June 26, 2023 • 58 mins
Some big media companies are skipping San Diego Comic Con this year, which might mean the programming for Hall H could be a little less exciting. Plus, Warner Bros Discovery is worried The Flash is a Flash in the Pan and Ariel won't answer when Natty Knocks.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Large Ner Drunk Collider Podcast,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how very excited we are
about them. I'm Ariel Castin, and with me, as always,
is the ever young Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm gonna be older by the next episode.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And yet forever young.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Neil Diamond song.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Not Neil Diamond, No, but that's okay. Yeah, no, gosh,
different different singer, but that's totally fine. Yeah. So, yeah,
I got my birthday coming up next week, and uh,
I'm taking vacation, but I will be still available to
record if Ariel is next week, so we'll still do
(00:57):
an episode, assuming you know, her availability remains the same it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Should, you know it's not, but we plan on bringing
you an episode next week.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yes, and even though I'm not working.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I mean, you know, this isn't work. This is fun.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That's true. That's true. I so I didn't realize it
when I planned my vacation. I just said, oh, I'm
going to take the week of my birthday off, and
then I looked at the calendar and realized that that
ends up running over into the fourth of July holiday
for us, and we have the third and the fourth off,
which means I will have eleven straight days off work,
(01:37):
and I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself
apart from ketchup with all the stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That sounds delightful. That sounds delightful. Do you want your
Happy Birthday? Isn't copyrighted anymore?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Is it? I think it's finally in the public domain.
But no, you don't need to sing it to me.
I'm it's it's a little too early. Got to wait
a couple more days.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I know, but we won't be recording in a couple
of days.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's okay, that's okay. Just wait to tell you hear
how people are going to get in touch with me,
and then it'll all make sense.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Okay, fine, well let's move on then, dude, are thirty
seconds or less?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
That sounds good? And I believe Ariel that you are
going to launch us off this time.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I am all right. So this is a quick one.
The second part of the Wicked movie that's coming out
because of course it's in two parts, was originally set
to come out in Christmas of twenty twenty. On Christmas
around Christmas of twenty twenty five, and now it's coming
out on November twenty six, twenty twenty five. So instead
of a Christmas movie, you get a Thanksgiving movie. That's
(02:46):
after Wicked Part one comes out in twenty twenty four,
also in November. That's hopefully thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I guess it's something for us to be thankful for. Okay, Hey,
the Spider Man spinoff elm Wuerto, about a wrestler who
gained superpowers through a mystical mask, is no longer on
Sony's calendar. The Hollywood Reporter chalks this up to another
delay due to the writer's strike. Now, it was supposed
to come out January twelfth, twenty twenty four. It's also
(03:16):
supposed to start Bad Bunny. But if and when it
gets back on track, he may no longer be available.
And it's actually possible that elm Werto might just be
plain old Muerto'll left to see.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's sad. I was kind of looking forward to that one,
all right, So now I'm going to briefly talk about
something that we haven't We've only vaguely touched on on
the episode, just because the trial hasn't happened yet. But
Jonathan Major's trial is set for August sixth, I believe,
(03:49):
where he's being charged with domestic abuse charges. Sorry August third.
We haven't talked about it just because it hasn't gone
a trial yet, so we don't have all the facts.
Of course, his side is saying that he's completely innocent
and the evidence will prove that, and of course the
charges say otherwise. So you know, we'll see how that
(04:13):
all turns out in the fallout that happens to Marvel.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, yeah, this is that's probably going to play into
one of the discussions we're going to have in our
news section. But before we get to that, of course,
we got some more thirty seconds or less, So here
we go. Mike Flanagan, the guy who directed the film
adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, has had plans for
a third film in the Shining trilogy. So Doctor Sleep
(04:39):
was a sequel to The Shining if you recall, and
Flanagan's movie actually walked a tightrope between the novel and
Stanley Kubrick's film version of that story. The prequel would
have followed a young Dick hallerin That's the Cook who
gives the Shining its name, but it sounds like that
project got a big old fire ax to the chest, all.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, I think Speaking of acting things, we know that
Warner Brothers Discovery HBO has been offloading their TV shows
to other streaming networks like Westworld to Roku and twob
which is free streaming with ads. Well, it looks like
now they're making deals with Netflix as well. It's rumored
that the first title that might go over to Netflix
(05:23):
will be Insecure, which is an HBO original, which means
there's a chance you'll still be able to watch the
shows you love, even once HBO says they don't want
to pay for them anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Here's hoping and final High School Musical the musical. The
series has one more season and then it's time to graduate.
The fourth season will be the final bow for this
meta series, and we'll follow the cast as they interact
with stars from the original High School Musical film as
those characters reunite for a fictional reunion movie that doesn't
(05:57):
actually exist. It's meta on meta on me all up
in here, and it sounds like it's just what I've
been looking for. Yes, that was a reference to the
original film.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I'm surprised, you're super familiar with the original film.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I watched it for a different show.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Gotcha, gotcha, you might have told me that before, and
I might have scrubbed it from my memory.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Here's the thing. I used to host or co host
this other show called Podcast without Pretense, and we started
watching movies to see how long we could pay attention
to like a bad film before we gave in and
brought in distractions like a second screen or whatever. And
we chose high school musical, not knowing that we would
(06:41):
actually find it to be pretty darned entertaining. Like I
wouldn't say it's I would never call it a good movie,
but it's a very entertaining movie in parts. Particularly Sharpey.
I love her. She's awful and I love her, and
she's precious and she'd be, you know, treasured forever, and
I love her.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I'm I'm surprised but also delighted the amount of times
that my old roommate and I have sung that song
at karaoke completely the Bop to the Top with Sharpey
and her brother Yeah in karaoke with choreography is an
embarrassing amount, which is to say more than one, maybe
(07:21):
more than four.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
And what I've been looking for is another one of
the songs that Sharpey and her brother sing together, and
it's just super creepy because it sounds like it's a
love song, but it's being sung by a brother and sister.
And that's why I'm like, this is amazing. It's so wrong,
and yet it's in a Disney movie. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, it's so it's so interesting. Did you know one
of the actors in high School the musical's name was
Corbyn Blue. His stage name is Corbyn Blue.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I had heard that, and I know that. Gosh, I
wish I could.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Earn he just now still, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I wish I could rattle off the name of the
actress who played Sharpei, because she's great. But she's also
Ashley Tisdale. Ashley Tisdale, she's the voice she's Is it
Ashley Tisdell.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm pretty sure, But I'm just sad that I know
so quickly.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, she's She's also the voice of h of Phineas's
sister in Phineas and ferb And which is also great.
I love that series too, So it's just lots of
a big fan of her work.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I'll say yeah, I mean she's done a bunch of stuff.
She's she's done a bunch of stuff, so it is
fun and I was right, it is Ashley Tisdale good Well.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Speaking of a bunch of stuff, let's talk about the things.
What we have seen since the last time we convened.
I got nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Have I watched since the last time we convened. I'm
still watching fou Bar, I finished up Ravening War. I
feel like there's something else. I'm like passively rewatching New
Girl when I don't really want to watch something but
I want something on in the background.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Which is hard because I really I know you don't
like you're you're not a big fan fan of Zoey Deschanel,
but uh, I love that show so much.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I think the reason I think, the reason I don't
like zoe Deshanel is that a lot of the early
work that I was exposed to was stuff that I
just found like not likable at all, And it has
no it's no fault of hers, but rather like, like,
I'm specifically thinking of ten Man. Do you did you
ever see ten Man Man?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Was that like a TV series?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah? It was a mini series on Sci Fi Network
and it was a reimagining of Wizard of Oz but
kind of with steampunk. Allan Cumming was in it as
the Scarecrow, and like there were a couple of other
notable actors. Zoey Deschanel was the Dorothy stand in and
that show I wanted to like it so much. I
(09:57):
wanted it to be really cool and thisthetically pleasing and
really interesting, and it was just not, like it was
not good and I think I didn't even finish it.
I think it was a three parter and I watched
parts one in part two and I just could not
bring myself to watch part three because it was it
just lost me. So it's it was such a huge
(10:19):
swing and a miss. And I think that that because
that might have been one of my first things I
saw Zoey Deschanel in. I think that just kind of
soured me. And again not her fault, but her character
was just so like like apathetic in that that and
(10:39):
she just seems so like unmoved by any of the
weird and wild stuff around her that I was like,
this is this is supposed to be something that's fantastical
and magical, but the character is coming across as this
extremely disaffected Generation X type person and I can't stand it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, and then she was kind of similar in Elf
as well. Yeah, I didn't watch tin Man. I was
confusing it with another TV mini series that was based
off of Wizard of Oz, which was also not great
that I can't remember the name.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Wow, I didn't know there were two of them.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh yeah, the other one wasn't sci fi. It was
it was kind of like Dorothy comes back many years
later as an adult and a cop.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Oh wild like something like that sounds vaguely familiar. But
I didn't think it was called Emerald City.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Okay, Yes, it was called Emerald City and it was
super dark and there are parts of it I liked,
but it was just I don't know. It was like
if Tenth Kingdom tried to be gritty and it didn't
quite hit for me.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, and Tenth Kingdom, Man, that's a movie, or rather
a mini series we should talk about at sometimes some point,
because that was a series that had some great ideas
and some terrible ideas, and it created a whole mess
of a series.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Look, I loved it as a kid, and like I
had it recorded on VHS really crappily and I would
watch through the parts that were all static because I
loved it so much, because it was like, you know,
mixing real world with the fantasy world is a fun idea.
There are entired tabletops about it. There's an entire Dimension
(12:20):
twenty campaign about it, you know, and Sleeping City and
Changeling and all these other things. It's it's a really
fun concept to play with. Yeah, but yeah, not all
of it holds up super well. And also the longer
you go before watching it again, more you realize that
it is in fact a Hallmark mini series because it is.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
It just it. I mean, there's some dark stuff in
Tim Kingdom, Like you have a wolf character who I mean, well,
let's not go and we can have a whole episode
just about Tim.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
No, but but now you understand, like, but I knowing
that I am intimately familiar intimately is the wrong word.
I am very familiar Kingdom like, and then I say
the Emerald City's trying to be a gritty tenth Kingdom,
Like yeah, that's it's Yeah. Anyhow, well, speaking of far
too gritty, let's talk about DC.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah. So part of me thinks, like some of the
so some of our sources that we use for this show,
Like my frequent go tos include the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.
I go to those a lot, right, and there are
other ones too that are more geek focused, like Nerdicst
and things like that. But both Hollywood Reporter and Variety
(13:36):
seem to have a hate for The Flash. Like it's
not just enough that they are reporting on the financial
performance of the film, but they almost seem to be
taking delight in it. I don't know, maybe I'm maybe
I'm projecting too much, but the story is that The
Flash has not been a big box office success the
(14:00):
way Warner Brothers Discovery was hoping for, and that it
has received kind of a lackluster response at least on
the scale of superhero movies, being just slightly ahead of
Black Adam, I believe. And so it's just like it's
kind of a punch to the gut, because obviously this
(14:20):
was a movie that David Zaslov and James Gunn both
were kind of cheerleading from the sidelines leading up to
the release. But the reviews I've seen have been not
negative but more mediocre, more like modest in their praise
of the film, and perhaps some people at least are
(14:44):
holding back just because they, like me, have misgivings due
to Ezra Miller's troubled past. That was the thing that
was kind of holding me back.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So I think, yeah, I do think that's part of it.
