movie

The production of this Disney movie was so chaotic that a documentary detailing how it was made disappeared

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In 1994, the director of ‘The Lion King’ had his next big movie ready: a musical epic about the Inca Empire, with Sting composing the songs and Owen Wilson in the cast. Six years later, what ended up hitting theaters was ‘The Emperor and His Follies’, something radically different: an emperor turned into a llama, a good-natured peasant and meta jokes that broke the fourth wall. Animated on the fly from an unfinished script, all to meet the release deadlines promised to McDonald’s. A real debacle recorded in a completely inaccessible documentary. The successor to ‘The Lion King’. Development of the film began in 1994 under the title ‘Kingdom of the Sun‘ (The Kingdom of the Sun), as an epic and dramatic adventure loosely inspired by ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ by Mark Twain. Its director was Roger Allers, who was coming off the biggest hit in the studio’s recent history, ‘The Lion King’. Allers introduced then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner, a story set at the height of the Inca civilization. What was it about? The premise was ambitious: an arrogant emperor swaps places with a peasant who physically resembles him, while the villainous Yzma wants to destroy the sun to obtain eternal youth. For the soundtrack, following the model of Elton John’s success in ‘The Lion King’Allers signed Sting, who had already written several songs linked to the original plot. The team traveled to Machu Picchu in 1996 to learn about Inca architecture and Andean landscapes. It was exactly the type of production that Disney had been making since ‘The Little Mermaid’: epic, musical and very, very expensive. So much for Disney. After the disappointing box office results of ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, two films loaded with dramatic elements, studio executives believed that the project was too ambitious and serious, and that it needed more comedy. The solution was to hire Mark Dindal as co-director, and he was tasked with lightening the tone. Allers continued working on his dramatic epic while Dindal pushed toward the absurd. A test screening in 1998 revealed that schizophrenic tone, in two mutually incompatible directions. One of Disney’s executives threatened producer Randy Fullmer with canceling the project. The McDonald’s problem. Added to all this was an extra problem: the film had to be finished in time to be released in the summer of 2000, since the promotional agreements with McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and other companies had already been signed and depended on that date being met. Allers acknowledged that production was delayed, but asked for between six months and a year of extension to solve the problems. It was denied. The director resigned, leaving Disney with at least $20 or $30 million already spent on animation. And no movie for the summer of 2000. Eisner gave Fullmer two weeks to prove the movie was salvageable. If not, the project was closed. Dindal took control alone. He completed ‘The Emperor and His Follies’ in a year and a half, a record for a Disney production, and with an unusual need in the world of animation: it was produced without a finished script. Also in this process the cast changed: Owen Wilson was replaced by John Goodman, because the character of Pacha stopped being a double of the emperor to become a burly family man from the countryside. The hilarious character of Kronk, one of the film’s great discoveries, did not exist until the end: he was added during emergency rewrites. The documentary that Disney doesn’t want you to see. Sting had agreed to compose the songs on one condition: that his wife, documentary filmmaker Trudie Styler, could film the production process. The resulting documentary‘The Sweatbox’, covers the long and troubled production. The title comes from the screening rooms at Disney studios, known for lacking air conditioning. ‘The Sweatbox’ premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2002 and quickly disappeared from circulation: Disney has never released it on DVD or streaming. The documentary includes, among other moments, the call in which Fullmer tells Sting that his eight songs have been eliminated. Only two Sting songs survived on the final soundtrack. The documentary has been compared to ‘Hearts in Darkness’, the making-of of ‘Apocalypse Now’, for its portrait of the human cost in a decaying creative process. And of course, there is a copy of ‘The Sweatbox’ circulating unofficially on the internet. Poor results. The film ended up grossing $169 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million, a disappointing figure compared to Disney’s other hits during the 1990s. The film found some success in the domestic market and became the best-selling DVD of 2001, which would spawn a television series (‘Kuzco: An Emperor in School’) and a direct-to-video sequel (‘The Emperor’s Crazy 2: Kronk’s Big Adventure’). The footprint. Curiously, the influence of ‘The Emperor and His Follies’ is deeper than it seems. The film’s non-stop parody humor anticipated ‘Shrek’, released just a year later, and other animated films with which DreamWorks Animation would find success in subsequent years. This film is quite a visionary and remains one of the most unclassifiable films of modern Disney. In Xataka | The first cartoons were flat and unappealing, until Walt Disney invented something: the multiplane camera.

