A Puffy Yoda

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Tonight! Disney wants to build a Primo lightsaber for you. A surprising hero might be coming to a theater near you, and a site close to my heart comes back on this edition of Multiverse Tonight! There are many universe out there. Welcome to the one with news about all the others. This is Multiverse Tonight. Now, here's your host, Thomas Townley. Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 14 of Multiverse Tonight. I'm your host, Thomas Townley. This episode was recorded on December 4th, 2018. Thank you to all of you who are listening, and uh please be sure to share us with others. By the way, I'm now streaming streaming the live recording of the show on Twitch. I usually record the show between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday afternoon. And by the way, if you really want to help me out like my good friend Anne, you can tip me via co uh Coffee, that's K O F I, Patreon, and now directly from the Radio Public app and the Buzz Sprout Player. We also have some nice merchandise for sale on our T Public store. If you're listening to this the week that I'm recording it, they're doing a s they're doing sales and then they're doing several sales during the month of December, so uh go out and check that out. That's at TPpublic.com slash stores slash multiverse dash tonight. Check out uh multiverse tonight.com to see our show notes, the affiliate links, the occasional original column, and much much more. I know I need to do more original columns. Uh it's you know a matter of time. Now let's get on with the show with some Star Trek or or excuse me, Star Wars news.

Star Wars News

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Nick Malley, the special effects artist best known for his work on Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, thinks that updating Yoda in the prequels may have been a mistake. Nick, promoting for the love of sci-fi convention, told The Express quote, they built a puppet for episode one, the Phantom Menace, but made the mistake of trying to update Yoda. They re sculptured him and made him have a different material which was heavier. Then, because he was transparent instead of opaque, it meant light didn't hit him the same way, so his color wasn't the same. They also needed to put a stronger mechanism in, so the result was a Yoda that looked quite different and generated a lot of criticism. Ultimately, you can't redesign grandma. Grandma is grandma. She might be old fashioned, but that's grandma. You need to save your new stuff for your new characters. Yeah, Yoda did look kind of puffy and off color in the prequels. But maybe he was just, you know, retaining salt when he was younger. And also out of the UK, according to former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking at the DUP conference, let's slip that George Lucas hopes to shoot an Obi Wan Kenobi movie in Northern Ireland. Quote What was the biggest grossing movie last year? Star Wars. And where does George Lucas propose to make a follow up about Obi Wan Kenobi? Northern Ireland, unquote. Now, an Obi Wan movie one off uh would has been rumored to be in the works for some time now. But can't we believe Boris Johnson? The one offs are believed to be shelved after Solo's poor performance. Could an Obi Wan film be in the works for say Disney Plus? Or could the former mayor of London be full of it? I guess we'll just have to wait to find out. The be continued, I guess. And speaking of rumors, could Padme show up in episode nine? The rumor going around is that Kylo will see Padme's funeral on the boo, as well as the moment where Anakin chokes her using the world between worlds seen in Star Wars Rebels. Now there are there is no absolutely no evidence of this, so this rumor would best be put in the disbelief category. However, it would be intriguing. Meanwhile, over on the other side of the pond, Disney has unveiled a first look at two of the rides opening at Star Wars Land next year. Let's take a look at the first one there was the Malayum Falcon Smugglers Run, wh well which will put visitors in the role of one of three members of the Falcon flight crew. Now also there also is Star Wars Rise of the Resistance, which puts you in a virtual battle between the Resistance and the First Order with a face off with Kylo Wren. Do you win if you make him cry? A report from Walt Disney World News today says that Disney has in its work in its works a patent for the most realistic lightsaber yet. According to the report, quote, the new technology exemplified in this patent application is used to build a lightsaber hilt that works like a motorized tape measure. At the press of a button, the tapes will extend to a total length several times that of the hilt itself. The tapes will also have some kind of LED lighting inside, such that the lightsaber can light up similar to the way they appear in the films. In simpler terms, the saber is self extending and self-lighting. They went on to say that this will be likely pretty pricey and will probably be sold as a collector's item. Sounds kinda cool. I'm gonna bet the cost will be somewhere around five hundred dollars. Any other bets? Now Disney has announced a new series of kid friendly animated shorts called Galaxy of Adventures that will recreate classic Star Wars moments. The first six are available now on a new website as well as the Star Wars Kids YouTube channel. The series is aimed at three to five year olds. James Waugh, Lucasfilm's vice president for franchise content and strategy, told Star Wars.com that this initiative is designed to be a kid friendly introduction to the franchise. Quote, Over the years, I've had so many of my friends who are parents tell me how much they want to introduce their kids to Star Wars, but didn't feel that their kids were quite ready for the movies yet. The trailer features a repurpose of some of the dialogue and scenes from the original films, but uses an animation style filled with wild, exaggerated movement motion and action to better entice younger viewers. Wa also noted that the bite-sized shorts will quote really drill into moments to tell simple stories, unencumbered by the needs of a traditional narrative structure. Unquote. Anyway, let's go to some Star Trek news.

