title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The novella is set during the Carnival, when people often wear masks to parties. The party that both husband and wife attend at the opening of the story is a Carnival Masquerade ball, whereas the film's story begins at Christmas time.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: In the novella, the party (which is sparsely attended) uses "Denmark" as the password for entrance; that is significant in that Albertina had her infatuation with her soldier in Denmark; the film's password is "Fidelio". In early drafts of the screenplay, the password was "Fidelio Rainbow". Jonathan Rosenbaum noted that both passwords echo elements of one member of the couple's behaviour, though in opposite ways. The party in the novella consists mostly of nude ballroom dancing.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: In the novella, the woman who "redeems" Fridolin at the party, saving him from punishment, is costumed as a nun, and most of the characters at the party are dressed as nuns or monks; Fridolin himself used a monk costume. This aspect was retained in the film's original screenplay, but was deleted in the filmed version.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The novella makes it clear that Fridolin at this point hates Albertina more than ever, thinking they are now lying together "like mortal enemies". It has been argued that the dramatic climax of the novella is actually Albertina's dream, and the film has shifted the focus to Bill's visit to the secret society's orgy, whose content is more shocking in the film.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The adaptation created a character with no counterpart in the novella: Ziegler, who represents both the high wealth and prestige to which Bill Harford aspires, and a connection between Bill's two worlds (his regular life, and the secret society organizing the ball). Critic Randy Rasmussen interprets Ziegler as representing Bill's worst self, much as in other Kubrick films; the title character in "Dr. Strangelove" represents the worst of the American national security establishment, Charles Grady represents the worst of Jack Torrance in "The Shining", and Clare Quilty represents the worst of Humbert Humbert in "Lolita".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: More significantly, in the film, Ziegler gives a commentary on the whole story to Bill, including an explanation that the party incident, where Bill is apprehended, threatened, and ultimately redeemed by the woman's sacrifice, was staged. Whether this is to be believed or not, it is an exposition of Ziegler's view of the ways of the world as a member of the power elite.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: When Warner Bros. president Terry Semel approved production, he asked Kubrick to cast a movie star as "you haven't done that since Jack Nicholson [in "The Shining"]". Kubrick considered casting both Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger as Bill Harford and Alice Harford. Cruise was in England as his wife Nicole Kidman was there filming "The Portrait of a Lady" (1996), and the pair eventually decided to visit Kubrick's estate. After that meeting, the director awarded them the roles. Kubrick also managed to make both not commit to other projects until "Eyes Wide Shut" was completed. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Harvey Keitel each were cast and filmed by Kubrick. Reportedly due to scheduling conflicts, both had to drop out – first Keitel with "Finding Graceland", then Leigh with "eXistenZ" – and they were replaced by Sydney Pollack and Marie Richardson in the final cut. In a 2016 interview, however, Keitel claimed he was actually fired by Kubrick after clashing with him on set.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: In 2019, it was revealed that Cate Blanchett had provided the voice of the mysterious masked woman at the orgy party. Actress Abigail Good could not do a convincing American accent, and Cruise and Kidman ended up suggesting Blanchett for the dubbing, which occurred after Kubrick's death.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Principal photography began in November 1996. Kubrick's perfectionism led to script pages being rewritten on the set with most scenes requiring numerous takes. The shoot went on for much longer than expected; the actress Vinessa Shaw was initially contracted for two weeks but ended up working for two months whilst the actor Alan Cumming, who appears in one scene as a hotel clerk, auditioned six times before the filming process. Due to the relentless nature of the production, the crew became exhausted and were reported to have been impacted by low morale. Filming finally wrapped in June 1998. The "Guinness World Records" recognized "Eyes Wide Shut" as the longest constant movie shoot that ran "...for over 15 months, a period that included an unbroken shoot of 46 weeks".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Given Kubrick's fear of flying, the entire film was shot in England. Sound-stage works were completed at London's Pinewood Studios which included a detailed recreation of Greenwich Village. Kubrick's perfectionism went as far as sending workmen to Manhattan to measure street widths and note newspaper vending machine locations. Real New York footage was also shot to be rear projected behind Cruise. Production was followed by a strong campaign of secrecy helped by Kubrick always working with a short team on set. Outdoor locations included Hatton Garden for a Greenwich Village street, Hamleys for the toy store from the film's ending, and Mentmore Towers and Elveden Hall in Elveden, Suffolk, England for the mansion. Larry Smith, who had first served as a gaffer on both "Barry Lyndon" and "The Shining" was chosen by Kubrick to be the film's cinematographer. Wherever possible, Smith made use of available light sources visible in the shots such as lamps and Christmas tree lights, but when this was insufficient he used Chinese paper ball lamps to softly brighten the scene and/or other types of film lighting. The color was enhanced by push processing the film reels (emulsion) which helped bring out the intensity of the color.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Kubrick's perfectionism led him to oversee every visual element that would appear in a given frame, from props and furniture to the color of walls and other objects. One such element were the masks used in the orgy which were inspired by the masked carnival balls visited by the protagonists in the novel. Costume designer Marit Allen explained that Kubrick felt they fit in that scene for being part of the imaginary world and ended up "creat[ing] the impression of menace, but without exaggeration". As many masks as were used in the Venetian carnival were sent to London and Kubrick chose who would wear each piece. The paintings of Kubrick's wife Christiane and his daughter Katherina are featured as decorations.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Nicole Kidman revealed that her explicit scenes with the naval officer, played by Gary Goba, were filmed over three days and that Kubrick wanted them to be 'almost pornographic'.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: After shooting had been completed, Kubrick entered a prolonged post-production process and on March 1, 1999, Kubrick showed a cut to Cruise, Kidman and the Warner Bros. executives. The director died six days later.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Jocelyn Pook wrote the original music for "Eyes Wide Shut" but, like other Kubrick movies, the film was noted for its use of classical music. The opening title music is Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 from "Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra", misidentified as "Waltz 2 from Jazz Suite". One recurring piece is the second movement of György Ligeti's piano cycle "Musica ricercata". Kubrick originally intended to feature "Im Treibhaus" from Wagner's "Wesendonck Lieder", but the director eventually replaced it with Ligeti's tune feeling Wagner's song was "too beautiful". In the morgue scene, Franz Liszt's late solo piano piece, "Nuages Gris" ("Grey Clouds") (1881), is heard. "Rex tremendae" from Mozart's "Requiem" plays as Bill walks into the café and reads of Mandy's death.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Pook was hired after choreographer Yolande Snaith rehearsed the masked ball orgy scene using Pook's composition "Backwards Priests" – which features a Romanian Orthodox Divine Liturgy recorded in a church in Baia Mare, played backwards – as a reference track. Kubrick then called the composer and asked if she had anything else "weird" like that song, which was reworked for the final cut of the scene, with the title "Masked Ball". Pook ended up composing and recording four pieces of music, many times based on her previous work, totaling 24 minutes. The composer's work ended up having mostly string instruments – including a viola played by Pook herself – with no brass or woodwinds as Pook "just couldn't justify these other textures", particularly as she wanted the tracks played on dialogue-heavy scenes to be "subliminal" and felt such instruments would be intrusive.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Another track in the orgy, "Migrations", features a Tamil song sung by Manickam Yogeswaran, a Carnatic singer. The original cut featured a scriptural recitation from the "Bhagavad Gita", which Pook took from a previous Yogeswaran recording. South African Hindu Mahasabha, a Hindu group, protested against the scripture being used, Warner Bros. issued a public apology, and hired the singer to record a similar track to replace the chant.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The party at Ziegler's house features rearrangements of love songs such as "When I Fall in Love" and "It Had to Be You", used in increasingly ironic ways considering how Alice and Bill flirt with other people in the scene. As Kidman was nervous about doing nude scenes, Kubrick stated she could bring music to liven up. When Kidman brought a Chris Isaak CD, Kubrick approved it, and incorporated Isaak's song "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing" to both an early romantic embrace of Bill and Alice and the film's trailer.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The film was described by some reviewers, and partially marketed, as an erotic thriller, a categorization disputed by others. It is classified as such in the book "The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema", by Linda Ruth Williams, and was described as such in news articles about Cruise and Kidman's lawsuit over assertions that they saw a sex therapist during filming. The positive review in "Combustible Celluloid" describes it as an erotic thriller upon first viewing, but actually a "complex story about marriage and sexuality". High-Def Digest also called it an erotic thriller.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: However, reviewing the film at AboutFilm.com, Carlo Cavagna regards this as a misleading classification, as does Leo Goldsmith, writing at notcoming.com, and the review on Blu-ray.com. Writing in "TV Guide", Maitland McDonagh writes "No one familiar with the cold precision of Kubrick's work will be surprised that this isn't the steamy erotic thriller a synopsis (or the ads) might suggest." Writing in general about the genre of 'erotic thriller' for CineAction in 2001, Douglas Keesey states that "whatever ["Eyes Wide Shut"] actual type, [it] was at least marketed as an erotic thriller". Michael Koresky, writing in the 2006 issue of film journal "Reverse Shot", writes "this director, who defies expectations at every turn and brings genre to his feet, was  ... setting out to make neither the 'erotic thriller' that the press maintained nor an easily identifiable 'Kubrick film'". "DVD Talk" similarly dissociates the film from this genre.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: In addition to relocating the story from Vienna in the 1900s to New York City in the 1990s, Kubrick changed the time-frame of Schnitzler's story from Mardi Gras to Christmas. Michael Koresky believed Kubrick did this because of the rejuvenating symbolism of Christmas. Mario Falsetto, on the other hand, notes that Christmas lights allow Kubrick to employ some of his distinct methods of shooting including using source location lighting, as he also did in "Barry Lyndon". "The New York Times" notes that the film "gives an otherworldly radiance and personality to Christmas lights", and critic Randy Rasmussen notes that "colorful Christmas lights  ... illuminate almost every location in the film." "Harper"'s film critic, Lee Siegel, believes that the film's recurring motif is the Christmas tree, because it symbolizes the way that "Compared with the everyday reality of sex and emotion, our fantasies of gratification are  ... pompous and solemn in the extreme  ... For desire is like Christmas: it always promises more than it delivers." Author Tim Kreider notes that the "Satanic" mansion-party at Somerton is the only set in the film without a Christmas tree, stating that "Almost every set is suffused with the dreamlike, hazy glow of colored lights and tinsel." Furthermore, he argues that "Eyes Wide Shut, though it was released in summer, was "the" Christmas movie of 1999." Noting that Kubrick has shown viewers the dark side of Christmas consumerism, Louise Kaplan states that the film illustrates ways in which the "material reality of money" is shown replacing the spiritual values of Christmas, charity, and compassion. While virtually every scene has a Christmas tree, there is "no Christmas music or cheery Christmas spirit." Critic Alonso Duralde, in his book "Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas", categorized the film as a "Christmas movie for grownups", arguing that "Christmas weaves its way through the film from start to finish".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Historians, travel guide authors, novelists, and merchants of Venetian masks have noted that these have a long history of being worn during promiscuous activities. Authors Tim Kreider and Thomas Nelson have linked the film's usage of these to Venice's reputation as a center of both eroticism and mercantilism. Nelson notes that the sex ritual combines elements of Venetian Carnival and Catholic rites, in particular, the character of "Red Cloak" who simultaneously serves as Grand Inquisitor and King of Carnival. As such, Nelson argues that the sex ritual is a symbolic mirror of the darker truth behind the façade of Victor Ziegler's earlier Christmas party. Carolin Ruwe, in her book "Symbols in Stanley Kubrick's Movie 'Eyes Wide Shut"', argues that the mask is the prime symbol of the film. Its symbolic meaning is represented through its connection to the characters in the film; as Tim Kreider points out, this can be seen through the masks in the prostitute's apartment and her being renamed as "Domino" in the film, which is a type of Venetian Mask. Unused early poster designs for the film by Kubrick's daughter Katharina used the motif of Venetian masks, but were rejected by the studio because they obscured the faces of the film's two stars.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Warner Bros. heavily promoted "Eyes Wide Shut", while following Kubrick's secrecy campaign – to the point that the film's press kits contained no production notes, nor even the director's suggestions to Semel regarding the marketing campaign, given one week prior to Kubrick's death. The first footage was shown to theater owners attending the 1999 ShoWest convention in Las Vegas. TV spots featured both Isaak and Ligeti's music from the soundtrack, while revealing little about the movie's plot. The film also appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine, and on show business programs such as "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: "Eyes Wide Shut" opened on July 16, 1999, in the United States. The film topped the week-end box office, with $21.7 million from 2,411 screens. These numbers surpassed the studio's expectations of $20 million, and became both Cruise's sixth consecutive chart topper and Kubrick's highest opening week-end as well as the highest featuring Kidman and Cruise together. "Eyes Wide Shut" ended up grossing a total of $55,691,208 in the US. The numbers put it as Kubrick's second-highest-grossing film in the country, behind "2001: A Space Odyssey", but both were considered a box office disappointment.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Shortly after its screening at the Venice Film Festival, "Eyes Wide Shut" had a British premiere on September 3, 1999, at the Warner Village cinema in Leicester Square. The film's wide opening occurred the following week-end, and topped the U.K. charts with £1,189,672.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The international performances for "Eyes Wide Shut" were more positive, with Kubrick's long-time assistant and brother-in-law Jan Harlan stating that "It was badly received in the Anglo-Saxon world, but it was very well received in the Latin world and Japan. In Italy, it was a huge hit." Overseas earnings of over $105 million led to a $162,091,208 box office run world-wide, turning it into the highest-grossing Kubrick film.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: "Eyes Wide Shut" received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Kubrick's intense study of the human psyche yields an impressive cinematic work." Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 34 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Over 50 critics listed the film among the best of 1999. French magazine "Cahiers du Cinéma" named it the best film of the year in its annual "top ten" list. However, audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: In the "Chicago Tribune", Michael Wilmington declared the film a masterpiece, lauding it as "provocatively conceived, gorgeously shot and masterfully executed ... Kubrick's brilliantly choreographed one-take scenes create a near-hypnotic atmosphere of commingled desire and dread." Nathan Rabin of "The A.V. Club" was also highly positive, arguing that "the film's primal, almost religious intensity and power is primarily derived from its multifaceted realization that disobeying the dictates of society and your conscience can be both terrifying and exhilarating. ... The film's depiction of sexual depravity and amorality could easily venture into the realm of camp in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, but Kubrick depicts primal evil in a way that somehow makes it seem both new and deeply terrifying."