The horror movie of the summer is ‘Backrooms’, and its origin is so surprising that there is a rumor that its director is not real

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‘Backrooms’ premieres today in the United States (it arrives in Spain on June 5). The film, produced by the unstoppable indie A24is expected to be the horror bomb of the summer (hand in hand with the already tremendous ‘Obsession’, which is putting its hand in the face of ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘). It has 87% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and is expected to open between $45 and $50 million, which would be the biggest debut in the studio’s history. Of course, it faces an unexpected controversy: there are those who say that its director, the very young Kane Parsons, has not really directed the film. What has happened? Days before the premiere, this unexpected rumor has circulated online: a more experienced director would have been working from the shadows. Osgood Perkins, producer of the project and director of the great ‘Longlegs‘. Mark Duplass, who stars in the film alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Finn Bennett, responded in X: “I don’t remember seeing you on set. When I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More than many directors three times his age.” The origin of ‘Backrooms’. As we already explained in detailon May 12, 2019, an anonymous user posted on /x/, the paranormal board on 4chan, a photograph without a signature or context. It looked like a kind of abandoned office: yellowish carpet and walls, fluorescent lighting… It was ridiculously disturbing. The next day someone added a description that spoke of “not clipping out of reality” (a term taken from a glitch of video games in which the player falls into a geometric void beyond the mapping), and ending up trapped in a space that extends infinitely. The backrooms They are an extreme version of what the internet calls liminal spaces: hotel hallways at three in the morning, empty waiting rooms, closed shopping centers, underground parking lots without cars… Recognizable places but stripped of their function and of the people who normally inhabit them. Just like has been explainedthese types of environments activate the same response as the phenomenon of uncanny valleybut applied to physical places. The brain identifies these spaces as known and at the same time does not know how to read them logically. Jump to the cinema. Kane Parsons was 16 years old when he posted his The Backrooms (Found Footage): nine minutes in first person with a VHS filter, in which someone was chased by a strange presence in one of these spaces. The series that followed this first video, full of secret research institutes and dimensional experiments in the eighties, exceeded 197 million views. A24 bought the rights a year later. Youth, divine treasure. One of the apparent hooks of the A24 film, the extreme youth of its director, has worked against it. The press has underlined Parsons’ youthand some conspiracy theorists consider it to be a marketing strategy. In reality, what this talks about is the current situation in Hollywood, which has produced franchised cinema for two decades in which the director is, fundamentally, a technical executor under the creative supervision of the studio. The system of great sagas has normalized the idea that a good film cannot come from the criteria of a single person, a young person without credentials. We viewers are distrustful because that is what the industrial cinema of recent years has taught us. The explanation. Parsons was born in 2005, the year YouTube launched. “YouTube, more than a cultural reference for me, has been the way I know how to do everything I know how to do,” declared. Parsons doesn’t have the kind of resume that the traditional production circuit demands, but rather his only credential is a massive audience of followers who have been reacting to his work in real time for three years. And that is capable of arousing the suspicions of anyone who is buried by the industrial machine logic of modern Hollywood. In Xataka | When a town found a dead whale on its beaches, it decided to dynamite it. 55 years later they still celebrate it

Before Spielberg’s shark arrived, a movie spread panic in Spain with something simpler: staying locked up

