Category: This Week in Fandom

Banner by caitie of a green chalkboard with white text reading This Week in Fandom

This Week in Fandom, Volume 116

Janita Burgess Leave a comment

Welcome to This Week in Fandom, the OTW’s roundup of things which are happening! Before we start, are you excited for the imminent release of Veronica Mars season four? What are you hoping will happen in the new episodes? Let us know in the comments!

There’s been big nows this week about the upcoming James Bond movie, the as-yet-untitled 25th instalment in the franchise. According to Vox, the movie begins with James Bond (currently played by Daniel Craig) in retirement, and actress Lashana Lynch playing the new agent 007. While it’s unlikely that her character will be taking over from James Bond as the main character of the franchise, fans are still excited about the inclusion of a woman of colour as a secret agent. Read More

Banner by James Baxter with a calendar icon and the text This Week in Fandom on a white background

This Week in Fandom, Volume 115

Janita Burgess Leave a comment

Welcome to This Week in Fandom, the OTW’s roundup of things which are happening! Before we get started, Stranger Things season 3 was released on Netflix this week! Did you guys enjoy the season’s 80s aesthetic? How do you rank it compared to seasons 1 & 2? Feel free to take the (spoiler-cautious!) discussion to the comments.

One hot discussion in fandom this week has focused on Disney’s ongoing series of live-action remakes of its classic cartoons. This week saw a key casting announcement for The Little Mermaid (due to start production in April 2020) and the release of a new teaser trailer for Mulan (which should appear in theatres in March 2020).

Taking The Little Mermaid first: we learned this week that Halle Bailey, one half of R&B sister act Chloe x Halle, will be appearing in the role of Ariel. The news that a black actress would be cast in a role drawn as white in the 1989 cartoon prompted a predictable and unfortunate backlash from a vocal minority online, but Bailey-supporting fans rapidly co-opted the discussion by suggesting that for true accuracy the role should have gone to ‘a real mermaid’, reminding others that the Disney Little Mermaid is itself a transformative work, and suggesting that according to contextual clues, Ariel makes more sense as a Caribbean than as a Danish princess. Read More

This Week in Fandom banner by Natalee

This Week in Fandom, Volume 114

Janita Burgess Leave a comment

Welcome to This Week in Fandom, the OTW’s round up of things that are happening! Before we get started, did you see that Avengers: Endgame will be re-released in cinemas on June 28, in a bid to break Avatar‘s longstanding box office record? The re-release will come with a deleted scene, an introduction from Marvel’s Kevin Feige, and some new preview footage of the upcoming Spiderman: Far from Home. Is it worth going back to the cinema for? What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

A few weeks ago we wrote about the television adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel Good Omens. Unfortunately, the series’ religious themes have proven upsetting for some viewers. This week, the US Foundation for a Christian Civilisation obtained 20,000 signatures on a petition demanding that Netflex cancel the show; which was aired, as it happens, as a one-off miniseries on Amazon Prime. Both networks got some mileage out of the mix-up: Read More