JRD in new Indy trailer

[sarcasm] Can't wait to see how disney-sgusting they make Labyrinth and Howard the Duck. [sarcasm]

Director James Mangold has refuted the entire rumour report linked to above.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/jame … 235450127/

I think it's time some of you found another film and TV news site, one that actually has sources as opposed to making up points of grievance based on a general hatred of anything adjacent to women. A website with articles written with some control of the English language employed to convey information as opposed to absurd, subliterate, paranoid ranting driven by gender bias. A website that doesn't seriously and portentously present a source with the name of "DoomCock".

Try denofgeek.com

Even if there were a leak, Cosmic Book News wouldn't be the ones to catch it. No one employed in comics, film or television would go to Cosmic Book News with actual news on INDIANA JONES or DC or Marvel. The only 'sources' Cosmic Book News has tend to be disgruntled, former employees attacking their former employers. Cosmic Book News is not a serious news operation.

There is absolutely a history of refuted leaks that were true. It is one of the greatest ironies that in SLIDERS, script editor Keith Damron was considered an unreliable source while Temporal Flux, a fan with no official status, is the authority on the series.

However, in this specific instance, we have an inflammatory Cosmic Book News where the 'news' is only ever a series of rants about women in sci-fi/fantasy, a review site that called the CAPTAIN MARVEL movie an abomination because Samuel L. Jackson did dishes (as opposed to criticizing, say, the inability to convey scale and space and position and geography in the action sequences). And then we have James Mangold.

Mangold has made questionable claims about his own films before: he said that LOGAN was a sequel to DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST and APOCALYPSE when the movie itself appears to be set in an alternate timeline from every previous X-MEN movie. The reality is that movies change during filming and reshoot; a supposition that is untrue when made might end up being true after pickups and edits and rewriting.

Elsewhere: Andrew Garfield lied about not being in SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME; James Marsden lied about not being in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.

In this case, however: Mangold is working on INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY with Harrison Ford, who has declared, "No one else is going to be Indiana Jones. When I'm gone, he's gone." Those are his wishes and Ford was not contractually required to sign onto a fifth film; he would have only done so if the direction met with his requirements. And yes, things can change during filming and yes, a woman taking on the name and hat might technically fall within Ford's restrictions.

But Mangold has flat out declared that the Cosmic Book News 'leak' is not a leak, just supposition from set photos. Cosmic Book News has never landed any actual leaks. Also, I'd point out that Lucasfilm isn't going to produce a movie that makes it impossible to do prequels with younger actors playing Indiana Jones at different ages as they did on TV in the 90s.

Again, in the face of all this, all of us in SLIDERS fandom turn our memories back to 1998 - 1999 when Keith Damron called Brian Hartigan and TF liars for saying that a Conrad Bennish Jr. arc had ever been conceived and scripted for Season 5 of SLIDERS; the fans called Damron a shill and a fraud even though he was the employed script editor and the fans trusted Temporal Flux as a trustworthy news source (or at least I did). History has vindicated TF.

But I would argue that SLIDERS was a unique moment in history, a moment where the project in question was run by people who actively despised SLIDERS, people who had gone out of their way to fire anyone who in any way loved SLIDERS. This contempt for the show led to fury towards the fans.

I think the lies from Keith Damron were an attack because Brian Hartigan and TF's love for SLIDERS made Damron feel inferior; Damron was an employee putting very little thought into SLIDERS. Brian Hartigan and Temporal Flux were doing a better job stewarding SLIDERS' legacy and they did it it unpaid. It made Damron feel small and he acted small.

He was a small person with a small and empty heart. I hope he's changed since then. I'm sure he has. We all do.

In the case of Mangold, Garfield and Marsden telling untruths -- or, let's say it outright, lying -- the intent was truehearted. Mangold genuinely thought his story would be a sequel to the original timeline, but story development drifted from the set universe into an alternate timeline. Garfield didn't want to spoil the surprise of his return to Spider-Man. Marsden didn't want to spoil the surprise of Scott Summers' resurrection and a happy ending.

James Mangold loves Wolverine and did right by Wolverine. Mangold is not a tragic man acting out his grief on a national stage like David Peckinpah, he is not an embittered and needy soul like Bill Dial, he is not doing film and TV in order to expense his lunches like Keith Damron.

