Latest news with #JimHensonCreatureShop
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds boldly finding out if "puppet episode" still feels like a creative gimmick
Hey, friends. Can you join us over here for a second, away from the hubbub? We just wanted to touch base real fast, check in, and ask the question that's the elephant in the room this afternoon: Are we all kind of over seeing TV characters getting turned into puppets? Or is it just us? This question brought to you by the San Diego Comic-Con panel for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which opened with a clip showcasing that Anson Mount's Captain Pike is going to get turned into a puppet for an episode of the show's (still far-off) fourth season. And, yup: That's a puppet that looks kind of like Mount, sitting in a Star Trek chair, saying Captain Pike stuff. Neat! (Feel free to accuse us of being joyless cynics here—after all, the show did bring in the Jim Henson Creature Shop to work on the episode, and the puppet certainly looks good—but this is the kind of trick that feels like it lost its impact several 'recognizable characters as puppets!' ago. Angel's 'Smile Time' is the obvious touchpoint, of course, but Doom Patrol, 30 Rock, Community, and Legends Of Tomorrow all also screwed around with this concept—and those are just the ones we can think of off the tops of our heads. Also, unlike a musical episode—which has the dual pleasures of hearing the cast sing, and seeing how the show can explore some of its themes through an alternative storytelling medium, the joke of a puppet bit usually starts and stops with 'Hey, puppets!' Anyway, this has been our joyless discourse on the puppet episode as a concept.) It's not like Strange New Worlds hasn't been steering into this kind of thing pretty hard already, having done musical episodes, hybrid-animation stuff, and, just recently, a zombie movie riff. The puppet adventures won't be coming until the show's fourth season (of what'll ultimately be five), but fans at Comic-Con still got their fill of gimmick, as they were treated to a full showing of an upcoming episode from the currently running third season that hasn't come out yet, featuring a holodeck murder mystery the crew has to solve. Photo: Miller Mobley/Paramount+ The SDCC panel also served as a showcase for new series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy; Paramount+ released preview images for the upcoming series earlier this week, including a shot of Paul Giamatti doing his favorite thing in the world and getting completely slathered in prosthetics. More from A.V. Club The biggest news (so far) from San Diego Comic-Con 2025 What's on TV this week—Chief Of War and Eyes Of Wakanda R.I.P. Tom Lehrer, mathematician and musical satirist Solve the daily Crossword
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Gets Muppet Fever In Season 4
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has done a lot of odd things in the course of its five-season mission. We've had musicals, fantasy episodes, full-on horror adventures, and even a murder mystery is on the horizon. Now, the show is boldly going in another kooky direction: a puppet episode. Announced today during Trek's blockbuster Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Jordan Canning (who directed season 2's 'Charades', but perhaps more crucially here, also directed seven episodes of the Fraggle Rock revival, Back to the Rock) will direct an episode in the upcoming fourth season of Strange New Worlds that will see the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise turned into puppets. Anson Mount's Captain Pike beamed into the convention to let fans know… well, kind of: Nothing else was revealed about the episode, other than the fact Paramount will be working with the fine purveyors of puppet technology at the Jim Henson Creature Shop to bring Pike and the rest of the crew to fabric life for the episode. Strange New Worlds' penultimate, fourth season is currently expected to hit Paramount+ sometime next year. That wasn't the only Strange New Worlds news out of the convention, however: with the show's third season currently airing, fans in attendance were treated to an early screening of next week's episode, 'A Space Adventure Hour'. Set to hit Paramount+ next Thursday, July 31, the Jonathan-Frakes-directed episode—which sees security chief La'an test out an early prototype holodeck system with a program that, in true Trek style, starts getting dangerous—will also stream for free between July 31 and August 6 on Pluto TV, Paramount+ (as well as its channels available through Amazon, Apple, and Roku), and the Paramount+ YouTube channel. Stay tuned to io9 for more Trek news right out of Hall H at SDCC 2025! Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘Five Nights at Freddy's 2' Lures Fans In by Taking Us Back to Where It All Began
Universal Pictures and Blumhouse were on hand at San Diego Comic-Con to give attendees a sneak preview of Five Nights at Freddy's 2. Returning stars Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) and Piper Rubio (For All Mankind), who play the film franchise's central brother and sister roles, Mike and Abby, were on hand to share some insight on what the siblings have been up to since the events of the first film. 'Mike and Abby went through a lot,' Hutcherson explained. 'Mike is just wanting to get back to somewhat of a normal life, but that just can't happen in Freddy's world. Mike, in a way, is trying to fake it till you make it without fully working through all that stuff that happened, and then it happens to him again! Poor Mike.' Hutcherson added that while he's not deeply informed of the lore, he does lean on his co-star Piper Rubio (who plays his sister Abby) as the resident expert, adding, 'I am existing as Mike and experiencing it, but I do glean some things from Piper's insight.' But he did reveal that his favorite character from the universe is Mangle, and gave the Jim Henson Creature Shop credit where it's due for making another Five Nights at Freddy's icon really stand out in the practical ways the legendary monster maker can. 'What Jim Henson's puppeteering team and the creators and designers brought to life with Mangle,' Hutchinson continued, 'it's such another level of puppeteering and complicated everything. It's just so cool to see that brought to life.' While William Afton always comes back, the cinematic Afton, Matthew Lillard, was not on hand to discuss FNAF's big bad at Comic-Con but did introduce his partner in slashers for the sequel, Skeet Ulrich (the other half of their Scream duo), via video. Ulrich has been the center of fan theories of him playing Henry Emily, the co-owner of the Five Nights at Freddy's pizza franchise alongside Afton, and his answer feels like he's all but saying this is probably the case. 'I play somebody with a very particular and specific past,' Ulrich teased, adding, 'And with a very deep emotional tie to what's going on.' Before the panel closed out, director Emma Tammi and producer Jason Blum introduced an extended clip that feels very Scream, in the sense that Gen Z starlet McKenna Grace is featured as the host of a paranormal investigator channel whose crew gets to visit the first Five Nights at Freddy's location… the one where it all went wrong. You kind of get the feeling that she might be the Drew Barrymore of the film's opening, as she gets a super creepy security guard to tour them through the wreckage. The parlor itself is great; there's a moat complete with a sunken, decayed boat, which makes me jealous that my local pizza parlor didn't have one of those. The bridge and the in-the-round style of the original location make it feel like a demented Disneyland—it looks right out of the game, and you can't help but want to see what doom is hidden behind the urban decay of the pizza company's sordid past. Grace's character pushes the guard for more details about a very special animatronic that was only at that specific location—the Marionette. The crowd buzzed at the mention of the game's fan favorite. She recounts its lore, describing how it would rise from a trapdoor to direct the show on occasion. As her channel partners record, they notice that the security guard has led them to the stage with the iconic animatronics, and under the tarp it's pretty obvious they look bizarrely like new models ready for more terror trap mayhem. Alas, the clip cuts away before we find out the real reason why they were led there, but we can tell it's definitely bad news. We'll have to wait until this holiday season to find out just why the haunted world of Five Nights at Freddy's has reopened for more bloody business. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens December 5, 2025! Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
