While Squid Game is the biggest Netflix show ever, it has not escaped criticism. Many fans have pointed out that the small group of VIP characters that speak in English appear to be… well, sub-par in the acting department. Simply put, many people feel as if the actors portraying the VIPs are not as strong when compared to the show's Korean cast, and especially compared to English-speaking actors in Western movies and TV. But there's a reason why this is the case, and it's more complex than just blaming it on poor talent.

In an interview with The Guardian, Squid Game actor John D Michaels, who plays VIP one, explained why the English cast comes across comparatively poorly. “It’s different for every show, but non-Korean performers often act with dialogue that is translated by a non-native – sometimes even by Google Translate – so it can sound unnatural,” he said.

The problem with the English-speaking VIP scenes in Squid Game was further worsened by the fact that the actors had no context for their roles. They were just told that they were playing "total idiots" and "dirtbag millionaires", which made it difficult to assess how their characters should compose themselves. "We were all wearing very heavy plaster masks, and sitting on couches that were at least 20-30ft away from the closest VIP," Michaels added. "We all had to yell our lines vaguely into the air, which added to the weird tonality of the delivery.”

Michaels also notes that these issues can be complicated by the editing process, in which a Korean editor is working with an English scene, and thus many not be familiar with what take is best to use. This apparently happened with VIP four, played by Geoffrey Giuliano, who used the phrase "I'll cut anybody some slack" numerous times during shooting, but the editors used a mistaken shot where he accidentally said the incorrect "I'll give anybody some slack" instead.

In addition, Michaels also notes that its important to recognise that the acting in Squid Game is heightened, something Korean drama does in general. However, because many people among Western audiences don't speak Korean, it's impossible to hear that heightened delivery. “What might be cartoonish or broad about [the Korean characters] is lost in translation, whereas the VIPs had no such luxury," he said.

Despite these issues with the VIPs, Squid Game is already apparently worth $900 million to Netflix. That's a huge success, and one many Korean TV channels may be kicking themselves over as Squid Game was rejected for 10 years by domestic studios. A second season has yet to be greenlit, but it does seem inevitable. If season 2 does happen, it may not be about the Squid Game contestants.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

This story contains spoilers for Young Justice: Phantoms' first two episodes.

The most notable thing about the trailer for Young Justice: Phantoms (watch it above) that dropped at DC FanDome 2021 is definitely the rough voiceover. Still, beyond all the bombastic talk about how “the heroes of Young Justice have grown into leaders” and warnings that “sometimes, being a superhero isn’t so super at all,” the scenes shown provide some tantalizing looks at what’s to come in Season 4 of the sidekick-centric animated series.

Young Justice is one of DC’s most complex shows, a sprawling space opera with a huge cast of heroes and villains. After Young Justice: Outsiders focused on the creation of a new team packed with fresh faces, it seems like this season is returning the focus to the surviving founding members of Young Justice. Even after watching the first two episodes of Phantoms, which unexpectedly dropped Saturday, there’s a lot of content in the trailer that hints at the challenges to come.

A Team Divided

The heroes of Young Justice have been forging their own paths for a while, which has sometimes put them at odds with each other as they divided up between teams that could perform covert missions and ones focused on inspiring others through public shows of heroism. But this season seems to be even more fragmented, with the characters seemingly divided across three main plots.

The surprise episodes dropped at DC FanDome focused entirely on a trip to Mars taken by Megan Morse aka Miss Martian (Danica McKellar), her fiance Conner Kent aka Superboy (Nolan North) and her surrogate brother Garfield Logan aka Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), who in Young Justice canon received his shapeshifting powers through a blood transfusion from Megan. But as Megan’s uncle Martian Manhunter (Kevin Michael Richardson) notes in the trailer, circumstances leave that group on their own. Two other primary plots seem to be unfolding in the trailer, further dividing the heroes according to their skills and backstories.

