It all began with the first step on the Hero’s Journey.

Where Homer’s Iliad tells the story of Achilles’ rage and the fall of Troy, its companion epic, The Odyssey, follows the warrior and seafarer Odysseus on his long voyage home after ten years of war. It is this story that would become the very blueprint for myths, legends, and adventures throughout the Western literary tradition, shaping the way we tell stories nearly three thousand years later.

Across the centuries, the tale continued its own journey. Skalds and troubadours carried it from court to court, while writers and mythologists such as Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) mapped the Hero’s Journey itself, helping modern storytellers understand and apply it in their own works.

Some embraced its ideals. J.R.R. Tolkien used them to build a modern mythology of kingship, sacred inheritance, and hope in The Lord of the Rings, while his friend C.S. Lewis used The Chronicles of Narnia to, shall we say, enthusiastically preach the Christian faith.

Others went in the opposite direction. Frank Herbert warned against charismatic leaders and religious fanaticism in Dune, while Terry Pratchett gleefully mocked the hero, the journey, the horse he rode, the map he followed, and just about everything else that happened to get in the way.

Today, the pattern is everywhere. We see it in Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Lion King, Finding Nemo, Fullmetal Alchemist, Moana, and virtually every Marvel superhero origin story ever put on screen.

The monomyth, as it is also called due to its fundamental pattern, endures because, at its heart, it is the story of all of us. Childhood. Growth. Experience. Wisdom. Struggle. Old age. And, eventually, death. Stories told in circles feel deeply familiar because, in many ways, they mirror the lives we all live — whether we realize it or not.

Today, the pattern is everywhere. We see it in Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Lion King, Finding Nemo, Moana, The Wizard of Oz, Fullmetal Alchemist, and virtually every Marvel superhero origin story ever put on screen.

The monomyth endures because, at its heart, it is the story of all of us. Childhood. Growth. Experience. Wisdom. Struggle. Old age. And, eventually, death. Stories told in circles feel deeply familiar because, in many ways, they mirror the lives we all live—whether we realize it or not.

The Origins of the Hero’s Journey

As mentioned earlier, Homer’s epic has shaped much of Western storytelling since it was first written down. You might think that would make it the perfect candidate for a faithful film adaptation.

It doesn’t.

Fragments of The Odyssey have appeared throughout film, television, and popular culture for as long as these mediums have existed. Wolfgang Petersen’s epic Troy (2004), for example, cast Sean Bean as Odysseus, while the television miniseries The Odyssey (1997) starred Armand Assante in the title role. More recently came the criminally overlooked The Return (2024), with Ralph Fiennes as the weary king of Ithaca, focusing on the final chapters of Homer’s tale, while stripping the supernatural elements from the myth.

But what about the story in its entirety?

Homer’s poem follows the seafarer Odysseus, who is called to war against the city of Troy after Prince Paris falls in love with — and secretly abducts — Helen, Queen of Sparta and the wife of Menelaus, brother of King Agamemnon. Eager to bring down Troy’s seemingly impregnable walls, Agamemnon assembles a fleet of a thousand ships to bring her home.

Among those sailing with him is Odysseus, the legendary warrior Achilles, and what can only be described as an all-star cast of heroes from Greek mythology. It is also Odysseus who devises the plan for the Trojan Horse, the deception that finally brings about Troy’s downfall. That chapter of the story is, of course, the focus of Petersen’s Troy.

With the war finally over, Odysseus—now traumatized by bloodshed and guilt—sets sail for his island kingdom of Ithaca. He leaves with the same ships that carried him to Troy, but the voyage home proves far more difficult than anyone could have imagined. Homer’s epic, spanning more than 12,000 lines of poetry, doesn’t actually begin until the final stretch of that journey.

By then, Odysseus has become stranded on the island of the love sick nymph Calypso, while the extraordinary adventures that brought him there are told through a series of flashbacks.

Driven by the will and wrath of the gods, Odysseus and his crew face one deadly trial after another. On a remote island they encounter a one-eyed giant, a Cyclops, who traps them inside his cave and begins devouring the men one by one. The cannibalistic Laestrygonians obliterate nearly the entire fleet. The sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis claim even more lives. The enchanting Sirens lure sailors to their deaths with their irresistible song, and Odysseus survives only by stuffing his crew’s ears with beeswax while having himself bound to the ship’s mast.

They voyage into Hades’ underworld, men are transformed into swine, the crew defies the gods by slaughtering the sacred cattle of Helios, and finally, Zeus destroys Odysseus’ last remaining ship with a single bolt of lightning. Again and again, Odysseus and his companions are tested by gods and monsters alike.

Back on Ithaca, Queen Penelope is still waiting for her husband, as their son Telemachus sets out to search the seas for his father. Their home, however, has been overrun by scores of suitors, each hoping to marry the queen and claim the throne for himself. Like male lions taking over a new pride, they also hunt Odysseus’ son, knowing that if the king never returns, neither should his heir live long enough to inherit the kingdom.

But the king has returned.

Ten years after leaving Troy, Odysseus awakens alone on the shores of Ithaca, barely remembering how he got there. His crew has met every imaginable fate — devoured, murdered, enchanted, or taken by monsters and gods. His ships lie shattered against the rocks or rest on the bottom of the sea.

The king has returned: exhausted, starving, and broken. No one recognizes him except Argos, his faithful old hunting dog, now dying after years of waiting and neglect. To everyone else, he is nothing more than a beggar. But when Odysseus sees the greedy suitors feasting in his own halls while plotting to marry his wife and murder his son, a righteous fury awakens within him.

Penelope finally declares a contest: whoever can string her husband’s great bow and send an arrow cleanly through twelve axe heads shall win her hand in marriage. Then everything changes. Odysseus, unrecognizable beneath the rags of a beggar and mocked by everyone around him, asks to hold the bow. He strings it. He draws. The arrow flies true.

The doors are locked.

The suitors are trapped inside, and as revenge for the threats against his family and the breaking of sacred guest rights, one by one they fall beneath the king’s arrows. The master of the house is home.

Endlessly researched by scholars of litterature and history, Homer’s poem is a sprawling exploration of patience and loyalty, the need to belong, and the yearning for home. Sadly, these themes and concepts are often lost in adaptations that focus more on action and the adventures of the protagonist.

But to bring the epic to the screen in its entirety while still remaining faithful to the soul of the story? That would require a filmmaker of extraordinary ambition. As I quoted at the beginning of this review, this is the “the story of the man skilled in all the ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end.”

The poem is monumental, and every chapter has left an indelible mark on our culture, to the point that the very word odyssey has become synonymous with any long and arduous journey.

…and of course, it took none other than Christopher Nolan to look at this monumental work and say:

“Hold my kykeon.”

Cinema and Conflict

In today’s film industry, only a handful of directors can sell movie tickets simply by having their name at the top of the poster. Christopher Nolan is unquestionably one of them. He has never been known for taking the easy road. His love of towering IMAX imagery and old-school filmmaking is matched only by his skepticism toward CGI and artificial intelligence.

Massive productions, practical effects, and real-world locations have become the hallmarks of his work, earning him the admiration of both audiences and collaborators alike. Few know that better than his creative partners: Dutch-Swedish cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson. Together, they have collected multiple Academy Awards while redefining what modern event cinema can be.

And yet, somehow, Nolan has gone even bigger.

The Odyssey may well be the most ambitious film of his career. Shot entirely with heavy IMAX cameras — once again under Hoyte van Hoytema’s eye — the production traveled across the Mediterranean, often filming in locations that have been associated with Homer’s epic since antiquity. Among them are Malta and Sicily, but also Nestor’s Cave and Voidokilia Beach in Messenia, Greece, places that have echoed with the legend of Odysseus for centuries.

Not unlike Odysseus and his crew, Christopher Nolan and the production of The Odyssey encountered their own share of trials, obstacles, and more than a few trolls. While Nolan assembled a remarkable ensemble — bringing back familiar collaborators such as Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, and Robert Pattinson as Antinous— it was some of the other casting choices that sent predictable corners of the internet into meltdown.

As the remaining cast members were announced, comment sections and social media quickly filled with outrage from perpetually online keyboard warriors who would love nothing more than to reverse the hard-won progress toward greater diversity in popular culture.

Once again, identity politics became a convenient excuse for attacking actors based on who they are rather than the performances they might deliver. The backlash was as predictable as it was sad. Helen of Troy is played by the exceptional Lupita Nyong’o — but her talent was never really the issue. She is Black, and for some people, that was enough. Elliot Page is also part of the cast. He is a transgender man, and that alone proved sufficient to provoke the very same reaction across comment sections and some of Reddit’s darker corners.

As if that weren’t enough, many of the same keyboard warriors suddenly discovered a lifelong passion for ancient Greek history. Once the outrage machine was already in motion, Nolan’s visual design became the next target. Certain pieces of armor and the design of Odysseus’ ship — which was in fact the Norwegian Draken Harald Hårfagre — were denounced by people who never seemed bothered by John Boorman’s high medieval plate armor in Excalibur (1981) or Zack Snyder’s famously half-naked Spartans in 300 (2006). Suddenly, “historical accuracy” became the defining standard for judging a film that also happens to feature Cyclopes, sea monsters, and Olympian gods.

But unlike Odysseus and his crew, Christopher Nolan’s latest epic was never in any real danger. The Odyssey sailed on, leaving faint cries of “woke” and complaints that “Greek ships didn’t look like that” fading behind its wake. Such reactions are little more than drops in the ocean compared to the worldwide anticipation and excitement surrounding the film.

Nolan’s Crew

Drawing inspiration from multiple interpretations and translations of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey rises well above the traditional sword-and-sandal spectacles that came before it. At the center this mythic story is a very human Odysseus, brought to life by Matt Damon with equal measures of desperation and pride. This is, after all, the story of a man trying to find his way home, and it’s hard not to giggle at the number of times Damon himself has embarked on exactly that journey throughout his career.

It is equally fascinating to look at Damon’s evolution as an actor. From the bright-eyed wunderkind of the 1990s, through the Bourne films, to the weightier dramatic performances that have defined much of his recent work, his career has been one of growth and reinvention. The Odyssey may be an ensemble piece, but there is never any doubt that Damon carries the story. Nolan gives him the room to do so, and as a result, Damon delivers one of the strongest performances of his career.

Matt Damon, however, is only one piece of an exceptionally talented ensemble. Tom Holland, still best known to many audiences as Spider-Man, plays Odysseus’ son Telemachus, who finds himself hunted by the suitors occupying his father’s palace in the hope of marrying Queen Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway.

Both deliver excellent performances, but what surprised me most was just how effortlessly Holland sheds the red superhero suit. He feels entirely at home in this world. Robert Pattinson, meanwhile, revels in every deliciously sinister moment as the cunning and ruthless Antinous, a role he appears to enjoy immensely, even though he sometimes reaches up to twirl his invisible mustache.

There are, of course, plenty more familiar faces throughout The Odyssey, a testament to Christopher Nolan’s unique ability — whether through reputation, artistic credibility, budget, or some combination of all three — to persuade even the biggest stars to accept comparatively small roles.

Zendaya appears as the goddess Athena, Charlize Theron plays the nymph Calypso, and Lupita Nyong’o takes on the dual role of both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Helen’s sister and the wife of King Agamemnon, portrayed by Benny Safdie. The supporting cast also includes, as mentioned earlier, Elliot Page, alongside, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Mia Goth, Logan Marshall-Green, Jon Bernthal, Jovan Adepo, and many more.

Storytelling is Balance

A great cast, however, is no guarantee of greatness. Nolan is famous for the extraordinary amount of work he pours into every production, and there are times when that dedication borders on obsession. Yet it is precisely that uncompromising pursuit of perfection that has given us some of the most ambitious films of the past few decades. Even so, ambition has occasionally tipped into pretension.

If there is one recurring weakness I find even in Nolan’s finest work, it is his tendency to tell more than he shows — a classic case of “tell, don’t show,” where the opposite would often have been far more interesting.

Some of his films are particularly guilty of this. Grand ideas and complex concepts are not always easy to communicate visually, and the result is often scenes in which characters sit around explaining how everything works. At times, it feels as though they are speaking less to one another than to the audience.

I am often reminded of the otherwise brilliant Inception (2010), where the first act is packed with scenes like these. Tenet (2020) even contains one that still makes me laugh whenever I think about it. Robert Pattinson begins explaining the film’s central concept about time reversal to another character, only for the scene to fade out halfway through, as if Nolan just told his long-time editor Jennifer Lame, “All right, this is the fourth time we’ve explained this in the film, just put in a fade to black there, and move on to the next scene.”

On the other hand, I know Nolan is capable of restraint when he chooses to be. Dunkirk (2017) moves in the opposite direction, telling the story of Britain’s desperate evacuation from France during the Second World War with remarkably little dialogue.

By shifting between soldiers trapped on the beaches, senior officers burdened with the lives of thousands, fighter pilots in the skies above, and ordinary civilians crossing the English Channel, Dunkirk is a film of both great tension and precision. Even within his own filmography, it remains something of an outlier.

But The Odyssey is poetry.

It lives and breathes through rhythm, atmosphere, and the power of its myth — not through explaining every last detail. To be sure, the film uses many of the now familiar “Nolanisms”: a nonlinear story structure, lots of flashbacks, slightly awkward action sequences, and misplaced — yet mercifully rare — attempts at humor.

Still, Nolan pulled together all these pieces, and made something that not only resembles The Odyssey, but feels like Homer.

The Song of Nolan

So is The Odyssey my new Nolan-favorite? Not at all. It will take a lot more than that to dislodge Interstellar (2014) and Nolan’s journeys to Gotham City from those lofty heights.

Yet, The Odyssey is a great film, and an enormous cinema experience which I had the pleasure of watching in 70mm. It might very well be one among Nolan’s best, despite a few egregious Nolanisms that should have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Homer’s unfilmable epic has found its way to the cinema screens in massive IMAX-format, and the director has used all his skill and effort to make it possible, assembling not only a great cast but also some of the finest artists working in cinema today. Among them are, of course, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and composer Ludwig Göransson, whose score draws extensively from instruments that actually existed in ancient Greece — from the haunting aulos and the lyre to bronze percussion and ceremonial gongs.

Yet even that wasn’t enough.

Nolan has long been one of cinema’s fiercest advocates for practical filmmaking, arguing that digital visual effects should never replace something that can be built, photographed, or performed for real. And when you are willing to devote seemingly limitless resources, craftsmanship, and sheer determination to solving a problem physically, the results speak for themselves.

Take the film’s massive Cyclops. Most directors would have created such a creature almost entirely through CGI, or at the very least combined a performer with green screen, digital compositing, or forced perspective, much as Peter Jackson famously did throughout The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Not Nolan.

Instead, cast members found themselves acting opposite what they described as Nolan’s “60-foot-tall monster machine,” constructed on location inside Nestor’s Cave in Messenia, Greece.

And as someone who also spends much of his day behind a color grading panel, I would be remiss not to mention the film’s visual language and the extraordinary craftsmanship that made it possible.

Much of today’s film industry — including my own work — embraces digital acquisition and digital color grading before striving to recreate the texture of film in post-production. Nolan and his collaborators at the legendary American post-production house FotoKem largely bypass that workflow altogether, returning instead to the photochemical processes that defined cinema for more than a century.

The Odyssey was photographed on 70mm IMAX film before being conformed back to the original camera negative, where the finished edit is physically matched, cut, and spliced by hand. Large parts of the finishing process remain photochemical, relying on laboratory timing, physical color filtration, and traditional film processing rather than an entirely digital intermediate.

The result is an image with remarkable subtlety — natural color reproduction, organic highlight roll-off, and a richness of texture that remains extraordinarily difficult to replicate in the digital world. It is an almost forgotten craft that Nolan continues to champion, and one that FotoKem now stands virtually alone in preserving. Every frame demands a level of planning and precision during production that very few filmmakers would ever be willing — or able — to pursue.

Christopher Nolan has adapted Homer’s epic, one of the earliest Hero’s Journeys ever told — the foundational myth that has shaped countless stories throughout the Western world. The result is a film of breathtaking beauty and astonishing brutality.

The Odyssey feels almost too vast for the IMAX screen itself. Like the raging Charybdis, it is destined to whip up a storm across cinemas worldwide, one audiences will find impossible to escape.

One cannot help but suspect that Nolan considers even the world’s largest film format just a little too small for this particular story.

Had there been a camera capable of capturing the entire horizon…

…he probably would have ordered two.

This article was translated and adapted from my Norwegian original on my website Legendarium.no, where I gave The Odyssey a score of 6 out of 6.

The claustrophobic concrete hell digs even deeper into systematic darkness in the third season of Silo. Apple TV+’s rock-solid sci-fi series expands its horizons and delivers an unsettling ode to George Orwell, where recognizable social commentary meets a deeply human story of oppression and survival.

Given that this review covers the show’s third season, I am making the bold assumption that readers have already watched the previous two.

Over the course of Silo’s first two seasons, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) has risen from being a grease-stained mechanic on the silo’s lowest levels to becoming the greatest threat to the system governing humanity’s last refuge. What began as an investigation into her boyfriend’s mysterious death quickly escalated into the unearthing of a vast network of lies, surveillance, and social control.

Juliette discovered that the silo authorities hide the truth about both the past and the outside world. This ultimately led to her being sent out of the silo to die—but once outside, she didn’t just get confirmation that the world remains lethal; she also discovered that her own silo is just one of many.

In the second season, she attempted to find her way back home after winding up in a seemingly abandoned neighboring silo, while her actions triggered unrest and rebellion among the citizens back home. Last season concluded with the returned Juliette and Bernard (Tim Robbins) standing face-to-face in the airlock on her way back into the silo.

As the third season opens, Bernard is dead, while Juliette awakens with amnesia caused by oxygen deprivation. Or is that really the whole story? Meanwhile, Juliette has become a symbol of hope and freedom among the silo’s inhabitants, who elect her as their new mayor. However, the real power still resides elsewhere: Camille Sims (Alexandria Riley) has assumed Bernard’s position and is secretly collaborating with the artificial intelligence that controls the silo. To maintain control, she stops at nothing to suppress the public’s rebellious tendencies.

The series was created by Graham Yost, previously known for writing the screenplays for films like Speed (1994), Broken Arrow (1996), and Hard Rain (1998). The first season was largely developed alongside Norwegian director Morten Tyldum, who still serves as an executive producer. In this third season, directing duties are shared across several hands, including Amber Templemore, Michael Dinner, Aric Avelino, and Alrick Riley. Silo is based on the book series of the same name by Hugh Howey, which originally began with the novel Wool.

This season digs even deeper into the overarching mystery underlying the series: What exactly are the silos, who built them, and why? In previous reviews, I have described the series as a modern ode to Orwell, and this season surpasses its predecessors when it comes to Orwellian darkness. We are given a more relentless look into the systematic social control engineered into the very structure of the silo, while the contours of the larger truth finally begin to see the light of day.

New to this season is that, alongside the events in the silo, we follow a storyline unfolding in “our time”—before the world ended and the silos were built. Here we meet Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman), who, together with journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick), begins investigating what initially looks like a potential conspiracy. Suspicion is fully aroused after the congressman’s sister, Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay), a skilled fighter pilot, ends up as the sole survivor of a bombing mission over Iran under highly mysterious circumstances. What starts as an isolated incident gradually guides them toward a truth far greater and more terrifying than they could have imagined.

When it comes to the acting performances, Rebecca Ferguson once again delivers solid craftsmanship. Juliette Nichols remains fierce, intense, and intelligent, but the series also carves out room for the character’s more vulnerable sides. Eventually, it becomes clear that she cannot save the silo alone, no matter how resourceful she is. Several established characters also receive more screen time this season, and the ensemble cast delivers at a consistently high level.

The new additions—Ashley Zukerman, Jessica Henwick, and Jessica Brown Findlay—blend seamlessly into the narrative. Through their storyline, we get a more comprehensive picture of the events that led to the existence of the silos and the end of the world. They bring fresh perspectives that expand the show’s universe without stealing focus from the main plot.