Star Trek News

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We start Trek News this edition with a new Star Trek mobile game, Star Trek Fleet Command. It's a mobile game mobile strategy game that takes place in the Kelvin timeline from the JJverse films. Writer for the game, Mike Johnson, on a Q ⁇ A on the Fleet Command Facebook page, said that the game will showcase a post Star Trek Beyond story. Quote The game is indeed set in the Kelvin universe. It starts just before Star Trek Beyond. One story will encompass the events of Beyond, and then will go beyond Beyond. If Mike Johnson sounds familiar, it's because he was the writer for Star Trek Boldly Go, the comic that continued the Kelvin Timeline story. The series was cancelled after eighteen issues. The game will give Mike the chance to continue working with those characters. The game will let players fight for the Federation, Klingon, or Romulans. Fans have noted the use of a DederDacks warbird in the trailer, which wasn't introduced in the prime timeline until the twenty fourth century. Mike has an answer in this for with a quote in the Kelvin timeline after the destruction of Vulcan, and with tensions rising, the Romulans accelerated their RD. We will see Kelvin versions of many prime timeline ships we haven't seen in the films. Is there a favorite ship you'd like to see? Unquote. The game is now available in the Google and Apple app stores. Now, the new game Fallout 76 has planned a reference to the Star Trek Next Generation episode Darmac in the game. The Easter egg can be found in Tanagra Town, which is itself a reference to the episode. When exploring the town, some wall graffiti reads Darmac plus Jalad. In other words, at one point Darmac and Gilad in Tanagra. Neat. Now Nicholas Meyer, who directed Star Trek II, Star Trek Six, and worked on Star Trek IV, is disappointed with how Star Trek in the Darkness mangled its use of elements from The Wrath of Khan. Speaking with Tom Connors on the Midnight's Edge YouTube channel, Mr. Meyer said quote In my sort of artistic worldview, if you're going to do a homage, you have to add something. You have to put another layer on it, and they didn't. Just by putting the same words in different characters' mouth mouths didn't add up to anything. If you have some someone dying in one scene and sort of being resurrected immediately after there's no real drama going on, it's just bec it just becomes a gimmick or gimmicky, and that's what I found to be alt found it to be ultimately. You know, Nick, I really couldn't agree more. In that same interview, Meyer revealed that the con related series that he was working on was titled Seti Alpha V. Seti Alpha V was planned as a three night event. Myers again quote I was commissioned to write a three hour or three night event, and that's what I did. It's called Seti Alpha V. And I don't know the current status. It's been up in the air. Partially there's there was a lot of confusion between CBS and there were big upheavals at CBS, and while they sort of didn't know who was in charge, they also didn't know what they were going to do with Seti Alpha V. I'm not exactly sure what's happened. I haven't heard from them in some time. Given our next story, I'm kind of doubtful will see this, unless they have nothing better to make. When season two of Discovery comes out, you might notice one name not attached, the R previously mentioned Nicholas Meyer. That's because he wasn't invited back. Speaking again with Midnight's Edge, he said quote, I was involved with it for the first year and I worked on it. I wrote things on it, and then I was not invited for the second year. I don't know why. I was brought on to it by Brian Fuller, who