No Rings Attached

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large Nerd Drunk Collider podcast is a production of
I Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to The Large Nerd
Drunk Collider, 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 casting and with me

(00:29):
as always is real Boy Jonathan Strickland. I am Vengeance.
I doubt your commitment to vengeance motion. Well, I didn't
say I was good at it, but I do. Ariel
have a question for you, okay, Ariel, because one of

(00:51):
our news items is going to have to do with
a movie music. I was curious, what are some of
your favorite film scores, not soundtrack acts. You know, soundtracks
would be the ones that have like all the different
songs attached to him. And we all know the greatest
soundtrack of all time is the original Batman film because
of Prince's bat Dance song. But no, I'm talking about

(01:12):
the movie score, like the stuff that's playing that get
plays with your emotions. I mean, you know, like classic
stuff like Indiana Jones or Star Wars, you know, and
any sort of anything John Williams or um Lord of
the Rings. Yeah, yes, but I mean like that is

(01:36):
all fantastic, beautiful world building music. Um, you asked about films.
I was going to say Lost, Lost has an amazing
score to it and soundtrack. Um, but that's fair. We
can throw we can throw television in there too. I
think that's totally fine. Yeah. So, I mean, like Lost
would be my favorite first, and I like, I know

(01:59):
John Williams should oh to be at the top of
my list for those because he wrote so many amazing ones.
But um, but but it's so hard because scores like
literally trying like built my my musical childhood. I spent
you know, time and band and orchestra playing scores from

(02:19):
like Jurassic Park and Back to the Future and things
like that. So it's it's really hard to pick. I
think it's also interesting that we went through a time
for a while, and arguably you could say we're kind
of still in it where movies didn't have as many
like like recognizable scores. Right, Like you would hear music

(02:42):
from a movie, it would be really atmospheric and moody
and everything, but you might not be able to pen
what movie it came from because it wasn't like iconically
you know, connected to the film. Itself, not like say
Star Wars or Star Trek or any of those things.
The Marvel movies I think of had issues with that,
apart from the Avengers theme, which is actually pretty recognizable.

(03:05):
That data, that little thing, I mean, like that's recognizable.
But if you played I don't know four or five
different themes from the twenty plus Marvel films that have
come out so far, I probably wouldn't be able to
tell you which one's went with which characters. Uh, but yeah,
I I Star Wars, Raised last Ark, two of my

(03:25):
favorite Superman as well another John Williams, um, well, I
don't talking about the nineteen seventies EO Superman um and
uh yeah, there's those are all great. You know what,
There's one movie score that I genuinely like because of
the mood. And I can always tell what movies on
as soon as they hear just like a note or two,
which is clue, yeah, clue, just that do do Do

(03:49):
Do Do Do Do Do Do. It's this little jaunty
and yet kind of a dark edge to it music
for that movie, which is perfect because it's such a
good fee and sinister farce. So um, it's really love.
It is a great movie. It's one of my favorites.
But I really love when a film's score is an

(04:14):
integral component of the experience of seeing the movie. That's
not to say that like more atmospheric, you know, pieces
that might not be as hummable, let's say that those
don't have a place. I think they do. There's some
films that have, Like Birdman has an amazing score to
it that's just like jazz drums going bonkers through the

(04:36):
whole thing. You can't hulm it, not not effectively, uh
you know, and it's It is interesting because a lot
of movies nowadays rely less on scores and more on
just underscoring with single bowl songs. You know. A great
one for that is like Crazy Rich Asians, which has
an amazing soundtrack that that is the score for the movie.

(05:00):
I'm sure it has actual score, but like, I don't
remember that. I just remember all of the great song
choices they pick for it. Well, let's not talk too
much about about soundtracks, because I might I might or
might not have another question for you for some future
episode where we talk about that. We might we might
have already I don't recall. But the reason you're asking

(05:20):
is because they just released the score for The Batman. Yeah,
it's the Batman's theme composed by Michael Is it Giocano?
Uh Giacano? Yeah, I think so, I believe so. This
is this is where it's revealed that neither Ariel nor

(05:42):
myself have any Italian in US. Yeah. I was talking
friends about the score over the weekend because I think
it's really beautiful. I think Michael Michael g does a
real good job at writing music, not make obviously. I
like the score to Lost a lot. Um. I've got
some of it on my iPod. But um, you know,

(06:05):
even when they talked to the cast of Loss, they
all pronounce his name differently. So um too too badly
about it. But so that's why you brought up Lost
in particular. I mean, I do really really love the score.
I love the score, I love the soundtrack. I really
enjoyed the show, even though it definitely went some weird,

(06:28):
weird directions. Yeah, well, he's and he's done a lot,
I mean a ton of different pieces. It's one of those.
It's interesting to me because this is a composer whose
name I was not familiar with, but I'm definitely familiar
with the work I mean the fact that he did
the score for The Incredibles, which has a fantastic film score. Um,

(06:50):
he's worked a lot with J. J. Runs, not just
with Loss but also on Alias. Uh. He did the
score for Zutopia. You know, he's done a ton of
of work. I did the score for Spider Man Far
from Home. He also did it for Spider Man No
Way Home. Yea, So yeah, he's done a ton of