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a score of three and a half stars out of four, writing, "Kubrick's great achievement in the film is to find and hold an odd, unsettling, sometimes erotic tone for the doctor's strange encounters." He praised the individual dream-like atmosphere of the separate scenes, and called the choice of Christmas-themed lighting "garish, like an urban sideshow".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Reviewer James Berardinelli stated that it was arguably one of Kubrick's best films. Along with considering Kidman "consistently excellent", he wrote that Kubrick "has something to say about the causes and effects of depersonalized sex", and praised the work as "thought-provoking and unsettling". Writing for "The New York Times", reviewer Janet Maslin commented, "This is a dead-serious film about sexual yearnings, one that flirts with ridicule yet sustains its fundamental eeriness and gravity throughout. The dreamlike intensity of previous Kubrick visions is in full force here."


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Some reviewers were unfavorable. One complaint was that the movie's pacing was too slow; while this may have been intended to convey a dream state, critics objected that it made actions and decisions seem laboured. Another complaint was that it did not live up to the expectation of it being a "sexy film" which is what it had been marketed as, thus defying audiences' expectations. Many critics, such as Manohla Dargis of "LA Weekly" found the prolific orgy scene to be "banal" and "surprisingly tame". While Kubrick's "pictorial talents" were described as "striking" by Rod Dreher of the "New York Post", the pivotal scene was deemed by Stephen Hunter, writing for "The Washington Post", as the "dullest orgy [he'd] ever seen". Hunter elaborates on his criticism, and states that "Kubrick is annoyingly offhand while at the same time grindingly pedantic; plot points are made over and over again, things are explained till the dawn threatens to break in the east, and the movie stumbles along at a glacial pace". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" complained about the inauthenticity of the New York setting, claiming that the soundstage used for the film's production didn't have "enough bustle" to capture the reality of New York. Paul Tatara of "CNN" described the film as a "slow-motion morality tale full of hot female bodies and thoroughly uneventful 'mystery'", while Andrew Sarris writing for "The New York Observer" criticised the film's "feeble attempts at melodramatic tension and suspense". David Edelstein of "Slate" dismissed it as "estranged from any period I recognize. Who are these people played by Cruise and Kidman, who act as if no one has ever made a pass at them and are so deeply traumatized by their newfound knowledge of sexual fantasies—the kind that mainstream culture absorbed at least half a century ago? Who are these aristocrats whose limos take them to secret masked orgies in Long Island mansions? Even dream plays need some grounding in the real world." J. Hoberman wrote that the film "feels like a rough draft at best."


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Lee Siegel from "Harper's" felt that most critics responded mainly to the marketing campaign and did not address the film on its own terms. Others felt that American censorship took an esoteric film and made it even harder to understand. In his article "Grotesque Caricature", published in Postmodern Culture, Stefan Mattesich praises the film's nuanced caricatured elements, and states that the film's negation of conventional narrative elements is what resulted in its subsequent negative reception.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: For the introduction to Michel Ciment's "Kubrick: The Definitive Edition", Martin Scorsese wrote: "When "Eyes Wide Shut" came out a few months after Stanley Kubrick's death in 1999, it was severely misunderstood, which came as no surprise. If you go back and look at the contemporary reactions to any Kubrick picture (except the earliest ones), you'll see that all his films were initially misunderstood. Then, after five or ten years came the realization that "" or "Barry Lyndon" or "The Shining" was like nothing else before or since." In 2012, "Slant Magazine" ranked the film as the second greatest of the 1990s. British Film Institute ranked the film at No. 19 on its list of "90 great films of the 1990s". The BBC listed it number 61 in its list of the 100 greatest American films of all time.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: "Eyes Wide Shut" was first released in VHS, laserdisc, and DVD on March 7, 2000. The original DVD release corrects technical gaffes, including a reflected crew member, and altering a piece of Alice Harford's dialogue. Most home videos remove the verse that was claimed to be cited from the sacred Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita (although it was Pook's reworking of "Backwards Priests" as stated above.) In the UK, Warners' 'rated 18' [no video altering] 1999 DVD release was in 4:3 full frame aspect ratio, with a note at the beginning that this was as Kubrick intended to be shown [ratio as shot]. However, the film's length on this UK DVD is only 153 minutes, as opposed to the 159 minutes of other available DVD and Blu-Ray versions. This is due to the transfer being transferred at 25 f.p.s rather than 24 as shot; no actual footage was cut.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: On October 23, 2007, Warner Home Video released "Eyes Wide Shut" in a special edition DVD, plus the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats. This is the first home video release that presents the film in anamorphic 1.78:1 (16:9) format (the film was shown theatrically as soft matted 1.66:1 in Europe and 1.85:1 in the US and Japan). The previous DVD release used a 1.33:1 (4:3) aspect ratio. It is also the first American home video release to feature the uncut version. Although the earliest American DVD of the uncut version states on the cover that it includes both the R-rated and unrated editions, in actuality only the unrated edition is on the DVD.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Though Warner Bros. insisted that Kubrick had turned in his final cut before his death, the film was still in the final stages of post-production, which was therefore completed by the studio in collaboration with Kubrick's estate. Some have argued that the work which remained was minor and exclusively technical in nature, allowing the estate to faithfully complete the film based on the director's notes. However, decisions regarding sound mixing, scoring and color-correction would have necessarily been made without Kubrick's input. Furthermore, Kubrick had a history of continuing to edit his films up until the last minute, and in some cases even after initial public screenings, as had been the case with "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "The Shining".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Writing for "Vanity Fair", Kubrick collaborator Michael Herr recalled a phone call from the director regarding the cut that would be screened for the Warner Bros. executives four days before his death:


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Garrett Brown, inventor of the Steadicam, has expressed that he considers "Eyes Wide Shut" to be an unfinished film:


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Nicole Kidman, one of the stars of the film, briefly wrote about the completion of the film and the release of the film being at the same time of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death from her perspective:


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law and executive producer, reported that Kubrick was "very happy" with the film and considered it to be his "greatest contribution to the art of cinema".


