News Star Wars The Original 1977 Star Wars (Yes, That Version) Is Returning to Theaters in 2027 The details are as fuzzy as the movie’s surviving prints, but you will be able to see the original version of Star Wars in theaters again. By Matthew Byrd | Published on December 5, 2025 Photo: Lucasfilm Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Lucasfilm Earlier this year, we learned that 1977’s Star Wars will be returning to theaters in 2027 as part of a massive 50th anniversary celebration. At that time, though, we had no idea which version of that movie was going to be shown in theaters. There are quite a few, you see, and the arguments over which version is best and which should be considered the “standard” are as long as they are annoying. However, against considerable odds, it appears that the version of Star Wars that is returning to theaters is the original, original version of the movie. Yes, the version of the movie that has been softly buried for quite a few years and remains the subject of much discourse in a fandom that hasn’t exactly shied away from discourse. According to StarWars.com, a “newly restored version of the classic Star Wars (1977) theatrical release” will “play in theaters for a limited time” starting on February 19, 2027. The wording of their update was fairly vague, though it certainly seemed to suggest that they were referring to the original version of the 1977 movie rather than any of the recent remasters of that film that feature quite a few updates and changes. Well, io9 has since confirmed with Lucasfilm that the version of the movie that will be released in theaters in 2027 is indeed the original theatrical cut of the film. Again, Lucasfilm has said that this will be a “newly restored version of the classic Star Wars (1977) theatrical release,” which means that you can likely expect there to be some visual and audio upgrades to the original print. There is also a rumor that the original movie will be updated for a limited IMAX release, which would obviously include quite a few format specific alterations. For now, though, it seems like the idea is to keep the core of the original theatrical version of the film intact. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing depends on the extent of the updates and your preferences. To play devil’s advocate, many of the changes made to Star Wars over the years were done to fix continuity errors, technical issues, and other such problems. A quick glance at a list of those changes reveals that many of them make sense and honestly exist to preserve the experience and intent of the original movie rather than the movie exactly as it was when it was released. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it? For many, the joy of this experience will come from getting to see Star Wars as it was before some of the more significant and controversial changes to the film were made. No more additional Stormtroopers facing off against Han Solo, no more CGI lizards awkwardly dropped onto Tatooine, and, though it pains me to still be saying this in 2025, Han will indeed shoot first in this version of the movie. It’s going to be fascinating to see how this version of the movie actually plays. Reports from a recent, incredibly rare screening of an original print of Star Wars suggested that version of the movie was in far rougher shape than people remember, though some will certainly argue that the rough edges should be part of this experience. Perhaps this new version of the movie will find a happy middle ground that will allow people to experience the biggest “missing” beats of the original film without having to lower their technical expectations quite so much. Then again, one shouldn’t hold out too much hope for the sudden silencing of the debates in the Star Wars community. For now, though, let’s all take a moment to consider that it’ll be nice to simply have this option rather than constantly having to ask why one of the most culturally significant movies ever made has been so damn hard to watch in its (roughly) original form for so long. [end-mark] The post The Original 1977 <i>Star Wars</i> (Yes, That Version) Is Returning to Theaters in 2027 appeared first on Reactor.

News Pluribus Pluribus Episode 6’s Surprise Cameo Star Had No Idea What Their Shocking Scene Was About Drink HDP, it’s good for you By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 5, 2025 Credit: Apple TV Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Apple TV Warning! This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of Pluribus, “HDP.” If you’re caught up with Apple TV’s Pluribus, you know that Carol (Rhea Seehorn) has been on a journey. That journey became literal this week when she drove to Las Vegas to talk with Diabaté (Samba Schutte) about her discovery that the hive collective have been slurrying up human body parts for nutrients. Diabaté, however, already knew this. While he found it unfortunate, he accepted it as a necessity. Carol was less convinced, which the hive anticipated, so they put together a video featuring John Cena explaining why they’ve turned to becoming cannibals. Credit: Apple TV The John Cena cameo was equal parts informative and entertaining, and Gilligan has explained how it came to be. “He’s cool,” he told Men’s Health. “And he said yes, thank goodness. We just thought, ‘Who is, simultaneously, the most random person to explain the eating of human flesh to Carol Sturka and the most interesting?’” For his part, Cena was very much on board, even though he wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about. Gilligan also recounted that when Cena left, he said, “I can’t wait to find out what the hell it was I just said.” Cena and Seehorn also never met. They shot Cena’s video in Tampa, while Seehorn’s scene of watching the tape took place in Las Vegas. “I didn’t see [Cena] until the first time I saw that videotape [when] we were filming me watching it,” Seehorn told TVLine. “That was really fun. Not that I’d be surprised, but it’s just we don’t think of him as somebody that delivers news coverage about eating people. And yet there he was doing a great job at it.” The Cena cameo was fun, and something I was waiting for on the show—the opportunity to see someone famous in our world as part of the hive. Pluribus nailed that scenario with Cena, making it one of the many, many things that make this show well worth a watch. New episodes of Pluribus premiere on Apple TV on Fridays. [end-mark] The post <i>Pluribus</i> Episode 6’s Surprise Cameo Star Had No Idea What Their Shocking Scene Was About appeared first on Reactor.