(07:11):
work that I've heard. But although I haven't heard No
Way Home yet because I still haven't seen it, but yeah,
it's Um, I listened to this and I agree, it's
a it's a great piece of music. I feel like,
you know, it kind of starts with a little bit
it almost feels a little bit like the sort of
the base of or the strings at the beginning of

(07:34):
the Imperial March from Star Wars, the Done, Done Done.
It's almost like that, not quite the same, but similar.
Then it goes into this kind of sad uh introspective section,
and then it slowly builds until you get sort of
the more action driven music towards the end. So I

(07:54):
feel like it kind of is almost like a snapshot
of of Batman and bat and Psyche. Yeah, yeah, certainly. Um.
And the song is about what three and a half
minutes or so. Um, it's called water Tower. Um. And
the Batman movie. The movie The Batman is going to
be two hours and fifty five minutes, so maybe we'll

(08:16):
get one minute of the score per hour. Oh, I'm
sure it's gonna be like all the other Batman thinks,
where you get it worked into thematically different parts of
the movie. I mean, when I think of Batman scores,
the one that always comes to mind is Danny Elfman's,
which I actually really liked. I have never sat down
to watch Batman Versus Superman or Justice League all the

(08:39):
way through, but I have listened to the scores because
if you listen to the Justice League score, Danny Elfman
works in his old Batman theme and a couple of places,
And he also works in John Williams's old Superman theme
in a couple of places. And I I to use
some wrestling terminology I marked out when I heard that. Uh,

(09:05):
you know, I think people can get context clues as
to what I marked out when I heard that means
I went banana. I went banana when I heard it. Yeah,
I will say like the movie that Batman I've talked
about before isn't really appealing to me, but I really
like this This score makes it feel like it evokes

(09:26):
my fondness of Batman when I listened to it. Yeah,
I have a feeling I'm really gonna dig this movie,
and it's also going to be the kind where I'm like,
I don't think I necessarily want a series of movies
with that kind of tonal approach to the Batman, but
as a one off, I think I'm gonna dig it.
Um because I I don't need the Batman to be

(09:50):
super dark and gritty. I'm not one of those types
of fans who just demands that that the Batman needs
to be, you know, really dark and has to be
really grim. Um. I don't think that's necessarily true. I
think it can be a lot of fun to have
an an adventurous kind of Batman story. Um, but this

(10:11):
one does look like it's going to be right up
my alley. Yeah. Uh. Moving on from from instrumental to
vocal work, we all know that The Legend of Vox
Magna is coming out soon at the end of this month,
and they've just released kind of a behind the scenes
video to promote it, where we found out they've got

(10:31):
a lot of guest star voice actors. Yeah. Now, now,
for those who don't even know what Vox Makina is
or where it comes from, the it's an animated series
that's based off a Dudgeons and Dragons campaign that started
as just a group of various voice actors who met

(10:52):
regularly to play D and D and then later Pathfinder
and then D and D again, and it was all
the same campaign. They just changed rule sets a couple
of times because they did fourth edition DN D two
Pathfinder to fifth edition D and dum. But yeah, they
started playing together and then Felicia Day the actress, heard

(11:13):
about it and brought them over to be part of
her YouTube network, Geek and Sundry. This is like around
the two thousand four fifteen time period, and they began
to play their their games in front of the camera.
So like the early parts of that first campaign they
played were never streamed or filmed. That was just for them.

(11:35):
So Vox Macinna is actually going to be the first
time that some of those story components are ever going
to be expressly shared with the public, and as voice actors,
they happen to know a ton of other voice actors
and other types of actors, and they have brought kind
of a freaking who's who over to voice characters everything, um,

(12:00):
like major recurring characters to little minor parts. Yeah, we've
got David Tennant, We've got Dominic Montague him, We've got
Stephen Root Kelly who just Gina Torres, isn't it. Yeah,
just a ton of people. You Yeah, and there's and
if you're like a big fan of video games or

(12:23):
anime things like that, you're probably going to recognize other
names on the list, other prominent voice actors who have
done work in those fields, all playing, like I said,
a whole range of parts. They said that, you know,
while they love the fact that their game master did
all these voices during the sessions, this was an opportunity
to flesh those characters out, give them all their own voices,

(12:45):
and obviously not quite give such a heavy lift too.
I think Matthew Mercer, I believe, is the game master,
and that way he doesn't have to do all like
every other character. So so one of the things that
I've heard about from my friends who love critic whole
role is that it's just the sessions are very, very long,
So if you're listening to it, it can sometimes have

(13:06):
a hard entry point because you might love D and D.
You might love their storytelling and their characters and and
their methods, but it's so long that it's it's a
really big time investment. Um. So you know, if you're
making a cartoon that's more accessible to everybody, uh, you know,
obviously you need voice actors. I just didn't expect it

(13:26):
to be quite so star studded, even though like the
voice the voice actors playing the characters are well well
to do voice actors, like they're all known in their field. Now,
I think that the cartoon is great. It's a great
idea to get you into the story because obviously, like
D and D gaming sessions, like you know this, they
they are long because there's a lot of resolving things

(13:50):
and rolling dice and figuring out the you know, what
happens as a result of those roles and you know,
adjusting and all that kind of stuff. And some of
the office literally something that could be told in like
fifteen seconds of animation and it could have taken you
an hour to resolve around the table. So yeah, the
sessions could last between like three to six hours, and