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When Antonio Mercero and José Luis Garci traveled to New York in the early 70s, they were climbing the Statue of Liberty when they both decided that José Luis López Vázquez had to star in his next project. Years later, that intuition would end up giving rise to one of the most traumatic images on Spanish television. The real terror is not sharks. Years before Hollywood popularized everyday fear with movies like Jawsa Spanish production of just 35 minutes achieved something even stranger: making thousands of people afraid to enter a telephone booth. The idea was absurdly simple. A man comes in to knock and discovers he can’t get out. Nothing else. But Antonio Mercero immediately understood that there was something deeply disturbing there. It wasn’t just the physical claustrophobia of being trapped inside a glass box. It was the anguish of feeling watched, ignored and finally abandoned throughout the world while everything continues to function normally around. The cabin turned an everyday and seemingly innocent object into one of the most disturbing images on Spanish television. A simple gag. The most fascinating thing is that the film began almost like a joke. Antonio Mercero, José Luis Garci and Horacio Valcárcel initially imagined a comical situation about a man unable to get out of a telephone booth. But Mercero he became obsessed with that image. For years he kept thinking about it until he found the key that transformed the story into something completely different: the protagonist I should never escape. That’s where the real terror appeared. The cabin went from being an absurd sketch to a existential nightmare. Mercero himself understood that the film had to change tone without the viewer realizing it, starting out as an almost friendly comedy of manners and ending up becoming a terrifying descent into something irrational and macabre. In fact, that gender twist continues to be one of the most revolutionary things about the work today. Kafkaesque Madrid. Much of the strength of The Cabin comes from how you use spaces completely normal to make them oppressive. The inner courtyard of Chamberí where the first part takes place functions as a small social laboratory: neighbors watching from balconies, onlookers laughing, police incapable of helping and pedestrians transforming the suffering of others into an improvised spectacle. Mercero obsessively took care of visual details to increase tension. For example, the cabin was painted red because the color generated more nervousnessand was built slightly narrower to enhance the feeling of suffocation by José Luis López Vázquez. The protagonist appeared dressed in dark clothing, “like a fly trapped in a honeycomb,” according to explained the director himself. And then there was the final trip through the peripheral Madrid of the 70s, passing through tunnels, open fields and industrial structures until arriving at the Aldeadávila hydroelectric plant, converted into a kind of mechanical underworld full of corpses trapped in other cabins. Mercero and López during filming López Vázquez and fear. Mercero needed an actor capable of sustaining practically the entire film without dialogue. The story depended on the body expression, the eyes and how the protagonist’s face evolved from initial shame to absolute despair. That’s where José Luis López Vázquez appears, who immediately understood how special the project was and got completely involved in it. The actor even asked roll chronologically to emotionally construct the deterioration of the character. during filming endured extreme heat inside the cabin and physically dangerous scenes suspended over enormous heights while the structure was transported by cranes. All of this was reflected on the screen and it is one of the reasons why the film works, because the viewer physically feel the fear of the character. López Vázquez manages to convey the humiliation of becoming a public spectacle and the horror of understanding that no one is going to save you. Paranoia in Spain. The impact was so great that it bordered on collective psychosis. What’s more, the day after the broadcast, José Luis Garci counted that he saw several people holding the door of the booths with their feet while they called to avoid being locked out. The anecdote was repeated in many Spanish cities. The paranoia reached such a point that Telefónica itself even hired López Vázquez to star in ads intended to reassure the population and convince them that the cabins were safe. The phenomenon is very reminiscent of what Spielberg would achieve two years later with shark: turning something everyday into a permanent source of anxiety. The difference is that Mercero achieved it with something even more banal. There was no need for a monster hidden underwater. A door that didn’t open was enough. More than a horror movie. Part of the greatness of The Cabin is that it continues allowing interpretations more than half a century later. Some saw a review direct to Francoismto the lack of freedom and the feeling of confinement in Spanish society at the time. Others found a reflection on human lack of communication, collective indifference or even death. Mercero always downplayed those readings and said that he was simply interested in telling the story of a trapped man. Be that as it may, that is probably where its strength lies. The movie never fully explains anything. It works like an open parable where each viewer projects their own fears. Maybe that’s why it continues to be so uncomfortable today. Because phone booths disappeared years ago, but the feeling of feeling trapped while the rest of the world watches without doing anything is still completely recognizable. Image | x In Xataka | “Hit me for real”: the story behind Sylvester Stallone and one of the most dangerous scenes in film history In Xataka | The day a man dared to go further than anyone else: a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits

Are we the bad guys in the movie?

