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Review: WandaVision Experiment Is Thanks to Marvel’s Endgame Boom

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Review: WandaVision Experiment Is Thanks to Marvel’s Endgame Boom
WandaVision, Marvel Studios’ first ever TV series, inspired by decades of American sitcoms, was one of the funniest entries yet. But it was also one of its saddest. At its heart, WandaVision was about its protagonist, Wanda Maximoff/ Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), navigating a deep and personal loss. Wanda might be an Avenger and have superhuman abilities, but her heart is still human. Spoilers ahead. And she’s led the most heart-wrenching of lives, as WandaVision reiterated, having literally lost everyone she has ever cared for: her parents Iryna (Ilana Kohanchi) and Olek Maximoff (Daniyar), her only brother Pietro Maximoff (Aaron-Taylor Johnson, not Evan Peters), her lover Vision (Paul Bettany), and her — real? — twin boys, Tommy (Jett Klyne) and Billy (Julian Hilliard).

The Marvel Cinematic Universe series’ central conceit, in how most of WandaVision’s episodes were modelled after sitcoms, was a way for Wanda to grapple with her emotions. As we see in WandaVision episode 8, a young Wanda (Michaela Russell) grew up on American sitcoms in Sokovia, before her parents were wiped out in a bombing. That she (and her younger brother) managed to survive in a conflict-riddled nation no doubt left them with lifelong scars, but for Wanda, the misery continued as she lost Pietro when the Avengers tried to stop Ultron (James Spader) — in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In the aftermath, Wanda found a new connection in Vision, someone who was as alone in the world as her. But then she lost Vision too during the events of Avengers: Infinity War.

Not just once, but twice — it’s actually thrice now after WandaVision episode 9. To keep the Mind Stone — the yellow gem embedded in Vision’s forehead that gives him life — away from Thanos (Josh Brolin), a sobbing and broken Wanda agreed to “destroy” her lover. But all that pain was for nothing, as the big purple brute reversed time and took it anyway, killing Vision for a second time in the process, all while Wanda watched helplessly. And before she could even begin to process his death, Wanda was wiped away in Thanos’ Snap, along with half of the universe. As Wanda returned to the land of the living after the Blip — WandaVision is set just a few weeks after the events of Avengers: Endgame — it was the first time that she was able to properly grieve.

Paul Bettany as Vision, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision
Photo Credit: Disney/Marvel Studios

Grief is usually the first act of a story, more so for the likes of Marvel that are in the business of making action epics for the big screen. In Guardians of the Galaxy, after losing his mother, a young Peter Quill is transported across the stars and becomes Star-Lord. In Star Wars: A New Hope, after losing his guardians, Luke Skywalker throws himself into a galactic conflict and trains to be a Jedi. The protagonists, propelled by the loss, launch themselves into an adventure. Grief is the catalyst, not a destination. But not so for WandaVision. Moreover, its longform nature allowed WandaVision to explore a character’s inner life like never before. No other MCU property has had this amount of time to navigate how a Marvel superhero is feeling. Even the three-hour Endgame had to get on with its plot after a point.

Of course, it helps when you’ve a talent like Olsen. The 32-year-old has never had the space in Marvel films previously — she’s always been the supporting player, across two Avengers films (Age of Ultron and Infinity War) and Captain America: Civil War, in addition to a cameo in Endgame — but here on WandaVision, Olsen showcases what she’s truly capable of. Olsen kept up with the demands the sitcom beats asked of her, even as they changed every episode. And though the dramatic beats were more akin to what she’s done before in the MCU, there were scenes on WandaVision episode 8 that allowed her to dig deep into Wanda’s emotions. And she delivered. Through its five-hour-plus runtime, Olsen proved that she is a terrific actress.

A non-exhaustive list of WandaVision’s sitcom inspirations

  • Episodes 1 and 2: Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, I Love Lucy, and The Dick Van Dyke Show
  • Episode 3: The Brady Bunch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
  • Episode 5: Family Ties, Full House, Growing Pains, Step by Step, and Who’s the Boss?
  • Episode 6: Malcolm in the Middle
  • Episode 7: Modern Family, The Office, and Parks and Recreation
  • Agatha All Along: The Munsters, and The Addams Family

Wanda’s grief manifested itself as the Hex — as Dr. Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) termed it — which she created after crumbling and giving into “chaos magic” at the site of the Westview, New Jersey home that Vision had earmarked for their future, as we saw in WandaVision episode 8. The ever-changing sitcom eras (that Olsen nailed) were essentially Wanda’s coping mechanisms, because she was unable to live with the pain and suffering she had endured. For WandaVision, that became an early selling point, in that it would pay homage to American sitcoms through the decades. Across its nine-episode run that ended Friday, WandaVision traded on over a dozen of them, including the likes of The Dick Van Dyke Show (from the ‘60s) and Modern Family (from the ‘00s).

