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The CW Cancels Its Legends Of The Hidden Temple Reboot After One Season

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The CW giveth and The CW taketh away. Last month the network made headlines by going on an all-out killing spree and canning seven shows in one day. The lucky few titles not on the chopping block might've felt safe for a minute there, but it turns out The CW wasn't quite done trimming down its lineup. 

The latest cancellation will be a nostalgia-fueled blow to '90s kids everywhere. After resurrecting the long-lost Nickelodeon adventure game show of their childhood, The CW has now canceled "Legends Of The Hidden Temple." TVLine reports that the reboot will not return for a second season. Turns out that despite all the folks with fond memories of the original series, mining that nostalgia wasn't enough to get the reboot off the ground: "Legends Of The Hidden Temple" was one of The CW's lowest-rated series this past season, and averaged below 300,000 total viewers over its 13-episode run.

"Legends Of The Hidden Temple" is among the many CW titles that won't return to the network, including "Legacies," 'Charmed," "Naomi," "Roswell, New Mexico," "Legends of Tomorrow," and many, many more. The CW won't be completely barren though — despite the absolute overhaul, titles like "Riverdale," "Nancy Drew," and "The Flash" are returning for at least one more season, along with new entries like "Walker: Independence," the DC show "Gotham Knights," and the "Supernatural" prequel "The Winchesters."

The Unappreciated Genius Of The Hidden Temple

"Legends of the Hidden Temple" getting the ax is a real shame. For one thing, this means all the former '90s kids who spent years yelling about a reboot are on the verge of restarting their campaign. But more importantly, this show is absolute genius and deserves a place on our screens.  

If you don't remember the original Nickelodeon series, then I apologize for your empty childhood, but it looked a little like this: a bunch of kids were pitted against each other, working in duos to run around a plastic jungle and engage in a series of challenges that appeared mind-numbingly easy to the viewers at home who were holding their heads in agony because honestly, the Silver Monkey has like three pieces, it isn't that hard to put together! The show ran from 1993 to 1995 on Nickelodeon and every episode started with six teams of two contestants answering trivia questions on the Steps of Knowledge. The teams that progressed would compete in physical challenges, and eventually one team would emerge victorious and win the chance to compete in the final Temple Run, an obstacle course where they had to find treasure and avoid the temple guards. Also, there was a giant talking stone head named Olmec.

So how do you resurrect an already perfect concept? Easy — take those former Nickelodeon junkies who spent their childhoods yelling at the Blue Barracudas to just do better, dammit! and toss them into the games, to be taunted by Olmec and attacked by temple guards. And that's not all! The rebooted version was also taken out of the studio and took place on a jungle set, where it was scaled up with much more difficult challenges, and a $25,000 prize. Sounds incredible, right? Too bad no one was watching. 

Alas, your opportunity to actually be a member of the Red Jaguars, Blue Barracudas, Green Monkeys, Orange Iguanas, Purple Parrots, or Silver Snakes has ended. But hey, nostalgia will always be there for you: the original series is available to stream on Paramount+, along with the TV movie adaptation from 2016.

Read this next: 20 Movies About Time Travel Ranked Worst To Best

The post The CW Cancels Its Legends of the Hidden Temple Reboot After One Season appeared first on /Film.

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barret907k
918 days ago
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‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 Seemingly Killed Off Some Major Characters – Here’s How They Can Avoid Some Classic Television Pitfalls in Season 4

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Stranger Things 3

On the Fourth of July, Stranger Things returned to Netflix with much fanfare as would be typical of one of the streaming juggernaut’s most defining – if not the defining – series. And it took no prisoners, racking up a body count as the season went on. And we’re going to talk about it. So this is your one and only major spoiler warning.

The final episode of the season saw the show kill a series regular, Dacre Montgomery’s Billy, and the second-billed star of the cast, David Harbour, who plays Hopper. Even after the fatalities and the supposed defeat of the Mindfllayer, the show chooses to spend a big chunk of the finale chronicling the emotional chain reaction of the beloved fan favorite’s death. The toll that the resulting actions, including Joyce (Winona Ryder), Will (Noah Schnapp), Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) and Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) moving away, reigns supreme when compared to any other emotional moment and the series so far, and the argument could be made that it delivers some of the most poignant moments in all of modern television.

