By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated 20 seconds ago

LEGO has been making incredible licensed playsets for years, including Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, both Marvel and DC, and, you know, any other nerd franchise you can think of. Thanks to Brent Waller, an inventive Australian fan who happens to work as a 3-D artist, The X-Files made it through the LEGO Ideas process and will soon become a reality. To celebrate, LEGO brought back Gillian Anderson as Agent Scully for a fun sneak peek trailer:

Recreate Mulder’s Office In Your Office

The X-Files LEGO set clocks in at 1,478 pieces, and includes eight minifigs: Mulder and Scully, Skinner, The Cigarette Smoking Man (or Carl Busch to get around the whole “Smoking” thing), Mr. X, Agent Krycek, a Gray Alien, and best of all, The Flukeman. It’s a two-layered set with the FBI office on the bottom, and then a forest up top complete with a hovering UFO. As evidence that this was designed by a fan, Mulder’s office includes pencils sticking out of the ceiling and sunflower seeds. There are also new tiles that show the “I Want To Believe” poster and “The Truth Is Out There.”

Waller explained in interviews that he first put together Mulder’s office back in 2014 while watching the show. Trying to capture The X-Files in a single LEGO diorama is impossible, but when you think about it, the office and a UFO encounter do hit the high points. The minifigs changed from the original LEGO Ideas submission, and there’s no Tooms trapped in a vent, but it looks fantastic.

The LEGO Ideas Program Is Filled With 90’s Nostalgia

The X-Files set went through the LEGO Ideas program, where fans upload their designs, and if they earn over 10,000 votes, LEGO designers will take a look at it and see if it can become an official set. Also in the works from the program are the Griswolds’ House from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and the Megazord from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, while past sets were made including E.T., Jaws, Seinfeld, and Friends. To say that the LEGO Ideas program has been a hit would be an understatement.

Anyone who buys The X-Files set from August 4th through the 10th will also receive a bonus gift: Scully’s Lab from the FBI Academy. It’s significantly smaller, only 221 pieces, but can combine with the main set to add to the diorama. As for the price, The X-Files set will be available for $199.99, proving that, again, nostalgia comes with a price.

It’s great to see Gillian Anderson back as Dana Scully, even if it’s only for a commercial, but then again, The X-Files revival series wasn’t exactly beloved by fans of the original run. A new, updated take on the series is in the works by Black Panther writer/director Ryan Coogler. Recent rumors point towards it being a movie rather than an ongoing series. Until we know for sure, fans can finally enjoy putting together their favorite FBI field agents in LEGO form, and who knows, if the set does well enough, maybe we’ll get a LEGO version of the Peacock’s house from “Home!”

You can buy The X-Files set directly on LEGO.com.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 11 seconds ago

Riddle me this, Bat-fans: what is the most iconic story to ever feature the Caped Crusader? There are many more obscure tales that might be the best Batman story (personally, I’m partial to Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth), but those aren’t the ones that completely changed this character’s trajectory. For my money (which admittedly doesn’t go nearly as far as Bruce Wayne’s), the most iconic story featuring the Dark Knight is Knightfall, which pitted this character against familiar foes and someone relatively new: Bane, a genius whose one and only goal is to break the Batman.

This was a comic that put Batman through the wringer and gave the center stage to Bane, who became such a prominent villain that he’d later headline Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. While that film captured some of the coolness of Knightfall, it only had surface-level similarities to the original comic. Eventually, many fans like myself despaired that we’d never see a faithful, onscreen adaptation of this iconic ‘90s tale. Fortunately, DC is here to prove us wrong: an animated Batman: Knightfall movie is dropping on August 25, and judging by the trailer, this is one film no Dark Knight fan will want to miss.

He Is The Knight

The premise of Knightfall is that a juiced-up genius, Bane, learns that Batman is secretly Bruce Wayne. He becomes obsessed with breaking the vigilante, but he decides to soften the Dark Knight up first by releasing almost all of his rogues’ gallery from Arkham. Batman is forced to fight a gauntlet of his worst foes, and waiting at the end of this gauntlet is the seemingly unstoppable Bane. The villain actually defeats our hero, leaving him broken. Bruce appoints an unstable new guy, Jean Paul Valley, to be the new Batman while he recovers. When Bruce returns, though, he discovers his replacement has become far scarier than any of the villains he fights. 

In the original DC Comics, this story was split into three parts: Knightfall (showing how Bane breaks Batman), Knightsquest (showing Bruce recovering while Jean Paul learns to be Gotham’s hero), and KnightsEnd (where Bruce returns to claim the mantle of the Bat from his crazy replacement). That’s why this movie’s full name is Batman: Knightfall, Part I: the studio will be releasing two more movies that will presumably fill out the rest of the story. This first film will be focusing entirely on the earliest arc, where Batman must fight all the escaped Arkham villains and then fight, guano a gunao, with Bane.  