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In the ‘Lord of the Rings’ universe, a palantir is the seer stone that Saruman uses to communicate with Sauron. The fact of having chosen this name for a company that is dedicated to mass surveillance It was already a declaration of intentions. After years of doing ethically questionable work, some employees are now beginning to wonder if they are the bad guys in the movie. Friends, realize. What is happening. They tell it in Wired. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Palantir has become a key player in the government’s anti-immigration policy. The company has signed contracts with ICE and its technology makes it possible to identify and deport immigrants in an irregular situation. In addition, it has been used in military operations such as the Iran war, in which a bombing that killed more than 100 children. This has caused an internal crisis, with some current and former employees concerned that the company has gone from “preventing abuse” to directly encouraging it. Why it is important. Palantir was founded after the 9/11 attacks, a context in which citizen surveillance was justified under the narrative of antiterrorism. Now, Palantir’s technology is being used to surveil its own citizens and is key in attacks that have resulted in fatalities. It’s not that they were little sisters of charity before, but lines are being crossed that are too red even for those who defended them. lin response to the company. Employee criticism began after the murder of Alex Pretti at the beginning of the year. Within a Slack channel, some employees began to question the company’s relationship with ICE. “In my opinion, ICE are the bad guys. I’m not proud that the company I enjoy working for so much is part of this,” one of them commented. Palantir responded by deleting the messages several days later, supposedly to prevent leaks. At the same time, the company began to organize question and answer sessions to address any doubts that may arise, as well as the possibility of learning more details under confidentiality contracts. For many employees this was an attempt to silence criticism rather than address it. The ideological turn. Alex Karp, CEO and co-founder of Palantir, He used to define himself as a socialist and defended Democratic candidates like Joe Biden. However, since 2024 he has become a key ally of Trump and his speech defends authoritarian policies. A few days ago he published a 22 point manifesto in X which has unleashed a wave of criticism for its nationalist and militarized ideas. This text also sparked a conversation on Slack, in which several employees were embarrassed that it had been published using the company’s official account and that several acquaintances had asked them about it. It will be yes. It is the short answer to the question that employees ask themselves and there are many indications that they are, indeed, the bad guys. They count in The Country that the company accumulates many accusations for not respecting human rights. Already in 2020 I warned him Amnesty International and the consulting firm MSCI gave it a score of 2 out of 10 in civil liberties. Peter Thiel, its founder, says openly who does not believe that “freedom and democracy are compatible.” What is striking is that, knowing the history of the company and the authoritarian ideas of its leaders, there are employees who still have doubts. In Xataka | Wall Street’s riskiest bet has its own name: Palantir, a castle in the air supported by AI promises

the movie x Lush! Only for Xtra members

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Time is running out to participate in the fourth exclusive draw for subscribers of Xataka Xtra! This prize is a very complete pack of bathroom products from the ‘collectionSuper Mario Galaxy: the movie‘ x Lush valued at around 150 euros and yes, you still have time to choose to take it home. Giveaway will end tomorrow, April 24, at 9:00 Spanish peninsular timeand the winner will be revealed the same day at 11:00. This will be notified by email and will be announced both in the original article as in the exclusive Discord server, to which you also have access with your subscription. How to participate in the giveaway As we indicated previously, this giveaway is reserved for community members Xataka Xtra. If you are already part of it, you simply have to access your member area and make sure you have the correct box checked, as shown in the image above. If you haven’t done so yet, you can quickly access from this link. Make sure you check that box to automatically participate in the exclusive Xataka Xtra draws | Image: Xataka By activating the box you will automatically participate not only in this draw, but in all those to come. If you still do not enjoy the advantages of Xataka Xtra, for only 30 euros a year you can get not only access to raffles, but to Discord serverto The Officeto monthly meetingsstill growing catalog of exclusive discounts on digital servicesetc. The winner will be chosen at random from all participating subscribers, along with two alternates. If the winner does not respond within the period indicated in the legal bases, the first substitute will be contacted, and if he/she does not respond either, the second will be contacted. Winning a giveaway does not exclude you from participating in the following ones. You can consult the complete legal bases here. In Xataka | Subscribe now to Xataka Xtra

In 1953 Hollywood filmed a blockbuster in front of US nuclear tests. It was the most radioactive movie in history, literally

