Vox - Super Bowl 2018 Patriots vs. Eagles: commercials, halftime performance, and biggest momentshttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2018-06-13T11:50:02-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/167294172018-06-13T11:50:02-04:002018-06-13T11:50:02-04:00How athletes visiting the White House became a political flashpoint
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<figcaption>Philadelphia Eagles players kiss the Lombardi Trophy after defeating the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 52 at US Bank Stadium on February 4, 2018, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. | Patrick Smith/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>A historian explains the origins of the tradition.</p> <p id="UUdPry">When Larry Bird, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics player, turned down his chance to meet with Ronald Reagan after winning the 1984 NBA championship, he made history: Bird became the first well-known athlete to refuse an invitation to the White House. His cryptic <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/brady-osweiler-jordan-bird-among-players-to-skip-previous-white-house-visits/">reasoning</a> at the time: “If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me.” </p>
<p id="kVmhhd">But when it comes to the reverse — the president refusing to honor the tradition of meeting with championship athletes — Donald Trump remains unprecedented. Most recently, President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/sports/philadelphia-eagles-white-house.html">abruptly </a>disinvited recent Super Bowl champions the Philadelphia Eagles this month because their athletes kneeled in protest during the national anthem, a “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/eagles/2018/06/05/eagles-nfl-white-house-donald-trump-sarah-sanders-national-anthem/673900002/">political stunt</a>,” according to press secretary Sarah Sanders.</p>
<p id="iKmHbi">This is despite the fact that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/5/17429276/trump-nfl-eagles-protest-fox-news">no player</a> on the team actually did so last season: At most, some key players publicly stated they had no interest in going to the White House in the first place because of Trump’s statements on athletes’ protests. </p>
<p id="U86GfH">The Eagles aren’t alone. Last year, Trump rescinded his invite to Golden State Warrior guard Steph Curry after the player criticized him. “Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team,” Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911572182060453893">tweeted</a>. “Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!” </p>
<p id="Mgsi7t">But when and why did this tradition of inviting athletes to the White House start in the first place? According to Gerald Gems, a professor at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, and the author of several books about how class, race, and gender spill into sports, it’s always been about the president’s image. “These all just become photo ops to enhance their favorability in a lot of ways, supposedly invoking sport as non-political, although it’s been political for over 100 years,” he told me.</p>
<p id="YzcqHJ">I recently reached out to Gems about the history of this White House tradition. This conversation has been edited and condensed. </p>
<h4 id="duScRO">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="hBDs6W">What’s behind this tradition of athletes who win championships going to the White House? </p>
<h4 id="nQnvW7">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="ob86jR">The history really started quite a long time ago. The first occasion, I believe, was when Andrew Johnson was president, in 1865, and he invited a couple of amateur baseball teams to the White House. Baseball had become a popular sport in the wake of the Civil War, and the soldiers who played it during their off time brought it back to their towns. The sport ended up spreading pretty quickly in the country as a result. </p>
<p id="BRoNZp">After that, Ulysses S. Grant was the first to invite a professional team, which was the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Redlegs. [The tradition] drops off for a while; then in 1910, President William H. Taft<strong> </strong>becomes the<strong> </strong>first one to throw out a baseball to start a season, and that’s a ritual that’s continued. But it really spiked again when Richard Nixon became very involved with football, and it continued from that point on. </p>
<h4 id="ROku6B">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="m2tsJP">Who would you say were the first athletes to decline to come to the White House? </p>
<h4 id="cs1dtc">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="kfuASm">The first significant one was in 1984, when <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/celtics/2017/03/05/some-celtics-didn-make-white-house/8aslkwEScRtV9zQhttXmnI/story.html">Larry Bird</a> and some of the other Boston Celtics players who won the championship refused to accept Ronald Reagan’s invitation. The next one of substance that comes to mind was when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/10/sports/on-pro-basketball-the-king-has-no-time-for-bush.html">Michael Jordan</a> didn’t visit the first President Bush with the rest of the Chicago Bulls. </p>
<p id="nBrrDn">But what you see in the difference between today and those occasions is that these other athletes, they came up with reasons why they couldn’t come — family responsibilities or other reservations that had already been made. Jordan just opted to play golf rather than visit in 1991. The baseball player Manny Ramirez, who played for the Boston Red Sox, didn’t show to meet the second Bush and claimed that his grandmother died, which caused his absence in 2004. But when he missed the invitation again in 2007, President Bush quipped, “I guess his grandmother died again.” </p>
<p id="tYp2wS">Athletes of the past were less overtly political. There are outliers like Muhammad Ali, of course. But Jordan was criticized for not taking a political stance. He and his sponsors were worried about the bottom line. Athletes today make so much money that they are not as worried about such financial repercussions. </p>
<h4 id="6ZwI2o">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="j1hfoW">Is it unprecedented for a president to uninvite athletes to the White House as Trump just did to the Philadelphia Eagles?</p>
<h4 id="8W3qx2">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="IclR7R">Yeah, I think so. And this is a classic strategy Trump uses, where he frequently tries to get the upper hand to some extent by changing the story when it doesn’t work out his way. He just said that the Eagles players were disappointing their fans and trying to put the onus on them. But they’ve already said that was not the case, and none of them ever even kneeled. </p>
<h4 id="5MJw86">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="MlJzOs">When, historically, do you first see sports and politics began to really cross?</p>
<h4 id="XVU7GJ">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="EmLFpM">You can start to see it even by the 1890s, especially when Teddy Roosevelt becomes president. He made these speeches about the necessity of maintaining football to create leadership in men. He wanted to create a martial spirit between Americans and Great Britain. In the 1890s, we were trying to surpass Great Britain economically and were contending with them to become the “leader” of the world. You saw it played out in the London Olympics in 1908 — there was great animosity between the Americans and the British athletes. </p>
