User blog:Paul.rea/Teen Wolf News 091917

Teen Wolf News 091917

Next On Teen Wolf – The Wolves Of War The final episode of Teen Wolf airs Sunday, September 24, 2017. It is episode 100 of the series and brings to an end more than seven years of work for creator Jeff Davis.
 * “The first time I saw it cut together with the right temporary score, I had a tear in my eye. I pleased myself as a fan. Hopefully, it’ll please others. It might piss some people off, but I made myself happy. I’m really happy with the last episode.”

Battlefield Reunion The episode - The Wolves of War - will bring together a number of the show’s former cast members for a final battle with the Anuk-Ite, hunters, and the people of Beacon Hills.
 * We know Kate Argent is out there with a vial of deadly Yellow Wolfsbane.
 * Derek Hale is chasing Kate.
 * Chris Argent is on his way back to town.
 * Ethan and Jackson are prisoners of the hunters.
 * We know already that Stiles will be back in Beacon Hills too.
 * Deucalion was down when last we saw him, but we learned before not to count him out.
 * Add to all that Scott's Pack and Peter Hale, and our heroes are still severely outnumbered.

Making It Work Behind the scenes, getting that many busy actors in the same place at the same time proved nearly impossible according to Davis.
 * “I know you’ve seen some behind the scenes footage of people all shooting in downtown LA. We only had a night to shoot down there. The rest of it, we did a bunch of close-ups on the stage when we were able to schedule that again.”

Faking the primary battlefield in the City Market stalls required the use of a technological marvel of moviemaking that the production purchased from China.
 * “We can shoot a plate while we’re out shooting in Downtown LA, stick the actor in front of this big LED screen, and it looks like they’re there. We can put one screen in front, one screen on the side and one screen above to create a reflection. It’s far better than greenscreen.”

All these stories also required additional time to resolve so The Wolves of War will be extra-long. The average length of an episode this season is 40 minutes. The finale clocks in at 50 minutes. That might not seem like much, but it’s actually a lot of story time on screen.

For example, the entire final battle with the Nogitsune and Oni at the school in The Divine Move – from the time Scott and the gang entered the snowy garden to the time Isaac trapped the fly in the box -  was about 11 minutes on screen. You can build entire worlds with 10 minutes of screen time.

How Will It End?

Jeff Davis actually prepared to end Teen Wolf before when MTV said Season 5 would be the last. He’s had a good long while to think about how he wants the whole thing to wrap up. The final scene is a flashforward of sorts, but he has assured me it won’t be a “Harry Potter” ending where we see where everyone ends up. What they’ve done is something different, but it should still leave fans with a sense of optimism for the world we’ve all inhabited for the last six years, three months, and 20 days.
 * “I’m really happy with the last scene. I had this idea for the last scene a long time ago, and I thought to myself, ‘I really hope this works. I hope this plays out.’ It feels like a really good series finale. It carries the message of the show forward. It has a lot to do with this new character Alec played by Ben Wadsworth.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Wadsworth appeared on the Teen Wolf set around the same time as Tyler Hoechlin and Dylan O'Brien were shooting in downtown LA. <p class="MsoNormal">Looking at the images, many of the fans commented on how Wadsworth looks a little like a much younger Tyler Posey. Davis agrees and says that’s on purpose.
 * <p class="MsoNormal">“I will tell you, the fact they sort of look similar did make me happy. There’s a reasoning behind that.”

<p class="MsoNormal">The series comes to an end starting Sunday night at 8 PM on MTV. You can also pick up new episodes through iTunes and Amazon Video.