Dark Magic

Klarion the Witch Boy (Thom Adcox) has been a major villain throughout Young Justice’s run, serving as one of the leaders of the supervillain group The Light. He appears prominently in the Phantoms trailer facing off against the magician Zatanna Zatara (Lacey Chabert). A Lord of Chaos, he’s the nemesis of the Lord of Order Nabu (Kevin Michael Richardson), who resides in a magical helmet worn by Zatanna’s father, Giovanni Zatara (Nolan North). Giovanni is effectively possessed by Fate, and only gets an hour every year to be himself and visit his daughter.

That arrangement was the result of a previous run in Zatanna had with Klarion, when she donned the Helmet of Fate to gain enough power to defeat him. Nabu saw that she would make a good long term host for him, and agreed to give up control because Giovanni offered himself and his better developed abilities as a replacement.

Zatanna’s become much more powerful since then, joining the Justice League as a full member and taking on her own student Traci Thurston aka Thirteen (Lauren Tom). They’re seen working together to face off against Klarion with the help of some new characters. Klarion seems to be playing for keeps this time. But he also gets splattered against a wall, so the fight’s likely going to go the heroes’ way. A decisive victory against Klarion could potentially persuade Nabu to change the terms of his arrangement with Giovanni.

The League of Shadows

Not all of the characters on Young Justice are equipped to survive on Mars or get into magical battles. Lucky for them, they have the ongoing threat of the League of Shadows to deal with. Founded by Ra’s al Ghul and now led by Deathstroke, the organization serves The Light on covert missions around the globe.

One of their most powerful members is Cassandra Savage (Zehra Fazal), daughter of Vandal Savage. She was introduced in Season 3 and seems to be playing a bigger role as members of the League of Shadows fight with Artemis Crook aka Tigress (Stephanie Lemelin) and the crew of Bowhunter Security, a private security group owned by Roy Harper and his clones Will and Jim (Crispin Freeman). The Bowhunter crew provided some great comic relief in Season 3, so it’s nice to see them returning to that role here. Though, Will is definitely upset that a ninja assassin broke his favorite clipboard.

Grief and Mental Health

The Young Justice trailer seems to show a new focus on the team’s mental health. Multiple scenes in the trailer show Beast Boy in a type of mental crisis, probably partially impacted by being around so many Martians. Since the Martians communicate (and sometimes attack) with their psychic powers, it’s likely pretty draining for anyone without their abilities to be surrounded by them.

Beast Boy’s been through a lot recently. His mother and godmother both died and he was almost mind controlled by Granny Goodness. He’s also struggled with trying to make the most impact as an actor, social media personality and superhero. The trailer seems to indicate that this season will use him as a way to talk about the real feelings of anxiety and depression many teens feel, showing him feeling withdrawn and fearing losing the people closest to him.

The trailer also shows Tigress looking at a picture showing the original team and crying, presumably mourning the death of her boyfriend Wally West aka Kid Flash (Jason Spisak). While she’s tried to move on, enlisting Zatanna to use magic to let her say goodbye to Wally, Tigress still feels his loss deeply and hasn’t been able to bring herself to date anyone else. The question is whether she will move to a new comfort with her emotions, or as many fans speculate, Wally will return having not actually died but instead being trapped in the Speed Force.

Another scene that could be part of the theme is Conner fighting so brutally he winds up with blood on his hands. Since he was created using genetic material from both Superman and Lex Luthor, Conner’s always been afraid of losing control and having darkness within him. Something seems to have pushed him over the edge, but it's likely that his friends and family will be able to bring him back.

What do you think of the Young Justice trailer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Today, we have an exclusive scene for you from Last Night in Soho, an upcoming psychological thriller from director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim vs The World), who also co-wrote the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917). The exclusive clip — which you can view via the player above or the embed below — features lead actors Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Matt Smith.

The neon nightmare that is Last Night in Soho follows Eloise (McKenzie), an aspiring fashion designer, who is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters a dazzling wannabe singer, Sandie (Taylor-Joy). But the glamour is not all it appears to be and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something far darker.

The movie’s official synopsis hints at the reality-bending mystery that envelops the film: “If you could go back in time, would you? Should you? The past is another country, they say. One whose borders are locked. But what if that wasn’t entirely true? What if you could experience another time for yourself, in full sensory overload?”