(14:13):
there could be more than a hundred sessions per campaign,
So that's an enormous time's sake if you're going to
go and watch every single episode. This is a much
more streamlined approach to storytelling. Yeah, a lot of and
a lot of like D and D real play games
or D and D podcasts rather do cut out a

(14:34):
lot of that resolving dice rolling and just stick it
to the story with a little bit of behind the
scenes but critical role real play. So yeah, well, we're
going to take a quick break. When we come back.
I want to talk briefly about some rumored possible reshoots
of Doctor Strange and what that can mean. We've got
some other news items to cover because there was so

(14:56):
much news that happened since our last episode. It's gonna
take two whole segments to tackle them all. But first,
how about that break? I darned durn promised, promise fulfilled,

(15:19):
promise fulfilled? Okay, So the rumor you're talking about is
that we are getting more reshoots potentially for multi Verse
of Madness, Doctor Strange and the multi Verse of Madness rather. Yeah,
and Sam Raimi apparently has has said that he isn't
sure if the film is finished yet, they've already done
some reshoots. Uh. And I think this is probably partly

(15:43):
to do with the fact that Marvel is so uh
focused on making sure that they have this tightly integrated universe,
which in some ways is a great thing, But you
also start to see the same problems you would see
in the comic books, which is that to get everyone
who's working on all these differ front properties on the
same page so that you're telling one massive, coherent story

(16:05):
that can still be broken up into these individual films
and be their own story. That's hard to do. And
one of the things that popped in my mind is
do you think this might be an indication that perhaps
Marvel puts too much on its plate on a per
year basis. Keeping in mind that this year we're supposed
to get Doctor Strange, We're supposed to get thor Love,

(16:27):
God of Love and Thunder, We're supposed to get the
uh she Hulks series. We're supposed to get Miss Marvel
uh Secret Wars. Sounds like it's been pushed to next year. Um,
but yeah, there's like so much stuff the next Black
Panther movie. There's so much stuff that's supposed to come out,
and in theory at least, it's supposed to interconnect. So

(16:50):
do you think that maybe they might they might need
to pump the brakes a little bit. I mean, I
don't know. I think in a non pandemic environment, potentially not. Um.
I do think probably some of their reshoots are just
because they've had to pivot on a lot of their
stuff right now to accommodate a justice shooting schedules and

(17:13):
availability from actors because timelines got all messed up. I
don't know. This is just my assumption. I know that
there's a lot of pivoting in the industry, UM and
and so like if if everything was business as normal,
maybe not. I mean, movies always have reshoots, right or
like if you look at Suicide Squad, they made a

(17:35):
movie and then they reshot and recut a bunch of
it because it's just like there are lots of movies
that get shelved or reshot because they don't do well
with audiences when they screen. UM. So it's not an
uncommon practice. I don't even necessarily think so, I guess.
I guess my answer is, you know, no, maybe because
the pandemic. It's a little bit harder, and they're they're

(17:56):
having to make more adjustments. But like, also, there are
lots of movies I've watched where things have been cut
and it makes the story less than because it makes
a plot point and jumpy or gets rid of some
some growth from point A to point B. When you
watch Eternals and we talk about this, this will be

(18:17):
a nice good point on that. Um. But but yeah,
like I'm glad that they're willing to try to make
the story perfect, although you can also overwork his stories well.
And to the point I was making earlier about with
all these interconnected stories, you run the danger of if

(18:37):
you go back and do reshoots to change something, maybe
you end up changing something that would have been important
as a component for one of your other stories, and
now your other story makes less sense because you went
back and change something else that's interconnected with it. And
that See, that's where I'm concerned, is that, like I
love most of the stuff that Marvel has put out,

(18:59):
I am concerned that they're overdoing it now. It's over
saturating us with MCU stuff just like on a pure
volume level. Um, It's not that I'm not enjoying the
stuff that's coming out. But I do get concerned that
if you do have this very intricate puzzle that you're
putting together, and then bits of the puzzle aren't quite
working so you go back to rework them, you run

(19:20):
in danger of affecting the other parts of the puzzle
there were also in motion at the same time. I mean,
normally i'd say yes, but now they've just introduced the multiverse.
So if it doesn't line up, whoops, multiverse, except except
that if all the stories involve like the early part
of the multiverse, then that gets really complicated. I mean, like,
you know, we already know that that, like the next

(19:42):
ant Man movie is supposed to also deal with the
multiverse issues. So yeah, I don't want to I don't
want to be the person who has to keep track
of their spreadsheet of how everything we together colony. It's
got to be like a full time job, it must be.
But you know, they've done well so far. You know,

(20:04):
the TV shows definitely make it more difficult that I've
got to well, I don't know. I want to say,
I've got to imagine that they thought that through before
they did it. But you know, if you look at Lost,
sometimes they make decisions they're like, we'll just let the
actors figure out how to justify this. So I don't
know that that's what Lost did. I just or you
watch a show like X Files where the creator of

(20:25):
the show tells you at the beginning of the launch
of the show that he has a vision of how
this show is going to evolve, and then halfway through
it becomes clear that either there was no vision at all,
or they have gone completely in a different direction than
what they were planning, or it was a pretty lousy vision. Yeah. Well, listen,

