Geekiary News Briefs: Toy Story 4 Low Box Office, Nessa Being Used For Racism, Endgame Re-Release & More!

Welcome to the latest Geekiary News Briefs! We’ll be going over the low box office opening for Toy Story 4, what to expect from the Avengers: Endgame re-release, Pokemon Sword & Shield’s Nessa showing another unfortunate example of racism, and more!

Let’s begin with the recent box office numbers. I’ll be honest. I’m not surprised to see Toy Story 4 having a low weekend opening. The estimated $118 million it collected fell short of the studio’s initial $140 million projection. The movie has been received extremely well by critics and the general audience. So, let’s see what happens with this franchise moving forward.

The Child’s Play reboot opened with an estimated $14 million, which is kind of disappointing considering it’s a well-known horror brand. With a reported budget of $10 million, it will turn a profit for the studio. However, people didn’t seem to enjoy it much.

I was worried the film was going to be a mess if it went down the ‘little-doll-Terminator’ route, and that’s exactly what it ended up being. Taking the paranormal aspect away from Chucky just doesn’t work.

Avengers: Endgame is getting a re-release. As far as my opinion goes, it’s a blatant cash grab as well as Kevin Feige’s continuing struggle to take the No.1 spot away from James Cameron’s Avatar on the list of highest grossing films. The re-release is rumored to not add any new footage in the main movie. But there will be some extras for fans to enjoy.

How sad would it be if Avengers: Endgame, even with a re-release, isn’t able to take down Avatar from the top spot!

Coming to a more serious topic, the Water-type Gym Leader from the upcoming Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield games serves as another example of racism that’s still prevalent in the gaming community.

When Nessa was introduced, she caught the attention of numerous gamers. While there are some gorgeous Nessa fan art pieces being shared online, there are also ones which showcase racial prejudices.

I get that certain fan artists might have racial blind spots when drawing Nessa. That’s why I encourage we should all be willing to learn and be respectful of others. I always try to understand the intent behind a person’s particular actions or words during such instances.

However, what I don’t like is seeing certain people deliberately creating racist Nessa-centric fan art to “troll” or “teach a lesson” to “oversensitive” fans.

You can try and paint your creation any way you want, but using “creative freedom of speech” or wanting to teach “oversensitive” fans a lesson doesn’t work as an excuse and also doesn’t stop other people from calling you out.

And yes, I get Japan has its own culture. But racism and colorsim are global issues. Japan has them. Even Pakistan has a whole lot to deal with.

So, the next time you want to lighten the skin tone of a fictional dark-skinned individual, or completely whitewash them because it’s your “artistic style,” it might be a good time to self-reflect a bit and figure out why such a “stylistic preference” was created in the first place.

Feel free to share your thoughts with us.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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