title: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

text: In the wake of the 2007 Robert Dziekański taser incident at the Vancouver International Airport, two officers were found guilty of perjury to the Braidwood Inquiry and sentenced to jail for their actions. They appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada but were unsuccessful. In July 2007, two RCMP officers were shot and succumbed to their injuries in the Spiritwood Incident near Mildred, Saskatchewan.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: "Dragostea Din Tei" (; official English title: "Words of Love", also informally known as "Maya Hi" and "Numa Numa") is a song by Moldovan pop group O-Zone, released as the second single from their third studio album, "DiscO-Zone" (2004). The song's title is Romanian for "Love from the linden tree". The song received positive reviews from critics and shot to number one on the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles, where it remained for 12 weeks between June and early September 2004. It topped the single charts in France, Germany and Austria for over three months, reached number 3 in the United Kingdom and number 72 on the US Pop 100. The song became the fourth best-selling single of the 21st century in France, with 1.17 million units sold.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: The original song was popularised in the United States via the viral video "Numa Numa" in which vlogger Gary Brolsma dances to the song. A remix entitled "Numa Numa 2" by Dan Balan (from O-Zone) featuring Marley Waters was posted on YouTube on 12 September 2018 (not to be confused with a 2006 video by Brolsma of the same name but which is unrelated to "Dragostea Din Tei").


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: Overall, the single reached number one in over 27 countries and went on to sell upwards of 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: The best-known lyrics are the repeated line "nu mă, nu mă iei" from the chorus, hence the name "Numa Numa song". "Nu mă, nu mă iei" (literally "you don't, you don't take me") is typically translated as "you just won't take me". The full chorus, which also includes the title of the song, runs:


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: The song was written and composed by Dan Bălan, and the original version was sung by Bălan, Arsenie Todiraș, and Radu Sârbu. The single was first released in 2003 in Romania, where the group lived and produced at that time, and in the spring of 2004 in most other European countries, where it became a summer hit. As late as 2006, the song was still in the lower reaches of some Eastern European singles charts.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: O-Zone's version was the most popular across Europe, with the exception of Italy, where it was only known by discogoers. A cover version of the song performed by Romanian singer Haiducii, who released the song in Europe around the same time, was more popular in Italy and Sweden, where it topped the singles charts.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: "Dragostea Din Tei" has also inspired a number of parody videos distributed over the Internet, most notably Gary Brolsma's popular "Numa Numa Dance" video in 2004, so named because of the line "nu mă nu mă iei". The "Numa Numa Dance", which first appeared on the flash site Newgrounds, has become so notable that it has sparked numerous parodies of the video itself in the United States over the years since 2004.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: The US, UK and Australian release of "DiscO-Zone" features an English version of the song performed by Dan Bălan and Lucas Prata. This version focuses on the "It's me, Picasso" lyric from the original to provide a theme of an artist who has lost his muse. Bălan and Prata performed the English recording of "Dragostea Din Tei" entitled "Ma Ya Hi" on "The Today Show" on 22 February 2005. Unlike the original recording, however, this version was not as successful, charting at 72 on the "Billboard" Pop 100.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: A cover version by Italian-Romanian singer Haiducii, with a strong dance impact, was charted at the same time as the original version by O-Zone. Although it had a great success in many countries, including Sweden, Austria and Italy, where it topped the chart, it was less successful than O-Zone's version.


title: Dragostea Din Tei

text: Haiducii was later sued by O-Zone for copyright infringement, since she had neither obtained permission from O-Zone to record the single nor given due credit to Dan Bălan for being the original writer of the song. This resulted in Haiducii paying fees for copyright infringement.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: World Championship Wrestling, Inc. (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System, through a subsidiary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territory Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) (which had aired its programming on TBS).


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: For much of its existence, WCW was one of the top professional wrestling promotions in the United States alongside the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)), at one point surpassing the latter in terms of popularity. After initial success through utilization of established wrestling stars of the 1980s, the company appointed Eric Bischoff to executive producer of television in 1993. Under Bischoff's leadership, the company enjoyed a period of mainstream success characterized by a shift to reality-based storylines, and notable hirings of former WWF talent. WCW also gained attention for developing a popular cruiserweight division, which showcased an acrobatic, fast-paced, lucha libre-inspired style of wrestling. In 1995, WCW debuted their live flagship television program "Monday Nitro", and subsequently developed a ratings competition against the flagship program of the WWF, "Monday Night Raw", in a period now known as the Monday Night Wars. From 1996 to 1998, WCW surpassed their rival program in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: Beginning in 1999, WCW endured significant losses in ratings and revenue due to creative missteps, and suffered from the fallout from the 2001 merger of Turner Broadcasting parent Time Warner and America Online (AOL). Soon thereafter, WCW went out of business, and the WWF purchased select WCW assets in 2001, including its video library, intellectual property (including the WCW name and championships), and some wrestler contracts. The corporate subsidiary, which was retained to deal with legal obligations and reverted to the Universal Wrestling Corporation name, officially became defunct in 2017. Its headquarters were located in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: "World Championship Wrestling" was a television show produced by Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) since 1982. Jim Barnett (who had briefly owned the Australian promotion of that name) came to Atlanta in the 1970s during an internal struggle for control of GCW. Barnett ultimately became majority owner of the promotion, and began using his previous promotion's name for GCW's weekly Saturday television program in 1982. Following the events that became known as Black Saturday, in which GCW and its television program briefly came under the ownership of the WWF, the promotion was eventually purchased by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), the promoter of the Mid-Atlantic territory immediately north of Georgia.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: Influential wrestling magazine "Pro Wrestling Illustrated" and its sister publications thereafter habitually referred to JCP as "World Championship Wrestling", "WCW" and most commonly "the World Championship area" and continued to do so until early 1988 when it began referring to the company solely as the NWA, reasoning that "it has become apparent that the NWA and the World Championship area are one and the same."


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: By late 1988, JCP was financially struggling after further territory acquisitions. Ted Turner, the namesake principal owner of Turner Broadcasting,


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: formed a new subsidiary in October 1988 to acquire most of the assets of JCP. The acquisition was completed on November 2, 1988. While initially the subsidiary was incorporated as the "Universal Wrestling Corporation", following the purchase the decision was made to utilize the familiar "World Championship Wrestling" as the name for the promotion.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: WCW went through various changes in business and creative leadership during its existence. Some figures, like Jim Herd, were television executives lacking in wrestling-promotion experience; others, like Bill Watts, Ole Anderson, and Dusty Rhodes had extensive experience in the business, but were ineffective at growing WCW's largely regional audience, into a national—and international—one (as Vince McMahon had successfully done with the WWF).


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: Eric Bischoff combined an understanding of wrestling (largely gained as a staffer with Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association) with a willingness to make the changes needed to raise WCW's profile with mainstream media, its target audience, and especially television advertisers. These changes included moving some television tapings from Atlanta to Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida, and signing a mix of veteran U.S. main-event performers and younger stars from promotions around the world (such as Rey Mysterio, Jr.). He also was responsible for launching "WCW Monday Nitro" in 1995, sparking the Monday Night Wars, and setting off a period of intense competition between WCW and the WWF that became the most-watched period in televised professional wrestling history. A second prime time series, "WCW Thunder" premiered on TBS on January 8, 1998.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: The Monday Night Wars were an era in professional wrestling where WCW's "Monday Nitro" and the WWF's "Raw is War" shows competed for ratings. Both shows aired on Monday. From 1995 to 1998, "Nitro" would dominate "Raw" until the January 4, 1999 episode of "Raw", where the announcers of "Nitro" were told to spoil "Raw"s main event, which was that Mankind would win the WWF Championship. Because of this, tons of WCW viewers changed the channel to watch Mankind win the title. After this, WCW's ratings would continue to decline and their last episode of "Nitro" aired on March 26, 2001, when they were bought by the WWF (now WWE).


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: In 2000, several potential buyers for WCW were rumored to show interest in the company. Ted Turner, however, did not hold influence over Time Warner before the final merger of America Online (AOL) and Time Warner in 2001, and most offers were rejected. Eric Bischoff, working with Fusient Media Ventures, made a bid to acquire the company in January 2001. One of the primary backers in the WCW deal backed out after AOL Time Warner refused to allow WCW to continue airing on its networks, leaving Fusient to take that offer off the table while it attempted to bring a new deal around. In the meantime, Jamie Kellner was handed control over the Turner Broadcasting division, and deemed WCW, along with Turner Sports as a whole, to be out of line with its image and saying that it "would not be favorable enough to get the "right" advertisers to buy airtime" (even though "Thunder" was the highest-rated show on TBS at the time). As a result, WCW programming was cancelled on TBS and TNT. In the book "NITRO: The Incredible Rise and Inevitable Collapse of Ted Turner's WCW" by Guy Evans, it is said that a key condition in WCW's purchase deal with Fusient was that Fusient wanted control over time slots on TNT and TBS networks, regardless of whether these slots would show WCW programming or not. This influenced Kellner's decision to ultimately cancel WCW programming. WCW's losses were then written-off via purchase accounting; according to Evans: "in the post-merger environment, the new conglomerate was able to 'write down' money losing operations, essentially eliminating those losses because of their irrelevancy moving forward."


