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Swamp Thing gets a teaser trailer and a release date.
Wow, the new live-action Shrek show looks bananas.
DC’s “Swamp Thing” got its first teaser trailer as well as a May 31 release date.
The show will be available to watch on DC Universe.
According to DC, “Swamp Thing” follows Abby Arcane as she investigates what seems to be a deadly swamp-born virus in a small town in Louisiana. She soon discovers that the swamp holds mystical and terrifying secrets. When unexplainable and chilling horrors emerge from the murky marsh, no one is safe.
You have too many browser tabs open. Here’s how to fix that.
If you’re like most of us, there’s a lot going on in your browser at once. You’ve got an article you’re reading (hi!), email in another tab, Facebook one tab after that, a half-watched video in the next tab, a chat in the next, music playing from somewhere else, and suddenly an unannounced ad trumpeting over all of it. Before you know it your browsing session is a chaotic disarray of pinned tabs, busy extensions, and a list of unrecognizable bookmarks that scrolls on and on. If you’re drowning in the mess, Toby is the life preserver that can help you stay afloat.
Toby is a browser extension compatible with Chrome, Firefox, and Opera (provided you use this extender) that helps you organize tabs and save you time. According to a recent survey of Toby users, the service can save you up to eight hours a week.
Once you install Toby, the extension is present on any new tab you open, be it YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, a new search on Google. To use it all you have to do is create a ‘collection’ and drag your choice of open tabs right into it.
The simple mechanic was designed to help you keep track of relevant information throughout the day, and does so by storing tabs locally on your computer. That’s its main draw, but there’s other neat stuff the extension can offer too, like syncing files or sharing. Sometimes Toby can even restore services on deleted collections or tabs.
The dev team explains how it saves you time like this: “If you think about the time it takes you to find a document or the file your coworker sent you 2 months ago, you can see how it can quickly add up. Toby is an entirely new way for modern teams to access resources and share knowledge seamlessly. It will save you a significant amount of time and money and even better allow you to do more important work.”
By default, your browser already lets you make folders, sub-folders, and bookmarks at any time, so what is it that Toby does better? While folders can be a way to organize long-term, people seldom make them per browsing session; it’s usually not worth it.
Toby is much more spur-of-the-moment; an improvisational method for keeping your current objective in sight, and any additional stimulus is put somewhere separate. “Bookmarks are for books, not browsers,” says Toby. “Organize your browser tabs into Toby so you can access key resources in one click instead of seven.”
Toby is free. You can download it right here by creating an account. There’s no trial period, no fuss; Toby can be used for your PC at work or at home, and will help you stay organized until you decide to remove it.
There is a public beta version of Toby that’s available for teams and businesses, as well as an Enterprise better suited for large organizations “that want to power their teams with multiple Toby workspaces.”
Getting an account is recommended, but you don’t even have to do that. It just means that your information will be stored locally instead of on a shareable cloud that can be accessed on a different computer. So give it a whirl and let us know in the comments below whether Toby has saved you time and helped you stay organized!
Discover how the legend created these iconic characters.
The Metal Gear franchise stands out from other video games because of its cinematic storytelling, expansive narrative, and allegorical metaphors for the real world. It’s a zany, complex miasma of espionage, intrigue, triple-agents, secrets, plot twists, and over-the-top drama and action sequences (many of which were inspired by Hollywood movies), wherein gameplay gets steadily stronger as the series progresses to more recent titles. While the tactical espionage game is itself clever and fun, the other side of the coin is the plot and characters.
The mind behind the series is Hideo Kojima, a now-55-year-old man who studied economics at a university and got into gaming around the same time. His peers were surprised when he announced his intent to get into the gaming industry; Kojima had previously expressed an interest in directing film. He brought his love of film to gaming, and the result was one of the most detailed and cinematic series to ever land. With the exception of the 2004 Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Kojima wrote, directed, and designed every game in the Metal Gear series, from the 1987 Metal Gear all the way to 2015’s The Phantom Pain.