was the original showrunner. I had never worked on a television series before and thought that would be an interesting thing to do, as indeed it was. What my contributions to it were hard to determine, because television is a group effort, and there's so much overlap that I can't either claim or refute credit for the end result because the difference between what is written and what gets filmed and what was talked about in conference before things are written is very very hard to determine. What with what you would call meaningful or objective precision. This may have been a part of the creative team deathmatch that seems to have occurred during and after season one. Currently the sole surviving showrunner is Alex Kurtzman. India Today reports that a new aircraft, inspired by Star Trek, is the first plane with no moving parts and will create a quieter, simpler aircraft with no combustion emissions. The aircraft is powered by Ionic Wind, which is described in the report as quote, a silent but mighty flow of ions which generates enough thrust to propel the plane over a sustained, steady flight. The plane, currently called a version two EAD Airframe or V two, weighs four point four pounds and has a wingspan of about sixteen point four feet. It is said to be completely silent and does not depend on fossil fuels to fly. Stephen Baird, an MIT aerospace engineer, says that they have a long way to perfect the design and he's unsure if the aircraft will be practically useful and widely used, but he thinks it might have a promising future, perhaps being useful for drones, and perhaps someday he could use it for impulse engines in our starships. Here's hoping. We still have no details about what or who or any real details about what will be in the Picard's show, not even the title. However, we do have some interesting tidbits. Michael Dorn, who, as you know, played Wharf on the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, spoke with Inverse. And he told them what it would take to get him back in the Klingon makeup. Quote, I'm only interested in if it's something really interesting, if the character was a major part of the franchise or whatever the show is. He's not just going to show up, beat somebody up, and then go home. In other words, he just doesn't want he just doesn't want to do a cameo or a guest spot. He wants to have a big, meaty role. Maybe he can be Picard's bodyguard. Mr Wharf, kick that bullion's ass. Now, are you having trouble sleeping? Uh you can try drugs or eliminating caffeine or some white noise to block out sounds, or you can use the following video from YouTube. That right there should be familiar to uh Star Trek fans. That's the ambient engine noise you've heard on just about every episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. The video has that noise playing on a constant loop and has been listened to more than 3.4 million times. Video maker Spike Snell, who created the video, told Mashable that he's as surprised as anyone. Quote, I started obsessing a little bit on that deep rumbling noise as it felt like one of the key aspects of many sci-fi shows. I had never imagined at that point so many others would be interested in it or other similar sounds. I realized it was striking a heavy chord globally. Sometimes I print out the very best comments and put them on my fridge to remind myself that I'm not wasting time wasting all my time with this project. You know, unquote. I've uh never used the background noise of the Enterprise to g to get to sleep. And but that's why I have an air purifier in my bedroom. So I make my own white noise. But you gotta admit. This is really soothing. And let's ta let this noise take us to DC News.

