica’s top movie of 2024. The films also spawned a lavish HBO spinoff TV series, Dune: Prophecy, just renewed for a second season right before a momentous season finale.

(Some spoilers below for S1 of Dune: Prophecy, but no major plot reveals.)

Dune: Prophecy is a prequel series inspired by the novel Sisterhood of Dune, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, exploring the origins of the Bene Gesserit. It’s set 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides and follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, establishing the fabled sect that will become the Bene Gesserit in the process.

Emily Watson stars as Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen, who leads the Sisterhood and has a close ally in her sister, Reverend Mother Tula Harkonnen. They have built up a network of Sisters serving the rulers of various worlds as “Truthsayers,” including Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), heir to the throne of her father, Imperium Emperor Javicco Corrine (Mark Strong).

Valya’s master plan to crown a Sister as head of the Imperium hits a snag, however, with the arrival of a mysterious soldier named Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), who claimed he survived being swallowed by a sandworm while fighting on Arrakis. Hart has a mysterious ability to literally burn people to death from the inside out with his mind, and he so impresses the Emperor that Hart replaces Valya as key advisor. So begins several episodes of political intrigue as secrets from the past begin to come out, culminating with an action-packed finale that bade farewell to a couple of key characters.

All of this takes place against a stunning visual backdrop that is reminiscent of Villeneuve’s two films but also sets the series apart, as befits a prequel. One of the people responsible for that is lead cinematographer Pierre Gill, who created distinctive looks and color palettes for the various worlds, planets, and environments, as well as tackling the lighting challenges posed by the massive built sets. Ars caught up with Gill to learn more.

Ars Technica: You also did some work on the film Dune: Part 1. How was it different working on a TV series set in the same sweeping fictional world?

Pierre Gill: It’s a different game, a different schedule, and it’s also a very different approach because the scenes are different. There’s not so many subplots. But it’s still the same scope. We had as many sets and studios and everything. So it’s a big challenge to be able to keep the style, make it look good, light the actors. It’s part of the reality of the [director of photography’s] decision-making. You have ideas in your head of what you want to do, you have a dream, but it has to be feasible, realistic. So then you make compromises and figure out the best way to keep that style. There’s also multiple directors, there’s a showrunner. So the decision-making is less centralized.

Ars Technica: How did you go about setting the series apart from Villeneuve’s films, especially since it’s a prequel?

Pierre Gill: It’s set 10,000 years before, so it could have been extremely different. But it’s not a good idea to do that. First, the audience wants to see Dune because they love Denis Villeneuve’s movie. Second, it’s a complex story and it’s better not to get lost into something. It was not a good idea to do that in our mind. So we stayed not far from the movie so the audience can just sit down and follow the story points. and at the moment, Of course, some people always complain, but most are just happy to follow the story. So I think we made the right choice.

Ars Technica: Despite the epic scope of the series, you were able to shoot as much as 75 percent of the footage in-camera. That’s quite a feat.

Pierre Gill: There’s a lot of VFX of course, but because most of the sets were so high, so big, the camera was filming people or the throne room—which is gigantic—it’s almost always in camera. For the big wide shots, there’s a set extension that is painted. So these huge sets, the Sisterhood, the library and everything, when you see all these girls wandering around in that complex of Wallach IX, that compound is pretty much on camera.

A lot of VFX is making these gorgeous shots of the world, spaceships coming down, seeing something outside the window sometimes, and then the exterior of Wallach IX, which is two big towers and a rock facade. Of course there’s the little lizard, the thinking machine, that was VFX. But otherwise it was very, very in-camera, which makes your life easier in editing and shooting—although it doesn’t make my life easier with the lighting, which would be much easier with blue screen.

Ars Technica: Tell us about the massive chandeliers you built to introduce particle light, adding extra character to the interiors.

Pierre Gill: The sets were quite monochromatic. You have Salusa Secundus, the emperor world, which is a very sandy color, very beige,. And then you have Wallach IX, which is very gray. We decided to light one of the worlds in a cold way, the other world in warmer tones. I was trying as much as I could to put very harsh sunlight into the Salusa Secondus world.

Again, the sets were very big. So I asked the production designer Tom Meyer to build me some practical lighting somewhere. There was not much in the set for me to use for night, which is a bit of a problem because he kept the mood of Dune. On a film you have three to four hours to light a scene. I was not able to do that. I needed to have practical light that is actually lighting something. So for example, in the throne room, he wanted to have glass balls. There’s three glass balls, they’re gorgeous.