Kojima’s early literary influences range from Kobo Abe, Ryu Murakami, and Yukio Mishima, to Americans such as Richard Levinson, William Link, and Paul Auster. He was especially entranced by American films such as John McTiernan’s 1987 “Predator” (just look at the environment for Metal Gear Solid 3), Terence Young’s 1962 “Dr. No,” (check out the soundtrack for the same game), and especially John Carpenter’s 1981 “Escape from New York.” “Escape from New York” starred Kurt Russell as a grizzled eyepatch-wearing action hero whose name was even ‘Snake.’
Kojima and Carpenter were friendly acquaintances, and when Kojima expressed an interest in making a video game protagonist based off Carpenter’s own, Carpenter had no problem with it, even quelling talk of copyright infringement. “I told them not to do that,” Carpenter told the irate lawyers, “I know the director of these games, and he’s a nice guy, or at least he’s nice to me.”
While Kojima was a huge fan of American film, he wasn’t as big of a fan of western gaming. “Western video game designers, they’re the ones with the interesting technologies,” said Kojima in an interview. “They know how to use the hardware and they are very imaginative. And they are artistic. But sometimes, because they are so artistic, they forget what games should feel like, that games need to feel right and they need to play well.”
For Kojima, a big consideration for his characters was that while they can live, breathe, and behave like people, they’re also living in a video game meant to be played by a wide demographic. “It’s like serving food in a restaurant,” he said; “you need to be sensitive to the customer. You need to be nice and providing service. Maybe that was lacking in the western games, and that was what [Shigeru] Miyamoto was so great at doing.”
Kojima began working with Japanese artist Yoji Shinkawa as early as 1994 on “Policenauts.” Over the years, the two spearheaded the design of Metal Gear’s characters, working in close collaboration to achieve an image they both felt proud of. “I come up with the setting and convey the character’s name, age, habits, background, and language to Yoji,” Kojima said of the process. “Then he creates the designs based on that info, and I check them and give him feedback. His booth is right next to mine, so we’re constantly communicating with each other.”
Kojima would draw inspiration and put ideas together (sometimes even from other members of the dev team) for both gameplay and character design, then he would hand the wheel over to Shinkawa to turn the ideas into a tangible visual design. “Once the basic design takes shape, I then leave things in his hands and check back when the model is done. Generally, we’re constantly moving in tandem – checking, verifying, and discussing designs at each and every phase.”
“In all games, you have Snake. He’s not only my favorite character, he’s the one that’s closest to me,” said Kojima. “By always having Snake in every game, his background slowly develops over time. I kind of relate that to myself growing up.” Of all the characters in the saga, Snake is the one thread that ties it all together.
Astute fans will point out that while every protagonist (except for Raiden) is named ‘Snake,’ there are actually two protagonists with the same title: Snake (Big Boss), and Solid Snake. This point actually illustrates Kojima’s point even better; there are many elements to a person’s actual personality, and as Kojima (and the players) grew older, the degree to which they can relate to a character becomes strained. As a result, the original Big Boss was both the hero and the villain of the series.
Kojima and Shinkawa actually disagreed on how Snake should look and feel in the original Metal Gear Solid. “I asked Shinkawa to create an older, hard-boiled, dandy character, but he said it’s better to have a younger character,” Kojima recalls. “So Solid Snake became about 20 to 40. I asked him to make the character nimble and muscular, with the body like a Van Damme. The result came out to be the one you will see in the game. He has to perform espionage, so I wanted the character to be like a cat but still have a strong presence.”
As for his personality, Kojima originally intended for Snake to be a blank slate. “While he started with no background, over 20 years, that personality has been slowly fulfilled. While this is a character that I created, recently I feel like he has developed his own personality, and established his own background,” he said in an interview.
