#but it still had the original install from 1999

[naomithegiraffe]

well, the new monitor doesn't seem to want to display any picture, i can hear it degaussing when i power it up, but then nothing. it's a multisync with a few different inputs so i might have something set up wrong there or it might just be my cable or something, but im not super sure yet. on the upside, it looks good on my desk and serves as a great place to stick all my tiny robots, so like, def not a complete loss there at least!!

[lonestarflight]

Space Shuttle Development, Phase B: North American Rockwell and General Dynamics B9U/NAR-161-B

North American and General Dynamics B9U / NAR-161-B proposed their final Phase B shuttle proposal on June 25, 1971.

"The fully reusable 'B9U / NAR-161-B' configuration would now weigh 2,290t at liftoff vs. the Phase-A limit of 1,587t and the total estimated cost of the development project had doubled, to almost $10 billion. The thrust of the space shuttle main engines had to be increased from 1,850KN to 2,450KN. Part of the problem was the shuttle now would have to be a much more versatile and capable vehicle than originally anticipated, since the space station and the manned lunar/planetary program evaporated in 1970. Critics in Congress contended that it was 'a project searching for a mission.' As a result, the new space transportation system was instead increasingly being promoted as a low-cost 'space truck' for unmanned NASA & USAF satellites."

"The North American Rockwell 'NAR-161-B' orbiter was designed for carrying a crew of two plus up to ten passengers in the forward crew module. Note the four deployable landing jet engines on top of the vehicle; NASA was planning to use modified F-15 or B-1B aircraft jet engines on some missions and for ferry flights from test sites or alternative landing fields. But the jets would be omitted for heavy-lift missions since the additional weight greatly reduced the shuttle's payload capability. The thermal protection system was based on silica tiles. The blended wing/body design was chosen for uniform load distribution. It would have produced a 2300-kilometer crossrange capability to satisfy USAF reentry requirements; North American also decided to replace the wingtip fins with a single vertical tail. The 2,450KN main engine thrust upgrade was motivated in part by the need to have a single engine-out abort capability. Analysis showed that the orbiter still would be able to return to the launch site after a single orbit in case one of its two main engines failed during ascent, but only if the engines were powerful enough. Unlike McDonnell-Douglas (who proposed to use RL-10s), North American favored a brand new oxygen/hydrogen 45KN-thrust orbital maneuvering system (OMS) engines. Three OMS engines would have been carried for orbit insertion, orbital changes and the de-orbit burn."

"General Dynamics' final 'B9U' booster design differed considerably from the earlier straight-wing 'B8D' concept. The landing jets were moved from the nose back to the delta wing in order to reduce the launch drag & heating effects and to minimize the jet engine exhaust effects on stability, control and drag. General Dynamics felt the delta wing would provide better stability & control over the entire flight regime than the B8's straight wing. It would also create more room for the main landing gear and jet engine installation. The gross liftoff mass was 1,886.2t including a jet fuel load of 62.2t for the 850km flight back to the launch site. The high staging velocity (3300m/s) and altitude (73.8km) created some problems since the booster would have to be very large, require a relatively advanced thermal protection system and carry lots of jet fuel for the return flight. The contractors also examined downrange landing sites or in-flight propellant transfer in order to reduce the amount of booster jet fuel. NASA also seriously considered a proposal to use gaseous hydrogen rather than jet fuel since it would have saved thousands of kilograms, but decided against the idea in the end since it would have increased the technical risk."

North American Rockwell Phase-B shuttle orbiter docks with modular space station.

"Payload capability (without landing jets): 29,484kg into a 185km 28.5 deg. Orbit; 18,144kg into a 185km 90 deg. polar orbit; 11,340kg into a 500km 55 deg. orbit with landing jets installed on orbiter and 20,411kg without landing engines.

Cost per mission: $100-200/lb. [1970 rates] or $950-$1900/kg in 1999. 75 missions/year max. Space station rescue mission capability within 48 hours of emergency call.

Liftoff Thrust: 2,606,810 kgf. Total Mass: 2,188,488 kg. Core Diameter: 10.4 m. Total Length: 98.0 m.

Stage Number: 1. 1 x Shuttle R134C-1 Gross Mass: 1,886,200 kg. Empty Mass: 290,000 kg. Thrust: 29,370-32,233.575 KN. Isp: 442 sec. Burn time: 209 sec. Isp(sl): 392 sec. Diameter: 10.4 m. Span: 43.9 m. Length: 82 m. Propellants: Lox/LH2 No Engines: 12. SSME Study

Stage Number: 2. 1 x Shuttle R134C-2 Gross Mass: 383,260 kg. Empty Mass: 121,560 kg. Thrust (vac): 5,624.8 KN. Isp: 459 sec. Burn time: 264 sec. Isp(sl): 359 sec. Diameter: 4.6 m. Span: 32.6 m. Length: 62.8 m. Propellants: Lox/LH2 No Engines: 2. SSME Study

- information from "INTRODUCTION TO FUTURE LAUNCH VEHICLE PLANS [1963-2001]" by Marcus Lindroos: link

SDASM Archives: 08_00941, 08_00943, 08_00944

Mike Acs's Collection: link, link

Numbers Station: link, link, link, link, link

source

Boeing image: 71SV13043

[voidtongued]

I assume youre not much of an oc type of person, but did you have any like backstory or smth planned for Rev Tal?

Oh buddy you have no idea how wrong you are about me not being an oc person. I have a spreadsheet of like 40-ish ocs. This here blog voidtongued used to be a full on warframe roleplay blog but. most of my rp parners went inactive in terms of the writing aspect (we still chat and play the game and talk about how much we miss role-playing from time to time but a lot of us are. adults with full time jobs now and it makes it difficult to do that)

ANYWAY. Short answer is yes. Long answer is beneath the cut lmao

Rev Tal is a Venusian-born Tenno, raised by people who would later become some of the first Solaris. They were on the Zariman Ten-Zero, and after the void jump accident their possible existences diverged into The Operator and The Drifter. Blah blah, events of the game story quests with some minor canon divergence (Rev Tal being far warmer to the Grineer in any situation because they recognize the average Grineer trooper as a brainwashed soldier and as much of a victim as they are, etc), and slowly began to develop an intense distrust bordering on hatred of The Lotus. After the events of The Apostasy Prologue, they effectively renounced the Lotus and became a full-time Arbiters of Hexis operative Tenno, preparing for the coming Sentient invasion.

Things... Changed after The New War, with the apparent death of The Operator, a rift opened to Duviri, where the Drifter had been. Drifting. Surviving. Trying to find a way out and back into the reality they were "originally" from. The Drifter learned how to navigate the Void's reality and unreality, and has had dealings with the Murmur that left them changed and bitter. During the events of The New War, the Drifter and the Operator met face-to-face and realized that they were technically two parts of a whole individual, now styling themself Big Rev to differentiate from the child Rev Tal had been.

Big Rev is the best of both worlds - The Operator's energy and drive to succeed tempered by The Drifter's perspective and adult emotional maturity.

I've written two fics on ao3 from. forever ago. regarding Rev Tal's story - How to Make a Martyr and Voidtouched. HTMAM was written after I finished the Sacrifice iirc and was determined to un-fuck the in-game depiction of Rell and TMITW in Chains of Harrow, and Operation Hostile Mergers was the impetus for me writing Voidtouched (iirc Hostile Mergers dropped like, while I was writing it and I went back and reworked some things? it's been like three+ years i do Not remember). I was gonna write more, but I got busy with school and life and my brain, computer, and hands decided to explode and I had to take an extended break from the game. I'm back now though, and very behind, and I keep toying with going back to what was going to be the third installment in Rev Tal's story, the Guardian's Song, which would've gotten into their backstory more formally, but with the number of things that have changed with TNW and the Duviri Paradox and now Whispers in the Walls and eventually Warframe 1999. I'd have to do a LOT of reworking and i dont. wanna.

[xb-squaredx]

How Monolith Soft’s Future Was Redeemed

Whether you’ve heard of game developer Monolith Soft before or not, if you’re into the gaming landscape they’re definitely a name worth remembering, and they’ve had quite the history over their 23 years in the business. Founded by Tetsuya Takahashi and Hirohide Sugiura, themselves veterans of Square from the 1990s, the company has undergone many trials and tribulations and worked with a variety of different companies from 1999 to the present day. With their latest release wrapping up the current trilogy in the Xenoblade series, I figured there was no better time than to look back and reflect on the journey the company and the founders of that company have gone through, so let’s get right to it!

TAKAHASHI’S PERFECT WORKS

Looking at Takahashi’s resume alone will show that he had a hand in a variety of beloved games during his time at Square. Working on Final Fantasy IV, V and VI among a few other titles such as Romancing Saga, Takahashi and his wife, Soraya Saga, would pitch an idea for the seventh Final Fantasy game. While rejected for being considered too dark for the brand, they were eventually given permission to develop it into their own title, which would become known as Xenogears. Takahashi and Saga had ambitious plans for the title, believing it could become a massive franchise in its own right, though the actual game’s development was fraught with issues.

Xenogears was composed of two discs, and the first disc set up lofty expectations for the rest of the game, balancing a story steeped in religious and philosophical themes alongside turn-based battles that would utilize giant robots, or “Gears.” However, the second disc was mostly comprised of narration from characters with hardly any gameplay or cinematics. This was allegedly done as a result of both the development team’s inexperience and inability to extend the two year development deadline, and thus was done as a compromise of sorts, or else the game would have shipped half-complete. The game’s English localization almost didn’t happen, with several translators quitting the project, both due to the difficulty of translating a game loaded up with references to various scientific and philosophical concepts, on top of controversy surrounding its religious themes. Despite these setbacks, the game was still critically acclaimed and it was clear that Takahashi and Saga were keen on developing the game’s world more. Alongside development of Xenogears they had also crafted “Perfect Works,” their plans for other installments in the setting that would span a much larger story. Xenogears itself was considered, chronologically, to be the fifth part of what would have eventually been six entries.

However, Takahashi and company had routinely faced issues with Square both before and during development of this title. Growing frustrated with their prioritizing of the Final Fantasy brand above all else, they would eventually found Monolith Soft, taking with them a number of other staff they worked with. They found themselves in bed with Namco, who would publish their games for much of the 2000s. Monolith Soft would then decide to start over and craft a new franchise that would follow Perfect Works…and that game would become the Xenosaga series.

A more explicitly sci-fi series from the get go, Xenosaga was conceived as a six game series, with possible plans for it branching out into multimedia, with an animated series and manga series produced, alongside a few spinoffs titles that would end up staying Japan exclusive. A spiritual successor through and through, Xenosaga contained a number of references to the Xenogears series, alongside a continued focus on mech battles, religious and philosophical themes and turn-based combat. While the first game was a strong debut for this new franchise, each subsequent entry would sell less and less, eventually trimming the series down to three games out of its originally planned six. History repeated with regards to development issues, particularly with Xenosaga: Episode II, as Takahashi had taken on a supervising role, and the team itself was composed of newer staff that wasn’t prepared for such an ambitious title. Takahashi would admit the series underperformed on the whole, part of the reason for the sudden halving of the planned story. Despite a clean start, it seemed as if Perfect Works was anything but a perfect project, with now two failed franchises behind them. However, the winds of fate would wind up changing.

FINDING THEIR FOOTING WITH NINTENDO

Monolith Soft ended up cozying up with Nintendo as the years went on, eventually being purchased by the company and becoming a first-party studio in the late 2000s. Morale at the studio was low after Xenosaga’s abrupt ending, but Takahashi was ready to move onto a new project as a way to boost employee spirits. Coming from an image that appeared in his head of two gigantic gods locked in fierce battle, the idea would develop into a game originally titled Monado: Beginning of the World. However, at the behest of former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, the title would be changed to Xenoblade, to honor the struggles Monolith Soft had undergone over the years and serve as a slight connecting thread to past projects. And the rest is history…to a point.

The original Xenoblade Chronicles debuted on the Wii in 2010, a massive near open-world RPG with a deep MMO-inspired combat system and an ambitious story. Compared to past efforts, Xenoblade was a game that Takahashi and company were able to realize with a comparatively smooth development, with few compromises to the original vision of the game at that. Releasing to relatively high critical acclaim, the game was initially not localized outside of Japan. Eventually Nintendo of Europe showed interest and would localize it, but Nintendo of America wouldn’t budge. This game, alongside a few others, actually inspired the “Operation Rainfall” fan movement to give them more attention and see localization (and I’ve even written about it before LINK HERE), and while Nintendo might not publically acknowledge the campaign as a deciding factor the game would eventually be brought to North America…exclusively in Gamestop stores. A low initial print, combined with Gamestop selling “used” copies at high prices, insured it became one of the harder to find Wii games, and while it was somewhat better known outside of Japan, it was still rather niche.

That began to change in the Wii U era, however. In a 2013 Nintendo Direct showcasing early looks at various Wii U games, a mysterious title from Monolith Soft was shown. Codenamed X, it was yet another massive RPG with a decidedly more sci-fi look…that sure seemed familiar. Eventually releasing as Xenoblade Chronicles X in 2015, this title would also see acclaim for its massive world and complex combat, though being a Wii U release it didn’t exactly reach many players. A year prior however, Shulk was revealed to be included in the base roster for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, being the last character announced before launch. This helped to put Xenoblade as a series on the map, and gave some momentum that Monolith Soft would continue into the Nintendo Switch era.

Since their acquisition, Monolith Soft would also work as a support studio for Nintendo, particular with their Kyoto office comprised mainly of artists, creating assets for a variety of projects. Over the years, they’ve worked on the Super Smash. Bros. series (Brawl), the Legend of Zelda series (from Skyward Sword all the way to Tears of the Kingdom), the Animal Crossing series from New Leaf onward as well as the Splatoon series. Their help was greatly appreciated with the more recent console Zelda titles in particular, as they were instrumental in creating the vast expanses that would help make Breath of the Wild a smash hit. Considering they’ve lent their talents to a variety of games that have gone on to sell like hotcakes and break past previous franchise records, I think that really helped them prove their worth as an asset for Nintendo, and as such they are given license to continue their own ambitious projects.