I told Thomas, “But these glass balls, the problem for me is the light behind my head is going to blow away. I would love this to light the wall.” So I got my practical team, a bunch of guys who are just in charge of LEDs on set. We found an LED source that goes inside; you can dim it down and up. But behind the balls, we added another pack of LED lights that are hidden. So you have the light source and just behind it you have this extra lighting. From the camera you never see it but it was lighting the wall. And then I got them to build a very long teardrop. I again got them to build multiple layers of LEDs that were on a board that was a certain power, certain color. I was able to make them cold or warm and to change them a little bit and use them as a source. It became part of the visual style.

Ars Technica. I appreciated that Dune: Prophecy seems to buck the trend toward very, very dark night scenes that end up being nearly unwatchable for people at home.

Pierre Gill: I don’t really like when it’s pitch black and dark. I don’t understand. I don’t think it gives anything. For me, night is more figuring out silhouettes. Let’s try to feel the character, shape your character on the wall, and when you get in a close-up you get a light in his eyes or something. I like to define a room and on these big sets to do moonlight would make no sense. The throne room is gigantic, but at the end it’s just an empty place. So you’re lighting what? Just the floor. It’s not very interesting. So what I’ve done for the night in the throne room, I asked VFX, what’s the concept of the exterior? It was all work in progress. We had some artwork concept work, but the lighting, nobody really knew.

So I said, okay, so we know there’s lights, so I’m going to put orange lights from below. I’m not lighting actors, I’m not lighting anything. But when you look at windows, you can feel that the light is coming from the bottom and it creates a few shadows. When you see outside now, they put all these lights in the palace, like you would light a nice, beautiful, gorgeous big house. You light everything from under.

Ars Technica: What were some particularly challenging scenes in terms of the cinematography?

Pierre Gill: The prison was a huge challenge. It was built on a set on location in downtown Budapest, and it’s a circular room. It’s where they put Desmond and suspended him in a jail cell. There was a floor and I had one foot to light. So that was complicated. Another challenge was the exterior of the Sisterhood: a big circular room outside. It was also a location and we could not access behind with cranes, so I could not control anything, and it was very dangerous. I could not light from the ceiling from the top of this coliseum. We built a gigantic tarp on top of it. So I was closing and opening and diffusing the sun. That was very Hollywood-esque.

Ars Technica: Was there a particular scene you were especially pleased with how it turned out?

Pierre Gill: In the first episode, there’s a scene with the young sisters chanting around a gorgeous golden bowl. The director, Anna Foerster, she wanted to see the waves of the singing and all these frequencies. I was like, “Well, that’s a lighting gag. You don’t see any wave if you cannot light in reflection.” I knew I wouldn’t have time to do something so technical. Since she wanted to “do a pull-up” for the scene: starting loose up on the bowl and then moving up and out. Technically it’s complicated.

So I had a big rig that I created around the camera with soft lighting that could reflect. And I asked our department, when they built that bowl, “Could you build with a light inside, like a waterproof light, an LED? I’ll put it on my board and maybe it’s going to work. I’m not sure if it’s going to really light the water properly.” I was ready with a plan B, but they brought the bowl, they started the frequency thing, and it was gorgeous. So I didn’t have to use my plan B lighting. That was very, very nice.

a white model of a set with someone's arm placing miniature people inside it. — Models helped with the staging and lighting of different scenes. Credit: Pierre Gill/HBO

Ars Technica: The show has been renewed for a second season and one assumes you’ll be involved. What will be different for you going into S2?

Pierre Gill: I’m very proud because I’m part of building that, a part of the creative team. I really hope I can do it. I hope my schedule will allow it. I want to be part of this for sure, because S1 was a lot of engineering, meaning it’s so big, you have to figure out stuff all the time. Now it’s done, it’s built and we know what we like. We know what we don’t like. We know what works. So S2 for me, will be a lot of fun, much more creative, meaning I’m going to be able to do much more interesting lighting. I’m going to go deeper into the thing because I know how this beast is working now.

All episodes of Dune: Prophecy‘s first season are now available for streaming on Max.

Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.

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We’ve got a lavish new trailer for Star Trek: Section 31

culture, Entertainment, Michelle Yeoh, paramount plus, Star Trek Section 31, streaming television, Trailers, TV trailers / Tim Belzer / December 10, 2024

Michelle Yeoh stars in Star Trek: Section 31.