There are a lot of people who don't want to support,
you know, Ezra Miller or have misgivings. I know that
we have a mutual friend who saw it who had
a really hard time divorcing the character from the actor.
And I say this as someone who has in the past,
prior to everything, enjoyed Azra Miller's performance as the Flash.
(15:21):
But also so I do think that that plays a
big part of it. You know, they haven't allowed Ezra
Miller to do a lot of or really do any
marketing for this movie other than show up on the
red carpet for the premiere. But I also think another
part of it is the people who were invested who
maybe don't care about that also might be feeling less
(15:44):
enticed to go because we only have like one and
a half more movies coming out in this universe and
then it's it's done, and so they aren't as excited
to see what happens next, you know, like part of
going to see a Marvel movie seems like half the
time it's just waiting to see what they're going to
set up for the next movie.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You know, yeah, which which has its own problems. But yeah,
I see what you're saying. So like, because this version
of DC Cinematic Universe is coming to an end, the
stakes are kind of gone because you're like, well, yeah,
but these characters aren't going to be told the same
way moving forward, because we know that James, you know,
this film existed before James Gunn came on to take
(16:27):
over a co leadership of DC, and so we know
that the stuff that comes out after this year is
going to be, you know, pretty much divorced from the
stuff that came before, with a couple of exceptions, like
the Joker sequel obviously is more like an else World's
kind of thing that's going to come up, and then
the whether or not we get it, But a sequel
(16:49):
to The Batman would also be else World's, which starts
to make you wonder, Okay, but what isn't going to
be Elseworld's.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean everything that comes out next year.
I think even Peacekeeper is peace Peacemaker, not Peacekeeper that's Farscape.
Dang it, I didn't. I didn't edit myself before opening
my mouth this time. Peacemaker is also going to be
I think else Worlds because it's got the but I
don't know, I don't know. Maybe Amanda Waller follows through
(17:18):
every universe.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, and like I'm sure Margot Robbie would come back
for another Harley Quinn style film if the story were right.
So that also, I mean, it's just messy, like DC. Yeah,
really really pooped the bed if we're going to use
a vulgar phrase when they set up this, this whole
(17:41):
cinematic universe, and it's there's no easy way to address
that without just like scrapping everything and starting from scratch,
which they are not going to do because they're already
invested in these other projects.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
It is interesting, though, because the article on Variety mentions
Blue Beetle as one of the you know, former DC properties,
and it did start getting developed prior, but at least
in the trailers, I haven't seen any tie into the
Snyder DCEU, and so it's a potential that instead of
(18:18):
being in else world, it could be tied into the
New Gun universe, which is kind of what I hope.
I hope Blue Beetle is super successful. It's like the
thing I've been most excited about for a while from DC. Yeah,
but also like, yeah, because I don't want to see
the Flash and get all excited for Michael Keaton coming
into the DC universe and then not have him come
(18:39):
into the DC universe, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, Well, I mean I kind of feel the same
way about seeing Michael Keaton in a Spider Man movie
and being excited about him being in the Marvel universe
and not seeing him get in the Marvel universe.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah. I mean people do this with TV shows too,
Like as soon as they hear their TV show is canceled,
they're like, well, do I even bother finishing it, because
why why it's spend my time getting invested in this
saying that's not going to complete out, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Which just makes makes me also think of when we
first heard about the Flash being included in the DCEU,
how people were upset that it wasn't the actor who
was playing the Flash in the television series.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, if it was Grant Gustin, I would be a
bazillion times more into it. And our mutual friend who
saw the Flash movie said that they thought that the
Grant Gustin version of the story, because the CW has
also done basically Flashpoint, was better.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, I'm sure at some point I will see this.
The things I've heard, like, there's been some really positive
stuff that thought, oh well, that sounds really neat. Other
stuff like saying that the introduction of Supergirl does a
disservice to the character kind of disappoints me because I
know how how incredibly excited that actress was to land
(19:57):
that role, and it just hurts me to know that,
like it was kind of mishandled, and to think that
this may be the one and only time she gets
to do it. That's also kind of stinks. But yeah,
this is a I mean, I'm actually surprised. I thought
The Flash was going to be a much bigger success
in the box office, and yet unless unless it just
(20:19):
gets a resurgence, which seems unlikely due to the fact
that a lot of the word of mouth is kind
of middling, I think it's gonna be another big miss
for Warner Brother's Discovery.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, yeah, me too. Speaking of big misses, Comic Con
might be a big miss this year.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, at least if you are a fan of the
hull H presentations. That's the really big hall at San
Diego Comic Con where the giant studios like Disney will
frequently book that hall for their giant presentations. Sometimes they
end up even messing up other people's presentations. I'll never
(21:01):
forget when Kevin Smith found out that the in the
one before his the presenter invited the entire audience to
go and see a secret pre screening of a movie,
which meant no one came to Kevin Smith's panel because
everyone left. But anyway, traditionally that's where we get these big,
(21:22):
big announcements. That's where last year Marvel laid out their
big plans for phases four, five, and six, and you know,
announced all these different projects. And now Marvel is rumored
to be well not rumored, Marvel's skipping haul H. They
are not going to have a big presentation this year.
And I think we have a few reasons we can
(21:44):
guess as to why that is.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, most most of the speculation is around the writer's
strike and the possible sag after strike and the possible
d GA strike.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, although DGA seems like that's not like to happen,
but sag After certainly could, and we should know that
probably by well, maybe not this time next week, but
pretty soon, because that's when the negotiations come to an end.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, on June thirtieth, I believe. Now. I do want
to make a quick aside here. The sag After strike
is in a media blackout, so anything you hear right
now is just speculation or rumor.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, which is why we don't know one way or
the other whether it's happening. But or if we do know,
we couldn't tell you. I'll just say it right now.
I don't know. Ariel might because she's an actor, but I.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I don't know. I did hear rumor, and again this
is rumor that the AAMPA is that it I should know. Yeah, anyhow,
they are only negotiating. The rumor is that they're only
negotiating one contract at a time so that they won't
be negotiating with WGA and sag after It and the
DGA all at the same time. That's a rumor that's
(22:58):
readily on the internet like inside knowledge. But you know,
if that's true. It's the article I read positive that
it's a tactic, and I don't particularly like it, especially
if they aren't, like if they switch to like DGA
before WGA, because I think DJA will get resolved quicker.
Like that's just mean to the writers. So I hope
(23:21):
that that's not true.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, And one other thing that could be contributing to
Marvel's decision, obviously, is what Ariel mentioned before with Jonathan
Major's heading toward trial for the charges of domestic abuse
and domestic violence, and that obviously is a just like
(23:44):
with the Ezra Miller situation, it's an incredibly sensitive topic
one that does need to be addressed, and there are
a lot of questions about whether Marvel is going to
continue to employ Jonathan Majors because obviously he played an
important part in the next next phase and then well
(24:05):
this phase and phase six, because we're in phase five
and you know, in phase six we're going to get
the Kang Dynasty, or at least that's supposed to be
one of the two Avengers movies we get. So it's
possible that that also is playing a part because with
that up in the air, the company may not have
a strategy to move forward, and wonder, you know, how
(24:26):
do we pivot, Like do we pivot and if we do,
what do we do? Do we recast the role? Do
we just completely change the path of the of the
phases and we just make a dramatic departure from what
we had planned. That's possible, but we don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah. Well, and like the article about Jonathan Major's trial
date which I just cited, coming soon dot net says
that his it's at his side that pushed for a
quick trial date, so like to get the trial date
as soon as pos possible. It makes me wonder if
they're trying to get it in while they suspect the
(25:04):
strike might still be going on, so they can take
care of all of this before productions will start ramping
back up. But I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I don't know either. I know that, you know, it's
a very delicate thing. And when you consider that Disney,
of course is the parent company to Marvel, that adds
even more pressure, right, because you've got a brand that
is associated with being positive and family friendly. We all
know that that's you know, branding, and that there are
other elements of business that are not as happy and
(25:38):
optimistic as that, But you still have to make a presentation.
Optics are really important so it's very possible that this
will will force a change that Marvel execs were not anticipating.
It's honestly, the whole thing is so up in the air.
And complicating matters even further, obviously, is that several of
(26:00):
the more recent Marvel projects have not met with critical
or audience acclaim. Like there's been a general disappointment in
many of the more recent Marvel projects. More in the
movies than in the series, I would say, but it's
definitely in both, and that is something that Marvel needs
(26:21):
to try and get a handle on, because it would
be tough to come out to Hall h and have
a bunch of announcements and no one really cares because
you've kind of lost the audience. So maybe taking a
year off will help them do that too.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Maybe. Also, there's rumored that Universal and HBO may not
show up as strong this year again for similar reasons.
So yeah, sorry to the people who are going to Comicon.
I haven't been to comic Con, so it doesn't super
affect me, but obviously it does affect when we get
news about geeky new things coming out, so we'll see
(27:00):
how all of that goes again.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Being a writer, strike. It's not a huge surprise that
we're getting companies sort of pulling back on this because
they honestly can't give realistic timelines of when stuff can
come out. So I totally get it. But it is
a bummer for the people who are going. But we
can talk about something that's not a bummer. We can
talk about an adaptation or not an adaptation, but rather
(27:23):
a play that is based off the behind and imagined,
behind the scenes environment of one of the greatest movies
that has ever been made.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yes, and that movie is Jaws. So if you are
ever wondering how to get Ariel to enjoy Jaws, it's
by taking me to see this Broadway show. It's called
The Shark Is Broken. I think it was written by
Ian Shaw, who is Robert Shaw's son, who is the.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
He's quint guy. Yeah, he's the one I was like,
I'll find your fish for two thousand, but I'll catch
it and kill it for ten.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah. So he plays his dad. Ian plays his dad,
Robert Shaw. He does in England, and I believe he's
doing so again in the US because now this show
that started in the West End is getting a Broadway
run and they just announced who who will be playing
Richard Dreyfus and Roy Schreider, the other people involved in this,
(28:29):
and Alex Brightman, who was Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice the musical
The Best Beetlejuice Ever will be playing. Richard Dreyfus and
Colin Donnell, who I know as Malcolm Merlin, not Malcolm
as Arrow's best friend in Arrow, one of the Merlins.
Is it Malcolm? There's Malcolm his dad.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I wouldn't know. I haven't. I think I watched all
of two episodes of Arrow. Now she's googling, I am googling.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Listen, you gotta Tommy. He played Malcolm? Was his dad?
I was right, Okay, he plays tom He played Tommy
Merlin in Arrow, will be playing Roy Scheider. Yeah, it
looks delightful. At first I thought it was a musical.