At the tail end of 2017, the Switch’s debut year, we would get Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which would go on to become the best-selling entry in the series and experience a boon of new players. More in-line with the fantasy aesthetics of the Wii game, 2 also continued exploring similar themes and further developing the battle system shared across both previous games in the series. Despite its success, the game itself still ran into problems though. With much of Monolith staff working on BOTW it was mostly a skeleton crew on Xenoblade 2, resulting in a number of third-party artists being brought on to ensure the game could be completed, though that also led to complaints about the inconsistent art style and character designs. Technically, the game had issues at launch that were slowly patched out, and being the first simultaneous worldwide launch of the series, it was clear that the English localization was not given as much care as previous games. Despite this, it was clear that this title was what helped to establish Xenoblade as a core Nintendo IP moving forward, and the franchise continues to do well.

A BRIGHT FUTURE AHEAD

Following Xenoblade 2’s release, it would receive a prequel game as part of its expansion pass, Torna: The Golden Country, which fleshed out events happening in that game’s distant past, alongside polishing up gameplay to relative acclaim. In 2020, an enhanced port of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 would release on the Switch, with updated visuals (in particular polishing up the character models), and a new epilogue story, Future Connected. The heroines of Xenoblade 2, Pyra and Mythra, would be announced as playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s second Fighters Pass as well.

In 2022, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 would see a surprise reveal at the start of the year, releasing just a few months later. After the somewhat mixed reception of the previous game, 3 received rave reviews and several Game of the Year nominations. Many felt it to be an emotionally charged journey, once again spanning a massive world and containing complex combat to wrap it all together. In just a few years, the entire trilogy was now available all on one system. Not too shabby for a series initially struggling to get localized.

The major thing to remember with the Xenoblade series is that it was yet another fresh start for Takahashi and company. While still clearly its own thing, as the years went on many eagle-eyed fans would spot various references to past Xeno games. These often were seen as knowing winks and nods, but little else. When it came to various characters and story beats, there were also some connecting threads indicating that Takahashi, after all of these years, might finally be dusting off “Perfect Works” and starting anew again, after he had previously sworn it off and considered the ideas scrapped. One major change this time around however seemed to be based around making sure each individual game in the Xenoblade series would be a standalone tale that wouldn’t require playing previous entries. There were some connecting threads, yes, but ultimately each entry could stand on its own and fully realize a given theme or story idea without having to overtly connect into a larger narrative. And then Xenoblade 3’s story DLC happened.

Released at the tail-end of April 2023, Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed was yet another prequel campaign in a similar vein to Torna. Future Redeemed would cover events that occurred in the backstory for the base game, however this time around it became clear VERY quickly that this was where it would all come together. Without getting into the details of things, on top of being wary of spoiling this expansion after it just released, Future Redeemed ends up being the means to tie the trilogy together and end it on a satisfying note, with a conclusion that gave fans a lot of closure. Various theories were finally put to rest, though just as many have sprung up in the wake of that game’s ending.

It isn’t immediately clear just where this franchise, or Monolith Soft as a company, will be going next, but my gut tells me we have some great things in store. The core Xenoblade trilogy may be done, but Takahashi has gone on record stating he wants the series to continue for as long as he can do so. There’s still a lot of clear affection for their previous efforts as well. Xenosaga’s KOS-MOS and T-ELOS were guest characters in Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s expansion pass, and there have been more…overt nods to the series in general as time has gone on. There are rumors here and there that the series might return in some form. At the very least, I’m sure many a fan would be happy with simple ports to current systems, but we’ll have to wait and see just where Takahashi’s Wild Ride takes us.

In the end, I’m just happy to see that Monolith Soft has managed to turn out alright after all these years. I first became aware of them when, on a lark, I picked up a copy of the original Xenoblade. I was struck by that game’s scope and ambition and I’ve been a diehard fan ever since. Seeing just how much they’ve been carrying Nintendo into the Switch era, I think it’s only fair that they get the respect they deserve. On top of it all, it sounds like the company promotes a fairly healthy work/life balance, and their time with Nintendo has enabled them to see their visions through with few compromises. A win-win for all involved, really. Their own original entries might always be a bit niche and definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m glad their ambitions are becoming more and more realized as time goes on. From humble beginnings in the trenches at Square, to now being a pillar of one of the Big Three game publishers, I can’t wait to see the heights that Monolith Soft can climb.

-B

[allstartrekgames]

Star Trek: Hidden Evil

Original Release: 1999

Developer: Presto

Publisher: Activision

Platform: PC

This was the first one that was a nightmare to get running. Even though it’s on GoG, it requires audio hardware acceleration to be turned off, which isn’t an option on Windows 11. In the end, I had to install Windows 10 on a partition to get it working. Was it worth it? Definitely not.

Hidden Evil starts out quite promising. You play as Ensign Sovok, a human that was raised by Vulcans and is the first human to have mastered the Vulcan neck pinch (which you use in the stealth sections of the game). He serves on a station near Ba’ku, that has discovered ancient ruins near where the Son’a are settling, and they have requested Picard to look into it.

Leaving the Enterprise E and everyone but Data behind Picard has Sovok take him to Ba’ku to investigate, although the Son’a soon start a rebellion.

The game is played form a stationary camera. The controls aren’t as bad as I expected, and worked well when mapped to a controller. Aiming isn’t easy, so you’ll just flail and spam the shoot button until you hit something. There’s a few basic puzzles, but most of the game is just roaming around, occasionally shooting things. There’s a lot of pointless back and forth and padding to the game – which is astonishing for a game that is shorter than Insurrection.

The plot starts to pick up when you discover one of the ancient beings: one of the aliens from The Chase. Then, just as things get interesting, she’s immediately disposed of and instead the real villain is revealed: a big organic blob that spews out insect soldiers. Given time, this thing could overrun the entire galaxy. Romulans take her and then you have two really boring missions aimlessly roaming corridors on a Romulan space station and the Enterprise E – somehow they made exploring the Enterprise boring (also, only Picard and Data still talk to you on the Enterprise).

Hidden Evil feels like a game that had big plans, but the developers didn’t have the budget to do what they want. As a result, it feels like they gave up on their own story half way through this short game.

[quaddmgd]

The future of Legacy of Kain - a manifesto of sorts

Recently I had a conversation with my girlfriend regarding what would the best possible future for the Legacy of Kain franchise. From a simple annoyance about how the franchise is perceived, even by its fans, it escalated to almost an hour's discussion, after which we came up with a way that could possibly make everyone happy.

I will try to answer some of the most common ideas from around the web and then finally share my opinion on how I perceive the future of Legacy of Kain.

Why starting with a Soul Reaver remake is a bad idea?

The most frequently requested way for reviving the franchise is probably the remake of Soul Reaver. At first glance, this makes a perfect sense. It's the most critically-acclaimed game in the franchise and no title after could replicate its success. Many fans, me included, started with this game and it's the one people probably remember the most. Its narrative does not necessarily require familiarity with Blood Omen and the game is infamously unfinished, though most of its cut content is still in the game files. That begs for a remake with all cut content restored.

The main gripe I have with a remake is a probability of it rebooting the franchise. At the time of writing, Legacy of Kain came to an abrupt end nearly 20 years ago with an open, hopeful ending that heralds at least one more game. The sequel was cancelled for reasons officially unknown, leaving the plot at a cliffhanger.

Now, sequels to Soul Reaver as we know them, exist only because of its unfinished state. Soul Reaver originally had an ending that teased another game, but it was a complete story and most of its plot points were resolved by the end. After a release in 1999, some of those plot points - chronoplast visions - were implemented in their reworked forms in future installments; the difference lies not only in contexts, but sometimes outcomes too.

If a remake was to happen, releasing the story as it ultimately was would not be optimal. It would possibly require a lot of changes on the story-side and that could doom sequels from ever being remade. Even if Crystal Dynamics - or whoever would work on it - somehow pulled it off without changing the story, would you really want to wait over a decade for an eventual continuation to Defiance, because every next game would need to be remade at this point?

Why starting with a Soul Reaver remaster is not the best idea?

To be honest, I think that remastering the entire franchise for a new generation of gamers is a great idea. Embracer Group, that now owns the entire Crystal Dynamics/Eidos portfolio, even expressed an interest in remakes and remasters. Porting the franchise to newer platforms and releasing better PC ports would be great. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I would buy a copy of Legacy of Kain HD Collection for every platform I own. A $40-60 collection of Nightdive-style ports is a dream. My problem is with solely focusing on Soul Reaver.

What caught my attention is an article by gamesradar, where one of the most devoted Soul Reaver fans I know - thank you for work ❤ - voiced his opinion on a feasible director's cut version of Soul Reaver. It would let you play an extended version of Soul Reaver, that includes all cut content - basically the original vision. It's a great idea, but requires a lot of programming and asset creation beyond basic upscaling. That would probably rule out a remaster collection for a singular price tag, which would encourage newcomers to spend that maximum $60 on five games and dive into the franchise. I want to be proven wrong about it and I hope I will be, honestly.

Another small gripe I have with this kind of remaster is advertising it with with the original vision of the game and then locking that content behind playing the release version, which, if everything goes well with restoring cut content, would be then inferior. I'm opposed to locking stuff like difficulty options, good endings etc. behind playthroughs. I'm all for letting a consumer educate themselves to make a smart purchase and choose how they want to use the product.

Why starting with a reboot is possibly an awful idea?

This should be a short one, as most of reasoning towards it was explained above by me. There was a reboot by Climax in works; after a significant development time, it was cancelled. While from what we've seen it didn't seem like the best course of action for the franchise, the thing I didn't like about it the most was that it was a reboot, not a continuation.

It's not like a good reboot couldn't be developed, but its release would possibly doom earlier games to oblivion. I don't really see a corporation thinking that after a reboot it'd be a great idea to release remasters or a sequel to the original plotline. No one will buy a continuation to mostly story-driven abandonware, and unfortunately I know people that won't play remasters of games so old, when a good reboot is there.

It would seem unlikely for an ending to Defiance to emerge if we got a reboot first; and it's possible we wouldn't see old games ported for current platforms.

What's the best course of action to me?

In my opinion, the first thing that should be released is a HD remaster collection of the entire franchise. Unless you are Valve and your games work on newer operating systems out of the box, modern ports are essential for bringing new people to a well established franchise.

The only viable way to enjoy Legacy of Kain today is original hardware and emulation. PC ports are plagued by many issues, deeming them unplayable, even if you are like me and you like fixing your old school PC games. Unfortunately no console offers backwards compatibility options for these five games and it would be a dream to see them not only on PS4/PS5/XONE/XS, but also on the Switch. Sounds like a great way to give fans long-awaited remasters and invite a new generations of gamers to join in on the fun.

A good re-release is also a great way for a publisher to test the waters and see if the interest is there. It costs much less than a new game and can be outsourced much easier, so it doesn't collide with development schedules.

So if the interest is there and remasters sold well enough, what's next? Ideally, a sequel that would serve as an ending to remastered games.

To me, Legacy of Kain has one of the most memorable stories in gaming, defined not only by events in games, but in efforts of storytellers in tying everything up in such a beautiful way, that I could write another blog post solely about it. It's a tale about defying fate and fighting against all odds, told not only by characters, but also developers. It's a legacy, and a story that deserves a conclusion.

Let's assume the continuation is critically-acclaimed. What now? Now the fun part begins. The franchise can go in any way desired by publishers/developers, maybe even transmedia in a form of movie/tv series.

But many people ask for a remake and I might have a solution for that. Why not release a game just called Soul Reaver - a remake that also reboots the entire franchise. Not only it could use all the cut content, but give developers a new start and space for creativity. Ideally, that would please both fans and people that haven't heard about Legacy of Kain before.

To me that's the best course of action. Remind people about Legacy of Kain with a great HD collection, finish the fight with a sequel, start anew with a highly-demanded Soul Reaver remake.

I hope I didn't omit any details in my reasoning during this long blog post, though I'm certain there are some flaws in my thinking. My desperation for a sequel is what sparked the initial conversation with my girlfriend and a need to write all of this. Despite my selfish reasons, I really tried to find a way that satisfies all possible parties.

[randomvarious]

Today’s mix:

Back to Mine by Danny Tenaglia 1999 Deep House / Downtempo

Well, this was definitely quite something. New York's Danny Tenaglia is chiefly known as a consummate conqueror of the packed house dancefloor, but here, with this third installment in the DMC label's popular Back to Mine series from '99, the DJ delivers a compilation that's wholly unorthodox.

Back to Mine is known for presenting mixes that are of a chillout nature, but this is actually barely a DJ mix or a chillout release. It's basically a jumbled up mess of songs, from the 60s through late 90s, that express Tenaglia's very own eclectic taste in music as it extends past the nightclub.

Guardian Critic Alex Petridis tries to gussy up this CD in the liner notes, showering it with ebullient praise by describing it as both slinky and seamless, but this feels pretty charitable on his part, because there's almost no cohesion between any of these selections and the transitions are almost nonexistent; a carefully crafted DJ mix this most certainly is not.

But that's okay, really, as long as you understand what this release actually is, which is a seemingly random scattershot of some of Danny's personal favorites.

Now, the heading in this post might feel a little bit misleading, because I've only classed this "mix" as being both deep house and downtempo, when in actuality, it's a bit more than that. But when I decide what genres to include in those headings, I only list the genres that have at least two songs to them, unless the release is too short or eclectic to do that, in which case, I list every genre that appears on the release, which is a pretty rare occurrence anyway.