We’ve got a shiny new trailer for Star Trek: Section 31, the long-awaited spinoff film that brings back Michelle Yeoh’s magnificent Phillipa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery. The film will give us the backstory for Georgiou’s evil Mirror Universe counterpart, where she was a despotic emperor who murdered millions of her own people.

As previously reported, Yeoh’s stylishly acerbic Georgiou was eventually written out of Discovery, but fans took hope from rumors of a spinoff series featuring the character. That turned into a spinoff film, and we’ll take it. Miku Martineau plays a young Phillipa Georgiou in the film. Meanwhile, Yeoh’s older Georgiou is tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets as part of a black ops group called Section 31, while dealing with all the blood she’s spilled in her past.

Any hardcore Star Trek fan will tell you that Section 31 was first introduced as an urban legend of sorts in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Apparently Ira Steven Behr—who came up with the idea of a secret rogue organization within Starfleet doing shady things to protect the Federation—took inspiration from Commander Sisko’s comment in one episode about how “It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.” The name is taken from Starfleet Charter Article 14, Section 31, which allows Starfleet to take extraordinary measures in the face of extreme threats—including sabotage, assassination, and even biological warfare.

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The shadow’s roots take hold in Wheel of Time S3 teaser

culture, Entertainment, prime video, streaming television, Trailers, TV trailers, wheel of time / Tim Belzer / December 8, 2024

The Wheel of Time returns to Prime Video in March.

Prime Video released a one-minute teaser for its fantasy series The Wheel of Time at CCXP24 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The series is adapted from the late Robert Jordan‘s bestselling 14-book series of epic fantasy novels, and Ars has been following it closely with regular recaps through the first two seasons. Judging from the new teaser, the battle between light and dark is heating up as the Dragon Reborn comes into his power.

(Spoilers for first two seasons below.)

As previously reported, the series center on Moiraine (played by Oscar-nominee Rosamund Pike), a member of a powerful, all-woman organization called the Aes Sedai. Magic, known as the One Power, is divided into male (saidin) and female (saidar) flavors. The latter is the province of the Aes Sedai. Long ago, a great evil called the Dark One caused the saidin to become tainted, such that most men who show an ability to channel that magic go mad. It’s the job of the Aes Sedai to track down such men and strip them of their abilities—a process known as “gentling” that, unfortunately, is often anything but. There is also an ancient prophecy concerning the Dragon Reborn: the reincarnation of a person who will save or destroy humanity.

In S1, Moiraine befriended a group of five young people—Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand, Mat, and Perrin—whose small village has been attacked by monsters called Trollocs, suspecting that one of the young men might be the prophesied Dragon Reborn. She was right: the Dragon Reborn is Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) whose identity was revealed to all in the S2 finale. That second season was largely based on story elements from Jordan’s The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn. We don’t yet know which specific books will provide source material for S3, but per the official premise:

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Innie rebellion is brewing in trippy Severance S2 trailer

Apple TV Plus, culture, Entertainment, severance, streaming television, Trailers, TV trailers, Uncategorized / Paul Patrick / December 8, 2024

Severance returns to Apple TV in January for its sophomore season.

Severance was one of the most talked-about TV series of 2022, receiving widespread critical acclaim. We loved the series so much that Ars staffers actually wrote a group review so that everyone could weigh in with their thoughts on the first season, pronouncing it “one of the best shows on TV.” Needless to say, we have been eagerly awaiting the second season next month. Prime Video just released the official trailer at CCXP24 in São Paulo, Brazil and it does not disappoint.

(Spoilers for first season below.)

In the world of Severance, people can completely disconnect their work and personal lives. Thanks to a new procedure developed by Lumon Industries, workers can bifurcate themselves into “innies” (work selves) and “outies” (personal selves)—with no sharing of memories between them. This appeals to people like Mark (Adam Scott), who lost his wife in a car crash and has struggled to work through the grief. Why not forget all that pain for eight hours a day?

It’s no spoiler to say that things went… badly in S1 as a result of this process. As Ars Deputy Editor Nate Anderson noted at the time, “The show isn’t just bonkers—though it is that, too. It’s also about the lengths to which we will go to dull or avoid emotional pain, and the ways in which humans will reach out to connect with others even under the most unpromising of circumstances.” In the process, Severance brought out “the latent horror of fluorescent lights, baby goats, cubicles, waffles, middle managers, finger traps, and ‘work/life balance.’ Also cults. And vending machines. Plus corporate training manuals. And talk therapy. Oh, and ‘kind eyes.'”