<p id="B5yMAa">By the 1920s, for instance, the State Department had secret plans to use the worldwide popularity of Johnny Weissmuller, who was a great Olympic swimmer and a movie star, to promote American products abroad. And, of course, in the Philippines [which was a US colony from 1989 to 1946], physical education and sports became one of the biggest parts of the Philippine education curriculum through the US. </p>
<p id="evS0us">The US government initially used soldiers to teach American games to the Filipinos, and then sent American teachers to the islands. Sport involves competition, which is the basis for a capitalist economy. It taught leadership and cooperation, the basis for a democracy, and it taught respect for authority in the form of referees and umpires. We’ve used sports throughout the world in similar fashion to teach acceptance of American values in a less overt way.</p>
<h4 id="3qNQMD">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="RbyM0O">When it comes to the national anthem, playing it before games is relatively new, right? </p>
<aside id="KbSrj5"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"It’s actually very strange for sports games to begin with the national anthem","url":"https://www.vox.com/2016/9/3/12774172/colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-why"}]}'></div></aside><h4 id="kqlbzu">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="AY8rA9">That’s true. During World War I, baseball players were being accused of being draft dodgers for not going into the service. Major League Baseball decided to start playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before their games as a way to show patriotism. So they started this patriotic push to try to overcome this perception of them as being anti-American as it relates to the war.</p>
<p id="AgTMzX">The whole national anthem thing with football, I think, starts with President Nixon, who as a big football fan made a push among football fans to attract a following. It’s similar to Trump’s campaign in terms of developing or speaking to his base. Nixon, too, would make a lot of trips to places like Kansas State University, a school in a red state, where he was not going to get a lot of opposition to the Vietnam War. </p>
<p id="e405DD">And, yes, you’ve seen the same thing with Trump. He <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nascar/news/president-donald-trump-honors-martin-truex-jr-at-white-house-praises-nascar-fans-for-patriotism/">welcomed and praised</a> the NASCAR drivers from the South who came to the White House and, recently, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/sports/trump-hosts-university-of-alabamas-crimson-tide-at-white-house/2018/04/10/8d2750f6-3cf6-11e8-955b-7d2e19b79966_video.html?utm_term=.3617a4ad1743">University of Alabama</a> football team. All of them, and not that they pledged their allegiance or loyalty to him, but they certainly didn’t say anything negative about him. For politicians in general, and presidents in particular, these all just become photo ops to enhance their favorability in a lot of ways, supposedly invoking sport as non-political, although it’s been political for over 100 years.</p>
<h4 id="hpu8SG">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="H5XpOs">I’m curious as to whether you think there’s a racial element to Trump’s criticisms of the NFL. </p>
<h4 id="y40Mcn">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="lld75H">Clearly. And let’s just say this — the NBA is much more political than the NFL is, and they handle it better. Last year, the Golden State Warriors refused to attend, and both the Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers have already come out and stated that they don’t even want an invitation, right before the Warriors just won. </p>
<p id="lJN1q3">When it comes to [Colin] Kaepernick and the other NFL players, it just has nothing to do with the flag, or the national anthem. It’s about police shooting black people. That’s what the protest is about. They were kneeling down in protest of the increasing number of shootings that seemed to be taking place all around the country. Trump turned that story around to make it about disrespecting the country itself — the flag, patriotism, American ideals, etc. — which is not at all the case or what they were protesting.</p>
<h4 id="EmSUX7">Eric Allen Been</h4>
<p id="W6fsXS">What do you think about the claim — which is so often <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/10/10/why_sports_and_politics_dont_mix_135224.html">put out there</a> — that sports and politics just shouldn’t get mixed together?<strong> </strong></p>
<h4 id="aXPzaD">Gerald Gems</h4>
<p id="iUfAm8">Yeah, that’s what they’ve been saying for over a century. But it’s inevitable that they do. The Argentinian national soccer team, for instance, just backed out of a game in Jerusalem. And this was a political rejoinder to the fact that Trump is trying to push Jerusalem as the new capital, and he’s put the US Embassy there. </p>
<p id="brWmVp">Certain nations buy their way into hosting the World Cup; allegedly, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-fifa-garcia-report-20170627-story.html">Qatar and Russia</a> did. The Olympics is clearly a political event in that the host nation presents its own vision of itself to the rest of the world. </p>
<p id="Uofv9t">[North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un is a big basketball fan. He invited Dennis Rodman to play over there. That sounds silly, but it’s another way to open channels between countries that seem to be enemies. Now, apparently, they’re going to at least negotiate. Sports is a way to open up channels that might not otherwise be available. There are just all kinds of ways sports play into politics.</p>
<p id="urNKm2"><strong>Correction:</strong> The Argentinian, not Brazilian, soccer team backed out of playing in Jerusalem. </p>
<p id="AI2jQ5"><em>Eric Allen Been is a freelance writer who has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, Vice, Playboy, the New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and TheAtlantic.com.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2018/6/13/17458226/white-house-eagles-visit-trumpEric Allen Been2018-02-05T12:09:13-05:002018-02-05T12:09:13-05:00Ram ad uses Martin Luther King’s anticapitalist sermon
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<img alt="King At Home" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aM86fX38a3q-SghtLqdxkNqPvDk=/0x0:3200x2400/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58571371/74279041.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Did they read the whole sermon?</p> <p id="mCrAwt">Martin Luther King Jr.’s words rang out on televisions across the country Sunday night — in an ad to sell pickup trucks. </p>
<p id="Qi1nm7">In a Super Bowl spot for Ram Trucks, <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct/">King’s “Drum Major Instinct” sermon</a> plays over shots of people hard at work: a teacher instructing children, soldiers marching, volunteers handing out food, and a family chopping wood. The message from Ram is that the trucks are built to serve. King says: </p>
<blockquote><p id="krBiGS">“If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized —wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”</p></blockquote>
<div id="WNM29W"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SlbY1tGARUA?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<p id="VQdvWl">Though his message about service remains<strong> </strong>mighty, King’s speech came 50 years ago to the day on Sunday, at a point near the end of his life when King focused even more vocally on <a href="https://theundefeated.com/features/lets-not-forget-martin-luther-king-jr-was-preaching-economic-justice-too/">economic justice,</a> dignity at work, and the destructive forces of systemic poverty.</p>