So, while this CD has a few deep house and a couple downtempo cuts on it, it also has some vocal breakbeat-chill from Yello—evidently, that quirky electronic duo from Switzerland that gave us hits in the 80s like "Oh Yeah" from the Ferris Bueller soundtrack and "Bostich" still had plenty left to contribute in the late 90s—delightfully classy mid-90s acid jazz from UK group Outside, an innovative late 90s funky microhouse cut from Isolée, soulful mid-90s garage house from New Jersey's Kimara Lovelace, the second biggest hit of Ce Ce Peniston's career in her 1992 dancy R&B bop, "Keep On Walkin," a late 70s disco-funk classic from Roy Ayers, a mid-90s edit of the debut soul single from Oleta Adams, and a nice and fun piece of bossa from Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66.

*panting*

See what I mean? A totally discombobulated smorgasbord of music here; like throwing a long playlist of your favorites on shuffle and plucking out the first 74 minutes and then putting some rudimentary effects on it.

So, there's some really wonderful music on this album that spans a bunch of different genres and decades, but don't expect any of it to sequentially make much sense, because there doesn't appear to be any kind of thoughtful narrative here; it's just a bunch of songs that Danny Tenaglia's a personal fan of, from obscure to popular. All in all, it's worth listening to because the songs are good, but if you think you're getting a different type of Danny Tenaglia set here, you're not. because you’re not getting a set at all. He even admits it himself in the CD booklet, but back in '99, you'd only learn that fact after removing the plastic-wrap from the jewel case, which presumably happens only after you've purchased the CD itself 😉. And given that the previous volume in this series from Dave Seaman was an actual chillout DJ mix, from a guy who's not known for chillout mixes, I can see how a bunch of people would end up with buyer's remorse from this release, because of its lack of coherence.

But it's still ultimately a good time once you come to understand it for what it is!

Listen to the full mix here.

Highlights:

Yello - "To the Sea (Original Mix)" Danny Tenaglia - "Loft in Paradise" Outside - "The Plan/Minty" Isolée - "Beau Mot Plage" Bang the Party - "Bang Bang You're Mine (Full Vocal Remix)" Kimara Lovelace - "Only You" Ce Ce Peniston - "Keep On Walkin'" Roy Ayers - "Running Away" Oleta Adams - "Rhythm of Life (Heavenly Edit)" Crescendo - "Cairo (Duke Monster Mix)" Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66 - "One Note Samba/Spanish Flea"

[321spongebolt]

If "Nightmare Ned" was featured/promoted at Disneyland and Walt Disney World at the time

On this day, the nighttime musical spectacular, "Fantasmic!" made its way to Disney's Hollywood Studios (AKA, "Disney's MGM Studios" at the time) at Walt Disney World in Florida. A year before that, the PC game, "Nightmare Ned" was released on CD-Rom for Windows 95.

While the game itself is considered "obscured" or "a hidden gem", whatever you call it, I feel like this game would've had better marketing if it was advertised at the Disney Parks.

For instance, at Downtown Disney, or whatever large spot of land was affordable at the time, there would be this tent where visitors could try the game out on Windows computers that have the game pre-installed (kind of like what E3 does for games being presented at a specific booth). And for two months only in 1997, Walt Dohrn and Donovan Cook would've been available for signing autographs for the PC game's box cover. Another part of the tent would've also sold yo-yos like the one Ned uses in the game for attacking monsters and ghouls, or to solve in-game puzzles.

And then there's Ned, our 10 year old titular character who has all these delusions and gets overwhelmed very easily. Ned would be a mascot character who would've had character meet-and-greets from 1997 to either 1999 or 2000. Because of this, "Fantasmic!" would've had a temporary revision (at least in the California Disneyland) where Ned would've made a guest appearance in helping Mickey (in his famous "Sorcerer's Apprentice" outfit from "Fantasia") fight off the Disney Villains, including his monster self from the good ending of the game. Courtland Mead (the original voice of Ned) and Wayne Allwine (who voiced Mickey until his death in 2009) would've still been available to record new lines for Ned and Mickey just for this temporary revision. A way to advertise this (at least in the case of Disneyland in California) would be that you could meet Ned during the daytime, and at night, the love Ned got from the guests would encourage him to face his demons with Mickey.

I don't know where Ned would've been located, even if he ends up as a meet-and-greet character at the Magic Kingdom, but regardless, I have some ideas in terms of what interaction tips would've worked. If I had to guess, interaction tips would've included talking to Ned about a nightmare you had to help relate to him, or something like that. And in terms of photo tips, one idea that would've worked would be if you and Ned hugged for the camera or if you had a yo-yo, maybe pose like you're gonna attack one of the enemies from the game itself.

This is all I got, but that's how I would imagine "Nightmare Ned" being promoted at the Disney Parks. If anyone else as a better imagining of this concept, feel free to comment.

[usagirotten]

'Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves' is back, watch the first trailer

It's time to dust off those combos and practice those special moves because "Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves" is on the horizon! Get ready to battle it out in the streets as legendary fighters collide once again. Who's your favorite character from the series? SNK Corporation has released a fairly short trailer for the new Fatal Fury, which is titled 'City of Wolves' and is still in development. The new Fatal Fury is real and it's already underway at the hands of SNK. The company has just announced that the latest installment in the saga, the first since 1999's Garou: Mark of the Wolves, will be called Fatal Fury: City of Wolves. The new trailer shows Rock Howard and Terry Bogard, two of the characters most loved by fans, and the voices of some of their most familiar faces. This fighting game series hasn't had a new installment for 24 years, so it's cause for celebration. The EVO 2023, and for this alone, is to be framed and worth remembering. Fatal Fury (known as Garō Densetsu in Japan) is one of SNK's most iconic fighting game franchises, and is the origin of some of the company's most recognizable characters, including Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, Mai Shiranui, Blue Mary, Geese Howard, and more. Fatal Fury: King of Fighters debuted in arcades in 1991, and the latest installment, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, debuted in 1999. SNK's separate fighting game franchise The King of Fighters initially began as a crossover fighter for SNK's Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting franchises, and their characters have been mainstays in the long-running series until today.   Read the full article

[phoomwhoosh]

best video games ever

Ask and you shall receive! Fair warning, you have opened Pandora's Box lmao. I will limit this to my top seven (not in any specific order) and put them below a cut:

The first one is Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear. It's a first-person shooter that came out in 1999. I had fun playing it except for that one stealth mission. I played it, like, a ton. You have no idea. It's my favorite Rainbow Six game and I honestly don't think any others could compare to it. Well, Raven Shield could but I only really play that one because Rogue Spear won't work on my computer anymore. Probably because it's from 1999.

Second favorite would definitely be The Sims 2. I feel like it is superior to the other games. I'm sorry, folks. I still have The Sims 2 installed onto my computer and I might have to make a deal with the Devil to get it to function but it's worth it.

Third favorite? King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride, a point-and-click adventure game from 1994. I have the intro memorized. I can tell you exactly where my sister was in this game when I shoved a small bell up my nose as a child. I played this game a shit-ton. Second favorite in this series is for sure the sixth one, though. I have never completed the third one because I kept getting turned into toast. I also played Mask of Eternity, the eighth game, a lot but that one is…well, it's not a point-and-click adventure. Also, the royal family isn't involved in it. I did so love mocking Connor's voice LOL.

Fourth favorite game is Torin's Passage, another point-and-click adventure game but this time it's from 1995. I actually made Dreep (look him up, he's a funky little guy) out of clay for a project in high school. I have this entire game memorized. I love it so much.

Number five would be Dragon Age: Origins (with Awakening). I love all three games but Origins is dear to me. My favorite character I've ever made in a video game is Lazlo Surana, my Warden who romanced Morrigan. He survived killing the Archdemon and I love every reference to him in the later games. My man could solo a dragon by the end of the first game. He was an Arcane Warrior, Shapeshifter, Battlemage, and Spirit Healer because I had enough points to choose a 4th specialization. Most badass character ever. Loved soloing the assassins in Awakening. XD

Number six is Wildermyth. It's a far more recent game (2019) where you can make your own characters, choose their class (Warrior, Mystic, and Hunter), and follow different storylines. Your characters can get married and have kids who later join them on their adventures. It's a fantastic game and I've had a ton of fun with it. Also, if your characters name their kid something stupid, you can change it. In fact, you can customize the characters' appearance at any time outside of combat. XD

Number seven is Resident Evil 2 and, yes, I'm talking about the remake. It's a horror game, it's a game where you shoot things, and it's a horror game. Yes, I said that twice because, let me tell you, this was the first Resident Evil game I had ever played and it was terrifying when I was in the sewers. Again, knew nothing about the game but knew something bad was about to happen to Leon in the sewers.

[tmarshconnors]

From Tekken 1 to Tekken 8

As many of you probably know by now, I am an avid gamer. Since childhood, I have immersed myself in the world of video games, with one franchise holding a special place in my heart: Tekken. Having played every instalment from the original 1994 release to the latest Tekken 8 in 2024, I feel compelled to share my journey through this legendary series and how the newest release brings back the nostalgia of arcade days while showcasing the series' evolution over three decades.

Tekken (1994)

My love affair with Tekken began in 1996, when the first game hit the arcades in 1994 I was only one years old. The groundbreaking 3D graphics and the unique roster of characters instantly captivated me. I have many vivid memories on my PS1 playing the game. Each fighter had a distinct style, from Kazuya Mishima's powerful moves to Yoshimitsu's enigmatic techniques. This game set the stage for what would become a cornerstone of the fighting game genre.

Tekken 2 (1995)

Tekken 2 arrived just a year later, refining the mechanics and expanding the character roster. The introduction of characters like Lei Wulong and Jun Kazama added depth to the gameplay. The improved graphics and more fluid animations made it clear that Tekken was here to stay.

Tekken 3 (1997)

Tekken 3 was a monumental leap forward. The game introduced faster gameplay, sidestepping, and a plethora of new characters, including Jin Kazama, who would become a central figure in the series. Tekken 3 was not just a game; it was a phenomenon, especially on the PlayStation. The console version's Tekken Force mode added an extra layer of fun, making this instalment a fan favourite. It here on this Tekken my favourite character came into being and before you ask "Who is it?" I shall tell you It was and still remains to this day. King.

Tekken Tag Tournament (1999)

The spin-off Tekken Tag Tournament was a delightful addition, allowing players to form teams of two fighters. This new dynamic added strategic depth and provided endless fun, especially in multiplayer battles. The game’s polished graphics and smooth gameplay on the PS2 showcased the potential of the new generation of consoles. I almost broke my PS2 once by pulling the controller so hard out of the console while playing. (Thank God for wireless controllers nowadays eh?)

Tekken 4 (2001)

Tekken 4 brought significant changes, with a focus on more realistic environments and the introduction of walls and terrain effects. While it received mixed reviews, it was a bold step in the series’ evolution. The game’s story mode provided deeper insights into the Mishima family saga, which continued to be a driving force behind the series’ lore.

Tekken 5 and Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (2004-2005)

Tekken 5 was a return to form, blending the best elements of its predecessors with stunning visuals and a robust character roster. The game’s mechanics were refined to near perfection, making it a competitive staple. Dark Resurrection, an update to Tekken 5, added even more characters and balance tweaks, solidifying its place in the hearts of fans.

Tekken 6 and Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion (2007-2008)

Tekken 6 took the franchise to new heights with its extensive character customization and the introduction of the Bound system, which allowed for extended combos. Bloodline Rebellion, an update, further polished the experience, adding new characters and stages. The game’s release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 meant that high-definition Tekken was now a reality.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (2011)

A sequel to the beloved tag team entry, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 expanded the roster to include nearly every character from the series' history. The game’s refined tag mechanics and gorgeous visuals made it a hit among fans. The sheer variety of characters and team combinations ensured endless replayability.

Tekken Revolution (2013)

Tekken Revolution was a free-to-play experiment that introduced new players to the series while offering veterans a fresh challenge. Simplified mechanics and a smaller roster made it more accessible, though it lacked the depth of mainline entries. Nevertheless, it was an interesting chapter in the Tekken saga.

Tekken 7 (2015)

Tekken 7 marked a new era with its transition to the Unreal Engine, delivering breathtaking visuals and dynamic stages. The game’s story mode concluded the Mishima saga, providing closure to the long-running family feud. New mechanics like Rage Arts and Rage Drives added strategic layers to the combat. Tekken 7 was a fitting celebration of the series' legacy.

Tekken 8 (2024)

And now, we arrive at Tekken 8. This latest installment is a testament to how far the series has come since its inception. Tekken 8 feels like a love letter to fans, combining the nostalgic elements of the original games with cutting-edge technology. The graphics are more realistic than ever, and the gameplay is both familiar and innovative. The new mechanics and refined combat system make each match feel fresh and exciting.

Playing Tekken 8 takes me back to the days of crowded arcades and the early PlayStation era, yet it also showcases the incredible advancements in gaming over the past 30 years. The game's ability to evoke such nostalgia while pushing the boundaries of the genre is a remarkable achievement. From the simple yet addictive gameplay of the first Tekken to the complex and visually stunning battles of Tekken 8, this series has been a constant source of joy and excitement for me.

As I look back on my journey through the Tekken series, I am filled with a sense of pride and nostalgia. Tekken has not only shaped my gaming experience but also influenced the fighting game genre as a whole. Tekken 8 stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of this iconic franchise, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for the King of Iron Fist Tournament.

Though in saying this. I did read somewhere that the next Tekken might be the last. Don't get me wrong I could be wrong. I so hope I am wrong as its been with me pretty much my whole gaming life.

[the-vandals-handle]

Welcome to the final installment of The Thousand Highways Collection. The previous volume of this series, Another Night Volume One, established the formula for this volume - a compilation of assorted curiosities and notable performances that did not make it onto more thematically coherent titles. Volume Two has some real humdingers, so open up those ears and listen in.