(20:47):
even if it's the beginning of the multiverse, they just
go back in time or they rent on something or
whatever that all the time, You're right, it's not satisfying,
which me to our next story, which is we just
got trailer for season two of The Card. Okay, but
but I want to say this right up front. I

(21:08):
had no interest in watching the first season of Picard
because I felt like it was not holding true to
the spirit of the original series. I felt like I
felt like all the characters were different people, and that
was just action movie in space featuring these actors who
happened to be going by the names of those characters.
That being said, I saw this teaser for season two

(21:31):
and this one I'm way more interested in. I know, Right,
So I watched season one of Picard and I enjoyed it.
It was definitely different, um, but it was an interesting
story and it kind of dragged. It dragged a little
bit at the end for me, but it was an
interesting story. Just like I'm enjoying season four of Discovery.
I'm way behind on it, but I've started watching it. Um.

(21:53):
I'm glad I stuck with Discovery past the first season,
maybe second season. I've really enjoyed the last two. But yeah,
this this new season, they're they're playing with time travel,
which again gets very frustrating, and you know, time loops
and paradox and it's it's something that Star Trek has
always made a big deal about and then still played with. Yeah,

(22:14):
they travel back to the far distant future of twenty
four apparently goodness. But you know, they're bringing back so
many people I love, like guidaning Q, and like, now,
I just now, I just have to watch it. Yeah,
well he was in the first season too, was he.
I didn't watch it because I was like, nope, I'm

(22:35):
piecing out. But yeah, season two, I feel like there's
something about it, like I and maybe it'll turn out
that the shows end up being very much action movie
set in space with Star Trek character names, because that's
one of the things that I know a lot of
fans who are like the super hardcore fans get irritated
about because the original Star Trek series wasn't really that

(22:58):
action e The movies were, but the series weren't, largely
because of things like budget, but also because it was
meant to be a thoughtful show and not not a
P P lasers show. Um. And I'm hopeful that we're
going to get a little bit more of the thoughtfulness
when you have the character of Q and there the

(23:18):
whole purpose of Q is to create these moral puzzles
where there's no clear right answer and see how the
characters navigate them. So I'm hopeful that that is what
you're gonna get with season two of A Card Me Too.
And and it's one of It's how I feel Discovery
has gone in the later seasons as well, very very moral, thoughtful,

(23:41):
sometimes a little heavy handed in it in fact, not
that not to say that earlier Star Treks weren't heavy
handed in it. Well, Ariel, let's let's transition from Star
Trek to what is you know, obviously the superior of
the Star franchises, Star Wars. Um. I don't really mean that,
just trolling, but yeah, one of the stories that that

(24:04):
you found for this week is that there are three
new Star Wars games that are in development among a
very various studios, and that like we're kind of entering
into You could argue the age of Star Wars games.
There was a long time where there was like a

(24:25):
drought of Star Wars games content. Lucasfilm disbanded the Lucas
Arts uh division, and like it just seemed like for
a while that we were not going to get any
really good Star Wars games. Then we got Squadron, which was,
you know, a lot I think a lot of people
really liked when it first came out. I don't think
it had very much staying power unfortunately. And um, now

(24:49):
we're learning about three new Star Wars games being overseen
from Respond Entertainment, which was in charge of lots of
of other titles that you would recognize. So that's pretty exciting.
And by the way, those three titles, that's not the
only Star Wars games and development. Those are three from

(25:09):
that specific studio. Yeah, so they're working on a first
person shooter, a strategy game, and then Star Wars Jedi
Fallen Order, which is being directed by Stig Asmussen Um.
I don't know how to pronounce his last name either.
I should have looked it up, but he led development
for the first game as well as God of War three,
which God of War three was a really fun story

(25:31):
to follow. So I look forward to not a great deal. Yeah,
and you know, we've got, like I said, other games
that are in development. There's a remake of the Knights
of the Old Republic game that's coming up from aspir Knights.
Then you've got Quantic Dreams game Higher Republic, which is
another Star Wars themed game. So yeah, we're getting a

(25:52):
lot of of Star Wars world building games in there,
and I'm I'm I'm hopeful they will all be really
good quality. Uh, and you know they'll be making me
feel a love for Star Wars like the Mandalorian as
opposed to a on we about Star Wars like Book
of Boba Fett. Look, the Book of bubble Ft is. Uh.

(26:16):
It's okay, I have not watched that. I have not
watched episode four yet, and by this time the time
this episode comes out, episode five will be out. I
sure hope they made me feel better about the Book
of Boba Fett. I look, I just I just watched
the one that a lot of people had issue with
with the Speeders, the Speeder Gang. Yeah, um, and it

(26:40):
was it was okay. It could have been done better,
but it was okay. Yeah, there's somebody said that I
really didn't like. I won't. I won't ruin them For
people who enjoy Boba Fett but are not caught up,
Yeah they're they're I've got a lot of thoughts about that.
But maybe we'll just save them for like a post
mortem on the Book of Bubba Fett once it's complete,
because maybe it'll be one of those slow burned things

(27:01):
were at the end of it, I go, wow, Now
I see where they were going, and I think it's great. Um,
but let's let's finish up our news. We've got a
couple other little quick stories. One of them is that Blizzard,
as in the division with an activision, Blizzard has a
survival game in the works that is not tied to

(27:23):
their other I p. Yeah, the artwork for it looks
really pretty. It kind of looks like it's going to
jump between two lands, like a more modern world and
then kind of a fantasy world. Uh. And we don't
know much about it other than it's got some pretty
artwork and um, yeah, it's not StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo, or Overwatch. Yeah. Uh.