For me, my first true tear of the finale came when Will broke down when hugging everyone, beginning with Lucas (Caleb McLaughin), as well as the reactions of the rest of the gang Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Max (Sadie Sink), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer).  We were dealing with some heartbreaking stuff. 

So, despite inundating viewers with pain and sorrow in the aftermath of Hopper’s death, the show uses multiple easter eggs to drive home the point that Hopper will make an eventual return-from-the-dead, or at the very least, the door is open for the character to make a comeback. In a recent interview with /Film’s Chris Evangelista, Harbour confirms his character’s fate and says that he is alive. All of this is fine and dandy, as Harbour turns in stellar performances and his character is ingrained in the fabric of the show – who wouldn’t want Hop to be alive?

But in the same turn, it’s hard to ignore that in doing so would render all of those powerful moments in the wake of his death virtually pointless. And while I’m fully aware of the fact that Stranger Things is a sci-fi series where rules and logic don’t always apply, giving the presence of large, dog-like creatures whose heads open wide like a creepy flower. At the inevitable conclusion of Stranger Things, we’d all want to see a happy ending with Hop included, but at which point does a show go too far at taking viewers through emotional sensations that reviving a “dead” character would be just emotional manipulation?

A Breakdown of the Back From the Dead Trope

The “Back From The Dead” television trope is nothing new and is actually one of the most popular tropes out there. It is a storyline tactic employed by shows and films for years and years, primarily in daytime soap operas, where The Bold and the Beautiful’s Taylor Forrester (Hunter Tylo) has come back from the dead not once, but twice! After daytime soaps, the trope is probably most-used the next by superhero films and television shows, because Marvel’s Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) will never die.

There are also sub-tropes of the Back From The Dead, and chief among them is the Faking Your Own Death trope. But what has become increasingly popular is the Where Is The Body trope, which is the one that Stranger Things seems to be employing with Hopper’s “death.” The show clearly did not show Hopper actually being visible when everything went boom, and Joyce turned away during these final moments as well. So we actually didn’t see Hopper perish. Where did he go? Where is his body? Did he escape? Did he run into the Upside Down? Was he captured by the Russians? All of these are viable options because we didn’t see a body. 

As a matter of fact, the show has used this trope one time before, in its first season. After disintegrating the monster in the classroom at the end of season one, Eleven essentially disappears into thin air. Although there weren’t as many easter eggs planted here in comparison to Hopper’s situation, no one actually believed that the character, who was central to the storyline, would be killed off. Then, at the end of the second season’s first episode, we learned what actually happened to Eleven: she ended up in and escaped from the Upside Down as we once thought. It also helped that for all intents and purposes, Netflix and the series never acted as if Brown wasn’t returning and she was fully involved in its promotion. While it’s not exactly the same, the show looks to be setting up a story for Hopper sort of like they did for Eleven back in the first two seasons. 

Comebacks Work…But Other Times They Don’t 

The come-from-the-dead storyline hasn’t always been good for television shows. Take for instance NBC’s long-running crime thriller, The Blacklist, which was renewed for its seventh season earlier this year. Back in its early heyday, around 2016 and the third season, the show made what seemed to be a controversial move by killing off its lead character, Liz Keen (Megan Boone). And yes, we saw her body, attended her funeral and everything. For multiple episodes, the show performed as if the character is gone for good, even choosing to omit the likeness of the character and Boone in marketing materials for the rest of the season. Then in the season finale, it is revealed that Liz is actually alive, only to have her kidnapped. The first time, it was cool, but considering The Blacklist enacted multiple back-from-the-dead storylines after this, at some point, killing folks off becomes the equivalent of beating a dead horse.

Nine times out of ten, it’s better for the fictional dead to just remain dead. Several of the biggest shows in television history have taken big swings in offing crucial key characters, and it paid off big time. For non-emotional deaths that serve as a catalyst for storylines, a perfect example is the death of Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara) in House of Cards. Back in 2014, when Netflix was still kind of building the groundwork for being the behemoth it is today, it made a huge move on its then-signature show, whacking one of its major players in a scene that seemed to be out of nowhere (unless you were very familiar with the British version). It also came at an early time for Netflix when it was still disrupting the television model. The presence of Zoe’s hypothetical ghost still remained ever-present in the storylines all through its Robin Wright-led final season as the moment when the series first went there. 