The first season ended on quite the cliffhanger, with several Lumon employees activating an “overtime contingency” to escape the office confines to get a taste for how their “outies” live—and some pretty startling secrets were revealed. S2 will naturally grapple with the fallout from their brief mutiny. Per the official premise:

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Player 456 is back for revenge in Squid Game S2 trailer

culture, Entertainment, netflix, squid game, streaming television, Trailers / Tim Belzer / November 28, 2024

Lee Jung-Jae returns as Player 456 in the second season of Squid Game.

The 2021 Korean series Squid Game was a massive hit for Netflix, racking up 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first four weeks and snagging 14 Emmy nominations. Fans have been longing for a second season ever since, and we’re finally getting it this year for Christmas. Netflix just released the official trailer.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

The first season followed Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae, seen earlier this year in The Acolyte), a down-on-his-luck gambler who has little left to lose when he agrees to play children’s playground games against 455 other players for money. The twist? If you lose a game, you die. If you cheat, you die. And if you win, you might also die.

“The grotesque spectacle of Squid Game is where it gets most of its appeal, but it resonates because of how relatable Gi-hun and the rest of the game’s contestants are,” Ars Senior Technology Reporter Andrew Cunningham wrote in our 2021 year-end TV roundup. “Alienated from society and each other, driven by guilt or shame or pride or desperation, each of the players we get to know is inescapably human, which is why Squid Game is more than just a gory sideshow.

In the S1 finale, Gi-hun faced off against fellow finalist and childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) in the titular “squid game.” He won their fight but refused to kill his friend, begging Sang-woo to stop the game by invoking a special clause in their contract whereby they get to live—but do not get the prize money. Sang-woo instead stabbed himself in the neck and asked Gi-hun to take care of his mother. Wracked with guilt, Gi-hun was about to fly to America to live with his daughter when he spotted the game recruiter trying to entice another desperate person. He didn’t get on the plane, deciding instead to try and re-enter the game and take it down from the inside.

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Silo S2 expands its dystopian world

Apple TV Plus, culture, Entertainment, Silo, streaming television / Mike M. / November 16, 2024

Ars chats with cinematographer Baz Irvine about creating a fresh look for the sophomore season.

Credit: YouTube/Apple TV+

The second season of Silo, Apple TV’s dystopian sc-fi drama, is off to a powerful start with yesterday’s premiere. Based on the trilogy by novelist Hugh Howey, was one of the more refreshing surprises on streaming television in 2023: a twist-filled combination of political thriller and police procedural set in a post-apocalyptic world. It looks like S2 will be leaning more heavily into sci-fi thriller territory, expanding its storytelling—and its striking cinematography—beyond the original silo.

(Spoilers for S1 below as well as first five minutes of S2 premiere.)

As previously reported, Silo is set in a self-sustaining underground city inhabited by a community whose recorded history only goes back 140 years, generations after the silo was built by the founders. Outside is a toxic hellscape that is only visible on big screens in the silo’s topmost level. Inside, 10,000 people live together under a pact: Anyone who says they want to “go out” is immediately granted that wish—cast outside in an environment suit on a one-way trip to clean the cameras. But those who make that choice inevitably die soon after because of the toxic environment.

Mechanical keeps the power on and life support from collapsing, and that is where we met mechanical savant Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) at one with the giant geothermal generator that spins in the silo’s core. There were hints at what came before—relics like mechanical wristwatches or electronics far beyond the technical means of the silo’s current inhabitants, due to a rebellion 140 years ago that destroyed the silo’s records in the process. The few computers are managed by the IT department, run by Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins).

Over the course of the first season, Juliette reluctantly became sheriff and investigated the murder of her lover, George (Ferdinand Kingsley), who collected forbidden historical artifacts, as well as the murder of silo mayor Ruth Jahns (Geraldine James). Many twists ensued, including the existence of a secret group dedicated to remembering the past whose members were being systemically killed. Juliette also began to suspect that the desolate landscape seen through the silo’s camera system was a lie and there was actually a lush green landscape outside.

In the season one finale, Juliette made a deal with Holland: She would choose to go outside in exchange for the truth about what happened to George and the continued safety of her friends in Mechanical. The final twist: Juliette survived her outside excursion and realized that the dystopian hellscape was the reality, and the lush green Eden was the lie. And she learned that their silo was one of many, with a ruined city visible in the background.