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: The cancellation of WCW programming left the WWF free to acquire the trademarks, video libraries, and some contracts of WCW through its new subsidiary W. Acquisition Company, which was renamed WCW Inc. afterwards. AOL Time Warner maintained its subsidiary, which reverted to its original legal name of Universal Wrestling Corporation, to deal with legal obligations and liabilities not acquired by WWF. The UWC was listed as a subsidiary of Time Warner until 2017, when it was merged into Turner Broadcasting System.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: At the outset of WCW's existence, as well as that of its predecessors, the company was strongly identified with the Southern style of professional wrestling (i.e., "rasslin'"), which emphasized athletic and competitive in-ring performances over the showmanship and cartoon-like characterizations of the WWF. WCW dominated professional wrestling television ratings from mid-1996 to 1998 in the U.S. due to the New World Order storyline; but thereafter, began to lose ground to the WWF and its newly-established, edgy, antihero-driven Attitude Era programming. Former WCW workers, such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Mick Foley, and Chris Jericho, became established WWF superstars. By 1999, WCW was criticized for their lack of quality storylines and for questionable booking decisions, both of which contributed to their decline.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: AOL Time Warner sold the trademarks for WCW's name and logo to the WWF for $2.5 million in 2001, and shortly afterwards, WWF owner Vince McMahon purchased the entire WCW videotape library for an additional $1.7 million; bringing the final tally of WCW's sale to $4.2 million. The WWF initially kept the WCW United States Championship, WCW Cruiserweight Championship, WCW World Tag Team Championship, and WCW World Heavyweight Championship active and they were eventually unified with their respective WWF counterparts.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: WWE has since released various WCW documentaries, anthologies, and compilations; including "The Rise and Fall of WCW", and a three volume series hosted by Diamond Dallas Page called "The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro". WCW's library content would be made available with the launch of WWE Network in 2014.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: WWE would revive several of WCW's events; including Great American Bash in 2004, and Starrcade in 2017. Also in 2017, WWE held its first annual NXT WarGames event for its NXT brand, with that's year's event featuring the first WarGames match since the September 4, 2000 episode of "Nitro".


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: After the closure of WCW, several new professional wrestling promotions would launch featuring former talent associated with WCW. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), now known as Impact Wrestling, was founded by Jeff Jarrett in 2002, and would go on to take over WCW's market position in the mid-to-late 2000s. In 2019, fledgling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW) formed a partnership with WarnerMedia to air their flagship show, "AEW Dynamite", on TNT; returning professional wrestling to the network for the first time since WCW's closure. On January 5, 2022, "Dynamite" moved to TNT's sibling network, TBS, marking the first time TBS has aired wrestling programming since the March 21, 2001, episode of "WCW Thunder". TNT still airs AEW's second show, "AEW Rampage".


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: From 2000 to 2001, Monster Jam had a series of monster trucks based on wrestlers' names. These included the nWo, Sting, Nitro Machine, Madusa and Goldberg. Following the end of WCW, Debrah Miceli, the only one of the truck's namesakes to actually drive them, remained in monster trucks. The legacy of the other trucks is most prominent with Goldberg. Driven by to great success by Tom Meents (including Monster Jam World Finals championships both years the truck ran), after the end of the sponsorship Meents continued to run the truck as "Team Meents" in 2002 before debuting its new name Maximum Destruction in 2003. Max-D continues to compete in the series and rivals the legendary Grave Digger in popularity on the circuit.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: WCW also had a presence in NASCAR from the mid-1990s to 2000, sponsoring the #29 team in the Busch Grand National Series full-time and the #9 Melling Racing team in the Winston Cup Series part-time. In 1996, Kyle Petty's #49 car in the Busch Grand National series was sponsored by the nWo, and Wally Dallenbach Jr. briefly drove a WCW-sponsored for Galaxy Motorsports.


title: World Championship Wrestling

text: Several WCW video games were made in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, including "WCW Wrestling", "WCW SuperBrawl Wrestling", "WCW vs. the World", and "WCW Mayhem".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: "Nosedive" is the first episode in the third series of the British science fiction anthology series "Black Mirror". Michael Schur and Rashida Jones wrote the teleplay for the episode, based on a story by series creator and co-showrunner Charlie Brooker, while Joe Wright acted as director. It premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, alongside the rest of the third series. The episode is set in a world where people can rate each other from one to five stars for every interaction they have, which can impact their socioeconomic status. Lacie (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a young woman overly obsessed with her ratings; she finds an opportunity to elevate her ratings greatly and move into a more luxurious residence after being chosen by her popular childhood friend (Alice Eve) as the maid of honour for her wedding.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Under Netflix, the episode was given a much larger budget than the previous episodes of the programme, when it had been under Channel 4. Brooker wrote an outline for the episode, then Schur wrote the former half of the episode and Jones wrote the latter. Production was undertaken in a manner similar to a short film; "Nosedive" was filmed in South Africa, with Seamus McGarvey as director of photography and Joel Collins and James Foster as the production designers. The tone of the episode is less bleak and more comedic than other "Black Mirror" episodes, with the ending significantly more positive than in episodes of the programme's prior two series.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: The episode received mainly positive reviews and is middling in critics' lists of "Black Mirror" episodes, qualitatively. The pastel visual aesthetics were widely praised, along with Max Richter's soundtrack and Howard's performance. A criticism from several reviewers was the episode's predictability and ending, though the script and comedic undertones were praised by some. Many critics noted the similarity of the episode to real-world app Peeple and China's upcoming Social Credit System, along with fictional works about social media with themes of gender and obsession with image. The episode was nominated for several awards, including a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Howard and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for McGarvey. A board game "Nosedive", based on the episode, was released in 2018.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Society has embraced a technology wherein everyone shares their daily activities through eye implants and mobile devices and rates their interactions with others on a scale of one to five stars, cumulatively affecting everyone's socioeconomic status.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Lacie Pound (Bryce Dallas Howard) seeks to raise her 4.2 rating to 4.5 for a discount on a luxury apartment; however, despite her attempts to be outgoing and pleasant, her rating has plateaued. Lacie talks to a consultant who suggests gaining favour from very highly rated people. Lacie uploads a photograph of Mr. Rags, a ragdoll that she and her childhood friend Naomi (Alice Eve) made together. Naomi, who is currently rated 4.8, rates the photo five stars and calls Lacie, saying that she is engaged and inviting Lacie to deliver a wedding speech as the maid of honour. Lacie agrees and commits on the apartment, anticipating many high ratings from the guests.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: On the day of her flight, several mishaps cause people to rate Lacie negatively, dropping her rating below 4.2. At the airport, her flight is cancelled and she cannot buy a seat on an alternate flight with her current rating. When Lacie causes a scene, security penalises her by putting her on "double damage" and subtracting a full point for 24 hours. Because of her low rating, Lacie can only rent an older car to drive to the wedding, which she cannot recharge when it runs out of power. She is forced to hitchhike with Susan (Cherry Jones), a truck driver with a rating of 1.4. Susan tells Lacie that she used to care about her rating until her late husband was passed over for vital cancer treatment because their scores were deemed not high enough; she says she feels much freer without obsessing over ratings.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: While Lacie is en route to the wedding, Naomi tells her to not come, as her severely reduced rating will negatively impact Naomi's own ratings. Enraged, Lacie reaches the wedding and sneaks in during the reception. She grabs the microphone and starts giving the speech she had written but becomes more and more upset, finally grabbing a knife and threatening to behead Mr. Rags. The guests rate Lacie negatively, causing her rating to fall below one star. Lacie is imprisoned with her eye implants removed. She and the man in the cell opposite hers (Sope Dirisu) realise they can now speak without worrying about being rated, and gleefully hurl insults at each other.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: "Nosedive" is the first episode of the third series of "Black Mirror"; all six episodes in this series were released on Netflix simultaneously on 21 October 2016. Brooker says it was selected to be the season premiere "partly to slightly ease people in", at Netflix's recommendation. Alongside "San Junipero", "Nosedive" was first shown in 2016 ahead of its Netflix release at the Toronto International Film Festival. Two days prior to the series' release on Netflix, Brooker hinted that "Nosedive" is "a pastel, playful satire about modern insecurity."


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Whilst series one and two of "Black Mirror" were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, in September 2015 Netflix commissioned the series for 12 episodes (split into two series of six episodes), and in March 2016 it outbid Channel 4 for the rights to distributing the third series, with a bid of $40 million. Due to its move to Netflix, the show had a larger budget than in previous series, which one critic suggests is responsible for the "impressive line-up" that was noted by many reviewers. Another critic called this episode the show's "most ambitious yet"; due to its larger episode order, series 3 was also able to vary its genre and tone more than previous series. One reviewer also noted that "Nosedive" contained "only American characters".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: In November 2016, to tie in with the episode, Netflix released a tongue-in-cheek app called Rate Me. The app allows users to rate people, by their Twitter handle, and view their own rating and the ratings of others.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: The episode is based on an idea by series creator Charlie Brooker for a movie; he and executive producer Annabel Jones pitched the idea to several movie companies in the United States after the first series of "Black Mirror", but it was not commissioned. The original idea was of a comedy similar to "Brewster's Millions", focused on a high status person trying to reduce their ranking in 24 hours. Later, Brooker wrote either a three or four page outline for the episode, wanting it to be "comedic, darkly". This version took inspiration from 1987 film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", in which the character is on a journey—for "Nosedive", this was initially a character travelling to an important work presentation.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Rashida Jones and Michael Schur wrote the episode. Known for comedy and sitcoms, the pair had previously worked together on many shows, including "Parks and Recreation", but had never written anything together before "Nosedive". A fan of Brooker's works, Rashida Jones had been in contact with him for a few years beforehand and after the programme's move to Netflix, he suggested that she could write an episode. Schur was also a fan of "Black Mirror" and Rashida Jones suggested that they could co-write the episode. With Jones and Schur on board, the main character changed from someone focused on playing the ratings system to a people-pleaser, the work presentation was changed to a wedding and the idea of Lacie having a childhood talisman was introduced. Lacie's brother was originally an ex-boyfriend. Schur wrote the first half of the episode (up to Lacie beginning her travel in a rented car), while Rashida Jones wrote the second half, and the two then combined their scripts. In the initial draft, the episode ended with Lacie's work presentation going viral and her achieving fame. The final version of the ending showed Lacie in a jail cell, the rating device removed from her, allowing her to find freedom. An unused idea was that of rage rooms, where characters would go to destroy things to let out their anger.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: In 2016, Schur had an account on Twitter but not Facebook or Instagram, as "there's a bunch of strangers talking shit about you in there", and Jones expressed a similarly negative attitude, stating "I do have very strong, very conflicted feelings about rating systems and social media." Brooker notes that "you are rewarded for having a more extreme opinion" on social media; in the episode, as on the internet, almost all ratings given are either one or five stars. Similarly, Schur opines that social media causes people to exaggerate their behaviour, particularly their rudeness. Jones believes that the episode, as with all "Black Mirror" episodes, "pushes you into the near future", while Schur considers it to be more of a "parallel reality". Brooker has described the episode as "like a cross between "Pleasantville" and "The Truman Show"". Jones says the belief that "women are taught to be liked, and men are taught to be powerful", credited to Sheryl Sandberg, is relevant to the episode, with Schur agreeing that Lacie's gender is important to the story, though Schur notes that edited images on social media are causing negative body image issues for men as well.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: The episode was the third in series three to be filmed. Joe Wright directed the episode, Seamus McGarvey was director of photography and the production designers, working for VFX company Painting Practice, were Joel Collins and James Foster. The episode was shot in four weeks in Knysna, South Africa, a coastal town five hours (by car) from Cape Town chosen as it felt like an American coastal town. Series three episode "San Junipero" was also filmed in South Africa. In an interview with "Variety", McGarvey noted that the episode was shot in 4K resolution at the request of Netflix; he said the colour scheme was a mixture of duck-egg blue, "peppermint green" and "strange peach colors", and that props and "even the drinks people are drinking" were chosen with care to create a "sickly pastel feel". Wright said that he made almost no changes to the script's dialogue. Brooker has said that Wright's pastel treatment was a "very strong visual idea that we had not foreseen".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Brooker pointed out that directors of "Black Mirror" episodes (in this case, Wright) have more "power" than in serialised television shows, as "it is like making a short film", and he said that Wright had "been feeling quite bruised after doing "Pan", and ["Black Mirror"] was a good thing for him to get his teeth into which wasn't the full five-year commitment of a movie". McGarvey had previously worked with Wright. Watching rushes from the filming, Brooker was initially sceptical about Wright's saccharine style, but began to understand it as the filming progressed and the music was added. The scenes in which Lacie is driving utilise a computer-generated landscape designed by Dan May, the episode's art director. She was initially planned to drive through multiple landscapes such as a desert, but this was changed for budget reasons.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Bryce Dallas Howard plays Lacie, the episode's main character. She was suggested by Wright, who auditioned her a decade previously for "Atonement". Howard gained for the role, saying in an interview with "Marie Claire" that body shaming is a "huge part of the subtext of the story". She chose a laugh for Lacie which mixed "fear", "disingenuousness" and "depression". Howard first joined social media during Thanksgiving 2015 and was approached with the treatment of the episode a fortnight later, in December 2015.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Chosen by Wright to compose the episode's soundtrack, Max Richter is a self-described "conservatoire, university-trained classical composer". Richter first met the director, Joe Wright, in London before the shooting of the episode had been completed and began coming up with ideas for the score. Richter aimed to "support" the episode's display of "incredible anxiety hovering beneath this smiley surface ... while at the same time not flattening out the emotionality of it", commenting in an interview that Wright's camerawork had a "dream-like quality" and that Brooker's "story was fantastic". In another interview, Richter said he was aiming for the episode to have "warmth and a fairytale quality throughout" with "darkness underneath it", and notes that his composition was based on "the sentiment and the emotional trajectory of the characters". Richter also composed the sound effects which play when one character rates another, and incorporated these sounds into the score itself.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Several critics compared the episode to a 2014 episode of "Community", "App Development and Condiments", which features an app where users assign each other "Meow Meow Beenz" ratings on a scale from one to five; Jack Shepherd of "The Independent" notes that both episodes "critically [analyse] people's obsession with stature on social media platforms with rating systems". Other reviewers compared "Nosedive" to the mobile application Peeple, in which users could rate one another, that garnered immediate backlash upon its release. Brooker said in an interview that he was not aware of the "Community" episode when he came up with the idea for "Nosedive", but that he did see advertising for Peeple during pre-production, initially thinking it would turn out to be marketing for a comedy show, and he considered whether or not they should still produce the episode. The episode has also been compared to the 2003 novel "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", as each work explores a link between social approval and power.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Manuel Betancourt of "Pacific Standard" explains how "Nosedive" fits with other portrayals of social media in television and film, comparing it to 2017 films "The Circle" and "Ingrid Goes West", which both explore negative aspects of social media. Betancourt says that historically, women have been portrayed as victims of technology, a pattern which these works fit. For instance, Ingrid and Lacie are both obsessed with coming across as perfect online. In contrast, male characters are traditionally the voice of reason: in these works, Lacie's brother Ryan, Mercer ("The Circle") and Taylor's husband ("Ingrid Goes West") serve this purpose. Furthermore, the androgyny of "Nosedive" character Susan is linked to her disdain for social media. Betancourt writes that these characterisations do not accord with research on how men and women use technology, where some studies report that men have more emotional investment in positive feedback on social media. However, "Nosedive" shows people of all genders placing importance in social media, leading Betancourt to call it "perhaps the most keen-eyed critique [...] of recent titles".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: A "Business Insider" article by Erin Brodwin notes that the episode shows Lacie fall victim to the hedonic treadmill. Despite momentary happiness when receiving a high rating, Lacie is "lonely and unsatisfied". Brodwin points out that scientific studies concur with Lacie's experience, because there is no correlation between using social media and being happy in the long-term.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Critics have also noted the inclusion of Easter eggs within "Black Mirror" – small details referring to other episodes. In "Nosedive", there is a frame where a social media post from Michael Callow reads, "Just got thrown out of the zoo again :(", a joke based on Callow having intercourse with a pig in "The National Anthem". Brooker has described this Easter egg as his favourite in series three. Another reference to that episode is the fictional show "Sea of Tranquility"; in "The National Anthem", a special effects expert mentions having worked on the show, while in "Nosedive", Lacie hitchhikes with fans of the show. Additionally, in "Hated in the Nation", a news ticker contains the term "Reputelligent", which is the name of the company that Lacie consults for advice about her rating.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: "Nosedive" has been widely compared to China's Social Credit System, a government initiative which began pilot projects in 2014, initially using private systems such as Sesame Credit. The state projects were implemented differently by local governments, but each collected data on citizens in order to assign them an overall score. An example plan saw the scores determine whether a citizen would be allowed to take out a loan or what quality of school their child would go to. Actions such as defaulting on a loan or being critical of the government would decrease a person's score. By the time "Nosedive" was released, the Sesame Credit system, which assigned users scores between 350 and 950, allowed some people with high scores to rent vehicles without a deposit, or pay to skip hospital queues. Furthermore, a person's score in Sesame Credit was dependent on the scores of the people in their social circle.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: The proposed and existing systems have been widely compared to the episode as a whole. Specifically, it has been noted that the apartment discount Lacie hopes for is similar to how high-rated people under Sesame Credit could rent cars without a deposit. Additionally, Lacie's ejection from the airport is reminiscent of the system's control over who can partake in some forms of transport.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Series creator Charlie Brooker has commented on numerous occasions about links between the episode and the Social Credit System. He joked in an interview, "I promise you we didn't sell the idea to the Chinese government!" About seeing the concept of the episode come to life in the real world, Brooker said, "It was quite trippy". He comments that a key difference between China's plans and the one in "Nosedive" is "that there's a central government assessing things. Being state-controlled, it feels even more sinister", and also points out that the Social Credit System "sounds like an attempt to make the population behave in a particular way". In November 2016, the Facebook page for "Black Mirror" shared an article in "The Washington Post" about the Social Credit System.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Adam Mosseri, the CEO of social network Instagram, said he was inspired by "Nosedive" to test the hiding of "likes" on the Instagram service starting in 2019, recognising the negative connotations that keeping the number of "likes" easily visible had on some users' behaviour.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: The episode was parodied in the 2017 "Saturday Night Live" sketch "Five Stars". It features Aziz Ansari and Bobby Moynihan desperately trying to impress each other on an Uber ride to boost each other's ratings. The sketch explicitly mentions "Black Mirror", with both characters saying that "San Junipero" is their favourite episode.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: "Nosedive" was well received by critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes collected 22 reviews, identified 95% of them as positive, and calculated an average rating of 7.33/10. The episode garnered four-star ratings in "The Independent" and "The Guardian", along with an A− rating in "The A.V. Club". In "The Mancunion", the episode received 3.5 stars; it was rated three stars by "The Telegraph" and the "Irish Independent". Emefa Setranah of "The Mancunion" writes that the episode lives up to the show's reputation, and "The Guardian" Benjamin Lee says the episode feels fresh despite covering technology similarly to prior episodes. Charles Bramesco writes in "Vulture" that it expresses the show's "guiding theme" with "lucid clarity". "TheWrap" authors praise how the episode tackles society's social media obsession, and Mat Elfring of GameSpot opines that its thought-provoking nature makes it a good choice for the season premiere. Matt Fowler writes for IGN that the episode is "both fun and frustrating" which contrasts with the "grounded and grim" episodes to follow. "Esquire" Corey Atad opines that it is "a tad too simplistic" though "totally engaging". Pat Stacey criticises the episode in the "Irish Independent" that it "sets up the premise crisply, then spends far too much time labouring the point."


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: A major criticism among reviewers was the episode's predictability and repetitiveness, while reception to the ending was mixed. Aubrey Page on Collider calls the episode "woefully surface-level and a bit off-brand" because of its predictability, with "Variety" Andrew Wallenstein agreeing and further saying that the episode lacks a disturbing tone, though this makes it more accessible. Zack Handlen of "The A.V. Club" believes that the first half of "Nosedive" is too predictable but the second half "[adds] depth and sincerity". Tasha Robinson writes for "The Verge" that the episode "can be strident and obvious" but "understands human nature very well". Some reviewers believed the episode was too long and the ending was too positive. However, "Digital Spy" Alex Mullane praised the ending, because though it is "bleak in some ways" it is also "a moment of sheer, fist-pumping joy"; Jacob Hall agrees on /Film, calling the ending "simultaneously cathartic and on-the-nose".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Critics had a mostly positive response to the script as a whole, with some noting comedic undertones. Robinson describes the episode as an "exaggerated morality play about the dangers of conformity and the small pleasures of individuality". The script has been called "bitingly hilarious", "funny", "uplifting", "moving" and "supremely unsettling". Lee approves of the script avoiding exposition. On the other hand, "The Telegraph" Mark Monahan criticises that the plot and characters do not live up to their potential. Page feels the episode "lacks the sadistic snap of Brooker's usual work".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: The episode's visual style and Joe Wright's directing were highly commended; the setting for the episode garnered positive reception. Hall compliments "stellar production values". Sophie Gilbert of "The Atlantic" praises the juxtaposition of calm visuals with narrative tension. Robinson notes that the aesthetics mark a difference between the characters with high and low ratings. Adam Chitwood comments for Collider that the visual style "keeps everything focused on the characters", which is different to Joe Wright's typical style. Setranah notes that Netflix's large budget is apparent in the visuals of the episode, and "The Independent" writers suggest it is detailed enough to be revisited.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Many critics praised Howard's performance, with Atad calling it "delightfully unhinged". Additionally, Gilbert writes that Howard "conveys Lacie's inner frustration while grinning cheerfully through it". Howard's acting ensures viewers are on Lacie's side, according to Mullane, who also compliments Eve's acting as "excellent".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Max Richter's musical composition for the episode was well received. "The Independent" writers compliment Richter for "blending the diegetic sounds of the app with the non-diegetic score evoking our protagonist's struggle to determine reality and fiction", an element which Robinson also praises. Fowler calls the score "very compelling" and Monahan describes it as "elegantly elegiac".


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Julien Migozzi found similarities between the episode and the segregation that real South Africans suffer under credit score systems.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: "Nosedive" appears on many critics' rankings of the 19 episodes in "Black Mirror", from best to worst.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Instead of by quality, Proma Khosla of Mashable ranked each episode by tone, concluding that "Nosedive" is the 15th most pessimistic of the 19 episodes.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: "Nosedive" was nominated for several awards in 2017; the third season of "Black Mirror" also received several other nominations and awards.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Based on the episode, the board game "Nosedive" was produced by Asmodee. Released on 25 November 2018, the game requires between three and six players and is designed to last for roughly 45 minutes. A mobile app, available for Android or iOS, is used to play the game; it initially assigns each player a Social Score. In the initial Lifestyle phase, players draw cards which have ratings between one and five stars, such as the one star card "A six-minute lunch break". They tactically assign them to stacks and then each player selects a stack. In the Experience phase, players assign each other experiences such as "Receiving an anonymous hate cake" and each player then rates their received experiences from one to five stars. The app then adjusts each player's Social Score based on these ratings. At the end of the game, players earn points from the Lifestyle cards they own which have star ratings less than or equal to their Social Score.


title: Nosedive (Black Mirror)

text: Tasha Robinson of "The Verge" criticised the game's mechanics as feeling arbitrary, as users' Social Scores are mostly determined by random factors. However, Robinson praised the app's design, the game's pastel aesthetics and the humour of the Experience cards, which can lead to interesting discussion.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Cheaper by the Dozen is a 2022 American family-comedy film. It is the third film adaptation of the 1948 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and his sister Ernestine Gilbreth Carey following the 1950 and 2003 films. The film is directed by Gail Lerner in her feature-length directorial debut with a script co-written by Kenya Barris and Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry, Shawn Levy returning to serve as the executive producer, and starring Gabrielle Union, Zach Braff, Erika Christensen, and Timon Kyle Durratt with supporting roles by Christian Cote, Sebastian Cote, Christina Anthony, Caylee Blosenski, Journey Brown, Brittany Daniel, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Cynthia Daniel Hauser, Abby Elliott, Ron Funches, Leo Abelo Perry, Luke Prael, June Diane Raphael, Andre Robinson, Kylie Rogers, and Aryan Simhadri. It tells the story of a restaurant proprietor and his second wife as they raise the kids from the restaurateur's previous marriage, the second wife's family, and the children they later conceived as their respectful exes are still involved in their children's life.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Produced by Walt Disney Pictures, "Cheaper by the Dozen" had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre on March 16, 2022, and was released on Disney+ on March 18. The film was met with mixed reviews.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: The Bakers are a blended family that began with Paul Baker and his wife Kate who together had daughters Ella and Harley. They had friends who died in a car accident causing them to take in their godson Haresh. Kate eventually divorced Paul, but they remained friends with Kate acting as an occasional, though slightly inattentive, babysitter.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Zoey married football player Dominic "Dom" Clayton and had daughter Deja and son DJ. Due to Dom's celebrity life, Zoey divorced him and took custody of the kids. Paul met Zoey after she visited his small restaurant and suggested that he make the entire menu breakfast themed all day. The two eventually got married, expanded the restaurant, renamed it Baker's Breakfast and had two sets of twins: Luca and Luna, and Bronx and Bailey.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Dom continues to be active in Deja and DJ's lives which slightly intimidates Paul as he was rarely there to begin with. While Deja prepares for her basketball scholarship to the University of Southern California, DJ feels that he connects with Paul more than Dom and would rather speak with him. Paul gets a meeting with a large company to expand his restaurant. He succeeds and has his famous sauce sold on shelves. He decides to use the money to move the family and their dogs Bark Obama and Joe Bitin' from Los Angeles to Calabasas, in a bigger house in a gated community.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Upon arrival, Zoey begins to feel the effects of racial profiling, especially after meeting her neighbor Anne. Paul suddenly gets a call informing him that his sister Rachel has checked into rehab, forcing him to take in his nephew Seth, who has had a habit of being a thief. Seth bonds with Haresh when he discovers that he is being picked on at the new school because of his ethnicity and teaches him to defend himself while making monster spray for his younger cousins. While not being used a lot on the Calabasa Hornets basketball team, Deja begins seeing a boy named Chris and sneaks out of the house to see him.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Paul finds himself having to travel to look for new places to expand his restaurant. The investors Melanie and Michele also insist on altering some of his business ideals to cut costs. He starts to miss out on being with his family which upsets Zoey as this was the reason she divorced Dom. Haresh and Seth are suspended from school for a week after starting a fight with the kids who bullied Haresh causing Zoey to ground them. On DJ's birthday, Paul rushes to get home. During the party, things start to get out of hand as DJ changes his look to impress a girl. Anne profiles Zoey's family for a series of recent break-ins. Upon Paul arriving, Deja reveals that she quit the basketball team and that the entire family has been unhappy since arriving in Calabasas. Feeling that Zoey can no longer handle their kids, Dom announces that he wants full custody of Deja and DJ.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Harley and Ella accuse Seth of the break-ins after Haresh pointed out that he saw him stealing from the restaurant cash register, though he returned it and he angrily leaves. After telling Paul and Zoey they explain the money is from DCFS and they have been giving it to Seth and that someone broke into Anne house during the party while Seth was grounded. Upon realizing their mistake, the Bakers, Kate, and Dom all go out and find Seth. They apologize and admit that he is part of the family and he rejoins them.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Back at home, Paul and Dom discuss their different upbringings; while Paul will never know what it is like to be at a disadvantage, Dom has to understand that being away from his kids has made him distant and that he needs to be more attentive. Realizing how much his family means to him, Paul breaks his deal with the company so that he can run the restaurant himself. The Bakers move back to Los Angeles and buy a new house while the children returned to their old schools as Deja returns to the Elysian Park Wildcats which beat the Calabasa Hornets. While having dinner, or rather breakfast, at the newly named Baker's Dozen Breakfast, Paul reveals the design of the sauce bottle has changed to reflect the family, Seth included.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: A postscript states that Dom, Paul, and Zoey were able to invest their sauce and went national. Kate invented bird yoga which only birds liked. Seth moved back in with his mom after she got out of rehab, but still spends lots of time with his cousins who haven't had any monster problems since. Deja and Chris soon started their freshman years at USC. Ella became the social manager for Harley's punk band and a video of her band playing at her school talent show broke the internet. Luna and Luca won the tennis national under 12 division becoming like Venus and Serena. DJ, Talia, and Dom went to Comic-Con and bonded while Dom realized he liked Thor.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Also in the film are the Baker family's pet Rottweiler Bark Obama and the chihuahua Joe Bitin' who are named after Barack Obama and Joe Biden where they are portrayed by two uncredited dog actors.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: In 2016, it was reported that Kenya Barris would work with 20th Century Fox on a remake of "Cheaper by the Dozen". On August 6, 2019, following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that a reboot of "Cheaper by the Dozen" was in development and that it would premiere on the company's streaming service, Disney+. Gail Lerner was set to direct the film with a script co-written by Kenya Barris and Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry. Lerner had worked for Barris as a writer on the television series Black-ish and appreciated that he saw her not only as a writer but also a director. Principal photography was scheduled to commence on July 13, 2020, in Los Angeles, California. After filming was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney's new CEO Bob Chapek announced that filming had resumed in November 2020. The film was revealed at the Disney Investors Day, along with the casting of Gabrielle Union.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: In January 2021, Zach Braff joined the cast. In February 2021, Journee Brown, Kylie Rogers, Andre Robinson, Caylee Blosenski, Aryan Simhaldri, Leo Abelo Perry, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Christian Cote, Sebastian Cote, and Luke Prael joined the cast as the pair's children. Erika Christensen would be added to the cast in April. Filming had begun in Los Angeles by April 2021.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Shawn Levy, who previously directed the 2003 film adaptation, was confirmed in 2021 to be an executive producer on the film.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Lerner thought it was important to adjust the film to accommodate the actors, and not have young performers speaking lines or expressions that did not come across as natural for them. Lerner said Zoey is the heart of the film, she praised Union for not falling into tropes or stereotypes, and not wanting to be pigeonholed as the stern mom and the finger-wagger. Union also served as an executive producer.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: John Paesano composed the musical score. The soundtrack was released on March 18, 2022, by Hollywood Records and Walt Disney Records.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: On November 12, 2021, the film was revealed to be released in March 2022. On February 7, 2022, with the release of the official trailer, it was revealed that it would be digitally released on March 18, 2022, on Disney+. The film had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre on March 16.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: Additionally, the film was released on Disney+ under Walt Disney Pictures instead of 20th Century Studios, after being moved from 20th Century for unknown reasons sometime during production, making it the third 20th Century Studios film to do so during production after "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and "The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild".