Alexandria Riley is also given significantly more to work with this season in the role of Camille Sims. She delivers a nuanced portrayal of a character who, with fierce determination and cold pragmatism, tries to do what she believes is best for the silo. Riley effectively conveys how Camille is gradually driven to commit increasingly horrific acts—not because she is evil, but because she genuinely believes it is the only way to ensure the community’s survival.

Both the story inside the silo and the timeline from the past are steeped in sharp social commentary reflecting our own contemporary world. The show shines a spotlight on how we govern today through politics, technological advancement, and power structures. The media is saturated with conspiracy theories, trust in institutions is eroding, and artificial intelligence is playing an ever-greater role in our lives. Is the conspiracy we witness in Silo particularly believable? Disturbingly, parts of it feel entirely plausible.

But the threats don’t just come from above or from the system itself. This season also introduces a new problem tied to a seemingly trivial murder case within the silo—an event that darkens the already uncertain future of its inhabitants. What is really behind it? And how will the people in the silo survive when both the system they live under and their own darker impulses are working against them? Can a handful of individuals truly save humanity’s last outpost from annihilation?

The sound design, music, special effects, and overall production values maintain the same high standard as before. However, if you are looking strictly for constant action, rapid pacing, and fast-cut editing, you might find the beginning of this season a bit slow. Much like season two, the show takes its time building up the story and characters before truly shifting into high gear.

Yet, as the mysteries unravel and answers begin to emerge, it becomes clear why the show takes its time. Several of the questions that have loomed over the narrative since the first season finally receive meaningful answers, and the payoff is more than enough to justify the deliberate build-up.

Silo has long been, and continues to be in this third season, one of the most solid and thoroughly realized science fiction series in years. It pairs Orwellian dystopia with a deeply human and engaging story of hope, oppression, and survival. The result is a series that challenges the audience to reflect on our own daily lives and how the world might end up if we aren’t careful. Silo remains highly recommended!

This review was translated from its Norwegian original on Legendarium.no, where it was also written by Thor Aaberg. He gave this season a score of 6 out of 6.

How do you steer one of the world’s biggest television machines without losing the soul of the story? Ryan Condal opens up about the meticulous craft behind House of the Dragon and the inevitable darkness looming over Season 3.

A wise man once said that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. These words, penned by British historian and politician Lord Acton in 1887, have long stood as a universal truth about how authority erodes human morality and empathy.

It is a theme that never loses its relevance—something Ryan Condal is acutely aware of. As showrunner and co-creator of House of the Dragon, HBO’s massive adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, he has spent the last few years documenting this moral decay in Westeros.

Ahead of the premiere of House of the Dragon Season 3 on HBO, Condal took a brief break from the relentless work of finalizing Westeros to talk with us about what drives the series forward. The conversation underscores why this particular tale of the Targaryen dynasty has evolved into something far more ambitious and emotionally complex than anything we have previously seen from George R.R. Martin’s world on screen.

The Story Continues

To an outsider, it is easy to forget that the work on a production as massive as House of the Dragon does not halt when the cameras stop rolling. For a showrunner, filming is only half the battle. Speaking with Condal, it is immediately clear that while the worst of the production stress is behind him, he remains deeply immersed in the meticulous world of post-production.

“I’m definitely calmer now than I was probably at that launch party,” he admits.

“Right now, we’ve hit a massive milestone: we have locked picture on all the episodes. This means the actual edit and the storytelling are set in stone. But it also means we are in the most intense phase of post-production. We’re based in London, working around the clock on sound design, the score, and especially the visual effects. It’s a fascinating but exhausting process. We are reviewing thousands of VFX shots every single week to ensure everything looks flawless. It demands a completely different kind of focus than the writing process or the actual shoot.”

Coming Out Swinging

Most epic fantasy series have conditioned audiences to expect a certain pacing—a slow build, a mid-season explosion, and a massive, climactic spectacle in the final episodes. House of the Dragon Season 3, however, subverts these expectations completely.

“The bell rings in the boxing ring, and we just swing a haymaker right out of the gate,” Condal says. “I think it’s going to catch people off guard in the best way possible because it hits so hard and so unexpectedly. But it also sets the definitive tone for the rest of the season.”

The Battle of the Gullet—the largest naval battle in the history of Westeros—opens Season 3. For the viewers who anxiously anticipated this clash at the end of Season 2, this is the ultimate payoff. Condal approaches the narrative with a cinematic mindset, and the Battle of the Gullet has always occupied a very specific place on his narrative map.

“I started out as a feature writer, so I always think in a four-act structure. The second act—that long middle section—is usually 60 pages or more in a script, and it can be incredibly difficult to wrangle. So, I always try to break it in half with a midpoint, which is what we call the ‘point of no return.’ In Star Wars, that’s when the Millennium Falcon gets pulled into the Death Star, and you wonder how on earth they’re going to get out. The Battle of the Gullet has always been that exact turning point in this story.”

Realizing this sequence took four years of planning. Logistics, resources, technology—everything had to align perfectly. Yet, Condal is adamant that the wait was worth it.

“The first episode is the culmination of four years of planning, trial, and figuring things out. I’m glad we had that time because it’s the reason we were able to achieve what we did.”

From that point onward, he emphasizes, the safety nets are gone. “We’re jumping right into it now. I don’t think anyone or anything is safe from here on out.”

Rhaenyra: Believing Her Own Myth

House of the Dragon has always been a study of people undone by power. In Season 3, however, Rhaenyra Targaryen enters uncharted territory—a shift Condal notes is entirely intentional.

“We’re fascinated with playing with the ‘Chosen One’ trope in this universe,” he explains. “Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo, Aragorn—these are deeply entrenched archetypes. But in this series, which deconstructs everything, what happens when you tell a character that the gods have chosen her to rule, and you back her up with six dragons? Well, at a certain point, she starts believing her own myth. She begins to believe that any action is justified because it is the will of the gods.”

Condal explicitly links this psychological shift to real-world power dynamics—monarchies, autocrats, and charismatic leaders who mask personal ambition as destiny or a higher calling.

“I love how it mirrors modern politics and recent history, looking at the ways people rise to power in these monarchical and autocratic systems. I hope Rhaenyra’s arc is a complex and sympathetic portrayal of that reality—but also a cautionary tale. And a tragedy.”

It is a nuanced point that Condal trusts the audience to grasp. Rhaenyra has not suddenly become a conventional villain; she has become something far more unsettling: a person entirely convinced of her own righteousness while making choices that slowly erode her humanity.

“Who a character is in this one moment isn’t necessarily who they are forever,” he notes. “We don’t try to write one-dimensional television characters. We put people under immense pressure, subject them to extreme circumstances, and see what it does to them.”

Alicent: Finding Her Own Voice

If Rhaenyra embodies the show’s cautionary tale, Alicent Hightower represents its tragedy. Condal describes her as a character who has spent her entire life acting as an instrument for others, and who now, possessing adult agency, profoundly struggles to define who she actually is.

“Alicent was essentially raised in a cult of political ambition,” Condal observes. “Her father placed her in the king’s bed solely to position his own bloodline closer to the throne. It is incredibly difficult to deprogram what was hardwired into you from such a young age.”

In Season 3, Alicent finds herself facing an impossible dilemma. Her sons—Aegon and Aemond—have proven to be disastrous leaders; one fragile and weak, the other a mass murderer. She desperately wants to protect her family from ruin, yet she cannot bear to watch the realm burn.

“She’s stuck on the question of who she wants to be remembered as,” Condal says. “A ruthless striver, like her father, who sacrifices everyone to climb closer to power? Or someone who might not be remembered fondly by House Hightower, but who actually tries to do the right thing for the realm—surrounded by all these other figures who have made their own moral compromises?”

Then there is Helaena. Condal emphasizes that the relationship between Alicent and her daughter serves as one of Season 3’s most vital emotional engines. Alicent carries deep guilt, feeling she failed her daughter by allowing King Viserys to marry her off to Aegon—a choice she knew was wrong but permitted anyway.

“She feels a profound sense of obligation toward Helaena this season, and that puts her in deep conflict with where she ultimately wants to land.”

Dragons and Gods

The friction between Rhaenyra and Alicent is not merely political; it is fundamentally theological. Condal sheds light on this underlying dynamic.

“The Targaryens accept the Faith of the Seven because they recognize they need to keep the smallfolk happy,” he explains. “It’s bread and circuses. They tolerate their gods, even though they view themselves—and their dragons—as the true deities. They see themselves as closer to gods than men.”

On the other side stands Alicent, hailing from Oldtown—which Condal describes as the closest equivalent to the Vatican in Westeros. House Hightower and the Faith of the Seven are woven together on a deep, institutional level. For her, allegiance to the religion is both deeply personal and structural.

It is a dynamic that feels remarkably contemporary. The notion that a ruler is ordained by a higher power, that the enemy represents the godless, and that one’s own actions are therefore automatically sanctified, is a pattern that resonates far beyond the borders of Westeros.

“The friction between the Targaryens’ pursuit of divinity and power, and the Faith of the Seven, will continue to be a central pillar of the series,” Condal notes. “It’s only going to escalate as we head toward the end.”

Off the Map

Adapting Fire & Blood—George R.R. Martin’s historical chronicle of the Targaryen dynasty—presents a unique and formidable challenge. Those who have read the book know exactly what happens. However, discovering why it happens is where the real work begins.

“You have the chapter headings—the dots you need to connect,” Condal says. “But you are rarely inside the heads of these characters. Were they happy? Were they sad? The historians in the book are fundamentally unreliable and constantly contradict one another. At a certain point, you just have to accept that ambiguity and lean into it.”

It is precisely this ambiguity that grants the series its creative freedom. Where historical text ends, true drama begins. Condal and his writing team beautifully fill the voids—the internal motivations, the lingering doubts, and the private moments that were never recorded. It is within these hidden spaces that House of the Dragon truly finds its voice.

The third season of House of the Dragon airs now on HBO. You can read my review of the season here.

This article was based on a moderated Zoom conversation with Ryan Condal. A Norwegian version of this article was first published on my website, Legendarium.no.

Westeros is on fire. After two seasons of House of the Dragon – based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood (2018), a chronicle of the Targaryen dynasty’s history – we are now in the third of four planned seasons. The series follows the fracture within the Targaryen family and the brutal struggle for dominion over Westeros: a world where power-hungry rulers ride fire-breathing dragons that function, in practice, as weapons of mass destruction in a world otherwise armed with swords and catapults.

George R.R. Martin’s historically inspired fantasy world was first brought to screen in HBO’s Game of Thrones in 2011, based on his novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. House of the Dragon takes place several hundred years earlier, yet everything is connected – stories of war and power stretching across hundreds, in some cases thousands, of years. We have also recently been given the critically acclaimed A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, with a more intimate and local story, but with events that will nonetheless have far-reaching consequences for the rest of Westeros.

The Targaryen family’s self-destructive civil war has reduced much of Westeros to ash in the fight for the right to rule. It all began with a well-meaning but weak king – Viserys I – whose last ambiguous words set two factions on a collision course. On one side, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), named by her own father as the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. On the other, Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) – placed on the throne by his mother’s family, House Hightower, in a coup Rhaenyra can never forgive. It appears, on the surface, to be a story of right and wrong, of promises and betrayal. But beneath the surface pulses something far more recognizable: greed, lust for power, and an unyielding will to dominate – not unlike the conflicts we read about in our own newspapers every morning.

The war escalated gradually, with battles, intrigue, and a desperate race to acquire more dragons and dragonriders – for in Westeros, dragons are not merely symbols of power, they are power. Whoever controls the most, wins. It ended with Westeros on the brink of total war: Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) offered to surrender King’s Landing, but Aegon II had already fled the city with the scheming Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), while his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) had positioned himself at the center of the power struggle.

Season 3 begins exactly where we left off. The badly wounded Aegon II is on the run with the limping, calculating Larys Strong – the king’s eyes and ears, a man who always survives, regardless of which side is winning. Back in the capital, the one-eyed and merciless Aemond has seized control, riding Vhagar – the largest and most dangerous dragon alive. On the other side, Rhaenyra has secured new dragonriders among Targaryen descendants of dubious lineage, and for the first time, their house hold a genuine advantage in what increasingly resembles an arms race over who can field the most dragon wings in war. Westeros is no longer on the brink. The war is total.

Everything leads to the decisive naval battle in the strait between King’s Landing – the city where the Iron Throne stands, which everyone believes is rightfully theirs – and the dragon fortress of Dragonstone out in the open sea. Here, the seasoned seafarer and lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), known as “the Sea Snake,” leads a massive fleet in service of Rhaenyra Targaryen. Against him stands the Triarchy fleet – a hired alliance of warlike city-states from the other side of the world, set to defend King’s Landing. At its head is the unpredictable admiral Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn), driven as much by personal honor as by military strategy. The result is one of the most expansive naval battles ever put on screen.

George R.R. Martin’s Westeros – encompassing Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and the upcoming Aegon’s Conquest – is not what you would call traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasy. There are no wizards, elves, or dwarves, and neither heroism nor villainy is reserved for heroes and villains. Black and white drown in a sea of blood and moral ambiguity.

House of the Dragon is carried by a massive ensemble of skilled actors, who largely align themselves on either side of the civil war – either behind Rhaenyra Targaryen and her claim to the throne, or behind House Hightower and the fleeing Aegon II.

There are too many strong performances to mention them all, but several stand out this season. Emma D’Arcy is, as always, the anchor of the series as Rhaenyra Targaryen – a queen whose decisions carry the weight of an entire world. Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) brings the character an almost dangerous charisma. Steve Toussaint is commanding and melancholy as Lord Corlys Velaryon. But the revelation of this season is Tom Glynn-Carney as the burned and fleeing Aegon II – a character we have previously known as arrogant and power-hungry, but who now, stripped of everything, reveals a human vulnerability that is both unexpected and genuinely moving.

Something the Westeros franchise has always been known for is the way it pulls you in. From the now iconic opening music by Ramin Djawadi – where this season’s title sequence shows stylized blood slowly flowing over and staining a massive tapestry depicting the civil war – to vast landscapes, dragons set against sweeping horizons, and down to the smallest details in costumes, heraldry, and the ornamentation on swords and armor.

The visual effects have received yet another upgrade from an already impressive baseline. The dragons, created by a range of leading VFX studios, feel more present than ever this season. Digitally created creatures can often appear weightless and unconvincing – something even the biggest blockbusters can struggle with – but here they carry a weight and presence that is genuinely difficult to achieve, something that comes through most powerfully in the scenes between Matt Smith and the dragon Caraxes, where the chemistry between actor and animated creature is more convincing than you might ever expect.

For me, House of the Dragon is in many ways what Game of Thrones should have been. One can of course debate exactly where Game of Thrones lost its way – and opinions on that are divided, to put it mildly. But part of that conversation must include the fact that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss – who have since proved their worth with the superb 3 Body Problem on Netflix – ran into a rather unusual problem: they made the show faster than George R.R. Martin could write the books. And that is asking for trouble.

With House of the Dragon, there is no such challenge. Showrunner Ryan Condal knows where he is taking the series, and that gives it something every good story needs from the outset: a beginning and an end. The storytelling feels far more deliberate and intentional – especially in this third season, with an opening episode that works, in many ways, as a “good things come to those who wait” moment for everyone who walked away slightly disappointed after season 2.

There are no Joffreys here with their cartoonish villainy. No obvious heroes. Just people corrupted by power – or as Lord Acton once put it: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

House of the Dragon takes us to Westeros in all its brutal splendor. And yes, it flies – literally – far higher than Game of Thrones ever did.

This review was originally published in Norwegian at Legendarium.no, where I gave it a rating of 5 out of 6. It has been translated to English with the help of AI-assisted translating software.

Picture this scene: It’s a late summer evening at a cabin in Son, just south of Oslo. Two brothers are sitting by the fireplace. The eldest, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, holds a large book in his hands — “Encounters with the Unexplained” — and reads aloud from it. The younger brother, maybe seven years old, hangs on every word with wide eyes. They’ve reached the chapter on UFOs.

Those two brothers were, of course, my older brother and me. While that evening would mark the beginning of a lifelong interest in science fiction and fantasy — which has, among other things, led to the website you’re reading now — my older brother went on to become an author (you can read about his novels here). There was plenty of fantasy and science fiction in his work too, at least in the beginning. These days, it’s mostly Vikings.

That evening, more than 40 years ago, sparked not only a fascination with the unexplained, but also a deep fear — particularly of UFOs. I watched every UFO film I could get my hands on, and more often than not I was so frightened I couldn’t sleep. It culminated, naturally, with the Chiodo Brothers’ Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 1988, but Steven Spielberg had already scared the life out of me with Close Encounters of the Third Kind well before that. I found the aliens emerging from the UFO at the end absolutely terrifying. Was that actually the intention?

Steven Spielberg has, throughout much of his career, shown a fascination with the unknown — particularly UFOs and creatures from outer space. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, released in 1977, follows family man Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfuss, who becomes obsessed with a UFO mystery and is drawn toward a strange mountain for an encounter with beings from another world.

Five years later came E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the story of young Elliott, played by Henry Thomas, and his sister Gertie, played by Drew Barrymore, who befriend a stranded alien and try to help him get home.

In 2005 came Spielberg’s own adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise plays the weary and reluctantly heroic single father Ray Ferrier, who must protect his children as the world collapses around him during an invasion from outer space. Where Close Encounters and E.T. were primarily about wonder and curiosity, War of the Worlds was a far darker film. Like many strong adaptations of Wells’ novel, it also absorbed the fear and uncertainty of its own time — in this case, the shadow of the September 11 attacks.

These three films are often referred to as Steven Spielberg’s unofficial UFO trilogy. But did you know that Spielberg was also behind the miniseries Taken in 2002?

The series spans several generations, from World War II to the early 2000s, following several families whose lives become intertwined through the UFO phenomenon. Here, Spielberg and the show’s creators throw themselves headlong into the full mythology: crash landings in Roswell, secret military projects, mysterious technology, abductions and hybrid children. In short, everything that filled books like “Encounters with the Unexplained” when I was young.

Which brings us to Disclosure Day — a film that in many ways has more in common with Taken than with Spielberg’s far better known UFO films. The project was announced several years ago and spent a long time quietly drifting under the working title “Steven Spielberg’s upcoming UFO film.”

The timing could hardly be better. In recent years, interest in UFOs has experienced a revival, not least following the release of a series of previously classified documents, videos and reports by US authorities. Whether these brought us closer to the truth is hard to say, but they had at least one advantage: the public suddenly became very preoccupied with flying saucers, and correspondingly less preoccupied with certain other documents that were also competing for attention.

Disclosure Day takes place in a world edging toward a new world war. You can feel it in the air — in the news broadcasts playing in the background, in the faces of the people we meet. Into this uncertainty steps Margaret, played by Emily Blunt, a meteorologist with ambitions far beyond the weather forecast.

We also meet Daniel, played by Josh O’Connor — a man whose analytical abilities have always set him apart, and who is now on the run with secrets he has stolen from the organisation he once worked for. On one side stands Noah, played by Colin Firth, the leader of those who believe secrecy must be maintained. On the other, Hugo, played by Colman Domingo, who leads a group of defectors with a single goal: that the truth belongs to everyone. When Daniel and Margaret cross paths, they are drawn into a race against time that stretches all the way back to the legendary UFO crash in Roswell in 1947.

For me, Disclosure Day felt in many ways like a summation of Steven Spielberg’s lifelong fascination with UFO mythology. There are traces of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, echoes of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and moods that recall War of the Worlds — and, as I mentioned, perhaps most of all Taken. Roswell, secret government projects, hidden truths and aliens are all central ingredients.

But the film isn’t always as interested in these ideas as it ought to be. Spielberg constructs a fascinating backdrop full of mysteries and conspiracies, yet spends surprisingly little time exploring it. Instead, much of the film is driven by a fairly conventional chase. The heroes arrive somewhere. Out of nowhere, a column of black SUVs appears in perfect formation, and suited agents pour out in droves. The heroes flee. And then it all repeats. It’s very American, very Spielberg, and after a while, very predictable.