<h2 class="MsoNormal">'Genotype' and 'Broken Glass' – Best Bits <p class="MsoNormal">These double features just about kill me since I stay up practically all night to write our OVERLY DETAILED RECAPS. This time I didn’t make it through the night. I decided to take a nap after finishing the Genotype recap and part of Broken Glass and didn’t wake up until noon on Monday. It’s been a long six years for me y’all. <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, here are your best bits from the night in no particular order –
 * Derek Hale returns. Everything about his return was perfection. The fact that they took the show to “fake” Brazil was perfect. Bringing in Kate was perfect. Derek fighting a bunch of guys and stealing a car was perfect. It was a great tribute to the character.
 * The Anuk-Ite mashup. I don’t know what I was expecting when Aaron and Quinn brought the two halves of the Anuk-Ite together. I imagined kind of a “Wonder Twin powers activate!” moment. What we got was a spider-filled tongue kiss and a headbutt. There’s a joke here about a craigslist ad requesting “light bondage” but …
 * Monroe’s lesson in hate was exceptional. She is apparently a great teacher. It is unfortunate though that she’s teaching ordinary people to be Nazi-like bastards.
 * Mrs. Finch’s complete mental breakdown was so much fun to watch. Teen Wolf proves once again that even the group we describe as “minor characters” have incredible acting chops when called to action. Michelle Clunie was bloody good, or, I guess, good at being bloodied.
 * Deucalion’s School For Fighting Blind was excellent (if a little long). When it comes right down to it, we know almost nothing about Deucalion, but there’s something about the character that makes us believe he has a plan and the expertise to help fix everything. It may be the way it’s written or the way Gideon Emery plays him or a combination of those things, but, if those bullets were filled with yellow wolfsbane, I'd be distraught at the way things turned out.
 * The Anuk-Ite Medusa act was money well spent by the production. Turning people to stone is an effective weapon for a creature that is literally nothing but bone and underdeveloped muscle, and creates an exciting challenge for Scott’s Pack.
 * Scott’s morals remain strong. Even after all the bad things done to him and his family by supernatural creatures and ordinary people, Scott is still looking for a way to end this thing without hurting anyone. He wants to knock out the Anuk-Ite in hopes that the good people of Beacon Hills will simply go back to being mildly afraid and desert Gerard’s army. I’m wondering just how many arrows in the back he’s willing to take to maintain his morals.
 * Lydia’s dreams this season actually make sense and move the story forward. Gone are the days where our Banshee would just hear a random sound or get a vague impression of what’s to come. Her dreams are now in living color, clearly defined and fully prophetic.
 * Nolan’s weak-willed double agent act was the most teenage thing ever on the show. Thanks to Froy Gutierrez’s stellar performance, you could see the wheels turning in his addled brain. He was weirded out by the blood and the guns and genuinely wanted to help. He formulates a plan whereby he literally sneaks around to the side of the werewolves, takes all kind of spy precautions, and thinks he gets away clean. Only someone very young would think that would actually work.
 * Gabe seemed a little too happy after beating down Nolan. He’s gone from uncertain hanger-on to full-fledged Hunter Youth.
 * Liam running across the tables in the library was the most epic right up until Quinn straight-armed him in the chest. Still, it was a beautiful moment.
 * The multiple uses of Wolfsbane this season is excellent for a canon keeper like myself. We’ve seen powdered, liquid, bullets, tranquilizer darts, intravenous drip, a laced lacrosse ball and wolfsbane mixed with chalk. It’s like somebody published a wolfsbane cookbook last year and the writers are trying every recipe before the end.

<p class="MsoNormal">There’s really so much more in the two episodes to love, but I have to publish this at some point so I’ll stop there. You can check out our OVERLY DETAILED RECAPS for the rest of the great stuff in Genotype and Broken Glass. American Assassin Outperforms Expectations <p class="MsoNormal">Dylan O’Brien’s first “adult” role brought in a healthy $14.8 million at the US box office over the weekend. International showings of the spy thriller American Assassin brought its worldwide take up to $20.9 million. In a year where big budget, star-studded blockbusters like The Dark Tower, Ghost in the Shell, Valerian, and Atomic Blonde opened in the same neighborhood, O’Brien’s American Assassin beat most expectations. <p class="MsoNormal">The critics were not so kind. Many of the bad reviews focused on the movie’s politically incorrect but accurate portrayal of our world (America actually does have enemies in some middle eastern countries that want to harm Americans). Others focused on the fact that American Assassin doesn’t bring anything new to the genre and some were devotees of the book and made it clear in their reviews that no adaptation would satisfy them.

<p class="MsoNormal">I saw the movie on Friday. It’s a good movie. It’s not earthshattering and shouldn’t win any awards, but I’ll watch it again when it hits Netflix and would like to see more of these characters in future sequels.

<p class="MsoNormal">It’s not like the Bourne films no matter how many times people try to draw that comparison. It’s a pretty bog-standard CIA spy flick. Picking up the story when the main character is still in his mid-twenties is both fresh and entirely accurate. The average age of a “true believer” on either side of the war on terror is squarely in the early 20s.

<p class="MsoNormal">Obsessive revenge fantasies drive O’Brien’s character. The difference between Mitch Rapp and most folks is that he is willing to go to great lengths to actually make the fantasy come true. O’Brien gives a layered performance, but the film is always at its best when Michael Keaton and O’Brien are on screen together. Their chemistry is palpable.

I will mention that I wouldn’t have gone to see this film in the theater without MoviePass.com picking up the ticket price. Based on the trailers, it’s just not the kind of movie that gets me off my couch. Having seen it, I can say it is worth seeing even if you have to pay full price. While it doesn’t break any new ground in the highly-skilled-operative-takes-on-multiple-enemy genre, it’s solid entertainment from stem to stern.