(27:47):
I guess what we also know is that if Microsoft's
plans go through, by the time this game comes out,
it will be on Microsoft Activision Blizzard game I guess.
So it'll be interesting to see whether they put it
on PlayStation or other they're not Microsoft consoles. Yeah, I um,

(28:08):
you know, I I think that it looks interesting. I
always get excited when a game company goes beyond it's
I P like, of course, I love it when I
get another entry into a series. I really like, like
whenever another Fallout game comes out or another Elder Scrolls
game comes out, I get excited. But it's really nice

(28:30):
to also see companies that are known for specific properties
to go outside of that, because I know that somewhere
down the line there's a development team that felt very
passionately about this idea and the fact that they got
the chance to actually bring it to life is pretty cool. Yeah,
and that's really all we have to say on that.

(28:52):
We do have one less story. I know we're running
a little along, but I really want to talk about
this trailer that Jonathan. I think Jonathan put this up here.
If I put it up, I don't recall. It's called
Our Our Flag Means Death, which is a new show
coming to HBO. Max and I looked at the title
and I was like, what, what even is this? And
then I watched the trailer for this comedy pirates show

(29:15):
that's gonna happen, and I am all in. I can't
believe you didn't say you are on board. I'm on board,
yar me? Hardy's yeah. So it's it's it's actually the
based off a real pirate, Steed Bonnet, who was known
as the Gentleman Pirate. He was a landowner who turned
to piracy, and so it's loosely based on actual historical events.

(29:40):
Steve Bonnet being played in this by Rhese Darby, who
is the the uh Murray in the Fly of the
Concorde series and the were wolf not the swear wolf
in the the What We Do in the Shadows film.
He Also, he also picks up the kids when they
go into the video game in the Jamungji v okay,

(30:01):
he's the one he gives him their initial quest. Yeah,
I have not seen seen Jumanji, so that's why I
didn't realize. I know, I know it's on the list,
but yeah, this one looks and see it's not quite
I wouldn't say it's over. It's as overly silly as
some of Taiko wa Titi, who is actually behind the series,
it's not as overtly silly as some of Tycho what

(30:24):
tits work. Yeah, I mean he's also in it. He
is playing black Beard. Yes, Um, you know, I don't know.
Some of it is very silly. It doesn't feel nineties
sitcom silly. It doesn't. It doesn't feel as silly as
what we do in the Shadows is That's that's true.
But I mean it's got great other comedy chops. It's

(30:45):
got um Leslie Jones in it, who I absolutely loved
the brief moment we got to see if her in
the trailer, and I can't wait to watch more. Um. Yeah, no,
it's just it seems like a very well balanced, funny
pirate comedy, maybe a little bit of drama in there.
I don't know. Surely it's Pirates, there has to be drama, right. Yeah.

(31:08):
I mean when I say when I say it's not
as overtly silly, I don't mean that it's not a comedy,
just that it's not quite as like. The trailer did
not give me the same sort of absurd parody that
you get with what we do in the showers. It
didn't feel like a spinal tap kind of thing to me,
in other words, But I you know, again, it was
also a trailer, so I'm very eager to watch the show.

(31:32):
Uh more pirate content please? Yes. At the very beginning
of the trailer, they show like they're getting ready for battle,
and um, the guy who plays Holde or isn't it
as well? I really enjoyed the brief glimpses of his character.
But some dude has a squeezebox and they're like, let's
get ready, and dude starts to squeeze a squeeze box
and I'm like, oh my gosh, is this a new

(31:52):
musical show. I'll a gallivant, But now I don't think
it is. No, I'm very sad, but yeah, it'll be
it'll be fun to see this one when it comes
out later this year. So I am, I am. I
had not heard of this at all. It had been announced,
but it didn't hit my radar um So I didn't
know about it till after I watched the teaser and
I thought, okay, I'm I'm sold and at least watching

(32:16):
the first couple of episodes of this. So all right. Well,
that that's our overview of some of the news from
this week. There was a ton of other pieces, in fact,
a couple that we will cover in just a moment
before we talk about our mash up. But before we
get to that, let's take another quick break. Okay, Ariel,

(32:51):
before we actually do our mashups, can you tell us
what two properties are we mashing up? And why were they?
Front of mind? U Pinocchio, because we finally got a
little teaser for gear Mate, say the name for me,
Jonathan that for his Pinocchio stop motion cartoon. I guess,

(33:15):
And it's delightful. It's actually it made me. It felt
very um like fantastic Mr Fox. I can I can
see that and maybe want to watch it. Even though
this might be a slightly darker version of Pinocchio, which
the original version of Pinocchio was pretty dark. Knowing that
Mr Del Toro considers Pinocchio kind of a Frankenstein story, Um,

(33:39):
I absolutely want to watch it. And then the other
property we're mashing up is Lord of the Rings because uh,
we just got the title of the new Lord of
the Rings second age television show for Amazon and it's
going to be called Rings of Power. And I was like, well,
that makes me feel I feel like Power Rangers are
Green Lantern with Lord of the Rings. But then there's Pinocchio,