I would have liked to see the film spend less time on car chases and escape sequences, and more time exploring the UFO mythology it draws on. The material is rich enough to support far more than the film ultimately chooses to do with it. When Spielberg opens the door to questions about contact with alien civilisations, government secrecy and humanity’s place in the universe, it’s hard not to want more.

The film also attempts to explore what the existence of aliens would mean for religion and faith. Jane, Daniel’s girlfriend and former nun played by Eve Hewson, serves as the film’s entry point into this territory, and there is a scene featuring an elderly nun quoting the Bible that is almost worth watching on its own. Almost. The whole thing becomes a textbook example of “God of the gaps” — faith adapts to the new reality through a little theological hair-splitting, where God lives in the ever-decreasing gaps between rational thinking. What we’re left with is religious straw-grasping and pop philosophy.

And then there’s the CGI. Not even a budget of 115 million dollars appears to have solved cinema’s eternal problem with digitally animated animals. A fox or a deer has something organic and unpredictable about it that computers have yet to convincingly replicate, regardless of how many millions of polygons they throw at the problem. That said, many of the best special effects studios still struggle with this, and it’s still better than using real animals, which in most cases would be unethical.

Fortunately, Disclosure Day has much else that works and more than makes up for many of the film’s shortcomings. Emily Blunt delivers what very well may be one of the finest performances of her career. She gives Margaret warmth, vulnerability and authority in equal measure, and there is barely a scene she doesn’t elevate simply by being in it. Colin Firth is also excellent as Noah. The role could easily have become a cartoonish villain, but Firth plays him with enough nuance that you understand his motivations, even when you disagree with his choices.

Josh O’Connor does what he can with Daniel, but the character is somewhat overshadowed by the stronger personalities around him — through little fault of the actor, most likely. Daniel is the one who sets everything in motion, on the run with Jane and a mysterious alien MacGuffin that both organisations are desperate to get their hands on. But beyond fleeing from suited agents and occasionally looking exhausted and defeated, the role is unfortunately a little thin. It is Emily Blunt who carries the film.

Visually, this is an enormously impressive film. The camera moves elegantly through long, complex takes, and Spielberg has always known how to fill a frame with light and reflections in a way that is entirely his own. The backdrop of a society on the brink — panicking crowds and news channels warning of the inevitable — draws on some of the darker corners of Spielberg’s filmography.

The same goes for the music. John Williams is 94 years old, and this is in all likelihood his final film. It is a worthy conclusion to one of the most celebrated creative partnerships in cinema history. The score is classic Williams, and parts of it will almost certainly be performed in concert halls for film music lovers for many years to come.

Perhaps that is precisely why Disclosure Day feels a little frustrating. Spielberg has spent much of his life imagining what might be waiting out there, and you wish he had dared a little more this time. Explored more. Discovered more. That the man who gave an entire generation its sense of wonder about the stars had taken us on a journey we hadn’t seen before, rather than nearly two and a half hours on the run from suited agents in black SUVs.

But Disclosure Day is still a good film. Just not one of the truly great ones.

This review was translated from the Norwegian original on my website Legendarium.no. While I don’t give review scores here on The Bull’s Eye, over on Legendarium, I gave Disclosure Day a 4 out of 6.

When André Øvredal broke through internationally with Trollhunter in 2010, it felt like the arrival of a filmmaker with a distinctly original sensibility. His mockumentary about trolls hiding in the Norwegian wilderness was playful, inventive, and deeply rooted in local folklore, yet somehow universally accessible.

It quickly became a cult favorite, and in the years since, Øvredal has done something remarkably few Norwegian directors have managed: he has built a sustained career in international genre filmmaking without losing his identity in the process.

That path has taken him through some very different corners of horror. The Autopsy of Jane Doe remains one of the most effective modern chamber horrors, a film that thrives on atmosphere, precision, and steadily mounting dread.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark proved he could bring that same sense of craft into a larger studio framework, while The Last Voyage of the Demeter transformed a familiar corner of Dracula mythology into a grim, sea-bound survival horror story. His latest film, Passenger, shifts gears again, taking horror out onto the open road and into the mythology of modern American nomad culture.

A quick spoiler warning: This conversation with André Øvredal goes deep into the hows and whys of horror, and includes a breakdown of one particular scene from Passenger.

On paper, the premise sounds familiar enough. A young couple traveling across the United States encounter a demonic entity that stalks those who stop along deserted roads at night. But talking to Øvredal, it quickly becomes clear that Passenger is less interesting as a simple monster movie than as a reflection of how he thinks about horror itself. The film opens up a broader conversation about suspense, audience manipulation, folklore, and the curious reality that what scares us most often has very little to do with monsters.

A haunted house on wheels

“I’d describe it as a haunted house movie on the road,” Øvredal says.

It’s one of those descriptions that instantly makes sense once you hear it. Traditional haunted house films are built around the gradual corruption of a supposedly safe environment. A house, a room, a domestic space that slowly becomes hostile. Claustrophobia is part of the architecture. Safety erodes one strange noise, one unexplained event, one narrowing possibility of escape at a time. Passenger takes that same structure and moves it into a fundamentally different setting.

“I’ve read a lot of haunted house scripts, and obviously seen countless films,” he says. “It’s a subgenre, but I’d never seen one that takes place in motion, out on the road. That was what fascinated me.”

What makes the idea particularly effective is how naturally it fits within the mythology of the American road. Few countries have romanticized travel in quite the same way. The open highway has long represented freedom, reinvention, escape, and self-discovery in American storytelling. Road movies are practically a genre unto themselves, and in more recent years, the aesthetics of van life have turned a kind of curated nomadic existence into a social media fantasy. Endless skies, desert landscapes, coffee brewed outside the van at sunrise, the promise of movement without responsibility.

Øvredal understands that appeal.

“It’s a very familiar phenomenon, traveling like that,” he says. “For one thing, the distances are enormous, and there’s so much isolation out there in the desert, God knows where. Long stretches where you don’t see another person. But driving across America is a whole culture. Going coast to coast is almost a lifestyle. It’s something a lot of people dream about.”

He includes himself in that fantasy.

“I’ve never actually done it, but I’ve definitely wanted to. Maybe not all the way across the country, but parts of it.”

What horror does so well, of course, is take cultural fantasies and turn them inside out. Freedom becomes vulnerability. Space becomes exposure. The dream of endless movement becomes the nightmare of nowhere to hide. In Passenger, the open road isn’t liberating. It’s isolating. The vastness that might seem beautiful in another kind of film becomes threatening, precisely because there is no safety net.

The film explores that sense of unease by weaving in something older and stranger: the so-called hobo codes that appear throughout the story as warnings. These symbolic markings, historically associated with itinerant workers and drifters in America, were once used to communicate practical information to others moving through the same spaces. A place that offered food. A hostile homeowner. Work opportunities. Danger.

Øvredal was drawn to the idea that these old systems of communication could become part of a darker mythology.

“These are old things,” he says. “Carving a symbol into a tree, a sign, whatever. It functioned as a kind of nomadic communication system for a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty years, maybe even longer for all I know.”

It’s an inspired touch because it gives Passenger the feeling of inherited folklore. The suggestion that others have encountered this threat before, that warnings already exist if only you know how to read them, creates a sense that the evil in the film predates the story itself. Horror often benefits enormously from that feeling of age. The most unsettling monsters rarely feel new.

A new threat

And yet, interestingly, the Passenger itself is not based on any specific mythology.

“It’s a character we created for the film,” Øvredal explains. “It’s not based on a specific American urban myth or any other mythology. There are myths that sort of float around culturally, but we didn’t base him on a particular folkloric figure.”

That may surprise some viewers, because the creature feels uncannily like something that should already exist in American folklore, the sort of story truck drivers might pass along in roadside diners. But the character went through a long evolution before reaching the screen.

“He went through a lot of versions before we landed on the final one. Early on, he was more of a shadow figure. Much less tangible.”

That shift toward something more physical was deliberate, and it leads Øvredal into one of the more revealing observations of the conversation.

“We were very focused, Walter and Gary, the producers, myself, the whole team, on making him a physical manifestation. Something with humanity in the design, rather than just another shadow entity. We miss that a little in horror.”

It’s a point worth considering. Contemporary horror has often leaned toward abstraction, favoring atmosphere, metaphor, and unseen forces over tangible monsters. Some of the genre’s best recent films have thrived in precisely that space. But horror history is also filled with iconic figures whose power comes from physical presence, characters who occupy space in a way that feels disturbingly real.

Freddy Krueger worked because he was more than an idea. Jason Voorhees became iconic because he was a looming physical force. Pinhead, Candyman, even older figures like Nosferatu, all derive part of their power from recognizability.

Øvredal wanted something in that tradition.

“We wanted to create someone people would remember afterward. That was the goal.”

A major turning point came through casting of Joseph Lopes as the Passenger.

“Joseph came in to audition, and we thought he was absolutely fantastic. We actually started rethinking the entire character around the idea of casting him.”

That commitment to physicality extends to the finished film itself.

“It’s not a CG character,” Øvredal says. “That’s him.”

There is some digital enhancement later in the film, but the essential presence is practical, embodied, and physically there with the actors. That decision matters. Horror often becomes more effective when performers are reacting to something tangible rather than an empty space that will be filled in later.

Building jump scares

Still, monsters are only one part of the equation. If there’s one theme Øvredal returns to repeatedly, it’s that horror is ultimately about construction.

“I’m most interested in the build-up,” he says. “Jump scares are part of the genre. You have to work with them if you’re making horror. But I don’t structure my filmmaking around jump scares. What I really enjoy is building tension from the very beginning of a sequence.”

That distinction is crucial, especially in an era where jump scares are often treated as either the essence of horror or its lowest common denominator. In reality, the jump scare itself is rarely the point. Without tension beforehand, it’s just a sudden loud interruption. What gives it meaning is everything leading up to it.

Øvredal is refreshingly transparent about where his approach comes from.

“This is just Hitchcock,” he says, grinning.

But he isn’t being flippant.

“It’s all about information given to the audience. Through the script, through directing, through the combination of both. What information the audience has at any given moment, and how much you choose to withhold.”

That’s suspense in its purest form. The audience needs enough information to anticipate danger, but not enough to fully understand it. Anxiety lives in that gap.

“All my experience, from when I started making horror films at 14 until now, tells me that’s where the gold is,” he says. “That’s how you create tension curves and eventually build toward a jump scare. It’s about the build-up, and then finding some way to knock the audience off balance right before the scare.”

The phrase “off balance” is especially revealing, because it gets at what horror really does when it works. It destabilizes the viewer. It creates a temporary loss of certainty, a subtle erosion of control.

At one point, the conversation turns into something close to a miniature filmmaking seminar when Øvredal breaks down one of Passenger’s standout sequences, a parking lot scene that has apparently become a clear audience favorite.

And before we continue, a slight jump scare spoiler warning.

“It’s one of the scenes I’m happiest with,” he says. “We shot the whole thing as one long take, which involved a lot of complicated choreography.”

What follows is a remarkably precise explanation of how suspense is engineered.

“She leaves the gym wearing earbuds, like a normal person would, crossing what appears to be a perfectly ordinary parking lot. We follow her, and the sound becomes very much hers. You hear her music faintly. We’re close to her point of view.”

That immediately aligns the audience with her perception.

Then comes the controlled distribution of information.

“We’re constantly feeding the audience information about what’s around her. The moment she walks out, we turn the camera behind her to show the objective of the scene, the van. It’s red, so it’s easy for the audience to identify. We hold it just long enough for me to know they’ve registered where we’re going.”

Then, deliberately, attention is redirected.

“She passes the car with the two suspicious guys inside. That’s a red herring. A deliberate misdirection.”

This is the kind of explanation horror fans love hearing, because it reveals just how calculated effective suspense can be. Nothing about the sequence is accidental. The audience is being guided, distracted, reassured, then subtly unsettled.

“Then we slowly swing the camera back to start building tension again,” he says. “We’re essentially stressing her environment, choreographing discomfort around her.”

He knows it works because test audiences told him so.

“I’ve seen the test screenings. It’s overwhelmingly the audience favorite.”

How to scare a horror director

For someone who has spent much of his career crafting fear, what does horror even mean on a personal level anymore? Has he become immune?

His answer goes somewhere unexpected.

“The most uncomfortable viewing experience I’ve had in recent years, post-COVID, was actually Chernobyl.”

Not horror in the conventional sense. No monsters. No supernatural threat.

But his reasoning makes perfect sense.

“Partly because I remember when it happened, when I was a kid,” he says. “But also because it’s just horrifying. The claustrophobia. The fact that people aren’t being informed about what’s happening. They walk blindly into situations trusting authority to tell them the truth.”

That answer says something profound about fear itself. The most unsettling stories are often not the ones involving impossible creatures, but the ones rooted in helplessness, uncertainty, and institutional failure. Horror may use supernatural metaphors, but what unsettles us most is often deeply human.

When it comes to the films that shaped him, Øvredal’s list is reassuringly classic.

“The Exorcist. The Shining. The Omen. Poltergeist. The ones that still sit there as five-star films.”

None of those choices are surprising, but they reinforce everything he has already said. These are films built not on isolated shocks, but on atmosphere, structure, patience, and carefully controlled escalation.

As the conversation winds down, talk turns briefly to what comes next. Details remain under wraps, but one thing is clear.

“I’ll be going into production on another film this year.”

And yes, it’s horror.

“There’ll be more horror,” he says, smiling. “I have to. I enjoy it too much.”

That may be the simplest explanation for why André Øvredal continues to be such a compelling horror filmmaker. It’s not just that he understands the technical mechanics of fear, or that he can clearly articulate how suspense works. It’s that he still seems genuinely fascinated by the process itself, by the strange relationship between filmmaker and audience, by how tension can be quietly constructed through information, timing, sound, and perspective until viewers find themselves gripping their seats without entirely realizing why.

Passenger may function perfectly well as a stylish road horror about a demonic figure stalking dark American highways, but the conversation surrounding it reveals something more enduring. Horror, at its most effective, is rarely just about the monster. It’s about that fragile moment when certainty slips away, when the rules stop making sense, and when the audience realizes, just a second too late, that control is gone.

If there is one thing certain in life, it is death. Death and taxes, as a wise man once said. We all grow older, and no one lives forever, no matter how much some of us might wish otherwise. And if we are lucky, we may enter our final years able to look back on life with at least some sense of peace.

These reflections sit at the center of Netflix’s The Boroughs. Creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, previously collaborators on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, have joined forces with the Duffer Brothers of Stranger Things fame to tell a new science fiction story about the later years of life.

After an opening sequence that firmly establishes the show’s science fiction tone, in which an elderly woman is abducted by a monster, we meet retired flight engineer Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina), who is struggling with deep depression after recently losing his wife. His adult daughter Claire (Jena Malone) has moved him into The Boroughs, a gated retirement community run by the young and charismatic Blaine (Seth Numrich) and his mysterious wife Anneliese (Alice Kremelberg).

It does not take long for Sam to realize that something feels wrong in The Boroughs. The house he has moved into seems almost haunted by traces of something terrible that happened there before. An elderly woman vanished. Maybe it is only his imagination. But then who is the disturbed old man who suddenly breaks into the house muttering about “owls in the walls” before the staff arrive to escort him back to “The Manor”, the nursing home in the center of town that apparently no one ever returns from?

Fortunately, Sam soon connects with several of his neighbors. The aging womanizer Jack (Bill Pullman) seems determined to drag the grumpy newcomer into backyard barbecues and beers. Through him, Sam also meets Renee (Geena Davis), a cynical former rock manager who refuses to let age define her, Wally (Denis O’Hare), a terminally ill former doctor who hides his fear of death behind humor, Judy (Alfre Woodard), a curious ex-journalist already convinced that something is deeply wrong in the neighborhood, and her partner Art (Clarke Peters), an aging hippie with a more spiritual outlook on life.

After a long period of shutting himself off, driven by grief, loneliness, and a stubborn belief that he no longer deserves anything good from life, Sam gradually finds a sense of belonging, perhaps even friendship, with his new neighbors, all of whom have experienced strange and unexplained events in and around The Boroughs. Before long, they decide to work together to uncover the truth behind the retirement community and the strange creatures several of them have glimpsed lurking in the shadows.

With the Duffer Brothers producing the series through their company Upside Down Pictures, comparisons to Stranger Things are inevitable, and The Boroughs is no exception. When I first sat down with the episodes Netflix provided, I quickly found myself thinking of it as a kind of “anti-Stranger Things”, or perhaps more accurately, Stranger Things’ grumpy, outspoken old uncle, where the well-aged heroes drive electric golf carts instead of BMX bikes. But the comparison only goes so far.

It may be tempting to describe The Boroughs as Stranger Things for grumpy old folks, but that ultimately feels too simple. Remove the Duffer Brothers’ names from the credits, and the series just as easily brings to mind filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, both in storytelling and atmosphere. It should be said, then, that these filmmakers were among the many inspirations for the Duffer Brothers when they made their first hit series.

The performances and dialogue also set the series apart from Stranger Things, and not simply because of the older cast. As the lead, Alfred Molina carries the show with remarkable confidence, giving Sam far more depth across eight episodes than Stranger Things’ massive ensemble has managed over five seasons. Much of that naturally comes down to experience. Molina is now in his seventies and has long been regarded as one of Hollywood’s great character actors, ever since first appearing as the villain Satipo in Raiders of the Lost Ark back in 1981.

Alongside Molina, the cast features several other familiar faces. Most recognizable to me, at least, is Bill Pullman, who delivers a wonderful performance as the endlessly charming Jack. Watching him quietly build layer upon layer into the character is a genuine pleasure. Meanwhile, Geena Davis is excellent as the age-defying former rock manager Renee.

Still, next to Molina, it is perhaps Denis O’Hare who leaves the strongest impression as the terminally ill Wally. Frustrated and bitter that he, of all people, should become gravely ill, Wally nevertheless becomes the emotional center and comic relief of the series, balancing warmth and affection for his friends with increasingly dark gallows humor about his own condition. He constantly fires off hilarious, and occasionally outrageous, jokes, often as a way of hiding a very real fear of the death slowly closing in on him.

Part of what makes The Boroughs so charming is the way the series refuses to turn its characters’ age into the joke. This is not a show that points and laughs at elderly people trying to play action heroes. On the contrary, it treats its characters with sincerity while still allowing them humor, warmth, and humanity. It certainly helps that the cast is made up of veterans like Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Bill Pullman, Clarke Peters, Denis O’Hare, and Alfre Woodard, all of whom seem completely at home with the material.

The Boroughs is an excellent and refreshingly unusual science fiction series that takes a familiar concept, especially in the wake of Stranger Things and its many inspirations, and shifts it onto an older generation. On paper, that may sound both strange and risky, but that is exactly why the series feels so fresh.

The Duffer Brothers and creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews prove that stories like these do not need to revolve solely around awkward teenagers with supernatural powers and BMX bikes. They can also focus on elderly people searching for meaning, companionship, and dignity in the final chapter of life… and golf carts. The result is a series filled with warmth, suspense, and an unexpected amount of heart, elevated by a phenomenal cast and a sense of humanity that is all too rare in Netflix’s wider lineup of original series.

This review was translated from the Norwegian original I wrote on my website Legendarium.

We may be hearing it and reading it everywhere, but it still feels slightly surreal: after seven years, Star Wars has finally returned to the big screen with The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The much-debated Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker arrived all the way back in 2019, and since then, Lucasfilm and Disney have largely focused on streaming rather than cinemas.

In the years since, we’ve seen a wave of live-action spin-off series set in George Lucas’ iconic galaxy, alongside strong animated shows continuing the legacy of The Clone Wars and Rebels. Much like the final chapter of the Skywalker saga, these projects have sparked joy and excitement, but also heated debate, outright arguments, and, in some unfortunate cases, direct harassment.

If there is one thing we might actually agree on (a rare event among Star Wars fans), it’s that the Disney+ era has hardly lacked variety.

Want a serious espionage thriller? The brilliant Andor delivers. More into kung fu, wuxia, and Jedi philosophy? Then the underrated The Acolyte deserves another chance, regardless of what the loudest professionally angry fans on YouTube might tell you.