That’s where the second season picks up. Apple TV+ released the footage of the first five minutes last week:

Official sneak peek for the second season of Apple TV+’s sci-fi drama Silo.

The opening battle, with all new characters, clearly took place in one of the other silos (Silo 17), and the residents desperate to break out did so only to meet their deaths. The footage ends with Juliette walking past their skeletons toward the entrance to Silo 17. We know from the official trailer that rebellion is also brewing back in her own silo as rumors spread that she is alive.

The expansion of Silo‘s world was an opportunity for cinematographer Baz Irvine (who worked on four key episodes this season) to play with lenses, color palettes, lighting, and other elements to bring unique looks to the different settings.

Ars Technica: How did you make things visually different from last season? What were your guidelines going into this for the cinematography?

Baz Irvine: There’s few different things going on. I love season one, but we were going to open it up [in S2]. We were going to introduce this new silo, so that was going to be a whole other world that had to look immediately familiar, but also completely different. We start season one with an exterior of the dystopian, future blasted planet. On the technical point, I saw two things I could do very simply. I felt that the format of season one was two to one, so not quite letterbox, not quite widescreen. When I saw the sets and I saw the art, everything the amazing art department had done, I was like, guys, this needs to be widescreen. I think at the time there was still a little bit of reticence from Apple and a few of the other streamers to commit to full widescreen, but I persuaded them.

I also changed the lenses because I wanted to keep the retro feel, the dystopian future, but retro feel. I chose slightly different lenses to give me a wider feel of view. I talked to my director, Michael Dinner, and we talked about how at times, as brilliant as season one was, it was a bit theatrical, a bit presentational. Here’s the silo, here’s the silo, here’s the silo…., So what you want to do is stop worrying about the silo. It is incredible and it’s in the back of every shot. We wanted to make it more visceral. There was going to be a lot more action. The start of episode one is a full-blown battle. Apple released the first five minutes on Apple. It actually stops at a very critical point, but you can see that it’s the previous world of the other Silo 17.

We still wanted to see the scope and the scale. As a cinematographer, you’ve got to get your head around something that’s very unusual: the Silo is vertical. When we shoot stuff, we go outside, everything’s horizontal. So as a cinematographer, you think horizontally, you frame the skyline, you frame the buildings. But in the silo, it’s all up there and it’s all down there, but it doesn’t exist. A bit of the set exists, but you have to go, oh, okay, what can I see if I point the camera up here, what will VFX brilliantly give me? What can I see down there? So that was another big discussion.

Ars Technica: When you talk about wanting to make it more visceral, what does that mean specifically in a cinematography context?

Baz Irvine: It’s just such a lovely word. Season one had an almost European aesthetic. It was a lot of very beautiful, slow developing shots. Of course it was world building. It was the first time the silo was on the screen. So as a filmmaker, you have a certain responsibility to give the audience a sense of where you are. Season two, we know where we are. Well, we don’t with the other silo, but we discover it. This role for me meant not being head of the action. So with Juliet, Rebecca Ferguson’s character, we discover what she sees with her, rather than showing it ahead of time.We’re trying to be a point of view, almost hand-held. When she’s running, we’re running with her. When she’s trying to smash her helmet, we are very much with her.

On another level, visceral for me also means responding to action—not being too prescriptive about what the camera should do, but when you see the blocking of a scene and you feel it’s going a certain way and there’s a certain energy, responding to that and getting in there. The silo, as I said, is always going to be in the background, but we’re not trying to fetishize the silo too much. We’re going to look down, we’re going to look up, we’re going to use crane moves, but just get in with the action. Just be with the people. That means slightly longer lenses, longer focal lengths at times. And from my point of view, the fall off and focus just looks so beautiful. So I think that’s what visceral means. I bet you somebody else would say something completely different.

Ars Technica: Other specific choices you made included using a muted green palette and torchlight flashlight. So there is this sense of isolation and mystery and a spooky, more immersive atmosphere.

Baz Irvine: The challenge that I could see from when I read the script is that a large part of season two is in the new Silo 17. So the new Silo 17 hasn’t been occupied for 35 years. It’s been in this dormant, strange, half-lit state. It’s overgrown with plants and ivy. Some of the references for that were what Chernobyl looked like 20 years down the line. When humanity leaves, nature just takes over. But as a counterpoint, we needed it to feel dark. Most of the electricity has gone, most of the lights have gone out. I needed to have some lighting motivation to give some sense of the shape of the Silo, so that we weren’t plummeting into darkness for the whole episode. So I came up with this idea, the overhead lights that power the silo, that light the silo, were in broken -down mode. They were in reserve power. They’d gone a bit green because that’s what the bulb technology would’ve done.

