Author: Tiffany Kelly

Magnolia Pictures

Here's what the future looks like: collecting data on people while wearing AR glasses.

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In the film Creative Control, set in near-future New York, people can slip on a pair of normal-looking glasses and experience a world that is part reality and part fantasy. This is what companies like Google and Microsoft have been trying to achieve with AR: technology you can wear on your face that doesn’t look completely ridiculous and allows the wearer to access a constant virtual overlay on the real world. There are obvious privacy concerns associated with this kind of device, namely, that you can record people without their knowledge. But there’s also the risk that your real and virtual worlds become so intertwined that you won’t know the difference. That's exactly what happens in Creative Control, with fascinating and genuinely funny results.

David (Benjamin Dickinson, who also directed and co-wrote) is an ad executive who hires musician Reggie Watts (playing himself) to create something using augmented reality glasses for a new client, the appropriately named Augmenta. David is also tasked with trying out a pair of the AR glasses. He talks to friends in the street, goes to parties, and works while the glasses collect data on anything he sees. He then uses this data to create virtual fantasies—which are centered around an avatar of his best friend’s girlfriend. Whenever he is having a bad day at work or gets in a fight with his own girlfriend, he puts on the glasses and escapes into his fantasy world. It’s probably not giving too much away to reveal that David’s virtual world does not make him any happier—the technology makes him anxious, paranoid, and unable to focus on his real life.

Augmented reality eyeglasses aren’t on the market yet, but Creative Control feels like it could happen in the next five minutes. The film captures the addictiveness of consumer technology—and sometimes, the loneliness and anxiety that can follow—with alarming accuracy. We see characters use their smartphones (which, in this vision of the future, look like see-through iPhones) to argue and flirt with each other over text messages. And David often chooses his Augmenta glasses over human interaction. David’s girlfriend, Juliette (Nora Zehetner), serves as the film’s voice of opposition to technology. She’s a yoga teacher who dreams of living away from the city and its plugged-in culture. Together, they represent two familiar desires of people who use tech from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep: one is to always stay connected, and the other is to throw your phone in the trash and return to nature.

The Bennet sisters stash swords under their gowns for a reason. (credit: Jay Maidment/Sony)

This review contains minor spoilers to the film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

There are a few reasons a person might decide to watch the film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. You might be a fan of Jane Austen and absorb anything to do with the 19th-Century author. You might be a fan of zombie films—even the bad ones—and will sign up to see any brains eaten by the undead. Or, maybe you want to watch Games of Thrones’ Lena Headey fight zombies while sporting an eyepatch throughout an entire film.

These are all valid reasons to walk into a theater to see a parody film based on a parody book based on an essential book. But while Pride and Prejudice and Zombies does include some awesomely bloody zombie fight scenes—we can confirm, Headey is definitely some kind of zombie warrior—it’s not a very good film. In fact, that’s being generous. This film is a mess. It takes the main characters and the rough outline of the plot from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, mixes in some zombies, and then develops a whole new weird plot about zombie rights.

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in "Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster", episode three of the new X-Files miniseries. (credit: Ed Araquel/FOX)

Warning: The following review contains minor spoilers to the first three episodes of the X-Files miniseries. 

The first episode of the new X-Files miniseries includes some striking images of aliens and alien spacecraft. We see the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico “UFO crash” (I want to believe), an alien desperately trying to crawl away from some evil humans, and a modern-day alien reproduction vehicle (ARV) that can disappear in a flash. This isn’t unusual for the X-Files, a show about alien government conspiracies and paranormal sightings, but something is different this time. This new series' nature is all stark and obvious—no mystery, no buildup, no real suspense. In the original 1990s series, the audience desperately wanted to see aliens, to have the show confirm their existence, but we were fed teasers and snippets. The plotlines burned slowly (usually). And we hung out (some of us for nine seasons), desperate to find out the truth.