"Two Trains Running" is an old Muddy Waters track, and Dylan does it justice in this early solo performance from Montreal's Finjan Club. As with many of the singer's earliest uptempo songs, he powers along the tempo with a rhythmic tapping that's luckily been preserved by this crisp recording.

"Not Fade Away" is another cover, this time originating with Buddy Holly. Holly had been quite influential to the young Bob Dylan, as indicated by the Martin Scorcese's 2005 documentary, No Direction Home. Still, few of Holly's own compositions had been played by Dylan over the years. The Never-Ending Tour altered this, though, and a number of Holly's tracks entered the setlist between 1988 and 2016; none appeared more often, though, than the heavily rhythmic "Not Fade Away." This rendition from the much-loved Tramps show in 1999 is particularly well-executed.

"Jokerman" was the lead song on 1983's Infidels, and became quite a classic in its own right. This alternative version offers a very different vocal performance and a handful of lyrical variants. Instrumentally, it's quite similar to the final version.

"If You See Her, Say Hello" may sound familiar, as a roughly identical arrangement appeared on an earlier Thousand Highways compilation covering rehearsals from 1971 to 1989. This version, though, features a slightly more prominent harpsichord and violin, which improves the strangely baroque sound of the arrangement. It's a shame this didn't stay in the set past the first weeks of 1978's World Tour.

"Blackjack Davey" was one of the standout songs on Good As I Been To You in 1992, but only appeared live the following year. It's a very old song, and was also performed by Bob Dylan at the start of his career in 1961. Like "Barbara Allen" to "Scarlet Town," "Blackjack Davey" served as an inspiration for "Tin Angel" on Dylan's Tempest record from 2012. This arrangement is interesting, since live versions from 1993 are the only time when Dylan played the song with (limited) instrumental backing.

"Tom Turkey" is an outtake from 1973's Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. Like other songs recorded for that soundtrack, it's effectively an excerpt from the "Billy" narrative with some unique instrumentation. Mostly instrumental, it includes only two verses of the "Billy" along with some intriguing harmonica fills.

"Shake" was an original Bob Dylan composition based roughly on Roy Head's "Treat Her Right." It was played briefly in 1985 and 1986 at the first Farm Aid show and on tour with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. This is the clearest recording, though even here the lyrics seem unfinished. It's quite groovy, if nothing else.

"The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll" is one of only a handful of performances of this song from my favorite Bob Dylan touring year - 1981. Like most of the year, it features a compelling, rich vocal performance and a loose arrangement.

"Gates Of Eden" was played very rarely from 1965 to 1988, and one of the finest outings for the song was as a solo performance in 1978. This spot of the setlist was typically reserved for "It Ain't Me, Babe," but other classic 1960s tracks featured a few times, including "Fourth Time Around" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Unfortunately, only "Gates Of Eden" was preserved with a lovely recording. Luckily, the performance is excellent.

"1952 Vincent Black Lightning" barely saw the light of day. It was recorded by an intrepid amateur taper in 2013, and only began to circulate two years later in a handful of alternative mixes. There are some chatty audience members near the tape recorder, but they do little to reduce the passion of this unique one-time performance of Richard Thompson's motorcycle epic.

"You Really Got A Hold On Me" was played by Bob Dylan and Bette Midler in the midst of a recording session for Midler's Songs For The New Depression. Much of the session consists of shaky takes on a rewrite of "Buckets Of Rain," but the two spontaneously burst into an equally shaky (yet delightful) performance of this Smokey Robinson gem. Bob Dylan has spoken of his admiration for Robinson, but this is one of the only times he played a song written by that American icon.

"The Mighty Quinn" is one of the most celebrated songs from The Basement Tapes, but the writer only sang it live a few times over the past fifty years. Other versions can be found elsewhere on The Thousand Highways Collection, but this is the only time that the song featured Dylan's excellent backing band harmonizing as it did on bluegrass classics from 1998 to 2002.

"Simple Twist Of Fate" is a heartbreaking song, but rarely has it been performed with the pathos instilled on this night in Hattiesburg during the Rolling Thunder Revue. It sounds fairly similar to the style used to great effect earlier in the tour on "If You See Her, Say Hello," though this song is not nearly as re-written as its Blood On The Tracks companion.

"Sidewalks, Fences & Walls" did not circulate for decades, but this outtake from Down In The Groove finally appeared in the taper community during the 2000s. It's a straightforward soul song infused with depth by a passionate vocal performance. The sound is less than stellar, as it only circulates as a fairly compromised lossy recording, but we should be grateful that it appeared at all.

"Like A Rolling Stone" is my favorite rendition of a Bob Dylan classic. It's not quite as tight as earlier performances from the 1981 tour, but it makes up for that looseness with one of Dylan's most inventive, passionate, shredded vocal tracks you'll ever hear. You can point to moments like this as one of the reasons that the singer's voice deepened and lost some of the range it displayed in the 1970s, but at least we received incredible recordings like this one from the singer pushing his art outside of his comfort zone.

"Forever Young," a sentimental song written by the singer for his child, is as appropriate an ending as you could ask for on this long listening journey. Happily, it features one of Dylan's unique lead guitar performances and a touching harmonica solo.

[whileiamdying]

Sofia Coppola’s Path to Filming Gilded Adolescence

There are few Hollywood families in which one famous director has spawned another. Coppola says, “It’s not easy for anyone in this business, even though it looks easy for me.”

By Rachel Syme January 22, 2024

From Marie Antoinette to Priscilla Presley, Coppola’s protagonists enjoy enormous privilege but little autonomy.Photograph by Thea Traff for The New Yorker

Wshen Eleanor Coppola went into labor with her third child, on May 14, 1971, at a hospital in Manhattan, her husband, the director Francis Ford Coppola, was on location in Harlem, shooting a scene for “The Godfather.” Hearing the news, he grabbed a camcorder from the set and raced over to capture the moment. “When they say, ‘It’s a girl,’ my dad gasps and nearly drops the camera,” Sofia Coppola told me recently, of her birth video. “My mom is there, just trying to focus.” The footage—which has been screened by the family multiple times over the years, and as part of a feminist art installation designed by Eleanor—was the first of many instances in which Sofia would be seen through her father’s lens. When she was just a few months old, Francis cast her in her first official film role, as the infant in the dénouement of “The Godfather,” in which Michael Corleone, the ascendant boss of the Corleone crime family, anoints the head of his newborn nephew as his associates murder rival gangsters one by one.

There are plenty of distinguished bloodlines in the history of Hollywood—the Selznicks and the Mayers, the Warners, the Hustons, the Bergman-Rossellinis, the Fondas—but very few, like the Coppolas, in which one famous director has spawned another. After an early life spent in front of the camera, Sofia Coppola made a career behind it, becoming one of the most influential and visually distinctive filmmakers of her generation, with eight features to her name. Her second, “Lost in Translation,” from 2003, earned her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and a nomination for Best Director, making her the first American woman recognized in that category. Her career, of course, has been bolstered by an unusual wealth of resources. Francis’s company, American Zoetrope, has been a producer on all her movies. When she made her début, “The Virgin Suicides,” in 1999, she was able to cast an established star, Kathleen Turner, with whom she’d appeared as a teen-ager in her father’s movie “Peggy Sue Got Married.” She got permission to shoot “Somewhere,” her fourth film, inside the clubby Hollywood hotel the Chateau Marmont because in her youth she was a regular there, and even had a private key to the hotel pool. Still, no director can get a project green-lighted at a snap of the fingers, especially in today’s franchise-glutted Hollywood, and especially as a female director in an industry that remains dominated by men. Coppola is self-aware enough to know that it would be bad manners for someone in her position to complain. But she told me, “It’s not easy for anyone in this business, even though it looks easy for me.”

When we first met, in the fall of 2021, for breakfast near her home in the West Village, Coppola had spent the previous two years at work on her most ambitious venture to date, a miniseries, for Apple TV+, based on the Edith Wharton novel “The Custom of the Country,” from 1913. Coppola had adapted the book into five episodes and cast Florence Pugh in the lead role of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern arriviste on a desperate quest to infiltrate Gilded Age Manhattan society. Coppola, like Wharton, is known for her gimlet-eyed portrayals of a rarefied milieu, and for her insight into female characters who enjoy enormous privilege but little autonomy. “Marie Antoinette,” her most expensive movie, had a budget of forty million dollars, still modest by Hollywood standards; for “Custom,” she was planning for, as she put it, “five ‘Marie Antoinettes.’ ”

At breakfast, though, she told me, “Apple just pulled out. They pulled our funding.” Her voice was quiet, and her face—high cheekbones, Roman nose—was placid. “It’s a real drag,” she said. “I thought they had endless resources.” During the project’s development, she’d gone back and forth with executives (“mostly dudes”) on everything from the budget to the script. “They didn’t get the character of Undine,” she recalled. “She’s so ‘unlikable.’ But so is Tony Soprano!” She added, “It was like a relationship that you know you probably should’ve gotten out of a while ago.” (Apple did not respond to request for comment.)

Coppola grew up watching Francis do battle with movie studios. The success of the “Godfather” films hardly assured him funding equal to his ambitions, and he often went to harrowing lengths to get his projects made independently, driving himself to the brink of bankruptcy or nervous breakdown. “Hearts of Darkness,” a documentary co-directed by Eleanor about the notoriously tortured production of “Apocalypse Now,” is subtitled, only a bit hyperbolically, “A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.” (At the age of eighty-four, Francis is financing a new film, “Megalopolis,” with a hundred and twenty million dollars of his own money, freed up by the sale of a portion of the family’s wine business.) Coppola absorbed from her father the ethos that it was never worth it to cave to the creative demands of executives. In 2014, she agreed to make a live-action version of “The Little Mermaid” for Universal Studios, but amid disputes during development (including, she said at the time, an executive asking her, “What’s gonna get the thirty-five-year-old man in the audience?”) she walked away from the job. “I don’t actually want a hundred million dollars to make a movie,” she told me, of studio deals with strings attached. “I learned it’s better to do your own thing.” She refuses to take on projects unless she is guaranteed the right to choose her creative team and control the final cut.

In January of 2022, after trying in vain to secure alternative funding for “Custom,” Coppola moved on to a new project, an independent film adapted from Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir, “Elvis and Me.” Presley’s relationship with Elvis began when she was just fourteen. Like Marie Antoinette, she found herself unhappily married to a King. Paging through the book while in bed with a case of covid, Coppola had begun to see the picture unfolding in her mind. “I just thought about her sitting on that shag carpet all day,” she recalled. She wrote a draft of the script quickly and told her longtime producer, Youree Henley, that she wanted to be done shooting by the end of the year. She was undeterred by the coming release of Baz Luhrmann’s eighty-five-million-dollar film “Elvis,” which was due out in a few months. A rhinestoned frenzy of a bio-pic, Luhrmann’s movie portrayed Priscilla as a marginal character and a happy helpmate. Coppola called Presley and said, “That’s not how I see you at all,” and after hearing Coppola’s vision Presley signed on as a producer.

“Marie Antoinette” was filmed inside the real Versailles, a cinematic coup. For “Priscilla,” the Elvis Presley estate, wary of a film told from Priscilla’s perspective, denied Coppola access to Graceland. Coppola’s production team instead constructed the façade and the interiors of Elvis’s Memphis mansion on a soundstage outside Toronto. I visited one afternoon in November of 2022, as the shoot was under way. Off set, Coppola, who is fifty-two, dresses with understated elegance—Chanel slingbacks, collared blouses. Now she was wearing her only slightly less polished “set uniform,” gray New Balances and a black Carhartt fleece over a Charvet button-down. She led me through the hangarlike space and into the ersatz Presley home. The entrance was flanked by two large lion statues. In the gaudy living room, she pointed to a floral arrangement. “Those are real orchids,” she said. “It surprised me, with our budget. How extravagant.”

Coppola’s team had budgeted for forty days of shooting, already a squeeze, but at the last minute a piece of financing had fallen through, and she’d had to slash the story to be filmed in just a month, for less than twenty million dollars. Much of the movie is set in the Memphis summer, but they were filming as winter approached, which was cheaper, so Coppola had to coach her cast, shivering through outdoor scenes in their bathing suits, to “act warm.” Instead of filming two long shots she’d wanted in Los Angeles, of Priscilla driving a convertible down a palm-lined street and swan-diving into a pool, Coppola saved money by borrowing footage from a Cartier commercial she’d shot in 2018, with an actress who kind of looks like “Priscilla” ’s lead, Cailee Spaeny, at least from behind.

Whether set in a luxury hotel in Tokyo, like “Lost in Translation,” or in suburban Michigan, like “The Virgin Suicides,” Coppola’s films are sumptuous but also slightly clinical. One of her œuvre’s visual hallmarks is a protagonist gazing out a window, sealed off from the world beyond. “You know I can’t resist a trapped woman,” she said. Yet, even when her female characters are confined, they achieve a degree of self-definition through adventures in style. No filmmaker has so astutely depicted the cloistered atmosphere of teen-age girlhood or the expressive power of its trappings. She is a master of the messy-bedroom mise en scène: piles of clothing and impractical shoes, poster-plastered walls, vanities cluttered with perfume bottles and porcelain figurines. The director Chloé Zhao, who won Best Director at the 2021 Oscars for her film “Nomadland,” told me that she admires Coppola for “world-building that isn’t just based on facts but on emotions.” She added, “There’s a receptivity to her work. To have a commitment to that kind of femininity is hard.” The director Jane Campion, who counts “The Virgin Suicides” among her favorite films, told me that Coppola’s light touch with actors and her attention to surfaces can be deceptive. “Her work is very powerful to me, because it’s got deep roots,” she said. But Coppola’s films have sometimes struck critics as longer on style than on substance, and too close to the privileges they depict to effectively critique them. A few months ago, Coppola sent me an e-mail, unprompted, in which she took issue with a notion that has resurfaced throughout her twenty-five-year career: “I don’t understand why looking at superficiality makes you superficial?!”