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: R. Lee Ermey, an actor in Kubrick's film "Full Metal Jacket", stated that Kubrick phoned him two weeks before his death to express his despondency over "Eyes Wide Shut". "He told me it was a piece of shit", Ermey said in "Radar" magazine, "and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to 'have him for lunch'. He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him – exactly the words he used."


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: According to Todd Field, Kubrick's friend and an actor in "Eyes Wide Shut", Ermey's claims do not accurately reflect Kubrick's essential attitude. Field's response appeared in an October 18, 2006 interview with Grouch Reviews:


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: The polite thing would be to say 'No comment'. But the truth is that  ... let's put it this way, you've never seen two actors more completely subservient and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director. Stanley was absolutely thrilled with the film. He was still working on the film when he died. And he probably died because he finally relaxed. It was one of the happiest weekends of his life, right before he died, after he had shown the first cut to Terry, Tom and Nicole. He would have kept working on it, like he did on all of his films. But I know that from people around him personally, my partner who was his assistant for thirty years. And I thought about R. Lee Ermey for "In the Bedroom". And I talked to Stanley a lot about that film, and all I can say is Stanley was adamant that I shouldn't work with him for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into because there is no reason to do that to anyone, even if they are saying slanderous things that I know are completely untrue.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: In a reddit "Ask Me Anything" session, Stanley Kubrick's daughter, Katharina Kubrick, claimed that her father was very proud of the film. She also discredited Ermey's claims, saying to a user who asked about Kubrick's alleged comments, "[not to] believe that for a second."


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Citing contractual obligations to deliver an R rating, Warner Bros. digitally altered the orgy for the film's American release by blocking out graphic sexuality using additional figures to obscure the view in order to avoid an adults-only NC-17 rating that would have limited distribution, as some large American theaters and video store operators banned films with that rating. This alteration antagonized both film critics and cinephiles, who argued that Kubrick had never been shy about ratings ("A Clockwork Orange" was originally given an X-rating). The unrated version of "Eyes Wide Shut" was released in the United States on October 23, 2007, on DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.


title: Eyes Wide Shut

text: Roger Ebert heavily criticized the technique of using digital images to mask the action. In his positive review of the film, he said it "should not have been done at all" and it is "symbolic of the moral hypocrisy of the rating system that it would force a great director to compromise his vision, while by the same process making his adult film more accessible to young viewers." Although Ebert has been frequently cited as calling the standard North American R-rated version the "Austin Powers" version of "Eyes Wide Shut" – referring to two scenes in "" in which, through camera angles and coincidences, full frontal nudity is blocked from view in a comical way – his review stated that this joke referred to an early rough draft of the altered scene, never publicly released.


title: Yin and yang

text: Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives. Yin is the receptive and yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference such as the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both men and women as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order).


title: Yin and yang

text: Taiji or Tai chi () is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be compared with the old "wuji" (, "without pole"). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the material energy, which this universe has created itself out of, is also referred to as qi. It is believed that the organization of qi in this cosmology of yin and yang has formed many things. Included among these forms are humans. Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. This duality lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine, and a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang, taijiquan (tai chi chuan), and qigong (Chi Kung), as well as appearing in the pages of the "I Ching".


title: Yin and yang

text: The notion of duality can be found in many areas, such as Communities of Practice. The term "dualistic-monism" or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.


title: Yin and yang

text: In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu ( 2nd century BC), a moral dimension is attached to the idea of yin and yang.


title: Yin and yang

text: These Chinese terms "yīn" "dark side" and "yáng" "white side" are linguistically analyzable in terms of Chinese characters, pronunciations and etymology, meanings, topography, and loanwords.


title: Yin and yang

text: The Chinese characters and for the words "yīn" and "yáng" are both classified as Phono-semantic characters, combining the semantic component "mound; hill" radical (graphical variant of ) with the phonetic components "jīn" (and the added semantic component "yún" "pictographic: cloud") and "yáng" . In the latter, "yáng" "bright" features "sun" + + "The rays of the sun".


title: Yin and yang

text: The Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of is usually the level first tone "yīn" "shady; cloudy" or sometimes the falling fourth tone "yìn" "to shelter; shade" while "sunny" is always pronounced with rising second tone "yáng".


title: Yin and yang

text: Sinologists and historical linguists have reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciations from data in the (7th century CE) "Qieyun" rhyme dictionary and later rhyme tables, which was subsequently used to reconstruct Old Chinese phonology from rhymes in the (11th–7th centuries BCE) "Shijing" and phonological components of Chinese characters. Reconstructions of Old Chinese have illuminated the etymology of modern Chinese words.


title: Yin and yang

text: "Yin" < *"ʔəm" compares with Burmese "ʔum" "overcast; cloudy", Adi "muk-jum" "shade", and Lepcha "so'yǔm" "shade"; and is probably cognate with Chinese "àn" < *"ʔə̂mʔ" "dim; gloomy" and "qīn" < *"khəm" "blanket".


title: Yin and yang

text: "Yang" < *"laŋ" compares with Lepcha "a-lóŋ" "reflecting light", Burmese "laŋ" "be bright" and "ə-laŋ" "light"; and is perhaps cognate with Chinese "chāng" < *"k-hlaŋ" "prosperous; bright" (compare areal words like Tai "plaŋ" "bright" & Proto-Viet-Muong "hlaŋ"). To this word-family, Unger (Hao-ku, 1986:34) also includes "bǐng" < "*pl(j)aŋʔ" "bright"; however Schuessler reconstructs "bǐng"'s Old Chinese pronunciation as *"braŋʔ" and includes it in an Austroasiatic word family, besides "liàng" < *"raŋh" "shuǎng" < *"sraŋʔ" "twilight (of dawn)"; "míng" < *"mraŋ" "bright, become light, enlighten"; owing to "the different OC initial consonant which seems to have no recognizable OC morphological function".


title: Yin and yang

text: John DeFrancis's "ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary" gives the following translation equivalents.


title: Yin and yang

text: Yin 陰 or 阴 — Noun: ① [philosophy] female/passive/negative principle in nature, ② Surname; Bound morpheme: ① the moon, ② shaded orientation, ③ covert; concealed; hidden, ④ vagina, ⑤ penis, ⑥ of the netherworld, ⑦ negative, ⑧ north side of a hill, ⑨ south bank of a river, ⑩ reverse side of a stele, ⑪ in intaglio; Stative verb: ① overcast, ② sinister; treacherous


title: Yin and yang

text: Yang 陽 or 阳 — Bound morpheme: ① [Chinese philosophy] male/active/positive principle in nature, ② the sun, ③ male genitals, ④ in relief, ⑤ open; overt, ⑥ belonging to this world, ⑦ [linguistics] masculine, ⑧ south side of a hill, ⑨ north bank of a river


title: Yin and yang

text: The compound "yinyang" means "yin and yang; opposites; ancient Chinese astronomy; occult arts; astrologer; geomancer; etc."


title: Yin and yang

text: The sinologist Rolf Stein etymologically translates Chinese "yin" "shady side (of a mountain)" and "yang" "sunny side (of a mountain)" with the uncommon English geographic terms "ubac" "shady side of a mountain" and "adret" "sunny side of a mountain" (which are of French origin).


title: Yin and yang

text: Many Chinese place names or toponyms contain the word "yang" "sunny side" and a few contain "yin" "shady side". In China, as elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, sunlight comes predominantly from the south, and thus the south face of a mountain or the north bank of a river will receive more direct sunlight than the opposite side.


title: Yin and yang

text: "Yang" refers to the "south side of a hill" in Hengyang , which is south of Mount Heng in Hunan province, and to the "north bank of a river" in Luoyang , which is located north of the Luo River in Henan.


title: Yin and yang

text: Similarly, "yin" refers to "north side of a hill" in Huayin , which is north of Mount Hua in Shaanxi province.


title: Yin and yang

text: In Japan, the characters are used in western Honshu to delineate the north-side San'in region from the south-side San'yō region , separated by the Chūgoku Mountains .


title: Yin and yang

text: a. In Chinese philosophy, the feminine or negative principle (characterized by dark, wetness, cold, passivity, disintegration, etc.) of the two opposing cosmic forces into which creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also "attrib". or as "adj"., and "transf". Cf. yang.


title: Yin and yang

text: b. "Comb"., as yin-yang, the combination or fusion of the two cosmic forces; freq. attrib., esp. as yin-yang symbol, a circle divided by an S-shaped line into a dark and a light segment, representing respectively "yin" and "yang", each containing a 'seed' of the other.


title: Yin and yang

text: a. In Chinese philosophy, the masculine or positive principle (characterized by light, warmth, dryness, activity, etc.) of the two opposing cosmic forces into which creative energy divides and whose fusion in physical matter brings the phenomenal world into being. Also "attrib." or as "adj." Cf. yin.


title: Yin and yang

text: For the earliest recorded "yin and yang" usages, the "OED" cites 1671 for "yin" and "yang", 1850 for "yin-yang", and 1959 for "yang-yin".