What makes this sentiment so true is that not only have the events of the series molded and changed Snake throughout the games, but they’ve also brought the player through the same growth. By having a blank slate slowly grow richer with experiences and relationships, the player evolves alongside him, gradually learning who he is and relating to him more and more. This way his character is slowly filled as the player intertwines his own experience with Snake’s.
By Metal Gear Solid 2, Kojima realized a dilemma: He wanted to give more personality to Snake, but given the lack of control he had over the player’s decisions, felt it would be very difficult. “I wanted to give depth to the Snake character, which is very hard to do when the player is playing Snake himself,” said Kojima. “I got the idea of distancing the viewer from Snake to provide a more objective view of him. Thanks to this system, Snake grows in stature. When you play Raiden [in MGS 2], who is only a beginner, and then encounter Snake he suddenly seems more impressive.”
While the fan response to Snake (both Big Boss and Solid Snake) was generally positive, critics were less excited about the surprise MGS 2 protagonist, Raiden. Kojima knew the character was a risk, but strongly felt it was a necessary one. “I put my career on the line with Raiden!” he said. “I did it to entertain people, by totally destroying what I had built up, earned and achieved with MGS 1. I really wanted people to be amused by that, but they started bashing him and I guess I wasn’t happy.”
What made Raiden more interesting, however, was not so much the character, but his relationship with Solid Snake. As you might expect, that relationship was also inspired by movies.
One of the biggest inspirations for Snake and Raiden actually came from Godzilla and King Kong. Solid Snake was supposed to be a metaphor for Godzilla – the resulting product of man and science. Raiden, on the other hand, was closer to King Kong – lured by a woman, captured by a greedy villain (Solidus in MGS 2), and taken to the city. Kojima explained that the parallel continues at the game’s end, when Solid Snake frees Raiden, and he’s allowed to return from whence he came. Snake, on the other hand (still going by the Godzilla metaphor) cannot be at peace as long as Cipher and Metal Gear exist.
“Otacon’s presence is very big for me too,” said Kojima of the wimpier engineer/mechanic from earlier Metal Gear games. “Otacon is not a heroic character; he doesn’t fight, he has no courage, he constantly gets rejected by women. But I think he has a very important role in the Metal Gear Solid series because of all that.”
Otacon was meant to serve as a foil to the glamorous and gritty spy turned war hero, Snake. “I am guessing that most people playing Metal Gear Solid are a lot closer to Otacon,” Kojima said wryly, “but through their actions, they feel they assume the role of Snake. By placing Otacon between the player and Snake, I think this adds a lot of depth to the game. That’s why I try to consistently push Otacon into being an important part of the story.”
One of the biggest points of contention in Metal Gear is its portrayal of female characters, who are nearly always overtly sexualized and sometimes even physically harassed on-screen. Perhaps most controversial is Quiet, the scantily-clad sniper in The Phantom Pain. Kojima made an attempt to argue the reason for her design, but it doesn’t hold much water, even with other game development teams.
Industry full of man babies. Ugh.
— David Ellis (@DavidEllis) September 6, 2013
There may not be much defense for a character like Quiet, but that’s not to say that all women in the Metal Gear are there just for the visual enjoyment of the male nerd demographic. Indeed, some of Metal Gear’s most powerful characters are women, namely The Boss, the antagonist and mentor of Snake in MGS 3 who schools him in virtually every way. Other characters like the deadly Sniper Wolf, the capable spy Eva, or the motherly Para-Medic are further examples. Is there blatant sexualizing of the female characters in MGS? Yes. Is this the case with every character? No.
As times change, so too must Kojima’s character design. The first Metal Gear game came out 31 years ago, and since then Snake has evolved and gone through several different incarnations. When Kojima was asked what, to him, was the ideal representation of Snake, his response was immediate: “Snake is and has always been nothing more than an extension of the player.” If you’ve played The Phantom Pain you may have noticed some pretty big character departures when comparing him to Snake during Peace Walker or Snake Eater.