Looking for classic 1980s adventure energy, with kids on the run from space pirates? Skeleton Crew. A more mythic, almost spiritual Star Wars experience? Ahsoka. A reunion with old heroes? Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett.

But the first live-action series out of the gate was The Mandalorian, which premiered in 2019 alongside the launch of Disney+.

It was something many Star Wars fans had wanted for years, especially after the long-running rumours about George Lucas’ abandoned live-action series exploring the galaxy’s criminal underworld, a project that never came to fruition.

Still, some of those ideas clearly lived on elsewhere. Traces of them appeared in novels, comics, and even the cancelled game project Star Wars 1313.

The Mandalorian, which blends Star Wars with a healthy dose of western mythology and samurai storytelling, works so well because it offers something both fresh and familiar, drawing heavily from the legacy of fan-favourite Boba Fett.

Here we meet the ice-cold bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), adopted into the Mandalorian sect Death Watch after his parents were killed during the Clone Wars.

When Imperial loyalists hire him to retrieve a target, Grogu, a child with powerful Force abilities, things quickly go in a very different direction. Din Djarin’s conscience overrides duty, and soon the pair are on the run from both the bounty hunters’ guild and the Empire in an adventure that feels lifted straight from Kazuo Koike’s Lone Wolf and Cub.

What began as a surprisingly fresh Star Wars concept quickly became the flagship of Disney’s streaming strategy, and across three seasons, Din Djarin and Grogu have become two of the most beloved characters of the modern Star Wars era. It also feels entirely fitting that The Mandalorian, which launched Disney’s live-action Star Wars expansion, is now the project leading the franchise back into cinemas.

Now The Mandalorian and Grogu has arrived.

When we reunite with the iconic duo after the events of season three, they’ve settled into a familiar rhythm. Leaders and remnants of the now mostly defeated Empire are still on the run, while the former Rebel Alliance, now the New Republic, is doing everything it can to hunt them down before they can gather enough strength to start another war.

Din Djarin and Grogu are working freelance for a New Republic unit led by Ward (Sigourney Weaver), tasked with tracking down a mysterious warlord that little is known about, aside from what the Hutts are willing to share. And as we all know, nothing comes free when dealing with them.

Together with Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios (Steve Blum), familiar to fans of Star Wars Rebels, they are sent to Nal Hutta to negotiate and locate Jabba the Hutt’s missing heir, Rotta (Jeremy Allen White).

This is where director Jon Favreau’s latest Star Wars story begins.

Favreau, who also created The Mandalorian, co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Filoni, George Lucas’ former protégé and now effectively heir to the creative throne at Lucasfilm. Joining them is Noah Kloor, who also worked on both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

This is a team that clearly understands what Star Wars is supposed to be. While the result feels unmistakably like The Mandalorian, it is also large enough to fill even the biggest cinema screen.

Because that was my biggest concern going in: would this simply feel like an extended two-hour special episode of The Mandalorian?

Thankfully, the answer is no.

This feels like cinematic Star Wars, not television with a larger budget. Just as importantly, the story of Din Djarin and Grogu receives meaningful progression after the three seasons of the Disney+ series.

It is obvious that Favreau, Filoni, and Kloor were aiming for something more classical. This is a traditional, almost retro action-adventure made for the big screen.

Favreau and Filoni have spoken openly about how The Mandalorian and Grogu, as part of the so-called Filoni-verse, functions as a more straightforward action-adventure, while the upcoming second season of Ahsoka continues exploring the more esoteric and mythological corners of the Star Wars universe.

It should also be said that The Mandalorian and Grogu is first and foremost a film made for Star Wars fans.

Like the rest of the Filoni-verse, it is packed with references, connections, and little rewards for those who have kept up, often reaching all the way back to The Clone Wars and Rebels.

Rotta the Hutt, played by Jeremy Allen White, plays a central role in this story, but actually first appeared in the 2008 theatrical The Clone Wars film. The same goes for bounty hunter Embo, a clear fan favourite from The Clone Wars, originally voiced by none other than Dave Filoni himself.

A lot of this is, of course, blatant fan service, which is not always a good thing. But when it works, as it does here, even hardened Star Wars fans will be grinning from ear to ear.

At the same time, it may create a bit of distance for more casual moviegoers who are not necessarily fluent in every obscure piece of galactic lore.

People talk fast here, and strange terminology flies through the air. For longtime fans, this is just everyday vocabulary.

We know that Nar Shaddaa is Nal Hutta’s urban neighbouring moon, that the target cards Din Djarin uses originate from the card game Sabacc, and that the Razor Crest is a spaceship, not Gillette’s latest razor launch. Let’s just say I may never look at the Dejarik scene in the original Star Wars the same way again.

Combined with the film’s parade of planets and moons, from sun-drenched beaches to slimy caves populated by criminal giant slugs, I can easily imagine The Mandalorian and Grogu feeling especially nerdy, perhaps even slightly overwhelming, for anyone not already fully invested in Star Wars.

That said, The Mandalorian and Grogu is not just a excellent action-adventure. It is also a excellent Star Wars film, and a genuine gift to fans.

Everything is here: breathtaking planets, bizarre creatures, deliciously evil villains, heroic action sequences, and enough Filoni references to fill a space cruiser.

On top of that, there is Ludwig Göransson’s phenomenal score, which boldly takes Star Wars in fresh musical directions without losing its connection to John Williams’ legacy.

This film knows exactly what it is: fun, unpretentious, and occasionally just as chaotic and gloriously out of control as Grogu left alone in the cockpit of the Razor Crest.

And if there is one thing the Star Wars fandom desperately needs right now, it is the chance to come together around something they love, ideally in a dark cinema, sharing in the excitement and joy of the extraordinary adventure universe George Lucas created nearly 50 years ago.

I hope, no, I genuinely dare to believe, that The Mandalorian and Grogu will do exactly that.

Want to learn more about the Star Wars Fandom? Check Out this article:

Have you ever heard of Widow’s Bay? This small island community with the ominous name lies some 40 miles off the coast of New England. The island’s only town, which shares its name, doesn’t see many visitors. Summers are mild, winters are windy and often nail-bitingly cold. Mobile reception is spotty at best, and the Wi-Fi signal is practically non-existent.

Oh, and it’s cursed. At least, that’s what the island’s many quirky and superstitious old-timers would have you believe. Surely it’s just that, right? Superstitions? Right?

Widow’s Bay is the setting for Apple TV+’s newest horror-comedy series. We meet Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), the cosmopolitan but neurotic mayor of the island’s only town, who, after winning an uncontested election, is desperate to breathe some life into his fading community. His goal sounds simple enough: turn Widow’s Bay into a thriving tourist destination.

But when visitors finally start to arrive, their timing couldn’t be worse. It soon becomes clear that the town’s dark past — the very thing that inspired the locals’ superstitions — may not be superstition at all. Curses, ghosts, ghouls, witches, and worse might actually be real. Horror and hilarity ensue.

If that setup brings to mind the stories of Stephen King, you’re not too far off. It leans more into comedy and character quirkiness than King usually does, but the influence is obvious. Watching the 10-episode season, I kept coming back to the same description: the lovechild of Fargo and Twin Peaks, raised somewhere deep in the lands of Stephen King, with H.P. Lovecraft as creepy uncle living in the old house just down the road.

The series leans heavily into comedy, and while it often lands — especially in Loftis’ neurotic behavior and his clashes with the older, deeply superstitious locals, chief among them the town’s eccentric of eccentrics, the old salt Wyck (Stephen Root) — it occasionally comes at the expense of the horror, softening moments that might otherwise have hit harder.

That said, showrunner Kate Dippold and director Hiro Murai, who helms most of the episodes, keep the horror alive. It may not reach the depth of Mike Flanagan or the unsettling strangeness of Ari Aster, but it doesn’t need to. The series leans on creeping unease and the sense that something is wrong, rather than jump scares or gore, and at times it genuinely unsettles.

As the New England fog rolls in over Widow’s Bay, strange events begin to unfold. People disappear, only to return changed, and old legends resurface — quite literally in some cases. Warnings go unheeded. Strange figures appear in the dark. A church bell tolls in the distance, one that hasn’t rung since the disaster, and the local old-timers, seemingly fused to their bar stools, nursing bitter pints, begin to count each toll. Widow’s Bay is a place of secrets and curses.

Mayor Loftis will have none of it. He is far more concerned with the surge of tourists he has worked so hard to attract. On top of that, he is a single father to his troubled teenage son Evan (Kingston Rumi Southwick), who has begun asking questions about his long-dead mother. With both curses and parenthood to contend with, it’s no wonder his sanity is starting to fray.

At the center of it all is the relationship between Loftis and Wyck, two complete opposites who begin as bitter rivals. As a skeptic elevated to the leadership of Widow’s Bay, Loftis doesn’t have the respect of the locals, earning, at best, side glances and whispers behind his back. Matthew Rhys captures this perfectly — part embattled father, part the mayor from Jaws, trying to keep a lid on things as the situation quietly spirals out of control.

Wyck, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. Strange and erratic even by the town’s standards, he would easily fall into the familiar role of the drunken eccentric in a story like this if it weren’t for Stephen Root’s performance and the depth written into the character, both of which push him beyond the stereotype.

Faced with the same problem, these two are forced to bring their wildly different perspectives to bear, finding a way to cooperate, however grudgingly. Watching these two actors, so different in style and energy, play off each other is one of the show’s real pleasures.

That’s not to say every character we meet is equally well-developed. With the series leaning heavily on quirky side characters for humor, some — while funny, even hilarious at times — remain closer to sketches than fully formed people, often built around deadpan delivery and socioeconomic misunderstandings. There are exceptions, such as the socially awkward Patricia (Kate O’Flynn) and the island’s only police officer, the embattled Sheriff Bechir (Kevin Carroll), both of whom are given more to work with.

Widow’s Bay has a very distinct visual style, clearly inspired by horror and mystery films from the late ’80s and early ’90s. I’m not entirely sure what techniques are at play, but I would have loved to hear the creators talk about it. It brought me straight back to the films and TV series I used to watch obsessively on VHS. Muted, almost drab colors sit beneath layers of deliberate visual noise, giving the image a worn, tactile quality.

This becomes even more pronounced in the series’ many flashbacks, where the aspect ratio shifts to evoke a visual language that now feels almost ancient compared to today’s fast, dopamine-driven feeds. The series isn’t exactly slow-burning, but it is character-driven and knows when to take its time, even if there’s no shortage of running and screaming along the way.

Widow’s Bay is a quirky, moderately scary, and often very funny series. It won’t satisfy horror fans looking for relentless scares and gore, and it doesn’t aim to be a full-on comedy either. It works best in the space between, as it slowly unravels its central mystery. The horror stays understated, the humor dry and character-based, and the mix proves surprisingly effective.

Widow’s Bay premieres on Apple TV+ on April 29.

Alan Ritchson is on the rise. After breaking through as the imposing lead in Reacher, now three seasons strong, the 43‑year‑old American actor has established himself as a reliable presence in modern action entertainment. What makes Ritchson compelling is not just his physicality. Beneath the brute‑force archetype he often plays, there is usually a hint of vulnerability and, if you look closely enough, a genuine sense of humanity.

Reacher paved the way for other roles, mostly in action fare. One of the more enjoyable examples is Guy Ritchie’s underappreciated and gleefully irreverent The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024), where Ritchson appeared alongside Henry Cavill and Eiza González.

The actor has also spoken openly about his struggles with bipolar disorder, something that perhaps explains the vulnerability that occasionally shines through in his otherwise hyper‑masculine screen presence.

Netflix’s War Machine, then, sounds like something right up his alley. A military science fiction action film that promises to pit gung‑ho soldiers in combat gear against an unknown mechanical menace, more specifically a giant alien robot armed to the gills with lasers, missiles, bombs, and more. On paper, this is exactly the kind of premise where Ritchson should thrive, leaning fully into his on‑screen persona as a modern action leading man.

Which makes it all the more unfortunate that while the premise of War Machine is perfectly suited for a Friday‑night popcorn spectacle, the film gradually turns into something else entirely. That approach may play well with its obvious target demographic, American military enthusiasts, but it is likely to feel far less compelling elsewhere. That said, I will freely admit one thing: I do love me a giant robot with guns. But let’s dig a little deeper.

War Machine begins in the deserts of Afghanistan, where a squad of military engineers, led by our hero, later known only as 81 (Alan Ritchson), meets up with a stranded group of soldiers and their Humvees, commanded by 81’s brother (Jai Courtney).

After some severely masculine bravado, with everyone talking in booming voices while flexing military tattoos and getting their hands dirty, the group is suddenly ambushed by unseen Taliban fighters. 81 is the only survivor, but not before carrying his dying brother on his shoulders back to base.

Two years later, 81 has signed up for Ranger training in Colorado, as in the guys who constantly seem to shout “Rangers lead the way… all the way!” The program is overseen by the grumpy officer Torres (Esai Morales) and the slightly manic‑looking commanding officer Sheridan (a somewhat crazy-eyed Dennis Quaid). After a gruelling and overly long montage‑driven training sequence, most aspiring Rangers are weeded out, leaving only the (un)lucky few for the final “Death March” exercise.

And I cannot stress enough how painfully cliché much of this setup feels. I am obviously not a military man, and one hopes that director Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3, The Hitman’s Bodyguard), who wrote the film with James Beaufort, who also appears on screen as the character 23, has deliberately dialed up the bravado and the banter for cinematic effect.

That is not to say the film is entirely painful to watch. It isn’t. In fact, if you can look past the gung‑ho bluster, Alan Ritchson presents a compelling, if somewhat archetypal character: the wounded veteran with PTSD, vulnerable beneath a thin veneer of heroism, determined to finish Ranger training in honor of his fallen brother.

The focus of the film is the so‑called “Death March,” a final test where the remaining Rangers-in-training must head into the wilderness to complete a mission: destroy what they believe to be a crashed experimental military aircraft. Everything is, of course, pretend — rifles loaded with blanks, the opposing team, the so-called Cadre, consisting of other U.S. soldiers.

But when they reach the target, they quickly realize something is wrong. The wreckage looks nothing like a conventional aircraft. A high‑tech armored hull, with no wings in sight, lies embedded in the soil. When the soldiers plant their charges, the explosion results in something entirely unexpected: a very angry alien robot that immediately proceeds to decimate the troop.

The survivors of the attack, now hunted by the massive machine, must navigate the wilderness back toward their training base. At this stage the film effectively becomes a variation of the Predator (1987), with the remaining soldiers picked off one by one by an ever‑present alien menace.

It is not a particularly flattering look for the film to echo something so iconic quite this blatantly, and while Alan Ritchson does his best with the material he is given, the story, or what remains of it, begins to spiral during this middle stretch.

Let’s be honest: however compelling Alan Ritchson’s character 81 might be, at least within the limits of the genre, most viewers are here for the giant mechanical menace. On that front the film mostly delivers. The alien robot looks suitably imposing, even if its movements are sometimes a little slow and cumbersome, giving off a faint War of the Worlds energy, more in sound design and menace than in appearance.

When it clashes with the soldiers the film occasionally finds a rhythm, particularly in a tense river crossing and a chase involving an armored vehicle, staged as a slick, if somewhat CG-heavy, one‑shot.

But as the final act begins, the film’s true ambitions begin to reveal themselves. What initially felt like a rough‑and‑ready military sci‑fi survival story gradually transforms into something else entirely: a glossy recruitment video for the United States Army, complete with slow‑motion hero shots, flags rippling majestically in the wind, and roaring Black Hawk helicopters loaded with stoic and patriotic American solider.

By the time the inevitable rallying cries return, “Rangers lead the way!” followed, naturally, by the equally enthusiastic response, “All the way!”, the film has fully embraced its inner propaganda reel. At this point one half expects the credits to pause briefly so a recruitment officer can step into frame and hand out pamphlets.

Despite a few good action sequences, to this Norwegian critic, especially in this day and age, the end result lands somewhere between awkwardness and cringe.

War Machine premieres on Netflix on March 6th.

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“Here there be monsters!” The old adage appeared on ancient maps in times when the world felt larger, and what lay beyond the horizon was more mystery than certainty. It warned against wandering too far into the unknown. In the centuries since, as the map filled in and the world seemed to shrink, the phrase fell out of use. After all, there are no dragons beyond the horizon unless we happen to live in a world of monsters.

The MonsterVerse is an American multimedia franchise that began with Godzilla (2014), directed by Rogue One filmmaker Gareth Edwards, a man with a particular gift for making things look incomprehensibly large. While the film was not to everyone’s taste, it largely re-legitimized Godzilla for an international audience after Roland Emmerich’s dreadful 1998 attempt at resurrecting the atomic lizard.

Edwards’ film became the foundation of what we now know as the MonsterVerse, made possible through a carefully negotiated licensing arrangement with Japan’s Toho, the original home of Godzilla. Across subsequent installments like Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong, audiences were reintroduced, especially those of us who grew up on Toho imports, not only to Godzilla, but to Kong, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Rodan, and even the gloriously excessive Mechagodzilla.

The MonsterVerse films tend to fall into two broad categories. Some are primarily concerned with pitting monsters against each other, preferably near recognizable skylines for maximum collateral damage, or as I like to call them, the “Let them fight!” films. Others are more character-driven, like Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island, exploring this world from a human perspective. As the films have leaned further into spectacle, occasionally tipping into full gonzo absurdity, Apple’s spinoff series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters moves in the opposite direction.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters follows the origins and evolution of the MonsterVerse’s quasi-protagonist organization, Monarch. The story unfolds across two parallel eras. In the 1950s and 60s, we follow military officer–turned–explorer Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), scientist Bill Randa (Anders Holm), and physicist Dr. Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto) as they embark on expeditions that lay the foundation of Monarch. Far more than simple flashbacks, these sequences move steadily toward the 1973 events of Kong: Skull Island and the ultimate fate of Bill Randa.

Season 1 also further explores one of the franchise’s most important ideas: Axis Mundi, a hidden realm tied to the Titans’ origins, where time moves differently than in our world. When Keiko is lost there in the 1960s and later rescued decades later without having aged, the show makes it clear that Monarch is not merely tracking large animals, but investigating something far stranger.

The present-day storyline is set in the aftermath of 2014’s G-Day, when Godzilla battled the MUTOs in San Francisco, devastating the city and revealing the Titans to the world. At the center stand Bill Randa’s granddaughter Cate (Anna Sawai) and her half-brother Kentaro (Ren Watabe), and their father Hiroshi Randa (Takehiro Hira), alongside Dr. Keiko Miura and an older Lee Shaw. In a stroke of inspired casting, Shaw is played in the present by Wyatt Russell’s real-life father, Kurt Russell, turning resemblance into something more than coincidence.

The contemporary arc follows both global and familial fallout as the characters confront emerging Titan threats, sometimes working with Monarch and sometimes resisting it, while uncovering long-buried secrets about the organization’s past.

Picking up moments after the events of the first story, the second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters builds directly on these revelations from the first. With Axis Mundi no longer theoretical and Monarch’s internal fractures exposed, a new player enters the arena: the tech corporation APEX, eager to weaponize what Monarch studies. At the same time, a new aquatic Titan known provisionally as Titan X rises from the depths, pulling the mysteries of Axis Mundi further into the open and pushing the world toward another reckoning.

Yet for all its institutional intrigue, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters remains unmistakably human in its focus. Titan X is not simply a kraken-sized spectacle dredged up from maritime folklore, but an enigmatic presence whose arrival has personal consequences. Without venturing into spoiler territory, the creature’s connection to one of the central characters adds an unexpected emotional dimension. Instead of leaning on familiar science fiction shorthand, the series treats this bond with restraint, grounding it in character rather than destiny.

While Titan X drives much of the season’s mystery, it is far from the only presence looming over the narrative. Both Godzilla and Kong appear across multiple episodes, not as fleeting cameos but as integral forces within the story. Other creatures emerge as well, formidable and often unsettling denizens of Axis Mundi, Skull Island, and the far reaches of the world the characters traverse over the ten-episode season.

It is not uncommon for television series rooted in established franchises to use a first season to test the waters and find their footing. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was already confident in its debut, but Season 2 feels more assured. The cast appear settled into their roles, no longer merely introducing characters to the audience but fully inhabiting them.