Coppola told me she could see herself, in an alternative life, as the editor of a magazine, “like Diana Vreeland,” who commanded Vogue in the sixties. Coppola is an avid curator of images and looks; Campion recalled that once, when they were both judges at Cannes, Coppola offered to help style her, and the next day two huge boxes from the luxury fashion brand Celine arrived at Campion’s hotel. Coppola begins every film project by gathering visual inspiration. In her makeshift office on the soundstage, she had covered a large bulletin board with imagery including the Presleys’ wedding photographs, a glamour shot of Priscilla as a teen-ager, and several William Eggleston pictures of an empty Graceland. There is a famous Bruce Weber photo of Coppola’s stylishly bestrewn home office at the time of “The Virgin Suicides,” and this workspace bore some resemblance. On her desk were pink Post-it notes, a Fujifilm Instax camera, and a half-burned Diptyque candle; on the floor lay wine bottles from the Coppola vineyard (which also makes a “Sofia” champagne that comes in tiny pink cans with individual straws). The director Quentin Tarantino, whom Coppola dated in the two-thousands, recalled her once showing him the look book for “Marie Antoinette.” “It was exquisitely put together, yet you could still tell it was handmade,” he said, “by the loving hands of a fine artist.” He went on, “She had a page of donuts with a pink glaze. I asked her, ‘What’s with the donuts?’ She said, ‘I like that shade of pink, and I want her sofa to have that quality.’ And when I saw the film, sure enough, I wanted to eat the goddamn furniture.”

When conceiving a film about Priscilla Presley’s unhappy marriage to Elvis, Coppola says, “I just thought about her sitting on that shag carpet all day.”Photograph by Kate Cunningham / Courtesy MACK

Coppola led me down a hallway to a room where the film’s costume designer, Stacey Battat, was floofing out Priscilla’s wedding gown, which Coppola had asked the fashion house Chanel to design for the movie as a favor. The dress, with a high-necked lacy bib, closely resembles the original, but among Coppola’s assets as a filmmaker is a preternatural aesthetic assurance, even when it comes to taking liberties with her source material. “I’ve always known what I like,” she told me. The opening shot of the film is a closeup of Priscilla’s feet stepping across a fuzzy expanse of shag carpet, which she made a rosy hue, though in the real Graceland there was no such rug. “In my mind, it was pink,” she told me. She hadn’t visited Graceland to prepare for the film, but a friend had taken a tour and had sent her a picture of poodle-print wallpaper. Coppola decided to re-create it for a shot in which Priscilla languishes in the tub, waiting for Elvis to return.

“It probably wasn’t in a bathroom in Graceland,” Coppola said. “But whatever.”

The lighting on set was dim. A playlist of songs, selected daily by Coppola to “set a vibe,” played over the sound system—Curtis Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, and the French indie-rock band Phoenix, which is fronted by Coppola’s husband, Thomas Mars, who is also a music supervisor for her films. In one corner, crew members were playing pickleball on a court that Coppola had insisted on installing during the first week of shooting. She had played in the crew’s tournament, and her team, the Smashers, won. “Pickleball paddles are so ugly,” she commented. “Maybe I’ll design a new line of them.”

Coppola told me that she learned from her father how to create “a warm set,” and borrowed from him a ritual he picked up in drama school: to kick off every production, stand with the cast and crew in a circle, hold hands, and recite the nonsense word “puwaba” three times. But the elder Coppola has what Eleanor, who has been married to him for sixty years, described to me as “an Italian approach—very theatrical, throwing stuff up in the air and screaming.” Sofia said that she finds such flourishes “so unnecessary.” The protagonists in her films tend to observe more than they speak, and Sofia comports herself in much the same way. The people who’ve worked with her, however, describe an impressive resolve beneath the diffidence. The actress Elle Fanning, who starred in “Somewhere” and “The Beguiled,” told me, “She doesn’t freak out, ever. She’s not going to scream at you across the room. But she’s unwavering.” Bill Murray, a star of “Lost in Translation” and “On the Rocks,” gave Coppola the nickname “the velvet hammer,” for her subtle stubbornness about getting her way.

Henley, the producer, who was sitting in a director’s chair near a video monitor, recalled a day when he and Coppola were scouting ice rinks for “Somewhere.” Coppola said of one, “This is great—um, where should we have lunch?” Afterward, Henley mentioned a few more possible rinks to visit, and Coppola looked puzzled; she’d already chosen. Henley told me, “I wasn’t able to read her softness as well as I can now.”

Coppola and her team were rehearsing a scene in the Presleys’ bedroom, where a large mirror hung behind the bed. Jacob Elordi, the actor playing Elvis, took his place on the King-size mattress, his six-foot-five frame nearly dangling over the edge. Spaeny, who was twenty-four but petite enough to pass for a teen-ager, hovered in the doorframe. The scene takes place shortly after Priscilla’s arrival at Graceland. She has gone shopping and bought a dress, but returns it after Elvis deems it unflattering. “Once again I’d compromised my own taste,” Presley writes of that moment in the memoir, which in Coppola’s world is the worst kind of fate.

Kathleen Turner told me, of working with Coppola on “The Virgin Suicides,” “She would never tell an actor what she wanted specifically, and, boy, that can be very tough.” She added, “Francis is a bulldozer, a very good bulldozer who knows what he wants. Sofia lets you do, and then lets you know if that’s what she wanted.” Elordi, who is twenty-six, told me he interpreted Coppola’s lack of instruction as a sign of trust. She cast him after meeting him just once. “Sofia never checked in before we were filming. She never texted or called about the voice or the look or the walk,” he said. When he arrived on set, excited to show Coppola the Elvis accent he’d been working on for months, she said, “Wow, you really look and talk like him,” and left it at that.

Coppola called, “Action!,” and Elordi looked at Spaeny: “What is that dress? It does nothin’ for your figure.” He glanced toward Coppola, who was standing with her cinematographer. “Was that all right, Sofia?” he drawled, remaining in character. “Should I be laughing at her? I don’t want to be too dramatic.”

“It was not too much,” Coppola replied. She paused and placed her hand on her chin. “It might have been a little Elvis-y.”

Francis’s life as a director was peripatetic, and he did not believe in leaving his family behind for more than ten days at a time. So the rest of the nuclear unit—Eleanor, Sofia, and her brothers, Roman and Gian-Carlo, or Gio—lived away from their home in Northern California for months, and sometimes years. One of Sofia’s first memories is of riding in a helicopter in the Philippines during the filming of “Apocalypse Now.” During the making of “One from the Heart,” when she was in the fourth and fifth grade, they relocated to L.A. After that, for “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish,” they went to Tulsa, Oklahoma. “We were circus people, basically,” she said. “I kind of mark my childhood by the movies.”

Coppola never excelled academically, in part because of all the moving around. She left one school before learning multiplication, and by the time she enrolled in a new one she’d missed the same unit. Coppola recalled, “I never really learned math, and I’m what they call a ‘challenged’ reader.” Anahid Nazarian, a researcher and producer who has worked with Francis for forty years, remembers a time when Coppola didn’t turn in a paper: “Her teacher said she had the best excuse, which was ‘I left it on the plane coming back from the Oscars.’ ” On matters of taste, though, Coppola was precociously fluent. She gave herself the nickname Domino and insisted that she be credited as such in several of her father’s pictures. While on the set of “One from the Heart,” she created her own publication, The Dingbat News, to distribute among the cast and crew. She collected photography and decorated her walls with pictures from foreign magazines. “I was the only girl in Napa Valley with a subscription to French Vogue,” she said. Francis described her as having “very, very big opinions” even as a little girl, adding, “It was never difficult to know what she preferred and what she didn’t prefer.” Francis’s best-known films took place in hypermasculine precincts—the Army, the Mob. Coppola was drawn to high-femme self-expression. At her parents’ dinner parties, she was always more interested in the “wives and girlfriends,” she said. “They had the best Bakelite jewelry.”

Francis recalled that he and Eleanor maintained a home base outside of Hollywood to create a semblance of normality for the kids. Nonetheless, many of the stories Coppola told me about her childhood took place in the world of famous adults: Richard Gere, a star of Francis’s “The Cotton Club,” swam in the family’s pool; George Lucas was “Uncle George”; Anjelica Huston assured Coppola that she would grow into her nose. One afternoon last year, during a visit to an L.A. bookstore, Coppola showed me a volume called “Height of Fashion,” a collection of notable people’s most stylish snapshots. Coppola had submitted a picture of herself at fourteen—gawky and beaming, with an asymmetrical haircut—sitting at the tony Parisian restaurant Davé next to the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. “He was a friend of a friend of my parents,” she said.

“Marie Antoinette” sharply divided critics. Some dismissed it as an ahistorical powder puff. Others thought it was a masterpiece.Photograph by Andrew Durham / Courtesy MACK

There is an old-world flavor to the Coppolas’ relationship to the family business: just as cobblers beget cobblers, movie people beget movie people. Roman, Sofia’s brother and frequent collaborator, is a filmmaker and has written screenplays with Wes Anderson. Talia Shire, who starred in the “Godfather” movies and the “Rocky” franchise, is her aunt. Her niece Gia has directed two features. Her first cousins include the actors Jason Schwartzman, whom she cast as a dweeby Louis XVI in “Marie Antoinette,” and Nicolas Cage. Other Coppolas coach actors, write screenplays, make music, and produce or distribute films. Sofia ascribes the field’s popularity within the family to Francis’s contagious passion. “My father is just so into filmmaking that he thinks everyone should be doing it,” she said. Even Francis’s father, a composer, ended up working on scores for his films, winning an Oscar (with Nino Rota) for “The Godfather: Part II.”

One member of the family who struggled to find her way in the business was Eleanor. In “Notes,” the first of two memoirs she has written, she described meeting Francis on the set of his début feature, the horror film “Dementia 13,” in 1962. He was the director, she was the assistant art director, and she thought that they might work on films together for years to come. Instead, within a few months she found out she was pregnant with Gio. She and Francis were married the following weekend, and Francis, as Eleanor put it to me, “made it very clear that my role was to be the wife and the mother.” She writes in “Notes” of a feeling of living in waiting—“waiting for Francis to get a chance to direct . . . waiting to go on location, waiting to go home.” (“At that point, I didn’t even know I could have a career, much less whether my wife would,” Francis said, by e-mail, adding, “I knew she was creative and from day one I always provided full time childcare and a studio for Ellie’s artwork.”) Sofia described a time when her mother visited the set of “Priscilla” and observed a scene in which Elvis is preparing to go on tour, while Priscilla will stay with their daughter, Lisa Marie. Eleanor told her, “I’ve been there.” Eleanor recalled to me, “When Elvis said to Priscilla, ‘You have everything you need to be happy,’ that’s exactly what I was feeling at the time. I went to the psychiatrist and said, ‘Why am I unhappy?’ Not one single person said to me, ‘You are a creative person.’ ”

With his daughter, however, Francis made a point of offering creative encouragement, including by exposing her, along with her brothers, to the technical aspects of filmmaking. “There’s a traditional Italian thing with women, but I wasn’t raised like that,” Coppola said. “I was raised the same as the boys.” She and her mother didn’t discuss the gap in their experiences at the time, and Coppola isn’t inclined to analyze the themes that she explores in her work. Roman told me, “I’ve never heard Sofia say, ‘I want to show this isolation through this thing.’ ” Francis has always advised her that filmmaking should be close to the bone—as he told me, “the more personal, the better.” But, when I asked about the personal element of her movies, Coppola often fell back on abstractions or let her sentences trail off mid-thought. (Other writers have speculated about whether her style of communication is cannily evasive or simply a natural product of valuing the visual over the verbal. “I think sometimes she gives people enough rope to hang themselves with just by not responding,” Fiona Handyside, a British film scholar and the author of “Sofia Coppola: Cinema of Girlhood,” has said.) When I told Coppola about the feelings of stuckness that Eleanor had shared with me, and that seemed to percolate through Coppola’s films, she said, “I think so many people can relate to that, especially women.” Then she added, of her mom, “I’m sure seeing my first impression of womanhood as a woman who felt trapped, and her sadness, is related to the women in my films, more than to a side of myself.”

One morning last July, I met Coppola in the lobby of the Ritz Paris, where she was staying before a meeting about an upcoming line of garments she’d designed for the Scottish knitwear brand Barrie, which is owned by Chanel. (She told me that her dad, who has earned much of his fortune through wine and hotels, “taught us how to make money doing other things, so that you don’t have to count on the movies for that.”) Coppola and Mars spend part of the year in Paris, and she could have just stayed in her apartment across town. But the Ritz was closer to Barrie’s offices, near the Place Vendôme, and she relished the opportunity to hole up there by herself. “Lost in Translation” and “Somewhere” portray hotels as sites of both listless suspension and electric potential. “I love an in-between place,” she said.

When Coppola was fifteen, in 1986, Francis arranged a summer internship for her at Chanel. A month before she was supposed to leave for Paris, Gio, her oldest brother, was killed in an accident. He was twenty-two and had been assisting his father on the film “Gardens of Stone,” set at Arlington Cemetery, and on a day off had gone boating with one of the film’s co-stars, Griffin O’Neal. While driving between two other boats, O’Neal drove into a towline that struck Gio. (O’Neal was replaced in the film and later charged with manslaughter, but was ultimately acquitted.) Francis’s producers offered to shut down the film shoot, but he wanted to press on. In her memoirs, Eleanor recalls his hope that keeping busy “would prevent the torturous reality of Gio’s loss from pervading every moment.” Roman, then a film student at N.Y.U., cancelled his summer plans to step into Gio’s job on the film, but Coppola’s parents decided that she should still go abroad. Eleanor told me, “She was right at that age where she was trying to pull away from me, and so I thought she needed to get away from home, and all the things that surrounded the aftermath, and, frankly, me as a mom.”