<p id="3IP7SZ">In fact, economic inequality was just one of the facets of capitalism that King openly took issue with. His February 4, 1968, sermon was, in part, an examination and takedown of “a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first,” when it comes to monetary possessions. In other words, King was not a fan of this instinct. Take, for instance, an excerpt from this same speech about advertising itself (emphasis my own): </p>
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<p id="pqREyC">And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.</p>
<p id="doNXL9"><strong>Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car.</strong> In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. That’s the way the advertisers do it.</p>
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<p id="NA3TeJ">This sermon literally also discourages people from spending too much money on their cars. Yes, it really does.</p>
<p id="osaAC9">King’s sermons, which <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/mlk-intellectual-property-problems/">are not in the public domain</a>, are notoriously difficult to republish or reuse. The King family estate <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/15/54-years-later-you-still-have-to-pay-to-use-martin-luther-king-jr-s-famous-i-have-a-dream-speech/?utm_term=.9711156d7153">sued</a> USA Today and CBS for republishing or broadcasting his “I Have a Dream” speech in its entirety. A planned King biopic with Steven Spielberg on tap to direct has the right to use his speeches, meaning the 2014 film <em>Selma</em> <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-how-selma-filmmakers-made-755242">had to paraphrase and circumvent </a>use of King’s words. The nonprofit King Center, run by King’s daughter Bernice King, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheKingCenter/status/960328987955335174">announced Sunday night</a> it had nothing to do with granting Ram Trucks the rights to the speech. <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/02/the-mlk-estate-approved-that-dodge-ram-super-bowl-ad.html">Slate’s April Glaser reports</a>, however, that Eric D. Tidwell, the managing director of Intellectual Properties Management, Inc., which manages licensing for the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., approved the commercial. Ram <a href="http://www.adweek.com/digital/dodges-super-bowl-ad-using-martin-luther-king-jr-gets-ripped-apart-on-twitter/">later issued a statement </a>saying it was honored to work with the King estate on the ad. </p>
<p id="Kmefm8">That King’s words were used in an advertisement for pickup trucks, during a tentpole capitalistic event marking the tail-end of an NFL season in which racial protest was a key element, is an irony that cannot be understated. All the more jarring is the presumption that King’s words act here as a symbol of unity. Yet over the years King’s work, which had once divided people, now symbolizes what racial protest “should” look like. </p>
<p id="BJqa2o"><a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/2/4/16967902/nfl-protests-patriotism-race-donald-trump-super-bowl">As P.R. Lockhart pointed out for Vox this week,</a> the protests of King’s civil rights era are now juxtaposed with football players taking a knee during the national anthem; in 2018, King’s protests are now considered the “right” approach, while the players’ protests against racial injustice are considered inappropriate to modern critics. </p>
<p id="ikpFwZ">Never mind the fact that during the civil rights era, 60 percent of Americans sneered at the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/19/black-lives-matters-and-americas-long-history-of-resisting-civil-rights-protesters/?utm_term=.55846b09e00d">March on Washington,</a> where King gave <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/1/18/10785618/martin-luther-king-dream-speech">his most famous speech</a>, now taught in America’s classrooms every January. </p>
<p id="89fXQJ">There’s no doubt Ram Trucks aimed to bring together audiences (and potential customers) with a figure whose words, decades after his death, have stood the test of time to represent equality, unity, and yes, service. But as we approach the 50-year mark of King’s assassination during a modern era of hard conversations around race, gender, and class privilege, King’s words will undoubtedly ring true to those who truly listen.</p>
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<p id="3vXANT"><strong>Correction:</strong> An earlier version of this story affiliated Ram Trucks with Dodge. Ram is now a separate brand under the same parent company, Fiat Chrysler.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/4/16972220/martin-luther-king-dodge-ram-super-bowl-adMichelle Garcia2018-02-05T11:55:24-05:002018-02-05T11:55:24-05:00Watch: all the movie trailers that aired during the Super Bowl
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<img alt="The new Super Bowl spot for Avengers: Infinity War dropped during the Super Bowl." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mMfen56KG0bdd_1SfjVRB-GXBY4=/298x0:1093x596/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58571493/infinitywar2.0.png" />
<figcaption>The new Super Bowl spot for <em>Avengers: Infinity War</em> dropped during the Super Bowl. | super bowl</figcaption>
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<p>Infinity War, Mission: Impossible, Solo, and more got their moment during the big game.</p> <p id="VSWaF0">The Super Bowl is one of the most-watched events on television, so it’s not a surprise that movie studios consider it a prime time to premiere trailers for upcoming blockbusters.</p>
<p id="DiwVIa">This year’s Super Bowl was no exception. Trailers, spots, and teasers for <em>Solo: A Star Wars Story</em>, <em>The Cloverfield Paradox </em>(which then dropped on Netflix immediately after the game), <em>Mission: Impossible — Fallout</em>, <em>Avengers: Infinity War</em>, and more all premiered during the big game.</p>
<p id="4eq6el">Here they all are in one place, for your viewing pleasure.</p>
<h3 id="Qf5GYJ"><em>Red Sparrow</em></h3>
<div id="WVypRX"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M9VqmPX8m2k?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="S8sMFb"><em>Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom</em></h3>
<div id="JscdLZ"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NooW_RbfdWI?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="F5qfsQ">
<em>Solo: A Star Wars Story</em> (Teaser)</h3>
<div id="vC7xjj"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Szts88zY4o?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="kVsqfM"><em>Skyscraper</em></h3>
<div id="CQGAqY"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E5s-ZyjemU8?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="OUNkXy"><em>Mission: Impossible — Fallout</em></h3>
<div id="ffWp4o"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wb49-oV0F78?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="xR6KKd"><em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em></h3>
<div id="SYQdgK"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8brYvhEg5Aw?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="3W3zgQ"><em>A Quiet Place</em></h3>
<div id="nGIThz"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P8Q6ma2sfJQ?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
<h3 id="sUfBLz"><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/4/16971990/avengers-infinity-war-super-bowl-spot-trailer"><em>Avengers: Infinity War</em></a></h3>
<div id="kpAs28"><div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.2493%;"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pVxOVlm_lE8?rel=0&" style="border: 0; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no"></iframe></div></div>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/4/16964838/super-bowl-2018-trailers-infinity-war-cloverfield-han-solo-mission-impossible-jurassic-worldAlissa Wilkinson2018-02-05T09:23:26-05:002018-02-05T09:23:26-05:00Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl halftime show: the good, the bad, and the Prince