title: Yin and yang

text: In English, "yang-yin" (like "ying-yang") occasionally occurs as a mistake or typographical error for the Chinese loanword "yin-yang"— yet they are not equivalents. Chinese does have some "yangyin" collocations, such as (lit. "foreign silver") "silver coin/dollar", but not even the most comprehensive dictionaries (e.g., the "Hanyu Da Cidian") enter "yangyin" *. While "yang" and "yin" can occur together in context, "yangyin" is not synonymous with "yinyang". The linguistic term "irreversible binomial" refers to a collocation of two words A–B that cannot be idiomatically reversed as B–A, for example, English "cat and mouse" (not *"mouse and cat") and "friend or foe" (not *"foe or friend").


title: Yin and yang

text: Similarly, the usual pattern among Chinese binomial compounds is for positive A and negative B, where the A word is dominant or privileged over B, for example, "tiandi" "heaven and earth" and "nannü" "men and women". "Yinyang" meaning "dark and light; female and male; moon and sun", however, is an exception. Scholars have proposed various explanations for why "yinyang" violates this pattern, including "linguistic convenience" (it is easier to say "yinyang" than "yangyin"), the idea that "proto-Chinese society was matriarchal", or perhaps, since "yinyang" first became prominent during the late Warring States period, this term was "purposely directed at challenging persistent cultural assumptions".


title: Yin and yang

text: Joseph Needham discusses yin and yang together with Five Elements as part of the School of Naturalists. He says that it would be proper to begin with yin and yang before Five Elements because the former: "lay, as it were, at a deeper level in Nature, and were the most ultimate principles of which the ancient Chinese could conceive. But it so happens that we know a good deal more about the historical origin of the Five-Element theory than about that of the yin and the yang, and it will therefore be more convenient to deal with it first." He then discusses Zou Yan (; 305–240 BC) who is most associated with these theories. Although yin and yang are not mentioned in any of the surviving documents of Zou Yan, his school was known as the Yin Yang Jia (Yin and Yang School) Needham concludes "There can be very little doubt that the philosophical use of the terms began about the beginning of the −4th century, and that the passages in older texts which mention this use are interpolations made later than that time."


title: Yin and yang

text: Yin and yang is a concept originated in ancient Chinese philosophy that describes how obviously opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.


title: Yin and yang

text: In Daoist philosophy, dark and light, yin and yang, arrive in the "Tao Te Ching" at chapter 42.  It becomes sensible from an initial quiescence or emptiness (wuji, sometimes symbolized by an empty circle), and continues moving until quiescence is reached again. For instance, dropping a stone in a calm pool of water will simultaneously raise waves and lower troughs between them, and this alternation of high and low points in the water will radiate outward until the movement dissipates and the pool is calm once more. Yin and yang thus are always opposite and equal qualities. Further, whenever one quality reaches its peak, it will naturally begin to transform into the opposite quality: for example, grain that reaches its full height in summer (fully yang) will produce seeds and die back in winter (fully yin) in an endless cycle.


title: Yin and yang

text: It is impossible to talk about yin or yang without some reference to the opposite, since yin and yang are bound together as parts of a mutual whole (for example, there cannot be the bottom of the foot without the top). A way to illustrate this idea is to postulate the notion of a race with only women or only men; this race would disappear in a single generation. Yet, women and men together create new generations that allow the race they mutually create (and mutually come from) to survive. The interaction of the two gives birth to things, like manhood. Yin and yang transform each other: like an undertow in the ocean, every advance is complemented by a retreat, and every rise transforms into a fall. Thus, a seed will sprout from the earth and grow upwards towards the skyan intrinsically yang movement. Then, when it reaches its full potential height, it will fall. Also, the growth of the top seeks light, while roots grow in darkness. The cycles of the seasons and of plants that progresses or entropies depending on the season until summer where it seeks to procure even healthier leaves, the whittling (entropy) of the plant is in autumn, the degrown plants (destruction) is in winter, the growth (creating) of the plant or tree during spring is where it's gaining or progressing, fully progressed occurs during summer, summer seeks stability as it seeks to keep (progress) the leaves and branches that are healthy, growth and progress reaching its end point of a cycle. And creation as part of yang, and destruction as part of yin, progress on one side (yang) and entropy on the other side (yin), is represented in the cycles.


title: Yin and yang

text: Yin is the black side, and yang is the white side. The relationship between yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and a valley. Yin (literally the 'shady place' or 'north slope') is the dark area occluded by the mountain's bulk, while yang (literally the "sunny place' or "south slope") is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed.


title: Yin and yang

text: Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, negativity, femininity, shadows/darkness, destruction, and night time.


title: Yin and yang

text: Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot/warm, dry, and active; and is associated with fire, sky/air, the sun, positivity, masculinity, glowing/light, creation, and daytime.


title: Yin and yang

text: Yin and yang also applies to the human body. In traditional Chinese medicine good health is directly related to the balance between yin and yang qualities within oneself. If yin and yang become unbalanced, one of the qualities is considered deficient or has vacuity.


title: Yin and yang

text: In the "I Ching", originally a divination manual of the Western Zhou period (c. 1000–750 BC) based on Chinese Astronomy, yin and yang are represented by broken and solid lines: yin is broken () and yang is solid (). These are then combined into trigrams, which are more yang ("e.g." ) or more yin ("e.g." ) depending on the number of broken and solid lines ("e.g.", is heavily yang, while is heavily yin), and trigrams are combined into hexagrams ("e.g." and ). The relative positions and numbers of yin and yang lines within the trigrams determines the meaning of a trigram, and in hexagrams the upper trigram is considered yang with respect to the lower trigram, yin, which allows for complex depictions of interrelations.


title: Yin and yang

text: The principle of yin and yang is represented by the "Taijitu" (literally "Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate"). The term is commonly used to mean the simple "divided circle" form, but may refer to any of several schematic diagrams representing these principles, such as the swastika, common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Similar symbols have also appeared in other cultures, such as in Celtic art and Roman shield markings.


title: Yin and yang

text: In this symbol the two teardrops swirl to represent the conversion of yin to yang and yang to yin. This is seen when a ball is thrown into the air with a yang velocity then converts to a yin velocity to fall back to earth. The two teardrops are opposite in direction to each other to show that as one increases the other decreases. The dot of the opposite field in the tear drop shows that there is always yin within yang and always yang within yin.


title: Yin and yang

text: T'ai chi ch'uan or Taijiquan (), a form of martial art, is often described as the principles of yin and yang applied to the human body and an animal body. Wu Jianquan, a famous Chinese martial arts teacher, described Taijiquan as follows:


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: Titans is an American superhero television series created by Akiva Goldsman, Geoff Johns, and Greg Berlanti. Based on the DC Comics superhero team the Teen Titans, the series depicts a group of young heroes who join forces in their fight against evil. Featured as members of the eponymous Titans are Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites), Kory Anders (Anna Diop), Rachel Roth (Teagan Croft), Gar Logan (Ryan Potter), Jason Todd (Curran Walters), Donna Troy (Conor Leslie), Hank Hall (Alan Ritchson), Dawn Granger (Minka Kelly), Rose Wilson (Chelsea Zhang), Conner Kent (Joshua Orpin), and Tim Drake (Jay Lycurgo).


