A Sci-Fi Dawn

Thomas introduces the new Sci-Fi Edition of Multiverse Tonight and talks about Star Wars news regarding Younglings, Admiral Ackbar, Star Trek news remembering Keith Birdsong and Anton Yelchin and general scifi news looking at a new Dune TV series, Ghostbusters 3 and the weekend box office report. 

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Hello everyone and welcome to the sci-fi edition of Multiverse Tonight. I'm of course your host Thomas Townley. Now we're trying something new with this episode and every episode that to come. And this is how this will go. This episode will just be sci-fi news. Here you'll find your Star Trek, your Star Wars, you know, your just general sci-fi and fantasy news. Episode 29, which will appear in the feed a few days later, will be the comics edition. There you'll find DC News, Marvel News, all the news from anything comic book related or just could or something that just couldn't fit in the sci-fi edition. And uh so that's how it'll be from here on out. Now I'm just days away from going to the small philcon in Hutchinson, Kansas. Now this is my hometown Comic-Con, so to speak. It's only 30 miles from home, so I get to stay at home while the con is on. And uh so I'm hoping to get a few interviews. Uh there Claudie Christian's going to be there and you know a few others. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to share those with you in a future episode. But in the meantime, let's get to the news. Now we start Star Wars news dispelling a rumor. Uh there was has been a rumor that uh rumor recently that cast members at Star Wars Galaxy's Edge weren't allowed to use the term younglings because of the child murders committed by Anagan in Revenge of the Sith. This rumor came to light from a tweet from Jenny Nicholson on Twitter who tweeted, quote, also a cast member said kids? And I jokingly said, Oh, younglings? And she blindsided me by telling me they're already scrubbing younglings from the vocab. Parents didn't like it because one of the only times you hear it in the movies is the phrase killing younglings. Fair, unquote. However, when Newsweek magazine contacted Disneyland for a comment, they told the magazine that, quote, Disneyland says that cast members do not avoid the word younglings. Our cast members use that word daily in the new land, Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, as part of the interaction with guests, unquote. So it sounds like not saying younglings was probably a personal choice of some of the actors, not a policy. Now, go take your younglings to Disneyland. Just watch out for any rogue Jedi turned Sith. Now it's a trap. In an interview, the puppeteer for everyone's favorite Mont Calamari, Admiral Akbar, Tim Rose, voiced his disappointment in the way Akbar was killed off in The Last Jedi. So, if you recall the scene, Akbar died when the bridge was destroyed, wiping out pretty much the entire leadership of the resistance. Save for Leah, who literally forced her way back. Yeah, forced her way. So he said, quote, after the Force Awakens, for whatever reason, think of picture, whatever, it all got cut out. So after waiting 30 years to reprise Akbar, I was a little disappointed with Akbar's role in that picture. So in The Last Jedi, I was quite looking forward to maybe them giving him something more juicy. He we were only given the script on the day when we were shooting that piece of script, so each day I would come to work going, is today the day when Akbar gets something a bit a bit more involving? And I looked at my script and went, oh, Akbar's going out the window. Well, that's that then. I wasn't quite dead yet. We finished all of all of our bits, and they asked me to come down to camera, and I thought, oh well maybe they're gonna say thank you for being one of the heritage characters and giving 30 years and all that. But what they did was they gave me a Millennium Falcon sign that had the day and the date on it, the scene number, and they said, Could you look at the camera and say it's a rap? Because that would be really funny. I was actually in tears in the suit because I thought after everything, after hoping they'd be somet there'd be something, after knowing there wasn't going to be anything else, Akbar's final moment before he went in the box was a big joke about it's a rap. They just thought, wouldn't it be funny? And that was the sum total of my life as Akbar. Yeah, it was kind of a pointless way to die. It would have made more sense if he did what Admiral Holdo had done. Oh well. Lucasfilm president, Kathleen Kennedy, has been elected chair of the American Film Institute Board of Trustees. Now the AFI announced she succeeds Sir Admiral Stringer, who has been the chair since 1999. Kathleen's role will be setting the institute uh setting the institute's priorities and guiding its national education programs. The mission of the AFI is to preserve the heritage of motion picture and to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation. Kathleen said after accepting the honor, she quote, it is a distinct honor to be elected as chair of the AFI Board of Trustees. AFI's commitment to the power of storytelling coupled with profound respect for the past is an inspiration in our modern day, and I look forward to working with the trustees and the incomparable Bill Daly, Bob Daly, excuse me, with the goal to shine an even greater light upon the impact these stories have in our nation and around the world. Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker, is still months away. What to do? What to watch? How about some cartoons? The Star Wars Kids YouTube channel has some animated fun for you. Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures features the iconic characters of the franchise and features a bold palette of colors and the actual dialogue, music, and effects from the movies. So in other words, it's basically animated versions of those scenes. Yeah, that nice nice, bright, and shiny. Candy. Anyway, Indie Game Publisher, Limited Run Games, has announced this past week at E3 that we'll be reviving more than a dozen old Star Wars games with new physical collectors edition re-releases. They will start with the release of Star Wars Bounty Hunter for the PlayStation 4 on June 28th. Future releases will be for the original platforms and include the 1991 Star Wars for NES and Game Boy, Star Wars Shadows of the Empire, and Star Wars Episode 1 Racer for Windows PC and Nintendo 64. Now, 13, including the ones I just mentioned, will be released and we'll have a link to those in our show notes. Also shown off at E3 was Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. The game will be released on November 15th and will be available on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. Game creator Stig Aspenson describes his influences for the game as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Metroid, and a Little Zelda. Star Wars Galaxy's Edge has some pricey souvenirs, including life-size custom astromax for get this $25,000. Now, you would think something like that wouldn't be a huge seller, but you'd be surprised. According to Disneyland, employees who spoke to the Orange County Register, three of the R2 units were sold in the first week of operation. The droid is completely customizable and operates via remote control. The custom droids take up to 90 days to be delivered. Shipping not included and no returns or exchanges accepted. If it breaks down, it's up to you to find a droid repairman. And heaven knows, you know, you have to go clear the Tatooine to find one of those. Now let's check out the Star Trek news. Wilson Cruz, who plays Discovery's uh Dr. Hugh Culber, is featured on one of four special Pride Month covers of Entertainment Weekly. On the show, Dr. Culber and Lieutenant Paul Stametz are the first openly gay regular characters in the franchise. Now Cruz shared the cover on Twitter with the tweet This one goes out to every young LB LGBTQ kid out there who has any doubt whatsoever that because of who they are or how they love, they can't achieve their dreams. Cisepuedo, Miamor. Cisepuedo. Thank you at Entertainment Weekly for the honor of gracing your hashtag PrideIssue. It should be noted that the print edition of Entertainment Weekly will soon be abandoning the weekly format and switching to a monthly format. The first issue will be in August and focus on the San Diego Comic-Con. And my apologies to all the Spanish speakers out there for probably murdering the Spanish language. JJ Verse Captain Chris Pine and the crowd gathered in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to introduce a trailer for Love Antosha, a documentary about their late friend and co-star Anton Yelchin. The trailer played before a screening of of Star Trek, which in itself is celebrating its 10th anniversary. That's of course the JJ Abrams version of Star Trek. Pine told the assembled crowd, quote, obviously, we're here for Anton. He was one of my dear friends, and I felt like I was only getting a chance to know him better when he passed. The film is incredible, and I think it'll show you all different sides of the guy that I knew. This curious, fascinating, complex, strange little do. Proceeds from the screening benefited the Anton Yelchin Foundation. Anton died three years ago this month from a freak accident involving his car. He was twenty seven years old. The documentary La Vantosha comes to Select Theatres on August 2nd. Now, Star Trek cre we also uh have some sad news, uh more sad news. Star Trek creator and excuse me, Star Trek cover artist, Keith Birdsong, has passed away at the age of 59. Birdsong was a self-taught artist who panned the covers for dozens of Star Trek novels, among other things. Keith was born in Muscogee, Oklahoma, and began his artistic career by creating drawings to help flush out his reporting for his first career journalism journal journalist career for the US Army, which would win him the Keith L. Ware Award, which is considered the highest honor for military journalism. He became a professional illustrator and would soon do work for pocketbook Star Trek novels, doing such covers as Seric, All Good Things, Q Squared, and the Star Trek Chronology. He also painted portraits of Kirk, Spock, and Coy for the U.S. Postal Service's 25th anniversary envelope set, and illustrated the collector's plates from the Hamilton Exchange. He not only did Star Trek illustrations, but he also did the postage stamp of Evelis Presley and the depiction of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that is part of the Smithsonian Institute's collection. In 2018, Mr. Bird Song suffered a severe stroke, but made a great recovery. Unfortunately, this year he suffered a second stroke that caused a car accident from which he was unable to recover from. He is survived by his parents, his daughter, granddaughters, sisters, his girlfriend, and many more. Thanks, Keith. You will we will always have that great artwork. Now, let's go on to some sci-fi news. In the uh geek news, Netflix is looking towards video games for ideas. The service has acquired the rights to Ubisoft's motion picture adaptation of The Division, based