This is particularly evident in Anna Sawai’s Cate Randa. Following the acclaim of Shōgun, it is clear that Sawai can anchor not just a scene, but an entire narrative. In Season 2 she steps further into the foreground, allowing Cate’s grief, anger, and stubborn resolve to shape the direction of the story rather than merely react to it.

The Russell casting remains one of the series’ smartest decisions. Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell bring distinct yet seamlessly connected interpretations of Lee Shaw. Though they do not share scenes, their performances feel in conversation across time. In this second season especially, the sense that father and son are shaping variations of the same man becomes even more pronounced.

When it comes to visual effects, sound design, and overall spectacle, Season 2 not only maintains the high standard associated with Apple TV’s science fiction productions, it expands its scale considerably. The ambition on screen reflects the work of a global network of visual effects and post-production houses, from New Zealand’s Wētā FX to Norway’s Storm Studios, recently Oscar-nominated for their work on Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. The result is not just bigger set pieces, but a richer sense of physical presence, particularly in the aquatic sequences, where weight, depth, and movement feel convincingly elemental.

The second season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters proves that the MonsterVerse can be far more than just Titans smashing each other’s faces among collapsing city centers. It is at its strongest when it lingers in the human spaces between the catastrophes, where institutions fracture and loyalties burn slowly rather than explode.

Perhaps those old cartographers were right after all. Maybe they simply had the honesty to admit what they did not know. In the MonsterVerse, the darker corners of the world remain stubbornly unlit, from the deepest trenches to the oldest caverns and the hottest fires. For here, beyond the edges of the map, monsters still await us, hungrily eying the world we take for granted.

Season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters premiers on Apple TV+ February 27th.

Stranger Things has never felt like a show that was built only to entertain. When Matt and Ross Duffer talk about the final season, they don’t reach for hype. They talk about process. It’s two brothers trying to land something that began as a coming-of-age story and grew into a full-scale genre universe, without losing the all-important human element that made it matter.

This article — the last of three — is based on the hybrid press conference I attended on November 8, 2025, featuring creators, writers, and executive producers Matt and Ross Duffer.

The World That Grew Up

Matt framed the entire evolution of the series in one sentence: “As big as the scale and digital effects have been, the core of the show, at the heart of it, is a coming-of-age story.” That’s the throughline, even as each season has shifted shape.

For them, reinvention wasn’t just creative ambition — it was survival. “Something that’s been important to Ross and I, as we continue to build up the show, is we’ve never wanted to repeat ourselves too much,” Matt said. “And part of that is just, you don’t want to get bored. Because if you’re bored, you’re gonna be making something boring, probably.”

He tied that mindset to the sequels they loved as kids. “We’re movie guys, so we like the idea of changing it and making it feel different, scaling up,” he said. “When we look back at the sequels that we loved the most when we were kids, mostly James Cameron sequels, they tended to evolve what came before it — but in a way that felt organic.” He pointed to two big ones. “So we looked at, obviously, Terminator 2 and Alien. He didn’t betray what those original films were, but he took them in a new direction.”

Revealing the Upside Down

Ross was direct. “We wanted to reveal everything this season,” he said. For years, the Upside Down has been a puzzle box — and they’ve deliberately held back.

It wasn’t improvised. It was mapped out. “We have a full document from season one going into great detail about exactly what the Upside Down is,” Ross said. “And we’ve talked about every season revealing it, but instead, we’ve just given hints.” But the clues have always been there: “Especially season four, that it was frozen in time.”

Season Five goes the rest of the way. “We explain that — and the vines, why it looks like Hawkins. All that gets explained this year,” Ross said. “It’s pretty crazy.”

Creating Vecna

Vecna wasn’t an impulse villain. Matt said the idea was there from the start. “We always wanted to introduce this, you know, sentient being into the show,” he explained. “We had that even all the way back in our original pitch to Netflix for season one.”

But the timing mattered. “It felt right to introduce him in season four,” Matt said, because their characters had moved into high school. Then he went straight into personal territory. “High school for us was, I would say, the worst four years of my life,” he said, laughing — and then staying on it. “I think it’s just a hard time in your life. It’s not necessarily school, but everyone’s trying to figure out who they are. There’s more pressure than ever before. It feels like your entire life is on the line.”

He connected that to the internal nature of anxiety. “It’s all mostly internal, right? I mean, you’re dealing with this. We weren’t vocalizing it to anyone.” That’s where Vecna’s power comes from. “He’s preying on all those sort of dark feelings that you have.”

Matt traced the emotional escape route too. “The only way for Max to climb out of that is with the help of her friends,” he said, then added, “and I suppose Kate Bush as well was helpful in that situation.”

Vecna was also built from the villains who scared them most — specifically the ones who still felt human. “The ones particularly who scared us the most… they were all humanoid,” Matt said. “It was Pinhead. It was Freddy Krueger. And it was Pennywise.” Then he went long on the one that got under his skin. “Particularly, Pennywise really messed me up… Tim Curry,” he said. “’Cause we were the age of kids when we saw it. I saw it in fourth grade. Couldn’t sleep for several weeks. Or really a month.”

He remembered the VHS cover like a threat. “Couldn’t look at his cover on the VHS tape,” Matt said. “My mom had to stay… in the bedroom with me until I fell asleep.” Then, with a grin that didn’t fully hide the truth of it, he landed the point: “So the goal was to do that, which was also to scar and traumatize other childrens.”

Ambassadors of the ’80s

Ross described one of the unexpected joys of Stranger Things: watching it send people backwards into the films that raised them. “One of the things that got us first excited to tell this story was that there was a chance here to introduce these films that inspired us that we grew up on to a different generation,” he said.

He used their own gateway drug as an example. “For us, a big movie was Scream,” Ross explained, “because that was one of the first horror movies that we saw.” And that movie didn’t just entertain — it opened a door. “Scream references a lot of other films, whether it’s Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street,” he said. “And it inspired us to go back and watch all these classic horror films, and we went through a full horror movie phase.”

That’s what he loves hearing from younger viewers now. “When I hear that watching Stranger Things has inspired younger kids to go back and watch some of these films… whether it’s John Carpenter or an earlier Spielberg or Wes Craven… that fills us with joy,” Ross said. “Or read Stephen King. It makes us so happy.”

Matt couldn’t help himself: “It is depressing when they refer to them as ‘old films’ though.”

Dungeons & Dragons

The show’s relationship with Dungeons & Dragons also opens a window into the Duffers’ own upbringing: “Ross and I were ’90s kids. Didn’t grow up in the ’80s. We just grew up consuming a lot of ’80s pop culture.”

And when he talked about what their era looked like, he went somewhere else. “The game that was actually huge at the time was Magic: The Gathering,” Matt said. “The first movie we ever made was an adaptation of Magic: The Gathering.” They did play D&D, though: “We did play Dungeons & Dragons, but not as much,” he said. “I think if this show were set in the ’90s, they would’ve been playing Magic: The Gathering.”

D&D’s role grew organically once it was in the show. “We actually didn’t intend for Dungeons & Dragons to be that big of a part of the show,” Matt admitted. “But the opening scene, we had the kids playing Dungeons & Dragons. And we always wanted to do that.”

Then the story started needing a shared language. “As the show continued, we needed something for the kids to be able to reference in order to help them understand what was going on,” Matt said. “And they had the D&D board out. So we ended up sort of writing that in very organically.”

What mattered most to him wasn’t the nostalgia — it was what the game represents. “It lends itself beautifully… because that’s a game about not just imagination, but collaboration,” he said. “It’s a show about how you can only win by working together, by cooperating, by using your various skills.”

“I’m very proud of the fact that it’s helped encourage some people to find that game,” Matt said. “Because I think especially now where people don’t tend to come together, there’s something very powerful and important about friends getting together in the real world and interacting — not just with physical objects, but with each other.”

Family and Loss

Ross brought the conversation back to what he sees as the true spine of the series. “At its heart, this really is a show about family,” he said. He described Stranger Things as multigenerational by design — not as a side effect. “From early on, we saw this as a multigenerational show,” Ross said.

The long runtime changed what they could do. “If this was a film, it woulda just been about the kids or just been about Hopper,” he said. Instead, they could move across the whole town. “We can bounce around, get to know all these people, but also we can then put them together.”

He singled out Hopper and Eleven as one of the most important emotional journeys to resolve. “Hopper and Eleven probably being the most important just because they’ve had a long journey,” Ross said. Then he laid out the tragedy at its foundation. “Eleven, her mom was taken from her. She didn’t have anyone. Her one father figure, Papa, was really messed up.” What she found in Hopper was a different kind of bond. “And so she found someone in Hopper who had lost a daughter.”

Ross kept it focused on where it ends. “I think we’ve seen that relationship change and evolve over the years,” he said. “And how it plays out is really important for both of their characters in the final season.”

Someone New

The Duffers are careful about adding new characters at the best of times — and a final season is the worst time to throw off the chemistry. Matt said they almost avoided it. “For a while, we were planning not to do it at all,” he said.

But they wanted the last season to feel like a loop closing. “One of the things we wanted to do with the final season was recapture some of the feeling of the first season, so that it would feel like everything is going full-circle,” Matt explained. The problem was obvious. “Because the kids in the show are clearly not kids anymore,” he said.

So they solved it by putting actual kids back into the mix. “The only way to really recapture some of the energy and innocence of the first season was to introduce a new, younger cast into the show,” Matt said. That’s where Holly Wheeler comes in. “That’s when we came up with the idea of elevating Holly to a major character,” he said. “Which made sense, because she’s another Wheeler. She’s really just been in the background.”

Casting that role made them nervous. “There are not that many kids that can carry a role of that size,” Matt said, “and that have the kind of range that we knew Holly would need.” The resemblance mattered too. “Extra challenge — she had to look like our Holly would look… like she was a Wheeler family member.”

“We were very lucky in finding Nell,” Matt said, “who we think is a very special kid and extraordinary actor.”

Sound, Score, and Finale

Ross went first on the music, and he still sounded amused that Netflix ever let them do it. “Kyle and Michael… prior to season one, they had never composed a score for anything,” he said. “So I’m shocked Netflix honestly let us hire them.” The result became foundational. “Their sound is so essential to the DNA of the show,” Ross said.

He talked about what the final season gets to do, after four years of musical language building. “We’ve now had four seasons’ worth of score from them,” Ross said. “There are so many themes… and there’s so much about this season that is about coming full-circle.” That meant revisiting earlier material. “We’re revisiting a lot of cues and scores and themes,” he said. “We’re adjusting them for the season, but also we’re trying to bring back those sounds… that went throughout the previous seasons.”

Matt widened it to sound design itself. “Super-important to us,” he said. “If you look at any of our scripts, our cast makes fun of us ’cause every other line is ‘whoosh,’ ‘bang,’ ‘crack.’ It reads like a comic book or something.” It’s not decoration — it’s visualization. “I don’t know, it helps us visualize what the show is going to be, and ultimately sound like,” Matt said.

“We spend a lot of time, even on the rough cuts, making sure that it sounds great, even before we send it to Netflix,” Matt explained. “It’s very important to us.” Then he claimed, only half-joking: “I think it’s the best-sounding first rough cuts they will ever get, because we obsess over it.”

He told a story from the premiere that turned into a mini-lecture. Someone praised the sound — and then admitted how they watched it. “Well, how have you been watching the show?” Matt said he asked. “Did you have a sound bar? No, just listening out of their LG TV.” His reaction was immediate. “I said that’s not acceptable.” Then the practical advice: “Headphones are fine. AirPod Maxes sound good. The new AirPods are really good. Or you need a sound bar.” He added, grinning: “If not, I’m gonna be upset.”

The Sweet Spot

Ross summed up their writing philosophy in a way that sounds simple until you realize how hard it is to do consistently. “We love action and horror and spectacle,” he said, “but for us… we get bored personally if we don’t care about the characters.” He pointed to the example they always circle back to. “Someone like a Spielberg, or Jurassic Park being one of the prime examples — you care about these people, and then you bring in the spectacle.”

So that’s where they start. “When we’re talking about sequences… we’re usually building it from the character,” Ross said. “Where do we want our characters to be?” If the emotional climax and the effects climax hit together, that’s the goal. “If you can hit both the character emotional climax at the same time as you’re hitting a visual effects or spectacle climax… that’s our sweet spot,” he said.

He gave an example the audience already knows. “With Dear Billy, with Max’s escape… it’s both a huge emotional moment… but it’s also big visual effects sequence… and a monster trying to dig into her brain.” Then he stated the rule in its bluntest form. “If you don’t care about these people, then none of them matter.”

Matt agreed, adding the one-line version of the same philosophy. “You don’t want spectacle for the sake of spectacle,” he said. Then, because he can’t help himself: “But we do like monsters.”

Expectation and Vision

Matt talked about the pressure of success as “noise,” and it’s clear they’ve had to build defenses against it. “Every year it feels like there’s more and more noise around it,” he said. The strategy is to keep the circle small. “What we try to do as much as possible is shut off the noise and not listen to it,” he explained.

Then he described how small the decision-making group actually is. “At the end of the day, it comes down to me, Ross, and our four writers,” Matt said, “all of whom have been on the show since either season one or season two.” Their job is to make something they believe in. “We just try to write something that we think is cool,” he said.

He traced it back to the only season that had no pressure. “That’s what we did all the way back in season one, because we had no fans,” Matt said. “We were just trying to make something that we loved.” With the finale, the danger is paralysis. “Especially with this final season… because of the level of expectation… it can just paralyze you,” he said. “So we just stopped thinking about it.”

The method is almost comically narrow. “Really, you’re just trying to please five people, and then hoping it trickles outward,” Matt said.

Netflix adds another complication: “There is no test screenings,” he said. “So we don’t get any reactions from fans.” The feedback loop is tiny. “We’re only getting feedback from… a total of 10 people,” Matt said. “Which is terrifying, but on the other hand, really freeing.” Then the leap of faith: “You put it out in the world and you pray.”

Farewell… and an Encore?

Ross described the final stretch of the shoot as emotionally brutal — not because they were trying to manufacture goodbye moments, but because the schedule forced them. “The shoot was so hard and so long that all of us… were really just focused on the work for the majority of the shoot,” he said. But once they started final scenes, it changed.

They organized it so the ending landed one actor at a time. “We organized it in a way that every actor’s last scene in the show was the last scene we filmed,” Ross said. “And so every time we were on an actor’s last scene, it was really emotional all day for everyone. There were lots of tears.”

For the brothers, the end was the hardest part — because it wasn’t just the cast. “We knew not only we’re gonna be wrapping a group of actors that we really cared about and loved,” Ross said, “but also we were saying goodbye to this show, to the production, to the crew.” And even if they work together again someday, it won’t feel the same. “Not in the same way, not all together,” he said.

They did what they could to mark it. “There was some confetti at the end. There was some champagne,” Ross said. “Everyone kinda got a key prop.” Then the specifics started coming out: “Joe got his bat.” Matt jumped in: “Sadie got her Walkman. Millie got the dress. The pink dress that she was wearing in season one.”

As for the future beyond Hawkins, Ross said they’ve started talking — carefully. “We are in early, early days of talking,” he said. “We have this spinoff idea… a live-action spinoff. It would be another TV series, though.”

Matt drew a firm line around the main story. “It is the end of the story of these characters and Hawkins and the Upside Down,” he said. He mentioned the animated project as the exception — because animation freezes time. “There is a cartoon… set between season two and three,” Matt said. “And the kids in that cartoon will never age, which is great.” Then he delivered the joke that also felt like a promise. “Other than that, this is the end of their journey. And we don’t want to explore anything beyond that. Unless we’re all destitute in like 20 years.” Ross immediately followed: “And then this interview never happened.”

Full Circle

What stands out isn’t how carefully the Duffers guard spoilers — it’s how clearly they still know what Stranger Things is about. Collaboration. Friendship. Family. Fear as something internal. Monsters as something external. A town that feels small enough to be real, and a world big enough to swallow it.

They keep coming back to the same balance Ross described: if the emotional peak and the spectacle peak hit at the same moment, the story lands. If it doesn’t, it’s just noise.

Now the Upside Down gets its answers. The characters get their ending. And the Duffers, after a decade of building, get to close the loop.

Stranger Things has always been a story about growing up, but for this group of actors, it’s also been the backdrop of their own lives. Across a decade, they’ve moved from childhood into adulthood inside the same world of Demogorgons, Dungeons & Dragons, and Hawkins heartbreak.

This press conference brought together Jamie Campbell Bower, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, and Finn Wolfhard — four performers whose characters have shaped the emotional and thematic spine of the series in their own distinct ways. Each of them has grown with the show, and each of them had a deeply personal perspective to share.

This article — the second of three — is based on the hybrid press conferences I attended on November 8, 2025.

Becoming Vecna

Jamie Campbell Bower began the session by reflecting on the sheer intensity of his process. He didn’t downplay it. “The artistic process that I went through for this show was arguably the most in‑depth process I think I’ve ever done for any specific role,” he said. For him, taking on Henry Creel and transforming into Vecna wasn’t just about performance, but responsibility. “I felt such a level of duty… maybe because of its success and the hard work that’s been put into it by all these amazing people… and Matt and Ross Duffer as well.”

Jamie spoke at length about how deeply he explored the psychology of the character. “I was trying to fully understand the reasons that this person was the way that they were… a lot of stuff to do with primary caregiver relationships at childhood and the trauma.” Season 5 continued that exploration, but he held back on specifics. “I had more of those moments in season five as well… but I can’t say too much because it’s a development throughout the season.”

He also revealed a moment of eerie coincidence: “The day I got cast, I remember walking down the street, and there was a guy wearing a Vecna D&D t‑shirt. I’ve not seen a Vecna D&D t‑shirt since.”

Growing Up Beside Lucas

Caleb McLaughlin has been with the show since he was thirteen. His reflection was striking in its honesty. “My artistic journey was the development of me in my adolescence,” he said. “The scripts kind of wrote my life out in a way.”

Being a child actor on a show this big meant he had to grow into his craft while growing into himself. “At 13, I didn’t really know much. I just knew what I loved and expressed myself in that way.” But Lucas became a lens for understanding experiences he had never faced. “I’d read the script and be like, I’ve never been through that… so how would I react to that? How would Lucas do that?”

Over time, Lucas and Caleb shaped each other. “Lucas kind of merged with my personality in a way… I had to put Caleb to the side and put Lucas in the forefront.” That process impacted him more deeply than he realized. “Reflecting on the past… whoa, I’ve been on the show almost half my life. That is a part of my development.”

Optimism and Craft

Gaten Matarazzo approached his reflection with the same warmth fans recognize in Dustin. “It’s harder for me to find things that haven’t been impacted by the show,” he said. Starting so young meant understanding the mechanics of a film set earlier than most actors do. “It’s very rare for people our age to have the literacy of how a set works on a day‑to‑day.”

He talked about the comfort and security that came with growing professionally inside a long‑running series. “When you show up on a set or in a theater, you have those anxieties or uncertainties out of the way… you can just hunker down and focus on what you enjoy doing.”

What he values most is the consistency, something he admitted he took for granted for years. “I think sometimes I forget to actively think of that… but it’s something I value.” Letting the show go, he admitted, is hard. “I’ll always have next season in case things don’t tend to work out… and now you kind of just have to dive in headfirst.”

Later, when asked about Dustin’s optimism, he dug even deeper. “Without him, I probably would be a tremendously more pessimistic person.” Playing the character helped him hold onto a part of his younger self. “It almost felt like affirmation… giving me the tools to remain consistent in that department over the course of this decade.” And he didn’t hide his gratitude. “I’m a very, very lucky individual. And I don’t take that for granted.”

Leadership and Community

Finn Wolfhard immediately joked, “I haven’t changed a bit,” but his real answer showed a lot of reflection. Being so young on such a massive series could have been overwhelming, but he credits the group for keeping each other balanced. “The only reason why we’re all doing as well as we have been is because we have this community we were able to come back to.”

He pointed to the Duffers as central to that environment. “It softened the intensity… it’s a testament to the Duffers on how much they care about their actors and their crew.” He also emphasized how naturally the show absorbed new cast members. “When we added Sadie, it felt like she had been there. When we added Jamie… it was such a gift to have people join the family.”