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Year 1953, during a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, several Las Vegas hotels offered their guests privileged views of the mushroom cloud at dawn as if it were a tourist attraction at Disneyland, with cocktails included and terraces full of spectators. The scene, which is difficult to imagine today, reflected the extent to which certain risks were perceived very differently in the midst of the nuclear age. Filming in the Cold War. In the mid-50s, The Conqueror It was born as a historical blockbuster that from the beginning involved decisions that were difficult to justify, such as choosing John Wayne to play Genghis Khan himself under the production of Howard Hughes. Filming moved to locations in Utah, an area that offered spectacular landscapes but was, at the time, close to areas where the United States was filming atmospheric nuclear tests. The context was not a secret, but its risks were not fully understood either, since public and scientific perception of radiation was much more limited than today. That combination of cinematic ambition and geopolitical moment left a scenario that, seen with perspective, is much more disturbing than what it seemed like then. The real environment. This perfectly documented that nuclear testing in the Nevada desert generated radioactive fallout that moved to populated areas, subsequently affecting known communities as “downwinders”. It is also proven that the filming team worked in one of those regions, and that part of the surrounding material was transferred to other sets, potentially expanding exposure. This context is neither a theory nor a subsequent reconstruction, but a historical fact recognized by investigations and official organizations that have studied the consequences of those tests. The passage of time and the uncomfortable statistics. What happened? That, over the years, a significant part of the cast and production team developed cancerincluding figures such as John Wayne himself (who died of the disease in 1979), Susan Hayward and Dick Powell. The most cited figure that gives an idea of ​​the possible impact speaks of more than 90 cases among about 220 people linked to the production, a fact that has fueled the fame of the filming as one of the most disturbing and cursed in the history of Hollywood. Even so, we must remember that this number comes from of informative accounts and not from controlled epidemiological studies, which requires treating it with some caution despite its impact. What is proven and what is not. The line between facts and story is key in history. It’s proven that there was exposure to a potentially contaminated environment and that several team members developed serious illnesses over time. What is not proven is a direct causal relationship between filming and these cancers, since factors such as personal habits (including smoking) and the lack of comparable clinical data, facts or causalities may enter, making any definitive conclusion difficult. Therefore, the case remains an ambiguous terrain: perfectly plausible in its approach, but not scientifically confirmed. From failure to modern myth. Upon its release, the film was received quite coldly and criticalremaining in the popular imagination as another failure within the industry. However, as the decades passed, his memory has changed completely, transforming into a story that combines Hollywood, Cold War and invisible risk. What at the time was simply a bad creative and logistical decision ended up being reinterpreted as an episode from the world of celluloid. loaded with symbolism about the limits of knowledge and (i)responsibility. The context changes everything. Because the story of The Conqueror lies not only in what happened during filming, but in how that same filming fits within an era in which exposure to nuclear risks formed part of the everyday landscape. There is no doubt, what seemed acceptable then is today perceived as true nonsense, and this radical change of perspective is what turns the case into something more than a movie anecdote. It wasn’t just a problematic shoot, but an example of how seemingly normal decisions can take on a completely different meaning. with the passage of time. Image | RKO In Xataka | The day a man dared to go further than anyone else: a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits In Xataka | One of the most iconic scenes from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ had an infallible trick: the pain you saw in the scene was not fiction

The industry does not stop raising the price of games and I have gotten hooked on this free movie guessing game