The Bane Of Batman’s Existence

Judging from the trailer, it looks like the upcoming film will translate this arc very faithfully. It should be a real crowdpleaser, too, because the story is filled with one showdown after another between Batman and his most famous foes. As such, the original comic didn’t have that much of a story, and what little we got was primarily meant to give context to all the nonstop fighting. Still, Knightfall is notable for illustrating the toll that Batman’s endless crusade is having on his body and mind, and the trailer emphasizes the damage our hero has endured and how much his friends and family worry about him.

The trailer is filled with cool character moments and action sequences, and the animation looks beautiful (none of the stilted movement that ruined The Killing Joke). To me, what stood out the most was the voice work. Anson Mount (most famous for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) is doing his best as Batman to channel the late, great Kevin Conroy (of Batman: The Animated Series fame). In his brief appearance, Pablo Schreiber does a great, broody job as Jean-Paul Valley. Unfortunately, Michael Mando’s Bane is pretty “meh:” his voice is neither deep nor goofy, and he sounds like a D&D DM doing a poor attempt at a creepy voice.

Bad Bane voice acting aside, the trailer for Batman: Knightfall, Part I looks very solid. Fans of the original comic can look forward to finally getting a faithful adaptation, and everyone else can get a stylish new introduction to this iconic story. Will this film successfully scratch the itch for fans as we wait for updates about DCU’s upcoming Batman film? We’ll find out together when Batman: Knightfall, Part I releases on digital on August 25. 

By TeeJay Small
| Updated 21 seconds ago

Like many MCU fans, I’ve been following along with the drip-feed of Avengers updates with a mix of cautious optimism and thinly veiled concern since before the Doomsday title was even applied. With each new update, returning cast member, and behind-the-scenes shakeup, I’ve wondered how this film could possibly inspire the same audience turnout as installments like Infinity War and Endgame. Now, it is with great regret, and heaps of sarcasm, that I must admit: My Avengers: Doomsday hype has officially been squashed by the first official trailer.

Can Casual Fans Keep Up?

I’m already aware of the fact that there are millions of fans like me who have mentally checked out on the Disney+ Marvel shows a long time ago. While I enjoyed WandaVision and What If as much as any theatrical MCU experience, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about the barrage of shows we’ve received in the years since. Marvel’s box office stats have also done somersaults in the last decade or so, with outings like Eternals, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Thor: Love And Thunder serving as box office disappointments, or outright financial bombs. I’m also told that a film called The Marvels was released in 2023, though there’s no record of it in my brain whatsoever.

Despite a general waning of interest in the daily MCU minutiae, I had held on hope that an Avengers team-up would rouse attention from the cultural zeitgeist, especially with the Russo Brothers at the helm. But, after watching the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, I’m left with a sense that the movie will be a who’s who of who cares. Multiple shots within the 145-second trailer left me wondering “should I know who that is?” or “what is the significance of this interaction?” or “does this movie have a plot, or is it more of a My Dinner With Andre situation where dozens of superheroes sit around having thought-provoking conversations?”

The MCU used to be really good at balancing numerous characters around a single, coherent story. Most of the movies leading up to the Infinity saga are designed so brand new fans can keep up, and existing super-fans can enjoy every little easter egg and reference along the way. If the trailer is anything to go off, it looks like Doomsday will be loaded with Disney+ streaming characters that no employed adult would ever have the time to commit to memory. Maybe there’s a mandate that casual fans sit this one out, but it seems strange that Disney would rest their next landmark movie on the backs of Yelena Belova, Bob Reynolds, and Namora.

Better Find A Study Buddy

Ironically, this inability to juggle spinning plates is exactly the reason that nobody attempted to form an expansive cinematic universe like this before 2008. If you pitched the idea of turning the entire Marvel Comics roster into an interconnected sequence of blockbuster films before the success of The Avengers, producers would shut you down because they wouldn’t want to alienate non-comic readers, or shell out millions for an ever-expanding cast of A-listers. These days, it feels like you can’t enjoy a new Marvel film unless you’ve committed to 14 hours of mandatory homework first.

Obviously, it’s way too soon to know for sure if Avengers: Doomsday will be any good. We’ll probably get a few new trailers, some carefully-laid behind the scenes leaks, and an overwhelming media blitz from the 400 cast members before it hits theaters. But for now, my excitement is suspended. That is, unless somebody can confirm that the MF DOOM song “Doomsday” will be used in the movie. That would get me back on board immediately.