WandaVision may have started as a homage to sitcoms, but it became a reveal-driven show as it went on. In WandaVision episode 4, we learnt that all of Westview was Wanda’s doing and that she exhibited complete mind control within the Hex. In WandaVision episode 5, “Pietro Maximoff” (Evan Peters) stumbled in out of nowhere, hinting that we might get X-Men in the MCU. Marvel was just trolling us. In WandaVision episode 7, Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) revealed that she was in fact a witch called Agatha Harkness who had been manipulating events (including Pietro’s introduction), setting herself up as the MCU series’ villain. In WandaVision episode 8, we were given a secondary villain in “White Vision”, who had all of his powers but none of the soul.

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Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) becomes a superhero in WandaVision
Photo Credit: Disney/Marvel Studios

And because it’s also a Marvel property at the same time, WandaVision also had to do the obligatory work of setting up future MCU entries.

For one, it served as the origin story of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), with the Hex helping to turn her into a superhero — as we saw in WandaVision episode 7. Parris is already part of the Captain Marvel 2 cast, alongside Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers/ Captain Marvel and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan/ Ms. Marvel, who’s also set to get her own Disney+ series later in 2021. Captain Marvel 2 will no doubt continue her story as the WandaVision episode 9 mid-credits scene confirmed, which includes supposedly meeting Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). It will no doubt also tell us why Monica doesn’t like talking about Carol — which we were shown in WandaVision episode 5. In the comics, Monica once owned the Captain Marvel moniker, before Carol ever existed. Could Captain Marvel 2 put a spin on this? It’ll be interesting to see that, more so in light of their less than cordial relationship.

Then there’s the direct continuation of WandaVision’s story that Marvel has repeatedly talked about: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, slated to release in March 2022. Olsen is an official part of the Benedict Cumberbatch-led Doctor Strange sequel, which will find the titular sorcerer unleashing “unspeakable evil”, the synopsis states, as he faces former ally Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor). At the end of WandaVision episode 9, Wanda said she plans to fully understand her powers, which suggests that she might seek out Strange to train her. But the WandaVision episode 9 post-credits scene hinted at a different storyline, one that involves Wanda trying to find out how her twin boys Tommy (Jett Klyne) and Billy (Julian Hilliard) are still around.

WandaVision might have also set up Marvel’s far-off future, if the twins are indeed alive — and it’s not a trick. In the comics, Tommy and Billy grow up to be the superheroes Speed and Wiccan, respectively, who are both part of Young Avengers.

Given what we know of the MCU’s upcoming nature, something tells me this will link into the multiverse — it’s right in the title of Doctor Strange 2. The multiverse is said to be first explored in Spider-Man: No Way Home — out December 2021 — which also features Cumberbatch and will also tie into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The same also goes for the Tom Hiddleston-starrer Loki series, premiering June 11 on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar.

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Jett Klyne as Tommy and Julian Hilliard as Billy in WandaVision
Photo Credit: Disney/Marvel Studios

MCU Phase 4 movies and series in 2021

  • January–March: WandaVision
  • March–April: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
  • May 7: Black Widow
  • June–July: Loki
  • Mid-2021: Marvel’s What If…?
  • July 9: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
  • November 5: Eternals
  • Late 2021: Ms. Marvel
  • Late 2021: Hawkeye
  • December 17: Spider-Man: No Way Home

That’s two different series (WandaVision and Loki) and one movie sequel (Spider-Man: No Way Home) all playing into another sequel. WandaVision, hence, seems to be the start of a new interconnected era for Marvel, where it can — and will — do even more links than ever before. While films set up future (Avengers) get-togethers previously, now it’s going to become more like a spider’s web. And that’s partly thanks to the arrival of Disney+. For us fans, to have the best MCU experience, you will need to stay updated on all the series and movies. But for some, this might begin to seem like homework. After all, there are 10 MCU entries alone in 2021.