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There’s something perversely satisfying about spending weeks thinking more about Al Pacino movies because of one game than any recent AAA release. This movie guessing game has no cutscenes spectacular nor does it come with an ambitious built-in trailer. This is a free website, without invasive advertising, that makes you chain movies with an unknown rival from the other side of the world. Is called ‘Cine2Nerdle‘, and its Battle 2.0 mode is, right now, the hardest thing for me to leave in the browser. How to play. The daily puzzle puts you in front of a grid of 4×4 tiles. Each card contains a word or phrase. The objective is to rearrange them by exchanging positions until each row or column alludes to or describes a movie. There are between four and five movies hidden on each board. When you have three tiles of the same movie lined up, they light up yellow; when you complete all four, the row is resolved. And when you have four horizontally you have to reorganize in search of the fifth. All with limited movements, of course. What makes Cine2Nerdle genuinely interesting in its single-player mode is its constant cheating. A card can belong to a row because it is the place where a movie takes place, and simultaneously to a column because it is the last name of the leading actor in another. This game of polysemy also affects false paths; A proper name can have multiple owners, an initial can be a title or the name of a character. Each puzzle is more like a crossword puzzle than a logic test. Its secret: Battle Mode. The daily puzzle is already good enough, but what makes ‘Cine2Nerdle’ a diabolical invention is the Battle mode, and more specifically its second version. The basic idea is a 1vs1 duel in real time: both players start from an initial film and have 25 seconds, taking turns to chain together others that share at least one member of the artistic team: actor, director, screenwriter, director of photography. And so on until someone is left without an answer or runs out of time. What Battle 2.0 added over the previous version is a layer of strategy that transforms the game. Before, games could last about an hour if both players knew cinema well. Now each player carries a “battle kit” that includes items as a condition for immediate victory (for example, mentioning four science fiction films from the eighties or connecting films with an actor without using him as a direct connector), life savers (small helps, such as revealing facts about the films) and the possibility of banning films or actors to the rival. Thus the games are resolved in about five minutes. The good thing: before each game you prepare the kit of aids and objectives that you have gained while playing, and thus you can make up for your film-loving shortcomings. Pure RPG mechanics. The strategy. You have to use the aspects in which you are strong and have knowledge to drag the rival there. For example: are you an expert in horror films from the eighties? Mention long career directors who take the game from the present, where everyone knows titles, to decades past (e.g. John Carpenter). Take the game to your territory, and there, begin to uncover increasingly rare films, and reinforce your choices with prohibitions on using the best-known actors in the cast. The remains of ‘Wordle’. When the New York Times bought ‘Wordle’ for more than a million dollars By early 2022, the game already had millions of daily users. The formula was simple: one word per day, shareable on networks, without unnecessary additives. What followed was an avalanche of thematic derivatives: geography (Worldle), music (Heardle), mathematics (Nerdle)… Most did not survive a year. Cine2Nerdle He is one of the survivors. It was created by Nilanth Yogadasan, who had already published CineNerdle (a puzzle of film frames that were revealed little by little). The jump to “2” completely changed the mechanics and also, as its creator recognizesis a nod to the style of titles like ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’: the sequel that puts the number in the middle. The kind of winks for coffee lovers that turn a game for film nerds into an accessible and fun experience. In Xataka | The Spanish Puzzle Championship exists, real professionals participate and there are prizes of up to 1,000 euros

Since 2019, Spanish movie theaters have not had so much attendance in a single weekend. The person responsible: Torrente

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‘Torrente Presidente’ arrived in theaters on March 13 without a trailer, without press passes and with a poster with a black background as the only promotional material. In 72 hours it raised close to 7 million euros: with one million viewers, it is the best start for a Spanish film in fifteen years. And these are the causes of the phenomenon. The figures. The first numbers of ‘Torrente Presidente’, before the weekend ended, were already overwhelming and predicted extraordinary success. Premiere on 1077 screens. 150,000 tickets sold in advance. 2.4 million euros and 300,000 spectators on Friday alone. At the end of the weekend, it had generated a total of 6.94 million euros, 70% of the national box office. Of course, it is the weekend with the highest attendance at cinemas since 2019, before the pandemic. The figure places the sixth installment of the saga as the fourth best premiere in the history of Spanish cinema, behind ‘The Impossible’ (€8.9M), ‘Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis’ (€8.6M) and ‘Torrente 3: The Protector’ (€7.21M). It is also the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year and the best debut of a Spanish production in the last eleven: no national film had reached that level of box office on its opening day since at least 2015. Unusual marketing. Segura opted for a launch strategy completely atypical: The film arrived in theaters without a trailer, without promotion and without prior press screenings, announcing itself only with a publication on social networks. The director has explained that his intention was that fans of the saga would be the first to enjoy it. Curiously, Segura has for decades been one of the most active Spanish directors in the promotion machine, continually appearing on television wearing t-shirts with the film’s title. Once ‘Torrente Presidente’ was released, it has already been seen on programs like ‘El Hormiguero’ and has begun to give interviews and give access to press passes. You know what you’re going for. Curiously, Torrente’s films do not stand out for their plot twists or spectacular surprises, but there is another secret to keep: the cameos. As could be seen when the film arrived in theaters, ‘Torrente Presidente’ is one of the densest films in the saga (if not the most) in terms of number of cameos and guest stars. That was what Segura did not want revealed, and that is why there are abundant articles on the internet that they gut this aspect of the movie. It is the great secret of the premiere, above its plot or its approach, where it rains in the wet. And now what. If in a film like this the surprise effect is important, word of mouth is even more important. From its second week onwards, Segura will adhere to the usual rules of the promotion (trailer, poster, pass, interviews) seeking to maintain the momentum. The first milestone that ‘Torrente Presidente’ has to overcome is the 22.1 million in revenue from ‘Torrente 2’, the most lucrative of the saga to date. At this rate, this second week could exceed the 14 million euros that the intermediate installments of the saga accumulated, amounts that the films of ‘Father there is only one‘. In Xataka | There are many people who hate Santiago Segura’s films. The problem is that they “save” Spanish cinema every year