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: A live-action series based on the Teen Titans entered development in September 2014. Originally intended for TNT, a pilot written by Goldsman and Marc Haimes was ordered in December 2014, but TNT departed from the project in 2016 before filming took place. In April 2017, it was announced that the series was being redeveloped by Goldsman, Johns, and Berlanti for DC Universe as its first original scripted program. Thwaites was cast as Dick in September 2017 and other series regulars were cast between August and October 2017.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: "Titans" premiered on October 12, 2018. The first and second seasons were released on DC Universe, while the third and fourth seasons premiered on HBO Max. The fourth season premiered on November 3, 2022.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: "Titans" follows the young superheroes of the eponymous team as they combat evil and other perils. Disbanded when the story begins, the series sees the team return when the original and new members reform the Titans. The Titans fight crime throughout various locations, including Detroit, San Francisco, Gotham City, and Metropolis.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The first members of the team to appear in the series are Batman's former vigilante partner Dick Grayson, extraterrestrial Kory Anders, empath Rachel Roth, and shapeshifter Gar Logan. Dick is later revealed as one of the original Titans, alongside half-Amazon Donna Troy and crime-fighting duo Dawn Granger and Hank Hall. After the Titans reform, the team is joined by Batman's new partner Jason Todd, assassin Rose Wilson, and Superman's genetic clone Conner Kent.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: In the first season, Rachel comes to Dick for protection from dangerous forces pursuing her, which leads to them meeting and teaming up with Kory and Gar. The heroes eventually learn that Rachel is being targeted by her demon father Trigon, who seeks to enslave the world. The season also depicts Dick's efforts to distance himself from his mentor and his Robin persona, while Kory struggles with a bout of amnesia that leaves her unaware of her true identity.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The second season focuses on the official reformation of the Titans as Dick trains a new team composed of Rachel, Gar, and Jason. The Titans' return, however, leads to the reemergence of feared assassin Deathstroke, whose prior conflict with the original team caused their disbanding. As Deathstroke attempts to eliminate the heroes, the original Titans are forced to face him again, while other threats emerge from the malevolent Cadmus Laboratories and Kory's sister Blackfire.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The third season sees the Titans travel to Gotham City after Jason is murdered, where Dick teams up in protecting the city with Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon. When Jason returns under the control of notorious criminal Jonathan Crane, the Titans find themselves battling their former teammate to prevent Crane from destroying Gotham. Also depicted are Kory's tense reunion with Blackfire, who seeks redemption for past actions, Donna's return from the afterlife following her death in the previous season and the introduction of Tim Drake, who succeeds Jason as Robin.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: A potential live-action "Titans" project for cable channel TNT was announced in September 2014. By December 2014, a pilot written by Akiva Goldsman and Marc Haimes had been ordered that would feature Dick Grayson emerging from Batman's shadow to become Nightwing, the leader of a band of heroes including Starfire, Raven, Hawk and Dove, and Oracle. The pilot was set with filming to occur in Toronto in mid-2015. In May 2015, TNT president Kevin Reilly said that they hoped to have the casting locked down by the start of filming and that the show would be "very true" to the comics and "groundbreaking". The series, called "Titans" and then "Blackbirds", was first set to begin shooting in Toronto in mid-2015. Production was then postponed to October. In January 2016, it was announced that TNT would no longer be moving forward with the project. In February 2016, Geoff Johns stated "We [at DC] have known about [TNT nixing "Titans"] for months and months and months. That's not new news to us. We have plans for "Titans". It's a huge piece of DC and we have plans." Johns, who had spent seven years developing the material with Goldsman, said in October 2018 that the project depended on securing the rights to Dick Grayson. He said, "You couldn't do "Titans" without Robin... So there was a lot of behind-the-scenes work that went into that." Previous Titans projects had been hampered by the rights to Batman being locked up.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: In April 2017, Warner Bros. announced that "Titans" would debut in 2018 on DC Comics' own direct-to-consumer digital service. The series is developed by Goldsman, Johns, Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter, with Goldsman, Johns and Berlanti writing the pilot episode. Showrunner duties were given to Greg Walker. All are also executive producers of the series for Weed Road Pictures and Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros Television. Though twelve episodes were initially announced, the eleventh episode was billed as the first-season finale in December 2018.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: Ahead of the series' premiere at New York Comic Con in October 2018, "Titans" was renewed for a second season and the elements of the twelfth episode of the first season were moved to the second season's premiere. The 13-episode second season premiered on September 6, 2019. Production of season2 was temporarily put on hold in July 2019 due to the accidental death of special effects coordinator Warren Appleby; the season2 premiere is dedicated in his memory.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: DC confirmed a third season in November 2019, which was scheduled to premiere in the fourth quarter of 2020, but was delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic. For the third season, DC Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee announced that the series would be moving to HBO Max. At the DC FanDome in August 2020, Walker revealed that the third season will take place in Gotham City and feature appearances from Red Hood, Jonathan Crane, and Barbara Gordon.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: Johns noted the series was inspired mostly by the "Teen Titans" comics of the 1980s, since that comic's run "had so much drama" and "was so revolutionary for its time". He added, "We really wanted to lean into the idea that every Titan of these Titans is a doorway into another genre. With Rachel [a.k.a. Raven], it's the supernatural and the horror, and the first season really focuses on who Raven is and how the Titans galvanize around her." Johns also felt the series would be "a little more adult" than the television series "Riverdale", calling it "not necessarily a teen drama, [but] more of an adventure piece". He said that tonally, "We wanted to do something different from everything else out there. We wanted to arrive at a tone that wasn't as welcoming as some of the DC shows have been, nor as nihilistic as some of the films have been." Goldsman said that as the series continues, it will ask "How are these broken people going to cohere? Or will they?" Johns noted that Robin's infamous line in the pilot—"Fuck Batman"—was a late addition to the script. Thwaites said of the line, "I thought it was perfect... This is not a show about Batman. It's a show about Dick."


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: In early August 2017, Teagan Croft was cast as Rachel Roth, followed at the end of the month with the casting of Anna Diop as Kory Anders, and Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson. Ahead of the series premiere, Diop reduced her presence on social media because of racist attacks towards her casting. The main cast for the first season would be rounded out by Ryan Potter as Gar Logan, who was announced in October 2017. In early September 2017, Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly were cast in the recurring roles of Hank Hall and Dawn Granger, respectively. By the end of the month, Lindsey Gort had been cast as Amy Rohrbach. In January 2018, Seamus Dever was cast in an undisclosed role that would later be revealed as Trigon, and a month later, members of the Doom Patrol were announced with Bruno Bichir as the Chief, April Bowlby as Rita Farr, Jake Michaels as Cliff Steele, and Dwain Murphy as Larry Trainor. Curran Walters and Conor Leslie appear as Jason Todd and Donna Troy, respectively. In August 2018, Elliot Knight was cast as Don Hall.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: In February 2019, it was announced that Joshua Orpin had been cast as Conner for season two. After the character was teased by Johns, Esai Morales was cast as Deathstroke in March 2019, with Chella Man and Chelsea Zhang announced as his children Jericho and Rose. Iain Glen was cast as Bruce Wayne on April 11, 2019. Actors and stuntmen Alain Moussi and Maxime Savaria portrayed Batman in the first-season finale. In June 2019, Natalie Gumede and Drew Van Acker were cast as Mercy Graves and Garth, respectively. In July 2019, Genevieve Angelson was announced as Cadmus Laboratories scientist Dr. Eve Watson. In August 2019, Michael Mosley was revealed to be portraying Dr. Light. The same month, Olunike Adeliyi announced on her Instagram she had joined the cast in an undisclosed role that was later revealed as burlesque dancer Mati Matisse and Hanneke Talbot was revealed to be Shimmer. In September 2019, Demore Barnes was revealed to be portraying Wintergreen. Following the character's appearance in an October 2019 trailer, Diop confirmed on her Instagram that Damaris Lewis would be portraying Kory's sister Blackfire, which was also confirmed by Lewis.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: During filming of the third season in January 2021, it was announced that Savannah Welch would portray Barbara Gordon. Jay Lycurgo was also revealed to be playing Tim Drake. In April 2021, it was announced that Vincent Kartheiser had joined the cast as Dr. Jonathan Crane.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: In January 2022, Joseph Morgan, Franka Potente, and Lisa Ambalavanar were announced as season 4 characters Brother Blood, Mother Mayhem, and Jinx, respectively. Titus Welliver was revealed to be playing Lex Luthor in September 2022. The same month, Brec Bassinger revealed she would reprise her role as Courtney Whitmore / Stargirl from the series "Stargirl".


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: Filming for the first season began on November 15, 2017, in Toronto, and Hamilton, Ontario, concluding on June 28, 2018. Filming for the second season began on April 2, 2019, and concluded on October 8, 2019. Production was put on hold due to the July 18 accidental death of special effects coordinator Warren Appleby before resuming. After being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, filming for the third season began on October 13, 2020, and concluded on June 15, 2021. Filming for the fourth season began on February 28, 2022, and concluded on September 30, 2022.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: After the first episode was screened on October 3, 2018, at New York Comic Con, "Titans" officially premiered on October 12, 2018. The first season comprised eleven episodes and each episode was released weekly on DC Universe until the season finale aired on December 21, 2018. Outside the United States, the first season became available for streaming via Netflix on January 11, 2019. The first season was rebroadcast by TNT, beginning on July 12, 2021.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The second season premiered on September 6, 2019, and concluded on November 29, 2019, comprising 13 episodes. Outside the United States, the second season became available for streaming via Netflix on January 10, 2020.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The third season premiered on HBO Max on August 12, 2021. Outside the United States, season 3 arrived on Netflix on December 8, 2021.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The first season of "Titans" was released digitally on March 21, 2019, and on DVD and Blu-Ray on July 16, 2019. The second season was released digitally and on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 3, 2020. The third season was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 25, 2022.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of "Titans" holds an approval rating of 78%, with an average rating of 6.70 out of 10 based on 46 reviews. The site's critical consensus states, "Despite a few tonal growing pains, "Titans" does justice to its source material and truly shines when its titular ensemble finally assembles." Metacritic gave the series' first season a score of 55 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: Susana Polo of "Polygon" praised "Titans" for "tempering brutal violence and dark subject matter with humor—and by giving its characters plenty of time to stretch, breathe and become attached to one another". Charlie Ridgely of "ComicBook.com" wrote that Diop "conveys so much wonder and intrigue with her subtle and genuine expressions, but there is a consistent fierceness and tenacity that is always lurking just beneath the surface." Rosie Knight of "Nerdist" wrote that the "cast is at the core of what makes "Titans" so enjoyable", while giving praise to the script as well. "Forbes" contributor Merrill Barr compared the show to The CW's "Riverdale", describing it as "a dark and gritty series very far removed from the image the Teen Titans have garnered through a variety of animated outings over the last decade". Barr found that viewers "that take the tone in stride are going to find themselves in the middle of a series dialed directly into their interests". Rob Salkowitz of "Forbes" wrote that "Titans" "somehow managed to deliver on the dark-and-foreboding tone that the early DC movies so conspicuously got wrong".


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: Kevin Yeoman of "Screen Rant" was critical of the show's excessive violence, writing that "Titans" "doesn't put forward any new or particularly compelling thoughts about its characters or about superheroes in general". Similarly, Vinnie Mancuso of "Collider" said that "if you're just a fan of some good old-fashioned ultra-violence and moody storytelling, this simply isn't a well-done example of that".


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The second season holds an 81% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 reviews. Its critical consensus reads, "Though "Titans"s sophomore season suffers from a slight slump at the start, it quickly resets itself, building on the momentum from its first season while laying fascinating framework for where the show could go."


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The third season has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8.20 out of 10, based on 20 reviews. Its critical consensus reads, "With bolder storytelling and deeper characterization, Titans' third season hits the show's sweet spot to deliver the best season yet."