The decision was a conscious choice, an attempt to return Snake to that blank slate that he started as, as the character slowly grows into the villain of the mid-series. A mostly silent protagonist (a la Mad Max in “Mad Max 2,” Master Chief in Halo, or Karl Fairburne in Sniper Elite) was agreed upon to thin the line between player and character in an effort of creating a more immersive narration. It’s weaning the series narrative away from Snake and pushing it more towards the world and supporting cast who will soon step into the spotlight. After the events of The Phantom Pain “it’s the characters around [Snake] who will expand the story,” says Kojima.
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Want more pro writing tips?Who’s your favorite Metal Gear character? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned with Softonic for more character analysis, and the latest in gaming news.
How would an dark wizard achieve immortality? Cracking the code to the Elixir of Life? Almost. Drinking unicorn blood? Too hard to obtain. Murdering people and splitting your soul into corrupt fragments to be stored in random objects? Now we’re talking!
After Tom Riddle was taught how to create Horcruxes by the unwitting Horace Slughorn, he sought to create six of them (his own self being the seventh), believing seven to be the strongest magical number. Once Harry and Dumbledore learn of this, it sets in motion a hunt to find and destroy all the pieces of Voldemort’s soul, rendering him mortal once more, a hunt that the entirety of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which you can stream right here!
If you’re trying to count the seven Horcruxes on your fingers, or can’t remember how Harry, Ron, and Hermione could possibly have found all of them in the span of one book, we’re here to help. Here are Voldemort’s horcruxes, their locations, and how they were destroyed:
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Tom Riddle kept a diary in 1943, and in his sixth year made the book into his first Horcrux. To create it, he murdered Myrtle Warren and infused his soul into its pages, using the diary as a weapon to prey on people (like poor Ginny) years later.
“The diary to me is a very scary object,” said J.K. Rowling on the subject, “a really, really frightening object. This manipulative little book, the temptation particularly for a young girl to pour out her heart to a diary, which is never something I was prone to. You could understand when he started writing to see these things coming back to him, and the power of that, that secret friend in your pocket.”
After his battle with Voldemort and the Basilisk in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” Harry Potter stabbed the diary with the venomous fang of the serpent, thus destroying the evil object. Dumbledore later kept its tattered remains in his office to study.
Marvolo Gaunt’s ring was a very unique – and extremely powerful – object in that it was both a Horcrux as well as one of the three Deathly Hallows. Passed down the line from Salazar Slytherin, the ring was stolen from Morfin Gaunt by a young Tom Riddle, at the same time that he murdered his own father and muggle grandparents. When Dumbledore tracked down the ring, he recognized that it was, in fact, the famed Resurrection Stone, the Hallows he’d been searching most of his life for. In wearing the dark object, he was cursed – it would have been fatal were it not for the quick intervention of Snape. Even so, it left Dumbledore with only one year of life, as he explains in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
Uncovering what the ring was, Dumbledore used the sword of Godric Gryffindor to destroy it. He then took the Resurrection Stone and placed it inside the Snitch, as a gift to Harry Potter – to be opened only after accepting that he must die at the hands of Voldemort.
One of the most infamous of the Horcruxes, a locket was found by Harry and Dumbledore during their final adventure together – to the cave where Riddle often went in his youth. Tragically, thought this adventure drained even more life from Dumbledore, the locket was a fake. The real horcrux was in the Ministry of Magic, where it was kept by a mysterious Regulus Arcturus Black, before falling into the hands of Dolores Umbridge.
After obtaining the locket, Harry, Ron, and Hermione still lacked the means of finding it. This resulted in them having to share turns wearing the dark artifact. Eventually, Snape’s patronus led Harry to the sword of Godric Gryffindor – the key to destroying Horcruxes. Shortly after, Ron uses the sword to break the Horcux.
