SciFi Weekend: Captain America; Agents of Shield; Legends of Tomorrow & The Justice Society of America; DC Four-Way Crossover; Star Trek; Mr Robot; Limitless

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Captain America: Civil War, like the previous movie in the series, made major changes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which also extend to Agents of SHIELD on television. Spoilers ahead for both the movie and television series. Civil War showed a continuation of what was seen in Captain America: Winter Soldier, which led to moving SHIELD underground. It ends not with Captain America being killed as in the comics, but with both giving up his shield and going underground. Other members of the Avengers are in similar situations. Collider summarizes how the MCU has changed, with major spoilers for those who have not seen the movie and recent episodes of Agents of SHIELD.

It did seem strange that Nick Fury was not involved, and his role since the changes in SHIELD remain unclear. Civil War writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were asked about this by The Los Angeles Times:

I’m curious. Where was Fury? 

Stephen McFeely: I’m curious too!

Christopher Markus: We called him, but he let the line blink. Primarily it felt like one too many possible opinions. We didn’t want him to take one side or the other, because that’s not his place in the universe. And then we didn’t want another, “Is he still with the government? Is he opposed to the government but supporting the government?” It got to be the potential for a lot more polemic discussion that the movie did not have room for.

He’s the guy who put it together. He’s been the sort of parent figure to the Avengers. Let the parent go away, and see if the kids can handle this. See if the kids can be who they’re supposed to be without that governing voice. Um… and they didn’t do that good of a job.

Are we going to see him in “Infinity Wars?”

McFeely: I would think.

Markus: It’s probably all hands on deck.

McFeely: Don’t you assume you’ll see everybody in the “Infinity Wars?”

You heard it here first: Everybody is in “Infinity Wars.” Hopefully that includes Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and Whiplash’s bird.

Captain America: Civil War acted as the origin story for Black Panther, and introduced Spider-Man to the rest of the MCU. Iron Man will be appearing in Spider-Man’s upcoming solo movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming. There is also speculation that there is yet another connection, with “homecoming” being one of the trigger words used by Hydra in brainwashing Bucky Barnes.

Deadline has a long interview with  Kevin Feige. One of the many items discussed included the possibility of  Black Widow getting a solo movie in the future:

DEADLINE: You’ve got a bunch of characters in this movie from Falcon and War Machine and Black Widow and Hawkeye, who have so far guest starred in movies with another characters title above the fold. Is there one destined to get a solo movie down the line?
FEIGE: We’ve announced the next nine movies, 10 counting Civil War, through the end of 2019. Where we go beyond that are ongoing discussions that we’ll focus on in the next few years because we have a lot to do before then. Of the characters that you’ve just mentioned I would say certainly the one creatively and emotionally that we are most committing to doing is Black Widow.

DEADLINE: Why?
FEIGE: We think she’s an amazing character. We think Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of her is amazing. She’s a lead Avenger and has amazing stories in her own right to tell that we think would be fun to turn into a stand-alone franchise.

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Agents of SHIELD also worked in the Sokovia Accords, the movie version of the Superhero Registration Act, and ended the season with some deaths. Even Daisy now appears to be on the run, and who is this new Director of SHIELD? There was a second death for a Brett Walton villain, first Grant Ward, and now Hive. It looks like he might finally be finished with the series.  Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen spoke with Comic Book Resources about the finale.

CBR News: How difficult was it to say goodbye to Brett Dalton and Lincoln Mitchell?

Maurissa Tancharoen: It was so, so hard. There were many tears. It was very emotional. Even in the process of developing their arcs and breaking the season, it was a decision we struggled to finalize. We knew that we had to, though. We had to close a chapter with Ward. To sustain an antagonist for this long or to go beyond three seasons — we just didn’t want it to lose any steam. At our wrap party, there were several emotional speeches being made for both of those guys.

Jed Whedon: One of the things about television is that it’s fluid. You always have to generate a lot of different stories. Sometimes you eliminate a character and it’s easy, because you either don’t like the person or you don’t like the character. This was a situation where we didn’t have that. Both of these actors are just great guys, they’re great to work with and are pros. It was a very emotional end of the season for everybody.

Tancharoen: A week before we wrapped, we were here at home. I was thinking of Brett and Luke. They are such great people, and so talented and so handsome. “Oh, my God. What have we done?”

After watching Ward evolve from a member of S.H.I.E.L.D., to Hydra agent, to Hive, why did it feel that this was the time to let him go?

Whedon: One of the reasons we closed that chapter was to start a very different, very new chapter next year. We’re very excited about it, but that’s as specific we can get.

Now that viewers have seen the finale, what were the most important aspects, to you, about the send-off you gave Ward/Hive?

Whedon: Hive revealed his motivation: “I want a connection.” That’s a fitting end to his story. Also, to Ward’s story, he wanted that with Skye. Now, here he is, sitting with Lincoln, the one person who had that with Skye/Daisy. There’s some poetry to the simplicity and the quietness in that moment that we loved. It was a fitting end for someone with [goals of] world domination, and to our buddy Grant Ward, who we managed to maintain as an antagonist for three seasons, which is a lot for one character.

While some themes from the movies are reflected in Agents of SHIELD, the two are also disconnected, especially with Coulson being alive in the television show but still considered dead in the movies. It is also strange that nobody from The Avengers got caught up in the battle against Hive. Chloe Bennet talked about this last week. When asked if she would like to show up in the movie universe she replied, “The Marvel Cinematic Universe loves to pretend that everything is connected, but then they don’t acknowledge our show at all. So, I would love to do that, but they don’t seem to keen on that idea.”