I'm a little sad that it's not, because I could
just imagine the fun that would be had with that.
But it looks like it would be a really fun,
(29:21):
simple play to see.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, it's supposed to be imagining what went on on
the Orca, which was the name of the boat that
quent Man's and Jaws. What went on on the Orca
between Richard Dreyfus and Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw when
they weren't filming, because I mean, if you've ever heard
the stories, Robert Shaw was famously a very tough guy
(29:47):
and kind of a grouch, and Richard Dreyfus ended up
being kind of intimidated by him a little bit, or
at least scared of him. Maybe not intimidated as the
right word, but yeah. And also I love that the
title is the Shark is Broken, because that's a play
off the shark is working. That's that's what the one
(30:08):
of the documentaries about Jaws is called, and it was
called that because it was so rare for the mechanical
shark to work that when you heard the shark is working,
you jumped to get everything going so that you could
get some footage in before the shark broke again. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, A little side note Ian Shaw, because I watched
the trailer for this play on YouTube and I thought
at first that Ian Shaw was Michael Palin, Like, I
was like, how is Michael Michael Palin look so young
in this play?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Well, where's when I saw I haven't seen the trailer.
I've just seen a photograph of him, and granted it's
from a distance, but the first glance I've made was,
holy cow, he looks a lot like his dad.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I mean that makes sense, right, Yeah, So, uh, that's
happy news. We're going to dip back a little bit
into some more Disney sad news.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh, I did tell one of our friends who is
a movie buff, about the Shark is Broken, and she
immediately bought tickets to go to New York and see it,
like immediately, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Once, I didn't know about until you put it in
our lineup. And I am debating on doing something similar
because I mean, Jaws is at least in my top
five favorite films of all time, it may be my
favorite film, and it just sounds like it would be
a blast to see this play, So I am considering it.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, we have a bunch more stuff to talk about
and not a lot of time to talk about it,
so let's jump back into some sad Disney news or
mad Disney news, bad Disney. I don't know. I will
be curious for your take on it. So the first
episode of Secret Invasion dropped this week. That's with Nick
Fury and the Scroll.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, the Scroll.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Uh, you know, doing spy stuff on Earth kind of.
It dropped on Disney Plus to mixed reviews. I haven't
watched it yet, but something that has been getting a
little bit of a negative review is the opening credits scene,
because apparently Disney used AI to get like this foreboding,
otherworldly sort of art style to it, and a bunch
(32:24):
of people are mad that Disney used AI.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, personally, go ahead, no, you go ahead, no, no,
I want to hear what you have to say, because
that's going to really affect how I approached this next bit.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Me personally, I think the timing of using AI for
this intro is bad where we've got a bunch of
unions trying to get some protections around it. But on
just a on a purely like disaffected level, I think
that AI is a fine tool for something like that
(33:01):
if you're going for a particular art style. Like to me,
AI art has a very particular, like slightly off art style,
and they and Disney says that they wanted that for
like the shape shifting feel of this scroll, and something's
not right, and so like I think using it as
using it as a tool is not like innately wrong.
(33:21):
I just think the timing is really bad.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, I okay, I'm on the same page that you're on.
I might be a little more anti AI for artistic
commercial purposes because you know, there is a valid argument
to make that there are people artists out there who
could have generated incredible credits who you know, because this
(33:46):
went to a marketing or an art firm that used
AI meant that those artists didn't get a chance to
get that gig, and that kind of stinks. So I
get their their point, and also, as you to your point, Ariel,
the fact we're right now in an era where the
use of AI is very much one of the sensitive
talking points of these negotiations because exactly because of stuff
(34:11):
like this, you did not read the room properly, Marvel
when you signed off on this. That being said thematically,
it makes so much sense like it it feeds into
the actual story and narrative of the series, so as
a storytelling component, it actually makes a lot of sense.
(34:34):
So's I agree. I think the timing if this had
happened last year, before these sort of negotiations were starting
to heat up, I don't know that it would have
been as big a deal. I think it's going to
be a big deal from now moving forward, because we've
had so much conversation and concern about AI being used
in creative endeavors and potentially denying human creators the chance
(34:59):
to do that work.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, so like I do agree with that, and I
don't think and I think like a human could have
made an equally interesting intro credit sequence possibly you know,
by studying AI style and then recreating it. But I
also feel like like this is why i atsies doing
their whole study on it, right of how to use
this tool responsibly, because you know, I guess there could
(35:26):
also be the argument for to get the you know,
I've gone to to create dot ai dot you know,
and and put in prompts to try to get weird
art from an AI before and to get something that's
correct and visually what you're looking for. Is like it
could be argued that that's an art in and of itself.
(35:49):
You know, it's just different, it's a different tool. But
I yeah, I don't know. I am one hundred percent
against a that pulls and just adjusts other people's art work,
which a lot of AI things out there do, and
that's not cool. They take other people's photographs and other
people's art work and then they just tweak them, and
(36:11):
I don't like that at all.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Right, right, Yeah, the training portion of training up AI
often involves feeding. In fact, it essentially always involves feeding
lots of examples to the AI, which also means that
you are creating an artificial intelligence that is pulling from
the styles of specific artists, and that does start to
(36:34):
feel a little unfair, right, Not that you would necessarily
mistake an AI creation for the actual artists creation, although
that might happen, but you know, it's still not cool,
because the actual artist is the person you should be
going to. Let's carry on, though, We've got a ton
of other stuff to talk about. We got a trailer
(36:57):
for an upcoming Sony Marvel film, Craven the Hunter, and
in our notes, Ariel indicated that she nearly quote unquote
noped out several times. So, Ariel, why did you almost
nope out of the Craven the Hunter trailer?
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Well, first of all, trailers lately have done this thing
where they give you a couple of different, like really
intense moments from the trailer at the beginning, and then
they say boom, starting the trailer.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Right, Yeah, it's a trailer for the trailer.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
In the trailer, and anyhow, the two seconds that they
put into the trailer at the very beginning were one
the Craven being surrounded by spiders, which to me is
just like nope, nope, nope, I don't like this, and
then two like breaking open a dude's head with a
(37:52):
bear trap.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And then and well, the reason why they had to
have them surrounded by spiders is because they couldn't have
him fighting Spider Man, so this was as close as
they could get.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah, yeah, and then we get into the actual trailer
with backstory, and I want to say, Aaron Taylor Johnson
I think would play like I think his acting is
fine as a character in the trailer, Like yeah, I
think he can play that kind of like whatever is
needed to play Craven. However, the storyline is dumb. And
then like there was also like animal violence, which I
(38:26):
don't like, And there was also but it's a part
of the story, right, So that's just legit part of
Craven's backstory. Yeah, and then there's just so much like
we knew this was going to be I think R
rated right, and it was going to be more violent,
but it's just the level of violence at least in
the trailer was just too much for me, Like it
was just too much.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, I didn't like the trailer at all. I felt
that it had serious morbius vibes going on, just like, yes,
it looks like it's going to be to me, the
equivalent of morbious quality, which then made me wonder whether
or not these characters who are Spider Man villains, if
perhaps they're just not interesting enough to be able to
(39:09):
carry their own story. And in this case, it looks
like they're doing a little bit of a maleficent for Craven,
because the comic book version is that he's just a
big game hunter and he's bored of hunting animals because
they're too easy. So he's decided to say sights on
Spider Man because Spider Man will present a real challenge.
That's it, that's Craven's motivation. But in this one it
(39:32):
looks like his father's the big game hunter, that Craven
ends up being more compassionate toward animals at least, or
that he seems to be at the very outset, but
then he just goes all murder homo on everybody around him.
(39:52):
Don't know why, don't understand what the plot is. But
I also didn't think it made much sense for him
to get a drop of life iron blood mixed in
those blood and that gave him suddenly powers.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
That was that was like the biggest, the biggest. So
now he's like sympathetic to animals or can talk to them.
He's freaking doctor Doolittle. I don't know, or at least
knows their weaknesses super powerly. Yeah, that blood drop moment
was a thing that was like, oh my god, this
is just morebous with lions.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, and well, and in the comics, like Craven does
have a like a serum that he's made by extracting
various uh components from animals, So that is part of
his story and that he's got this stuff that makes
him faster and stronger than your typical human because he
was somehow able to distill these things in animals that
(40:42):
gave humans that ability. But that that's a little more
involved than just having a lion bleed on you.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, yeah, anyhow, I will probably I still haven't seen
morebius like go Me that is. That is one one
superhero movie I haven't watched, and I don't plan too,
and I don't think I'm gonna plan on watching I
really like Aaron Taylor Johnson, but I'm not gonna watch Craven.
I don't think unless the next trailer really kind of
changes its tune.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
It's also kind of funny before we move on. I
just want to mention Russell Crowe plays Craven's dad, which
means that Russell Crowe is both Zeus and Craven's dad
in the Nebulous Marvel universe. Keeping in mind that Sony
is kind of like a universe over but it's still
connected to Marvel. I just thought that was funny.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, speaking of Nebulus, you put a trailer in for
this movie called Three Body Problem, and it looks really cool,
but at least on double speed, I could not tell
what the story was about.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Well, that's understandable. It's based off a series of novels
from a Chinese author, and in those stories there are
kind of three narratives that are playing out, and one
of them takes place in the past, one of them
takes place in the novels present, and one of them
is sort of a flash forward look into the future.
And so the trailer we get mirrors that where you
(42:03):
get elements where it's stuff that's happening in the past,
stuff that's happening right now, and stuff that happens in
the future. The problem is with the trailer, it doesn't
communicate that at all, So it just leaves you to
kind of wonder, how can all these different images that
you're watching fit in the same story. But that's because again,
it comes from this very complex series of books that
(42:27):
are you know, they're science fiction books. They have elements
of extraterrestrial type stuff in them, they have elements of
climate change in them. They have an incredibly nihilistic character
who essentially decides that the human race has had a
good run, but it's time to wrap it up. So
(42:49):
I thought the trailer looked really visually interesting. I have
not read the books. I know that the English translation
of the books rearranges the stories somewhat in order to
make it perhaps a little more accessible to English readers,
and that there are a lot of footnotes as well
to try and explain things that are of cultural significance
(43:13):
in China that your average person outside of China would
be unaware of, and therefore it wouldn't mean anything to you,
so I know that the author really did work in
a lot of things that are culturally significant in China
as well, which makes this kind of interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, super cool. I am interested in it. I appreciate
you explaining it a little bit, because, Yeah, the trailer
just just looked cool to me, Like that was it right?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Totally, totally, Yeah, this could be fun.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Something else that looks cool to me, and I'm trying
not to get my hopes up too high, is the
Netflix series version live action version of Avatar the Last Airbender.
