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Reposted by Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧

Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 10h

Today is National Coming Out Day!

It's also Freedom to Read Day, aka the last day of Banned Books Week.

This feels right — because the main reason they try to ban books is to keep people from dreaming they could ever come out.

My latest newsletter: buttondown.com/charliejane/...

They Want To Ban Books To Keep Us From Coming Out

Quick housekeeping! I’m doing a flurry of events once again: Tuesday I’ll be in the Koret Auditorium at the SF Public Library talking about banned books for...

buttondown.com

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Reposted by Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧

Lisa Laman @lisalamanfilmfan.bsky.social · 8h

Imagine if the $180 million spent on Tron: Ares had gone into four or five $35-45 million original movies instead geared towards todays younger folks. To quote Alan Bradley in Tron: Legacy, "wouldn't that be something."

Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Instead of spending a fortune to revive ancient IP, just ... make something new. Maybe it'll also bomb, but maybe you'll create a new franchise.

@lisalamanfilmfan.bsky.social says this all the time, with more eloquence.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 8h

YES EXACTLY

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Sasha Drachen ΘΔ⛧⛧🏳️‍⚧️ @noodleofdoom.bsky.social · 8h

Tron was for an age when computers were mythical and rare things, these days people are surrounded by computers, it just doesn't work anymore

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 8h

Again, Pirates was new IP when they made the first movie, even though there had been a Disney theme park ride.

Not every movie franchise needs to have twenty entries.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 8h

See also: Minecraft. The first M3GAN. I'd argue even Sinners.

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Reposted by Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧

C. Robert Cargill @crobertcargill.bsky.social · 8h

This isn't rocket science, Hollywood. When you make movies for Gen Z & Alpha, they pay to see them. FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S opened to $80M WITH a day & date streaming release on Peacock. When you make movies for their dads, those dads have a choice between the theater or their bitchin' home theater.

Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

I'm perplexed at watching pundits in the trades struggling to explain Tron Ares' disappointing opening.

Was it covid? Do people just not like science fiction? etc. etc.

The main reason is pretty obvious: Tron isn't a popular franchise. Nobody's interested in nostalgia for a failed 1980s project.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 8h

It's more like, do people want a fifth or sixth Pirates of the Caribbean movie???

The first Pirates movie was the first one. The demand was as yet undetermined.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Instead of spending a fortune to revive ancient IP, just ... make something new. Maybe it'll also bomb, but maybe you'll create a new franchise.

@lisalamanfilmfan.bsky.social says this all the time, with more eloquence.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Nothing about the original BSG is well-executed. The reboot shone by taking all the ideas that Glenn Larson et al. fumbled and making them shine. I think they could have made the Galactica 1980 part work just as well.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

I am in the rare camp that thinks that ending is genius, if the execution had just been better.

I would have adored a version of the 2000s BSG where they arrive on present-day Earth and we see their messy politics interacting with ours.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Tron: Legacy underperformed, though as @craigengler.bsky.social just pointed out it did respectably: $400 million worldwide. It's just that the budget was so massive this wasn't enough to be profitable.

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Tom Coates @tomcoates.bsky.social · 9h

To me it feels like if you doubled down on the premise and developed it - like maybe Flynn’s actual genius was the creation of computing hardware or software that had emergent properties of complexity or whatever and the programs self organized into semi-sentient abstractions…

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Shoulda known @scottmendelson.bsky.social would put it better than I ever could. "Moldy IP leftovers" made me LOL:

scottmendelson.substack.com/p/scott-mend...

Why Predictable Box Office Bombs Like 'Tron: Ares' Hurt Everyone

Theaters are forced to subsist with inferior IP leftovers, while studios get to blame “Nobody goes to the movies!” and/or “Go woke, go broke” for predictable flops.

scottmendelson.substack.com

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Yeah, and being overwhelmed with digital cheez-whiz isn't exactly a new experience these days.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Plus we already got the best Tron update we'll ever have: Wreck-It Ralph.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

Tron is such an 80s thing, it's hard to make relevant for the 21st century. It's all about arcade games and mainframes, and software that was written primarily by a single coder. The actual story of Tron is silly AF, which is one of its main joys.

But it should never have been revived.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 9h

I'm perplexed at watching pundits in the trades struggling to explain Tron Ares' disappointing opening.

Was it covid? Do people just not like science fiction? etc. etc.

The main reason is pretty obvious: Tron isn't a popular franchise. Nobody's interested in nostalgia for a failed 1980s project.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 10h

This is a beautiful story — thanks for sharing <3

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 10h

Today is National Coming Out Day!

It's also Freedom to Read Day, aka the last day of Banned Books Week.

This feels right — because the main reason they try to ban books is to keep people from dreaming they could ever come out.

My latest newsletter: buttondown.com/charliejane/...

They Want To Ban Books To Keep Us From Coming Out

Quick housekeeping! I’m doing a flurry of events once again: Tuesday I’ll be in the Koret Auditorium at the SF Public Library talking about banned books for...

buttondown.com

110 320

Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 11h

Yay I'm so glad you got your copy — ridic excited for you to read this one! <3

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dr. hazel 🐝 @hazelmonforton.com · 13h

I think the main refreshing thing about Mamdani, for me, is that he actually likes New York City and wants to see it thrive for everyone.

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 11h

I cannot wait to see whatever this turns out to be!!!

I will be first in line to read it.

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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 12h

They have fired the staff of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, who are disease detectives that respond to outbreaks around the world.

I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous it is to dismantle our disease surveillance infrastructure.

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Emily Galvin-Almanza @galvinalmanza.bsky.social · 12h

Seriously, Judges *do no do things like this*

They don't give their opinion to the media

They don't criticize how SCOTUS works

This is them breaking the emergency glass, folks
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders

www.nytimes.com

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