DC News

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What better to think of during the winter holidays than nuclear winter? That's what DC Comics brings you in the DC Nuclear Winter Special. The one shot contains short stories of DC heroes living in a variety of future scenarios. Some of the characters featured in the special include older versions of Aquaman, Catwoman, and Green Arrow, legacy characters like Batman 666 and Superman 1 Million, and DC's original post-apocalyptic hero Commandy. A preview of the issue on AVClub.com features a supergirl short that reveals Kara trying to save her daughter from a planet on the brink of total collapse. The story comes from writer Tom Taylor and artist Tom Derenick and Yasmin Putri. This issue is out now. In other DC Comics news, DC has postponed, if not outright cancelled, Batman and the Outsiders. The first issue was slayed for release on december twelfth. DC does say that the series will be resolicited, but it's unknown why it was pulled in the first place. Jason Mamoa, star of the upcoming Aquaman movie, will be hosting Saturday Night Live on december 8th with musical guest Mumford Sons. I bet we'll be seeing a lot of DC jokes in that episode. And while we're on Aquaman, James Wan, the director of the movie, took to Twitter to confirm that Julie Andrews will be in the movie voicing Carathin, the most powerful creature on Earth. Carathen has been described as a giant undersea creature that holds the key to uniting Atlantis and the surface worlds. As for Andrews, producer Pierre Serafin explained that quote, we wanted the Caraton to have the voice of a classic British actress, albeit some somewhat digitally altered. And when we found out Julie was interested and available and excited to do it, casting her was a no-brainer. Interesting enough, Aquaman debuts just a few days before Mary Poppins returns, the role that Julie Andrews made famous comes out in theaters. So we'll be it'll be uh Mary Poppins voice versus Mary Poppins. He And while you're waiting for Aquaman, why not watch Jason Momoa's Aquaman Press Tour YouTube? Jason has launched a channel to vlog the long press tour for the movie. Currently there's a seven minute video show showing the China Lake of the tour. We'll have a link to it in our show notes. Of course, we all know what you're looking forward to in this movie. Black Manta. That is an aw that is an awesome looking costume. You know, if you're if you're not watching the video of the of of our little show here, you're missing a a great piece. Uh go over to our YouTube channel and uh what and see it. Anyway. Now that a movie that will likely never see the light now for a movie that will likely never see the light of day. Justice League Dark. JLD has been development for a few years and uh has seen two directors come and go. The first one was Oscar winning Guillermo Del Toro, who is also writing the script. Now we've learned from Del Turo that through a series of tweets that he did complete the script before he left. He also mentioned he had also completed a script for Pacific Rim two, which Universal then had written by others. Del Turo's directoral successor, Doug Lyman, who left in May of last year to the scheduling conflicts, has said that if he it would he would like to return to Warner Brothers if they ever wanted to do the movie. However, that still doesn't look likely. Maybe we can all convince DC to take this that script and produce a graphic novel of it. Just so we can see what Benicio was working on. How about it, DC and Warner Brothers? Take my money, please. And uh a little while back we got word from Warner Brothers that they were working on a new gods movie. Now we have word via the rap that they've hired Gareth Dunnett Alcoare to write a blue beetle movie based on the Jamie Reese version of the hero. Now look at the Character background for you, Jamie wields an alien scarab that can form armor and weapons over his body. The character is the third to hold the title of Blue Beetle, the first two being Dan Garrett and more widely known Ted Cord, who held the uh suit in the nineties. Jamie Rees would also be the first Latino character to get their own DC superhero film. Now no other details have been forthcoming. Could we possibly get a blue a booster gold movie too? You must have Booster Gold with Blue Beal, it's only fair. Over on the TV side of things, a new poster has been released for season four of Legends of Tomorrow with a surprising character on it. Bebo, the fluffy blue god. The character is being held by Mick Rory. Also featured prominently is Nora Dark, John Constantine, Ava Sharp, and Charlie. Earlier this year, showrunner Phil Clemmer spoke to comicbook.com Against the whole founding principle of the show and what it means to be a legend. It's kind of a punk rock ethos of oddballs are not just welcome, oddballs are recommended. The straight over the plate superheroes wouldn't function well with our suit with our hero with our characters. I think that's why people draw inspiration from the show, because a lot of people, myself included, feel like weirdos. Then the idea that you would find a kindred group who are weird in different ways, but they compliment each other in a really cool way is appealing. They tolerate each other as best they can. It's not cuddly feel good. Our guys are sarcastic with each other, they're like a family who fights all the time, but then would give their life without question for one another. I think that's why we're able to bring new people in because I feel like everybody's astray, or certainly people who are searching for belonging and family. They find it unexpectedly on the Wave Rider. Comic book legend Denny O'Neill is set to be honored for his lifetime achievements in pursuing causes of peace and justice on december seventh and eighth at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta during the comic books and social justice weekend event being held in conjunction with the Hero Initiative Cre uh charity for comic creators in need. The writer and former editor at DC Comics will speak about changing about the ch about bringing change through comics. O'Neill told Newsarama, quote, I have people come up to me and tell me that sometimes reading these stories did influence them. That's good news because I never intended to change people's minds about things. I don't think you can do that. But one thing I did want to do was get young people thinking about these things. Maybe if people start thinking about it young enough and grow up with the problems, they will have a better shot at coming up with the ans with answers. At his appearance, O'Neill will discuss his life and how his discharge from the Navy led to his life's work in newspapers and comic books. About accepting the invitation, then he said, quote, I accepted her invitation because hell, Jimmy Carter, for my money, is our best ex president. There's much more in the article up on up at News Arama. I'll have a link to it in our show notes. I'd like to thank you for listening to this edition of Multiverse Tonight. You know, one way to support the show is to listen to the radio public. Every episode of Multiverse Tonight that is heard through the radio public app for iPhone and Android means that we make money so this show can grow. There's a link to our show in the episode notes. Give it a try today.