We got a teeny tiny teaser trailer and also some
first looks at the characters, and it looks good to me.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, they look they look appropriate for the character designs
that were in the original animated series. And I mean,
obviously this series is going to have a lot of
work to do to try and erase the memory and
bad will from the m Night Shamalon adaptation live action adaptation,
which I think was universally panned. I don't know of
(44:19):
anyone who actually liked that version. I want to say
my partner, I can't. I think my partner actually went
to see it and is still holding a grudge about it, Like.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
It wasn't good. It wasn't. First of all, I really
enjoy Avatar the Last Airbender. I feel like that's a
high bar to me because the cartoon is just so good,
Like it's really enjoyable to me. The m Night Shayamalan
movie was whatever, like maybe slightly better than the old
(44:57):
Wayans D and D movie, but not good. Yeah, so
I really hope this is better.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, me too, both for the fans and you know,
for potential new fans. Like I never got into the series.
I watched a couple of episodes, but like you know, me, like,
sometimes things just don't hook me, and this was one
of those. So again, my partner loves it. She just
thinks it's amazing and she devoured the whole series. She
(45:24):
didn't watch Legend of Korra though. I tried to watch
a few episodes and just maybe I just didn't go
far enough, kind of like how I mean, some people
say that's the same with me and Doctor Who. Although
I did get all the way to Matt Smith and
I still was like, this is still not doing anything
for me.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
You went far enough, You went far enough, so you
may not have found your doctor, but you went far enough.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, I was like, listen, I went to one end
of the universe and back and it just hasn't grabbed me.
It's just not my thing. But yeah, I really hope
it's great too, because I think the fans deserve it.
I think it's clear the people who are working on
the project. I've put a lot of work into it
from a technical standpoint, and I can only hope that
when we get to see actual performances like in a
(46:09):
real either in a real trailer or when the series
comes out, that it reflects all that love and hard
work and that ends up being a great piece of
entertainment me.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Too, speaking about our space, have you watched Solar Opposites?
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I didn't even know that this was a show until
I just happened to come across the story. The story
being Solar Opposites is an animated show. It's about these
aliens who were escaping their home planet, like one hundred
aliens who were escaping their home planet that was being destroyed,
and one couple ends up landing on Earth and it's
(46:47):
one of them loves Earth and the other one hates Earth.
And it's been going on for three seasons and now
we know that season four is going to have a
big change in it because one of the voice actors
who was voicing a character, and this was Justin Royland,
who obviously has been undergoing quite the change in career
(47:10):
because he got accused of domestic abuse and as a result,
a lot of projects that had been connected to him
severed ties with him. And so now his voice has
been recast, and they even released a short section and
kind of serving as a trailer for the next season
(47:30):
where they just call out the fact that his voice
is different.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Now. Yeah, so I also didn't know this was a
show until the well, today a new episode of UM
actually comes out, but the last episode of them actually
came out when they talked about it, like, I've maybe
seen the name, but it never pinged my radar as
something to watch. But yeah, I like in this clip,
(47:56):
they essentially stabbed Justin Royland's character in the throat and
then heal it, and when they heal it, his voice
is different, and they're like, is he gonna sound like
this always? And you know the answer is probably yes.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I think that's clever.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, it's an example of what's called lamp shading, where
you know there's something that the writers know the audience
is going to pick up on and that if they
don't address it, then it's going to just be hanging
over the series, so they just call attention to it,
and then that kind of excuses it. So if you
think of it, there's another great example in the first
(48:34):
Austin Powers movie where they're talking about or maybe it's
the second one, but they're talking about time travel and
they say, don't think about it too much, is my
is my advice? And that goes for you too, and
the characters looking right in the camera, and then Mike
Myers turns to the camera says, yes, it's for the best,
which is you know, lamp shading, saying like, yes, we
know this doesn't make sense, just go with it. Uh,
(48:55):
it's it's the kind of same thing with this, this
little bit. And I thought it was I thought it
was funny as long as they don't do it too much.
Don't don't go all Futurama post cancelation in other words,
because that show just kept on going on and on
about how Fox canceled them, and I was like, Okay,
we get it. Go now, get away from that. Just
(49:15):
tell your stories one and done.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, Yeah, lamb shading can be fun. I know they
also did it when they change actresses to play Becky
in Roseanne way back when, Yes, and then kind of
called back to it again in the Connors. Uh now,
So it can be. It can be fun if it's
done well, because you know everybody's already thinking it right,
Everybody's like, well, this has changed. How do I How
(49:38):
do I move on? And they're like, okay, we'll just
say it's changed.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Move on something else that's changed. I would say, uh so.
We we have a trailer for a movie called The
Beanie Bubble and it's it's it's a it's a film
that's an adaptation, kind of a fictional telling of the
incredible rise of popularity of Beanie Baby and how that
(50:01):
made the creators very wealthy and then all the scandal
that was happening behind the scenes while people were blissfully unaware.
There's a movie coming out and it has Zach Galifanakis
and Elizabeth Banks and Zach galifan Akis is unrecognizable because
he's clean shaven.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
And he didn't even really sound that much like the
way I associate Zach galifan Akis sounding so when I'm
watching it, I'm like, and what is that him? Is that?
I mean, I've never seen his face because it's always
been behind a beard. But No, the thing that I
thought was funny is that the trailer, which is about
the creators of Beanie Babies, has absolutely zero beanie babies
(50:46):
in it.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
I don't know, there's footage of the truck crashing, because
back when beanie babies were a big thing, there was
a big truck crash and beanie babies went all over
the interstate and then people went crazy and tried to
get them. Am I remembering that correctly?
Speaker 2 (50:58):
You are remembering that correctly? Yeah, Beanie babies became a
collector craze and people would like trample each other in
order to try and get hold of them, because you know,
like some of them would be limited runs, or there
would be a run of a certain beanie Baby, but
a defect was discovered and then they would stop that
and then work in a new line of that character,
(51:19):
which meant that the old version would suddenly become really
valuable to collectors. But the reason why there are no
so that crash, It just shows it's the little cat
stuffed animals that they show. And the reason they did
that is because while they had the rights to use
the creator of Beanie Babies, they did not have the
(51:40):
intellectual property rights of the actual Beanie Babies, so they
could not include any real Beanie Babies in their film.
And they just made this little stuffed cat to be
a stand in. But it's still called the Beanie Bubbles.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
That's interesting. Other fun fact, it filmed in Georgia and
some of the scenes were filmed like two minutes down
the road from my house, so.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
So you probably passed You probably passed out galifan Akis
and never knew it because he was clean shaven.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
I mean maybe it could have. Also, like it filmed
in an office park near my house, so like you
have to go up the driveway to get into the
office park, so I may have never seen him. Also
maybe like if if they had crafty there and then
they took cars in and out of the location, Like
if he never left the location, then I wouldn't have
(52:31):
seen him because I don't go up into that office park.
But still fun, I was like when I heard about that,
I'm like, is that is that a code name for
another show or movie? But no, it's not it's called
the Beanie Bubble.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Yeah. Actually it's actually based off a book that was
sort of a tell all about the bad behavior of
the creators of Beanie Babies and sort of how they
turned on each other and that. Like it's it's one
of those stories where because you know, people hit success
dramatically and suddenly it changes them in a way, or
maybe it brings out something in them that you didn't
(53:04):
know was there. And it's kind of one of those stories.
And I just added it on here because I mean,
like I would I remember the Beanie Baby craze because obviously,
like that happened back in the nineties, and I was
a teenager turning into a young adult in the nineties,
and so it's to me, it was just one of
those things. I was like, Wow. Also, it's another example
(53:25):
of a brand getting a film. We've got several of those.
Now we had Nike, we had Cheetos, like the Flame
of Hot Cheetos story, and now we've got Barbie and
now we've got Beanie Babies.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yep, because everything old is new again, speaking of, and
we're gonna have to do this one real quick. Jonathan,
you put in a scary movie which is looks like
a generic scary like Bloody Mary type movie, but it
is geeky because it has Robert England in it.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yes, Robert England and Bill Moseley, who was in to
all of like rob zombies horror movies. He's been in those.
But anyway, it's called Natty Knocks and it's about a
this ghost like character and kind of like Bloody Mary,
except like the story is that Natty knocks and when
she knocks, she knocks nine times, and don't answer the
door because Natty will get you. And it's weird because
(54:16):
the trailer looks like it mixes supernatural horror with like
slasher horror, because it looks like there's a like a
serial killer type character possibly as well. It's also the
trailers presented in a kind of grindhouse grainy film filter.
And I don't know if the whole movie is like
(54:37):
that or if they just did that for the trailer.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Yeah, yeah, me neither. I really don't have much to
say about this. I don't like this kind of movie.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
There had put it in. I had to put it
in because we always end with a horror movie trailer, you.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Know, you say that we used to not and we
still don't have to, but you keep doing it to me, Jonathan.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
I don't want to break the streak.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Look, it's not like this is no we didn't build
the show going. Hey, let's always end with a horror trailer. Now,
this is the kind of horror movie that I watched
in fifth grade that scared the schnookers out of me
and made me hate horror movies. So I do like
Robert England though. He's a very nice guy. At least
the times that I've met him, he's been very like,
kind and generous. So there's that.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
Okay, Well, and that's it for our news.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, okay, Jonathan, tell us how people should contact us
if they want to reach out and share their thoughts
on any of the things we've talked about today.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Well, you're gonna have to go across town to that
old abandoned show Nees, you know, the one that hasn't
been open for years now, and you'll notice that the
lights are actually on, and that if you walk up
to the door, it's open, and if you go in
and sit down, someone actually comes up, kind of translucent
and they're asking you for your order, and you need
(55:57):
to order yourself a big boy burger, and then when
they come you have to mention, oh, by the way,
it's Jonathan's birthday today, and then the entire ghostly restaurant
has to go and sing all of happy birthday to
you with my name in it. And at the very
end of that they'll come back. They'll give you a
little doggie bag in your check. Turns out you don't
(56:17):
need to pay. Ghost burgers don't cost anything. And as
you leave, you'll see a shadowy figure in the parking lot.
And then as you approach the shadowy figure, I'll jump
out of another shadow and punch that shadowy figure and say,
what's your question? Can you just tell me?
Speaker 1 (56:33):
Super interesting, especially if you want some ghost burgers. Gotta
love them ghost burgers. If you're lazy like me and
you want to contact us in a much easier way,
you can reach out to us on social media on
Instagram and Facebook. In discord, we are Large Nerdrum Collider
and on Twitter where LLNC Underscore Podcast. You can also
(56:54):
email us at large Neurdrum Pod at gmail dot com.
All of our show notes are kept at www dot
Large nerdrun Collider dot com and I have started being
a smarty pants and changing the discord invite link to
never expires, so you should be able to go on
to our most recent post at any time and click
if you want to join the discord uh to chat
(57:17):
about movies and books and things like that. And yeah,
we appreciate you all for listening and just being for
who you and we appreciate you for being who you are.