Mangold only works on projects where he has the same level passion that Temporal Flux has for SLIDERS. I am confident that Mangold will show Henry Jones Jr. the same love, respect, interest and effort that he showed James Howlett Jr. aka Weapon X aka Agent 10 aka Captain Terror aka Patch aka Kuzuri aka Logan aka... I can't do this all day.

Anyway. If I'm wrong, I will reimburse Temporal Flux for his ticket and be back here afterwards to concede that I was mistaken.

This information is courtesy of EarthPrime.com.

In pre-production for Season 5, Bill Dial contacted Tracy Torme to talk SLIDERS and asked Torme what would make him happy with Season 5. Torme thought SLIDERS was well-past making him happy -- but he told Dial that he would like to see Conrad Bennish Jr. return, if only to get Torme's friend, actor Jason Gaffney, a guest appearance job or two.

This happened during the period when Dial was under the impression that Jerry O'Connell would do six episodes of Season 5.

Dial devised outlines for a five episode arc that would feature Jason Gaffney playing various Bennish doubles and the Bennish from the Pilot.

The outline had Quinn and Colin together for the first five episodes, engaged in random sliding. There would also be a framing sequence to each of these five episodes, featuring the ongoing FBI investigation into Quinn's disappearance with a new FBI agent, Melissa Hunter, having taken over the case and retaining Conrad Bennish Jr. as a consultant.

The presence of the Bennish character would make it clear: the Kromagg invasion of Earth in "Genesis" was staged on a different parallel Earth from the one in the Pilot. The first five episodes of Season 6 would feature Bennish on Earth Prime with Melissa and then the sliders would encounter a Bennish double on the parallel Earth of the week.

In the fifth episode, the opening sequence on Earth Prime would have Melissa triggering a vortex and vanishing into it, leaving Bennish behind by accident.

Meanwhile, the sliders would make it to Kromagg Prime only for Quinn (and only Quinn) to discover that Colin is a Kromagg sleeper agent, a clone of Quinn programmed to infiltrate the team. Quinn would learn that "Genesis" and his brother and his whole Kromagg Prime backstory was a Kromagg trick, and then get separated from Rembrandt and Maggie and disappear into a vortex, destination unknown. Rembrandt, Maggie and Colin would slide away, resuming random sliding and Colin keeping his true nature secret. (This would have been a rewrite of Marc Scott Zicree's "Revelations" story intended for the Season 4 finale.)

I believe the idea was that the fifth episode would have a final scene back on Earth Prime in which Bennish is in Quinn's basement, unable to retrieve Melissa -- and a vortex appears and Quinn emerges. This would establish that Quinn had finally made it home.

In the sixth episode, Rembrandt, Maggie and Colin would encounter Melissa. At this point, Rembrandt and Maggie would discover Colin's villainy and they would abandon him, sliding out with Melissa.

The Rembrandt/Maggie/Melissa team would be the sliders for the remainder of Season 5. In the Season 5 finale, Rembrandt would discover that Melissa came from the real Earth Prime and Quinn would return to defeat the Kromaggs once and for all and end the series.

This was thrown out when Jerry O'Connell went from offering to do six episodes to none.

Bill Dial and Keith Damron started over and while they initially planned to keep Bennish in the storyline, they decided that it was too expensive to fly Jason Gaffney from Vancouver to Los Angeles, especially when the Quinn-centric plot that Bennish had been a part of would not be possible in Jerry's absence.

In 1999, Temporal Flux reported that a return for Bennish had been planned and then abandoned. In a fan chat, Season 5 SLIDERS story editor Keith Damron denied that Bennish had ever been in any planned storylines for Season 5 and said that Temporal Flux and others were liars.

While I have no strong feelings about "others", Damron insulted Temporal Flux's honour and in this moment, Keith Damron became my mortal enemy.

Why did Damron lie about it? I'll refer to my previous theory: that Keith Damron hated SLIDERS, only cared for it as
far as the expense account for his free lunches, and he felt triggered when the unpaid fan enthusiast demonstrated more passion for Damron's show than Damron himself. Damron felt diminished in his job and he went on the attack.

Anyway. In 2009, Tracy Torme confirmed that Bennish had indeed been in the original Season 5 outline as conveyed in faxes and memos sent to him by Bill Dial and Keith Damron.

**

On a more pertinent note: Mangold says that the supposed 'leak' from a "test screening" is a lie because there have been no test screenings of the film at this writing.