Marvel News

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Now, back with some Marvel news. And we begin Marvel News punch where we left off last week with Stan Lee. As you remember, Stan died a couple of weeks ago, and the cause of his death has now been revealed. According to a copy of Stan's death certificate obtained by TMZ, Stan's death was caused by cardiac arresp arrest with respiratory failure and congestive heart failure. It also listed that Stan suffered from asp aspiration pneumonia. Stan has been battling health problems all year, and he lost his wife Joan in July of 2017. Now it may say that he died of a heart attack, but we all know that it was from a broken heart. After Stan's death, the Arizona and Arizona State Marching Bands teamed up to do a special tribute to Stan Lee. The bands played the theme to Marvel's The Avengers while doing a marching routine. The show can be seen on the Mercy of Arizona's Marching Band YouTube page, and we'll have a link to that in our show notes. Thor Ragnarok director, Tiki Watiti, speaking with all fours the last lay, revealed the inspiration for Korg, the walking pile of rocks that he voiced in the movie. Quote In New Zealand, we have a lot of giant hulking bouncers, and that's their accent, dudes with very delicate souls. It's very intimidating when you try to get into a nightclub, and it's hard to decide what to do in that situation. Do you pick a fight with them because the voice betrays who they are? They end up breaking a lot of legs. And while he didn't appear in Infinity War, don't worry, Kevin Feige told Fandango that he still has plans for Korg. So, did you see Venom or were you like me and you missed the movie in theaters? Well, no worry, the movie, which was in theaters in October, will be out on digital on December eleventh, and on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K on december eighteenth. The bonus materials include Venomode, which shows you pop-ups about the film, as well as deleted and extended scenes, a mini documentary, and much more. Remember remember when it used to take a year before a movie would get to DVD? Those were the days. We also got some awards news here. Black Panther has been dominated in the drama feature film category for the Humantis Prize. The awards look to honor film and TV projects which entertain and enrich audiences. Also nominated is the Incredibles 2, which will compete for the Family Feature Film Award. The winners will be announced on February 8th. Sony Pictures Animation has such good feelings about Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse that, according to the Hollywood Reporter, they are already planning a sequel and an all-female spin-off film. Sony has tapped on Legendary Defenders showrunners, Joaquim Dos Santos, to head the sequel, and Lauren Montgomery to handle the all-female spin-off. The spin-off will reportedly feature Spider Gwen, Spider Woman, Madame Webb, Spider Girl, and Silk. I'm still not a fan of the animation style they're using, but I think the movie sounds good, and these spin-offs sound good as well. Netflix has cancelled another of the Marvel shows. Daredevil will not be getting a season 4 from the streaming service. Reportedly, this was not because Disney wanted the m wanted the show back, Disney just decided to cancel it. And according to some news that came out within the past day or so, one of the reasons was was Netflix wanted a shorter season, something like an eight episode season, instead of you know extending it out to thirteen or more episodes. In a statement given the deadline, Netflix said quote, Mar Marvel's Daredevil will not return 4 4 season on Netflix. We're thankful to our partners at Marvel, showrunner Eric Olson, the show's writers, stellar crew, and incredible cast, including Charlie Cox as Daredevil himself, and we're grateful to the fans who have supported the show over the years. However, don't cry for Daredevil, my friends, there's a good chance we'll see him again on Disney's upcoming streaming service, Disney Plus, if not in his own show, maybe in someone else's show. And now we just have the fate of a couple more shows. The fate of Jessica Jones and the Punisher. I'm going to bet that the Punisher gets cancelled next. And just yesterday the trailer for Captain Marvel dropped. Let's watch.

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So scrolls are the bad guys. And you're a creed. A race of noble warriors.

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Noble warrior heroes.

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Your life begins and nearly ended.

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Now that that looks great. Yeah, I am I am so looking forward to this movie. Yeah. I I probably will make an an and a con a really big effort to go see this movie. Um you know, I hope I hope if you're listening to the audio version of the show, you go to YouTube and and watch that trailer. That looks good. Samuel L. Jackson, the way they de-aged him, I mean he doesn't look fake. I mean excellent. So anyway, uh let's continue on with Marvel News. We start off anyway, let's not continue on with Marvel News. Let's uh go to Geek News.