That is what I meant to say. And until next time,
I am Ariel Jonathan. You cannot escape your birthday song
forever cast in.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
And I am Jonathan. I ain't craven. The Craven Strickland
the Large Nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Caston and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again. Curse That by Jonathan Strickman. Music by Kevin
(57:59):
mc wild holding Context dot com
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Large Ner Drunk Collider Podcast,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how very excited we are
about them. I'm Ariel Castin, and with me, as always,
is the ever young Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm gonna be older by the next episode.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And yet forever young.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Neil Diamond song.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Not Neil Diamond, No, but that's okay. Yeah, no, gosh,
different different singer, but that's totally fine. Yeah. So, yeah,
I got my birthday coming up next week, and uh,
I'm taking vacation, but I will be still available to
record if Ariel is next week, so we'll still do
(00:57):
an episode, assuming you know, her availability remains the same it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Should, you know it's not, but we plan on bringing
you an episode next week.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yes, and even though I'm not working.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I mean, you know, this isn't work. This is fun.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
That's true. That's true. I so I didn't realize it
when I planned my vacation. I just said, oh, I'm
going to take the week of my birthday off, and
then I looked at the calendar and realized that that
ends up running over into the fourth of July holiday
for us, and we have the third and the fourth off,
which means I will have eleven straight days off work,
(01:37):
and I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself
apart from ketchup with all the stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That sounds delightful. That sounds delightful. Do you want your
Happy Birthday? Isn't copyrighted anymore?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Is it? I think it's finally in the public domain.
But no, you don't need to sing it to me.
I'm it's it's a little too early. Got to wait
a couple more days.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I know, but we won't be recording in a couple
of days.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's okay, that's okay. Just wait to tell you hear
how people are going to get in touch with me,
and then it'll all make sense.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Okay, fine, well let's move on then, dude, are thirty
seconds or less?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
That sounds good? And I believe Ariel that you are
going to launch us off this time.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I am all right. So this is a quick one.
The second part of the Wicked movie that's coming out
because of course it's in two parts, was originally set
to come out in Christmas of twenty twenty. On Christmas
around Christmas of twenty twenty five, and now it's coming
out on November twenty six, twenty twenty five. So instead
of a Christmas movie, you get a Thanksgiving movie. That's
(02:46):
after Wicked Part one comes out in twenty twenty four,
also in November. That's hopefully thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I guess it's something for us to be thankful for. Okay, Hey,
the Spider Man spinoff elm Wuerto, about a wrestler who
gained superpowers through a mystical mask, is no longer on
Sony's calendar. The Hollywood Reporter chalks this up to another
delay due to the writer's strike. Now, it was supposed
to come out January twelfth, twenty twenty four. It's also
(03:16):
supposed to start Bad Bunny. But if and when it
gets back on track, he may no longer be available.
And it's actually possible that elm Werto might just be
plain old Muerto'll left to see.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's sad. I was kind of looking forward to that one,
all right, So now I'm going to briefly talk about
something that we haven't We've only vaguely touched on on
the episode, just because the trial hasn't happened yet. But
Jonathan Major's trial is set for August sixth, I believe,
(03:49):
where he's being charged with domestic abuse charges. Sorry August third.
We haven't talked about it just because it hasn't gone
a trial yet, so we don't have all the facts.
Of course, his side is saying that he's completely innocent
and the evidence will prove that, and of course the
charges say otherwise. So you know, we'll see how that
(04:13):
all turns out in the fallout that happens to Marvel.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, yeah, this is that's probably going to play into
one of the discussions we're going to have in our
news section. But before we get to that, of course,
we got some more thirty seconds or less, So here
we go. Mike Flanagan, the guy who directed the film
adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, has had plans for
a third film in the Shining trilogy. So Doctor Sleep
(04:39):
was a sequel to The Shining if you recall, and
Flanagan's movie actually walked a tightrope between the novel and
Stanley Kubrick's film version of that story. The prequel would
have followed a young Dick hallerin That's the Cook who
gives the Shining its name, but it sounds like that
project got a big old fire ax to the chest, all.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, I think Speaking of acting things, we know that
Warner Brothers Discovery HBO has been offloading their TV shows
to other streaming networks like Westworld to Roku and twob
which is free streaming with ads. Well, it looks like
now they're making deals with Netflix as well. It's rumored
that the first title that might go over to Netflix
(05:23):
will be Insecure, which is an HBO original, which means
there's a chance you'll still be able to watch the
shows you love, even once HBO says they don't want
to pay for them anymore.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Here's hoping and final High School Musical the musical. The
series has one more season and then it's time to graduate.
The fourth season will be the final bow for this
meta series, and we'll follow the cast as they interact
with stars from the original High School Musical film as
those characters reunite for a fictional reunion movie that doesn't
(05:57):
actually exist. It's meta on meta on me all up
in here, and it sounds like it's just what I've
been looking for. Yes, that was a reference to the
original film.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I'm surprised, you're super familiar with the original film.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I watched it for a different show.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Gotcha, gotcha, you might have told me that before, and
I might have scrubbed it from my memory.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Here's the thing. I used to host or co host
this other show called Podcast without Pretense, and we started
watching movies to see how long we could pay attention
to like a bad film before we gave in and
brought in distractions like a second screen or whatever. And
we chose high school musical, not knowing that we would
(06:41):
actually find it to be pretty darned entertaining. Like I
wouldn't say it's I would never call it a good movie,
but it's a very entertaining movie in parts. Particularly Sharpey.
I love her. She's awful and I love her, and
she's precious and she'd be, you know, treasured forever, and
I love her.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I'm I'm surprised but also delighted the amount of times
that my old roommate and I have sung that song
at karaoke completely the Bop to the Top with Sharpey
and her brother Yeah in karaoke with choreography is an
embarrassing amount, which is to say more than one, maybe
(07:21):
more than four.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
And what I've been looking for is another one of
the songs that Sharpey and her brother sing together, and
it's just super creepy because it sounds like it's a
love song, but it's being sung by a brother and sister.
And that's why I'm like, this is amazing. It's so wrong,
and yet it's in a Disney movie. It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, it's so it's so interesting. Did you know one
of the actors in high School the musical's name was
Corbyn Blue. His stage name is Corbyn Blue.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I had heard that, and I know that. Gosh, I
wish I could.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Earn he just now still, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I wish I could rattle off the name of the
actress who played Sharpei, because she's great. But she's also
Ashley Tisdale. Ashley Tisdale, she's the voice she's Is it
Ashley Tisdell.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm pretty sure, But I'm just sad that I know
so quickly.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Well, she's She's also the voice of h of Phineas's
sister in Phineas and ferb And which is also great.
I love that series too, So it's just lots of
a big fan of her work.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
I'll say yeah, I mean she's done a bunch of stuff.
She's she's done a bunch of stuff, so it is
fun and I was right, it is Ashley Tisdale good Well.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Speaking of a bunch of stuff, let's talk about the things.
What we have seen since the last time we convened.
I got nothing.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Have I watched since the last time we convened. I'm
still watching fou Bar, I finished up Ravening War. I
feel like there's something else. I'm like passively rewatching New
Girl when I don't really want to watch something but
I want something on in the background.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Got it?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Which is hard because I really I know you don't
like you're you're not a big fan fan of Zoey Deschanel,
but uh, I love that show so much.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I think the reason I think, the reason I don't
like zoe Deshanel is that a lot of the early
work that I was exposed to was stuff that I
just found like not likable at all, And it has
no it's no fault of hers, but rather like, like,
I'm specifically thinking of ten Man. Do you did you
ever see ten Man Man?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Was that like a TV series?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah? It was a mini series on Sci Fi Network
and it was a reimagining of Wizard of Oz but
kind of with steampunk. Allan Cumming was in it as
the Scarecrow, and like there were a couple of other
notable actors. Zoey Deschanel was the Dorothy stand in and
that show I wanted to like it so much. I
(09:57):
wanted it to be really cool and thisthetically pleasing and
really interesting, and it was just not, like it was
not good and I think I didn't even finish it.
I think it was a three parter and I watched
parts one in part two and I just could not
bring myself to watch part three because it was it
just lost me. So it's it was such a huge
(10:19):
swing and a miss. And I think that that because
that might have been one of my first things I
saw Zoey Deschanel in. I think that just kind of
soured me. And again not her fault, but her character
was just so like like apathetic in that that and
(10:39):
she just seems so like unmoved by any of the
weird and wild stuff around her that I was like,
this is this is supposed to be something that's fantastical
and magical, but the character is coming across as this
extremely disaffected Generation X type person and I can't stand it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, and then she was kind of similar in Elf
as well. Yeah, I didn't watch tin Man. I was
confusing it with another TV mini series that was based
off of Wizard of Oz, which was also not great
that I can't remember the name.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Wow, I didn't know there were two of them.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Oh yeah, the other one wasn't sci fi. It was
it was kind of like Dorothy comes back many years
later as an adult and a cop.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Oh wild like something like that sounds vaguely familiar. But
I didn't think it was called Emerald City.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Okay, Yes, it was called Emerald City and it was
super dark and there are parts of it I liked,
but it was just I don't know. It was like
if Tenth Kingdom tried to be gritty and it didn't
quite hit for me.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, and Tenth Kingdom, Man, that's a movie, or rather
a mini series we should talk about at sometimes some point,
because that was a series that had some great ideas
and some terrible ideas, and it created a whole mess
of a series.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Look, I loved it as a kid, and like I
had it recorded on VHS really crappily and I would
watch through the parts that were all static because I
loved it so much, because it was like, you know,
mixing real world with the fantasy world is a fun idea.
There are entired tabletops about it. There's an entire Dimension
(12:20):
twenty campaign about it, you know, and Sleeping City and
Changeling and all these other things. It's it's a really
fun concept to play with. Yeah, but yeah, not all
of it holds up super well. And also the longer
you go before watching it again, more you realize that
it is in fact a Hallmark mini series because it is.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
It just it. I mean, there's some dark stuff in
Tim Kingdom, Like you have a wolf character who I mean, well,
let's not go and we can have a whole episode
just about Tim.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
No, but but now you understand, like, but I knowing
that I am intimately familiar intimately is the wrong word.
I am very familiar Kingdom like, and then I say
the Emerald City's trying to be a gritty tenth Kingdom,
Like yeah, that's it's Yeah. Anyhow, well, speaking of far
too gritty, let's talk about DC.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah. So part of me thinks, like some of the
so some of our sources that we use for this show,
Like my frequent go tos include the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.
I go to those a lot, right, and there are
other ones too that are more geek focused, like Nerdicst
and things like that. But both Hollywood Reporter and Variety
(13:36):
seem to have a hate for The Flash. Like it's
not just enough that they are reporting on the financial
performance of the film, but they almost seem to be
taking delight in it. I don't know, maybe I'm maybe
I'm projecting too much, but the story is that The
Flash has not been a big box office success the
(14:00):
way Warner Brothers Discovery was hoping for, and that it
has received kind of a lackluster response at least on
the scale of superhero movies, being just slightly ahead of
Black Adam, I believe. And so it's just like it's
kind of a punch to the gut, because obviously this
(14:20):
was a movie that David Zaslov and James Gunn both
were kind of cheerleading from the sidelines leading up to
the release. But the reviews I've seen have been not
negative but more mediocre, more like modest in their praise
of the film, and perhaps some people at least are
(14:44):
holding back just because they, like me, have misgivings due
to Ezra Miller's troubled past. That was the thing that
was kind of holding me back.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So I think, yeah, I do think that's part of it.