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<img alt="Pepsi Super Bowl LII Halftime Show" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/41gsfABCeZYW0MeqeO2sj2jA8S8=/133x0:2800x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58571597/914340964.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Christopher Polk/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>First off: Timberlake’s Super Bowl halftime show didn’t sound great. </p> <p id="Q5BZcG">In one performance, Justin Timberlake made us remember what makes his music so irresistible and, at the same time, why we’re so skeptical of his new stuff. </p>
<p id="iO6DON">Timberlake gave a jumbled, shiny, at times sonically challenged dance exhibition at his Super Bowl halftime show. Decked out in a <em>Duck Dynasty</em>-evoking suit and orange bandana (a seeming homage to his new persona and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/2/16947136/justin-timberlake-man-of-the-woods-white-masculinity">album <em>Man of The Woods</em>)</a>, Timberlake danced his way in and out of Minneapolis’s U.S. Bank Stadium, briefly showcasing his current sound before falling back on his true hits. The set was plagued by strange sound mixing and editing, with Timberlake’s vocals, especially in the first segment of the performance, often drowned out by the instrumentation. (Timberlake had a live band as well as a marching band backing him up.)</p>
<p id="033aN5">Prior to his performance, Timberlake teased a surprise, which materialized in the form of a giant projection of Prince, Minneapolis’s hometown hero who died in April of 2016, culminating in a lighting effect that turned the neighborhood purple. </p>
<p id="lACCFY">The tribute to Prince was the standout moment of a mixed performance. Here are three things to know about Timberlake’s halftime show: </p>
<h3 id="QrFTtq">1) The sound mixing was way off </h3>
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<p id="8t7kQS">The most puzzling thing about Timberlake’s performance was its muddy sound, which came to the fore in the opening moments of the performance as Timberlake performed his new song “Filthy,” a synthy, gooey mix laced with a falsetto. Timberlake kicked off “Filthy” in a staged “basement” club area below the U.S. Bank arena. But because the song employs the slinky, wub-wub manipulations of Timberlake’s voice, there was a disconnect between what Timberlake was singing and the electronic warble we were hearing. It was a curious, chaotic beginning, and it set a strange tone for the rest of the show. </p>
<h3 id="XkFafw">2) Timberlake reminded us why we still love his old songs</h3>
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<p id="fuUCdY">The good news is that after that strange beginning, Timberlake segued into what made Timberlake a superstar: his old hits. </p>
<p id="hJoZR6">Unencumbered by the synthed-out vocals of “Filthy,” Timberlake rolled into “Rock Your Body,” his first major solo hit and the song that played a huge role in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/25/16523800/justin-timberlake-super-bowl-backlash-janet-jackson">controversial 2004 Super Bowl performance with Janet Jackson</a> — only this time he pointedly cut off the song just before the lyric that caused all the commotion back then. He also churned out a career-spanning medley of hits like “Cry Me a River,” “SexyBack,” “Señorita,” and “Mirrors.”</p>
<p id="ERq1jo">Timberlake was clearly in his comfort zone with these songs, and without the weird disconnect of Timberlake’s embellished vocals, it was easier to appreciate his talents as a pop star who can sing, dance, and strut effortlessly. The cacophony that was the beginning of his performance actually made Timberlake’s older songs seem better and stronger by comparison — to the point I actually found myself mildly delighted by Timberlake closing the show with the maligned earworm known as “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” from the <em>Trolls</em> motion picture soundtrack.</p>
<h3 id="gg4tZa">3) The Prince tribute was the best, and most controversial, part of the halftime show</h3>
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<p id="srGxx7">Heading into the halftime show, the big controversy surrounding Timberlake’s performance was a rumor that it would include a hologram of Prince as a nod to Minneapolis’s favorite musical son. But following a quick and vocal rebuke of the idea by Prince’s fans — who have not forgotten that Prince and Timberlake had a spat that ended with <a href="https://genius.com/a/fans-haven-t-forgotten-the-time-justin-timberlake-dissed-prince-on-timbalands-give-it-to-me">Timberlake dissing Prince with a lyric on the song “Give It To Me”</a> — it was confirmed that <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2018-super-bowl-justin-timberlake-scraps-prince-hologram-for-halftime-show/">the hologram wouldn’t be a part of the performance</a>. </p>
<p id="OcVG7B">Well, there wasn’t a hologram, but there <em>was</em> a projection of Prince behind Timberlake as he played The Purple One’s “I Would Die For You” and “Until the End of Time.” But despite the controversy, the vocals sounded great, the projection was a smart homage to Prince’s own iconic Super Bowl halftime performance in 2007, and the tribute even featured an effect that turned the streetlights and buildings surrounding the stadium purple. </p>
<p id="XQtU0t">Whatever his history with Prince, Timberlake delivered on the tribute, and reminded us what made Prince a genius in the process. Amid a production that was dodgy in parts, Timberlake’s homage to Prince was a highlight, however controversial it might have been.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/2/4/16972178/justin-timberlake-superbowl-2018-halftime-reviewAlex Abad-Santos2018-02-05T09:17:06-05:002018-02-05T09:17:06-05:00Netflix suddenly released The Cloverfield Paradox after the Super Bowl. It’s ... not great.
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<img alt="The Cloverfield Paradox" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ejn8BhfQk7m4JdUDotLCrLuUbgk=/343x0:1982x1229/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58573113/cloverfield.0.jpg" />
<figcaption><em>The Cloverfield Paradox.</em> | Netflix</figcaption>
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<p>Here are four things to know about the movie, and how it fits into the bigger Cloverfield universe.</p> <p id="3L3eYj">“Coming soon” is a common phrase to see at the end of a movie trailer. “Coming very soon,” however, is not. </p>
<p id="gyz0R7">Yet that three-word promise at the end of a trailer that aired during the Super Bowl signaled that something unexpected was en route, and “very soon,” at that. That something? The new <em>Cloverfield</em> movie, which prior to the game wasn’t due out, as far as anyone knew, for more than two <em>months</em> — but is now streaming on Netflix.</p>
<p id="xxuOS6">Here are four things to know about <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em>, how it got released, and why its unconventional distribution matters.</p>
<h3 id="S0f1OC">The movie’s release was a total surprise</h3>