This Star Trek movie was canceled in 1977 because science fiction had no future. Two weeks later Star Wars premiered

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In the mid-1970s, ‘Star Trek‘ was experiencing a unique phenomenon in the entertainment industry. The original series, canceled in 1969 after three seasons of discreet audiences, had found an unexpected second life. Continuous reruns and fan enthusiasm (the first phenomenon of its kind to develop pop culture) encouraged Paramount to extend the original mythology. In 1976, a full-page advertisement appeared in ‘The New York Times’ proclaiming the imminent production of a Star Trek film: ‘Planet of the Titans’, and which aspired to take the franchise into uncharted cinematic territories. The origin. Producer Gerald Isenberg assumed executive control of the project in July 1976, intending to transform ‘Star Trek’ into a first-rate cinematic event. To direct, Paramount hired Philip Kaufman, a filmmaker whose profile was unconventional for a franchise. Kaufman would direct acclaimed works such as ‘Chosen for Glory’ and would delve into a science fiction very different from ‘Star Trek’ in the remake of ‘Invasion of the Ultracorps’ in 1978. But by 1976 he had already directed the western ‘No Law or Hope’ and the arctic adventures of ‘The White Dawn’. Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, British writers of the superb and extremely rare ‘Shadow Menace’, were chosen as scriptwriters. The conceptual basis of the project was nourished by ambitious sources: Kaufman and Isenberg structured the narrative inspired by the novel ‘The Last and the First Humanity’ by Olaf Stapledon, which traces human evolution over billions of years. As a scientific advisor, Paramount hired Jesco von Puttkamer, a NASA engineer. Ralph McQuarriewhose conceptual work for ‘Star Wars’ was then in full development, would do the designs. The conflicts. Creative tensions quickly emerged. Kaufman aspired to create a cinematographic work that would dialogue with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ in visual and philosophical complexity. Gene Roddenberry, creator of the original series, defended its essence. Bryant and Scott they were trapped between these two incompatible visions, trying to balance the artistic ambitions of one and the fidelity of the other. The budget, initially set at three million dollars, rose to 10 million. What was it about? Captain James T. Kirk has disappeared three years ago, during a rescue mission near a black hole. The Enterprise remains operational, but Spock has returned to Vulcan. When Starfleet detects anomalous energetic emissions coming from the same black hole where Kirk was lost, Spock rejoins. They discover a planet trapped inside the black hole, the mythical home of the Titans, an ancient civilization possessing technology superior to that of humans. The planet is being inexorably sucked into the black hole. Spock locates Kirk, scarred by years of isolation and transformed by cosmic forces. The planned outcome was the most radical bet: to escape collapse, the Enterprise deliberately enters the black hole, emerging not in its time, but in our prehistory. The crew discovers that they themselves are the Titans of mythology. Kirk is Prometheus, the bringer of fire to early humanity. The script does not clarify whether the crew would finally manage to return to their time or would be trapped observing the slow development of human history that they themselves had started. Kirk is dead. But… why make a movie in which the legendary Kirk is practically absent? William Shatner’s contract with Paramount had expired, leading Bryant and Scott to develop a first draft that eliminated Kirk. After several weeks of work, the studio informed them that an agreement had been reached and that Kirk should be reinstated as the lead. This twist forced a substantial rewrite of the material. And the situation with Leonard Nimoy was even more complex: the actor withdrew from the project due to a conflict over the unauthorized use of his image as Spock in a Heineken advertisement, but an agreement was finally reached. The cancellation. Bryant and Scott submitted their first completed draft on March 1, 1977, after months of intense creative negotiations, but ultimately walked away from the project. Kaufman personally took on the rewrite of the script. His version intensified the role of Spock and developed the dynamic with a Klingon played by none other than the legendary Toshiro Mifune. Just when he was convinced he had found the definitive story, he was told that Paramount had canceled the project. This happened in May 1977, just seventeen days before the premiere of ‘Star Wars’. Kaufman would always remember the phrase that a studio executive told him as justification for the cancellation: “there is no future in science fiction.” Why was it cancelled? They converged different factors: the increase in costs, the fear that ‘Star Wars’ would saturate the science fiction market and the belief that they had distanced themselves too much from the original series. When ‘Star Wars’ grossed more than $775 million worldwide, Paramount pitched ‘Star Trek: Phase II,’ a television series planned as the flagship of a new company television network. It would also be cancelled, although one of its scripts would eventually become the basis for ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’, released in December 1979. The legacy. ‘‘Planet of the Titans’ was not the first failed attempt to bring ‘Star Trek’ to the cinema, but rather one more link in a chain of frustrated projects that reflected Paramount’s uncertainty about how to capitalize on the franchise: there are cases as popular as the legendary and disturbing film ‘The God Thing’, written by Roddenberry himself in 1975, or the many attempts to recruit science fiction authors to contribute ideas for films, as happened with Harlan Ellison in the late seventies. And although something remained from the film in the future after the cancellation of ‘Planet of the Titans’ (for example, the concept designs They were reused in 2017 in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’), this cursed movie is the perfect example of what ‘Star Trek’ has always been. A sign that there are more ways to do science fiction outside of spectacle pulp of Star Wars and, at the same time, the confirmation that it is very complicated to do so. In Xataka | More and more … Read more