On playing a more mature version of Mike returning to his strategist roots, Finn said, “It was awesome to step back into that role… to go back to his roots as a kid.” He spoke about the universal theme beneath Mike’s journey. “In the end, you always come back to your core beliefs and what you think is right… there are all these different roads you can go down, but what are the things that truly matter?” Season 5, he said, returns Mike to that essence. “It was a reintroduction of those beliefs that Mike holds so dearly.”

Starting From Loss

Season Five doesn’t offer a reset or a moment to catch its breath. Gaten described how unusual it felt to begin without any sense of victory. “It’s a completely different type of start to a season,” he said. “It ends with us pretty clearly losing for the first time… we’re starting from scratch and that’s pretty scary.”

That sense of loss, however, doesn’t paralyze the group. Gaten emphasized that the response is instinctive. “In Stranger Things fashion, we go about that challenge with just as much enthusiasm and intensity and fierce desire as we always have.”

Finn echoed that emotional tone when looking ahead to the latter half of the season. “I would say it’s like a bittersweet second half,” he said, pointing toward an ending shaped as much by consequence as closure. “It answers a lot of questions people have been asking about the show.”

The Weight of Trauma

For Caleb, Lucas enters the final season carrying more than the immediate aftermath of Max’s fate. “This was one of Lucas’s most traumatic moments… he felt like it was his fault,” he said, describing how that guilt reshapes the character.

But Lucas isn’t defined solely by that pain. Caleb explained that the strength audiences see in him comes from everything that came before. “We capture him in this stoic sensibility of resilience… he’s taken so many tools from moments in past seasons.”

Rather than retreating inward, Lucas leans on the people around him. “He has the support of his friends, the support from his past, and is just ready for whatever comes next.”

Holding Onto Hope

Hope, for Gaten, isn’t something Dustin performs — it’s something that’s been shaped over time. “It’s hard to… but I think a lot of that optimism stemmed from who I was at 13,” he said, tying the character’s outlook directly to his own younger self.

Playing Dustin helped him preserve that instinct. “It almost felt like affirmation… giving me the tools to remain consistent in that department over the decade.” That consistency became something grounding, especially as everything around the characters grows darker.

He ended on a note of perspective rather than optimism-for-optimism’s sake. “I’m very lucky and fortunate to be in a situation where I can prioritize optimism when so many aren’t.”

Scale and Emotion

Finn was asked what struck him most when reading the scripts — the scale, the emotion, or how it ties back to the beginning. His answer covered all three. “The scale is so huge… season five blew that out of the water.” But what amazed him most was the balance. “What I was most impressed with is how the Duffers handled the world‑building… the big set piece stuff… with the really emotional character stuff.”

He spoke about the difficulty of switching between massive action and intimate emotion. “Halfway through an action sequence, you have to have this really emotional moment… that’s very hard to juggle.” But he praised the cast for pulling it off. “The whole cast is so good at that.”

Looking Ahead

As the press conference moved toward its ending, the cast was asked to describe the tone of the upcoming Volume Two without spoiling anything. The question quickly turned playful, starting with one-word attempts before expanding into something more reflective.

Gaten kept things honest: “It’s large… it’s very cool to be a part of a project where you basically are making a feature film every time you’re starting a new episode.” He talked about the rare privilege of working on a show with that level of ambition: “That is quite rare… something this show has done brilliantly.”

Finn took a more emotional route. “I would say it’s like a bittersweet second half,” he said. Season Five’s latter chapters, he hinted, aim to close loops the audience has carried for years. “It answers a lot of questions people have been asking about the show… I haven’t seen it, so I’m excited to see it.”

Jamie, with his typical dry humor, offered a single word: “Broad.” And Caleb simply added, “Mystical.” Both answers, while brief, captured the way the cast sees this final stretch — big, emotional, and full of the mythology that anchors the entire story.

Final Reflections

The second press conference captured a different kind of nostalgia than the first. Here were four actors who have grown into adulthood in front of the world, each shaped by the characters they’ve embodied for nearly half their lives. Jamie unpacking the psychological depth of Vecna. Caleb reflecting on Lucas as a defining part of his own adolescence. Gaten grounding his optimism in both character and real life. Finn tracing Mike’s journey back to the heart of who he was as a kid.

Each of them brought something essential to the series, and each carried the weight of the ending with a mixture of pride, gratitude, and uncertainty about life after Hawkins.

Season Five marks the end of a decade-long chapter — not just for fans, but for the performers who grew up inside its world. And if their reflections are any indication, the final episodes will carry the same blend of scale, heart, and humanity that has defined Stranger Things from the beginning — the epic and the intimate, side by side.

For more than forty years, James Cameron has been chasing visions most filmmakers would consider impossible. From The Terminator and Aliens to The Abyss, Titanic, and the first two Avatar films, his work has always carried the same DNA: technological reinvention in service of his blend of technical ambition and character-driven drama.

With Avatar: Fire & Ash, Cameron is returning to Pandora at a moment when he feels both the world and the art form are in a state of deep transition. And in conversation, what stands out isn’t the scale of the new film, but a kind of unfiltered honesty running underneath it.

On December 2nd, 2025, I joined other journalists from the Golden Globe Awards in a Zoom conversation with James Cameron to talk about his third installment in this pantheistic science fiction epic.

Grief and Family

He begins by laying out the evolution of the saga. “In the first film, we established a world and a relatively simple love story, because our eyes were focused outward on everything around us and the new creatures. It was shockingly new. Nobody had seen anything like that before. I’d never done anything like that before.”

“The second film,” he continues, “takes you to different parts of that world, and we start to make the plot more complex and introduce new characters, including the Tulkun and the Reef People.” Now, he says, “we go to a next level of complexity with the new film by introducing the Ash People. But also because we’ve had this tragic event in movie two — the death of the eldest son.”

He says the grounding of Fire & Ash came from an instinct that grief needed to be treated honestly. “I felt it was really, really important to ground the film in authentic human responses to things like trauma and loss and grief. Commercial filmmaking tends to gloss over that stuff. Usually when somebody dies in a movie, the wife dies and the husband goes on a killing rampage, and we all celebrate that violence for the next two hours. I don’t think commercial filmmaking deals with it honestly and authentically.”

He adds, “I’ve had a lot of loss in my personal life over the last ten years or so. And grief doesn’t just stop like that. And it’s not a trigger to just go.”

The consequences of this loss reverberate most sharply through Neytiri. “Neytiri becomes very kind of dark,” he says, “and she starts to live in a kind of hatred, which makes her kind of a racist. And she’s got to fight her way through that and see people for their values and for the good that’s inside them regardless of the color of their skin.”

For Cameron, the emotional weight of this chapter is also a chance to highlight the cast. “What we’re doing in that volume when we’re doing performance capture is some of the best work these actors have done in their careers. And we’re talking about Academy Award winners Kate Winslet and Zoe Saldaña, three-time Academy Award nominee Sigourney Weaver. And they will tell you this is some of the best work they’ve done, but it tends to get overlooked.”

He clarifies a point often misunderstood: “I still read in the media from time to time that Sigourney Weaver voiced Kiri. She didn’t voice Kiri. She performed Kiri for eighteen months. It took six months to shoot Titanic. We worked three times that long. If this was just voicing, we’d be done in days, not months or years.”

On his directing process, he says, “I’m a very prepared director when I’m shooting live action. But when I’m doing capture, it’s very free. I don’t previs it. I don’t storyboard. I don’t tell the actors where to stand. I let them find the scene.”

Building Pandora

Cameron explains that the biology of Pandora grows from real ecological principles. “We tried to make it a consistent ecosystem. We were very inspired by the biological systems of our own planet, which are rich, which are diverse. But we think there are certain rules that probably would apply to an alien ecosystem — animals that herd together, animals that are herbivorous, animals that are predatory. They’re gonna look a certain way. They’re gonna be configured a certain way.”

In the ocean, he says, “you’re gonna have big apex predators. You’re gonna have schooling fish. They school for a reason — so maybe they don’t all survive, but they survive as a group.”

He also reveals an early design challenge: “When I decided the Na’vi should be blue, we thought maybe the foliage in the forest should be a cyan blue-green so it makes sense as camouflage. But when we tried it, it all looked desaturated — like we’d thrown a blue filter over the whole forest. So we said, all right, forest has got to be green. Now the Na’vi are blue. Why are they blue? They don’t fit in. Well, forests aren’t orange and a tiger blends in, right? It’s a question of patterning and stripes and things like that.”

As for genre, he says, “These films are really more of an allegorical fantasy than a hard science fiction. If you think of a movie like Arrival, they don’t look like us, they don’t think like us, they don’t even perceive spacetime the way we do. That’s true science fiction. The Avatar films are more of an allegorical fantasy.”

Setting the story on a distant planet allows him to address contemporary issues without triggering cultural defenses. “We set it on another planet so that we can deal with all of our problems that we have right here on Earth — hatred, mistrust, detachment from each other, lack of empathy — but without people thinking of a particular government or religion or country.”

Displacement and Identity

He continues: “The Sullys are displaced, right? By violence. Jake leaves to keep his people safe. But it doesn’t matter — the enemy is chasing. Anybody that’s been displaced from their home, that’s going to be emotionally very traumatic.”

Neytiri voices this directly in the film, he says: “‘I don’t have my forest. I don’t have my people that I grew up with.’ She feels like a stranger in a strange land.”

Spider represents another dimension of belonging. “Spider desperately wants to be Na’vi. He paints himself blue. He tries to be part of the Sully family. Neytiri’s not having it because she’s gone to this very dark place. But Spider is accepted by the next generation. I think we see these trends — hatred sometimes stops with the next generation.”

On choosing Lo’ak as the storyteller, Cameron says: “Jake has been our storyteller, but Jake can’t tell Lo’ak’s story because Jake doesn’t understand Lo’ak. Lo’ak feels like an outcast. He feels like an outsider even in his own family at times.”

He connects this to the family’s identity: “They’re mixed-race kids. Everybody knows that Jake is part human, and that tension is there in that marriage. Stress number one. Now you’re at war, and you’re a mixed-race family living in a new place and trying to fit in and be respected and seen.”

The Economics of Ambition

Cameron laughs when asked about the financial side: “It’s the stupidest business model in history. In order to succeed, the film has to be in the top ten of highest-grossing films in history before we’ve written a word, before we’ve shot anything. Everybody thinks it’s a great idea to make an Avatar movie — until you look at the math.”

But he emphasizes the upside: “The more money we spend, the more jobs we’re making. There are 3,800 names in the credits of this film. That’s 3,800 jobs.”

He also points out the reality of the theatrical market: “We’ve dropped down about 30 to 35 percent since COVID and since streaming. People have habituated to accepting their media on streaming. If they’re going to a movie theater now, they want to see something special. They don’t want a movie — they want an experience.”

On releasing at Christmas, he says, “If you release right before Christmas, you’re moving into a big holiday weekend. If you can get a foothold with a long film, you need time for people to make an appointment to go see it. Titanic was number one for 16 weeks. Avatar followed a similar trajectory.”

“These films are about the heart,” he adds. “Parents might want to take their kids — teens might think, maybe I’ll go get my mom.”

The Challenges of AI

Cameron distinguishes between forms of AI: “There’s little AI and there’s big AI. Big AI is an artificial superintelligence — that’s a big problem for human civilization. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about generative AI.”

He is candid about his skepticism: “If you take everything everybody’s ever done and put it in a blender and get a result, how is it not the average? It’s not the idiosyncratic, unique view of an individual artist and their lived experience. I want to read a script by somebody that’s gone through some stuff individually, not the average. I don’t see how you don’t get to mediocrity that way. Does it work? Yeah, it works — that’s the scary thing. But that’s not how I want to generate images. And I certainly don’t want to replace actors.”

“That’s another reason I’m speaking up,” he says. “Our process has always been, on the Avatar films, a very actor-originated, actor-centric process. We celebrate the actor, and we consider that the sacred moment of creation. Generative AI is exactly the opposite. We could have a younger generation of filmmakers coming up who say, ‘I don’t need actors. I can get my brilliant idea on the screen without even dealing with actors. I can make up characters.’ But then you lose that moment where you pass the baton to an actor and it becomes their unique version of the character.”

He pushes back against any easy headline. “Now, it’s not that simple,” he says. “Everybody in the room would run out and say, ‘Jim Cameron hates AI, thinks it’s gonna ruin Hollywood.’ That’s not the headline. Avatar movies and the kind of big films that I love and have always loved cost too much. Visual effects processes are expensive. Costs rise and theatrical revenues have come down, and they may continue to come down. At a certain point, where they cross, those movies cease to exist.”

He worries about what that means for the next generation. “There may be a few people out there, like me and Steven Spielberg and Denis Villeneuve and other filmmakers that have a track record in this. But how do young filmmakers come up and get into fantasy and science fiction at scale? How are they gonna do that? That’s starting to close out.”

“So if generative AI can be a genie that’s out of the bottle that can be tamed to do certain parts of an actor-centric workflow, and that brings the cost down — even modestly, say 35 percent — that takes the place of the lost revenue we’ve been experiencing since COVID. It might be a kind of Hail Mary pass that’s available to us now. I can’t tell you that’s the case because I haven’t worked in it.”

He mentions his position on the board of Stability AI as “a way to study that business, see how it’s done, how they think, how the developers work,” and says he has challenged them to build tools that can plug into existing VFX workflows. “My idea is not to make human artists obsolete, but to speed up our cadence. I’m 71. How many more Avatar movies can I make when it takes me eight years to do two films, or ten?”

“If I could shorten that, that’d be great,” he continues. “Then I have the same number of artists just working faster and more efficiently, and the next day, when we finish the film, we go on to the next thing. Maybe it’s another Avatar movie, maybe it’s something else. There could be some economic value that improves our filmmaking and improves the financials of the theatrical marketplace. But I can’t guarantee that. It’s an instinct that I have. And I’m gonna say clearly — it’s an instinct.”

He laughs that he’s been right about a lot of things before. “I had an instinct about CG when I did The Abyss. In ’88, ’89, we started fooling around with CG for the first time. My instinct was: it’s going this way. So then I did Terminator 2. Then after that, I founded Digital Domain, which was the first all-digital major visual-effects company. That proved to be true. I’ve been right on a lot of things. Doesn’t mean I’m right this time. We’ll see.”

The Human Thread

When the subject shifts back to technology more broadly, Cameron stresses that the tools themselves are not the point. “Most of what we’ve developed has been in the service of creating an authentic sense of reality for the audience,” he says. “You feel like what you’re seeing is impossible, but it looks real. We try for a high sense of reality.”

He points out that cinema has always been technical. The difference now is how quickly innovation spreads. “Almost everything we’ve developed has been adopted by other filmmakers as well,” he says. “I’m proud of that — that it gets adopted beyond just the Avatar films. It’s a rising tide that raises all ships. We’re not an insular culture at Avatar. We’re very open source. We’ll show anybody what we do. If other filmmakers want to learn from us or adopt some of our techniques, that actually benefits us. It’s enlightened self‑interest.”

By the end of the conversation, Cameron still sounds like the kid who fell in love with the big screen, just armed with far more data, tools, and scars. He talks about grief and family with the same seriousness he brings to ecosystems and render times. He is suspicious of easy answers, blunt about risk, fiercely loyal to actors, and stubbornly in love with the idea of people gathering in the dark to be taken somewhere else for a few hours.

Avatar: Fire & Ash may be built on cutting-edge tools and workflows, but it is driven by something far older: a belief that stories matter more when they come from people who have actually lived through something — and that the most advanced image in the world still isn’t worth much if there’s no human pulse behind it.

Stranger Things has always been a show about growing up, even when monsters and alternate dimensions stole the spotlight. When it premiered in 2016, it felt like a lightning bolt—an 80s throwback that wasn’t just referencing nostalgia, but living inside it.

Across five seasons, we’ve watched this story evolve from a small‑town mystery into something much bigger and more ambitious, all while holding tight to what made it so iconic. What started with a group of kids on bikes became a decade‑long journey about friendship, fear, loss, and finding yourself in the shadow of unimaginable darkness.

That journey is finally coming to an end. The cast and creative team have grown up alongside the audience, and you can feel that weight in every answer they give. Ten years is a long time in anyone’s life—but for these actors, many of whom began as children, it’s practically a lifetime. There’s a sense of farewell woven through the final season, a mixture of pride and melancholy that mirrors the story’s own themes of change.

This article—the first of three—is based on the hybrid press conferences I attended on November 8, 2025, where Executive Producer Shawn Levy, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, and Noah Schnapp gathered to talk about closing out the series.

The Scale of a Finale

When the cast was asked what it felt like to step onto the Season 5 sets, Millie Bobby Brown didn’t hesitate to describe her reaction. “Our sets this year have felt insane… there’s one specific set that I just was kind of in shock that it was even built,” she said. She talked about the joy of working in a world that feels real instead of relying entirely on imagination. “Not having to imagine absolutely everything… is a joy.”

That contrast between practical sets and massive visual effects isn’t new for Stranger Things, but the sense of scale feels different this time. David Harbour compared acting on such sets to playing in a band: “It doesn’t matter if there’s a huge green screen or a huge set… I’m playing guitar, what I love to do.”

He repeated his preference for the quieter, character-driven moments. “I much prefer the intimate… those rich three-to-four-page scenes with two people really going at it.” Noah cut in with a grin: “You are the best at them.” David tried to wave it off, but Shawn backed him up: “You are really, really good.” Noah piled on again: “No one takes a monologue better than David Harbour.”

Chemistry After a Decade

Chemistry has always been the show’s heartbeat. Noah Schnapp said it plainly: “It’s so crucial to have good chemistry… it reads on screen.” He talked about how their comfort with each other allows improvisation to shine. Millie took it a step further, describing the cast as a ragtag family: “We’re all, in our own way, outcasts… you’ll know how strange we are in our own way.” That vulnerability, she explained, is part of the show’s DNA: “I don’t feel like there’s any perfect person… and that’s what’s exciting.”

Shawn Levy added that everyone knew they were walking into the final season, and real emotions flowed into the performances. “Knowing this was a farewell… the emotions were very, very honest and authentic,” he said.

Brave Faces

One of the most emotional exchanges came when Millie was asked whether Eleven’s bravery over the years had influenced her in real life. Millie said, “If you would’ve met me at 10… I’ve always been quite outspoken and brave in my own way.” She explained how the final season changed her perspective: “You question everything you’ve ever done with your character… this is my last shot at playing this superhero.” That pressure forced her to dive deeper: “You have to leave your humility at the door… pretending to fly when you’re not.”

David Harbour described the dread of reading new scripts: “The first 15 pages are usually just full of anxiety.” He talked about emailing the Duffers after each season with thoughts—unsure if they were read—but always trusting the writers to “land the plane.”

The Heart of Hopper and Eleven

When asked about Hopper and Eleven’s bond, David began with a grin: “I think there are a lot of emotional centers. I mean, my ego appreciates you saying that, right? That like we’re the center.”

Then he shifted into something far more personal. He talked about their connection as “two people that are both lost, that are both heroic… that both have such big, broad, deep hearts and are both deeply flawed.” After years of playing that dynamic, he said, “I love human beings like that. I love humanity.” He added that reuniting with Millie this season carried enormous weight: “They do something so extraordinary this season… and the payoff is really deep and rich.”

Millie echoed that sentiment, reminiscing about how bizarre it seemed in Season 1 that Hopper would become Eleven’s father figure. “Such a weird pair,” she laughed. But the foundation built in earlier seasons carried them through, making their dynamic in Season 5 feel effortless. “They have this shorthand… a really deep connection,” she said. “People talk about Eleven, and in the same sentence they talk about Hopper and El.”

Growing Up on Set

Millie, now a mother and married, reflected directly on what the series gave her. “I started out when I was 10… it’s given me a lot more than probably the average person because it’s like school. It’s all I’ve ever known.” She talked about learning the craft piece by piece: “It taught me about being a professional person… about how to hit your mark… what racking focus means… speaking to a director… taking a note.”