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The Berlanti shows on CBS and the CW Network are almost completed for the season, with Arrow and The Flash presumably to complete their story lines related to Zoom and Damian Dahrk next week. Legends of Tomorrow remains the weakest of the four, but did improve in its final episodes. The good news was that it got more timey wimey. The bad news is that it handled their rules of time travel much more poorly than other genre shows such as Continuum and 12 Monkeys. As time travel does not really exist (which I assume as I have never received a list of winning lottery winners from my future self), a show can get away with their own rules, but they should be internally consistent and make sense. Screen Rant has more on the plot holes. More spoilers ahead.

It should help the show in the future to have Vandal Savage defeated. Having them spend the season getting close to him but not killing him led to many unsatisfactory episodes. Some old members of the cast will be gone. Ciara Renée is leaving as a series regular, but the manner in which Hawkgirl and Hawkman flew off certainly leaves open for the possibility of their return, even without using time travel. Wentworth Miller’s character Leonard Snart (Captain Cold) sacrificed his life on Legends of Tomorrow. In the Berlanti universe, death is not a permanent change (except for the Earth 1 Laurel Lance), and Miller will be a recurring character in various shows in the universe. Presumably time travel or effects from the destruction of the Oculus will  provide the explanation.

While some characters are gone, the ending suggested the introduction of the Justice Society of America. Collider has background information on this. Marc Guggenhein also discussed this with The Hollywood Reporter:

The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow used Thursday’s season one finale to reveal that Rex Tyler aka Hourman (Patrick J. Adams), along with the JSA, would be a major part of the Arrow/Flash spinoff’s sophomore run. He arrived on a Waverider as the Legends team intended to take off as Time Masters, warning them that they would all die if they did.

“With his final words in the finale, he planted a pretty deep flag about where we’re headed in season two, which is not just introducing Hourman but introducing his teammates in the Justice Society of America,” executive producer Marc Guggenheim tells The Hollywood Reporter. “For comic book fans, everyone knows the Justice Society is really the precursor to the Justice League, so it’s a pretty big move in our DC universe here on TV.”

Although the DC Comics franchise keeps its film and television projects separate (unlike rival Marvel, which connects its film and TV projects in one shared universe), it’s interesting to note that it’s the newest — rather than the highest-rated DC show (Flash) — that is going to be the one introducing the iconic superhero team…

The introduction of Hourman and the JSA won’t be the only reason Legends of Tomorrow will look different in season two. Along with some casting shakeups, the elimination of the Time Council and the set timeline takes away a huge part of the story and the rules that were established all season long.”One of the other big things we’ve done in the season finale is we planted another flag in the form of Rip’s [Arthur Darvil] statement. Because the Time Masters are essentially gone and the Legends have destroyed the Oculus, that all means that someone else has to do the job of the Time Masters,” Guggenheim says. “Our Legends take that on as their new responsibility. It’s sort of like, you break it, you buy it.”

“That’s really exciting to us, that our team of Legends, our misfits, are going to be responsible for the preservation of the timeline and protection of history,” he adds. “As we’ve seen, our team, our guys are not always the most responsible people around so maybe time has got some new troubles. But it will provide a lot of fodder, a lot of fun story for season two.”

With Supergirl getting picked up by the CW Network, they didn’t waste any time in announcing  plans for a four way crossover with Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. This is facilitated by all four now being on the same network and all being filed in Vancouver starting next season. These matters are far more important then the logistics of getting Supergirl involved with characters who are on a different earth.

Above is a trailer for the movie Star Trek Beyond. It also looks like Paramount has been convinced that it is not a good idea to sue fans over copyright infringements in fan-made movies. JJ Abrams made this announcement:

A few months back there was a fan movie, Axanar that was being fan made, and there was this lawsuit between the studio and these fans. And Justin was sort of outraged by this as a longtime fan. And, we started talking about it and realized this was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans. The fans should be celebrating this thing, we all [as] fans are part of this world. So he went to the studio and pushed them to stop this lawsuit and now within the last few weeks it will be announced that this is going away and the fans will be able to [continue] their productions.

Hopefully they realize that it has been the fans who have kept interest in Star Trek alive, enabling them to make money from continued movies and soon a new television series.

CBS also released the above teaser for the upcoming Star Trek television series, which does not really provide any information. There has been some speculation that the statement of “new crews” in pleural might suggest more than one crew, possibly taking place in different eras.

The above trailer was released for season two of Mr. Robot which begins on July 13. We see that Christian Slater’s character is still around, and don’t know how much of anything else is real or in someone’s head.

With it doubtful that CBS will renew Limitless (but no cancellation announcement either), there is now talk of trying to sell it to another network. I don’t know if the finances would work, but it seems like it might be a good fit at USA Network. Supergirl has already moved from CBS to the CW Network, and I’m still hoping attempts to keep Person of Interest alive at anther network are successful.

Moving from science fiction to science, Mars is appearing as it biggest in over a decade:

Mars comes into opposition — the point when Mars and the Sun are on directly opposite sides of the Earth — once every two years.

But on Sunday night, as the Red Planet edged towards its closest point to Earth in 11 years, it appeared much bigger and brighter in the night sky than usual.

Amateur astronomer Dr Ian Musgrave, from the University of Adelaide, said it would trump Venus as the brightest object in the sky, aside from the Sun and the Moon.

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