Tom Riddle actually acquired two Horcruxes in 1961 from the same woman: Hepzibah Smith. Infatuated with the young Riddle, Hepzibah imprudently showed him both Salazar’s locket and Hufflepuff’s goblet when he came over to visit on behalf of Caractacus Burke. Riddle poisoned Hepzibah and framed her house-elf for the crime, using her death to infuse the goblet with part of his soul.
Voldemort gave the cup to Bellatrix Lestrange to hide in her vault at Gringotts. The trio infiltrated the bank and broke into her vault to obtain the cup. Upon returning to Hogwarts, Ron led Hermione to the Chamber of Secrets where she was able to use the basilisk fang to destroy it for good.
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Voldemort had a tendency to favor the original founders of Hogwarts when he looked for artifacts of power strong enough to house his soul. From Rowena Ravenclaw, he took a diadem. After finding the tiara and killing an Albanian merchant to infuse his soul into it, Riddle then chose to hide the tiara back where he’d originally uncovered it: Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement. Crabbe and Goyle find Harry in the room, and in the ensuing fight the room, along with the diadem, is destroyed by Fiendfyre.
After his attempt to kill the infant Harry, Voldemort was severely weakened. In the woods of Albania, the phantom-like form of Voldemort tried to inhabit animals to survive, but only snakes could bear having him inhabit them. Psychically and physically, Nagini helped nurse Voldemort back to health, and their bond was only strengthened when he made her a Horcrux.
Voldemort loved to use Nagini as a weapon, but after his Horcruxes were threatened, he kept the snake close. Neville, however, was able to kill it during the Battle at Hogwarts, decapitating it with the Sword of Gryffindor.
There was never meant to be a seventh Horcrux. Voldemort meant to maintain his own body as the seventh, maintaining what he believed to be a number of power. When he attempted to murder the infant Harry Potter, however, he accidentally turned Harry into a Horcrux himself, leaving him with the lightning bolt scar. This is the reason behind the prophecy of “neither can die while the other survives.”
When Voldemort used the killing curse on Harry, it destroyed the Horcrux he had inadvertently stored inside of him. How did Harry survive the killing curse? The first time it was because his mother’s love saved him. The second time … well, it’s best explained by Dumbledore:
Hopefully, our guide will help you keep track of what’s what next time you’re watching “Deathly Hallows,” and remember that if you “tamper with the source of life, be prepared for consequences of the most extreme and dangerous kind!”
Discover what you never knew about what of the most influential films of all time.
Though initially met with mixed reviews, “Blade Runner” has grown into one of the most influential and enduring sci-fi films of all time. Directed by Ridley Scott, the movie follows detective Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) as he hunts down a group of dangerous artificial humans known as Replicants. The film is a classic detective noir story crossed with sci-fi that asks some deep questions about the nature of humanity. Read on to discover some interesting facts about the cult classic.
Director Ridley Scott didn’t know his older brother well growing up. Frank Scott had left the family at age 16 to work on a ship before living in Singapore for the next 14 years. Scott was just starting to get to know his brother when Frank received a cancer diagnosis that would eventually prove fatal. Scott made “Blade Runner” to explore the pain he felt after losing his brother, which contributed to the film’s dark themes.
Actor Rutger Hauer plays Roy Batty, the leader of the group of rogue replicants and the antagonist of the film. A prolific actor, Hauer has appeared in over 170 films. Despite this long list of credits, Hauer has stated that his role in Blade Runner is by far his favorite. He devoted himself to the character, even writing the iconic “tears in the rain” monologue that he delivers in the film.
“Blade Runner” is based on the sci-fi novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” by famous author Philip K. Dick. The writing team decided that a different title would be needed for the movie, and went through several iterations that included “The Blade Runner” and “Bladerunner” before finally settling on “Blade Runner”
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Actor Harrison Ford was chosen for the role of Deckard based on his success in other sci-fi films like “Star Wars.” Unfortunately, Ford and director Ridley Scott didn’t get along during filming. Ford has stated that “Blade Runner” was one of his least favorite films to make, and Scott stated that working with Ford was a “pain in the arse.” The two have since reconciled their differences… even if they disagree about the film’s true ending.