<p id="UGlO6v">It’s normal for <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/4/16964838/super-bowl-2018-trailers-infinity-war-cloverfield-han-solo-mission-impossible-jurassic-world">hotly anticipated movie trailers to premiere during the Super Bowl</a>, and prognosticators had fingered the trailer for the upcoming <em>Cloverfield</em> movie as one of this year’s many possible offerings. But a little over two hours before the big game kicked off, Ava DuVernay — director of <em>Selma</em> and Disney’s forthcoming <em>A Wrinkle in Time</em> — posted a tweet that set the rumor mill a-buzzing:</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilmTwitter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FilmTwitter</a> is going to explode tonight. Something is coming that I can hardly believe. Lawd. History in the making.</p>— Ava DuVernay (@ava) <a href="https://twitter.com/ava/status/960260249843216384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 4, 2018</a>
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<p id="OPvvuo">Just a trailer wouldn’t be enough to warrant that kind of hype. But the scuttlebutt quickly emerged that DuVernay’s tweet was in reference to the upcoming <em>Cloverfield</em> movie, the release of which had been pushed back several times and recently set for April 20, with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/netflix-talks-acquire-cloverfield-sequel-paramount-1077752">Netflix acquiring the movie from Paramount</a>, presumably to live primarily on its streaming service. </p>
<p id="wDVhVR">Until Super Bowl Sunday, Netflix’s plans hadn’t been clear: Would the film launch in theaters first? Would it open nationwide, or in just a few theaters? Would it just drop exclusively on Netflix on April 20? Even the name of the movie wasn’t set in stone, having been through several iterations: First it was <em>God Particle</em>, then just <em>Cloverfield Movie</em>, then <em>Cloverfield Station</em>. </p>
<p id="Dc1bAT">But when the trailer aired during the Super Bowl, everything became clear: The movie would be called <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em>, and it was coming out <em>right after the </em><em>game</em>.</p>
<p id="T4Vb6v">This was a gutsy movie on Netflix’s part; right after the Super Bowl was when <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/5/16972658/this-is-us-super-bowl-episode-14-recap">a big episode of the wildly popular NBC drama <em>This Is Us </em>was also set to air</a> — an episode that NBC has been marketing the ever-living crap out of. </p>
<p id="CAk0eF">Dropping the movie right after the game, then, was a pretty bald attempt to see if the streaming giant could do an end run around one of the most anticipated TV episodes of the year. And while Netflix doesn’t typically release viewership statistics, if <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> does well, the company will probably brag about it — and we’ll get an idea of whether its experiment worked.</p>
<h3 id="A4GowQ">
<em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> is indeed part of the bigger Cloverfield universe</h3>
<p id="IS4j6X">The Cloverfield “universe” is one of the more unpredictable and interesting franchises in mainstream cinema today — if you can even call it a franchise. What’s interesting about it is that it isn’t really a series of sequels (like a conventional movie franchise) or even a number of interconnected movies with characters who cross over from one film to another (like the Marvel or DC Comics films). </p>
<p id="7zuWhS">There’s no real central point around which the world of Cloverfield pivots that’s been clearly explained. There have only been three movies so far, including <em>Paradox</em> — though a fourth, <a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/cloverfield-4/">called <em>Overlord</em></a>, is reportedly done filming and will likely be out soon — and they each stand alone as self-contained films. You don’t need to have seen one to understand the others, and there’s virtually no crossover between them. So on one level, they work more like an anthology series (think of <em>Black Mirror</em> or <em>The Twilight Zone</em>), with each installment coexisting in the same world but not being tightly integrated with its peers.</p>
<p id="AQ24EN">That’s exciting because it gives the filmmakers and <em>Cloverfield</em> producer/mastermind J.J. Abrams the ability to incorporate interesting stories into the broader universe — which is how both <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> and 2016’s <em>10 Cloverfield Lane </em>wound up with “Cloverfield” in the title — and because each new movie approaches that world from a new angle. That potentially allows directors and writers to have a lot of latitude in exploring all kinds of genres and storytelling devices.</p>
<p id="Gn4rPm">The series debuted 10 years ago with the release of 2008’s <em>Cloverfield</em>, a good old-fashioned monster movie made in the style of a found-footage film purportedly shot by a group of friends fleeing a monster that’s attacking New York. Directed by Matt Reeves, who went on to make <em>Dawn of the Planet of the Apes</em> and <em>War for the Planet of the Apes</em>, the movie was produced by J.J. Abrams and was a bona fide hit with critics and audiences alike.</p>
<p id="3bUcJ1">The franchise then lay dormant until 2016, when <em>10 Cloverfield Lane</em> hit theaters. It’s not a sequel to <em>Cloverfield</em>, and in fact it wasn’t considered part of the Cloverfield universe until production had begun and the filmmakers decided to make it a “spiritual successor” to that first<strong> </strong>movie<em>. </em>The movie’s title wasn’t announced until January 15, 2016 — just shy of two months before its theatrical release — which generated buzz and speculation about how much it would link up with <em>Cloverfield</em>.<em> </em></p>
<aside id="FjXPz9"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"10 Cloverfield Lane is a tension-filled thriller that’s worthy of the secrecy surrounding it","url":"https://www.vox.com/2016/3/11/11200644/10-cloverfield-lane-spoilers-review"}]}'></div></aside><p id="m7laGE">The answer, as it turned out, was “not a lot.” Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman and directed by relative newcomer Dan Trachtenberg, <em>10 Cloverfield Lane</em> is more of a psychological horror film about a girl who finds herself trapped in a cellar with a few other people, all guarded by a strange and possibly psychotic man. It’s not until the end of the film that we discover how the movie really relates to the Cloverfield universe, and even then, the movie feels more like a “sidequel” than a sequel. (No matter what, it’s an enormously fun watch.)</p>
<p id="DJIo9a"><em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> traveled a similar route to its final state. It reportedly went into production at Paramount in 2012, back when it was known as <em>God Particle</em>; eventually it was brought into the Cloverfield fold as a prequel to <em>Cloverfield</em>. It’s a little more aligned with the still-fuzzy Cloverfield mythology, but it’s not quite like the other two films. Rather than being a found-footage monster movie or a quieter drama about escaping a potential psychopath’s clutches, it’s firmly planted in the realm of science fiction (with some strong nods to body horror), and it tries to give some sense of how the events of <em>Cloverfield</em> may have been triggered.</p>
<p id="qeZpU0">Which sounds like it should be great.</p>
<h3 id="ze3BoK">Unfortunately, it’s not very good</h3>
<p id="IR9105">Alas. <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> has a great cast and an interesting setup, but it feels extremely — almost painfully — derivative of other science fiction films. It’s not nearly as good as its predecessors.</p>