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: According to Whip Media, "Cheaper by the Dozen" was the 5th most streamed movie across all platforms, in the United States, during the week of March 18, 2022 to March 20, 2022.


title: Cheaper by the Dozen (2022 film)

text: "Variety" stated: "Despite some of this movie’s missteps, the heart behind its messages is in the right place. Sentiments dealing with co-parenting after divorce and prioritizing family above monetary success may seem old fashioned on the surface. Yet it goes deeper, exploring and challenging our societal system’s gross inequities and injustices in a thoughtful, meaningful manner." "IGN" rated the movie 6 out of 10, stating, "Disney's latest reboot of "Cheaper by the Dozen", starring Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union, can be as haphazard as its premise." "The Guardian" rated the movie 3 out of 5 stars, stating, "As with the 2003 film, the gist of Disney Plus’s remake is cheerful domestic chaos molded into light didacticism: the importance of the nuclear family (albeit a blended one, in this update) with reminders to not get blinded by financial success or the lure of growth." "Screen Rant" gave the movie 2.5 out of 5 stars, saying ""Cheaper by the Dozen" is a fluffy family drama that ultimately doesn’t amount to anything. [...] It is great that this blended family is so diverse, but if there is no thoughtful integration of their stories, they remain merely set dressing."


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: The Hughes H-4 Hercules (commonly known as the Spruce Goose; registration NX37602) is a prototype strategic airlift flying boat designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II, it was not completed in time to be used in the war. The aircraft made only one brief flight, on November 2, 1947, and the project never advanced beyond the single example produced.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: Built from wood (Duramold process) because of wartime restrictions on the use of aluminum and concerns about weight, the aircraft was nicknamed the "Spruce Goose" by critics, although it was made almost entirely of birch. The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built, and it had the largest wingspan of any aircraft that had ever flown until the Scaled Composites Stratolaunch first flew on April 13, 2019. The aircraft remains in good condition. After having been displayed to the public in Long Beach, California, from 1980 to 1992, it is now on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, United States.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: In 1942, the U.S. War Department needed to transport war materiel and personnel to Britain. Allied shipping in the Atlantic Ocean was suffering heavy losses to German U-boats, so a requirement was issued for an aircraft that could cross the Atlantic with a large payload. Wartime priorities meant the aircraft could not be made of strategic materials (e.g., aluminum).


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: The aircraft was the brainchild of Henry J. Kaiser, a leading Liberty ship builder and manufacturer. Kaiser teamed with aircraft designer Howard Hughes to create what would become the largest aircraft yet built. It was designed to carry , 750 fully equipped troops or two 30-ton M4 Sherman tanks. The original designation "HK-1" reflected the Hughes and Kaiser collaboration.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: The HK-1 aircraft contract was issued in 1942 as a development contract and called for three aircraft to be constructed in two years for the war effort. Seven configurations were considered, including twin-hull and single-hull designs with combinations of four, six, and eight wing-mounted engines. The final design chosen was a behemoth, eclipsing any large transport then built. It would be built mostly of wood to conserve metal (its elevators and rudder were fabric-covered), and was nicknamed the "Spruce Goose" (a name Hughes disliked) or the "Flying Lumberyard".


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: While Kaiser had originated the "flying cargo ship" concept, he did not have an aeronautical background and deferred to Hughes and his designer, Glenn Odekirk. Development dragged on, which frustrated Kaiser, who blamed delays partly on restrictions placed for the acquisition of strategic materials such as aluminum, and partly on Hughes' insistence on "perfection." Construction of the first HK-1 took place 16 months after the receipt of the development contract. Kaiser then withdrew from the project.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: Hughes continued the program on his own under the designation "H-4 Hercules", signing a new government contract that now limited production to one example. Work proceeded slowly, and the H-4 was not completed until well after the war was over. The plane was built by the Hughes Aircraft Company at Hughes Airport, location of present-day Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California, employing the plywood-and-resin "Duramold" process – a form of composite technology – for the laminated wood construction, which was considered a technological "tour de force". The specialized wood veneer was made by Roddis Manufacturing in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Hamilton Roddis had teams of young women ironing the (unusually thin) strong birch wood veneer before shipping to California.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: A house moving company transported the airplane on streets to Pier E (now Pier T) in Long Beach, California. They moved it in three large sections: the fuselage, each wing—and a fourth, smaller shipment with tail assembly parts and other smaller assemblies. After Hughes Aircraft completed final assembly, they erected a hangar around the flying boat, with a ramp to launch the H-4 into the harbor.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: Howard Hughes was called to testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee in 1947 over the use of government funds for the aircraft. During a Senate hearing on August 6, 1947 (the first of a series of appearances), Hughes said:


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That's more than a city block. Now, I put the sweat of my life into this thing. I have my reputation all rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it's a failure, I'll probably leave this country and never come back. And I mean it.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: Hughes returned to California during a break in the Senate hearings to run taxi tests on the H-4. On November 2, 1947, the taxi tests began with Hughes at the controls. His crew included Dave Grant as copilot, two flight engineers, Don Smith and Joe Petrali, 16 mechanics, and two other flight crew. The H-4 also carried seven invited guests from the press corps and an additional seven industry representatives. In total, thirty-six people were on board.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: Four reporters left to file stories after the first two taxi runs while the remaining press stayed for the final test run of the day. After picking up speed on the channel facing Cabrillo Beach, the Hercules lifted off, remaining airborne for 26 seconds at off the water at a speed of for about one mile (1.6 km). At this altitude, the aircraft still experienced ground effect. Nevertheless, the brief flight proved to detractors that Hughes' (now unneeded) masterpiece was flight-worthy—thus vindicating the use of government funds.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: The H-4 never flew again. Its lifting capacity and ceiling were never tested. Afterwards a full-time crew of 300 workers, all sworn to secrecy, maintained the aircraft in flying condition in a climate-controlled hangar. The company reduced the crew to 50 workers in 1962 and then disbanded it after Hughes' death in 1976.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: Ownership of the H-4 was disputed by the U.S. government, which had contracted for its construction. In the mid-1970s, an agreement was reached whereby the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum would receive the Hughes H-1 Racer and section of the H-4's wing, the Summa Corporation would pay $700,000 and receive ownership of the H-4, the U.S. government would cede any rights, and the aircraft would be protected "from commercial exploitation."