Ridley Scott also ran into friction with his American film crew. In an interview, Scott stated that he would rather work with an English crew because they were much more responsive when given orders. The crew fired back after the perceived insult, getting T-shirts that said “Yes gov’nor, my ass.” In response, Scott wore his own T-shirt that read “Xenophobia sucks.” The tensions between Scott and the film crew continued throughout filming.
The Spinner vehicles used in the film are actually full-sized cars built by Gene Winfield, a custom car creator. Winfield built 25 vehicles for the film, and also loaned them out to other productions after filming completed. Eagle-eyed viewers can spot a Spinner in the background of a shot in “Back to the Future II.”
“Blade Runner” is perhaps most well known for the ambiguity of the film’s meanings and endings. After clashes between the producers and Scott, much of the film was cut and re-edited into a theatrical version. Since then, at least several different cuts have been released, with each cut contributing to different interpretations of the film.
As of 2004, “Blade Runner” holds the title of the most sampled film in 20th-century music. The film’s soundtrack and dialogue has reportedly been used over 738 times in various songs and other media. Dialogue and recordings from NASA’s space progams hold a close second.
Several brands and companies, such as Coca-Cola, Tsingtao Beer, and Cuisinart feature prominently as in-universe advertisements in the movie. Unfortunately, many companies that had ads featured in the film have since been met with unfortunate ends. PanAm, Atari, RCA, and Bell Phones have all gone bankrupt since being featured in “Blade Runner,” leading many to speculate that the film is cursed.
At one point in the film, Deckard meets with fellow detective Gaff, who speaks to Deckard in an original language called “Cityspeak.” Actor Edward James Olmos, who plays Gaff, actually created the language himself. Olmos, who is multi-lingual, created Cityspeak by blending Japanese, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Chinese, and French.
If you want to check out this classic for yourself, head to Softonic’s Where to Watch site to see where you can stream “Blade Runner” right now, and decide for yourself what the movie’s head-scratching ending really means.
From the bad to the really bad, what live-action remake tops our terrible list?
With a live-action “Cowboy Bebop” and “Akira” on the way, fans should be ecstatic for the new interpretations of these beloved stories. Unfortunately, our cries of joy are nothing compared to our cries of sorrow as we pray that the two projects just don’t suck.
Fans are keeping their hopes in check. “Akira” will have major changes to characters. For example, Kaneda is no longer in a bike gang, but a bar owner instead. John Cho was recently cast as Spike Spiegel, the lead role in “Cowboy Bebop.” Fans are worried because although he is a good actor, he is also nearly 50 and the role requires a lot of stunts and martial arts.
Live-action versions of animated shows and movies have mixed results. Sometimes we get a decent adaptation, and other times we get to see Goku become “Geeko” in one of the biggest film abominations ever created.
For this list, we decided to look at the live-action film adaptations of animated shows. We decided to cut some slack for movies aimed at little kids. For example, the target audience for movies like “The Smurfs” is too young to really care or even remember the originals.
Michael Bay has become a bit of a meme because of these movies.
There have been five main series movies, one spin-off, and more films planned in this increasingly disappointing franchise. The films have decent action at times, but the over-reliance on over-the-top explosions makes them stale.
Many fans agree that the first film has its flaws, but it is decent in the long-run. After the first one, the films go from decent to bad to unwatchable. “Transformers: Age of Extinction” was the closest we’ve come to walking out of the movie theater.
Are you the prey? No, we are the humiliated.
