backstory

Image via Universal Pictures You know an actor is devoted to their character when they build up a hefty supplementary headcanon for them in order to bring said character to a unique life. Of course, there was never any question that Jamie Lee Curtis was devoted to Laurie Strode, the perennial protagonist of the Halloween franchise, considering she’s been portraying the character for 44 years. Still, 44 years on, and Curtis is still managing to find news ways to add depth to the queen of the final girls, and one…

Image via Lucasfilm Star Wars is notorious for the depth of its canon. Every character who appeared on-screen in the original trilogy has a fully fleshed-out backstory, from the droids on sale in A New Hope, to every inhabitant of Jabba’s Palace, right down to the guy lugging an ice cream maker through the streets of Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. But it doesn’t stop there, as the upcoming book, Star Wars: 100 Objects, will give a backstory and explanation to weapons, armor, and other key items from…

The latest trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever makes it clear war is coming. Namor (Tenoch Huerta), the film’s antagonist, is rushing in like a tidal wave at Wakanda’s darkest hour. It’s an echo of a long-lived comic book rivalry between Black Panther and Namor, and while the shape of the story will be necessarily different, the reasons for a Black Panther sequel featuring Namor remain just as compelling: He’s not just a villain. He’s something more. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, director Ryan…

Upon entering Genshin Impact’s Sumeru region, you’ll meet Collei, a new playable character. Collei is quickly revealed to have connections across the cast. A Fatui Harbinger — the title members of the Fatui leadership — named Il Dottore previously kidnaped Collei, and she befriended characters from Mondstadt such as Amber during her escape. But in-game, Genshin Impact doesn’t really explain her story, mostly having Collei add color-commentary random bouts of dialogue. To properly understand Sumeru, you’ll need to read…

Some towering absurdity and vertiginous silliness here … and also a bit of innocent enjoyment. Eiffel is a handsomely produced period drama, a madly Lloyd-Webber-ised romantic fantasy about the construction of the Eiffel tower in 1889 in Paris for the 100th anniversary of the revolution. Screenwriter Caroline Bongrand imagines (which is to say: she entirely invents) a backstory for the great engineer Gustave Eiffel, a grand passion that inspired him to build the tower as his own private Taj Mahal for a lost, secret…

There are celebrity divorces, and then there’s the ongoing legal battle happening between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. The two have been facing off in court in Virginia, which is where the actors’ respective defamation cases are playing out. While there were some reports to the contrary, Depp did return to the sand in the trial after all, but what he was asked about requires a bunch of backstory.Both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard previously testified in the defamation trial, although the Pirates of the Caribbean actor is…

Air temperature anomalies across the continental United States and Canada on June 27, 2021, when the heat intensified and records started to fall. Red areas are where air temperatures climbed more than 27°F higher than the average for the same day. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory Last summer, a deadly wave of heat struck the Pacific Northwest, causing temperatures to soar more than 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal and…