Fan outcry may be intense, but it is important to note that just because a character is written off and killed, that doesn’t mean that their character and the death won’t impact or reverberate through the rest of the series. In The Wire, often regarded as the greatest television series of all time, the show killed off Michael K. Williams’ beloved character, Omar Little. The character was beloved – President Barack Obama even named him as his favorite character on television. And though the character died six episodes into the show’s final season, his presence was felt through the remainder of the show. It also proved to be a full circle moment, as Omar’s eventual killer was seen earlier in the series imitating him. It was a tragic, yet perfect way to finish the character’s journey. Many shows, such as Grey’s Anatomy, use character deaths to propel storylines that have an ongoing emotional impact not just on the characters, but on the audience as well. And that’s what Hopper’s death in Stranger Things season 3 serves as for viewers. 

Since Hopper’s Coming Back, Here’s What Should Happen     

Considering the easter eggs, the post-credits scene, and Harbour’s own words to /Film, we know that the show is inevitably going to bring Hopper back. And since this seems like it’s going to happen regardless of what anyone thinks, there is a way to bring the character back into the fold without lessening the emotional impact of the character’s supposed death. 

The Duffer Brothers have stated numerous times previously that there is a four-to-five season plan for the show. Based upon the events of season three, either of these would seem extremely likely to happen and would make total sense. In either situation, a Hopper return should be pegged close to the end of the series’ run. Given the show’s track record and how extremely booked several of its stars are, it’ll probably be another two years before we see another Stranger Things season. But no matter how much time elapses, the wound of Hopper’s death will still be fresh, no matter when the season takes place. The characters should still be dealing with the tragic events of season 3. It would be smart to spend the remainder of whatever is left of the series to operate under the guise that Hopper is long gone and six-feet under. If the idea is to do five seasons, maybe have the character not even appear in the fourth season. And if the series does decide that the show’s perfect stopping point will be season four, bringing back the character should be held off as late as possible, unlike Eleven’s early “return-from-the-dead” back in the second season. If they choose to bring him back early, in any capacity, that’ll almost be like the equivalent of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) showing up alive and well in Spider-Man: Far From Home. 

Even if the season 4 premiere opens up with “Hop’s back y’all,” the show has very smartly set up an endgame of sorts, but let’s just hope they don’t bring their Tony Stark back from the dead so quick. At least not yet.  

The post ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 Seemingly Killed Off Some Major Characters – Here’s How They Can Avoid Some Classic Television Pitfalls in Season 4 appeared first on /Film.

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barret907k
1974 days ago
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‘Avengers: Endgame’ Brought Back One MCU Star with Recycled Footage

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natalie portman endgame cameo

There are a lot of surprising (and not-so-surprising) cameos in Avengers: Endgame. While almost all of these involved the original actors returning to reprise their previous roles, there was one specific case that resorted to recycling unused footage. You probably could’ve guessed this while watching the scene in question play-out, but now it’s been confirmed. See which MCU star was brought back with recycled footage below. Beware of major spoilers.

During Avengers: Endgame, Thor and Rocket take a trip through time and end up in Asgard, during the events of Thor: The Dark World. There, they encounter both Thor’s mother Frigga (Rene Russo), and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor’s old flame. Portman hasn’t appeared in a Marvel movie since The Dark World, and she reportedly wasn’t happy working with Marvel. The actress surprised everyone by appearing at the Avengers: Endgame premiere, which lead to speculation that she might have a part in the film.

Sure enough, Portman’s Jane Foster pops-up in the movie. Sort of. While Russo’s Frigga has a lengthy, emotional heart-to-heart scene with Thor, Jane is glimpsed mostly at a distance. There’s only one real close-up shot of her waking up from a nap, at which point she quickly walks off frame and we never see her again. Portman’s fleeting appearance gave me the distinct impression that Endgame was using older footage of the actress, rather than new scenes. Sure enough, that was exactly the case.

Speaking with EWEndgame directors the Russo Brothers reveal that they used ” leftover” footage from Thor: The Dark World for Portman’s scenes. However, the actress did contribute something new for the film – her voice. According to Anthony Russo, the filmmakers brought Portman in to do “a little bit of voice-over when she’s talking in the distance, that’s it.”

