Jared Leto brings The Grid to us in first ‘Tron: Ares’ trailer

Howdy, Popculturology readers. (For the record, whenever our daughter asks me to be Woody from Toy Story, my best attempt is just saying “I’m Woody. Howdy, howdy, howdy,” like the shark in the first movie did.) Who’s ready to stress out over The Last of Us this Sunday?

You might notice that the Popculturology logo has been updated. Or, maybe it’s been retro’d? We recently passed the one-year mark of the bubbly logo, and I decided that the look of Popculturology had lost something without the old big “POP” wordmark. The new logo honors Popculturology’s roots while also modernizing its identity under The Omnicosm.

Before we get into this week’s pop culture news, including new trailers for Tron: Ares and Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, I wanted to talk about Brain Slop. Yes, there’s a new newsletter at The Omnicosm, joining Popculturology and Snackology. Brain Slop is a weekly newsletter, hitting your inbox on Sunday, that’s full of stories about tech, space, dinosaurs, sports and more. The second edition asked just how much you’d be willing to pay for a new Nintendo Switch 2.

Brain Slop: How much would you pay for a Nintendo Switch 2?

Nintendo’s latest console has a release date. Is a new ‘Mario Kart’ game enough to get the Switch 2 into your living room — no matter what the cost?

The OmnicosmBill Kuchman

“I think I just saw God”

Have you recovered from the Season 3 finale of The White Lotus? I thought it was a good finale and season, but scrolling through Evan Romano’s ranking of every White Lotus character — all 43 of them! — over at Men’s Health made me remember how great that original season was.

• 📖 The White Lotus Season 3 Finale Gave Us the World’s Dumbest Shootout (Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone): “As a whole, the finale doesn’t seem to know what to do with the idea of this huge and horrifying burst of violence happening in the middle of the resort, since Belinda, Zion, and the Ratliffs seem similarly untroubled to have been on the property at the time. (When Tanya shot up all the gays who were trying to murder her in the Season Two finale, that at least was on a yacht, and not at the hotel itself.)”
• 📖 The White Lotus Ends Up Right Back Where It Started (Sam Adams, Slate): “Privilege, in The White Lotus’ world and in our own, is a test of character that most people fail, a freedom we’re meant to strive for, but one we’re given precious little guidance on how to exercise if we’re lucky enough to get it.”
• 📖 A Truly Macabre White Lotus Plot (Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic): “Tim — sinking into drug abuse and narcissistic despair, as mournful as a donkey in a spa robe — has hovered over The White Lotus like a heavy black cloud. Isaacs is a terrific actor, but I haven’t been able to figure out how we’re supposed to read Tim’s looming defeatism.”

Programming note

Popculturology will be off next Friday, April 18. The Friday newsletter will return on April 25.

NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS

🍿 Dammit, the first Tron: Ares trailer has my attention

Disney’s really toying with my emotions when it comes to Tron: Ares.

I’m a big fan of Tron: Legacy. I wrote about my devotion to that film back in January 2023, noting that a somewhat recent viewing left me “surprised at not just how great the special effects are (the de-aged Jeff Bridges could use some work), but how imaginative and ambitious” the legacy sequel was.

I also wasn’t shy about my displeasure with Disney seemingly abandoning pretty much everything that Tron: Legacy had set up — director Joseph Kosinski’s involvement, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde — in exchange for a new Tron sequel that was set to star Jared Leto. Have I been to several Thirty Seconds to Mars concerts? I have. But have I grown tired of Leto’s antics and overall schtick in his movies? I have.

But then Disney released the first trailer for Tron: Ares this past week.

And it’s damn good.