(34:01):
and we've not mashed up Pinocchio yet, so right, and
and since since Green lanterns not in the news, I
was like, why are we picking Green Lantern and then
Ariel said because of the Ring, Like, oh, of course,
that's of course, that's why I just didn't see it
because it wasn't in the news. So that's when we
we switched to Pinocchio and Lord of the Rings. Oh,

(34:22):
there's also one other Lord of the Rings news item
out there, which is that someone has created a three
hour long metal song that is the entirety of the
Lord of the Rings. So yeah, I mean he put
some massive work into it. I did not listen to
all three hours, but I did flip through at the
beginning of his video on YouTube piece like this. This

(34:42):
really falls into common use. Please please please please don't
take it down. Well and and it's it's funny because
so many different classic rock bands and metal bands have
have referenced JRR Tolkien's work and their work. And of
course Christopher Lee has done U All albums when he
was well, he did metal albums in his history, so

(35:06):
like there's there's a connection between metal and Lord of
the Rings that goes back aways. Yeah, um, it's interesting.
Will post it on our show notes in case you
want to listen to three hours of Lord of the
Ring Fellowship of the Rings Gone Metal. If it's still
it by then, uh yeah, but it is interesting. Um so,

(35:26):
I guess in case anybody doesn't know what Pinocchio is,
a woodworker is lonely and he makes a son out
of wood, and then a fairy brings it to life,
and there's a cricket who acts as his conscience, and
he gets into all sorts of trouble because he's a
little wooden boy who doesn't know better. That's Pinocchio, and
his dream is to become a real real live boy, yes,

(35:48):
and that's his dream, and so spoiler spoiler alerting that
he does become one at the end. And then of
course Lord of the Rings is the epic fantasy saga
that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote, uh that ended up
becoming a sequel to The Hobbit. Wasn't necessarily intended that
way when he was first kind of working on it.
He's sort of retcons some stuff to make that transition

(36:10):
work a little better, but it's uh, it was largely
an excuse for him to create legends and stories based
out of these languages he had created because Tolking was
a linguist, and um, yeah, if you aren't familiar, the
general story is that, uh, some Hobbits, which are these short,
little human like critters, are taking a ring to taking

(36:34):
the ring to to more Door, whereas the goblins are
taking the Hobbits to Eizing Guard. But now they're taking
the ring to Mordor, where the ring was first forged
to unmake the ring because the ring represents the massive
power of the big bad guy of the story, Sauron,
and it is truly an epic. It is one book

(36:56):
in three volumes, and of course those three volumes. Most
amos Lee were adapted into films by Peter Jackson. Uh,
and that's probably where most people these days have the
connection to the Lord of the Rings, those who aren't
mega nerds like me who read it once every couple
of years. But do you read the similar Simillian Simillian?

(37:18):
I have read it twice. I have not read it
more than twice. It's good though, and the Sumaillian actually
that ends up having stories that will be important in
the Rings of Power series because the Rings of the
Rings of Power, that series is going to take place
several thousand years before the events of Lord of the Rings.
It's kind of telling you the rise of Saron, whereas

(37:40):
Lord of the Rings is really the fall of Saron
or the destruction of Saron. You know, and and like
as a child growing up, the Simarillian h was a
pretty dry read. But yes, but the stories that they're
going to tell in this seem very exciting and I
am looking forward to it. Yeah, me too. So we're

(38:01):
going to be mashing up Lord of the Rings in Pinocchio.
Who do you want to go first? Aerial, I'll put
it to you this way. We're probably gonna have to
do another break before it's all over all right, I'll
go first, um, and my story actually uh deals with
Denna Thor, who was the steward of Gondor, Gondar being
like the most powerful, um, most prominent kingdom of men

(38:24):
in Middle Earth in the Third Age UM and his
two sons, Boromir and Farimir. And in the books spoiler
Boromir dies played by Sean Bean in the movie, so
you immediately know he's going to die. And uh, Farremeir
is his other brother played by David Wynham. Um, so
this is who doesn't die. This is very He goes

(38:46):
on to be in van helsing Um. So this is
very not canonically, um, not canonically Okay, so this is
my uh in Denni thorst Is is the leader of Gondor,
the most prominent kingdom of man. Okay, this this is
called dam Petto's two sons and the stewards of the
Gondor Workshop. Okay, So den Petto Oka Denni Thor was

(39:12):
a master would worker. He was the best ward worker
in all of Italy. Everyone from near and far knew
about his store, the Gondor Workshop, and den Petto was
desperately lonely. I mean He had some pets and stuff,
but what he really wanted was a son, So one
day he carved one and named it Bornoccio. One night,
while wishing on a star, much to Dempetto's delight, a

(39:34):
magical blue elf showed up and brought little Bornoccio to life.
And I don't mean like making this little wooden boy
come to life. Now it's a live wooden boy. The
magical creature turned to Bornoccio into a really real boy,
and for a short time everyone was happy. Barnoccio was
a help around the house, eager to please and fearless,
but it didn't take long for dan Petto to realize

(39:55):
how much work a really real boy was. And as
much as he loved Bornoccio, for Gnoccio was a handful
and often let his ambition get him into trouble, Dempetto
barely had time for his woodworking. Now. Barnoccio had recently
started asking his father for a little brother, so dan
Petto obliged, figuring at best, the blue Elf would show
up and alive in this new child as well as