I suppose that if she wanted to, Portman could’ve given the Russos a firm “no” on even doing voice-work, but she was game enough to return to the MCU for that brief bit of voice acting. Portman is a gifted actress, but she always seemed ill at ease in the Thor films. It didn’t help that her character was woefully underwritten, and not very interesting. With all this in mind, it’s not surprising that she wanted out of the MCU entirely. And ultimately, having Thor share a bigger moment with his mother in Endgame, rather than Jane, resulted in a more rewarding scene overall.

The post ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Brought Back One MCU Star with Recycled Footage appeared first on /Film.

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barret907k
2050 days ago
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Three Things

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I've expressed my disillusionment with to-do lists before.

But let's try something simpler, a little experiment. What do you use to keep track of what you need to do? Hold it up, so I can see it. Humor me.

Seriously! No no no, hold it closer, near the screen here. Let me look at it. Let me get a good, long look at it.

Now imagine me slapping this thing out of your hand.

don't go there

I just want to make a point, not break your fancy whatchamacallit. So pretend I slapped it into a soft fluffy pillow on the ground, not the hard concrete of the sidewalk. Though I probably should have.

Whatever that thing is, it's a crutch. You don't need it. It's hurting you more than it is helping. Get rid of it.

Instead, ask yourself this:

What three things do you need to do today?

You should be able to instantly answer this simple question, each day, every day, for the rest of your life. Without any tools other than the brain you were born with.

If you don't have this skill, develop it. Practice, starting today. Right now.

What are you doing right now? Is it going to somehow result in one of those three things getting done today? Will this you get you to where you need to be by the end of the day?

I'm not asking you to admonish yourself or to make any changes to your routine. Just keep it simple, focus on the important things, and add a little layer of awareness.

So. Two items left. I'm doing pretty good today.

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barret907k
3873 days ago
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QR Code

8 Comments and 20 Shares
Remember, the installer is watching the camera for the checksum it generated, so you have to scan it using your own phone.
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barret907k
4168 days ago
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Just take a screenshot and google goggles search it.
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7 public comments
TheMadav
4164 days ago
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Everytime you use a QR wrong a kitten dies....
Frankfurt, Germany
pepsy
4165 days ago
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LOL
MourningStar888
4168 days ago
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Brilliant!
Fredonia, NY
Coldorak
4168 days ago
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Infinite loop
bogorad
4168 days ago
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!!
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Aissen
4168 days ago
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Finding two mirrors in 12 seconds is though.
oppodude
4168 days ago
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Cute.
Jackson, TN
brucealdridge
4168 days ago
scanning the code gives you a link, but scanning that one doesn't go any deeper
oppodude
4168 days ago
Yah, I was kind of hoping it would go a bit further, but then again ... joke is on us.
tomazed
4168 days ago
well, that's the joke...
oppodude
4168 days ago
Yup. I was trying to convey that but ... my fingers failed me.

Google: “Take down your ad-free YouTube app” Microsoft: “Let us add ads”

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Last week, Microsoft released a YouTube client for Windows Phone that gave users of Redmond's smartphone platform a rich, capable YouTube experience that didn't depend on using the YouTube Mobile site.

Though the app included account support, playlists, commenting, and most other aspects of YouTube, there's one thing it was missing—advertising. It also had two features it shouldn't have had—the ability to download videos and the ability to play videos that the creators have blocked from mobile devices.

As a result, Googlesent Microsoft a cease-and-desist demandordering the company to stop distributing the application by May 22nd.

Read 5 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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barret907k
4225 days ago
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I understand releasing the app without ads but why did microsoft allow downloading of videos. That is clearly agains the TOS. Piss Youtube off even more?
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peelman
4226 days ago
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They did the same thing to McTube, one of my favorite ios apps, for largely the same reasons. Talk about bullshit.
Seymour, Indiana
teh_g
4226 days ago
Google has to make money somehow. The app is also largely in violation of the YouTube ToS.
korg250
4226 days ago
It is indeed bullshit. If the WP market could hurt Google, then it is big enough to create an app themselves. IMO it all about hurting Microsoft (and being bitchy).
peelman
4225 days ago
reading through teh_g's other sharings, I'm pretty sure he's a Google troll...
peelman
4225 days ago
@korg250 lets not forget the clusterfuck iPhone app they stuck everybody with. No iPad interface, and overall an experience only rivaling their mobile web one in its hideousness.
teh_g
4225 days ago
I do like Google, but I also believe that Microsoft shouldn't violate the Google Terms of Service... If someone made an app to bypass ads in Pandora, wouldn't you expect that to be pulled?