But Marvel’s success — it’s the biggest franchise of all time with over $22.5 billion (about Rs. 1,63,711 crores) at the box office worldwide, and WandaVision is said to be one of the most streamed original series — shows that people are willing to go on the journey. It’s why virtually every Hollywood studio has attempted to copy this model (with varying degrees of lesser success), now including its own sister studio Lucasfilm. After The Mandalorian shot off to global popularity, Lucasfilm used the Star Wars series’ second season to launch its own cinematic universe. Marvel did try The Mandalorian route earlier, with MCU extensions on Netflix and elsewhere (à la Daredevil and Jessica Jones), but it never truly exploded. With Disney+, it’s now bringing its film stars to television screens.

Star Wars has yet to do that, save for that Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) cameo in The Mandalorian season 2 finale. Lucasfilm still seems to be keeping its big screen aspirations separate from its Disney+ forays. The MCU has always been one giant TV show in some ways. Its movies always felt like they were designed as episodic adventures, except they played on IMAX screens and had budgets running into hundreds of millions. The latter bit stands true for WandaVision and other upcoming MCU series, except they are now being beamed straight into our homes, in a piecemeal fashion.

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Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Randall Park as Jimmy Woo in WandaVision
Photo Credit: Disney/Marvel Studios

And that’s what makes WandaVision the first true MCU TV show. While most Marvel movies are about two hours long (unless you’re called “Avengers” in which case you get 30 minutes to an hour more), the Disney+ series had no such constraint. WandaVision episodes ranged from 22 minutes to 47 minutes. Marvel chief Kevin Feige has said that others (like Loki and The Falcon and the Winter Solider) will be even longer, with episodes ranging from 40–50 minutes — longer than most TV dramas though shorter than the hourlong fixtures that Netflix has (unfortunately) made a habit of.

The longform approach helped the storytelling on WandaVision, and so did the fact that it wasn’t beholden to being an out-and-out actioner. That said, this is not true across the board. The Falcon and the Winter Solider — premiering March 19 — looks a lot more like what Marvel has offered on the big screen. But WandaVision has shown that Marvel isn’t taking its position on top of the world for granted. It’s willing to try out new things — the studio delivered the biggest movie of all time with Endgame, so why not experiment — on the same giant canvas as its blockbusters. Go back a couple of years with the help of Doctor Strange’s Time Stone and try telling someone that Marvel would soon give us a sitcom with Avengers, which in actuality would be about a superhero processing their trauma. That’s WandaVision.

All nine episodes of WandaVision are streaming on Disney+ and Disney+ Hotstar.

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox

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Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox


Microsoft is teaming up with Inworld AI to create game development tools for Xbox, enabling developers to create characters, generate entire scripts and quests, and more. The multi-year deal brings an AI design copilot and an AI character runtime engine to the forefront, both of them being totally optional to use and to varying degrees. Of course, the use of AI in art has been criticised by many for simply lacking originality, in addition to running the risk of fewer jobs for artists — a growing fear among many considering the alarming number of layoffs seen at game studios this year in an attempt to cut costs.

“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”

The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.

Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.

Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.


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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It

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BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It


BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) is a state-owned telecommunication company in India. Earlier this year in May, the government said that the firm started rolling out 4G services in the country. By December, the networks were said to be upgraded to 5G. However, at the India Mobile Congress, BSNL chairman P K Purwar said that the company will launch 4G services in December and then roll it across the country by June 2024. The chairman added that the 5G upgrades will take place after June next year.

In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.

To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.

Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.

The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.


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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed

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Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed


Realme GT 5 Pro’s launch date is not far away. The Chinese smartphone brand on Tuesday (November 7) confirmed the arrival of the new GT series smartphone in its home country. The Realme GT 5 Pro is teased to come with a display with over 3000 nits of peak brightness. It is also confirmed to pack a larger heat dissipation area for thermal management. The handset will ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come as a successor to the Realme GT 5 that debuted in China in August.

Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.

The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.

For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.


The Motorola Edge 40 recently made its debut in the country as the successor to the Edge 30 that was launched last year. Should you buy this phone instead of the Nothing Phone 1 or the Realme Pro+? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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