Geek News

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We start off Geek News with something a lot of people feel at Christmas time horror. Details about Annabelle III have been released for the sequel, which hits theaters next july third. Here's the synopsis. Determined to keep Annabelle from wreaking more havoc, demonologist Ed and Lorraine Warren bring the possessed doll to the locked artifacts room in their home, placing her safely behind sacred glass and enlisting a priest's holy blessing. But an unholy night of horror awaits as Annabelle awakens the evil spirits in the room, who all set their sights on a new target, the Warren's ten year old daughter, Judy and her friends. Ooh. This is directed and written by Gary Dauberman, who wrote The Conring II and the Nun. I'm surprised they didn't just rename it the Annabelle III. You know, because all his art movies start with the Continuing in the horror vein, the remake of Child's Play has launched a new website with details on the killer doll. The uh site claims quote Buddy comes with equipped equ to try that again. The site claims quote Buddy comes equipped with a highly intricate cloud backed voice recognition engine capable of identifying speech. Using sophisticated castline algorithms, Buddy can comprehend inflection, tonality, and subtle variations in the human voice. Buddy learns both from human interaction via its twenty sensors and cameras, which provide detailed, real time information about its environment. Buddy utilizes state of the art sensor designs which provide high resolution image recognition and grip sensitivity. Buddy comes preloaded with the ability to fluently comprehend and converse in both English and Spanish with the option to expand via the Catholic language app. I'm going to guess we're going killer robot trope instead of serial killer inhabiting doll body trope. Anyway, look and judge for yourself. The site is at best buddy with an eye dot com and the movie hits screens on june twenty first. Again, let's go with horror, but this time horror comedy. Zombieland 2 is bringing in Zoe Deutsch into the movie to play Jesse Eisenberg's Columbus character's love interest. According to deadline, through comic mayhem that stretches from the White House and through the Heartland, the Zombie Slayers must face off against many new kinds of zombies that have evolved since the first movie, as well as some new human survivors. But most of all, they have to face the growing pains of their own snarky makeshift family. They will be joined by Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, reprising the roles from the first one. Zombieland 2 runs in the theaters on october eleventh, twenty nineteen. And now switching to something completely different. Doctor Who fans rejoice. More stories are forthcoming featuring Billy Piper's Rose Tyler with a new audio series from Big Finish. Rose Tyler The Mention Canon. Which follows Rose as she jumps through dying parallel worlds in search of the only person who can save the multiverse, the Doctor. The four episode audio series which brings Piper back into the role will also feature Camille Cordry as Rose's mother Jackie, Sean Dingwell as Rose's dad Pete, Mark Benton as Alien Vesticator Clive Finch, and Ellie Garrett Garnett as Carolyn Finch. In the statement from Big Finish, Billy said, I love how normal Rose is, and yet really extraordinary. She lived a normal li average life, but she's incredibly curious and has enormous capacity for love and empathy and is really spirited. She is extraordinary, unquote. The idea for the series came from former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies. Producer David Richardson said in the news release, quote, I approached Russell T. Davies with the idea of Big Finish making a Rose Tyler's spinoff. He was very enthusiastic as always, and suggested we followed Rose's journey that ultimately leads her to find the doctor in the stolen earth. I found the proposal irresistible, and instantly script editor Matt Fitton and I were throwing around ideas. There is a whole multiverse of possibilities. Russell even suggested, including Jackie and Pete, who embraced my idea of including a parallel universe version of Clive, who of course was killed off in the TV series in the 2005 episode Rose. Russell guided us gently through the developments, stirring us towards ideas that worked brilliantly, ensuring things that needed improvement were fixed, and also throwing out the ideas that didn't work. I am absolutely delighted with what we have a family drama about the end of worlds. I love the love and loss and things that might have been and our brilliant cast might have embraced the emotional scripts. Rose Tyler, the Dimension Cannon, goes on sale next September. We now have a word reported from deadline.com that Preacher has been renewed for season four, with production set for the early twenty nineteen in Australia. AMC's president pro president Programming Entertainment Networks said quote A passionate base of fans found their way to Jesse Tulip and Cassidy and have followed along with their adventures at times indescribable adventures for three seasons. We are thankful to our partners at Sony and to Seth, Evan, and Sam for everything they have brought to this series. We are we were pleased to renew for fourth season. Like the super fans of Preacher, we can't wait to see where this journey leads next. Great news. Yeah, I really have to catch up sometime. I'm still way back in season two. First world problems. Nintendo has lifted some of the heavily some of its heavily heavy restrictions on how YouTube creators can monetize gameplay and livestream content. YouTube creators who want to monetize