There are a lot of people who don't want to support,
you know, Ezra Miller or have misgivings. I know that
we have a mutual friend who saw it who had
a really hard time divorcing the character from the actor.
And I say this as someone who has in the past,
prior to everything, enjoyed Azra Miller's performance as the Flash.
(15:21):
But also so I do think that that plays a
big part of it. You know, they haven't allowed Ezra
Miller to do a lot of or really do any
marketing for this movie other than show up on the
red carpet for the premiere. But I also think another
part of it is the people who were invested who
maybe don't care about that also might be feeling less
(15:44):
enticed to go because we only have like one and
a half more movies coming out in this universe and
then it's it's done, and so they aren't as excited
to see what happens next, you know, like part of
going to see a Marvel movie seems like half the
time it's just waiting to see what they're going to
set up for the next movie.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
You know, yeah, which which has its own problems. But yeah,
I see what you're saying. So like, because this version
of DC Cinematic Universe is coming to an end, the
stakes are kind of gone because you're like, well, yeah,
but these characters aren't going to be told the same
way moving forward, because we know that James, you know,
this film existed before James Gunn came on to take
(16:27):
over a co leadership of DC, and so we know
that the stuff that comes out after this year is
going to be, you know, pretty much divorced from the
stuff that came before, with a couple of exceptions, like
the Joker sequel obviously is more like an else World's
kind of thing that's going to come up, and then
the whether or not we get it, But a sequel
(16:49):
to The Batman would also be else World's, which starts
to make you wonder, Okay, but what isn't going to
be Elseworld's.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean everything that comes out next year.
I think even Peacekeeper is peace Peacemaker, not Peacekeeper that's Farscape.
Dang it, I didn't. I didn't edit myself before opening
my mouth this time. Peacemaker is also going to be
I think else Worlds because it's got the but I
don't know, I don't know. Maybe Amanda Waller follows through
(17:18):
every universe.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, and like I'm sure Margot Robbie would come back
for another Harley Quinn style film if the story were right.
So that also, I mean, it's just messy, like DC. Yeah,
really really pooped the bed if we're going to use
a vulgar phrase when they set up this, this whole
(17:41):
cinematic universe, and it's there's no easy way to address
that without just like scrapping everything and starting from scratch,
which they are not going to do because they're already
invested in these other projects.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
It is interesting, though, because the article on Variety mentions
Blue Beetle as one of the you know, former DC properties,
and it did start getting developed prior, but at least
in the trailers, I haven't seen any tie into the
Snyder DCEU, and so it's a potential that instead of
(18:18):
being in else world, it could be tied into the
New Gun universe, which is kind of what I hope.
I hope Blue Beetle is super successful. It's like the
thing I've been most excited about for a while from DC. Yeah,
but also like, yeah, because I don't want to see
the Flash and get all excited for Michael Keaton coming
into the DC universe and then not have him come
(18:39):
into the DC universe, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, Well, I mean I kind of feel the same
way about seeing Michael Keaton in a Spider Man movie
and being excited about him being in the Marvel universe
and not seeing him get in the Marvel universe.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah. I mean people do this with TV shows too,
Like as soon as they hear their TV show is canceled,
they're like, well, do I even bother finishing it, because
why why it's spend my time getting invested in this
saying that's not going to complete out, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Which just makes makes me also think of when we
first heard about the Flash being included in the DCEU,
how people were upset that it wasn't the actor who
was playing the Flash in the television series.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, if it was Grant Gustin, I would be a
bazillion times more into it. And our mutual friend who
saw the Flash movie said that they thought that the
Grant Gustin version of the story, because the CW has
also done basically Flashpoint, was better.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, I'm sure at some point I will see this.
The things I've heard, like, there's been some really positive
stuff that thought, oh well, that sounds really neat. Other
stuff like saying that the introduction of Supergirl does a
disservice to the character kind of disappoints me because I
know how how incredibly excited that actress was to land
(19:57):
that role, and it just hurts me to know that,
like it was kind of mishandled, and to think that
this may be the one and only time she gets
to do it. That's also kind of stinks. But yeah,
this is a I mean, I'm actually surprised. I thought
The Flash was going to be a much bigger success
in the box office, and yet unless unless it just
(20:19):
gets a resurgence, which seems unlikely due to the fact
that a lot of the word of mouth is kind
of middling, I think it's gonna be another big miss
for Warner Brother's Discovery.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, yeah, me too. Speaking of big misses, Comic Con
might be a big miss this year.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, at least if you are a fan of the
hull H presentations. That's the really big hall at San
Diego Comic Con where the giant studios like Disney will
frequently book that hall for their giant presentations. Sometimes they
end up even messing up other people's presentations. I'll never
(21:01):
forget when Kevin Smith found out that the in the
one before his the presenter invited the entire audience to
go and see a secret pre screening of a movie,
which meant no one came to Kevin Smith's panel because
everyone left. But anyway, traditionally that's where we get these big,
(21:22):
big announcements. That's where last year Marvel laid out their
big plans for phases four, five, and six, and you know,
announced all these different projects. And now Marvel is rumored
to be well not rumored, Marvel's skipping haul H. They
are not going to have a big presentation this year.
And I think we have a few reasons we can
(21:44):
guess as to why that is.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, most most of the speculation is around the writer's
strike and the possible sag after strike and the possible
d GA strike.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, although DGA seems like that's not like to happen,
but sag After certainly could, and we should know that
probably by well, maybe not this time next week, but
pretty soon, because that's when the negotiations come to an end.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, on June thirtieth, I believe. Now. I do want
to make a quick aside here. The sag After strike
is in a media blackout, so anything you hear right
now is just speculation or rumor.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, which is why we don't know one way or
the other whether it's happening. But or if we do know,
we couldn't tell you. I'll just say it right now.
I don't know. Ariel might because she's an actor, but I.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I don't know. I did hear rumor, and again this
is rumor that the AAMPA is that it I should know. Yeah, anyhow,
they are only negotiating. The rumor is that they're only
negotiating one contract at a time so that they won't
be negotiating with WGA and sag after It and the
DGA all at the same time. That's a rumor that's
(22:58):
readily on the internet like inside knowledge. But you know,
if that's true. It's the article I read positive that
it's a tactic, and I don't particularly like it, especially
if they aren't, like if they switch to like DGA
before WGA, because I think DJA will get resolved quicker.
Like that's just mean to the writers. So I hope
(23:21):
that that's not true.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, And one other thing that could be contributing to
Marvel's decision, obviously, is what Ariel mentioned before with Jonathan
Major's heading toward trial for the charges of domestic abuse
and domestic violence, and that obviously is a just like
(23:44):
with the Ezra Miller situation, it's an incredibly sensitive topic
one that does need to be addressed, and there are
a lot of questions about whether Marvel is going to
continue to employ Jonathan Majors because obviously he played an
important part in the next next phase and then well
(24:05):
this phase and phase six, because we're in phase five
and you know, in phase six we're going to get
the Kang Dynasty, or at least that's supposed to be
one of the two Avengers movies we get. So it's
possible that that also is playing a part because with
that up in the air, the company may not have
a strategy to move forward, and wonder, you know, how
(24:26):
do we pivot, Like do we pivot and if we do,
what do we do? Do we recast the role? Do
we just completely change the path of the of the
phases and we just make a dramatic departure from what
we had planned. That's possible, but we don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah. Well, and like the article about Jonathan Major's trial
date which I just cited, coming soon dot net says
that his it's at his side that pushed for a
quick trial date, so like to get the trial date
as soon as pos possible. It makes me wonder if
they're trying to get it in while they suspect the
(25:04):
strike might still be going on, so they can take
care of all of this before productions will start ramping
back up. But I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I don't know either. I know that, you know, it's
a very delicate thing. And when you consider that Disney,
of course is the parent company to Marvel, that adds
even more pressure, right, because you've got a brand that
is associated with being positive and family friendly. We all
know that that's you know, branding, and that there are
other elements of business that are not as happy and
(25:38):
optimistic as that, But you still have to make a presentation.
Optics are really important so it's very possible that this
will will force a change that Marvel execs were not anticipating.
It's honestly, the whole thing is so up in the air.
And complicating matters even further, obviously, is that several of
(26:00):
the more recent Marvel projects have not met with critical
or audience acclaim. Like there's been a general disappointment in
many of the more recent Marvel projects. More in the
movies than in the series, I would say, but it's
definitely in both, and that is something that Marvel needs
(26:21):
to try and get a handle on, because it would
be tough to come out to Hall h and have
a bunch of announcements and no one really cares because
you've kind of lost the audience. So maybe taking a
year off will help them do that too.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Maybe. Also, there's rumored that Universal and HBO may not
show up as strong this year again for similar reasons.
So yeah, sorry to the people who are going to Comicon.
I haven't been to comic Con, so it doesn't super
affect me, but obviously it does affect when we get
news about geeky new things coming out, so we'll see
(27:00):
how all of that goes again.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Being a writer, strike. It's not a huge surprise that
we're getting companies sort of pulling back on this because
they honestly can't give realistic timelines of when stuff can
come out. So I totally get it. But it is
a bummer for the people who are going. But we
can talk about something that's not a bummer. We can
talk about an adaptation or not an adaptation, but rather
(27:23):
a play that is based off the behind and imagined,
behind the scenes environment of one of the greatest movies
that has ever been made.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yes, and that movie is Jaws. So if you are
ever wondering how to get Ariel to enjoy Jaws, it's
by taking me to see this Broadway show. It's called
The Shark Is Broken. I think it was written by
Ian Shaw, who is Robert Shaw's son, who is the.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
He's quint guy. Yeah, he's the one I was like,
I'll find your fish for two thousand, but I'll catch
it and kill it for ten.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah. So he plays his dad. Ian plays his dad,
Robert Shaw. He does in England, and I believe he's
doing so again in the US because now this show
that started in the West End is getting a Broadway
run and they just announced who who will be playing
Richard Dreyfus and Roy Schreider, the other people involved in this,
(28:29):
and Alex Brightman, who was Beetlejuice and Beetlejuice the musical
The Best Beetlejuice Ever will be playing. Richard Dreyfus and
Colin Donnell, who I know as Malcolm Merlin, not Malcolm
as Arrow's best friend in Arrow, one of the Merlins.
Is it Malcolm? There's Malcolm his dad.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I wouldn't know. I haven't. I think I watched all
of two episodes of Arrow. Now she's googling, I am googling.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Listen, you gotta Tommy. He played Malcolm? Was his dad?
I was right, Okay, he plays tom He played Tommy
Merlin in Arrow, will be playing Roy Scheider. Yeah, it
looks delightful. At first I thought it was a musical.
I'm a little sad that it's not, because I could
just imagine the fun that would be had with that.