It seems that the truth at the end of this new, six-episode miniseries on Fox is that the X-Files closed a long time ago. It’s apparently painful to try to bring them back. I hope I am proven wrong; I have only seen the first three episodes of the new series, which premieres on Sunday. The next three episodes could very well be mind-blowing television. Again, I want to believe. But if that’s the case, the miniseries has a lot of work to do.

Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones.

In announcing their lineup for original programming in 2016, Netflix on Sunday confirmed that Jessica Jones would return for a second season.

Netflix did not provide a possible date for the premiere of the second season of the show, which features Krysten Ritter as the titular Marvel character, but the online streaming company announced the premiere dates for a bunch of other shows.

The lineup includes a new scifi show that revolves around a young boy’s disappearance, Stranger Things, which premieres on July 15. Netflix is also making a third season of Black Mirror, the unsettling British show about how technology could affect our lives in the future. House of Cards returns for a fourth season on March 4; Orange is the New Black is also returning for a fourth installment on June 17.

Is George Lucas having regrets about selling his Force-filled empire to Disney? He says no, but the Star Wars creator seemed slightly bitter about his space opera in an interview with Charlie Rose at the Skywalker Ranch that aired over Christmas but is just starting to make its way around the Internet. In the interview, Lucas called the first six episodes his "children" and referred to his separation from the Star Wars franchise as a "breakup."

He also didn't seem entirely pleased with the new film, Episode VII: The Force Awakens, which borrowed plot points—and brought back original characters—from his films.

“The first three movies had all kinds of issues," he told Rose. "[Disney] looked at the stories, and they said, we want to make something for the fans. I said, all I wanted to do is tell a story of what happened, it started here and went here... it’s a family soap opera, ultimately. We call it a space opera, but people don’t realize it’s actually a soap opera, and it’s all about family problems. It’s not about spaceships.”

Ars Technica has taken pains not to reveal major and even minor spoilers in our review of The Force Awakens. Still, please note that our review does touch upon a few basic and previously revealed plot points and details

Rey on a scavenger mission.

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One of the most memorable scenes in the Star Wars film series is from Episode IV: A New Hope. Luke Skywalker, then just a farmer, looks out onto the horizon as two suns set on the planet of Tatooine. There is the feeling of hope, and a sense that an adventure is about to begin.

We know what happens from there. Luke begins a journey with Obi-Wan Kenobi, saves his sister, Leia, and becomes a Jedi Knight. He fights in the Battle of Endor and his father, Darth Vader, saves him from the Emperor. Return of the Jedi, the last film, chronologically, neatly ties up Luke’s story and all other subplots. Everyone is happy, dancing on Endor with Ewoks (no Ewoks in the new film, promise). It was a solid ending to the series, but where do you go from there after 32 years?

Tiffany Kelly

Stormtroopers watched over the entire press event.

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LOS ANGELES—The release of Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens is less than two weeks away, and while we still don’t know a lot about the plot, we do know who the new and old characters are in this seventh film in the series. On Sunday, we were introduced in person to a few of the actors who have important roles.

Ars was invited to a Star Wars media event featuring the cast and crew. And inside the event venue, Disney’s presence was very apparent: they asked members of the media if they wanted a “dark side” or “light side” wristband upon entrance (we picked light because it felt like a political decision), and there was an opportunity to pose for a photo with R2D2 and C-3PO. Merchandise for the film was on display, and attendees could test the Disney Infinity Star Wars video game or see short videos in VR on Google Cardboard. It felt like you were inside a store in Tomorrowland at Disneyland.

The big draw was a press conference cast and crew hosted by Mindy Kaling (who is also involved with Disney after she voiced a character in Pixar’s Inside Out). So many important Star Wars folks were in attendance that the evening offered two panels of Episode VII chatter. The first group included Carrie Fisher (reprising her rose as Leia), Daisy Ridley (as lead character Rey), Lupita Nyong'o (who plays alien Maz Kanata), Adam Driver (he’s Kylo Ren, the one with the cross lightsaber in the trailer), director J.J. Abrams, and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan.