This week, Luke Burbank, Negin Farsad, and Hari Kondabolu offer Kristi Noem some parting words and we quiz the new voice of Sunday Night Baseball, Jason Benetti, on his knowledge of confetti

Legoland is growing up.

The Carlsbad theme park will on Friday open Lego Galaxy, a new 2.4-acre themed land that will feature its most adult-focused attraction yet in the Galacticoaster. An indoor, space-themed thrill ride, Galacticoaster is brief but impressionable, a spinning race through a darkened landscape to save a Lego-infused galaxy from an “asteroid of probable destruction.”

At 40 mph, it’s the park’s fastest ride, but coming in at about 60 seconds and focusing on banking and turning means it still has full family appeal. Expect it to serve as an introductory, big kid coaster for many. It’s infused with lighthearted humor — floating farmers and barnyard animals cruise among the stars — lending it a rather relaxed atmosphere for a save-the-world, fast-paced attraction. In other words, it’s sleek, it’s hurried and it’s cutesy.

“My favorite is the surfing alien,” says Tom Storer, North American project director for Merlin Magic Making, the creative team behind Lego experiences. “She’s my favorite thing to see in there. It’s right after the blast. It will sneak up on you.”

The Galacticoaster is the centerpiece of Lego Galaxy, which also includes two smaller outdoor attractions, a vintage-style shoot-’em-up video game and a play area for little ones. Its part of a $90-million investment in Legoland’s California and Florida parks on behalf of parent Merlin Entertainment (an identical Galacticoaster can be found in Lego’s Florida park). Lego Galaxy hopes to draw visitors — and perhaps new audiences — by focusing on slicker, more modern technology and injecting in the park the sort of excitable ride more commonly found at Legoland’s Southern California competitors.

Storer, for instance, isn’t shy about the Galacticoaster’s inspiration.

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1. Visitors wait to ride the Galacticoaster. 2. Los Angeles residents Veronica and Eloy Navarro with their children Zoe, 10, left, and Levi, 9, right, ride the Galacticoaster. 3. San Diego residents Yesenia Auer, 38, left, with her cousin Kelly Luquin, 34, right, and Luquin’s sons Emiliano and Leo, from left, are all smiles after riding the new indoor coaster.

“What is the space roller coaster of 2026? Space Mountain is a classic from back in the day,” he says, referring to the Disneyland Resort staple launched in 1977. “But this is kind of the new way.”

It is faster and brighter than Space Mountain, as the Galacticoaster is heavily populated with twinkling stars, planetary projections and many a Lego brick creation. But while Space Mountain tops off at about 32 mph, it likely still has Galacticoaster beat in the intensity factor due to its lift hill, sudden dips, jolting turns and near pitch-black darkness. No matter, says Storer, as here the objective was to place guests in a welcoming adventure with plenty to look at.

“When you think of outer space, you instantly think of stars and planets,” Storer says. “We have a really cool digital planet and we have stars everywhere.”

The Galacticoaster sits four per car, loading attendees parallel in a row via a moving platform. Once seated and locked in, it nearly immediately takes off, jetting riders into a darkened hallway with white lights before injecting them into a Lego galaxy. Lego aficionados or those who grew up with the sets will likely spy many an allusion to past toys. In the ride’s queue, for instance, guests in line will walk past a wall that features a timeline of many a Lego space set. Action comes fast, but surrounds guests, as the coaster cars rotate around a hurtling asteroid.

Visitors wait in line to ride the new indoor coaster at Legoland designed for families.

While it twists from side to side, which has drawn light comparisons to Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at Walt Disney World’s Epcot, with some referring to this as sort of a starter version of that more powerful coaster, it’s a smooth and relatively unobtrusive twisting. Those prone to motion sickness — and I am one of them — likely need not be too concerned here.

While Legoland has other coasters, many are known as what Storer refers to as “pink knuckle” coasters, slang for safe for kids and families. Galacticoaster, with a minimum height requirement of 36 inches, certainly is as well, but the creative executive hopes it falls somewhere between the pink and white knuckle level of force, the latter term reserved for the most thrilling of coasters.

“We’re known for having ‘pink knuckle’ coaster, where it’s not too scary,” he says. “It’s kind of, ‘My first coaster.’ This is family-friendly. We’d never do anything that’s not family-friendly. We want to make sure our guests from 5 to 12 have lots to do, but it’s a little more punchy and has that cool launch with a space blast-off feel.”

Theme park aficionados will be keen to know that this is the first attraction in the park to feature an animatronic figure. The character of Biff Dipper, an engineer, will be found in the ride’s preshow, familiarizing guests with the story of the asteroid that spells impending doom. Stout and slightly gruff, Dipper has a digital face that can approximate more than 40 expressions. The animatronic, says Storer, was an important investment for the park, as Legoland in Lego Galaxy was cognizant of guests becoming bored in what will surely be one of the park’s longest lines this upcoming spring and summer season.

The character of Biff Dipper is Legoland’s first animatronic figure. Dipper is in the preshow of the Galacticoaster.

There are interactive elements throughout Lego Galaxy. In the Galacticoaster, for instance, riders will build a virtual approximation of a spaceship from a touchscreen, selecting options for wings, cannons and more. Some are militant. Others look like burgers or rainbows. There are 625 variations, and the creation will then appear at the start and finish of the attraction, injected into the ride’s projectors via a guest wristband. Legoland officials like to refer to Galacticoaster as a 10-minute experience, a time that takes in the preshow with the Dippper figure as well as the construction of the spacecraft.

Elsewhere in Lego Galaxy, there’s a full video game-like experience called the Rocket Assembly Bay. Here, guests will first build their own spaceship, and then have it scanned into the game for a cooperative shoot-’em-up. Rocket Assembly Bay is good fun, and rewarding even, to see a virtual scan of a hand-built ship injected into the game, this despite that fact that the play experience is largely a modern update of old coin-op “Asteroids.”

“There’s something about the simplicity of some of the things that have been done,” Storer says.

Two other core attractions dot the land. The G-Force Test Facility is a spinner that’s pitched as an astronaut training experience. Guests with a minimum height of 40” will be elevated off the ground via vehicles situated on rotating arms. There’s plenty of swinging and rotating action in this more standard amusement park-like creation, although Storer notes that riders won’t experience any actual G-forces. Still, here’s one that those with a propensity to motion sickness may want to take a pass on.

Austin Rafie, 7, poses with characters at Lego Galaxy, a new space-themed land, at Legoland in Carlsbad.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Lego Galaxy is rounded out with a play area and the preschool-focused ride Launch & Land. For those with a minimum height of 34 inches, this is a casual, patient experience, one in which seated guests will gently lift off into the air for a slightly elevated view of the land. Nominally designed as a spaceport, Lego aliens and spaceships populate the area. Press a button near one of the ships, and initiate, for instance, an engine test.

But don’t expect anything too serious. The Galacticoaster, after all, has a farting space cow.

Netflix is acquiring Ben Affleck’s AI-powered filmmaking tool company, InterPositive, for an undisclosed sum.

In a video accompanying the company’s announcement on Thursday, Ben Affleck said InterPositive’s technology helps filmmakers to build their own, proprietary AI models based on the scenes they’ve already shot, and then use that data to help solve otherwise laborious details.

“You can use your own model to remove the wires on stunts, reframe a shot, get a shot you missed, shape the lighting, enhance the backgrounds,” said the Oscar-winning director, producer, writer and actor, who has also joined Netflix as a senior advisor.

In an email to NPR, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the main union supporting Hollywood’s technical workers, including camera operators, lighting and sound technicians, grips, script supervisors, among other industry disciplines, said it does not comment on mergers and acquisitions.

This is just the latest agreement the Oscar-winning filmmaker has struck with Netflix. Earlier this week, Affleck and Matt Damon’s production company, Artists Equity, signed a major multi-year partnership with the streamer. The agreement gives Netflix first dibs to develop and distribute all of the pair’s future streaming-focused projects. Affleck has also made and released multiple movies in collaboration with Netflix, most recently The Rip, a thriller starring Affleck and Damon as Miami narcotics officers who find a secret hoard of drug money.

Despite his tech interests, Affleck has expressed a desire to keep humans at the center of the creative process. He is among the hundreds of Hollywood insiders to sign on to the Creators Coalition on AI. The group, established late last year, describes itself on its website as “a central hub for cross-industry discussions about how AI is impacting the entertainment industry.”

“This is not a full rejection of AI,” the group stated. “The technology is here. This is a commitment to responsible, human-centered innovation.”

“The InterPositive team is joining Netflix because of our shared belief that innovation should empower storytellers, not replace them,” said Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief product and technology officer, in a press release. She said the partnership would “continue building towards a future of entertainment where technology plays a part in how stories are made, but people — and their ideas, craft and judgment — remain at the core of great storytelling.”

The deal between InterPositive and Netflix comes just over a week since the streamer pulled out of its plan to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. Paramount agreed to acquire the media giant in a deal valued at around $110 billion. On Feb. 26, the Warner Brothers Discovery board declared Paramount’s bid to be “superior” to an $83 billion deal it had previously struck with Netflix.

Kimberly A. Owczarski, an associate professor at Texas Christian University who studies media franchises, told NPR in an email that Netflix’s decision to partner with a filmmaker of Affleck’s prominence sends out a positive message to an industry reeling from the threats posed by the growing adoption of AI across the entertainment landscape.

“His status in the industry as a star, filmmaker, and producer gives substantial weight as he promotes a responsible use of AI in filmmaking,” Owczarski said.

Jennifer Vanasco edited this story.