But it looks like it would be a really fun,
(29:21):
simple play to see.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, it's supposed to be imagining what went on on
the Orca, which was the name of the boat that
quent Man's and Jaws. What went on on the Orca
between Richard Dreyfus and Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw when
they weren't filming, because I mean, if you've ever heard
the stories, Robert Shaw was famously a very tough guy
(29:47):
and kind of a grouch, and Richard Dreyfus ended up
being kind of intimidated by him a little bit, or
at least scared of him. Maybe not intimidated as the
right word, but yeah. And also I love that the
title is the Shark is Broken, because that's a play
off the shark is working. That's that's what the one
(30:08):
of the documentaries about Jaws is called, and it was
called that because it was so rare for the mechanical
shark to work that when you heard the shark is working,
you jumped to get everything going so that you could
get some footage in before the shark broke again. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, A little side note Ian Shaw, because I watched
the trailer for this play on YouTube and I thought
at first that Ian Shaw was Michael Palin, Like, I
was like, how is Michael Michael Palin look so young
in this play?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Well, where's when I saw I haven't seen the trailer.
I've just seen a photograph of him, and granted it's
from a distance, but the first glance I've made was,
holy cow, he looks a lot like his dad.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I mean that makes sense, right, Yeah, So, uh, that's
happy news. We're going to dip back a little bit
into some more Disney sad news.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh, I did tell one of our friends who is
a movie buff, about the Shark is Broken, and she
immediately bought tickets to go to New York and see it,
like immediately, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Once, I didn't know about until you put it in
our lineup. And I am debating on doing something similar
because I mean, Jaws is at least in my top
five favorite films of all time, it may be my
favorite film, and it just sounds like it would be
a blast to see this play, So I am considering it.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, we have a bunch more stuff to talk about
and not a lot of time to talk about it,
so let's jump back into some sad Disney news or
mad Disney news, bad Disney. I don't know. I will
be curious for your take on it. So the first
episode of Secret Invasion dropped this week. That's with Nick
Fury and the Scroll.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, the Scroll.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Uh, you know, doing spy stuff on Earth kind of.
It dropped on Disney Plus to mixed reviews. I haven't
watched it yet, but something that has been getting a
little bit of a negative review is the opening credits scene,
because apparently Disney used AI to get like this foreboding,
otherworldly sort of art style to it, and a bunch
(32:24):
of people are mad that Disney used AI.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, personally, go ahead, no, you go ahead, no, no,
I want to hear what you have to say, because
that's going to really affect how I approached this next bit.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Me personally, I think the timing of using AI for
this intro is bad where we've got a bunch of
unions trying to get some protections around it. But on
just a on a purely like disaffected level, I think
that AI is a fine tool for something like that
(33:01):
if you're going for a particular art style. Like to me,
AI art has a very particular, like slightly off art style,
and they and Disney says that they wanted that for
like the shape shifting feel of this scroll, and something's
not right, and so like I think using it as
using it as a tool is not like innately wrong.
(33:21):
I just think the timing is really bad.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Yeah, I okay, I'm on the same page that you're on.
I might be a little more anti AI for artistic
commercial purposes because you know, there is a valid argument
to make that there are people artists out there who
could have generated incredible credits who you know, because this
(33:46):
went to a marketing or an art firm that used
AI meant that those artists didn't get a chance to
get that gig, and that kind of stinks. So I
get their their point, and also, as you to your point, Ariel,
the fact we're right now in an era where the
use of AI is very much one of the sensitive
talking points of these negotiations because exactly because of stuff
(34:11):
like this, you did not read the room properly, Marvel
when you signed off on this. That being said thematically,
it makes so much sense like it it feeds into
the actual story and narrative of the series, so as
a storytelling component, it actually makes a lot of sense.
(34:34):
So's I agree. I think the timing if this had
happened last year, before these sort of negotiations were starting
to heat up, I don't know that it would have
been as big a deal. I think it's going to
be a big deal from now moving forward, because we've
had so much conversation and concern about AI being used
in creative endeavors and potentially denying human creators the chance
(34:59):
to do that work.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, so like I do agree with that, and I
don't think and I think like a human could have
made an equally interesting intro credit sequence possibly you know,
by studying AI style and then recreating it. But I
also feel like like this is why i atsies doing
their whole study on it, right of how to use
this tool responsibly, because you know, I guess there could
(35:26):
also be the argument for to get the you know,
I've gone to to create dot ai dot you know,
and and put in prompts to try to get weird
art from an AI before and to get something that's
correct and visually what you're looking for. Is like it
could be argued that that's an art in and of itself.
(35:49):
You know, it's just different, it's a different tool. But
I yeah, I don't know. I am one hundred percent
against a that pulls and just adjusts other people's art work,
which a lot of AI things out there do, and
that's not cool. They take other people's photographs and other
people's art work and then they just tweak them, and
(36:11):
I don't like that at all.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Right, right, Yeah, the training portion of training up AI
often involves feeding. In fact, it essentially always involves feeding
lots of examples to the AI, which also means that
you are creating an artificial intelligence that is pulling from
the styles of specific artists, and that does start to
(36:34):
feel a little unfair, right, Not that you would necessarily
mistake an AI creation for the actual artists creation, although
that might happen, but you know, it's still not cool,
because the actual artist is the person you should be
going to. Let's carry on, though, We've got a ton
of other stuff to talk about. We got a trailer
(36:57):
for an upcoming Sony Marvel film, Craven the Hunter, and
in our notes, Ariel indicated that she nearly quote unquote
noped out several times. So, Ariel, why did you almost
nope out of the Craven the Hunter trailer?
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Well, first of all, trailers lately have done this thing
where they give you a couple of different, like really
intense moments from the trailer at the beginning, and then
they say boom, starting the trailer.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Right, Yeah, it's a trailer for the trailer.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
In the trailer, and anyhow, the two seconds that they
put into the trailer at the very beginning were one
the Craven being surrounded by spiders, which to me is
just like nope, nope, nope, I don't like this, and
then two like breaking open a dude's head with a
(37:52):
bear trap.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
And then and well, the reason why they had to
have them surrounded by spiders is because they couldn't have
him fighting Spider Man, so this was as close as
they could get.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah, yeah, and then we get into the actual trailer
with backstory, and I want to say, Aaron Taylor Johnson
I think would play like I think his acting is
fine as a character in the trailer, Like yeah, I
think he can play that kind of like whatever is
needed to play Craven. However, the storyline is dumb. And
then like there was also like animal violence, which I
(38:26):
don't like, And there was also but it's a part
of the story, right, So that's just legit part of
Craven's backstory. Yeah, and then there's just so much like
we knew this was going to be I think R
rated right, and it was going to be more violent,
but it's just the level of violence at least in
the trailer was just too much for me, Like it
was just too much.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, I didn't like the trailer at all. I felt
that it had serious morbius vibes going on, just like, yes,
it looks like it's going to be to me, the
equivalent of morbious quality, which then made me wonder whether
or not these characters who are Spider Man villains, if
perhaps they're just not interesting enough to be able to
(39:09):
carry their own story. And in this case, it looks
like they're doing a little bit of a maleficent for Craven,
because the comic book version is that he's just a
big game hunter and he's bored of hunting animals because
they're too easy. So he's decided to say sights on
Spider Man because Spider Man will present a real challenge.
That's it, that's Craven's motivation. But in this one it
(39:32):
looks like his father's the big game hunter, that Craven
ends up being more compassionate toward animals at least, or
that he seems to be at the very outset, but
then he just goes all murder homo on everybody around him.
(39:52):
Don't know why, don't understand what the plot is. But
I also didn't think it made much sense for him
to get a drop of life iron blood mixed in
those blood and that gave him suddenly powers.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
That was that was like the biggest, the biggest. So
now he's like sympathetic to animals or can talk to them.
He's freaking doctor Doolittle. I don't know, or at least
knows their weaknesses super powerly. Yeah, that blood drop moment
was a thing that was like, oh my god, this
is just morebous with lions.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, and well, and in the comics, like Craven does
have a like a serum that he's made by extracting
various uh components from animals, So that is part of
his story and that he's got this stuff that makes
him faster and stronger than your typical human because he
was somehow able to distill these things in animals that
(40:42):
gave humans that ability. But that that's a little more
involved than just having a lion bleed on you.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, yeah, anyhow, I will probably I still haven't seen
morebius like go Me that is. That is one one
superhero movie I haven't watched, and I don't plan too,
and I don't think I'm gonna plan on watching I
really like Aaron Taylor Johnson, but I'm not gonna watch Craven.
I don't think unless the next trailer really kind of
changes its tune.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
It's also kind of funny before we move on. I
just want to mention Russell Crowe plays Craven's dad, which
means that Russell Crowe is both Zeus and Craven's dad
in the Nebulous Marvel universe. Keeping in mind that Sony
is kind of like a universe over but it's still
connected to Marvel. I just thought that was funny.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, speaking of Nebulus, you put a trailer in for
this movie called Three Body Problem, and it looks really cool,
but at least on double speed, I could not tell
what the story was about.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Well, that's understandable. It's based off a series of novels
from a Chinese author, and in those stories there are
kind of three narratives that are playing out, and one
of them takes place in the past, one of them
takes place in the novels present, and one of them
is sort of a flash forward look into the future.
And so the trailer we get mirrors that where you
(42:03):
get elements where it's stuff that's happening in the past,
stuff that's happening right now, and stuff that happens in
the future. The problem is with the trailer, it doesn't
communicate that at all, So it just leaves you to
kind of wonder, how can all these different images that
you're watching fit in the same story. But that's because again,
it comes from this very complex series of books that
(42:27):
are you know, they're science fiction books. They have elements
of extraterrestrial type stuff in them, they have elements of
climate change in them. They have an incredibly nihilistic character
who essentially decides that the human race has had a
good run, but it's time to wrap it up. So
(42:49):
I thought the trailer looked really visually interesting. I have
not read the books. I know that the English translation
of the books rearranges the stories somewhat in order to
make it perhaps a little more accessible to English readers,
and that there are a lot of footnotes as well
to try and explain things that are of cultural significance
(43:13):
in China that your average person outside of China would
be unaware of, and therefore it wouldn't mean anything to you,
so I know that the author really did work in
a lot of things that are culturally significant in China
as well, which makes this kind of interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Yeah, super cool. I am interested in it. I appreciate
you explaining it a little bit, because, Yeah, the trailer
just just looked cool to me, Like that was it right?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Totally, totally, Yeah, this could be fun.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Something else that looks cool to me, and I'm trying
not to get my hopes up too high, is the
Netflix series version live action version of Avatar the Last Airbender.