<div class="c-float-right"><aside id="qSgy1v"><div data-anthem-component="ratingcard" data-anthem-component-data='{"rating":1.5}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="RD0aP2">The basic setup is this: The world’s resources are becoming exhausted, and Earth’s population is being plunged into an energy crisis that threatens whole populations with starvation and puts the survival of humanity at risk. Hamilton (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1813221/?ref_=tt_cl_t3">Gugu Mbatha-Raw</a>) is a scientist who reluctantly decides to leave her husband (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0203946/?ref_=tt_cl_t9">Roger Davies</a>) on Earth and join the crew of an international space station on a mission to test a particle accelerator that might solve the energy crisis.</p>
<p id="7ad24P">On board the space station, which is commanded by Kiel (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0654648/?ref_=tt_cl_t6">David Oyelowo</a>), she meets her fellow scientists and engineers from around the world who are all devoted to the same project: Schmidt (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0117709/?ref_=tt_cl_t2">Daniel Brühl</a>), Mundy (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1483369/?ref_=tt_cl_t4">Chris O’Dowd</a>), Tam (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0955471/?ref_=tt_cl_t5">Ziyi Zhang</a>), Acosta (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0651159/?ref_=tt_cl_t7">John Ortiz</a>), and Volkov (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377336/?ref_=tt_cl_t8">Aksel Hennie</a>). Their experiments don’t go well, and the duration of their mission keeps getting extended even as the situation on Earth gets worse. A talking-head commentator on cable TV warns that even if the crew <em>does</em> succeed, they may rip open the fabric of the space-time continuum, “smashing together multiple dimensions, shattering reality, and not just on that station.” He warns that they could “unleash chaos, the likes of which we’ve never seen — monsters, demons, beasts from the sea.” This all is obvious to anyone who has accepted what he calls the “Cloverfield Paradox.”</p>
<p id="Pv4W0x">It sounds pretty far-fetched, and the scientists keep working — and one day, they seem to find a solution to Earth’s energy crisis. But then things on the space station start getting really weird, really fast. </p>
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<img alt="The Cloverfield Paradox" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OvrOuIXVV3faTvKYfO9RTzNk3YU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10156815/PolaroidsStill_01_Sunday420pm.jpg">
<cite>Netflix</cite>
<figcaption><em>The Cloverfield Paradox.</em></figcaption>
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<p id="BSlWo5">The problem with <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> isn’t really its story, or even the fact that it’s derivative, though it bears a strong resemblance to a host of other science fiction movies, including last year’s <em>Life</em>. What’s unfortunate is that the film was clearly reshot and re-edited within an inch of its life. The telltale sign is the feeling that a storyline has been severely modified after shooting it. And without giving too much away, such a sign is evident here, particularly in some early scenes and also in the storyline with Hamilton’s husband Michael, which feels poorly stapled together and strangely overemphasized, even though it lacks thematic harmony with the rest of the film. </p>
<p id="fI4SLO">The movie also contains some of the leftovers of whatever the <em>God Particle</em> version of the film was going to be — like a prayer uttered by Acosta that is emphasized by several other characters, and apparently answered. (“Hit us with your holy stick!” one of the crew says to Acosta before he prays.) Combined with a few sporadic religious references, you wonder if this film wasn’t originally headed in another direction entirely, and why producers ultimately decided to leave these markers in. </p>
<p id="p4ojVe">These are relatively minor quibbles, but they add up to make a film that feels distracted and not quite sure of itself, coupled with some corny dialogue and a few hamfisted plot points. And that’s a shame.</p>
<p id="bSjAqa">But all that may not matter all that much for <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> in the end.</p>
<h3 id="2fGgeS">It’s probably for the best that <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> wasn’t released in theaters</h3>
<p id="RHC5fd">Netflix apparently bought <em>The Cloverfi</em><em>eld Paradox</em> film from Paramount <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/netflix-talks-acquire-cloverfield-sequel-paramount-1077752">within the last couple of weeks</a>, and that was not just a gutsy move but probably a good one for Netflix, for Paramount, and for the movie itself.</p>
<p id="UDFpGR">That’s because a movie like <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> frankly was not going to find an opening in the 2018 theatrical release calendar in which it could do well. The movie would likely have earned only middling reviews from most critics (which would contribute to a lackluster Rotten Tomatoes score, a measure by which many moviegoers make their ticket-buying decisions), and it would have to fight its way through the sea of other sequels and franchises to get to the top of the heap. Without much to distinguish it from other science fiction movies except its somewhat minor connection to the <em>Cloverfield</em> movies, it probably would not have performed well at the box office.</p>
<p id="a48NtL">But on Netflix, it will likely do much better. There’s a lower barrier to entry for watching movies on Netflix than there is at the theater; witness, for instance, the runaway success of <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/21/16804032/bright-review-will-smith-joel-edgerton-netflix"><em>Bright</em>, a terrible movie</a> that nonetheless <a href="http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/netflix-bright-ratings-viewers-nielsen-1202649332/">hauled in 11 million viewers</a> in its first three days on Netflix, at least according to Netflix. What <em>Bright</em> proves is that if you put an interesting cast (<em>Bright</em> stars Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, and Noomi Rapace) with an intriguing premise onto a streaming platform that people already pay to subscribe to and let them watch it without spending more money — or, indeed, even having to leave the house — they’ll probably give it a shot.</p>
<p id="8OpawL">I wouldn’t put <em>The Cloverfield Paradox</em> and <em>Bright</em> in the same league; the former is better by a long shot, even if it’s not very good. But the same principle most likely applies. Love it or hate it — and if all the film does is confirm to Netflix that the company doesn’t need to make great movies in order to find a huge audience, I’m firmly in the latter camp — this is the world that filmmakers and moviegoers occupy now. We certainly haven’t seen the last of this kind of experimenting and tinkering on the part of Netflix and other streaming services.</p>
<p id="qDzGXL">And even if the big gamble doesn’t work — if a surprise drop of <em>The Cloverfield Paradox </em>doesn’t draw all that much attention<em> —</em> it was probably still a smart move for everyone involved. <em>The Cloverfield Paradox </em>may be a mediocre movie, but as a trial balloon in Netflix’s attempts to carve out a model that works for its business, it’s utterly fascinating.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/5/16972202/cloverfield-paradox-super-bowl-netflixAlissa Wilkinson2018-02-05T09:16:01-05:002018-02-05T09:16:01-05:00This Is Us’s hollow Super Bowl episode was a big missed opportunity
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<img alt="This Is Us" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/t9uewf7Nxl9EtEJtCyvoPpqKUMw=/111x0:1000x667/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58572805/NUP_181159_3703.0.jpeg" />