(40:16):
Barnoccio and his sibling could keep each other entertainment, and
at worst, Barnoccio would have a new my buddy toy. However,
Dan Petto, now having very a very active son and
not much time food for woodworking, didn't have as much
time and attention to devote to carving this new son.
When he finished carving it, he thought that's fairly good

(40:36):
and good enough, and wished upon a star, hoping for
the blue elf to appear again. She did, and once
again she brought this new boy to life. Although this
he was wooden, because you don't get that lucky, and
Dempetto named this new fairly good and good enough wooden
boy fare Mere. But Farremere wasn't good enough. He was

(40:56):
just fairly good. You see, his features weren't his finely
chiseled as Bornoccio. Dempto had had less time invested in him,
but that didn't stop Pharremeir. Pharremere was gentler, calmler, and
more level headed the Mornoccio. While Dampedo loved Farremere, sure
Farremere was more of a puppet to him, and so

(41:16):
Dennethor always favored Barnocio more. And whenever Bornoccio got into trouble,
Dan Petto would send Pharomere to bail him out. One day,
while on an errand for Dempedo, Barnoccio met some rowdy
Hobbit boys and decided to join their gang of infinite
carousing in eleven seas. Dempeto sent Pharremere out to find Barnoccio,
which he did, but getting him safely out of the

(41:39):
Hobbit gang was difficult and took a long time. You see,
Barnoccio was corrupted by their thoughts and he didn't want
to leave. He thought he could lead the gang himself,
and Pharremir wanted to get him out without fighting. So
it just took a long time, and when the boys
didn't return home, Dempedo got worried and went out searching
for them, but he couldn't find them, and in his
regret for being so careless with his sons, he threw
himself to the sea to be devoured by the giant

(42:01):
whale of font named Monstro. When the boys got home
and couldn't find their father, the Blue Health appeared and
told them what had happened. They asked if there was
anything they could do to rescue him, and alas there
was not. After a respectable time of morning, Farremir took
over the Gondor Workshop, and it was more successful than ever,
and Bornoccio went off adventuring again. Some say he fell

(42:23):
back into the Gang of Hobbits, some say he died,
and some say he hides up in the attic of
the Gondor Workshop and shame blowing the opening and closing
horn each day. The end well done. I think the
whale of font might have been my favorite part. Oh yeah,
I liked you know. Now now I want to see
artwork of a whale of font. Uh yeah, I uh is.

(42:48):
I can tell you for certain that your version and
my version are very different. Oh good, yeah, well, um,
but my version is a long one. And so what
we're we're gonna do is I'm going to start it
and then when I find a good stopping place, we're
gonna take a break and we'll come back, just like
Peter Jackson did with the movies. Didn't anger you, No, no,

(43:13):
it didn't anger me. What angered me was when he
departed from the text and started inserting things like Ergorn
falling off a cliff and having a whole near death
experience and all that stuff, and creating changes in character motivations,
making Fair a mere less of a good guy that
really kind of that kind of was grinding my gears.

(43:34):
But no, we're gonna, I'm gonna get out the listen.
This is not one of those mashups where it's secretly
just holding a very long Jonathan rant. There is some
Jonathan ranting in it because you can't get away from that.
But no, mine is called Lord of the Puppets or
Puppet of the Rings. Yeah, Bilbo Baggins has a problem,

(43:57):
and it's addiction. He's addicted to many things, rich foods, adventures,
showing disdain towards his nasty relatives, but above all, he
has an addiction to this ring he won from galam
so many years ago. That addiction concerns the wizard Gandolf,
who knew of a ring of power, but was not
aware that it was the ring of power. But after

(44:20):
the Necromancer of Mirkwood gets rhetconned into Sauron, it became
clear that evil things were set in motion, and since
Saruman the White seemed to be going off his rocker,
Gandalf took it upon himself to look into this whole
ring issue. So then Bilbo has his eleventy first birthday
and he turns he uses the ring to vanish in

(44:41):
front of all the people at his party, and this
is all in preparation for Bilbo to leave Hobbiton behind
and go a walk about in Middle Earth, but Gandalf
convinces Bilbo that he should perhaps leave the ring behind. Bilbo,
reluctant to do this at first, is finally convinced to
hand over the ring to his nephew's care. But this

(45:04):
concerns Gandalf even more because see, Bilbo's nephew is a
wooden puppet that he calls Pinocchio Baggins. Over the last
couple of decades, Bilbo has brought the dang puppet with
him everywhere, even sets out a dinner plate for Pinocchio
each evening. Though the puppet is, you know, a puppet,
It's just made of wood and strings. It's it's really

(45:27):
kind of sad, but sad or not. Bilbo has found
a magistrate in the shire who has allowed Bilbo to
name Pinocchio as his heir, and so once Bilbo leaves
the puppet inherits everything and the people Hobbiton have already
been burned before, thinking Bilbo was dead and gone, so
they actually don't go ransacking his home this time anyway,

(45:50):
Gandalf leaves a warning with Pinocchio so that whomever finds
it knows that should shady shenanigans begin and back end,
it would be wise to take the ring and make
a break for Rivendell. Enter Sam Wise Gamgee, the local
gardener in Simpleton, prone to flights of fancy. See. Sam
Wise is convinced that Pinocchio is in fact a real

(46:11):
boy that's just trapped inside the frame of a puppet,
something that I should stress no one has ever found
any evidence showing it. And so while visiting Pinocchio one day,
the puppet is slumped over a writing desk and there's
like a quill slowly dribbling black ink on an otherwise
blank piece of parchment. Sam Wise sees Gandalf's warning note,

(46:34):
and you know, there's been talk of these spectral creatures
of unspeakable dread poking around the shire recently, so that
seems like something shady enough to warrant a quick getaway.
So Sam grabs Pinocchio and shoves the envelope with the
ring into Pinocchio's pocket, and then drags Pinocchio through the
shire on the way to the small town of Bree.