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: In May 2018, DC Universe announced the live-action series "Doom Patrol" had received a direct-to-series order as an intended spin-off to "Titans". Despite the initial order and sharing characters and actors, however, "Doom Patrol" occupies a separate continuity. Developed by Jeremy Carver (who wrote the pilot) for Warner Bros. Television and Berlanti Productions, the series features the Chief, Cliff Steele, Larry Trainor, Vic Stone, Rita Farr, and Jane as the members of eponymous Doom Patrol. April Bowlby, Matt Bomer, and Brendan Fraser reprise their roles as Rita, the voice of Larry, and the voice of Cliff, while Matthew Zuk and Riley Shanahan replace Dwain Murphy and Jake Michaels for the physical portrayals of Larry and Cliff and Timothy Dalton replaces Bruno Bichir as the Chief. The cast was joined by Diane Guerrero as Jane and Joivan Wade as Vic. Production began August 2018 and the series premiered on February 15, 2019.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The incarnations of Rita, Larry, and Cliff from "Doom Patrol" were intended to appear in "Titans" original season 1 finale. After the original finale was pulled from the season, the appearances were removed.


title: Titans (2018 TV series)

text: The "Titans" incarnations of Hank Hall, Jason Todd, Rachel Roth, Kory Anders, and Dawn Granger make cameo appearances in the Arrowverse crossover event "Crisis on Infinite Earths", with Alan Ritchson, Curran Walters, Teagan Croft, Anna Diop, and Minka Kelly appearing in their respective roles through archival footage. The event depicts "Titans" as being set on the world of Earth-9. Brec Bassinger will appear in the fourth season reprising her role as Courtney Whitmore / Stargirl from "Stargirl"; that series exists on Earth-2 of the Arrowverse multiverse.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing) and Northrop (now part of Northrop Grumman), the F/A-18 was derived from the latter's YF-17 in the 1970s for use by the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The Hornet is also used by the air forces of several other nations, and formerly by the U.S. Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The F/A-18 was designed to be a highly versatile aircraft due to its avionics, cockpit displays, and excellent aerodynamic characteristics, with the ability to carry a wide variety of weapons. The aircraft can perform fighter escort, fleet air defense, suppression of enemy air defenses, air interdiction, close air support, and aerial reconnaissance. Its versatility and reliability have proven it to be a valuable carrier asset, though it has been criticized for its lack of range and payload compared to its earlier contemporaries, such as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat in the fighter and strike fighter role, and the Grumman A-6 Intruder and LTV A-7 Corsair II in the attack role.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Hornet first saw combat action during the 1986 United States bombing of Libya and subsequently participated in the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War. The F/A-18 Hornet served as the baseline for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, its larger, evolutionary redesign, which replaced both the older Hornet and the F-14 Tomcat in the US Navy.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The U.S. Navy started the Naval Fighter-Attack, Experimental (VFAX) program to procure a multirole aircraft to replace the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, the A-7 Corsair II, and the remaining McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs, and to complement the F-14 Tomcat. Vice Admiral Kent Lee, then head of Naval Air Systems Command, was the lead advocate for the VFAX against strong opposition from many Navy officers, including Vice Admiral William D. Houser, deputy chief of naval operations for air warfare – the highest-ranking naval aviator.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In August 1973, Congress mandated that the Navy pursue a lower-cost alternative to the F-14. Grumman proposed a stripped F-14 designated the F-14X, while McDonnell Douglas proposed a naval variant of the F-15, but both were nearly as expensive as the F-14. That summer, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger ordered the Navy to evaluate the competitors in the Air Force's Lightweight Fighter (LWF) program, the General Dynamics YF-16 and Northrop YF-17. The Air Force competition specified a day fighter with no strike capability. In May 1974, the House Armed Services Committee redirected $34 million from the VFAX to a new program, the Navy Air Combat Fighter (NACF), intended to make maximum use of the technology developed for the LWF program.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Though the YF-16 won the LWF competition, the Navy was skeptical that an aircraft with one engine and narrow landing gear could be easily or economically adapted to carrier service, and refused to adopt an F-16 derivative. On 2 May 1975, the Navy announced its selection of the YF-17. Since the LWF did not share the design requirements of the VFAX, the Navy asked McDonnell Douglas and Northrop to develop a new aircraft from the design and principles of the YF-17. On 1 March 1977, Secretary of the Navy W. Graham Claytor announced that the F-18 would be named "Hornet".


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Northrop had partnered with McDonnell Douglas as a secondary contractor on NACF to capitalize on the latter's experience in building carrier aircraft, including the widely used F-4 Phantom II. On the F-18, the two companies agreed to evenly split component manufacturing, with McDonnell Douglas conducting the final assembly. McDonnell Douglas would build the wings, stabilators, and forward fuselage; while Northrop would build the center and aft fuselage and vertical stabilizers. McDonnell Douglas was the prime contractor for the naval versions, and Northrop would be the prime contractor for the F-18L land-based version which Northrop hoped to sell on the export market.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The F-18, initially known as McDonnell Douglas Model 267, was drastically modified from the YF-17. For carrier operations, the airframe, undercarriage, and tailhook were strengthened, folding wings and catapult attachments were added, and the landing gear was widened. To meet Navy range and reserves requirements, McDonnell increased fuel capacity by , by enlarging the dorsal spine and adding a 96-gallon fuel tank to each wing. A "snag" was added to the wing's leading edge and stabilators to prevent an aeroelastic flutter discovered in the F-15 stabilator. The wings and stabilators were enlarged, the aft fuselage widened by , and the engines canted outward at the front. These changes added to the gross weight, bringing it to . The YF-17's control system was replaced with a fully digital fly-by-wire system with quadruple redundancy, the first to be installed in a production fighter.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Originally, plans were to acquire a total of 780 aircraft of three variants: the single-seat F-18A fighter and A-18A attack aircraft, differing only in avionics, and the dual-seat TF-18A, which retained full mission capability of the F-18 with a reduced fuel load. Following improvements in avionics and multifunction displays, and a redesign of external stores stations, the A-18A and F-18A were able to be combined into one aircraft. Starting in 1980, the aircraft began to be referred to as the F/A-18A, and the designation was officially announced on 1 April 1984. The TF-18A was redesignated F/A-18B.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Northrop developed the F-18L as a potential export aircraft. Since it was not strengthened for carrier service, it was expected to be lighter and better performing, and a strong competitor to the F-16 Fighting Falcon then being offered to American allies. The F-18L's normal gross weight was lighter than the F/A-18A by , via lighter landing gear, lack of wing folding mechanism, reduced part thickness in areas, and lower fuel-carrying capacity. Though the aircraft retained a lightened tailhook, the most obvious external difference was removed "snags" on the leading edge of the wings and stabilators. It still retained 71% commonality with the F/A-18 by parts weight, and 90% of the high-value systems, including the avionics, radar, and electronic countermeasure suite, though alternatives were offered. Unlike the F/A-18, the F-18L carried no fuel in its wings and lacked weapons stations on the intakes. It had three underwing pylons on each side, instead.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The F/A-18L version followed to coincide with the US Navy's F/A-18A as a land-based export alternative. This was essentially an F/A-18A lightened by about ; weight was reduced by removing the folding wing and associated actuators, implementing a simpler landing gear (single wheel nose gear and cantilever oleo main gear), and changing to a land-based tail hook. The revised F/A-18L included wing fuel tanks and fuselage stations of the F/A-18A. Its weapons capacity would increase from , largely due to the addition of a third underwing pylon and strengthened wingtips (11 stations in total vs 9 stations of the F/A-18A). Compared to the F-18L, the outboard weapons pylons are closer to the wingtip missile rails. Because of the strengthened nonfolding wing, the wingtip missile rails were designed to carry either the AIM-7 Sparrow or Skyflash medium-range air-to-air missiles, in addition to the AIM-9 Sidewinder as found on the F/A-18A. The F/A-18L was strengthened for a 9 g design load factor compared to the F/A-18A's 7.5 g factor.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The partnership between McDonnell Douglas and Northrop soured over competition for foreign sales for the two models. Northrop felt that McDonnell Douglas would put the F/A-18 in direct competition with the F-18L. In October 1979, Northrop filed a series of lawsuits charging that McDonnell was using Northrop technology developed for the F-18L for foreign sales of the F/A-18 in violation of their agreement, and asked for a moratorium on foreign sales of the Hornet. McDonnell Douglas countersued, alleging Northrop illegally used F/A-18 technology in its F-20 Tigershark. A settlement was announced 8 April 1985 for all of the lawsuits. McDonnell Douglas paid Northrop $50 million for "rights to sell the F/A-18 wherever it could". Additionally, the companies agreed on McDonnell Douglas as the prime contractor with Northrop as the principal subcontractor. As principal subcontractor, Northrop will produce the rear section for the F/A-18 (A/B/C/D/E/F), while McDonnell Douglas will produce the rest with final assembly to be performed by McDonnell Douglas. At the time of the settlement, Northrop had ceased work on the F-18L. Most export orders for the F-18L were captured by the F-16 or the F/A-18. The F-20 Tigershark did not enter production, and although the program was not officially terminated until 17 November 1986, it was dead by mid-1985.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: During flight testing, the snag on the leading edge of the stabilators was filled in, and the gap between the leading-edge extensions (LEX) and the fuselage was mostly filled in. The gaps, called the boundary layer air discharge slots, controlled the vortices generated by the LEX and presented clean air to the vertical stabilizers at high angles of attack, but they also generated a great deal of parasitic drag, worsening the problem of the F/A-18's inadequate range. McDonnell filled in 80% of the gap, leaving a small slot to bleed air from the engine intake. This may have contributed to early problems with fatigue cracks appearing on the vertical stabilizers due to extreme structural loads, resulting in a short grounding in 1984 until the stabilizers were strengthened. Starting in May 1988, a small vertical fence was added to the top of each LEX to broaden the vortices and direct them away from the vertical stabilizers. This also provided a minor increase in controllability as a side effect. F/A-18s of early versions had a problem with insufficient rate of roll, exacerbated by the insufficient wing stiffness, especially with heavy underwing ordnance loads. The first production F/A-18A flew on 12 April 1980. After a production run of 380 F/A-18As (including the nine assigned to flight systems development), manufacture shifted to the F/A-18C in September 1987.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In the 1990s, the U.S. Navy faced the need to replace its aging A-6 Intruders and A-7 Corsair IIs with no replacement in development. To answer this deficiency, the Navy commissioned development of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Despite its designation, it is not just an upgrade of the F/A-18 Hornet, but rather, a new, larger airframe using the design concepts of the Hornet.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Hornets and Super Hornets will serve complementary roles in the U.S. Navy carrier fleet until the Hornet A-D models are completely replaced by the F-35C Lightning II. The Marines have chosen to extend the use of certain F/A-18s up to 10,000 flight hours, due to delays in the F-35B variant.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The F/A-18 is a twin engine, midwing, multimission tactical aircraft. It is highly maneuverable, due to its good thrust-to-weight ratio, digital fly-by-wire control system, and leading-edge extensions, which allow the Hornet to remain controllable at high angles of attack. The trapezoidal wing has a 20-degree sweepback on the leading edge and a straight trailing edge. The wing has full-span, leading-edge flaps and the trailing edge has single-slotted flaps and ailerons over the entire span.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Canted vertical stabilizers are another distinguishing design element, one among several other such elements that enable the Hornet's excellent high angle of attack ability, including oversized horizontal stabilators, oversized trailing-edge flaps that operate as flaperons, large full-length leading-edge slats, and flight control computer programming that multiplies the movement of each control surface at low speeds and moves the vertical rudders inboard instead of simply left and right. The Hornet's normally high angle of attack performance envelope was put to rigorous testing and enhanced in the NASA F-18 High Alpha Research Vehicle (HARV). NASA used the F-18 HARV to demonstrate flight handling characteristics at high angle-of-attack (alpha) of 65–70 degrees using thrust vectoring vanes. F/A-18 stabilators were also used as canards on NASA's F-15S/MTD.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Hornet was among the first aircraft to heavily use multifunction displays, which at the switch of a button allow a pilot to perform either fighter or attack roles or both. This "force multiplier" ability gives the operational commander more flexibility to employ tactical aircraft in a fast-changing battle scenario. It was the first Navy aircraft to incorporate a digital multiplexing avionics bus, enabling easy upgrades.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Hornet was designed to reduce maintenance, and as a result, has required far less downtime than its heavier counterparts, the F-14 Tomcat and the A-6 Intruder. Its mean time between failures is three times greater than any other Navy strike aircraft, and requires half the maintenance time. Its General Electric F404 engines were also innovative in that they were designed with operability, reliability, and maintainability first. The engine, while unexceptional in rated performance, demonstrates exceptional robustness under various conditions and is resistant to stall and flameout. The F404 engine connects to the airframe at only 10 points and can be replaced without special equipment: a four-person team can remove the engine within 20 minutes. The aircraft has a top speed of Mach 1.8 at 40,000 ft.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The engine air inlets of the Hornet, like that of the F-16, are of a simpler "fixed" design, while those of the F-4, F-14, and F-15 have variable geometry or variable intake ramp air inlets.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: A 1989 USMC study found that single-seat fighters were well suited to air-to-air combat missions, while dual-seat fighters were favored for complex strike missions against heavy air and ground defenses in adverse weather—the question being not so much as to whether a second pair of eyes would be useful, but as to having the second crewman sit in the same fighter or in a second fighter. Single-seat fighters that lacked wingmen were shown to be especially vulnerable.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: McDonnell Douglas rolled out the first F/A-18A on 13 September 1978, in blue-on-white colors marked with "Navy" on the left and "Marines" on the right. Its first flight was on 18 November. In a break with tradition, the Navy pioneered the "principal site concept" with the F/A-18, where almost all testing was done at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, instead of near the site of manufacture, and using Navy and Marine Corps test pilots instead of civilians early in development. In March 1979, Lt. Cdr. John Padgett became the first Navy pilot to fly the F/A-18.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Following trials and operational testing by VX-4 and VX-5, Hornets began to fill the Fleet Replacement Squadrons VFA-125, VFA-106, and VMFAT-101, where pilots are introduced to the F/A-18. The Hornet entered operational service with Marine Corps squadron VMFA-314 at MCAS El Toro on 7 January 1983, and with Navy squadron VFA-25 on 1 July 1984, replacing F-4s and A-7Es, respectively.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Navy strike-fighter squadrons VFA-25 and VFA-113 (assigned to CVW-14) deployed aboard from February to August 1985, marking the first deployment for the F/A-18.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The initial fleet reports were complimentary, indicating that the Hornet was extraordinarily reliable, a major change from its predecessor, the F-4J. In January 1985, the VFA-131 "Wildcats" and the VFA-132 "Privateers" moved from Naval Air Station Lemoore, California to Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Florida to become the Atlantic Fleet's first F/A-18 squadrons. VFA-151, VFA-161, VFA-192 and VFA-195 transitioned to the F/A-18A in 1986. With the exception of VFA-161, the rest would move to NAF Atsugi, Japan to join CVW-5 and the USS "Midway". Other squadrons that switched to F/A-18 included VFA-146 "Blue Diamonds", and VFA-147 "Argonauts".