“Eloise is obsessed with the past – longing for a bygone age, desperate to have experienced 60s London in all its glory. However, Eloise’s uncanny psychic gift means that she may get the chance more literally than she realizes. … But are her night-time visions only dreams? Eloise finds herself inhabiting the life of Sandie, a 1960s starlet in the making, as she sashays into the Café De Paris. Sandie is a wannabe singer, dancer, actress, star – and she’s dead set on making an impression. All of Sandie’s dreams seem to come true as she meets the charming Jack (Matt Smith), a manager who might be able to introduce her to the right people to help launch her career – and Eloise is pulled along with her on an intoxicating adventure of first love, bright lights, and big dreams.”

In IGN’s exclusive clip, Eloise witnesses Sandie’s first encounter with Jack. Eventually, Eloise’s dreams about Sandie take a darker turn, one that challenges her to try to change the past and solve a decades-old mystery.

The ensemble cast of Last Night in Soho also includes Rita Tushingham (A Taste Of Honey), Diana Rigg (Game Of Thrones, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and Terence Stamp (The Limey, Superman II).

The film is produced by Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Edgar Wright. Executive producers are James Biddle, Rachael Prior, Daniel Battsek, and Ollie Madden along with associate producers Leo Thompson and Laura Richardson.

Focus Features will release Last Night in Soho in theaters in the US and UK on October 29, 2021, and in Australia on November 18.

Marcus Lehto, the co-creator of Halo and the founder of Disintegration studio V1 Interactive, has announced that he has joined EA as a game director.

Hey everyone, I’m very excited to announce that I’ve joined @EA as a Game Director, building a new studio in the Seattle area working on first-person games. I can’t wait to share more about what we’re creating! pic.twitter.com/GnfVFNLSaW

— Marcus Lehto (@game_fabricator) October 19, 2021

Announcing the role on Twitter, Lehto revealed that he is building a new studio in the Seattle area. This new studio will work on "first person games", although it's not clear if these will be original games or new entries in existing EA series (so start your Titanfall 3 prayers now).

"I can't wait to share more about what we're creating!" Lehto concluded.

Lehto is best known for being Bungie's Creative Art Director, a position he held from 1997 to 2012. Having worked on the original Halo: Combat Evolved, he's responsible for the creation of Master Chief. He went on to work on all of Bungie's Halo games. In more recent times, Lehto was the founder of V1 Interactive, which created RTS/FPS hybrid Disintegration. The game sadly proved unpopular and critically unsuccessful, and V1 Interactive eventually shut down. Hopefully he'll have better luck at EA.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

A Russian film crew have returned safely to Earth after wrapping up scenes for their movie — the first-ever full-length feature film to be shot in space.

NASA announced that Russian actress Yulia Peresild, producer-director Klim Shipenko, and cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy had departed the International Space Station and landed as scheduled on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 12:35 a.m. ET on October 17. As per the tweet below, Novitskiy had been joined by the film crew for 12 days of his six-month space-cation.

Touchdown after 191 days in space for @Novitskiy_ISS and 12 days in space for two Russian filmmakers! More… https://t.co/CrQl3O1BUl pic.twitter.com/kzXlCTr0og

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) October 17, 2021

Peresild and Shipenko were joined by veteran Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov on their outbound trip, taking them from Earth to space. They arrived at the space station on October 5 to shoot scenes for their feature-length film, "Challenge," under the terms of a commercial agreement between Russian space agency Roscosmos and media entities in Moscow.

Now that they're back on terra firma, the space participants will be transported to a recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, before returning by aircraft to their training base in Russia to inevitably continue work on their film, which is said to center around a surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut, per AFP, as reported by The Guardian.

NASA's also working on a movie with Tom Cruise, which will be filmed aboard the International Space Station. Elon Musk's SpaceX is involved with the project, with filmmaker Doug Liman, who previously collaborated with Cruise on Edge of Tomorrow and American Made, attached as the movie's director. However, the crew's scheduled departure hasn't been shared just yet.

Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.