News Pushing Daisies Bryan Fuller Keeps Teasing Pushing Daisies Season 3 The facts were these: everybody wants this. By Molly Templeton | Published on December 5, 2025 Screenshot: ABC Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: ABC We will (almost) never be sad when Bryan Fuller says he wants to revisit one of his beloved previous TV series—which he’s been doing a lot, lately. He was talking about making more Hannibal—and now he’s discussing Pushing Daisies. He recently told The Mary Sue, “Well, we’re working on a Season 3, and the whole cast wants to come back. And, we’ve got a whole story. We’re trying to do another season this year.” This is not the first time Fuller has suggested there is more to the story of Ned the Piemaker (Lee Pace). Last month Fuller told ComicBook that he would “absolutely” return to the land of Pushing Daisies: “We have a season three pitch, and the entire cast wants to come back, and we’re hoping we get to return to them. We just have to find somebody who wants to make it.” And there’s the catch, right? A network or a streamer has to be willing to pick up the show. This should be a no-brainer: Fuller is a mastermind; his series were all cancelled too soon—but that was (mostly) in the pre-streaming era, when you had to catch the dang things on network TV or buy the DVDs when they came out (or, eventually, watch them on streaming platforms). Viewership is different now. It feels like the right time. Actually it feels like there should be a streaming platform that just puts out Bryan Fuller series and movies. Can someone with very deep pockets make that happen? Pushing Daisies, the story of a man named Ned who can revive the dead with a touch—and uses this power to solve mysteries—was nearly universally beloved. It won Emmys. Its second season has the coveted perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. The Fulleresque blend of mystery, romance, and quirk was never more precisely honed. The cast was incredible—along with Pace, it starred Anna Friel as Chuck, the love interest Ned can never touch; Kristin Chenoweth as Olive, who pines for Ned; Chi McBride as the beautifully named Emerson Cod, a detective who joins forces with Ned; and Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene as Chuck’s quirky and loving aunts. Pace himself is also on board. He told TV Insider that Fuller has given him the scoop on what a season three would look like: “Bryan Fuller is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met, and he’s told me where he sees it going,” he said, continuing, “I obviously can’t say that here, but it’s so fun and so wild. And then, the story between Ned and Chuck is such an interesting love affair.” Everybody wants this. Hey, universe, can you make something nice happen? You can currently watch the existing seasons of Pushing Daisies on HBO Max. [end-mark] The post Bryan Fuller Keeps Teasing <i>Pushing Daisies</i> Season 3 appeared first on Reactor.

News What to Watch What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Mountain Goats in Print, Teen Wolves on Netflix Plus: 100 Nights of Hero and crossword puzzles. By Molly Templeton | Published on December 5, 2025 Photo: MTV Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: MTV Welcome to December! I’m not at all sure how we got here, to the land of year-end lists and best-ofs and people stressing about gift-buying and ticking things off their to-do lists. In my contrary way I have mostly been trucking around Hyrule doing side quests, which is kind of a good metaphor for taking it easy for a little while. (The big projects—and the stressful dungeons—can wait a minute.) But my own personal list of things to watch and read never stops growing. This week, we have new TV shows, old TV shows, a book of lyrics, a book of crosswords, and a movie based on a book. Pick one, or try all five—whatever you do, don’t forget to call your reps! All of Teen Wolf Lands on Netflix. Who’s the Alpha Now? The one thing I know about Teen Wolf is that people who love Teen Wolf really, really, love Teen Wolf. No, just kidding, I know two other things: One star of Teen Wolf went on to be small-screen Superman, and the series also featured Arrow’s Roy Harper, Colton Haynes. (If I first see an actor on Arrow, they are forever “from Arrow.” Yes, this absolutely includes Austin Butler.) I have the distinct sense that experiencing Teen Wolf is a cousin to experiencing Vampire Diaries, a bananas supernatural show (which I love) which is full of teens who never act like teens. I could be wrong, having not yet watched Teen Wolf. But perhaps my time has come: All of Teen Wolf is now on Netflix.  We Are Gonna Make It Through This Year If It Kills Us: New Books for Mountain Goats & Sci-Fi Fans This was a surprisingly good week for books—at least if you like finishing up epic SF trilogies and also The Mountain Goats. I am perhaps unreasonably excited about both Bethany Jacobs’ This Brutal Moon and John Darnielle’s This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days, which I am positive more than earns the double semicolons in its title. At this point I have been listening to the Mountain Goats for something like 30 years, and yet I know, when I pick up This Year, there will be songs I don’t know, don’t remember, had no idea existed. Darnielle’s prodigious songwriting output is like that: full of surprises (and wise and beautiful). It’s going to be very hard to read this book one song at a time, but I’m going to try. It seems like a really perfect way to start each day in 2026. 100 Nights of Hero: Stories About Stories About Stories Is it just me, or has Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero been flying a bit under the radar? It comes out this weekend—yay!