We got a teeny tiny teaser trailer and also some
first looks at the characters, and it looks good to me.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, they look they look appropriate for the character designs
that were in the original animated series. And I mean,
obviously this series is going to have a lot of
work to do to try and erase the memory and
bad will from the m Night Shamalon adaptation live action adaptation,
which I think was universally panned. I don't know of
(44:19):
anyone who actually liked that version. I want to say
my partner, I can't. I think my partner actually went
to see it and is still holding a grudge about it, Like.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
It wasn't good. It wasn't. First of all, I really
enjoy Avatar the Last Airbender. I feel like that's a
high bar to me because the cartoon is just so good,
Like it's really enjoyable to me. The m Night Shayamalan
movie was whatever, like maybe slightly better than the old
(44:57):
Wayans D and D movie, but not good. Yeah, so
I really hope this is better.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, me too, both for the fans and you know,
for potential new fans. Like I never got into the series.
I watched a couple of episodes, but like you know, me, like,
sometimes things just don't hook me, and this was one
of those. So again, my partner loves it. She just
thinks it's amazing and she devoured the whole series. She
(45:24):
didn't watch Legend of Korra though. I tried to watch
a few episodes and just maybe I just didn't go
far enough, kind of like how I mean, some people
say that's the same with me and Doctor Who. Although
I did get all the way to Matt Smith and
I still was like, this is still not doing anything
for me.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
You went far enough, You went far enough, so you
may not have found your doctor, but you went far enough.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, I was like, listen, I went to one end
of the universe and back and it just hasn't grabbed me.
It's just not my thing. But yeah, I really hope
it's great too, because I think the fans deserve it.
I think it's clear the people who are working on
the project. I've put a lot of work into it
from a technical standpoint, and I can only hope that
when we get to see actual performances like in a
(46:09):
real either in a real trailer or when the series
comes out, that it reflects all that love and hard
work and that ends up being a great piece of
entertainment me.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Too, speaking about our space, have you watched Solar Opposites?
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I didn't even know that this was a show until
I just happened to come across the story. The story
being Solar Opposites is an animated show. It's about these
aliens who were escaping their home planet, like one hundred
aliens who were escaping their home planet that was being destroyed,
and one couple ends up landing on Earth and it's
(46:47):
one of them loves Earth and the other one hates Earth.
And it's been going on for three seasons and now
we know that season four is going to have a
big change in it because one of the voice actors
who was voicing a character, and this was Justin Royland,
who obviously has been undergoing quite the change in career
(47:10):
because he got accused of domestic abuse and as a result,
a lot of projects that had been connected to him
severed ties with him. And so now his voice has
been recast, and they even released a short section and
kind of serving as a trailer for the next season
(47:30):
where they just call out the fact that his voice
is different.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Now. Yeah, so I also didn't know this was a
show until the well, today a new episode of UM
actually comes out, but the last episode of them actually
came out when they talked about it, like, I've maybe
seen the name, but it never pinged my radar as
something to watch. But yeah, I like in this clip,
(47:56):
they essentially stabbed Justin Royland's character in the throat and
then heal it, and when they heal it, his voice
is different, and they're like, is he gonna sound like
this always? And you know the answer is probably yes.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I think that's clever.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, it's an example of what's called lamp shading, where
you know there's something that the writers know the audience
is going to pick up on and that if they
don't address it, then it's going to just be hanging
over the series, so they just call attention to it,
and then that kind of excuses it. So if you
think of it, there's another great example in the first
(48:34):
Austin Powers movie where they're talking about or maybe it's
the second one, but they're talking about time travel and
they say, don't think about it too much, is my
is my advice? And that goes for you too, and
the characters looking right in the camera, and then Mike
Myers turns to the camera says, yes, it's for the best,
which is you know, lamp shading, saying like, yes, we
know this doesn't make sense, just go with it. Uh,
(48:55):
it's it's the kind of same thing with this, this
little bit. And I thought it was I thought it
was funny as long as they don't do it too much.
Don't don't go all Futurama post cancelation in other words,
because that show just kept on going on and on
about how Fox canceled them, and I was like, Okay,
we get it. Go now, get away from that. Just
(49:15):
tell your stories one and done.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Yeah, Yeah, lamb shading can be fun. I know they
also did it when they change actresses to play Becky
in Roseanne way back when, Yes, and then kind of
called back to it again in the Connors. Uh now,
So it can be. It can be fun if it's
done well, because you know everybody's already thinking it right,
Everybody's like, well, this has changed. How do I How
(49:38):
do I move on? And they're like, okay, we'll just
say it's changed.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Move on something else that's changed. I would say, uh so.
We we have a trailer for a movie called The
Beanie Bubble and it's it's it's a it's a film
that's an adaptation, kind of a fictional telling of the
incredible rise of popularity of Beanie Baby and how that
(50:01):
made the creators very wealthy and then all the scandal
that was happening behind the scenes while people were blissfully unaware.
There's a movie coming out and it has Zach Galifanakis
and Elizabeth Banks and Zach galifan Akis is unrecognizable because
he's clean shaven.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
And he didn't even really sound that much like the
way I associate Zach galifan Akis sounding so when I'm
watching it, I'm like, and what is that him? Is that?
I mean, I've never seen his face because it's always
been behind a beard. But No, the thing that I
thought was funny is that the trailer, which is about
the creators of Beanie Babies, has absolutely zero beanie babies
(50:46):
in it.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
I don't know, there's footage of the truck crashing, because
back when beanie babies were a big thing, there was
a big truck crash and beanie babies went all over
the interstate and then people went crazy and tried to
get them. Am I remembering that correctly?
Speaker 2 (50:58):
You are remembering that correctly? Yeah, Beanie babies became a
collector craze and people would like trample each other in
order to try and get hold of them, because you know,
like some of them would be limited runs, or there
would be a run of a certain beanie Baby, but
a defect was discovered and then they would stop that
and then work in a new line of that character,
(51:19):
which meant that the old version would suddenly become really
valuable to collectors. But the reason why there are no
so that crash, It just shows it's the little cat
stuffed animals that they show. And the reason they did
that is because while they had the rights to use
the creator of Beanie Babies, they did not have the
(51:40):
intellectual property rights of the actual Beanie Babies, so they
could not include any real Beanie Babies in their film.
And they just made this little stuffed cat to be
a stand in. But it's still called the Beanie Bubbles.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
That's interesting. Other fun fact, it filmed in Georgia and
some of the scenes were filmed like two minutes down
the road from my house, so.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
So you probably passed You probably passed out galifan Akis
and never knew it because he was clean shaven.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
I mean maybe it could have. Also, like it filmed
in an office park near my house, so like you
have to go up the driveway to get into the
office park, so I may have never seen him. Also
maybe like if if they had crafty there and then
they took cars in and out of the location, Like
if he never left the location, then I wouldn't have
(52:31):
seen him because I don't go up into that office park.
But still fun, I was like when I heard about that,
I'm like, is that is that a code name for
another show or movie? But no, it's not it's called
the Beanie Bubble.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Yeah. Actually it's actually based off a book that was
sort of a tell all about the bad behavior of
the creators of Beanie Babies and sort of how they
turned on each other and that. Like it's it's one
of those stories where because you know, people hit success
dramatically and suddenly it changes them in a way, or
maybe it brings out something in them that you didn't
(53:04):
know was there. And it's kind of one of those stories.
And I just added it on here because I mean,
like I would I remember the Beanie Baby craze because obviously,
like that happened back in the nineties, and I was
a teenager turning into a young adult in the nineties,
and so it's to me, it was just one of
those things. I was like, Wow. Also, it's another example
(53:25):
of a brand getting a film. We've got several of those.
Now we had Nike, we had Cheetos, like the Flame
of Hot Cheetos story, and now we've got Barbie and
now we've got Beanie Babies.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yep, because everything old is new again, speaking of, and
we're gonna have to do this one real quick. Jonathan,
you put in a scary movie which is looks like
a generic scary like Bloody Mary type movie, but it
is geeky because it has Robert England in it.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yes, Robert England and Bill Moseley, who was in to
all of like rob zombies horror movies. He's been in those.
But anyway, it's called Natty Knocks and it's about a
this ghost like character and kind of like Bloody Mary,
except like the story is that Natty knocks and when
she knocks, she knocks nine times, and don't answer the
door because Natty will get you. And it's weird because
(54:16):
the trailer looks like it mixes supernatural horror with like
slasher horror, because it looks like there's a like a
serial killer type character possibly as well. It's also the
trailers presented in a kind of grindhouse grainy film filter.
And I don't know if the whole movie is like
(54:37):
that or if they just did that for the trailer.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Yeah, yeah, me neither. I really don't have much to
say about this. I don't like this kind of movie.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
There had put it in. I had to put it
in because we always end with a horror movie trailer, you.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Know, you say that we used to not and we
still don't have to, but you keep doing it to me, Jonathan.
Speaker 2 (54:59):
I don't want to break the streak.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Look, it's not like this is no we didn't build
the show going. Hey, let's always end with a horror trailer. Now,
this is the kind of horror movie that I watched
in fifth grade that scared the schnookers out of me
and made me hate horror movies. So I do like
Robert England though. He's a very nice guy. At least
the times that I've met him, he's been very like,
kind and generous. So there's that.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
Okay, Well, and that's it for our news.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, okay, Jonathan, tell us how people should contact us
if they want to reach out and share their thoughts
on any of the things we've talked about today.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Well, you're gonna have to go across town to that
old abandoned show Nees, you know, the one that hasn't
been open for years now, and you'll notice that the
lights are actually on, and that if you walk up
to the door, it's open, and if you go in
and sit down, someone actually comes up, kind of translucent
and they're asking you for your order, and you need
(55:57):
to order yourself a big boy burger, and then when
they come you have to mention, oh, by the way,
it's Jonathan's birthday today, and then the entire ghostly restaurant
has to go and sing all of happy birthday to
you with my name in it. And at the very
end of that they'll come back. They'll give you a
little doggie bag in your check. Turns out you don't
(56:17):
need to pay. Ghost burgers don't cost anything. And as
you leave, you'll see a shadowy figure in the parking lot.
And then as you approach the shadowy figure, I'll jump
out of another shadow and punch that shadowy figure and say,
what's your question? Can you just tell me?
Speaker 1 (56:33):
Super interesting, especially if you want some ghost burgers. Gotta
love them ghost burgers. If you're lazy like me and
you want to contact us in a much easier way,
you can reach out to us on social media on
Instagram and Facebook. In discord, we are Large Nerdrum Collider
and on Twitter where LLNC Underscore Podcast. You can also
(56:54):
email us at large Neurdrum Pod at gmail dot com.
All of our show notes are kept at www dot
Large nerdrun Collider dot com and I have started being
a smarty pants and changing the discord invite link to
never expires, so you should be able to go on
to our most recent post at any time and click
if you want to join the discord uh to chat
(57:17):
about movies and books and things like that. And yeah,
we appreciate you all for listening and just being for
who you and we appreciate you for being who you are.
That is what I meant to say. And until next time,
I am Ariel Jonathan. You cannot escape your birthday song
forever cast in.
Speaker 2 (57:35):
And I am Jonathan. I ain't craven. The Craven Strickland
the Large Nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Caston and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again. Curse That by Jonathan Strickman. Music by Kevin
(57:59):
mc wild holding Context dot com
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