Part of the reason to do that is that when you’re cutting between two silos that were built identically, you’ve got to have something to show that you’re in a different world. Yes, it’s empty, and yes, it’s desolate and it’s eerie, and there’s strange clanking noises. But I wanted to make it very clear from a lighting point of view that they were two different places.

The other thing that you will discover in episode one, when Juliet’s character is finally working her way through the Silo 17, she has a flashlight and she breaks into an apartment. As she scans the wallshe starts to notice, oh, it’s not like her silo, there are beautiful murals and art. We really wanted to play into this idea that every silo was different. They had different groups of people potentially from different parts of the states. This silo in a way developed quite an artistic community. Murals and frescoes were very much part of this silo. It’s not something that is obvious, and it’s just the odd little scan of a flashlight that gives you this sense. But also Silo 17 is scary. It’s sort of alive, but is there life in it? That is a big question.

Ars Technica: You talk about not wanting to all be in darkness. I’m now thinking of that infamous Game of Thrones episode where the night battle footage was so dark viewers couldn’t follow what was going on. That’s clearly a big challenge for a cinematographer. Where do you find the balance?

Baz Irvine: This is the eternal dilemma for cinematographers. It’s getting notes back from the grownups going, it’s too dark,it’s too dark. Well, maybe if you were watching it in a dark room and it wasn’t bight outside, it would be fine. You have to balance things. I’ve also got Rebecca Ferguson walking around the silo, and it can’t be in so much shadow that you can’t recognize her. So there’s a type of darkness that in film world I know how to convey it. It’s very subtle. It is underexposed, but I used very soft top light. I didn’t want hard shadows. By using that light and filling in little details in the background, I can then take the lighting down. I had an amazing colorist in Company 3 in Toronto and we had a chat about how dark we could go.

We have to be very dark in places because a couple of times in this season, the electricity gets pulled altogether in the old silo as well. You can’t pull the plug and then suddenly everybody’s visible. But it is a film aesthetic that, as a cinematographer, you just learn, how dark can I go? When am I going to get in trouble? Please can I stay on the job, but make it as dark as possible? You mentioned Game of Thrones, clearly audiences have become more used to seeing imagery that I would consider more photographic, more bold generally. I try to tap into that as much as possible. If you have one character with a flashlight, then suddenly that changes everything because you point a flashlight at the surface and the light bounces back in the face. You have to use all the tools that you can.

Ars Technica: In season one there were different looks (lighting and textures) for different social hierarchies of the social hierarchies. Does that continue in season two?

Baz Irvine: I tried to push that a little bit more in season two. I loved the idea of that J.G. Ballard high rise, the rich at the top, everything inverted. The silo is crazy tall. We worked it out. It’s about a kilometer and a half.

The mechanical is the fun bit because mechanical is the bottom of the silo. Down there, we wet the walls, wet the floors, so that the more greeny, orangey colors you associate with fluorescent lights and more mechanical fixtures would reflect. You keep the light levels low because you get this lovely sheen off the walls. As you move up through the middle, where a lot of the action takes place, the lighting is more normal. I’m not really trying to push it one way or another.

Then you go up top where the judicial live, where the money and power is. You’re a lot closer to the light source because there only is this one huge light source that lights down in the silo. So up there the air is more rarefied. It’s like you’re on top of a Swiss mountain. It just feels cleaner. There’s less atmosphere, slightly bluer in light, different color temperatures on the practical lighting in offices. It’s less chaotic, more like a more modern aesthetic up there. You’ve got to be careful not to overplay it. Once you establish colors, you run with it and it just becomes second nature. It was a lot of fun to be able to demarcate—ss long as you remembered where you were, that was always the trick.

Ars Technica: What were the most notable challenges and highlights for you—without giving away anything beyond episode one.

Baz Irvine: I think the big thing about episode one is that it’s like a silent movie. Rebecca Ferguson has maybe two lines, or maybe she doesn’t actually say anything. It’s a journey of discovery, and there’s some quite scary, terrifying things that happen. There’s a lot of action. Also, we find out there’s water in Silo 17. Silo 17 is flooded. You don’t find that out until she slips and falls and you think she’s fallen to her death. From the outset knew that there would be an extensive amount of underwater, or on the surface of the water, filming that would need to take place. We had to do a massive amount of testing, looking at textures of water, what equipment we could use, how we could get the depth, the width. We built a huge tank at one of our studios in London and used Pinewood’s famous underwater tank for the fall.