She didn’t stop there. “I graduated on the show. I learned how to be a friend,” she said, describing the experience of working inside an ensemble of forty main characters. The responsibility of being in the spotlight shaped her early: “Naturally you are in the light… there’s a lot of young people watching you… it makes you want to make good decisions.”

She also spoke about finding balance as she grew up: “This has been my anchor… and it’s also made me realize how much it’s okay to have other anchors… you can have your own personal life and private life.”

Fear and Resolve

Asked about balancing Hopper’s hardened exterior with fear, David Harbour went full Shakespeare—a moment both funny and unexpectedly moving. He referenced Hamlet and the Bhagavad Gita to explain Hopper’s evolution.

Hopper, he said, confronts a pivotal shift this season: a warrior reawakened, but also a man learning to accept what he cannot control. “The readiness is all,” he quoted. Beneath the monster-fighting and chaos, he hopes audiences see that vulnerability: “You’re not in control of this universe… you can only play your role.”

The Moment It Hit Them

One of the most emotional rounds of answers came when the cast was asked when it truly hit them that this was the end.

Noah described sitting down to write goodbye letters and suddenly realizing how much of his childhood had been shaped on set. “These are my family members… a day I will never forget.”

David admitted he hadn’t planned to attend the final day of shooting, then found himself driving over anyway. “I sat in the back and watched them play this scene… just crying.” For him, it was a cathartic moment of watching the kids he’d worked with for a decade become adults.

Shawn Levy reflected on the challenge of closing the series while still honoring its mystery. He said the show has always lived in the balance between scale and intimacy: “It can’t just be great character scenes… and it can’t just be cool monsters. It’s both.” He praised the Duffers’ work on the finale as “masterfully done… full-throated storytelling.”

Later, he spoke about the difference between the moments fans now own and the moments that still belong only to the people who made the show. “So many of the moments in this show now… they belong to the world. These characters belong to the world forever.” But the memories of creation he holds close. “I remember those season two scenes in that cabin… seeing these actors make something magic come alive.” He summed it up simply: “The moments belong to the world, but the moments where we got to make it… those belong to us.”

A Decade of Storytelling

The press conference wrapped with a mix of humor and weight. David leaned forward with a mock-warning: “So let me tell you what happens on page one—” before Shawn shot him down with a quick, “No, please don’t.”

Shawn’s tone softened as he reflected on closing out the series: “I’m very proud to be a part of this show… very excited for the world to experience such moving, full-throated storytelling.”

David added his own moment of clarity, recalling the final shoot day: “I had this incredibly cathartic moment of watching these young actors… become men and women.” It was pride, yes—but also the recognition of how deeply this decade had shaped them all.

Ten years is a long time to hold onto a story. For the Stranger Things team, it wasn’t just a job, but a place to grow up, to find family, and to discover themselves inside a supernatural epic.

And for the audience who’ve been there since the first Demogorgon, Season 5 looks ready to deliver what Stranger Things has always done best: the epic and the intimate, side by side.

Guillermo del Toro has been dreaming of Frankenstein since he was seven years old. That was when he first saw Boris Karloff cross the threshold in James Whale’s 1931 classic — a moment he describes as a religious awakening.

What unfolded across the panel was a remarkably open conversation — not just about Frankenstein as a film, but about fathers and sons, creation and cruelty, art and obsession, and the question that burns at the heart of Mary Shelley’s novel: What makes us human? Del Toro’s cast and creative team echoed that same depth. Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Alexandre Desplat, Tamara Deverell, Mike Hill, Kate Hawley — all of them, in their own way, described a film that pushed them toward something raw and personal.

This article is based on the video recording and transcript from the hybrid press conference I attended on the 8^th of October, 2025.

Themes of Creation and Responsibility

Del Toro’s lifelong relationship with Frankenstein isn’t something he frames in analytical terms. He goes straight to the memory: “I was raised Catholic, but there I found my true religion. I understood in Karloff what a martyr and a messiah meant. I said, ‘That’s me.’” That clarity stayed with him for decades. When he finally read the novel at eleven, he said he discovered that “the humanity of the creature, and the inhumanity of the world” were the real forces that gripped him.

He didn’t intellectualize how the story matured with him — he stated it plainly: “I’ll make this movie about my dad and I back then. And then as I became a father, I said my dad and I, and me and my kid. And eventually, it was about forgiveness and acceptance.”

Asked how he found his way into the adaptation, he shrugged: “The ending was my guide. The forgiveness and acceptance.”

The Burden of Inheritance

Oscar Isaac didn’t approach Victor through theory — he approached him through that first long conversation with del Toro. “We talked about our fathers. About being fathers. About family,” Isaac said. Two hours later, del Toro simply told him, “I want you to be Victor.”

Isaac remembered the film’s code name: Prodigal Father. “The father is the one that goes away and has to come back and basically say sorry,” he said. Del Toro added with a grin, “And it’s also Pinocchio. The same story.”

Isaac described Victor as someone fueled not by madness but total conviction: “Maybe that’s why it was fun — because he has no doubts.” Del Toro expanded on it in his unmistakable tone: “Every tyrant in the history of mankind has no doubt. And thinks himself a victim. That’s Victor. ‘Poor me, poor me.’ And they’re monsters.”

What moved Isaac most were the final pages del Toro first showed him. “Tears were streaming down my face. His recognition of him as his son… the grace in it… that destroyed me.”

The Creature as a Mirror

Jacob Elordi didn’t downplay how deeply the script hit him. “Every word of the Creature was something I was asking myself,” he said. “I get to be Job asking God why.” And then the line that sealed it: “Now run.” He laughed remembering the moment: “I heard drums in my head. I knew I had to do it.”

Del Toro suggested he look into Butoh, “this Japanese dance of death,” which Elordi said helped him figure out how a body stitched from parts might move. But he also studied babies, children, and animals. “My dog has this great innocence in the way she moves,” he said. He told a story about staring at her in a Toronto hotel room before filming: “She walked up… we touched noses… little static electricity… and I knew, okay. I’m good.”

When asked about the brutal emotional toll of the role, he didn’t hide behind craft: “All of that suffering and pain and trauma is already in our system. The film was cathartic. I got to look it in the face.”

Crafting Flesh and Soul

Mike Hill — del Toro’s long-time creature collaborator — didn’t sugarcoat it: “Our call time was midnight some nights. We’d start putting the appliances on Jacob for ten hours.” He emphasized the strain: “It is literal torture. Sit in a chair for ten hours and don’t move.” But he also praised Elordi without qualification: “He never complained once. Not once. And we did it 56 times.”

Elordi shot back with affection: “I got a professor’s education in monster films from Mike.”

Del Toro jumped in to underline Hill’s rarity: “Ninety-nine percent of makeup effects guys can make a monster. One percent can make a character.”

Hill described the design intent as clearly as del Toro does in his films: “We didn’t want an accident victim. This is not a repaired creature. We were making a newly minted soul.” He explained the philosophy behind the skin tones, the mismatched pieces, the careful asymmetry: “Parts of the Creature are blue, where the flesh hasn’t taken. That mosaic of parts — that’s what makes him great.”

And always, it came back to the eyes. “Every line on that face is to direct you to look at Jacob’s eyes,” Hill said. “We were making a person.”

The Poetry of the Body

Mia Goth didn’t pretend she arrived fully formed as Elizabeth. “Once I landed in Toronto, I still didn’t have a full grasp,” she said. Everything shifted in the fittings. “I started to understand Elizabeth from the outside in. The story the fabrics were telling… that’s when I found her.”

Kate Hawley echoed this, saying the emotional connection began with the material itself: “Guillermo said to me, ‘I don’t want fusty old period for this.’” Her costumes for Elizabeth drew from insects, botany, and organic structures, weaving subtle patterns into fabrics that shaped Mia’s physicality and presence.

The corsets were punishing. “Very difficult,” Mia admitted. “Frustrating.” But then: “Once I stopped trying to fight it and just went with the experience, it was helpful. It’s exactly what Elizabeth was feeling.”

Del Toro later revealed why Elizabeth became so central: “She became an amalgam of me and Mary Shelley. She’s the most intelligent character in the movie. She understands more than anyone else.”

Building a World of Circles and Scars

Production designer Tamara Deverell broke down how Victor’s lab was built in layers — architectural, emotional, symbolic. “We started in Scotland,” she said. “Looking at buildings that inspired us.” But the breakthrough came from a single gesture: “At one point I canted the upper walls in toward the vortex. Guillermo said, ‘I like it.’ And we found it.”

Del Toro joked: “Anything legally actionable is my idea.”

She described the process as “layers upon layers of paint, sculpting, hand‑hewn surfaces,” and emphasized the guiding visual idea: circles. “You’ll see circle motifs everywhere — the circle of life, beginning and end, ouroboros. We worked that into every space.”

Del Toro summed it up: “This isn’t eye candy. It’s story.”

Color, Silence, and the Music of Souls

Composer Alexandre Desplat spoke about their collaboration with warmth: “There’s no tension. With Guillermo, I can fly faster and higher.” The key moment he recalled was the so‑called body‑building sequence — when Victor assembles the corpses. “Any other project might have asked for horror,” he said. “But Guillermo said, ‘Feel the trance of the doctor.’ So, we went for a waltz.”

Del Toro laughed about their dynamic: “I give him a lot of ideas, and he reneges on all of them. Then he explains, very gently for a Frenchman, why they’re wrong.”

Their rule is simple: the music must move del Toro. “If I don’t cry,” he said, “it’s not ready.”

Desplat added, “When I’m too gentle, too restrained, too French, he reminds me that I have to be more Mexican.”

Romantic Punk

When the conversation turned to Mary Shelley, del Toro didn’t speak academically. He spoke like someone who has carried her with him his whole life. “I have dedicated my life to the Romantic movement,” he said. “Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Byron… decades of study.”

He stressed something many forget: “These people were punks. Iconoclasts.” Mary escaping at sixteen. Percy threatening melodramatic death. Byron riding into Waterloo. “This is not a languid thing,” he insisted.

He said the film is not just the book, but “an amalgam of her biography, my biography, the Romantic movement, the novel.” And his metaphor for adaptation — already legendary among reporters — resurfaced: “Adapting a book is like marrying a widow. You have to respect the late husband. But on Saturdays, you’re getting it on.”

When asked what he’d ask Mary Shelley if he could meet her, he didn’t hesitate: “I would not ask anything. I would listen.”

“Emotion is the new punk,” he said. “The new anarchy. To all that wisdom you bring with your irony, to all that callousness you bring with your certainty, I give you this: emotion — and fuck you.”

It was raw. It was defiant. It was del Toro.

A Story Reborn

What makes this Frankenstein uniquely del Toro’s is not simply its craft — though the craft is immaculate — but its emotional honesty. It is a story of longing, of failed fathers, of wounded sons, of cycles broken and cycles repeated. It is a story of the pain we inherit and the pain we pass on.

And, ultimately, it is a story of forgiveness.

As the director said: “I provide the supermarket, not the shopping list. You buy whatever the fuck you need.”

This press conference made one thing clear: everyone involved brought something personal to the film — something lived, something felt, something raw. And in doing so, they created a Frankenstein that is less about monsters and more about what remains human in us after everything else is stripped away.

When the Nuremberg Trials began in 1945, the world faced an unprecedented moral reckoning. The war was over, but a single question remained: what do you do with men who had unleashed industrialized death upon millions?

For the first time in modern history, justice would not be vengeance. It would be principle. The architects of horror would stand before a tribunal, and the world would listen.

Eighty years later, writer-director James Vanderbilt returns to that crucible of conscience with Nuremberg (2025), a tense and unflinching drama that explores the intersection of justice, psychology, and power.

The film centers on three men: Dr. Douglas Kelley, played by Rami Malek, the U.S. Army psychiatrist tasked with examining the mental state of the captured Nazi leadership, Justice Robert H. Jackson, played by Michael Shannon, the Supreme Court judge who led the prosecution at the trials, and the defeated Adolf Hitler’s second in command, Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe.

Following acclaimed premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival and AFI Fest, Vanderbilt and his cast gathered for a virtual press conference on November 28, 2025, to discuss the film’s decade-long journey and the eerie modern echoes of its subject.

The long road to justice

James Vanderbilt began working on Nuremberg more than a decade ago. The idea, he said, came like a lightning strike.

“I first heard about the story,” he recalled. “I read Jack El-Hai, who wrote the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, that the film is based on. I read his book proposal 13 years ago, and it was only five or six pages long, but it was the quickest I said yes to anything in my life.”

He continued. “I used my own money to option the material, which I do not advise. But I was so immediately taken with it. I didn’t know there were psychiatrists in World War II. I certainly didn’t know one was tasked with doing something like this.”

At first, Vanderbilt imagined a contained, psychological film: two men in a cell locked in a war of intellect and ideology. But research kept expanding the scope. “I thought my movie was going to be over here, in a cell the whole time between these two guys,” he said, “but then I read about Robert Jackson, Michael’s character, who isn’t really in the book. And I had never really heard of him—even though he was a U.S. Supreme Court justice—who is basically the guy who said, ‘We can’t just execute these men. We have to put them on trial.’”

That defiance changed history. “The U.S. Army wasn’t interested in a trial at all,” Vanderbilt said. “There was actually a standing order that Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed upon to shoot these men within 48 hours of their capture.

And Jackson said, no, this is an incredibly important thing that we have to do. Not only did he convince them, he took a leave of absence from the court, flew to Nuremberg, and became the chief U.S. prosecutor.”

That moment of moral clarity, Vanderbilt said, became the film’s backbone. “It’s about the moment when civilization decides whether it will be civilized.”

The burden of understanding

When Rami Malek first read Vanderbilt’s screenplay, he said it “felt like an extraordinary piece of literature.”

“It really did,” Malek said. “It read to me like—it’s a cliché, but I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t want to change a single word. James has a gift for weaving complexity and clarity.”

What struck him most was how human the story felt beneath all that history. “He approached this film with immense respect for history and for understanding this truly human story we were telling. It wasn’t just about recounting dates and verdicts. It was the opportunity to stand alongside giants in history, to retell a period of time that was both uncomfortable and necessary.”

Malek described Dr. Kelley as “quick-witted, charming, and very disarming. And when your roster of patients is the entire Nazi high command locked up in 22 cells, I think that’s quite useful.”

The prison scenes opposite Russell Crowe, who plays Hermann Göring, were filmed in real, confining spaces. “The stage was set by James and our cinematographer, Dariusz Wolski,” Malek said. “They had a plan for these cells—thirteen by ten feet. Usually on a set we would remove a wall, make room for the camera, but here it was as suffocating as possible. You had to remain completely focused. There’s no alternative but to look your counterpart dead in the eye and bring your A-game.”

He remembered that first day vividly. “I didn’t know how I would meet Russell. It was our first day on set, and it’s the first scene we have together. He gave me a nice compliment about my work, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to charm me as Hermann Göring or if it was just Russell. But there was respect for what we had on our hands. It’s intimate, it’s epic, it’s about a handful of voices that changed the way the world thinks about justice.”

The work took its toll. “There was one moment where we were shown the footage—the actual atrocity footage. James so smartly kept it at a distance from us. I could only watch six or seven takes before I couldn’t take it anymore. I removed myself and waited in Göring’s cell. That’s when we decided that in that scene, Kelley would finally invade his personal space, sit on his bed, and confront him.”

He spoke of how each take became a kind of psychological duel. “Sometimes I would lower my tone instead of raising it. Things almost became a whisper. And that would bring me even closer to Russell’s face, where I could see a bead of sweat come down. I thought, is that because of performance or the heat of that cell? After every take we could just look at each other—not smiling, not blinking—but knowing what we were bringing to that moment.”

“It wasn’t about who delivered the better performance,” Malek added. “It was about who was going to allow us to tell this story about moral courage and resilience. For the purpose of speaking truth to power in all its iterations.”

The voice of justice

For Michael Shannon, stepping into the shoes of Robert Jackson was both humbling and illuminating.

“It’s very humbling to be offered the opportunity to even pretend to be this person,” he said. “What he accomplished in his life is staggering. But the one solace of being in what can be considered a pretty silly profession is that you get to inform the world about things that they probably don’t know much about—people, stories that are important.”

Shannon was struck by the power of Jackson’s words. “These are the man’s words,” he said. “The speech he gives, his opening statement—that’s his speech with edits. What I say is what he said, and it’s one of the most moving pieces of oration in the history of civilization, or at least the modern era.”

He agreed with Vanderbilt that cinema has a singular ability to make history felt. “You can read about this event, you can study it, you can watch documentaries, but there’s something about cinema that actually makes it enter in a different way—in a more emotional way, where you can actually feel it if we’re all doing our jobs.”

Asked about parallels with today’s world, Shannon was blunt. “Frankly, I didn’t find it so threatening just from a personal standpoint,” he said. “It’s not me—it’s Jackson. And you’re not going to do anything to Jackson, God rest his soul. I’m just showing you what this man did. If anybody has an issue with Jackson or what he did, that’s between them and him. But not standing up for what you believe in or stating your truth is cowardly. And I don’t want to be a coward.”

A verbal gunfight

The film’s centerpiece is a 22-page courtroom exchange between Shannon’s Jackson and Crowe’s Göring—shot in a single day. Vanderbilt called it “a verbal gunfight.”

“I didn’t feel trapped,” he said. “I felt liberated by it because you have two of these guys who are both ready to go. Our first AD [Assistant Director] had a heart attack when I told her we were gonna do it in one day—because you do not shoot twenty-two pages a day. But Russell and Michael were completely down for it, and it was one of the most incredible days I’ve ever had on a film set.”

He grinned recalling the reaction in the room. “We had three hundred extras in the courtroom. After the first take, they stood up and applauded. As they should.”

The courtroom set was built to scale. “Russell and Michael were about fifty feet away from each other,” Vanderbilt said. “That’s far to do a scene that gets that intense between two people. Plus, Michael couldn’t move. Usually, you know, Tom Cruise can walk around and talk to Jack Nicholson. But Michael had to stay at that lectern.”

Shannon said the realism made sense. “In a real court proceeding they wouldn’t come in after a half hour and say, ‘Are you tired? Would you like a little break?’ You go until you’ve got the guy or you don’t.”

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Vanderbilt acknowledged the inevitable comparison to Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), though he was quick to clarify the difference. “It’s actually a different story,” he said. “People say, ‘How could you remake Judgment at Nuremberg?’ and I tell them, ‘But we didn’t remake it. This is a different trial, four years earlier.’”

Still, he and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski paid tribute to Kramer’s classic. “We screened it again right before shooting,” Vanderbilt said. “The opening statement of that film, Kramer shoots as a 360 around Richard Widmark. We did that with Michael as a tip of the hat.”

A moment at the AFI screening left him emotional. “I got to meet Stanley Kramer’s daughter and widow,” he said. “They both came to see the film, and both told me they loved it. That was one of the most special moments of my life. You dream about making something like this, and then you meet people who knew one of your heroes.”

The weight of conscience

For Malek, Nuremberg is about confronting silence as much as it is about confronting history. “I’ve always been drawn to roles that raise questions rather than give easy answers,” he said. “Whether it’s about identity or power or responsibility. Storytelling, for me, has always been a way of keeping conversations alive—and of asking audiences to look at themselves a little differently.”

With Nuremberg, those questions become painfully direct. “What do we do in the face of injustice?” Malek asked. “That’s the heartbeat of it. And that’s why this was exceptionally meaningful on every level.”

Vanderbilt nodded. “The thing that struck me through all this research is how fragile justice is. It doesn’t just exist. It has to be built. It has to be defended. That’s what Jackson understood—and what I hope the film reminds people of.”

Nuremberg is a film about a uniquely important event in judicial history, but it’s also a reminder that justice itself is a human invention—one that endures only through the courage of those willing to uphold it. As Michael Shannon said, “Cinema makes you feel it.” And in this case, feeling it may be the most important part.

(This article is based on the official transcript from the Nuremberg press conference held for journalists via Zoom on November 28, 2025.)

The time has come to return to the Continent once again. The penultimate season of Netflix’s hit series The Witcher has arrived, bringing with it a few changes to what we’ve grown used to across the three excellent seasons so far. Some are improvements to what was already great—especially for fantasy fans like yours truly.