When news first hit that “Attack on Titan” was getting a live-action film, a lot of people were excited because the show was such a smash hit. The hype was very real. Initial posters and trailers showed pretty rough CG titans, but they were at least passable. There was even a car commercial that showed pretty intense action:
In the show, the scouts have individual personalities unique to their characters, making their fates all the more tragic. In the movie, nobody really sticks out as everyone just blends together. There are also several huge character omissions such as Annie and fan-favorite Levi.
In the show, scouts ride horses and fight using their swords. In the movie, they sometimes use swords, but they rely on guns and drive in cars. Cars!
We could go on and on about how awful this movie was, but we still have three more to get through. If you’re a fan of the show, 3D maneuver yourself away from this mess.
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We really thought this one had a chance.
With the casting of Willem Dafoe as Ryuk, fans thought that Netflix’s live-action “Death Note,” might be worth the watch.
Although Dafoe did a decent job voicing Ryuk, the CG shinigami looked like something from a PS2 game. Sadly, the shoddy effects were far from the film’s biggest issues.
Light is done completely wrong. He isn’t cool and collected; he is brash and annoying. He cares more about making his girlfriend like him than he does becoming a god of the new world.
To see for yourself just how badly Light is portrayed, watch this video comparing him meeting Ryuk for the first time:
Most fans agree that the best character in “Death Note” is L. L is the Sherlock Holmes to Light’s Moriarty. He is quirky, unintentionally hilarious, and ridiculously cool. The movie casts LaKeith Stanfield who is incredible in movies like “Sorry to Bother You” and “Get Out,” but is just miscast here.
He comes off as an action hero trying too hard to be a nerd. The filmmakers would’ve been better off casting someone like Donald Glover who is more comfortable playing a quiet geek.
By the end of the film, we didn’t want more; we wanted Light to write our names in the notebook.
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Long ago, the series lived in harmony in the hearts of fans everywhere. Then, everything changed when the Shyamalan attacked.
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is regarded as one of the greatest animated shows to ever come out of the U.S. Tragically, its cast of memorable characters and timeless story are nowhere to be found in this film by M. Night Shyamalan.
The movie has downright weird casting decisions, shoddy acting, and action scenes about as exciting as Sunday School.
It’s too early to say whether or not the live-action series coming out on Netflix will be any good. The show will have the original creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko working on it, so that is a plus. The best piece of advice we can give them is to do the exact opposite of what Shyamalan did.
The thing that hurts most about this movie is what it could have been. An Avatar sage divided into several yearly installments could have been on par with the Harry Potter film franchise. What we instead got was a film that couldn’t hold water, let alone air, fire, or earth.
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You could show this movie on an airplane and people would walk out on it.
“Dragonball Evolution” takes the beloved Dragon Ball characters and captures none of the magic from the franchise. Also, “Dragon Ball” is two words, not one. Get it right, movie!
Rather than being a warrior in constant training to defeat himself, Goku is a high schooler who just wants his crush to notice him. Rather than being an ape the size of a mountain, the Oozaru looks more like your friend in a cheap gorilla suit.
All of the movies on this list are bad, but “Dragonball Evolution” truly belongs in its own category of terrible.
Face the music, release your guilt. April 30 is Email Debt Forgiveness Day.
Yet another email from your great aunt Shirley about the daily activities of her four cats has been sitting in your inbox for three weeks and you haven’t figured out how to respond yet. Or, you’ve missed a friend’s birthday party because they sent you an invite and you read it, but totally forgot. We understand, and it’s happened to the best of us.
Luckily for you, April 30 is Email Debt Forgiveness Day and it’s truly a cause for celebration. On the official website for the new holiday, you can find the instructions on how to join the party:
“If there’s an email response you’ve wanted to send but been too anxious to send, you can send it on April 30th, without any apologies or explanations for all the time that has lapsed. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. Just include a link to this explainer, the one you’re reading right now, so that your recipient knows what’s going on. Together, we can make our inboxes less stressful.”