<figcaption>Jack dies in the new <em>This Is Us.</em> | Ron Batzdorff/NBC</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The show finally reveals how Jack died and offers a new twist, but where does it go from here?</p> <p id="ZsVrfT">In <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/14/14913062/this-is-us-finale-recap-review-nbc"><em>This Is Us</em>’s</a> Super Bowl spectacular — literally called <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6439870/?ref_=tt_eps_cu_n">“Super Bowl Sunday”</a> — viewers finally learned how the man died. Then as the episode reached its conclusion, the series added yet another new timeline to its collection, so that we might get to ponder how <em>more</em> people died.</p>
<p id="U08ke8">So much of the smash hit series’ first season was taken up by questions about how Jack Pearson, the patriarch of the show’s central family, perished — right down to <em>when</em> it happened — that it was something of a relief when <a href="https://www.vox.com/fall-tv/2017/9/26/16372120/this-is-us-season-2-premiere-recap-a-fathers-advice-jack-dies">the show’s season two premiere</a> offered what seemed like a fairly straightforward answer to the question: Jack died in a house fire.</p>
<aside id="CCYQWg"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"This Is Us season 2 premiere: a big mystery is solved — sort of","url":"https://www.vox.com/fall-tv/2017/9/26/16372120/this-is-us-season-2-premiere-recap-a-fathers-advice-jack-dies"}]}'></div></aside><p id="RmI8en">Except ... not <em>really</em>. The deeper into season two the show got, the more it teased out the exact circumstances of Jack’s death, right down to an episode that prompted a response from Crock-Pot underlining the safety of the company’s signature product. (The fire that sort of kills Jack <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/25/16932248/this-is-us-crock-pot-jack">starts because of faulty wiring in a slow cooker</a>.) </p>
<aside id="BUoHYs"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"How This Is Us became a matter of life and Crock-Pot","url":"https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/1/25/16932248/this-is-us-crock-pot-jack"}]}'></div></aside><p id="qWchn8">And the more the show teased, the less it could manage to be about anything but its central puzzle. The premise of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5555260/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><em>This Is Us</em></a> went from “A modern family deals with the struggles of contemporary life” to “At some point, a man dies.” It was maddening to watch the series elongate this storyline, which left the impression that once it had revealed the details of Jack’s death, <em>there would be no show left</em>.</p>
<p id="04d5us">I don’t know if that will turn out to be true. I hope it doesn’t, because there are a lot of individual elements I like about <em>This Is Us</em>. But “Super Bowl Sunday” did nothing to dissuade me from my fears.</p>
<h3 id="ykmg2X">Jack dies not in the fire, but shortly after it, from cardiac arrest due to smoke inhalation</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="This Is Us" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MGVt5r8PJgMCUa7slxEaelAMH6g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10156833/NUP_180910_5056.JPG">
<cite>Ron Batzdorff/NBC</cite>
<figcaption>NBC didn’t upload any photos of Jack and Rebecca from the episode, so here’s one of Kevin trying to attain inner peace.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="V913oC">The assumption held by many fans — that Jack died because he went back into his burning house to save his daughter Kate’s dog — turned out to be mostly true. (Kate revealed in the show’s first season that she blamed herself for her dad’s death, and the dog seemed to be the easiest path between points A and B.) </p>
<p id="GZpR3l">Jack went back into the house to retrieve the dog — and, as it turned out, a family photo album and some beloved jewelry. (He spent so long in there and picked up so many items that I half expected him to also stop to grab his old nemesis, the Crock-Pot.) But he made it out of the blaze alive, though he’d inhaled a bunch of smoke. After going to the hospital to have his burns bandaged and his lungs checked, Jack ended up suffering catastrophic cardiac arrest due to all of the smoke he had inhaled. His wife Rebecca, meanwhile, was purchasing a candy bar while her husband died.</p>
<p id="2gPJ2C">There are some ways in which this particular story point works, especially because it gives <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0601553/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Mandy Moore</a> (who plays Rebecca and is who emerging as one of <em>This Is Us</em>’s strongest performers) plenty of big moments. Notice, for example, how Moore really works with the candy bar that slowly becomes the last thing she wants to think about as the doctor (the great <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0410347/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Bill Irwin</a>) breaks the news that her husband has died. The later scene where she tells Miguel (Jack’s former co-worker and Rebecca’s future second husband) what has happened to Jack is a great showcase for her too.</p>
<p id="ZytC2q">Plus, for as pointlessly convoluted as Jack’s death proved to be, I liked the way it allowed the episode to depict the slow-motion freight train crash that is grief overwhelming a family as the news spreads from person to person. All of this was more or less fine!</p>
<p id="q7JJlp">But here’s the thing: Jack’s death has come to occupy <em>such</em> a place of centrality in <em>This Is Us</em>’s mythology that I don’t really know where it can pivot to from here. Season two has been a decidedly mixed bag in terms of finding other storylines to hook into, with even Randall and Beth’s struggle to navigate the foster care system being a little all over the place. By stretching out Jack’s death to fill two episodes (and, really, three if you count this coming Tuesday’s funeral-centric hour), the show is not doing itself any favors.</p>
<h3 id="1PPxwj">“Super Bowl Sunday” was an incredibly strange episode to air after the Super Bowl</h3>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="This Is Us" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Jp4RIL3NfyJZZQVInI83kbDhaBw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10156835/NUP_180910_0774.JPG">
<cite>Ron Batzdorff/NBC</cite>
<figcaption>The episode’s big “twist” involves Randall and Tess.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="mIVTmT">Early during the broadcast of the episode, someone asked me on Twitter why the Pearsons didn’t just have their family photos and other data backed up somewhere, so Jack didn’t risk his life to save the photo album. And while, sure, it would have been <em>possible</em> to do something like that in 1998 (the year Jack dies), it’s unlikely the Pearson family <em>would</em> have done something like that. And that’s when I realized that the person asking about backups, quite possibly watching the show for the very first time, likely hadn’t yet realized the Jack and Rebecca stuff was happening in the past.</p>
<p id="8YGdoo">This is the eternal peril of any post-Super Bowl episode of television. Do something that dives too deeply into the weeds regarding a show’s overarching storylines and you risk turning off casual or first-time<strong> </strong>viewers. Do something too disconnected from everything else and you risk griping from fans. <a href="https://www.nbc.com/this-is-us"><em>This Is Us</em></a> tried to split the difference, and it ended up hurting “Super Bowl Sunday” as a whole.</p>