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The U.S. Navy's Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Squadron switched to the F/A-18 Hornet in 1986, replacing the A-4 Skyhawk. The Blue Angels performed in F/A-18A, B, C, and D models at air shows and other special events across the US and worldwide before transitioning to the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in late 2020. Blue Angels pilots must have 1,400 hours and an aircraft-carrier certification. The two-seat B and D models were typically used to give rides to VIPs, but also filled in for other aircraft, if such a need arose.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: NASA operates several F/A-18 aircraft for research purposes and also as chase aircraft; these F/A-18s are based at the Armstrong Flight Research Center (formerly the Dryden Flight Research Center) in California. NASA received three two-seat F/A-18B aircraft in 2018. On 21 September 2012, two NASA F/A-18s escorted a NASA Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft carrying the Space Shuttle "Endeavour" over portions of California to Los Angeles International Airport before being delivered to the California Science Center museum in Los Angeles.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The F/A-18 first saw combat action in April 1986, when VFA-131, VFA-132, VMFA-314, and VMFA-323 Hornets from flew Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) missions against Libyan air defenses during Operation Prairie Fire and an attack on Benghazi as part of Operation El Dorado Canyon.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: During the Gulf War of 1991, the Navy deployed 106 F/A-18A/C Hornets and Marine Corps deployed 84 F/A-18A/C/D Hornets. F/A-18 pilots were credited with two kills during the Gulf War, both MiG-21s. On 17 January, the first day of the war, U.S. Navy pilots Lieutenant Commander Mark I. Fox and, Lieutenant Nick Mongilio were in a flight of four Hornets when they were sent from in the Red Sea to bomb airfield H-3 in southwestern Iraq. While en route, they were warned by an E-2C of approaching "Bandits" or Iraqi MiG-21 aircraft. The Hornets shot down the two MiGs with AIM-7 and AIM-9 missiles in a brief dogfight. It took 40 seconds from when the bandits appeared on the radar of the E-2 until both aircraft were shot down. The F/A-18s, each carrying four bombs, then resumed their bombing run before returning to "Saratoga".