There is an old-world flavor to the Coppolas’ relationship to the family business: just as cobblers beget cobblers, movie people beget movie people. Roman, Sofia’s brother and frequent collaborator, is a filmmaker and has written screenplays with Wes Anderson. Talia Shire, who starred in the “Godfather” movies and the “Rocky” franchise, is her aunt. Her niece Gia has directed two features. Her first cousins include the actors Jason Schwartzman, whom she cast as a dweeby Louis XVI in “Marie Antoinette,” and Nicolas Cage. Other Coppolas coach actors, write screenplays, make music, and produce or distribute films. Sofia ascribes the field’s popularity within the family to Francis’s contagious passion. “My father is just so into filmmaking that he thinks everyone should be doing it,” she said. Even Francis’s father, a composer, ended up working on scores for his films, winning an Oscar (with Nino Rota) for “The Godfather: Part II.”

One member of the family who struggled to find her way in the business was Eleanor. In “Notes,” the first of two memoirs she has written, she described meeting Francis on the set of his début feature, the horror film “Dementia 13,” in 1962. He was the director, she was the assistant art director, and she thought that they might work on films together for years to come. Instead, within a few months she found out she was pregnant with Gio. She and Francis were married the following weekend, and Francis, as Eleanor put it to me, “made it very clear that my role was to be the wife and the mother.” She writes in “Notes” of a feeling of living in waiting—“waiting for Francis to get a chance to direct . . . waiting to go on location, waiting to go home.” (“At that point, I didn’t even know I could have a career, much less whether my wife would,” Francis said, by e-mail, adding, “I knew she was creative and from day one I always provided full time childcare and a studio for Ellie’s artwork.”) Sofia described a time when her mother visited the set of “Priscilla” and observed a scene in which Elvis is preparing to go on tour, while Priscilla will stay with their daughter, Lisa Marie. Eleanor told her, “I’ve been there.” Eleanor recalled to me, “When Elvis said to Priscilla, ‘You have everything you need to be happy,’ that’s exactly what I was feeling at the time. I went to the psychiatrist and said, ‘Why am I unhappy?’ Not one single person said to me, ‘You are a creative person.’ ”

With his daughter, however, Francis made a point of offering creative encouragement, including by exposing her, along with her brothers, to the technical aspects of filmmaking. “There’s a traditional Italian thing with women, but I wasn’t raised like that,” Coppola said. “I was raised the same as the boys.” She and her mother didn’t discuss the gap in their experiences at the time, and Coppola isn’t inclined to analyze the themes that she explores in her work. Roman told me, “I’ve never heard Sofia say, ‘I want to show this isolation through this thing.’ ” Francis has always advised her that filmmaking should be close to the bone—as he told me, “the more personal, the better.” But, when I asked about the personal element of her movies, Coppola often fell back on abstractions or let her sentences trail off mid-thought. (Other writers have speculated about whether her style of communication is cannily evasive or simply a natural product of valuing the visual over the verbal. “I think sometimes she gives people enough rope to hang themselves with just by not responding,” Fiona Handyside, a British film scholar and the author of “Sofia Coppola: Cinema of Girlhood,” has said.) When I told Coppola about the feelings of stuckness that Eleanor had shared with me, and that seemed to percolate through Coppola’s films, she said, “I think so many people can relate to that, especially women.” Then she added, of her mom, “I’m sure seeing my first impression of womanhood as a woman who felt trapped, and her sadness, is related to the women in my films, more than to a side of myself.”

One morning last July, I met Coppola in the lobby of the Ritz Paris, where she was staying before a meeting about an upcoming line of garments she’d designed for the Scottish knitwear brand Barrie, which is owned by Chanel. (She told me that her dad, who has earned much of his fortune through wine and hotels, “taught us how to make money doing other things, so that you don’t have to count on the movies for that.”) Coppola and Mars spend part of the year in Paris, and she could have just stayed in her apartment across town. But the Ritz was closer to Barrie’s offices, near the Place Vendôme, and she relished the opportunity to hole up there by herself. “Lost in Translation” and “Somewhere” portray hotels as sites of both listless suspension and electric potential. “I love an in-between place,” she said.

When Coppola was fifteen, in 1986, Francis arranged a summer internship for her at Chanel. A month before she was supposed to leave for Paris, Gio, her oldest brother, was killed in an accident. He was twenty-two and had been assisting his father on the film “Gardens of Stone,” set at Arlington Cemetery, and on a day off had gone boating with one of the film’s co-stars, Griffin O’Neal. While driving between two other boats, O’Neal drove into a towline that struck Gio. (O’Neal was replaced in the film and later charged with manslaughter, but was ultimately acquitted.) Francis’s producers offered to shut down the film shoot, but he wanted to press on. In her memoirs, Eleanor recalls his hope that keeping busy “would prevent the torturous reality of Gio’s loss from pervading every moment.” Roman, then a film student at N.Y.U., cancelled his summer plans to step into Gio’s job on the film, but Coppola’s parents decided that she should still go abroad. Eleanor told me, “She was right at that age where she was trying to pull away from me, and so I thought she needed to get away from home, and all the things that surrounded the aftermath, and, frankly, me as a mom.”

Coppola’s book “Archive” includes behind-the-scenes photos from her films, including this one of her with her first daughter, Romy, on the set of “Somewhere.”Photograph by Andrew Durham / Courtesy MACK

When the film came out, Eleanor’s fears proved founded. In 1991, Coppola won two Razzie awards, for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst New Star. Entertainment Weekly ran a cover story with the teaser line “Is she terrific, or so terrible she wrecked her dad’s new epic?” Whatever one thought of Coppola’s performance (Pauline Kael appreciated her “unusual presence”), the fracas lent a metatextual poignancy to Coppola’s final moment in the film, when, just before she crumples on the theatre steps, Mary looks at Michael and utters a disbelieving “Dad?” Francis later admitted to the Times, “The daughter took the bullet for Michael Corleone—my daughter took the bullet for me.” Sofia absorbed the bad press with characteristic sangfroid. “It was embarrassing to be so publicly criticized for ruining my dad’s movie,” she said, but “I wasn’t devastated, because acting wasn’t my dream.” She went on, “I think that the experience helped me as a director. I know how vulnerable it feels to be in front of a camera.” Kirsten Dunst, who starred in “The Virgin Suicides” at the age of sixteen, and later in “Marie Antoinette” and “The Beguiled,” recalled, of first working with Coppola, “I remember her telling me how much she loved my teeth. I thought I had crooked teeth, but she was, like, ‘They are so cute.’ She gave me confidence about things I didn’t necessarily have, and I’ve carried that with me.”

In the following years, Coppola had the kind of aimless early adulthood particular to the offspring of the Hollywood élite. She enrolled in ArtCenter College of Design to study oil painting but dropped out after a teacher told her she was “no painter.” She audited a course with the photographer Paul Jasmin, whom Coppola cites as “the first person outside my family who told me I had any taste.” She became something of an L.A. It Girl, making cameos in music videos and being featured in newspaper style sections. In interviews, she made blithe pronouncements. (Likes: Karl Lagerfeld, hot rods. Dislikes: bras, Twelve Steppers.) At twenty-three, she bought herself a black Cadillac Seville and dubbed it her “Mafia princess car.” She spent a lot of time floating around the pool at the Chateau Marmont, making use of her private key. In 1994, she launched a fashion line called Milkfed, which produced ironic items like a baby tee printed with the phrase “I ♥ Booze.” That same year, she and her friend Zoe Cassavetes, the daughter of the director John Cassavetes and the actress Gena Rowlands, hosted a Comedy Central series called “Hi Octane.” (When I asked Coppola if she has any friends who don’t have celebrities for parents, she said, somewhat vaguely, “It’s definitely not, like, a through line with all of my friendships,” but acknowledged a special affinity for others who have “big macho powerful artist dads.”) The series, in which the pair undertook stunty adventures and interviewed their famous acquaintances, was cancelled after a few episodes. Francis recalled that Sofia once asked him, “Dad, am I going to be a dilettante forever?”

A breakthrough came when Coppola wrote a short film, called “Lick the Star,” about a clique of teen-age girls who revere, and then violently ostracize, their queen bee. Her cast featured some of her father’s associates, including Peter Bogdanovich as a school principal. The finished film, released in 1998, runs only thirteen minutes and is shot in black-and-white, but it contains the seeds of Coppola’s lush cinematic vocabulary. She told me, “I knew a little bit about photography, a little bit about clothing design, and a little bit about music. I was annoyed that I could never pick one thing. And then, when I made my short film, I realized it was a way to work with all of it.”

In New York, Coppola lives with Mars and their two teen-age daughters in a red brick town house whose narrow façade makes it look deceptively humble from the outside. One morning last March, she met me at the entranceway with the family’s golden retriever, Gnocchi, and guided me into a wide, white-walled living room. Coppola’s home décor, like her fashion sense, is classic with a whimsical feminine touch. The mantel over a gray marble fireplace held a large porcelain chinoiserie vase filled with an architectural array of pink roses and anemones. (They were high-end fakes.) A floor-to-ceiling bookcase was organized into sections on fashion, New York, photography, and French history. In between books she had wedged framed art works, including a drawing made by the director Mike Mills for the poster of “The Virgin Suicides” and a Polaroid of Princess Caroline of Hanover taken by Andy Warhol.

Coppola told me that her least favorite film to make was “The Bling Ring,” her fifth feature, because the world in which it’s set was out of synch with her own sense of taste. The movie—based on the true story of a group of L.A. high schoolers who robbed the homes of the rich and famous—was shot partly inside Paris Hilton’s mansion, where the camera gawks at throw pillows emblazoned with images of Hilton’s face and a “night-club room” equipped with a dancer’s pole. The film is a note-perfect millennial period piece, channelling the haywire intersection of celebrity worship and consumerism at the dawn of social media. But Coppola said, of its milieu of Ugg-boot-wearing teens and the reality stars they worship, “I wouldn’t call it hideous—that sounds snobby—but a big part of my motivation is making beauty.” To her chagrin, “The Bling Ring” is her daughters’ favorite among her movies. “They think it’s really glamorous and cool,” she said, then added, with a shudder, “They’ve started asking me for boot-cut jeans.”

She did not show me the girls’ bedrooms, but she later told me that she’s begun photographing their messes for posterity. “It’s like set dressing for one of my movies,” she said. The girls are forbidden to have public social-media accounts until they’re eighteen, but Romy, the older child, had a rogue viral moment last year, when—sounding, many observers noted, a bit like one of Coppola’s restless protagonists—she posted a plucky TikTok video saying that she’d been grounded for attempting to charter a helicopter with her dad’s credit card “because I wanted to have dinner with my camp friend.” Coppola, who values privacy and the mystery it can afford, called the video “the best way to rebel against me.” (She seemed excited, though, to confirm that Romy had filmed a small speaking role in Francis’s upcoming movie.)

Coppola considers “Lost in Translation,” her second film, to be her most personal.Photograph courtesy Sofia Coppola / Courtesy MACK

Coppola had set out scalloped shortbread cookies on a dainty plate (“I love Italian fancy-lady dishes”) and a floppy stack of paper, the manuscript of a coffee-table book, “Sofia Coppola Archive,” which she released last fall. The finished volume, as thick and pink as a slice of princess cake, is a scrapbook of Coppola’s career, with short, elliptical introductions to each film followed by a cascade of Polaroids, hand-written notes, contact sheets, script marginalia, costume sketches, and other ephemera.

The first chapter opens with a behind-the-scenes image of Dunst smiling in the grass of a football field. Coppola was in her early twenties when she read Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel “The Virgin Suicides,” from 1993, about five adolescent sisters in nineteen-seventies Michigan, who languish under the strictures of their ultraconservative parents and all die by suicide in a single year. Coppola said that when she read the book she thought, I hope whoever makes this into a movie doesn’t ruin it. Then she realized that maybe she could be the one to do it.

Coppola had started writing the script before she learned that a pair of producers had already bought the rights to the book and were working with a male writer-director. “I could hear my dad saying, ‘Don’t ever try to adapt something you don’t have the rights to,’ ” she recalled. “He told me to move on to something else.” Instead, Coppola sent her script to the producers and asked them to consider her for the directing job should the current arrangement fall through. A year later, she got the call. “I was young and naïve and didn’t really know what I was getting into,” she told me, “but I was, like, ‘Shit, O.K., now I have to figure it out.’ ”

“Virgin,” filmed over a month in the summer of 1998, for a budget of four million dollars, was a remarkably assured début, from its opening shot: Dunst lingering on the hot street eating a cherry Popsicle, like a latter-day Lolita, as the synthy sounds of the band Air kick in. From there the film unfolds at an unhurried pace. The sisters’ sadness is scarcely externalized, but the creeping ooze of their despair pervades every frame, including a striking shot of a wooden crucifix with a pink lacy bra slung across it to dry. Eugenides formulated the story as a hazy memory, narrated by a chorus of neighborhood boys who idolize the sisters but know nothing of their inner lives. Coppola’s script used a single narrator and allowed the camera to peek into the private spaces where the boys could never go. “Archive” reproduces an e-mail she received from Eugenides in 1998, expressing concerns that the script lacked “the necessary support around that story, which of course means the boys, the passage of time, the disjunctive narrative, and the right tone.” (She also includes a recent message that Eugenides wrote in response to her request to print the letter, in which he says, “What a whiny little bitch I was in those days.”) The film premièred at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim, but, according to Coppola, her American distributor, Paramount Classics, did little to promote it. “They thought teen-age girls were going to kill themselves if they saw it,” she said, adding, “It barely came out here.”