on the game of the same name. It will star Jessica Trestain and Jake Gyllenhall, and David Leitch has signed on to direct. The Division is a Tom Clancy game and set in the dystopian New York after a smallpox epidemic. Godzilla's latest movie, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, did pretty well in now it came in number one in its opening weekend, but dro has dropped steadily in the week since. So, when you watched it, were you wondering what King Ghidorah's different heads were called? Director Mike Doherty gave each head its own name. Asked what they were on Twitter, he replied, quote, Centerhead Ichi, right head, Ni, left head, San, aka Kevin. Head and then he put in uh three dragon heads, hashtag GodzillaMovie, unquote. Ichi, Ni and San are Japanese for one, two, and three. Each head was performed by a different actor. Warner Media's streaming service has ordered Dune the Sisterhood straight to series. The series from Legendary Tel Television is based on Frank Herbert's classic novel and will coexist with the new Dune feature film from Dennis Villeneuve. This is part of an extensive plan that Legendary has for Dune, including video games, digital content packages, and comic books. Villeneuve is not only directing and producing that film, but exactly producing the series and directing the pilot episode. The series joins Tokyo Vice, Love Life, and the Gremlins Animated Series on the new Warner Media service, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, will cost somewhere between 16 somewhere around 16 to 17 dollars, and will include HBO, Cinemax, and Warner's library of TV and movies. So will Dune entice you to pay for AT ⁇ T? If that doesn't make it, if that doesn't, maybe this will. So you might just get JJ Abrams' new projects in the mix as well. Now we also got some were a bit of news from Ghostbusters 3. So Gordon Weaver has told Parade Magazine that she will be in the movie as Dana Barrett. And Annie Potts has also all but confirmed to KTLA 5 in Los Angeles that she will probably be back as Janine Melnitz. And at the recent Ghostbusters fanfest, Jason Reitman revealed that Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson have all read the script, but there's no confirmation on whether any of them will return. Now, while the plot details do remain underwraps, we do know that the plot centers around 14s and the small town family. Jason Reitman has called the new movie a love letter to the original. Now, let's look at this past week's box office. Now coming in at number one, or actually, I'll tell you what, let's uh go down to the bottom. Down at number 13, draw from number nine was Pokemon Detective Pikachu. And at number 12, the new movie The Dead Don't Die. At number 11, down from number six is Ma. At number 10, down from number 8, is Avengers Endgame, which now has grossed astronomical. It made another three b 3.7 uh million this weekend. Uh domestically, it's 830. You know, this movie has taken all the money. At number nine, uh Late Night, which came up from number 17. At number eight, John Wick, chapter three, parabellum, which just dropped down from number seven. At number seven, Godzilla King of the Monsters, which fell from number four. At number six is the new Shaft movie, which uh is brand new and made 8.9 million. Very nice. Uh Dark Phoenix fell from number two to number five. Uh its total gross now is 52 million. Uh number four is Rocket Man, which came up from number five. Yeah, that's how bad Dark Phoenix is doing. Rocket Man beat it in a in the in the week. In a week. Uh that made uh 66 billion, or 66 million altogether. So it has made its money back. The uh Aladdin live-action foo film is uh stayed at number three. It made seven an additional seventeen million, bringing its total gross up to 264 million uh 264 million, uh making back about double its budget. The Secret Life of Pets 2 came in at number 1. Uh came it uh walked away with 24.4 million. Now that's down about half of what it had in the first week. So you know, it's doing okay. It it has made back its budget though, so who knows? We might see a circuit life of pets at three, and that number one newcomer, Men in Black International, have made 30 million in its first week with a budget of 110 million. Now, it will probably make back its budget, but this is still very soft for an opening weekend. You you would expect something much higher, and so uh yeah, this this summer does not is not going to be a good might not be a good month month move uh good summer for movies. Anyway, uh that brings us to the uh end of our show. And uh be sure to check us out on our social media. We're at Twitter at multi-universe tom and also on Facebook and Instagram as well. And if you'd like to contribute some money, please visit mtpodcast.com to go to our uh coffee or patreon as well, and be sure to visit multiverstonight.com and check out our affiliate marketplace links, the link to our Tea Public store show notes, and so much more. Now, if you're a subscriber, please be sure to share us with your friends, and if you're brand new to the show, please be sure to subscribe and leave us some feedback and let us know how we're doing. Special thanks to Sean Shane Ivers for our intro music and Lobo Loco for our outro music theme music. Now, thanks for watching the sci-fi edition of Multiverse Tonight. Now remember we'll be back in two days with the comic book news. Now please exit the universe in an orderly fashion. Good night. Multiverse tonight is a production of half a big genre productions, copyright twenty nineteen. All rights reserved.