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: In 1980, the H-4 was acquired by the Aero Club of Southern California, which later put the aircraft on display in a very large geodesic dome next to the "Queen Mary" ship exhibit in Long Beach, California. The large dome facility became known as the Spruce Goose Dome. The very large enclosed indoor dome area around the H-4 consisted of meeting and special event space, elaborate audio-visual displays about Howard Hughes and the aircraft itself, and dining areas for tourists. Many convention groups held large dinners, sales meetings, and even concerts under the wings of the aircraft at night when the Spruce Goose Dome was closed to tourists. In 1986, a secondary simulator-style attraction named Time Voyager was constructed next to the H-4, at a cost of $2.5 million. In 1988, The Walt Disney Company acquired both Long Beach attractions and the associated Long Beach real estate by Pier J. In 1991, Disney informed the Aero Club of Southern California that it no longer wished to display the Hercules aircraft after its highly ambitious Port Disney plan was scrapped.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: After a long search for a suitable host, the Aero Club of Southern California arranged for the Hughes Hercules flying boat to be given to Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in exchange for payments and a percentage of the museum's profits. The aircraft was transported by barge, train, and truck to its current home in McMinnville, Oregon (about southwest of Portland), where it was reassembled by Contractors Cargo Company and is currently on display. The aircraft arrived in McMinnville on February 27, 1993, after a 138-day, trip from Long Beach. The Spruce Goose geodesic dome is now used by Carnival Cruise Lines as its Long Beach terminal.


title: Hughes H-4 Hercules

text: By the mid-1990s, the former Hughes Aircraft hangars at Hughes Airport, including the one that held the Hercules, were converted into sound stages. Scenes from movies such as "Titanic", "What Women Want" and "End of Days" have been filmed in the aircraft hangar where Howard Hughes created the flying boat. The hangar will be preserved as a structure eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Buildings in what is today the large light industry and housing development in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles. It has since been converted to office and event space by Google.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: You Only Live Twice is a 1967 spy film and the fifth in the "James Bond" series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed the 1977 film "The Spy Who Loved Me" and the 1979 film "Moonraker", both starring Roger Moore. The screenplay of "You Only Live Twice" was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name. It is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: In the film, Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet crewed spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit, each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War. Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island to find the perpetrators, and comes face-to-face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld, who was previously a partially unseen character. SPECTRE is working for the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be the People's Republic of China, to provoke war between the superpowers.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: During the filming in Japan, it was announced that Sean Connery would retire from the role of Bond, but after one film's absence, he returned in 1971's "Diamonds Are Forever" and later 1983's non-Eon Bond film "Never Say Never Again". "You Only Live Twice" received positive reviews and grossed over $111 million in worldwide box office. However, it was the first "Bond" film to see a decline in box-office revenue, owing to the oversaturation of the spy film genre from "Bond" imitators, including a competing "Bond" film, "Casino Royale", from Columbia Pictures (1967).


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: American NASA spacecraft Jupiter 16 is hijacked from orbit by an unidentified spaceship. The United States suspects it to be the work of the Soviets, but the British suspect Japanese involvement since the spacecraft landed in the Sea of Japan. To investigate, MI6 operative James Bond is sent to Tokyo, after faking his own death in Hong Kong and being buried at sea from .


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Bond attends a sumo match where he is approached by Japanese secret service agent Aki, who takes him to meet local MI6 operative Dikko Henderson. Henderson claims to have critical evidence about the rogue craft, but is killed before he can elaborate. Bond chases and kills the assailant, taking the assailant's clothing as a disguise, and is driven in the getaway car to Osato Chemicals. Once there, Bond subdues the driver and breaks into the office safe of the company's president, Mr. Osato. After obtaining secret documents, Bond is pursued by armed security, but is rescued by Aki, who flees to a secluded subway station. Bond chases her, but falls down a trap door leading to the office of the head of the Japanese secret service, Tiger Tanaka. The stolen documents are examined, and found to include a photograph of the cargo ship "Ning-Po", with a microdot message saying the tourist who took the photo was killed as a security precaution.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Bond goes back to Osato Chemicals to meet Osato, masquerading as a potential buyer. Osato humors Bond, but after their meeting orders his secretary, Helga Brandt, to have him killed; both are SPECTRE agents. Outside the building, assassins open fire on Bond before Aki rescues him again. Bond and Aki drive to Kobe, where the "Ning-Po" is docked. They investigate the company's dock facilities, and discover that the ship was delivering elements for rocket fuel. They are discovered, but Bond eludes the henchmen until Aki gets away; however, Bond is captured. He wakes, tied up in Brandt's cabin on the "Ning-Po". Brandt interrogates Bond, before seducing him. Brandt flies Bond to Tokyo the next day, but en route, she sets off a flare in the plane, seals Bond in his seat and bails out. Bond lands the plane and flees before it explodes.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: After finding out where the "Ning-Po" unloaded, Bond flies over the area in a heavily armed autogyro created by Q. Near a volcano, Bond is attacked by and defeats four helicopters, confirming his suspicions of a nearby base. A Soviet spacecraft is captured in orbit by another unidentified craft, heightening tensions with the United States. The mysterious spaceship lands in an extensive base hidden inside the volcano, operated by Ernst Stavro Blofeld of SPECTRE, who has been hired by a great power to start a Soviet-American war. Blofeld summons Osato and Brandt to his quarters for not having killed Bond; Osato blames Brandt, and as she leaves, Blofeld drops her to her death into a pool filled with piranhas. Blofeld then orders Osato to kill Bond.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: At Kyoto, Bond prepares to conduct a closer investigation of the island by training with Tanaka's ninjas and donning a Japanese disguise, which will include a staged marriage to an Ama diving girl. Aki is inadvertently poisoned to death by a SPECTRE assassin targeting Bond and he is then introduced to Tanaka's student, Kissy Suzuki who will play the part of his wife. Acting on Kissy's lead, the pair reconnoitre a cave booby-trapped with phosgene gas, and the volcano above it. Establishing that the mouth of the volcano is a disguised hatch to the secret rocket base, Bond slips in, while Kissy goes to alert Tanaka. Bond locates and frees the captured American and Soviet astronauts and, with their help, steals a space suit to infiltrate the SPECTRE spacecraft, "Bird One". However, Blofeld spots Bond, and he is detained while Bird One is launched. Bond is taken into the control room where he meets Blofeld, who kills Osato to demonstrate the price of failure.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Bird One closes in on an American space capsule, and U.S. forces prepare to launch a nuclear attack on the USSR. Meanwhile, Tanaka's ninjas approach the base's entrance, but are detected and fired upon. Bond distracts Blofeld and lets in the ninjas. During the battle, Tanaka saves Bond by disarming Blofeld with his shuriken. Bond fights his way to the control room, tosses Blofeld's bodyguard into the piranha pool, and activates Bird One's self-destruct before it reaches the American craft. As the Americans stand down their forces, Blofeld activates the base's self-destruct system and escapes. Bond, Kissy, Tanaka, and the surviving ninjas leave before the eruption destroys the base, and are picked up by the Japanese Maritime Forces and the British Secret Service.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was the intended next film after "Thunderball" (1965), but the producers decided to adapt "You Only Live Twice" instead because "OHMSS" would require searching for high and snowy locations. Lewis Gilbert originally declined the offer to direct, but accepted after producer Albert R. Broccoli called him saying: "You can't give up this job. It's the largest audience in the world." Peter R. Hunt, who edited the first five Bond films, believed that Gilbert had been contracted by the producers for other work but they found they had to use him. Ted Moore, the director of photography on the first four films, was unavailable because he was filming "A Man for All Seasons" and was replaced by Freddie Young.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Gilbert, Young, producers Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and production designer Ken Adam then went to Japan, spending three weeks searching for locations. SPECTRE's shore fortress headquarters was changed to an extinct volcano after the team learned that the Japanese do not build castles by the sea. The group was due to return to the UK on a BOAC Boeing 707 flight (BOAC Flight 911) on 5 March 1966, but cancelled after being told they had a chance to watch a "ninja" demonstration. That flight crashed 25 minutes after takeoff, killing all on board. In Tokyo, the crew also found Hunt, who decided to go on holiday after having his request to direct declined. Hunt was invited to direct the second unit for "You Only Live Twice" and accepted the job.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Unlike most James Bond films, which usually feature various locations around the world, almost the entire film is set in one country, and several minutes are devoted to an elaborate Japanese wedding. This is in keeping with Fleming's original novel, which also devoted a number of pages to the discussion of Japanese culture. Toho Studios provided soundstages, personnel, and the female Japanese stars to the producers.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: The first draft was written by Sydney Boehm based closely on the original novel. The producers had Harold Jack Bloom come to Japan with them to write a screenplay. His work was ultimately rejected, but since several of his ideas were used in the final script, he was given the credit of "Additional Story Material". Among these elements were the opening with Bond's fake death and burial at sea, and the ninja attack. As the screenwriter of the previous Bond films, Richard Maibaum, was unavailable, Roald Dahl (a close friend of Ian Fleming) was chosen to write the adaptation, despite having no prior experience writing a screenplay except for the uncompleted "The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling".


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Dahl said that the original novel was "Fleming's worst book, with no plot in it which would even make a movie", and compared it to a travelogue, stating that he had to create a new plot though "I could retain only four or five of the original story's ideas." On creating the plot, Dahl said he "did not know what the hell Bond was going to do" despite having to deliver the first draft in six weeks, and decided to do a basic plot similar to "Dr. No". He was inspired by the story of a missing nuclear-armed U.S. Air Force bomber over Spain and by the Soviet Union and the United States' recent first spacewalks from Voskhod 2 and Gemini 4. Dahl was given a free rein on his script, except for the character of Bond and "the girl formula", involving three women for Bond to seduce – an ally and a henchwoman who both get killed, and the main Bond girl. While the third involved a character from the book, Kissy Suzuki, Dahl had to create Aki and Helga Brandt to fulfil the rest.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Gilbert was mostly collaborative with Dahl's work, as the writer declared: "He not only helped in script conferences, but had some good ideas and then left you alone, and when you produced the finished thing, he shot it. Other directors have such an ego that they want to rewrite it and put their own dialogue in, and it's usually disastrous. What I admired so much about Lewis Gilbert was that he just took the screenplay and shot it. That's the way to direct: You either trust your writer or you don't."


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Charles Gray, who played Dikko Henderson, actually says the famous "shaken not stirred" line the other way round saying "that is stirred not shaken, that was right wasn't it?" Bond replies "Perfect."