their content no longer have to join Nintendo's controversial partner program. Instead, creators can work within within YouTube's partner program, which leads the company which lets the company run ads on videos. On the statement on Nintendo's website, quote, as long as you follow some basic rules, we will not object to your use of gameplay footage and or screenshots captured from videos for which Nintendo owns the copyright in the content you create for appropriate video and image sharing sites. The rules given include the right to provide unique commentary, so let's play videos are so let's play videos or live streams with original commentary from the player from the players is a okay. However, it goes on to state that creators who want quote want to use the intellectual property of a third party, you are responsible for obtaining any necessary third party permissions, unquote. In other words, if you use a third party third party music or anything else from somewhere other than Nintendo, you'd better get their permission. This decision comes just in time for one of Nintendo's biggest and long awaited titles, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which is being released this Friday, december seventh. I already have my copy on pre order, I am so waiting for this for this video game. The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Joseph Simmons, announced that he would investigate video game loot boxes to ensure that children are being protected and parents are educated on the matter. In the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security That's a long list. Simmons has asked about the issue by Senator Maggie Hansen of New Hampshire, who asked that he look into the boxes. Hassan believes the boxes are a problem because children purchase the boxes and get a reward without association without the association of money with the boxes. And and uh without the association of money for the boxes, creating a kind of gambling problem in the young. It seems to me that putting some sort of age verification system might be in order. Something that the kitties can't circumvent by oh changing their birth date. Yeah, I'm looking at you you twelve year old who's born in nineteen eighty. The next story is near and dear to me. Flaming Dog Media has announced the relaunch of the online multimedia magazine sci-fiforme.com. Sci-fi for me will celebrate its tenth anniversary this March and will return with more emphasis emphasis on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Facebook in order to bring enhanced coverage of sci-fi fantasy and horror news. According to editor in chief and chief bottle washer, Jason Hunt, quote, with the success of the The Fangoria reboot and the decline in popularity for other genre sites that have taken political positions, it felt like the right move to make. Plus, with the 10th anniversary coming up, we couldn't just sit on the sidelines anymore. Starting in January, the lineup will include Returning Favorites, the H2O Podcast, with Mr. Hunt and his and Timothy Harvey, Salacious Crumbs, The Star Wars News Show, and a brand new show, Good Morning Multiverse, no relation, a news and discussion show airing on Saturdays on YouTube. This all starts on january fifth with the first episode of GMM and the hundred sixty fourth episode of H2O. And I would also like to announce my return to Sci-Fi for me as a column. I'll be bringing back the Longbox Hunter. Finally, we say goodbye the show the Spongebob SquarePants creator Steven Hillenberg, who has passed away at the age of fifty seven. According to Varati, Hillenberg's cause of death was ALS, which he div which he revealed that diagnosis back in March of twenty seventeen. Hillenberg has gained notoriety while had gained notoriety while working as a director on the Nick Tune Rocco's Modern Life, and by the final season in 1995, Steven was the show's creative director. After that, Hillenberg went on to create SpongeBob SquarePants, one of the network's most popular series, which has had an impressive run of a hut of 242 episodes, and just finished its eleventh season with a twelfth sea with a twelfth season coming next year. That will bring uh you know, we uh our uh hearts go out to uh Hillenberg's family You know that will bring us to the end of another big show. I have a request for you. I am planning a uh that brings us to the end of another big show. I have a request for you. I am planning a special show for the first one of twenty nineteen, and I would like you to tell me what geeky thing you're looking forward to in twenty nineteen, be it a show, a movie, a book, whatever. Uh just record a message or uh t type it out and send it to me at feedback at multiverse tonight dot com. That's feedback at multiverse tonight.com. Now uh also be sure to check out uh check us out on social media or at Twitter at multiverse tom and on Facebook and Instagram as well. And uh also if you'd like to contribute some money, please be sure to do so at ko dash fi kofi.com slash multiverse and on Patreon as well, and be sure to visit multiverse tonight.com and check out our affiliate l our affiliate marketplace links, and the link to our Tea Public store, show notes, and much much more. If you're a subscriber, be sure to share us with your friends, and if you're brand new to the show, please be sure to subscribe and leave us with some feedback and let us know how we're doing. Special thanks to Lobo Loco for our theme music. Thanks for watching Multiverse Tonight. We'll be back in two weeks. Now please exit the universe in an orderly fashion. Good night. Multiverse tonight is a production of Half Big Genre Production Copyright twenty eighteen. All rights reserved.