Tag: author_name|Kris Naudus

‘Lower Decks’ mines the weirder corners of the Star Trek universe

The following contains minor spoilers for season two, episode eight of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks.' The subject of “canon” has come up a lot recently. Marvel’s What If…? is a show that plays around but still mostly adheres to it, while Star Wars Visions disregards it almost completely. Meanwhile, Star…

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The Watcher takes center stage on this week’s ‘What If…?’

This post contains spoilers for episode eight of Marvel's 'What If…?' In physics there’s what’s known as the “observer effect,” wherein an object or system is changed merely by observing it. On Marvel’s What If…? each episode has been witnessed by an apparently omniscient narrator known as The Watcher, who…

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‘Metroid Dread’ had me screaming my head off

Thanks to my parents, I was introduced to Monty Python pretty young. And the family that watches absurdist British comedy together… has a lot of in-jokes. For example, Any time we’re, say, outside when it starts raining and we all scurry for shelter, someone in my family is bound to…

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The Switch OLED is a strong contender for most gorgeous handheld ever

Nintendo makes good hardware, but I don’t know if I’d ever personally describe any of it as “beautiful.” The GameCube was cute; I loved the clamshell design of the Game Boy Advance SP; and I still have fond memories of the SNES’s dogbone controller. But the Switch? I’m just sort…

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‘Star Wars: Visions’ breaks from canon while Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ refuses to

The following contains spoilers for episode three of 'Star Wars: Visions' and episode seven of 'What If…?' Back in the days when DVD was king, I remember there was a trend of making animated tie-ins for live-action franchises. There were direct-to-video features for Chronicles of Riddick, Van Helsing and, the…

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What rights does an evil sentient computer have on Star Trek?

This post contains major spoilers for season two, episode seven of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks.’ Artificial intelligence has been baked into the Star Trek universe since the original series. Kirk and his crew occasionally faced off against computers gone amok, including Nomad, Landru and the M-5. The only way to…

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