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: When the time came to begin "You Only Live Twice", the producers were faced with the problem of a disenchanted star. Sean Connery had stated that he was tired of playing James Bond and all of the associated commitment (time spent filming and publicising each movie), together with finding it difficult to do other work, which would potentially lead to typecasting. Saltzman and Broccoli were able to persuade Connery by increasing his fee for the film, but geared up to look for a replacement.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Jan Werich was originally cast by producer Harry Saltzman to play Blofeld. Upon his arrival at the Pinewood set, both producer Albert R. Broccoli and director Lewis Gilbert felt that he was a poor choice, resembling a "poor, benevolent Father Christmas". Nonetheless, in an attempt to make the casting work, Gilbert continued filming. After several days, both Gilbert and Broccoli determined that Werich was not menacing enough, and recast Blofeld with Donald Pleasence in the role. Pleasence's ideas for Blofeld's appearance included a hump, a limp, a beard, and a lame hand, before he settled on the scar. He found it uncomfortable, though, because of the glue that attached it to his eye.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Many European models were tested for Helga Brandt, including German actress Eva Renzi who passed on the film, with German actress Karin Dor being cast. Dor performed the stunt of diving into a pool to depict Helga's demise, without the use of a double. Dor was dubbed by a different actress for the German release.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: UA CEO Bud Ornstein met with Toshiro Mifune in the Canary Islands to try to convince him to play Tiger Tanaka, but he was already committed to appear in "Grand Prix". Gilbert had chosen Tetsurō Tamba after working with him in "The 7th Dawn". A number of martial arts experts were hired as the ninjas. The two Japanese female parts proved difficult to cast, due to most of the actresses tested having little English. Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama, both Toho Studios stars, were eventually chosen and started taking English classes in the UK. Hama, initially cast in the role of Tanaka's assistant, had difficulty with the language. Initially the producers were going to fire her, but after Tamba suggested she would commit suicide if they did so instead switched her role with Wakabayashi, who had been cast as Kissy, a part with less dialogue. Wakabayashi only requested that her character name, "Suki", be changed to "Aki".


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Most of the interiors were shot at Pinewood. The opening sequence in Hong Kong used some location footage of a street in Kowloon. Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour is also shown, but the at-sea burial of Bond and the retrieval of the corpse was filmed off Gibraltar and the Bahamas. The scenes with the light aircraft ferrying Bond to his supposed death were shot over very English-looking countryside in Buckinghamshire, whereas this was supposed to be Japan.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Large crowds were present in Japan to see the shooting. A Japanese fan began following Sean Connery with a camera, and police had to deal with fan incursions several times during shooting.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: The heavily armed WA-116 autogyro "Little Nellie" was included after Ken Adam heard a radio interview with its inventor, RAF Wing Commander Ken Wallis. Little Nellie was named after music hall star Nellie Wallace, who has a similar surname to its inventor. Wallis piloted his invention, which was equipped with various mock-up armaments by John Stears' special effects team, during production.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: "Nellie"'s battle with helicopters proved to be difficult to film. The scenes were initially shot in Miyazaki, first with takes of the gyrocopter, with more than 85 take-offs, five hours of flight and Wallis nearly crashing into the camera several times. A scene filming the helicopters from above created a major downdraft, and cameraman John Jordan's foot was severed by the craft's rotor. It was surgically reattached by surgeons visiting the country, and then amputated in London when the surgery was deemed to have been flawed. Jordan would continue work for the Bond series with a prosthetic foot. The concluding shots involved explosions, which the Japanese government did not allow in a national park; hence, the crew moved to Torremolinos, Spain, which was found to resemble the Japanese landscape. The shots of the volcano were filmed at Shinmoedake on Kyushu Island.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: The sets of SPECTRE's volcano base, including operative heliport and monorail, were constructed at a lot inside Pinewood Studios, at a cost of $1 million. The tall set could be seen from away, and attracted many people from the region. Locations outside Japan included using the Royal Navy frigate , then in Gibraltar, for the sea burial, Hong Kong for the scene where Bond fakes his death, and Norway for the Soviet radar station.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Sean Connery's then-wife Diane Cilento performed the swimming scenes for at least five Japanese actresses, including Mie Hama. Martial arts expert Donn F. Draeger provided martial arts training, and also doubled for Connery. Lewis Gilbert's regular editor, Thelma Connell, was originally hired to edit the film. However, after her initial, almost three-hour cut received a terrible response from test audiences, Peter R. Hunt was asked to re-edit the film. Hunt's cut proved a much greater success, and he was awarded the director's chair on the next film as a result.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: The soundtrack was the fourth of the series to be composed by John Barry. He tried to incorporate the "elegance of the Oriental sound" with Japanese music-inspired tracks. The theme song, "You Only Live Twice", was composed by Barry and lyricist Leslie Bricusse, and sung by Nancy Sinatra after her father Frank Sinatra passed on the opportunity. Nancy Sinatra was reported to be very nervous while recording – first she wanted to leave the studio; then she claimed to sometimes "sound like Minnie Mouse". Barry declared that the final song uses 25 different takes.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: There are two versions of the song "You Only Live Twice", sung by Nancy Sinatra, one directly from the movie soundtrack, and a second one for record release arranged by Billy Strange. The movie soundtrack song is widely recognised for its striking opening bars and oriental flavour, and was far more popular on radio. The record release reached No. 44 on the "Billboard" charts in the US, and No. 11 in the UK. Both versions of the title song are available on CD.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: A different title song was originally recorded by Julie Rogers, but eventually discarded. Only two lines from that version were kept in the final lyrics, and the orchestral part was changed to fit Sinatra's vocal range. Rogers' version only appeared in a James Bond 30th Anniversary CD, with no singer credit. In the 1990s, an alternative example of a possible theme song (also called "You Only Live Twice" and sung by Lorraine Chandler) was discovered in the vaults of RCA Records. It became a very popular track with followers of the Northern soul scene (Chandler was well known for her high-quality soul output on RCA) and can be found on several RCA soul compilations.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: To promote the film, United Artists Television produced a one-hour colour television programme titled "Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond", which first aired on 2 June 1967 in the United States on NBC. Bond regulars Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn appeared, playing respectively Miss Moneypenny and Q. Kate O'Mara appears as Miss Moneypenny's assistant. The programme shows clips from "You Only Live Twice" and the then four existing Bond films, and contained a storyline of Moneypenny trying to establish the identity of Bond's bride.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: "You Only Live Twice" premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 12 June 1967, with Queen Elizabeth II in attendance. The film opened the following day in the United Kingdom and United States, set an opening day record at the Odeon Leicester Square, and went to number one in the United States with a weekend gross of $600,000. It grossed $7 million from 161 theaters in the United States in its first three weeks, and was number one for seven weeks. The film grossed $43 million in the United States and over $68 million worldwide.


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, in which he criticised the focus on gadgets, declaring "the formula fails to work its magic. Like its predecessor "Thunderball", another below-par entry, this one is top-heavy with gadgets but weak on plotting and getting everything to work at the same time." Bosley Crowther, reviewing for "The New York Times", felt "there's enough of the bright and bland bravado of the popular British super-sleuth mixed into this melee of rocket-launching to make it a bag of good Bond fun. And there's so much of that scientific clatter – so much warring of super-capsules out in space and fussing with electronic gadgets in a great secret underground launching pad – that this way out adventure picture should be the joy and delight of the youngsters and give pleasure to the reasonable adults who can find release in the majestically absurd."


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: "Variety" stated more positively that "As entertainment ["You Only Live Twice"] compares favorably in quality and is replete with as many fights, gadgets, and beauties as its predecessors". "Time" was sharply critical of the film claiming the franchise had become "the victim of the same misfortune that once befell Frankenstein: there have been so many flamboyant imitations that the original looks like a copy." The reviewer later derided that "the effects are ineffective. The outer-space sequences would be more appropriate in a grade school educational short entitled Our Amazing Universe, and the volcanic climax is a series of clumsy process shots that no one took the trouble to fix. Even Connery seems uncomfortable and fatigued..." Clifford Terry, reviewing for the "Chicago Tribune", remarked that "a large percentage of "You Only Live Twice" is disappointing, lacking the wit and zip, the pacing and punch, of its predecessors, especially the first three. Roald Dahl's script is larded with sex-slanted jokes that are either pathetically feeble or sophomorically coarse, Bond's patented puns are punier and even Connery's enthusiasm for his shrewd, suave, and sensual character seems to have waned."