—and yet I have hardly heard a peep about it (boo!). Based on the graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg, the film tells the story of a woman whose husband makes a very weird bet: that a houseguest can’t seduce her in 100 days. Coming between the would-be seducer and the chaste wife is Hero, who plays something of a Scheherazade role, distracting the wife with her tales. The movie stars Emma Corrin as Hero, Maika Monroe as Cherry, the wife, and Nicholas Galitzine the seducer; Richard E. Grant and Charli xcx are also here, because why not? All this takes place in a strange place that is definitely not our world, though certainly bears some resemblance. IndieWire called it “a layered, playful, and poignant reminder that stories themselves can be acts of resistance.” Excellent. Go West With Middle-Aged Women In The Abadons Until Pluribus started, it felt like it had been a million years since I had a TV show to be obsessed with (it had, in fact, only been a number of months since the second season of Severance wound up). But now there’s a new one: Netflix’s The Abandons. Reviews seem to be, uh, not great, but I don’t care. There are two simple reasons why I don’t care: Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson. These two queens play matriarchs in the American west in the 1850s. In my head, that means this show is like Deadwood but not. I am probably very wrong about this. But like I said: I don’t care! I will watch these two slice bread or sweep porches or brush horses or whatever people did for fun in 1854. Though probably they’ll be doing a lot more than that; The Abandons is described as being about two families, led by Headey and Anderson, who “find their fates linked by two crimes, an awful secret, star-crossed love, and a piece of land over a silver lode. Their collision in a place just beyond the reach of justice echoes the perpetual American struggle between the haves and have-nots.” Sure, yes, I’m in. Now if I could just find the time to binge this. If I Were Cleverer I Could Come Up With a Crossword For This Section: A New Book for Puzzle Lovers I am absolutely not going to admit here how long my current crossword puzzle streak is. It’s my little daily habit (well, right after I do the daily Clues by Sam). My interest in the puzzles started way back in the days when people would buy papers from the ubiquitous machines and discard them around any and every cafe. If you were lucky, you’d find one with an untouched crossword. (I would do the Cryptogram, too, in a pinch.) My mom used to make fun of me for not knowing the regular crossword vocabulary (neap tides! Asta the dog!) that is by now engraved in my brain. But only once have I given in to the temptation to buy one of those books of crosswords (it was for a very long flight. I think I did like three). Over at LitHub, an excerpt from a new book, Natan Last’s Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle, focuses on a piece of the history of publishers and crossword puzzles—which turned out to be quite the moneymaker back in the day. A single fun fact from the piece: “Simon & Schuster has never, in the century since its founding, not had a crossword puzzle book in print.” If you are interested in publishing and/or puzzles, this is fascinating.[end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: Mountain Goats in Print, Teen Wolves on Netflix appeared first on Reactor.

News A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Westeros Gets Better Jokes and Worse Wigs in New A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Trailer One does wonder if there are any named female characters in this series. By Molly Templeton | Published on December 5, 2025 Screenshot: HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: HBO One thing is consistent across Game of Thrones and its spinoffs: the Targaryens are, far more often than not, quite awful. In the latest trailer for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, they are described as “incestuous aliens and tyrants!” I have questions about what “aliens” means in this world, but I will let it stand. Knight, based on the trailers, would really, really like you to know that it is not like those other Game of Thrones series. Yes, there are nobles and swords and probably some treachery, muddy hillsides and an assortment of bad wigs, tyrannical Targaryens and morally questionable knights, but also, there are things resembling jokes. (There’s also joust-cam, which is a bit of an assault on the senses.) Is it possible Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) may have something that resembles a sense of humor to go along with his honor-focused righteousness? Is the small bald child, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), going to keep making gently sly jabs about how desperately Duncan needs a squire? Is it funny to call a hedge knight “like a knight, but sadder”? The jury is still out. Poor Duncan, though. He wishes for some great house to sign him on as a real, official knight, but then there are all these Targaryens about, ruining everything. The prime Targaryen, Prince Aerion Targaryen, is played by Finn Bennett, who was excellent in a very different role on True Detective: Knight Country, and also in Black Doves. His Targaryen has a magnetism that doesn’t make sense, given what we know about this family. Perhaps it’s the hair. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is intended to be a smaller-scale story, largely about common folk, though anyone who has dipped a toe into George R.R. Martin’s source novellas (or the related wikis) knows that isn’t, strictly speaking, entirely true. It takes place a hundred years before Game of Thrones, so you won’t see any familiar faces, but the visual style is much the same. One must have fantastical consistency, after all. Ira Parker, a producer and writer on House of the Dragon, is the showrunner for this journey to knighthood. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres January 18th, 2026, on HBO. [end-mark] The post Westeros Gets Better Jokes and Worse Wigs in New <i>A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms</i> Trailer appeared first on Reactor.