NOC Week in Review #12: 9/19-25/2026

This week, Brad Bird got a two-part deep dive, LAIKA opened its doors again, Mike and Lauren hit a historic red carpet, and Dark Matter delivered one of its best episodes yet. Here’s everything you might’ve missed.

Michael camped out in Brad Bird’s noir-tinged corner of animation this week, running two features: first the making of Ray Gunn and Bird’s vision of a noir future, then a conversation with Bird and composer Michael Giacchino on the long road to Ray Gunn — a project three decades in the making.

Elsewhere in animation, Mike covered a lot of ground as well. He once again sat down with the craftspeople behind LAIKA’s stop-motion process for the upcoming film, Wildwood, then joined Lauren on the red carpet for a historic night at the Forgotten Island world premiere, marking both the first film to debut at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and the first Hollywood animated feature built around Filipino culture.

On the toy beat for a different animation icon, Laura has the details on LEGO Pokémon’s ‘SMART Play’ experience, landing in Los Angeles this weekend.

Meanwhile, the Dark Matter recaps continued with episode 5, a bottle episode detour following an alternate Jason through years of grief, family, and reluctant love, scored — in my mind, at least — to a Pearl Jam deep cut. This time: ‘Upper Hand.’

And that’s a wrap on this week’s NOC. See you next Friday.

— Keith

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