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 73% based on 49 reviews with an average rating of 6.53/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With exotic locales, impressive special effects, and a worthy central villain, "You Only Live Twice" overcomes a messy and implausible story to deliver another memorable early Bond flick." James Berardinelli of "ReelViews" said that the first half was good, but "It's only during the second half, as the plot escalates beyond the bounds of preposterousness, that the film starts to fragment", criticising Blofeld's appearance and stating "rockets that swallow up spacecraft are a bit too extravagant." Ali Barclay of "BBC Films" lightly criticized Dahl's script, writing that Dahl had "clearly helped thrust Bond into a whole new world of villainy and technology, maybe his concepts were slightly ahead of themselves, or maybe he just tried too hard." Leo Goldsmith lauded the volcano base as "the most impressive of Ken Adam's sets for the franchise." Danny Peary wrote that "You Only Live Twice" "should have been about twenty minutes shorter" and described it as "not a bad Bond film, but it doesn't compare to its predecessors – the formula had become a little stale."


title: You Only Live Twice (film)

text: IGN ranked "You Only Live Twice" as the fourth-best "Bond" film, and "Entertainment Weekly" as the second-best, considering that it "pushes the series to the outer edge of coolness". However, Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the fifth-worst, criticising the plot, action scenes and lack of screentime for Blofeld. Literary critic Paul Simpson called the film one of the most colourful of the series and credited the prefecture of Kagoshima for adding "a good flavour" of Japanese influence on the film, but he panned the depiction of Blofeld as a "let-down", "small, bald and a whooping scar". Simon Winder said that the film is "perfect" for parodies of the series. John Brosnan, in his book "James Bond in the Cinema", compared the film to an episode of "Thunderbirds" with a reliance on gadgetry, but admitted it had pace and spectacle. Christopher Null considered the film to be one of James Bond's most memorable adventures, but the plot "protracting and quite confusing".


title: Bull shark

text: The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), also known as the Zambezi shark (informally zambi) in Africa and Lake Nicaragua shark in Nicaragua, is a species of requiem shark commonly found worldwide in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in rivers. It is known for its aggressive nature, and presence mainly in warm, shallow brackish and freshwater systems including estuaries and lower reaches of rivers.


title: Bull shark

text: Bull sharks are euryhaline and can thrive in both salt and fresh water. They are known to travel far up rivers, and have been known to travel up the Mississippi River as far as Alton, Illinois, about from the ocean, but few freshwater interactions with humans have been recorded. Larger-sized bull sharks are probably responsible for the majority of nearshore shark attacks, including many incidents of shark bites attributed to other species.


title: Bull shark

text: Unlike the river sharks of the genus "Glyphis", bull sharks are not true freshwater sharks, despite their ability to survive in freshwater habitats.


title: Bull shark

text: The name "bull shark" comes from the shark's stocky shape, broad, flat snout, and aggressive, unpredictable behavior. In India, the bull shark may be confused with the Sundarbans or Ganges shark. In Africa, it is also commonly called the Zambezi River shark, or just "zambi".


title: Bull shark

text: Its wide range and diverse habitats result in many other local names, including Ganges River shark, Fitzroy Creek whaler, van Rooyen's shark, Lake Nicaragua shark, river shark, freshwater whaler, estuary whaler, Swan River whaler, cub shark, and shovelnose shark.


title: Bull shark

text: Some of the bull shark's closest living relatives do not have the capabilities of osmoregulation. Its genus, "Carcharhinus", also includes the sandbar shark, which is not capable of osmoregulation.


title: Bull shark

text: The bull shark shares numerous similarities with river sharks of the genus "Glyphis", and other species in the genus "Carcharhinus", but its phylogeny has not been cleared yet.


title: Bull shark

text: Bull sharks are large and stout, with females being larger than males. The bull shark can be up to in length at birth. Adult female bull sharks average long and typically weigh , whereas the slightly smaller adult male averages and . While a maximum size of is commonly reported, a single record exists of a female specimen of exactly . A long pregnant individual reached . Bull sharks are wider and heavier than other requiem sharks of comparable length, and are grey on top and white below. The second dorsal fin is smaller than the first. The bull shark's caudal fin is longer and lower than that of the larger sharks, and it has a small snout, and lacks an interdorsal ridge.


title: Bull shark

text: Bull sharks have a bite force up to , weight for weight the highest among all investigated cartilaginous fishes.


title: Bull shark

text: In early June 2012, off the coast of the Florida Keys near the western part of the Atlantic Ocean, a female believed to measure at least and was caught by members of the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program. In the Arabian Sea, off the coast of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, a pregnant shark weighing and measuring long was caught in February 2019, followed by another specimen weighing about and measuring about the same in length, in January 2020.


title: Bull shark

text: The bull shark is commonly found worldwide in coastal areas of warm oceans, in rivers and lakes, and occasionally salt and freshwater streams if they are deep enough. It is found to a depth of , but does not usually swim deeper than . In the Atlantic, it is found from Massachusetts to southern Brazil, and from Morocco to Angola.


title: Bull shark

text: Populations of bull sharks are also found in several major rivers, with more than 500 bull sharks thought to be living in the Brisbane River. One was reportedly seen swimming the flooded streets of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, during the 2010–11 Queensland floods. Several were sighted in one of the main streets of Goodna, Queensland, shortly after the peak of the January 2011, floods. A large bull shark was caught in the canals of Scarborough, just north of Brisbane within Moreton Bay. Still greater numbers are in the canals of the Gold Coast, Queensland. In the Pacific Ocean, it can be found from Baja California to Ecuador.


title: Bull shark

text: The bull shark has traveled up the Amazon River to Iquitos in Peru and north Bolivia. It also lives in freshwater Lake Nicaragua, in the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers of West Bengal, and Assam in Eastern India and adjoining Bangladesh. It can live in water with a high salt content as in St. Lucia Estuary in South Africa. Bull sharks have been recorded in the Tigris River since at least 1924 as far upriver as Baghdad. The species has a distinct preference for warm currents.


title: Bull shark

text: After Hurricane Katrina, many bull sharks were sighted in Lake Pontchartrain. Bull sharks have occasionally gone as far upstream in the Mississippi River as Alton, Illinois, and up the Ohio River as far as Manchester, Ohio. Bull sharks have also been found in the Potomac River in Maryland. A golf course lake at Carbook, Logan City, Queensland, Australia is the home to several bull sharks. They were trapped following a flood of the Logan and Albert Rivers in 1996. The golf course has capitalized on the novelty and now hosts a monthly tournament called the "Shark Lake Challenge".


title: Bull shark

text: The bull shark is the best known of 43 species of elasmobranch in 10 genera and four families to have been reported in fresh water. Other species that enter rivers include the stingrays (Dasyatidae, Potamotrygonidae and others) and sawfish (Pristidae). Some skates (Rajidae), smooth dogfishes (Triakidae), and sandbar sharks ("Carcharhinus plumbeus") regularly enter estuaries.


title: Bull shark

text: The bull shark is diadromous, meaning they can swim between salt and fresh water with ease. These fish also are euryhaline fish, able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. The bull shark is one of the few cartilaginous fishes that have been reported in freshwater systems. Many of the euryhaline fish are bony fish such as salmon and tilapia and are not closely related to bull sharks. Evolutionary assumptions can be made to help explain this sort of evolutionary disconnect, one being that the bull shark encountered a population bottleneck that occurred during the last ice age. This bottleneck may have separated the bull shark from the rest of the Elasmobranchii subclass and favored the genes for an osmoregulatory system.


title: Bull shark

text: Elasmobranchs' ability to enter fresh water is limited because their blood is normally at least as salty (in terms of osmotic strength) as seawater through the accumulation of urea and trimethylamine oxide, but bull sharks living in fresh water show a significantly reduced concentration of urea within their blood. Despite this, the solute composition (i.e. osmolarity) of a bull shark in fresh water is still much higher than that of the external environment. This results in a large influx of water across the gills due to osmosis and loss of sodium and chloride from the shark's body. However, bull sharks in fresh water possess several organs with which to maintain appropriate salt and water balance; these are the rectal gland, kidneys, liver, and gills. All elasmobranchs have a rectal gland which functions in the excretion of excess salts accumulated as a consequence of living in seawater. Bull sharks in freshwater environments decrease the salt-excretory activity of the rectal gland, thereby conserving sodium and chloride. The kidneys produce large amounts of dilute urine, but also play an important role in the active reabsorption of solutes into the blood. The gills of bull sharks are likely to be involved in the uptake of sodium and chloride from the surrounding fresh water, whereas urea is produced in the liver as required with changes in environmental salinity. Recent work also shows that the differences in density of fresh water to that of marine waters result in significantly greater negative buoyancies in sharks occupying fresh water, resulting in increasing costs of living in fresh water. Bull sharks caught in freshwater have subsequently been shown to have lower liver densities than sharks living in marine waters. This may reduce the added cost of greater negative buoyancy.


title: Bull shark

text: Bull sharks are able to regulate themselves to live in either fresh or salt water. It can live in fresh water for its entire life, but this does not happen, mostly due to the reproductive needs of the shark. Young bull sharks leave the brackish water in which they are born and move out into the sea to breed. Whilst it is theoretically possible for bull sharks to live purely in fresh water, experiments conducted on bull sharks found that they died within four years. The stomach was opened and all that was found were two small, unidentifiable fishes. The cause of death could have been starvation since the primary food source for bull sharks resides in salt water.


title: Bull shark

text: In a research experiment, the bull sharks were found to be at the mouth of an estuary for the majority of the time. They stayed at the mouth of the river independent of the salinity of the water. The driving factor for a bull shark to be in fresh or salt water, however, is its age; as the bull shark ages, its tolerance for very low or high salinity increases. The majority of the newborn or very young bull sharks were found in the freshwater area, whereas the much older bull sharks were found to be in the saltwater areas, as they had developed a much better tolerance for the salinity. Reproduction is one of the reasons why adult bull sharks travel into the river—it is thought to be a physiological strategy to improve juvenile survival and a way to increase overall fitness of bull sharks. The young are not born with a high tolerance for high salinity, so they are born in fresh water and stay there until they are able to travel out.


title: Bull shark

text: Initially, scientists thought the sharks in Lake Nicaragua belonged to an endemic species, the Lake Nicaragua shark ("Carcharhinus nicaraguensis"). In 1961, following specimen comparisons, taxonomists synonymized them. Bull sharks tagged inside the lake have later been caught in the open ocean (and vice versa), with some taking as few as seven to 11 days to complete the journey.