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Hornet's survivability was demonstrated when a Hornet took hits in both engines and flew back to base. It was repaired and flying within a few days. F/A-18s flew 4,551 sorties with 10 Hornets damaged including three losses, one confirmed lost to enemy fire. All three losses were U.S. Navy F/A-18s, with two of their pilots lost. On 17 January 1991, Lieutenant Commander Scott Speicher of VFA-81 was shot down and killed in the crash of his aircraft. An unclassified summary of a 2001 CIA report suggests that Speicher's aircraft was shot down by a missile fired from an Iraqi Air Force aircraft, most likely a MiG-25.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: On 24 January 1991, F/A-18A bureau number 163121, from , piloted by Lt H.E. Overs, was lost due to an engine failure or loss of control over the Persian Gulf. The pilot ejected and was recovered by .<ref name="The Air Forces Book of the F/A-18 Hornet, 2003">"The Air Forces Book of the F/A-18 Hornet", p. 85.</ref> On 5 February 1991, F/A-18A bureau number 163096, piloted by Lieutenant Robert Dwyer was lost over the North Persian Gulf after a successful mission to Iraq; he was officially listed as killed in action, body not recovered.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: As the A-6 Intruder was retired in the 1990s, its role was filled by the F/A-18. The F/A-18 demonstrated its versatility and reliability during Operation Desert Storm, shooting down enemy fighters and subsequently bombing enemy targets with the same aircraft on the same mission. It broke records for tactical aircraft in availability, reliability, and maintainability.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Both U.S. Navy F/A-18A/C models and Marine F/A-18A/C/D models were used continuously in Operation Southern Watch and over Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. U.S. Navy Hornets flew during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 from carriers operating in the North Arabian Sea. Both the F/A-18A/C and newer F/A-18E/F variants were used during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, operating from aircraft carriers as well from an air base in Kuwait. Later in the conflict USMC A+, C, and primarily D models operated from bases within Iraq.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: An F/A-18C was accidentally downed in a friendly fire incident by a Patriot missile when a pilot tried to evade two missiles fired at his plane and crashed. Two others collided over Iraq in May 2005.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The last operational deployment of the F/A-18C Hornet in U.S. Navy service was aboard the and ended on 12 March 2018. The aircraft briefly went back to sea for routine carrier qualifications in October, but it was retired from active Navy service on 1 February 2019. The type continued to be used by reserve units, primarily for adversary training. The actual final Navy F/A-18C operational flight occurred on 2 October 2019.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The F/A-18 has been purchased and is in operation with several foreign air services. Export Hornets are typically similar to U.S. models of a similar manufacture date. Since none of the customers operate aircraft carriers, all export models have been sold without the automatic carrier landing system, and the Royal Australian Air Force further removed the catapult attachment on the nose gear. Except for Canada, all export customers purchased their Hornets through the U.S. Navy, via the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program, where the Navy acts as the purchasing manager, but incurs no financial gain or loss. Canada is the largest Hornet operator outside of the U.S.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Royal Australian Air Force purchased 57 F/A-18A fighters and 18 F/A-18B two-seat trainers to replace its Dassault Mirage IIIOs. Numerous options were considered for the replacement, notably the F-15A Eagle, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the then new F/A-18 Hornet. The F-15 was discounted because the version offered had no ground-attack capability. The F-16 was considered unsuitable largely due to having only one engine. Australia selected the F/A-18 in October 1981. Original differences between the Australian and US Navy's standard F/A-18 were the removed nose-wheel tie bar for catapult launch (later re-fitted with a dummy version to remove nose wheel shimmy), addition of a high frequency radio, an Australian fatigue data analysis system, an improved video and voice recorder, and the use of instrument landing system/VHF omnidirectional range instead of the carrier landing system.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The first two aircraft were produced in the US, with the remainder assembled in Australia at Government Aircraft Factories. F/A-18 deliveries to the RAAF began on 29 October 1984, and continued until May 1990. In 2001, Australia deployed four aircraft to Diego Garcia, in an air-defense role, during coalition operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2003, 75 Squadron deployed 14 F/A-18s to Qatar as part of Operation Falconer and these aircraft saw action during the invasion of Iraq. Australia had 71 Hornets in service in 2006, after four were lost to crashes.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The fleet was upgraded beginning in the late 1990s to extend their service lives to 2015. They were expected to be retired then and replaced by the F-35 Lightning II. Several of the Australian Hornets have had refits applied to extend their service lives until the planned retirement date of 2020. Australia has also purchased 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets, with deliveries beginning in 2010.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In March 2015, six F/A-18As from No. 75 Squadron were deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Okra, replacing a detachment of Super Hornets.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Australia has sold 25 F/A-18A/Bs to Canada with first two delivered to RCAF in February 2019. By 2021, 12 (A)F/A-18A and 6 (A)F/A-18B (and an additional 7 disassembled (A)F/A-18 for spare parts) were sold to the RCAF.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: At Wings Over Illawarra 2021, the Hornet performed its last public flying display before retirement. Australia formally retired the Hornet at RAAF Base Williamtown on 29 November 2021. On 30 November 2021, No. 75 Squadron RAAF flew 7 of the last Hornets from RAAF Base Tindal to RAAF Base Williamtown. On 3 December 2021, the last Hornet left RAAF Base Tindal for decommissioning. Due to inclement weather, the Hornet diverted to RAAF Base Townsville and concluded the final RAAF Hornet flight to RAAF Base Williamtown on 4 December 2021.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Canada was the first export customer for the Hornet, replacing the Canadair CF-104 Starfighter (air reconnaissance and strike), the McDonnell CF-101 Voodoo (air interception) and the Canadair CF-116 Freedom Fighter (ground attack). The Canadian Forces Air Command ordered 98 A models (Canadian designation CF-188A/CF-18A) and 40 B models (designation CF-188B/CF-18B). The original CF-18 as delivered was nearly identical to the F/A-18A and B models. Many features that made the F/A-18 suitable for naval carrier operations were retained by the Canadian Forces, such as the robust landing gear, the arrestor hook, and wing folding mechanisms.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In 1991, Canada committed 26 CF-18s to the Gulf War, based in Qatar. These aircraft primarily provided Combat Air Patrol duties, although, late in the air war, began to perform air strikes on Iraqi ground targets. On 30 January 1991, two CF-18s on CAP detected and attacked an Iraqi TNC-45 patrol boat. The vessel was repeatedly strafed and damaged by 20mm cannon fire, but an attempt to sink the ship with an air-to-air missile failed. The ship was subsequently sunk by American aircraft, but the Canadian CF-18s received partial credit for its destruction.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In June 1999, 18 CF-18s were deployed to Aviano AB, Italy, where they participated in both the air-to-ground and air-to-air roles in the former Yugoslavia.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: 62 CF-18A and 18 CF-18B aircraft took part in the Incremental Modernization Project which was completed in two phases. The program was launched in 2001 and the last updated aircraft was delivered in March 2010. The aims were to improve air-to-air and air-to-ground combat abilities, upgrade sensors and the defensive suite, and replace the datalinks and communications systems on board the CF-18 from the F/A-18A and F/A-18B standard to the current F/A-18C and F/A-18D standard.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In July 2010 the Canadian government announced plans to replace the remaining CF-18 fleet with 65 F-35 Lightning IIs, with deliveries scheduled to start in 2016. In November 2016, Canada announced plans to buy 18 Super Hornets as an interim solution while reviewing its F-35 order. The plan for Super Hornets was later, in October 2017, put on hold due to a trade conflict with the United States over the Bombardier C-Series. Instead, Canada was seeking to purchase surplus Hornets from Australia or Kuwait. Canada has since acquired 25 ex-Australian F/A-18A/Bs, the first two of which were delivered in February 2019. 18 of these airframes will be introduced into active service with the remaining 7 to be used for spare parts and testing.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Finnish Air Force ordered 64 F-18C/Ds (57 C models, seven D models) in 1992. All F-18D were built at St. Louis, and then all F-18C were assembled in Finland. Delivery of the aircraft started in November 1995 and ended in August 2000. The Hornet replaced the MiG-21bis and Saab 35 Draken in Finnish service. The Finnish Hornets were initially to be used only for air defense, hence the F-18 designation. The F-18C includes the ASPJ (Airborne Self-Protection Jammer) jamming pod ALQ-165. The US Navy later included the ALQ-165 on their F/A-18E/F Super Hornet procurement.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: One Hornet was destroyed in a mid-air collision in 2001. A damaged F-18C, nicknamed "Frankenhornet", was rebuilt into a F-18D using the forward section of a Canadian CF-18B that was purchased. The modified fighter crashed during a test flight in January 2010, due to a faulty tailplane servo cylinder.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Finnish Air Force's Hornet fleet went through a two-stage Mid-Life Upgrade (MLU) program. From 2006 to 2010, the MLU 1 stage was aimed at improving the aircraft's air-to-air capabilities. It included the integration of the new AIM-9X Sidewinder missile together with the JHMCS helmet-mounted sight, new radios, a new IFF interrogator, and a new moving map display. Then, from 2012 to 2016, the MLU 2 stage was mainly focused at enabling the aircraft to use standoff air-to-ground weapons, including the JDAM, JSOW and JASSM. The Hornets also received the Litening targeting pod. New chaff/flare dispensers were installed. The cockpit was modernized, and Link 16 was added. The upgrade also includes the procurement and integration of a new version of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile. In total, 62 aircraft (the whole Finnish Hornet fleet as of 2016) were modernized to MLU 2 standards.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: With a service life of 30 years, the Hornets are to remain in active service until 2025–2030. In October 2014, the Finnish national broadcaster Yle announced that consideration was being given to the replacement of the Hornet. In 2015, Finland started the HX Fighter Program that aims to acquire new multirole fighters to replace the current Hornet fleet. On 10 December 2021, the Finnish government announced the selection of Lockheed Martin's fifth-generation F-35A Lightning II for its HX Fighter Program.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Kuwait Air Force ("Al Quwwat Aj Jawwaiya Al Kuwaitiya") ordered 32 F/A-18C and eight F/A-18D Hornets in 1988. Delivery started in October 1991 until August 1993. The F/A-18C/Ds replaced A-4KU Skyhawk. Kuwait Air Force Hornets have flown missions over Iraq during Operation Southern Watch in the 1990s. They have also participated in military exercises with the air forces of other Gulf nations. Kuwait had 39 F/A-18C/D Hornets in service in 2008. Kuwait also participated in the Yemeni Civil War (2015–present). In February 2017, the Commander of the Kuwait Air Force revealed that the F/A-18s based at King Khalid Air Base had performed approximately 3,000 sorties over Yemen.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Royal Malaysian Air Force ("Tentera Udara Diraja Malaysia") has eight F/A-18Ds. Delivery of the aircraft spanned from March 1997 to August 1997.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Three Hornets together with five UK-made BAE Hawk 208 were deployed in a bombing airstrike on the "Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo" terrorists on 5 March 2013, just before the joint forces of the Malaysian Army and Royal Malaysia Police commandos launched an all-out assault during Operation Daulat. The Hornets were tasked with close air support to the no-fly zone in Lahad Datu, Sabah.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: The Spanish Air and Space Force ("Ejército del Aire y del Espacio") ordered 60 EF-18A model and 12 EF-18B model Hornets (the "E" standing for "España", Spain), named respectively as C.15 and CE.15 by Spain. The Spanish version was delivered from 22 November 1985 to July 1990. These fighters were upgraded to F-18A+/B+ standard, close to F/A-18C/D (plus version includes later mission and armament computers, databuses, data-storage set, new wiring, pylon modifications and software, new abilities as AN/AAS-38B NITE Hawk targeting FLIR pods).


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: In 1995 Spain obtained 24 ex-USN F/A-18A Hornets, with six more on option. These were delivered from December 1995 until December 1998. Before delivery, they were modified to EF-18A+ standard. This was the first sale of USN surplus Hornets.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Spanish Hornets operate as an all-weather interceptor 60% of the time and as an all-weather day/night attack aircraft for the remainder. In case of war, each of the front-line squadrons would take a primary role: 121 is tasked with tactical air support and maritime operations; 151 and 122 are assigned to all-weather interception and air combat roles; and 152 is assigned the SEAD mission. Air refueling is provided by KC-130Hs and Boeing 707TTs. Pilot conversion to EF-18 is centralized in 153 Squadron (Ala 15). Squadron 462's role is air defense of the Canary Islands, being responsible for fighter and attack missions from Gando AB.


title: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet

text: Spanish Air Force EF-18 Hornets have flown Ground Attack, SEAD, combat air patrol (CAP) combat missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, under NATO command, in Aviano detachment (Italy). They shared the base with Canadian and USMC F/A-18s. Six Spanish Hornets had been lost in accidents by 2003.