Coppola told me that every film she makes is a reaction to the one before. After “Virgin,” she wanted to work from an original story. She considers “Lost in Translation,” her next film, to be her most personal. She chose Japan as its setting based on trips she’d taken to promote her Milkfed line, and came up with the story of a twentysomething American woman, Charlotte, who bonds with a famous older actor named Bob at the Park Hyatt Tokyo. She wrote the script with Bill Murray in mind as Bob, then spent a year trying to track him down. (The actress Rashida Jones, a friend and collaborator of Coppola’s, recalled, “She had an assistant whose job it was to hold her phone and tell her if Bill Murray called.”) Charlotte, played by Scarlett Johansson, is smart but lacking direction. She tells Bob, “I tried taking pictures, but they’re so mediocre.” She is married to a hot-shot music photographer (Giovanni Ribisi), and she sits bored at the hotel bar as he schmoozes with Hollywood types.

At the time, Coppola was married to the director Spike Jonze, whom she’d met in the early nineties through her friends Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, of the band Sonic Youth. But the two were in the process of separating. Jonze released his own feature directorial début, “Being John Malkovich,” the same year that “The Virgin Suicides” premièred, and while Coppola’s film had a modest return his became an indie sensation. She recalled feeling, in their relationship, an echo of her mother’s experiences. Jonze and a few of his friends had discussed launching a directors’ collective, and, according to Coppola, they didn’t even invite her to join. “I don’t want to embarrass Spike and those guys,” she said. “I think it’s just about understanding the dynamic there, which was a very nineties, dudes’-club dynamic. I was going around with Spike to promote his films, and I was just kind of the wife.” (Jonze could not be reached for comment.)

She was surprised when “Lost in Translation” became a runaway hit, not only winning her an Oscar but earning more than a hundred million dollars worldwide on a four-million-dollar budget. “I thought I was writing this really indulgent piece,” she recalled. “I mean, who cares about some rich girl trying to find herself?” But audiences connected to the film’s fuzzed-out mood of dislocation and the tragicomic pleasures of two lost people finding each other for a moment in time. At the end of the film, Bob and Charlotte share a kiss, and he whispers something inaudible into her ear. “I never even wrote that line,” Coppola said. “Bill always said that it was something that should stay between them.”

There is an adage in Hollywood that actors want to win awards to boost their egos, whereas directors want to win awards to boost their budgets. After “Lost in Translation,” Coppola found herself courted by the major studios. The producer Amy Pascal, who was a top executive at Sony Pictures at the time, told me, “I was desperate to work with her.” When they met, in 2004, she asked Coppola what project she dreamed of making. Coppola answered immediately: “Marie Antoinette.”

Not long after the release of “The Virgin Suicides,” Coppola had read an advance copy of a biography of the French queen, by the British historian Antonia Fraser, and had written to Fraser asking to option it. “I know I will be able to express how a girl experiences the grandeur of a palace, the clothes, parties, rivals, and ultimately having to grow up,” she wrote. “I can identify with her role of coming from a strong family and fighting for her own identity.” At first, Coppola endeavored to make her script biographically comprehensive, covering Marie Antoinette’s life all the way up to the guillotine. Fraser, writing later in Vanity Fair, recalled telling Coppola that the script seemed to lose energy in its final act, as if Coppola had been uninterested in “the mature woman’s tragic fate.” Fraser went on, “When she asked me lightly, ‘Would it matter if I leave out the politics?,’ I replied with absolute honesty, ‘Marie Antoinette would have adored that.’ ”

Coppola’s film, released in 2006, tells the story of the profligate, unfeeling monarch from the history textbooks as an intimate coming of age, following her from the time she was shipped to Versailles from her home in Austria as a fourteen-year-old peace offering between nations to her departure from the palace, nineteen years later, as the French Revolution set in. Coppola told me that she wanted to capture the idea of “the kids taking over the kingdom.” She allowed Dunst to retain her American accent and filled the film with anachronistic music and energetic montages, including a feverish shopping scene set to a remix of “I Want Candy.” (Roman, her brother, who shot most of the film’s closeups, planted a pair of Converse sneakers among the rococo mules.) When an angry mob grumbles about the queen’s infamous (and likely apocryphal) line “Let them eat cake,” Dunst tells her girlfriends, “That’s such nonsense, I would never say that!” The movie is almost obscenely beautiful; every shot has the composed lusciousness of a box of petits fours. The bracing opening sequence—Coppola has never missed on an opening shot—was inspired by a Guy Bourdin photograph of a model in repose: lounging in a petticoat, with an attendant massaging her feet, Dunst’s Marie swipes her finger through the frosting of a layer cake and then delivers the camera an insolent stare. When Coppola showed her father an early cut of the film, he advised her to give Louis XVI more lines. Like Eugenides, he was missing the male perspective. “I was, like, ‘Um, Dad, no,’ ” Coppola remembered, adding, “I honestly don’t care about anyone else’s point of view. Just hers.”

Coppola and Mars began dating during the film’s making. Mars, who was born and raised in the town of Versailles, recalled, “It’s like living in a museum. You can’t disturb anything. It’s not welcome.” With “Marie,” there was excitement in seeing Versailles “embrace something new.” But not all French people appreciated the result. At a press screening at Cannes, some viewers booed. Many critics dismissed the movie as an ahistorical powder puff, an impudent exercise in vibes-first filmmaking. Others thought it was a masterpiece. The response was so divided that the Times made an unorthodox decision to publish duelling reviews from its two chief movie critics. Manohla Dargis, in the “anti” camp, wrote, “The princess lived in a bubble, and it’s from inside that bubble Ms. Coppola tells her story.” For some, though, the film’s reception only reinforced Coppola’s claim to its thematic substance, as a woman who knows a thing or two about the distorting effects of public exposure. (One of her close friends, the fashion designer Marc Jacobs, told me, “It’s so easy to throw around these titles like ‘nepo baby.’ What do you do, kill yourself because you come from a good family? Do you just not make art?”) Roger Ebert saw the movie’s slim perspective as a strength: “Every criticism I have read of this film would alter its fragile magic and reduce its romantic and tragic poignancy to the level of an instructional film.”

How one feels about Coppola’s narrow approach to storytelling might depend, in part, on where one stands in relation to her field of vision. When “Lost in Translation” came out, some Asian and Asian American critics took issue with the film’s depiction of Japanese culture through the eyes of Western visitors. Accented English was played in the movie for laughs. Tokyo establishments were portrayed as “superficial, inappropriately erotic, or unintelligible,” as Homay King, a film-studies professor at Bryn Mawr, wrote in Film Quarterly. King wondered what level of awareness Coppola had brought to this portrayal: Did the tone of bewildered Orientalism belong to her characters or to her? Coppola defended her depiction to the Los Angeles Times by saying, “My story is about Americans in Tokyo. After all, that’s all I know.” But she didn’t seem to reckon with the inherent sensitivities of depicting another culture from a distance. “I did wonder if all the ‘r’ and ‘l’ switching would be offensive,” she said back then. “But my crew thought it was funny.” (“It was a different time,” she told me. “I haven’t thought about how I would approach it now, but probably not in the same way.”)

“My father is just so into filmmaking that he thinks everyone should be doing it,” Coppola says.Photograph by Thea Traff for The New Yorker

Coppola confronted a similar backlash more recently, to a movie set on American soil. “The Beguiled,” from 2017, is a remake of a 1971 movie that takes place during the Civil War, about a group of white Confederate women who are driven into an erotic fervor when a wounded Union soldier arrives at their boarding school in an isolated mansion. Both the original film and the novel on which it is based also feature an enslaved Black woman who works in the house. Coppola, fearful of perpetuating stereotypes, decided to omit the character altogether, and explained away the absence with dialogue at the beginning of the film: it was nearing the end of the war, and “the slaves left.” In the U.S., the release was dominated by discourse about the character’s erasure; at Slate, the writer Corey Atad lambasted the film for its “whitewashing of slavery.”

The fallout forced Coppola to consider that there are hazards to writing only what you know, or “leaving out the politics,” if doing so means waving away inconvenient complexities. The critic Angelica Jade Bastién, of New York and Vulture, told me, “What Coppola does best is also her greatest weakness: she creates fables about modern white femininity.” She went on, “Art is political whether the artist wants it to be or not. Coppola is someone studying whiteness, but who doesn’t perhaps understand her own whiteness very well. It is because of that contradiction that her work doesn’t get deeper.” Coppola told me, “I admit it was probably stupid to do something on the Civil War.” But she also suggested that her “creative license” with the source material had been “misinterpreted as insulting.” She’d been interested in portraying the unravelling of a group of cossetted women when there were no men around or slaves left to tend to them. “It’s the kind of world I like, really claustrophobic,” she said, adding, “They were so used to being taken care of, and they didn’t know how to do anything for themselves.”

During one conversation, Coppola confessed, “Sometimes I feel like I make the same film over and over, and I’m probably becoming a cliché of myself.” In some ways, “Priscilla” resembles her previous movies, but in contrast to a film like “Marie Antoinette,” with its baubles and brocades, the new film is strikingly joyless in its depiction of life inside a gilded cage. In part because Coppola was denied the rights to Elvis’s music, the exuberance of rock and roll is all but absent from the film. Priscilla interacts with Elvis mostly at home, where he’s dressed down, needy, and sporadically abusive. Through the murmurings of tertiary characters, Coppola laces the film with reminders of Priscilla’s tender age, which was troubling even if you believe, as Presley claimed in her book, that she and Elvis did not consummate their relationship until they were married, when she was twenty-one. One of the film’s strongest sequences shows Spaeny trying to occupy herself in Graceland while Elvis is away. She ambles around in a doll-like white dress and too-big matching heels. She tries out various seats in the living room and plunks a single key on Elvis’s baby grand. She is less a kid taking over the kingdom than a child left home alone.

Just as Coppola rarely concerns herself with events beyond her characters’ sequestered worlds, she doesn’t show what happens to the ones who escape the waiting room of their lives. The final shot of “Priscilla” shows Spaeny driving out of the gates of Graceland. We hear Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” both mournful and triumphant. Coppola has hinted at a desire to, as she put it in one interview, “grow up and do other subject matter,” beyond adolescence, but she gave me little sense of what that might look like, besides, perhaps, teaming up again with Dunst, who is now in her early forties. Coppola’s past films have romanticized the bonds between famous older men and younger women, but she told me that her attitude about such connections has shifted with the times. Her project before “Priscilla,” “On the Rocks,” from 2020, centered on a fortyish writer, Laura (Rashida Jones, who is the daughter of the music producer Quincy Jones), and her big-time art-dealer dad, Felix (Bill Murray). The character of Felix, whom Coppola said she based on her “dada and his buddies,” is a gregarious man of style, who wears silk scarves and considers caviar a road snack. He is also an attention hog prone to errant flirting and chauvinist soliloquies. “Somewhere” was tinged with nostalgic sweetness about fathers and daughters: Coppola had the film’s protagonists—the divorcé movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) and his eleven-year-old, Cleo (Elle Fanning)—order every flavor of gelato from room service, “which is just the sort of thing my dad would do,” and enlisted the Chateau Marmont’s late “singing waiter” Romulo Laki to serenade Cleo with Elvis’s “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear,” the same song that Laki used to sing to Sofia when she was young. “On the Rocks,” by contrast, is both funnier and pricklier, charting Laura’s struggle to define herself outside of her dad’s overwhelming orbit. Drinking a Martini at Bemelmans, Felix tells Laura that he is going deaf to the frequency of female voices. Laura yells at the end of the film, “You have daughters and granddaughters, so you’d better start figuring out how to hear them!”

Eleanor has often shot behind-the-scenes footage on Sofia’s films, as she did for Francis. She has eighty hours from the making of “Marie Antoinette,” which Sofia told me she’s helping turn into a documentary. In 2016, at the age of eighty, Eleanor also released her first feature, a comedy called “Paris Can Wait,” becoming the oldest American woman to make a directorial début. But lately Eleanor has been ill, and the family has been shuttling back and forth to her bedside in California. On Sofia’s birthday last year, which coincided with Mother’s Day, the two “sat in the hospital and ate tuna sandwiches,” Eleanor told me. Last October, “Priscilla” had its American première at the New York Film Festival. The strikes in Hollywood meant that there were almost no actors on the red carpets, but, because “Priscilla” involved no major-studio funding, Coppola was among the few directors given special dispensation to have her film’s stars do promotion. Elordi and Spaeny were at the première, but Coppola herself was missing. Henley, her producer, read a statement in her stead: “I’m so sorry to not be there with you, but I’m with my mother, to whom this film is dedicated.”

One recent evening, hundreds of Coppola fans lined up at a Barnes & Noble in central L.A. for an “Archive” book signing. Coppola is, as her daughters recently informed her, “big on TikTok,” and some Gen Z fans have taken to calling her “Mother,” an influencer to the influencers. (One viral video shows a young woman ranting about cleaning her room: “When a boy’s room is messy, it’s, like, ‘Oh, my God, he’s filthy,’ ” she says, adding, “When a girl’s room is messy? It’s Sofia Coppola.”) At the bookstore, the crowd was largely made up of teen-agers, many of whom had donned costumes: gossamer pink tutus and oversized hair bows that evoked Marie Antoinette’s style; chokers with heart pendants like one Spaeny wears in the “Priscilla” trailer. One wore a vintage T-shirt by Milkfed, Coppola’s fashion line, which she sold years ago but which has, in recent years, become a cult brand among a new generation of fans, including the pop star Olivia Rodrigo.

A young woman wearing a skirt custom-printed with a still from “The Virgin Suicides” reached the front of the line and held her hand to her chest. “You literally invented ‘aesthetic,’ ” she said to Coppola, using slang for the kind of exquisitely curated look that teens strive for on social media. There was an amusing mismatch between the fans’ gushing and Coppola’s low-key energy. She did not say much more than a warm “oh, thank you” or “that’s so sweet” as she received their compliments.