On April 30th:
This is the moment we have all been waiting for – the holiday that we can all get behind, no matter our background. By including a template and an explanation of the day, all the stressful work has been done for you. There are even links to your calendar so you can set the event to repeat every year.
Weeks, months, or entire years, there’s no telling how far back our unanswered email graveyard will go. Now, there’s one less thing we have to worry about. Thanks, Email Debt Forgiveness Day!
How to activate Dark Mode in Facebook Messenger.
Last month, we first told you about Facebook Messenger’s new Dark Mode. Facebook did make the feature available to all users but hid it behind a kind of secret code. To unlock it, you had to send a crescent moon emoji to one of your friends. Now though, Facebook has finally announced that the new feature is now built-in to the settings menu for all Messenger users.
To activate Dark Mode in Facebook Messenger all you need to do is:
Open Facebook Messenger on your phone and tap your profile photo to access the Settings menu.
Tap the Dark Mode toggle button to switch it to the on position.
Hit Done in the top-right of the screen and get on with whatever you were doing in Messenger.
Now that there is no secret Easter Egg activation to go through, activating Messenger’s dark mode couldn’t be simpler. The dark mode will be easier on your eyes, won’t glare so much when used at night, and according to research by Google, will save your phone’s battery if you have a device with an OLED screen.
The Capcom Home Arcade Machine comes loaded with 16 classic Capcom games.
Ever since Nintendo released the NES Classic Mini, a nostalgic ripple has spread throughout the games industry. We’ve since seen classic mini-consoles come out from almost all the major players from Atari to Sony. Some have been excellent, spurring budding DIY enthusiasts to build their own, while others like the PlayStation mini haven’t really caught the public’s imagination.
Now, a new retro console has been announced. This one, however, is a little different to the mini consoles we’ve become accustomed to. Capcom is entering the fray with its Capcom Home Arcade machine.
Capcom’s foray into the mini-console market immediately stands out from the rest due to the size of the thing. OK, technically it is still a mini console if you’re comparing it to an arcade machine, but it dwarfs all other mini-consoles, coming it at 74 cm in length and 22 cm wide. As the tagline “Play, Compete, Cooperate” makes out, the machine is built for multiplayer use and these dimensions ensure two players will be able to stand side-by-side without bothering each other’s play.
This all makes sense when you consider that Capcom is trying to recreate the days spent down the arcade playing games on your feet. All the mini-Capcom needs to tap into those days is power via USB and an HDMI cable running into a TV. With larger HD screens being the norm these days, this could create an arcade-like experience on a much bigger screen than the games were originally played on.
Capcom is behind some stellar arcade games like Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting and Megaman: The Power Battle. Both come loaded on the mini-Capcom alongside 14 other titles spanning various different gaming genres. You can see the full list of all included games below:
The mini-Capcom also sports onboard Wi-Fi so your high scores will go directly into a “Worldwide High Score Leaderboard.” This means even if you can’t find anybody to play against at home you can still go up against players from around the world.
All of this makes the Capcom Home Arcade Machine a very attractive prospect. The only downside is the price and availability of the thing. The Capcom website says the machine will be available in Europe on October 25 and will cost around €230 (about $260), which it puts it in a considerably higher price bracket than other mini-retro consoles. On top of that, it is currently only available for pre-order via the Capcom website, although Capcom says other retailers will come on board soon, and as yet there is no news of a North American release date.
The Rise and Fall of Arcades
Read now ►Learn how to become a master of Microsoft Office with this trick.
Excel is not designed for text. When you write long sentences, the program shows all the text on the same line, even if it is very long, although it really is only in a single cell.
In some tables, performing a line break inside a cell allows for a clearer visualization. This isn’t necessarily the best option design-wise.
Click on the cell where you want to write several lines and, before pressing “Enter,” keep the Alt key pressed.
Keep pressing Enter while holding down the Alt key. The more times you hit Enter, the higher the cell will be.
