By Ben Pearson/March 5, 2021 5:30 pm EST
If you’re wondering what the hell is going on, you may have missed the fact that Space Jam: A New Legacy is going to be a Ready Player One-style mishmash which incorporates tons of different Warner Bros. cinematic properties into one an area called the Warner 3000 “Server-verse.” The (deranged) plot involves LeBron James and his son getting sucked into that world by an artificial intelligence who wants to steal some of LeBron’s social media followers. The plot of the first Space Jam was admittedly dumb, but frankly, this sounds totally unwatchable and essentially like a super-expensive ad for HBO Max, where all of those properties can be streamed at the click of a button.
Meanwhile, apologies to all of the 30-year-olds out there who are horny on main for Lola Bunny and count that character as a formative part of their sexual awakening, but Lola is not going to be given the same treatment in the sequel that she was in the original film. “This is a kids’ movie, why is she in a crop top?” Lee asked after seeing the first film for the first time a couple of years ago. “This is 2021. It’s important to reflect the authenticity of strong, capable female characters. She probably has the most human characteristics of the Tunes; she doesn’t have a thing like a carrot or a lisp or a stutter. So we reworked a lot of things, not only her look, like making sure she had an appropriate length on her shorts and was feminine without being objectified, but gave her a real voice. For us, it was, let’s ground her athletic prowess, her leadership skills, and make her as full a character as the others.”
Space Jam: A New Legacy, complete with its reworked version of Lola Bunny, will arrive on HBO Max and in theaters on July 16, 2021.