<p id="44FV9Q">Take Beth reminding Randall early in the episode of all of their struggles with the foster care system. This is really not something she would be recapping for her husband — he would already know — but it’s probably acceptable as a way to get new viewers on board with the characters’ big storyline for the season. And if <em>This Is Us</em> had simply been about a very bad Super Bowl Sunday in its characters’ past, contrasted with their various (probably standalone) experiences on Super Bowl Sunday 2018, it probably would have worked.</p>
<p id="dbjaKA">You can see the bones of this structure throughout the hour. Present-day Randall has a lovely conversation with his daughter about how much she means to him, and present-day<strong> </strong>Kevin tries like hell not to drink. Present-day Rebecca watches the Eagles beat the Patriots by herself, until Kevin joins her. (And the show swapping in actual footage from the game that had just ended was a neat trick.) </p>
<p id="jRjtQ7">But eventually, these stories are all consumed by the need to make everything that happens in the present about Jack’s death, which is now 20 years in the past. Yes, I buy that these people would still be sad about his death. And yes, I’m sure their sadness would manifest particularly acutely on Super Bowl Sunday (though, to be honest, the show’s timeline around Super Bowl Sunday 1998 is a little tough to parse). But as another famous TV drama once insisted, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/9/6/16257986/er-lucy-death-kellie-martin">life goes on</a>, right? <em>This Is Us </em>too often makes it seem as if the characters have been wandering around in a crater for the past two decades, like maybe the show is an accidental advertisement for the benefits of talk therapy. </p>
<p id="xGZFMV">This brings us to the episode’s big “twist,” which reveals that the social worker who’s been telling a young boy she’s found him a new foster family isn’t preparing him to meet Randall and Beth but is, indeed, Randall and Beth’s oldest daughter, Tess, all grown up and working for the foster care system in some capacity. The introduction of a new timeline — and new versions of characters we’re already interested in — <em>could</em> work for <em>This Is Us</em>, but I’m already worried that the next episode will open with old Randall telling adult Tess, “You know, when your grandmother Rebecca died under circumstances we’re still too emotionally fragile to talk about...”</p>
<p id="odd6cY">This Is Us <em>airs Tuesdays at 9 pm Eastern </em><a href="https://www.nbc.com/this-is-us"><em>on NBC</em></a><em>, with previous episodes available </em><a href="https://www.hulu.com/this-is-us"><em>on Hulu</em></a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/5/16972658/this-is-us-super-bowl-episode-14-recapEmily St. James2018-02-04T22:33:02-05:002018-02-04T22:33:02-05:00Westworld season 2 premieres in April. Watch the trailer now.
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<img alt="Westworld" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oeOxPHs7e4mPmT6bf80o-O5IlJk=/355x0:1439x813/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58571467/Screen_Shot_2018_02_04_at_7.25.10_PM.0.png" />
<figcaption>HBO</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Complete with a piano cover of Kanye West’s “Runaway.”</p> <p id="JSPRt8">It’s been just over a year since HBO’s sci-fi tale <a href="http://www.vox.com/westworld"><em>Westworld</em></a> aired its <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/5/13839382/westworld-finale-recap-bicameral-mind-dolores-ford-dies">season one finale</a>, in December of 2016. That first season centered on a complicated, twisty story that unfolded in multiple timelines but didn’t always let viewers <em>know</em> it took place in multiple timelines. The finale laid out all of the show’s cards, revealing to audiences just how all of its storylines intersected, and ended with a prospective act of revolution on the part of Dolores, the robotic Host played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0939697/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Evan Rachel Wood</a>.</p>
<p id="Ts8rEN">Throughout it all, it was perhaps easy to forget that, hey, the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070909/?ref_=nv_sr_2">original movie <em>Westworld</em></a> was told from the point of view of the Wild West theme park’s guests, who were thrown into the middle of a bunch of malfunctioning robots aiming their guns at the humans who kept the park in business. And, thus, the TV show was eventually also going to be about robots overthrowing their human masters — except told from the point of view of the robots this time.</p>
<p id="JJuYDa">Anyway, HBO unveiled a lengthy — but not terribly revelatory — <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUmfriZoMw0">trailer</a> for season two during the Super Bowl, which shows, among other things, robotic bulls racing in to gore men holding guns, a piano cover version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YpuRIgt6gc">Kanye West’s “Runaway,”</a> and Dolores looking straight into the camera to say, “Our world.” The trailer also revealed a season two premiere date: It<strong> </strong>will debut April 22, just in time to qualify the season for the 2018 Emmys.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/4/16972296/westworld-season-2-premiere-date-trailerEmily St. James2018-02-04T21:42:05-05:002018-02-04T21:42:05-05:00Watch: Avengers: Infinity War’s Super Bowl trailer has more Spider-Man, less unity
<figure>
<img alt="There’s a lot more Spider-Man in the Avengers: Infinity War Super Bowl spot." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yU3ZqdGB16xUKGLjOpoHjt2gcco=/653x0:1434x586/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/58571195/infinitywar1.0.png" />
</figure>
<p>It’s going to be a challenge to get them back together.</p> <p id="ejPqfB">In the first trailer for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154756/"><em>Avengers: Infinity War</em></a>, Earth’s mightiest heroes assembled to fight Thanos. In a new Super Bowl TV spot for Marvel’s impending blockbuster, we got a better sense of just how hard assembling will be — the Avengers are split up across the world.</p>
<p id="ZkwgiH">In the new TV spot, Captain America is in Wakanda. Doctor Strange is hanging out with Iron Man. Loki is hiding in the shadows. And in some new footage, we see that Spider-Man is, for the moment, flying solo and on the ride of his life.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Captain America and Black Panther in the Super Bowl spot for Avengers: Infinity War" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nbkN-8d-W0u7BTgjTRsXZT1n8rc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10155785/infinitywar2.png">
<cite>Marvel Entertainment</cite>
<figcaption>Captain America and Black Panther in the Super Bowl spot for <em>Avengers: Infinity War</em>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<aside id="fW9SoR"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Thor: Ragnarok’s 2 end-credits scenes, explained","url":"https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/11/2/16553246/thor-ragnarok-post-credits-scenes-spoilers"}]}'></div></aside><p id="mQDpnU">Directed by the Russo brothers, <em>Infinity War</em> represents the culmination of a decade of Marvel moviemaking and the final piece in Marvel Studios’ <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11595344/marvel-cinematic-universe-captain-america-avengers">plan to create a universe of interlocking superhero movies</a>. Various Marvel superheroes have already teamed up in crossover epics like <em>The Avengers</em> and<em> Avengers: Age of Ultron.</em> <em>Infinity War</em> looks to be the biggest and baddest of those crossovers yet.</p>
<p id="LmdBe5"><em>Avengers: Infinity War (Part I)</em> hits theaters on May 4, 2018.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/4/16971990/avengers-infinity-war-super-bowl-spot-trailerAlex Abad-SantosAlissa Wilkinson