darker

How Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ First Episode Showed the Darker Side of the Jedi

This Star Wars: The Clone Wars article contains spoilers. “Ambush,” the first episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, opens with a simple question: who is stronger, an army of droids, or a single Jedi Master? Well, when that Jedi Master is Yoda, fans can be pretty sure of the answer, and “Ambush” delights in that certainty. The episode is an action-packed, droid-busting romp, with a short interlude for Yoda’s serene Jedi wisdom. It’s an episode unlikely to be accused of being deep. And yet, “Ambush” carefully seeds the paradoxes that will ultimately cause the downfall of the Jedi. How…
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How Cruella’s Director Took Disney to a Darker Place

One of the most infamous villains in Disney’s storied history is Cruella de Vil, the wickedly evil heiress and socialite who obsessively wanted to make a coat from the fur of puppies in 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Based on a novel by Dodie Smith, the animated classic introduced Cruella as a fully formed monster, intent on skinning all 101 of the title Dalmatians for her own personal luxury. Cruella became such an instant symbol of vanity, greed, and malevolence that she has appeared in the decades since in a number of animated and live-action sequels and spin-offs, with…
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Rebecca: Leaving Hitchcock Behind for Something Darker

This article contains spoilers for the film and book versions of Rebecca. Leave it to Ben Wheatley to remake Alfred Hitchcock. The younger British filmmaking iconoclast has been nothing if not provocative with his filmography so far, which includes the disturbing horror-crime hybrid Kill List (2011), the serial killer black comedy Sightseers (2012), the psychedelic, very weird A Field in England (2014), and the unsettling dystopian nightmare, High-Rise (2015). But with Rebecca he takes on not just a classic Hitchcock film, but the master’s sole Best Picture winner. Why not, right? We’re being facetious, of course. Wheatley’s version of Rebecca…
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Batman Forever Confirmed to Have a Darker Extended Cut

Batman Forever has surprisingly entered the extended cut conversation recently fueled by HBO Max’s upcoming release of director Zack Snyder’s originally-envisioned version of 2017’s Justice League, a.k.a. The Snyder Cut. Yet, while the theatrical version of the 1995 third film in the Batman film series—unlike Justice League—did reflect the vision of its director, the recently-departed Joel Schumacher, it seems that a darker and much (much) longer version exists. Citing a source close to the movie, Variety has confirmed the existence of a mega-sized 170-minute cut of Schumacher’s Batman Forever, which starkly contrasts with the standard theatrical version we all know,…
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