Leaving the bookstore, at dusk, Coppola said that she was looking forward to ordering room service at the Beverly Hills Hotel, whose menu she knew from childhood breakfasts spent talking filmmaking there with her father. (The eggs Benedict is apparently first-rate.) We walked together toward a black car waiting for her at the curb. After the harsh fluorescent lighting in the bookstore, the L.A. streets looked pleasingly subdued. I pointed at the sunset, which was a shade of powdery pink.

“Oh, yeah,” Coppola said, her eyes moving lackadaisically toward the sky. “It’s a little like I directed it.” ♦

An earlier version of this article misstated Jacob Elordi’s height and the year Sofia Coppola and Amy Pascal met.Published in the print edition of the January 29, 2024, issue, with the headline “Crème de la Crème.”

[archiving-my-thoughts]

Star Wars, its Fans, and the Death of the Author

Since the release of the first installment of the Star Wars-franchise in 1977, the franchise has sparked controversy surrounding the films. Whether it was due to changes or added storylines, fans of the franchise never seem to be fully pleased. The more installments are released, the more difficult it becomes for the franchise to keep up with the expectations of fans.

With the rise of non-linear media as seen in video games, audiences began to expect different experiences from films. In 1999, these new experiences were provided through transmedia storytelling which is “the process of telling different parts of the same story through different electronic media” (Duffett 12). The Star Wars franchise is a good example of transmedia storytelling, as the franchise has been greatly expanded upon with various films, television series, novels and comic books. There are even themed areas in Walt Disney World and Disneyland Anaheim that tie into the canon of the franchise.

With a franchise that big, there is a need for an overall structure. There is an ‘author’ needed to make sure the franchise stays true to its origins. This author was initially Geroge Lucas, the creator of the franchise. After directing the first film, Star Wars (which was later titles Episode IV: A New Hope) in 1977, he was the executive producer for both sequels and later also directed the prequel trilogy. Lucas is thereby a clear author for the first installments in the franchise. This changed when Lucasfilm Ltd, the production company behind the franchise was sold to the Walt Disney Company in 2012. Kathleen Kennedy was promoted to president of Lucasfilm and a new sequel trilogy was announced. Lucas’ claim on the authorship of the franchise was diminishing, as his initial ideas for a seventh film were not used by Disney (Romano).

As Kustritz mentions, “studios more and more … treat transmedia narratives as a piece of their own corporate intellectual property over which no author hold an ultimate authoritative vision” (228). Although Lucas created the franchise and many fans saw and still see him as the author, Disney did not treat him that way in regards to future expansions of the franchise. This resulted in a rift in the fandom, especially because the newer installments that were overseen by Kennedy and the Walt Disney Company were not received well by some fans.

With the Star Wars-franchise having touched so many people, these people have inherited it as their own. As explained by Brooker,

The films have been embraced by and incorporated into the lives of millions of viewers. On one level, Star Wars does not belong solely to Lucas anymore; its characters and stories have escaped the original text and grown up with the fans that have developed their own very firm ideas of what Star Wars is and is not about. (qtd. in Matthiesen 90)

In other words, the text is so interwoven with its fans that they have a clear vision of what Star Wars is, or more importantly, what it is not. This means that fans may disregard newer installments or creative decisions because the fan’s vision does not coincide with the author’s vision. Fans have created their own meaning in the text, and thus don’t need the meaning that is created by the (new) author.

With Star Wars being the phenomenon that it is, there was quite some pressure on the new authors to create engaging stories that met the expectations of the audience and especially the fans. The sequel trilogy, that started with The Force Awakens in 2015, was met with resistance however, as the expansion of the franchise went into a different direction than some fans had expected. Instead of Han and Leia being happily married, their son turned to the dark side. In the case of Luke, fans were disappointed to see that he did gave up on the idea of training future jedi’s. These decisions changed the interpretation of the original trilogy according to fans, as these new installments showed there was no ultimate happy ending to the initial story.

It can be argued, however, that continuing a story always changes the interpretation of earlier parts of it. Take Darth Vader as an example. His character can be read very differently after having seen the prequels, even though those came out after the initial trilogy and his backstory might not have been developed or even thought of when creating the first trilogy. Continuing a story, whether it is a prequel or sequel, therefore always changes the interpretation of earlier released installments. This means it was to be expected that the new installments to the franchise were going to change the overall interpretation of the story.

Fans “become indignant when the continuing source text or creators seem to contradict or betray the canonical fictional universe” (Goodman 6). In other words, when an addition to the story is not how fans envisioned it, they might disregard the creative choices. They are hard on the creators because their impulse is to maintain the integrity of the fictional universe that they love, but that does come at the expense of the integrity of the creator (Goodman 8). Fans want ‘their’ fictional world to stay intact, which leads to being especially hard on new installments when it is not deemed good enough. The question is whether you can blame fans for this behavior. Can you blame them for being overprotective of the thing they love?

There will always be fans that do not agree with the creative direction that the current author chooses. It is simply impossible to please everyone, because everyone will have different expectations. There are fans who think everything apart from the original trilogy is not canon, and there are those that accept everything as part of the saga. It is undeniable, however, that there seems to be a constant rift between the author’s vision and what the fans want to see. Fans acknowledge the power of the creator, the author, but they contest the way this power is wielded (Goodman 3). It is therefore not unexpected that fans take matters into their own hands and turn to things like fanfiction and fanart to create their own version of the story.

The Star Wars- franchise has had a rocky relationship with its fans in the past. Even now with recent Disney+ shows like The Mandalorian there remains a lot of discourse on the character- and universe integrity. And that’s fine. With an universe as expanded as this one, it is unavoidable that fans have differing opinions on how to fill in the gaps. It is even understandable that there is a gap between what the author creates and what the fans expect, because the author might have a completely different understanding of the universe.

Sources:

Duffett, Mark. Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture. Bloomsbury, 2013.

Goodman, Lesley. “Disappointing Fans: Fandom, Fictional Theory, and the Death of the Author.” Journal of Popular Culture, 2015.

Kustritz, A. “Seriality and Transmediality in the Fan Universe: Flexible and Multiple Narrative Structures in Fan Fiction, Art, and Vids.” TV/Series, 2014.

Matthiesen, Neil. “The Marketing of The Force: Fans, Media and the Economics of Star Wars.” Fan Phenomena: Star Wars, edited by Mika Elovaara, Intellect Books, 2013.

Romano, Nick. “How George Lucas’ Star Wars 7 Ideas Were Used By Disney.” Cinemablend, 19 Jan. 2015.

[lewisibarra1512]

What Universal should do with animation - My thoughts

Nobody believed me when I developed a huge hatred towards Warner Bros. since I was actually born in the 90's. But now, seeing they were devoured up by Discovery by cancelling every single show to date and delisting them all from HBO Max as a result of the merger Warner Bros. Discovery goes to show that my hatred towards the former was a lot improved over the years. And you know what? It was fun. And hilarious.

However, considering their competitor Universal Pictures already won the animation market last year with big hits like the Bad Guys, the Rise of Gru and the Last Wish, this begs a very important question: what can Universal do within the animation industry?

Since we're now in 2023, I went ahead and shared my five reasons:

Take their division Universal Animation Studios too seriously - Since 1990 / 1991, Universal Animation Studios (or Universal Cartoon Studios) was established to create animated shows based upon popular IP such as Back to the Future, An American Tail, Problem Child and Casper. Their previous works on film included Curious George and Woody Woodpecker; the latter of which... wasn't well received due to it being restricted to direct-to-video. However, to ensure that animation can be made as fun and attractive, as coined by NBCUniversal CEO and president Jeff Shell, it can not only be made for kids but also for adults too. What I would imagine is that a new animated series should be based around any highly acclaimed film, or just make it original. If successful, it might develop a fan base that would cater to all viewers, no matter what genre.

Acquire [adult swim], Boomerang and Cartoon Network with a bit of rebranding - I know I'm going to drag too much naysayers in this post, but hear me out. Imagine if NBCUniversal casually negotiated with Warner Bros. Discovery by owning the rights to all three divisions [adult swim], Boomerang and CN, and then they'd be split as three respective channels, they'd be rebranded as a certain following: Universal Animation Network (Kids and Families), Universal Animation Classics (everyone) and Universal Animation Alternate. The latter of which is similar to [adult swim] but as a full-on focus for adult animation. All original animated shows to air 24 hours with Woody Woodpecker, including re-runs of Universal Animation Studios produced programmes while hiring former CN animators and artists who were ousted by David Zaslav himself and then get experimental and inspired. Just to keep viewers waiting while new shows are presented without cancelling them. Oh, yeah. Don't shoehorn live action on every network unlike what Stuart Snyder did. Then relaunch said programmes on Peacock in case they miss out. Speaking of Peacock...

Make original animated web shows on Peacock? - Similar to Woody Woodpecker who received a 2018 web series on YouTube, Universal Animation Studios should consider making more original animated shows on their live streaming service Peacock. It can develop new shows as timed exclusives before being aired on either one of the following networks (original, Classics or Alternate) or just YouTube in case no one signs up for the app. Afterwards, it'll help NBCUniversal and Team Peacock to boost more interest into the animation market, just like how DreamWorks Animation had creative control with Jurassic World and Fast & Furious. Sure it had mixed reviews since launch, but after hearing it was the big home to the New Woody Woodpecker Show that debuted on FOX Kids circa 1999, every animation viewer immediately signed up for the app and started to binge watch the living hell out of it. Though, I haven't seen the entire show since it was aired. Luckily, I still have Peacock installed on my iPad Pro, but haven't had the time to sign up for it. Maybe in March, I could consider using a year round subscription so I don't miss out what's going on (i.e. the Super Mario Bros. Movie).

Win against WAG, Disney and Nick while avoiding negative actions - Whether it's from Illumination, DreamWorks or their original animation division, Universal has a huge library of animated content that's from the classics. Unlike Disney, Pixar nor Warner Bros., they don't force too much wokeness nor political nonsense into their projects. And, unlike Netflix nor Nickelodeon, they don't delist any good programme off Peacock despite cancellations. As stated, animation is all about fun and attractiveness, including going experimental in a unique style. Their division DreamWorks Classics has full access to many animated shows such as Harvey Toons, Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids, Postman Pat, Felix the Cat, Rocky & Bullwinkle and others to show Disney, Warner and Nick who's the real boss. And in case Christmas is around the corner, throw in some Rankin Bass specials so people can get excited again!

What could be next for Universal Animation Studios? - With Warner Bros. Animation now being gutted down by Zaslav and Disney & Pixar facing giant controversies over layoffs and box office bombs, the Rise of Gru and both DreamWorks Animation films (including Jeff Shell involved) could open the gates to their division once again and show undeniable proof that animation can be made for everyone to enjoy. And it's not exactly about kids nor adults. Universal can then reach out to fired employees of both Disney and Warner Bros. and pitch new and original ideas with a talented story, a line of characters and even memorable moments that can make anyone feel lighthearted about watching said content. Love it or hate it, Universal Animation Studios is certainly the future.

And that's all there is about my reasons why Universal should admire animation more than others. But my certain thoughts about it? Well, I have a feeling 2023 is about to get more interesting with the new animated Mario film and Trolls 3 set to be released in cinemas prior to Peacock re-releases. And as an avid Universal enjoyer, I appreciate their hard work now. :)

[wellntruly]

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS - ★★★★½

It’s time to shatter the glass on my last few weeks plugged into the Matrix: write about it.

A lot of people will write you something about how they saw The Matrix and it was momentous, how it changed everything, awoke them to cinema, they wore out their DVD (it’s still one of the highest selling DVDs of all time). But I’m not. I saw The Matrix when I was 20, ten years after it had come out, thought, ‘that was pretty green’, and moved on.

Three years later I would be sitting in a theater just minutes into the opening of a story I knew nothing about with goosebumps running down my arms and legs, and while I don’t know if it changed everything, I was awaking to something. ‘This is…! This is…?’, I thought, and then reasoning just kind of fell out of my mind.

It was 2012, and the Wachowskis had just released Cloud Atlas with their new collaborator Tom Tykwer, a movie that today I see not as a turning point for them so much as just a key mile marker in their long, pronounced bend from gritty cyberpunk disillusionment toward sunlit kaleidoscopic dorky-pure DJ sets about the transcendent horny power of human connection, or in its purest form to date: Sense8 (2015-18).

In the years since I was reintroduced to the siblings who had created The Matrix as the people who were now making, say, Jupiter Ascending (UNDYING), I always struggled to…hold that all together in my mind, you know? I honestly think I would simply forget most of the time that those were the same Wachowskis. When the news broke that Lana Wachowski was returning with another Matrix movie, I don’t know if I even caught it, it might have just slipped into that disconnected space in my mind between the Wachowskis of 1999 and the Wachowskis of 2019. The Matrix? I don’t think I know her.

I’m sorry to do this for the second review in a row, but this is the point where I tell you that a trailer came out and I was besotted. It was The Matrix, but it looked like Sense8. It was all golden hour San Francisco and Keanu Reeves looking crushingly dear and someone with queer blue hair and Jefferson Airplane’s ’White Rabbit’ soaring vividly, merrily on-the-nose in the background, and it all looked so sincere and big and uncool and romantic and I wanted it, I wanted it so badly. It looked like the Lana Wachowski that I know, that I love, returning to her origin story and making it over as the filmmaker she has become today.

And it is, it is exactly that.

But the only way we can get there, is by first going back. (“—back to the Matrix!”)

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[In an absurd accidental feat of elision, there are no spoilers for any installment of the Matrix series in this. Not a one. I also don’t know how I did that.]