Also there was the challenge of trying to do shots of that scale outside because we actually built sets. We could probably see 50 feet beyond Rebecca. We had the surface of the scorched surface, but beyond that is VFX. So we had huge blue screens and all these different cranes and things called Manitous with massive frames and had to control the sun. That was very challenging. You can really go down a very cliched path when trying to imagine what the fallout of a massive nuclear attack would look like. But we didn’t want to overplay it too much, we wanted to embed it in some sort of reality so that you didn’t suddenly feel at the start of episode one, oh my, you’re on the surface of Mars. It had to feel real, but also just completely different from the interior world of the silo.

Ars Technica: I assume that there’s a lot more exciting stuff coming in the other episodes that we can’t talk about.

Baz Irvine: There is so much exciting stuff. There’s a lot of action. The silo cafeteria, by the way, is just incredible because you have this huge screen. When I turned up, I was thinking, okay, well this is clearly going to be some big VFX blue screen. It is not. It is a projected image. The work that they did to make it feel like it was a camera mounted to the top of the silo, showing the world outside, and the different times of day—we just literally dialed in. Can I have dusk please? Can I have late afternoon with a little bit of cloud? It was such a fun toy box to play with.

New episodes of Silo S2 will premiere every Friday through January 17, 2025, on Apple TV+.

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Review: Catching up with the witchy brew of Agatha All Along

Agatha All Along, culture, Disney Plus, Entertainment, marvel studios, MCU Phase Five, streaming television, TV reviews / Tim Belzer / November 9, 2024

Down, down, down the road

Spoilers ahead! This imaginative sequel to WandaVision is a reminder of just how good the MCU can be.

Kathryn Hahn stars as Agatha Harkness, reprising her WandaVision role. Credit: Disney+

The MCU’s foray into streaming television has produced mixed results, but one of my favorites was the weirdly inventive, oh-so-meta WandaVision. I’m happy to report that the spinoff sequel, Agatha All Along, taps into that same offbeat creativity, giving us a welcome reminder of just how good the MCU can be when it’s firing on all storytelling cylinders.

(Spoilers below, including for WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness. We’ll give you another heads up when major spoilers for Agatha All Along are imminent.)

The true identity of nosy next-door neighbor Agnes—played to perfection by Kathryn Hahn—was the big reveal of 2021’s WandaVision, even inspiring a jingle that went viral. Agnes turned out to be a powerful witch named Agatha Harkness, who had studied magic for centuries and was just dying to learn the source of Wanda’s incredible power. Wanda’s natural abilities were magnified by the Mind Stone, but Agatha realized that Wanda was a wielder of “chaos magic.” She was, in fact, the Scarlet Witch. In the finale, Wanda trapped Agatha in her nosy neighbor persona while releasing the rest of the town of Westview from her grief-driven Hex.

Then Wanda presumably died in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (and count me among those who thought her arc in that film was a massive fail on Marvel’s part). What happened to Agatha? It seems the hex is still in place but went a bit wonky. Agatha All Along opens like a true crime serial (cf. Mare of Easttown) with Agatha/Agnes as the rebellious, socially challenged tough detective called to investigate a body found in the woods outside Westview. Then a young Teen (Joe Locke) breaks the hex and asks her to show him the way to the legendary Witches’ Road, a journey involving a series of trials. The reward: at the end of the road, the surviving witches get what they most desire. Agatha wants her powers back and Teen—well, his motives are murkier, as is his identity, which is guarded by a sigil.

Agatha and Teen first have to assemble a coven: Lilia (Patti LuPone), a divination witch; Jennifer (Sasheer Zamata), a potions witch; Alice (Ali Ahn), a protection witch; and Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp, reprising her WandaVision role), standing in for a green witch on account of her gardening skills. They sing the spell in the form of a ballad—”Down the Witches’ Road,” a killer earworm that recurs throughout the series and is already spawning lots of cover versions. The entrance appears and the journey begins. As if the Witches’ Road weren’t dangerous enough, Agatha is also being pursued by her ex, Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), a powerful green witch, as well as the Salem Seven, vengeful wraiths of Agatha’s first coven, who (we learned in a WandaVision flashback) she killed by draining their powers when they attacked her.