Science has named what you feel when a Pixar movie makes you cry

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Watching the end of a Pixar movie and witnessing an unexpected reunion at an airport can trigger something in some people: a lump in the throat, a warmth in the chest, and even watering in the eyes. And it is not sadness nor euphoric happiness, but a sensation that has received a name very recently. A problem. For years, psychology has had trouble categorizing this specific sensation. We call it “being moved”, “striking a chord” or having “mixed feelings”. However, for a decadea group of scientists from UCLA and the University of Oslo has given it a technical namea theoretical framework and an evolutionary explanation. Is called ‘Kama Muta‘, and it is the scientific label for one of the most powerful tools of our survival, which is sudden connection. Something that we can also feel on social networks when we see the video of a grandmother with her grandson, for example, in a very idyllic situation. Kama Muta. A term that comes from Sanskrit and literally means “to be moved by love” (or “to be filled with love”). And although the name sounds very mystical, there is a scientific part behind it that supports it, since it has been systematically studied. by Kama Muta Labled by anthropologists and psychologists. According to his founding article from 2016and later reviews in Annual Review of Psychologykama muta is not a “new” emotion in the sense that we have just discovered it, but rather that we have just classified it. That is, we had these localized feelings, but we didn’t know what name to give them. Its definition. A positive emotional response triggered by a sudden intensification of communal relationships. In other words: it is what your body feels when you perceive that a social bond is suddenly created, repaired or strengthened. A physical triad. Unlike other abstract emotions, kama muta has a very clear physiological signature that researchers have validated in cross-sectional studies. According to research by Zickfeld published in Emotionwhich spanned 19 countries and 15 languages, the universal symptoms are clear: wet eyes, goosebumps, and a feeling of warmth. A sensation of warmth that curiously centers right in the heart of the chest. Something that already says a lot about this new emotion. Why we are sorry. Why did evolution design us to cry and tremble when we see others hugging? The answer is in group survival. Science suggests that this emotion acts as a social glue, since by feeling physically rewarded by the connection (our own or someone else’s), we are more predisposed to take care of others and sacrifice ourselves for the group. In this way, it has the power to humanize “others.” In an experiment, showing moving videos that induced kama muta significantly increased the perception of humanity towards outgroups, reducing any prejudices one might have. It’s not just “feeling good,” it’s a biological mechanism to expand our circle of empathy. Climate action. The most interesting from recent research is that kama muta does not remain a passive experience, but predicts behavior as well. A 2023 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that messages about climate change that evoked kama muta (focused on connection to the planet and shared responsibility) were more effective in predicting pro-environmental intentions than those based on fear or guilt. Images | Nik Shuliahin In Xataka | If the question is “where is the secret to happiness,” an expert believes it is hidden in these 15 statements

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