And yes, there’s that one giant kikimora in the room. If you’ve been following the series, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If not, why start with season four? Go back to the beginning. It’s a great show.

As this is the fourth season, a recap is in order. But before we do, there are spoilers ahead for the first three seasons. Again, if you haven’t watched them, go do so. This article will be here when you return.

The first season of The Witcher was released on Netflix in 2019. Based on the hit novel series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, it tells the story of the monster hunter for hire Geralt of Rivia (then played by Henry Cavill) and the Slavic-inspired fantasy world of the Continent. Feared and reviled by common folk, witchers roam the land slaying monsters that terrorize humanity—while gradually, some might say, becoming monsters themselves.

The first season is told in three non-linear storylines over multiple time periods, which naturally caused some confusion among audiences. The season begins with one pivotal event: the sacking of the kingdom of Cintra by the brutal forces of Nilfgaard, where Princess Cirilla (played by Freya Allan) escapes into the wild.

The story also tracks Geralt, some 30 years earlier, making a living as a witcher along with the bard Jaskier (played by Joey Batey), not yet aware that Destiny is already stalking him. We also learn the history of Geralt’s love-to-be, the sorceress Yennefer (played by Anya Chalotra), who begins as a hunchbacked outcast with magical potential and is taken to the academy of Aretuza, some 90 years before the sacking of Cintra.

These storylines orbit each other throughout the first season, circling closer over time until they finally converge at its end, setting the stage for the second season. Here, the plot centers on Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer as they come to grips with what Ciri actually is, and the otherworldly evil entity Voleth Meir the Deathless Mother—a hag inspired by the Slavic myth of Baba Yaga—who tries to possess Ciri to get back home to her own realm.

The world of the Continent also opens further as we witness the struggles of the kingdoms and the plight of the elves. This season also introduces many new faces, some who become parts of the greater narrative—such as the queen of the elves, Francesca Findabair (played by Mecia Simson)—and others for single episodes, such as the fan-favorite from the novels, the half-man, half-beast Nivellen (played by Kristofer Hivju).

The season concludes in an epic showdown as Geralt, Yennefer, Jaskier, and the other witchers fight against Voleth Meir the Deathless Mother, now possessing Ciri.

With the Deathless Mother banished back to the world she came from, we move to season three, where Ciri’s Destiny and how it came to be are revealed. The forces of Nilfgaard are always searching for her, as the Nilfgaardian emperor—and Ciri’s long-lost father—Emhyr var Emreis (played by Bart Edwards), the White Flame, wants his daughter and, more importantly, her Destiny and the powers that come with it, by his side.

Aiding him is the powerful warrior-sorcerer Vilgefortz (played by Mahesh Jadu), who betrayed the mages of Aretuza for his own gain. His brutal experiments in search of Ciri led to the fall of the magical academy, the deaths of most of the mages, leaving Geralt severely wounded at the hands of Vilgefortz and Ciri missing.

But before we continue, let’s finally address that giant kikimora in the room. I’m referring, of course, to the recasting of Geralt of Rivia. For various reasons that I’ve long since lost track of—most of them based on rumours or deliberate falsehoods—Henry Cavill left the series after finishing the third season.

The sense of impending doom in the fandom was palpable, and after a suitable period of panic, lamentation, and online gnashing of teeth, Netflix announced that Liam Hemsworth would be taking up the silver sword and black armor—which, naturally, only resulted in even more panic and teeth-gnashing.

I don’t think anyone, not even Liam Hemsworth himself, would deny that what would have been best for The Witcher series was if Henry Cavill continued his role as Geralt of Rivia. At the same time, with online fandom being what it is, Hemsworth’s entry into the role wasn’t exactly cast in a positive light by the fans, who, not exactly known for calm and collected discourse, wasted no time in finding every opportunity to write scathing posts online, prompting Liam Hemsworth to leave social media.

Now where have I heard that story before?

Still, many voices also supported Liam Hemsworth taking on the role, and from within the production, the showrunner and co-stars have praised his preparedness and for bringing new depth, humor, and humanity to the role. I agree with them.

As a fan of both the novels and Netflix’s adaptation (I have not played the games), I think Henry Cavill absolutely perfected the role of Geralt, and I was heartbroken when the news came that he had left after the third season. I would have wanted Cavill to continue, but since he won’t, we’re lucky to have Liam Hemsworth step in. He does an amazing job with Cavill’s legacy, respecting what Cavill did, while at the same time bringing something fresh.

The opening of the fourth season is a great study in damage control and how to smoothly bring in such an important recast. We are introduced to an old storyteller, a century or more after the events of the series, reading tales of high adventure and romance to a group of gathered children. This collection of tall tales is taken from his treasured possession: the collected works of Jaskier the Bard, chronicling the exploits and adventures of Geralt of Rivia.

Through his tales—some exaggerated as only Jaskier would write them—we see flashbacks to important scenes from the earlier seasons, from Geralt’s fight with the kikimora at the very beginning of season one to his fated meeting with Ciri. The scene works as both a great recap and a clever way to place Liam Hemsworth into the series.

Season four sees the allies again on their separate paths. Geralt, along with Jaskier and the traumatized archer Milva (played by Meng’er Zhang), now recovering from his defeat at the hands of Vilgefortz, is heading south to Nilfgaard to confront Emhyr, who he believes has captured Ciri. Meanwhile, Yennefer is gathering the mages still alive after the sacking of Aretuza, with the goal of hunting down Vilgefortz. And unknown to both Geralt and Yennefer, Ciri has, under a false name, taken up with a band of outlaws calling themselves The Rats.

The story in this season feels a little tighter and better paced than the previous season. The goals, especially Geralt’s, are clearer, and his story is paced in the more traditional ‘party on adventure’ kind of way, which helps the story immensely.

There are new faces too, and while the recasting of Geralt has taken just about all of the attention for this season, there is another important recast: Geralt’s mentor Vesemir. The role was memorably played in season two by Danish actor Kim Bodnia, but due to scheduling conflicts, his character was recast by Scottish veteran actor Peter Mullan, known for roles such as King Durin III in The Rings of Power and Jacob Snell in Ozark.

Another new face this season is Laurence Fishburne as the eccentric and regal vampire apothecary Regis. Fishburne’s portrayal of Regis in this season was one of the highlights for me. The only physical description of Regis from the novels details his black eyes and greying hair. Crucially, the books never specify the color of Regis’s skin. But that didn’t stop the comments and loud online shouting of “woke,” as the character in the games is portrayed as Caucasian.

Yet another new and notable character, and one of the villains of this season, is the grizzled and brutal bounty hunter Leo Bonhard, here played by the excellent Sharlto Copley, who hunts Ciri and her friends in the band of outlaws she has joined.

What fans will enjoy, however, is how the action scenes have been thoroughly revamped. The fights and battles, be it with blades or spells, were already excellent in the three seasons that came before, but now there’s a new intensity. Whether it’s a higher budget or Liam Hemsworth’s eagerness to prove himself and fill the massive shoes left by Henry Cavill, the result is action that is much more kinetic and dynamic.

There are some scenes here that had me pick my jaw up from the floor, figuratively speaking, of course, but quite literally for some of the foes unlucky enough to cross swords with Geralt or Ciri. One whole episode is dedicated to a magical battle that would simultaneously please Harry Potter fans while sending that franchise packing in terms of sheer spectacle.

At the other end of the coin, this season goes deep into the human side of not only Geralt, but also his traveling companions. There is an excellent episode where these themes are explored in a highly unusual and playful way, demonstrating one of the most original—and arguably brave!—ways the show is evolving, even without Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia. This commitment to character depth, combined with the tightened plot and explosive action, gives Season 4 a powerful sense of renewed direction.

So, to round this off, if you’re a fan of The Witcher like I am, I’m sure you agree that we would have loved to see Henry Cavill continue in his role. But I’m happy to report that Liam Hemsworth does the best with what he has been given, and at least from what I have seen, as a fan of the previous seasons and of the novels, this is more than enough to convince me that the future of The Witcher is secure.

Bad things happen in Derry. The fictional town, a locus for all things strange and evil, was put on the map of Maine by horror master Stephen King, along with its siblings Castle Rock and Jerusalem’s Lot.

After first appearing in King’s short story “The Bird and the Album” in 1981, Derry has since appeared in many of the author’s works, such as Insomnia (1994), Dreamcatcher (2001), Bag of Bones (1998), 11/22/63 (2011), and most notably, It (1986).

Stephen King’s seminal novel It now stands as one of his most well-known and cherished works. Set in the small town of Derry between 1957 and 1958, and then 27 years later, between 1984 and 1985, it follows a group of friends as they confront an ancient, alien entity that slumbers beneath the town, waking every 27 years to feed on fear and death. While its true name is unknown, the entity is referred to as Pennywise, as it often takes the form of a sinister-looking clown.

Far more than a horror novel, It runs over 1,100 pages, delving deep into the story of Derry, its inhabitants, and its history. The book follows a group of friends: Bill Denbrough, aka “Stuttering Bill,” Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Stan Uris, and Mike Hanlon. In the first part, set in the late 1950s, we follow the friends as they investigate the disappearance of Bill’s younger brother. In the second half, set in the mid-1980s, the friends reunite in Derry to confront the reawakened evil once again.

As a celebrated horror masterpiece, it didn’t take long for a screen adaptation to emerge. In 1990, a two-part made-for-TV movie premiered, starring the indomitable Tim Curry as Pennywise. While the adaptation was a massive success in terms of viewership, its 215-page screenplay omitted much of King’s sprawling novel, understandably given its scale.

Another 27 years would pass before a new adaptation arrived. Director Andy Muschietti’s two-part theatrical version modernized the timeline, shifting the childhood story to the 1980s and the adult story to the 2010s. Bill Skarsgård, born for the role, took on Pennywise, giving the clown a more predatory, baroque presence. The films cemented Pennywise as a modern horror icon and set the stage for a deeper exploration of Derry’s cursed origins.

This brings us to IT: Welcome to Derry, an eight-episode series set in 1962, a few years after the events in the first half of King’s novel. It’s developed by the same creative team behind the recent films: director Andy Muschietti, producer Barbara Muschietti, and writer Jason Fuchs. Crucially, Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

The series unfolds through two parallel storylines. The first begins, as it always does in Derry, with the children. We meet a group of local kids, several already grappling with trauma and deep-seated fears. After a shocking tragedy strikes the town, they find themselves hunted by a force that feeds on their anxieties, manifesting as horrific visions and nightmares. Their effort to understand what’s happening becomes our entry point into the season’s sprawling narrative.

Meanwhile, at the local military airbase, Cold War paranoia is at a fever pitch, mirroring the global tension of 1962 as the world edges toward the Cuban Missile Crisis. Major Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and fellow officer (Stephen Rider) join an air force obsessed with nuclear supremacy and haunted by the fear of annihilation.

They’re soon joined by the mysterious Dick Halloran (Chris Chalk), a name King fans will instantly recognize. It soon becomes clear that a top-secret government project is underway in Derry: the search for an unconventional weapon. This weapon, rumored to harness fear itself as a destructive force, lies buried nearby, and only Halloran’s unique gifts can sense it.

Our return to Derry is anything but pleasant. As in Muschietti’s previous It adaptations and in much of King’s best horror, the story thrives on contrast: the bright, wholesome facade of small-town life concealing a rotten underlayer where both supernatural and human horrors dwell. With children again at the heart of the story—and often the targets of those horrors—the dread feels immediate and personal.

Then there’s Pennywise, once more played with eerie brilliance by Bill Skarsgård. Wounded and dreaming of revenge after his defeat by the Losers’ Club, he lies dormant beneath Derry, his slumber growing restless as the military’s secret project stirs old energies. His influence begins to seep outward, infecting the town and its people once more.

Note: After writing this review, I realized that I got my timelines mixed up. IT: Welcome to Derry is, of course, connected to Andy Muschietti’s changed timeline. So the story about The Loser’s Club in King’s book is set a 27-year generation after the story of this series.

Some viewers might dismiss IT: Welcome to Derry as another prequel spin-off from a familiar title. But while Muschietti’s films were wildly successful, they only hinted at the vast mythology within King’s novel. Here, the creative team returns with the same atmosphere and creeping dread that defined those films, expanding the legend of Derry rather than retreading it.

The eight-episode format proves the series’ greatest strength. The films could only gesture toward Derry’s dark past and Pennywise’s recurring cycles of terror, erupting every 27 years in death and destruction. The show finally gives space to explore that history through flashbacks and deeper world-building, turning the town itself into a character—vivid, haunted, and utterly cursed.

IT: Welcome to Derry is horrifying, nightmare fuel that offers far more than cheap jump scares. Unbound by the story in King’s novel, Muschietti delivers scenes that will both haunt you and, at times, might make you wonder if everything is quite alright in the Muschietti household.

Developed by: Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti & Jason Fuchs
Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Written by: Jason Fuchs
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, Stephen Rider, James Remar, Amanda Christine, Clara Stack, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso, Blake Cameron James
Streaming on: HBO / Max
Episodes watched: 5 of 8

The question is as simple as it is catastrophic: what happens when the world has 18 minutes until potential annihilation? This is the terrifying, real-time premise of director Kathryn Bigelow’s new thriller, A House of Dynamite.

On September 27th in New York, a press conference with the film’s key creative team revealed the project was born from a question the acclaimed director had about the world’s precarious nuclear situation. What she and writer Noah Oppenheim uncovered in their research was a paradox so unsettling it formed the core of the film: the unimaginable power to end civilization rests almost entirely with one person, who may be the least prepared to wield it.

“The most surprising was how the president has so authority on something so epic and so potentially catastrophic,” Bigelow explained. “It’s just this one man and, within a matter of minutes, has to decide about... the utilization of these weapons or not”. The conversation offered a blueprint for how a team of artists—in front of and behind the camera—constructed a cinematic pressure cooker, designed not just to thrill, but to confront an audience with a reality many have chosen to forget.

The Paradox at the Heart of Power

One of the great surprises for Bigelow was “being able to work with Noah Oppenheim,” whose “acumen on the subject is kind of, like, none other”. Their collaboration began with deep research, and one conversation in particular rattled them both. They asked a former senior Pentagon and CIA official how much a president practices for this ultimate decision. The response was, “Not at all”.

“When the president takes office... they’re given a very short briefing on the ‘football’... less than an hour sometimes. And that’s it,” Oppenheim shared. “And then they don’t think about it ever again”. This stood in stark contrast to what they learned at US Strategic Command (StratComm), where an admiral told them “they practice the protocol for nuclear weapons 400 times a year”. This stunning gap between the preparedness of the operators and the ultimate decision-maker became the film’s central tension. It led Bigelow to what she calls an “interesting paradox”: the idea of launching a “defensive measure that... could be global annihilation”. She asked, “Yet, what are you defending? There’s nothing left”.

An Architecture of Anxiety

To immerse the audience in this high-stakes confusion, the filmmakers made a crucial structural choice early on. Instead of a traditional linear narrative, the film is broken into three distinct chapters, each replaying the same 18-minute window from a new perspective. This was done to “stay in real time” and conduct a “deep dive in each one of the halls of power as you climb up the, sort of, food chain”.

According to Oppenheim, the structure is designed to replicate the chaos of a real event. “In the first watching, the audience is absorbing it in that way,” he said. “And then, we pause, and they have an opportunity now to re-experience it with new context”. It’s a luxury that highlights the terrifying reality of the situation. “Unfortunately, in real life, the folks who have to make these decisions don’t get the luxury of a second or third run-through”.

The Unrelenting Pursuit of Realism

“The authenticity is paramount in something like this,” Bigelow stated, emphasizing the responsibility of taking an audience into closed-off spaces. To achieve this, the production embedded high-level advisors into the fabric of the film. Bigelow herself insisted, “we didn’t shoot anything that they didn’t say, okay, that is relatively accurate”.

Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Olivia, had a direct line to Larry Pfeiffer, the former real-life Head of the Situation Room. “I had his WhatsApp, his messages. I had email,” she said, explaining her drive to ensure every detail was correct, “down to, who would get this email first?”. For actor Tracy Letts, the advisors were even closer; some were extras in his scenes. “They’re guys who have actually sat in my seat,” he explained. This allowed him to understand the attitude of his character. The advisors told him, “You answer to the President, and beyond that, you don’t have to worry about anybody around you”. Letts found this note incredibly helpful. “Well, that’s very freeing to hear”.

Mastering the highly specific jargon proved a significant hurdle. Oppenheim noted that Bigelow “interrogated” every line, constantly asking, “Is this how it would really happen? Is this how they would really say it?”. Letts called the dialogue “a foreign language,” citing “militarized words” like “Operationalize” that are not part of everyday speech.

Anthony Ramos, whose character is stationed at a monitoring base, was struck by the advisors who live that life of constant vigilance. “While we’re out here eating our little croissant and drinking our little latte,” he said, “they’re, like, in front of their shit like this”. The ultimate validation came when those same advisors watched the performance and told the actors, “dang, like you guys took us there... That’s how it feels for us”.

Capturing Controlled Chaos

Achieving this level of realism required a specific, documentary-like approach to filmmaking. Jason Clarke, another member of the ensemble, effused about the process: “I love the way Barry and Kathryn shoot... It’s my favorite way to shoot. It’s so easy. It’s so simple, and yet it’s so immediate”.

This method involves cinematographer Barry Ackroyd lighting the entire environment, not just a specific spot, and then covering the action with multiple cameras. “There’s no marks,” Bigelow explained. “Basically, the actor is left alone to do their job... and then, he captures it”. Tracy Letts described it as a “tough gig,” at one point counting 25 cameras rolling on him simultaneously. He praised Bigelow as “the calm at the center of the storm,” an interrogator who guides through questions rather than commands. “I always felt I could turn to Kathryn with a question or even to just, kind of, stop the proceedings and say, wait a minute, I don’t understand what we’re doing here”.

This intense environment forged a unique focus, but Rebecca Ferguson revealed there was still room for levity. Surrounded by actors ad-libbing complex technical dialogue, she invented her own lines. “I made pizza toppings,” she confessed, to laughter. “I was literally going, ‘So did you want salami on that one, yeah?’”. It was a way to stay present in the scene’s intensity while acknowledging the human need for a release. “It’s authentic,” she said, “but we also had fun. Like, which is also important. There’s also joy in the room”.

The Post-Production of Tension

The film’s unbearable tension was further sculpted in post-production. Editor Kirk Baxter called the script a “gift for a film editor,” an opportunity to “look clever”. He praised Barry Ackroyd’s on-the-fly camera work, noting the cinematographer almost deserved a “co-editor credit” because “part of the pacing is based on his sort of live decision-making”. Baxter approached the complex narrative by first cutting the entire film for “story and emotional performance,” and then doing a complete second pass purely “concentrating on accuracy”. This ensured every event aligned perfectly, a task Bigelow likened to “three-dimensional chess”. For Baxter, the human element was key; he singled out Jason Clarke’s performance, calling him “the scene-stealer” for the powerful “silent work” and micro-expressions he delivered.

The score, by composer Volker Bertelmann, was designed to add an emotional layer without overpowering the drama. “When I see a film the first time, I try to... stick to the emotion that I have,” he said. He felt compelled to musically translate the idea that “human life is so worthy. Every life”. For the film’s most urgent moments, he had woodwind players “moan into their instruments,” creating an “animalistic kind of sound where they nearly cry”. This subtle, haunting effect injects pure human dread into the sterile environment of the situation room.

An Invitation

The purpose of A House of Dynamite, however, lies outside the theater. For Bigelow, the film was never just a thriller, but a catalyst. It is, she said, “an invitation to the audience to take away something.” She hopes to ignite a renewed and urgent “conversation about nuclear weapons,” a subject she feels has been dangerously ignored. After experiencing the film’s relentless tension, it’s a conversation that feels impossible to ignore. “It’s really an opportunity,” she concluded, “a reach out to the audience to then hopefully take the conversation further.”

A House of Dynamite premieres in select theaters on October 10th and on Netflix on October 24th. This article is based on the transcript provided to attending journalists following the press conference.