Trapped in a reality-warping spell, Agatha is apparently a detective now. YouTube/Marvel Studios

A large part of WandaVision‘s delight came from the various sitcom styles featured in each episode. Agatha All Along has its own take on that approach: each trial takes on the setting and style of witches from popular culture (even the ending credits play on this). One evokes the New England WASP-y style of the 1998 film Practical Magic; another plays on Stevie Nicks’ Bohemian “white witch” phase with elements of the 1972 film Season of the Witch; yet another trial dresses the coven in high school summer camp 1980s garb.

There are nods to the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda from the Wizard of Oz, Malificent, and the hag version of Snow White’s Evil Queen in the seventh episode, “Death’s Hand in Mine.” It might just be the best single episode of all the Marvel series. This is Lilia’s trial, requiring her to use her divination skills to navigate a deadly tarot reading. Every wrong card releases one of the many swords suspended above the table.

Throughout the journey, Lilia has uttered seemingly random nonsensical things. Here we learn this is because she experiences life out of temporal sequence, moving between past and present while peering into the future. Suddenly all those earlier sprinkled breadcrumbs make sense, a testament to the skillful writing and directing—not to mention LuPone’s powerful performance. (Apparently she requested a script with the events in linear order to better evoke the necessary emotions when shooting scenes out of sequence.)

To glory at the end

(WARNING: Major spoilers below. Stop reading now if you haven’t finished the series.)

By this time the coven has already lost two members: Sharon Davis (who didn’t even last the first trial), replaced by Rio; and Alice, who tried to help Agatha when the latter was briefly possessed during a ouija board trial—only to have Agatha do what she always does and drain Alice of all her power. Lilia’s tarot reading reveals that Death has been traveling with them all along in the form of Rio. Yes, Agatha’s ex is Death, aka “the original Green Witch.” They end up losing Lilia, too; she sacrifices herself to take out the Salem Seven after letting the surviving coven members escape. We see her falling to her death and then show up as a child in her homeland for her very first divination lesson—the cycle of life and death come full circle.

Agatha likes her new look for this trial. Marvel/Disney+

We soon discover that Rio/Death is mostly there because of Teen. There was much fan speculation about his identity in the run-up to the series release and fans guessed correctly: it’s Wanda and Vision’s son, Billy Maximoff, whose soul found its way into the body of a dying teenager named William Kaplan just as Wanda’s hex was unraveling him and his twin, Tommy, out of existence. That’s why he went on the Witches’ Road: to find Tommy. But this also makes him an aberration in Death’s eyes that must be removed to restore the balance. The catch: Billy has to sacrifice himself; in this unusual case, Death cannot simply take him.

Agatha initially agrees to manipulate Billy into doing just that, then has a last-minute change of heart. She kisses Rio/Death and thereby embraces her fate, sacrificing herself so Billy can live. From the start she had a soft spot for the teen, accompanied by references to her long-dead son. The backstory is quite moving and key to Agatha’s unexpected change of heart. Her son’s fate was revealed in the finale. Death came for him when Agatha was in labor but agreed to grant her “time.” How much time? Six or seven years, during which mother and son bonded and wandered from village to village, with Agatha occasionally killing more covens to absorb their power. But Death did not forget, and with Nicky (Abel Lysenko) gone, Agatha indulged all her worst impulses.

Which brings us to the Big Twist: Agatha and her son made up the ballad of the Witches’ Road, singing it in local taverns and slowly building up the legend. The Witches’ Road never existed. Agatha used the legend over centuries to lure witches into a trap to steal their powers. That was her intention at the start of the series, too, except this time—a portal opened. Billy, it seems, inherited Wanda’s ability to warp and shape reality, even subconsciously. He wanted the road to be real and so it was.

The reveal is skillfully done and ties everything up in a nice satisfying bow, with one exception. The writers just couldn’t let Agatha go completely; she returns as a ghost and joins Billy on his search for his brother Tommy. That’s a creative choice that leaves the door open for a second season, and I strongly suspect we’ll get one. But Ghost Agatha will be a tough plot point to crack. And it rather undercuts the pivotal moment of Agatha’s sacrifice—actually doing something that doesn’t directly benefit herself. On the whole, though, Agatha All Along is marvelously entertaining, binge-able fun with just enough emotional resonance and heartbreak to add some depth.

All episodes of Agatha All Along are now streaming on Disney+.

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