(46:55):
On the way, he encounters Mary and Pippin, who think
it's pretty darn funny that Sam Eyes believes that the
puppets a real boy, and they joke about it a lot,
but you know, out of earshot of sad wise, and
they totally want to see how far this thing is
gonna go, so they tag along and breathe. The three
Hobbits and the Puppet encounter a mysterious man known as Strider,
but that's really Arigarn, the rightful King of Gondor, and

(47:18):
they continue their trip. There's a brief delay at weather Top,
a large hill, when a bunch of those unspeakably creepy
shadow figures attack them, but they get away and they
make an escape to Rivendell, where they meet up with Gandalf.
Bilbo happens to be there too. Bilbo, of course, is
really happy to see his quote unquote nephew again. But

(47:39):
at the Council of l Ron, when there's this big
debate over what to do with the ring, the Pinocchio
Puppets slumps a bit out of his chair at just
the right moment to volunteer to take the ring to
mor door and be unmade in the fires and Mount Doom,
and so the Fellowship of the Ring is born, and
they all take turns dragging Pinocchio through Middle Earth. That

(48:00):
includes Gandalf, Bora Mere, Legolis, Gimli, the Dwarf, sam Wise,
Mary and Pippen and then you got the puppet. Anyway,
Then they have to go through Moria to get through
the Misty Mountains and they discover the Dwarves who had
reclaimed Maria. We're all exterminated. And then Gandalf fights a
bow Rock and then he apparently dies. And then bor
A Mere, while trying to get the envelope out of

(48:22):
Pinocchio's pocket, scares off the Hobbits and then he gets
shot a whole bunch by Orcs and then everyone splits up.
This is where we end the first movie. But I
got two more to go through, so we're gonna take
a quick break. Do Do Do Do Do Do do?

(48:47):
Our story so far? Okay, Yeah, the Fellowship of the Ring,
all right, now we're picking up. Sam Wise ends up
taking Pinocchio the Puppet with him on a boat and
escapes and they continue their trip to Mordor, and actually, honestly,
not a whole lot happens to them for a really
good long time. But since we're only really interested in
Pinocchio here, we're gonna stick with them while everybody else

(49:08):
is having adventures that involved like Rohan and Gondor and
glad Reel and stuff like that. Anyway, Sam Wise, Gamgee
and Pinocchio Baggins discover, well, Sam discovers because you know,
Pinocchio is and I cannot stress this enough just a
puppet that Gollum Gollum is actually tracking them. And eventually

(49:28):
Sam catches Gollum, and after a tussle, Gollum and Sam
come to an agreement that Gollum is going to guide
them to more door. McCollum is secretly trying to figure
out how to get the ring. It's just, well, you see,
puppets freak Gollum out man. I mean, his sister used
to terrorize him with puppets, and he's always thought they

(49:49):
were really creepy. And he has this one recurring nightmare
about being in a room, like a dark, shady room,
and there's a puppet on a chair, and the puppet
just turns its head toward him all on its own,
and then he wakes up screaming and wetting himself, so
you know there's trauma there. Anyway, they continue on to
more door, and on the way they're captured by a
group of rangers led by Pharomir, the brother to bor

(50:11):
a Mere. But Farremir got hit on the head pretty
hard in a recent battle and he will only talk
to Pinocchio, and he says that Pinocchio explained everything and
it toats makes sense, so they can keep on going.
So then Galum takes Sam who's pulling you know, Pinocchio behind,
to Kirass Ungle, which is where this giant spider named

(50:32):
Sheila lives, and Pinocchio gets bitten by Sheilab but Pinocchio
is just a puppet, so really Sheila just bites some wood.
But Sam wise cries out because he sees his friend
blinded and paralyzed, except, of course, his friend is a
puppet which can't see or move anyway, but whatever, so
Sam Wise, assuming Pinocchio to be dead, takes the ring. However,

(50:53):
then Sam ways, here's some orcs who have found the
puppet and they're talking about doing some very not nice
things to the puppet, and Sam realizes that Pinocchio is
still alive, except again, he's a puppet. So sam Wise
rescues Pinocchio from the Orcs, and then they keep on
going to more door without Gollum right by their side
because now they toads. No Gollum was up to no good.

(51:14):
But don't worry. Gollum is still shadowing them from a distance,
and at one point sam Way says to Pinocchio, I
can't carry the ring, Masta Pinocchio, but I can carry you.
But that's really weird because he was always carrying Pinocchio.
But whatever. Anyway, they get to Mount Doom, and a
lot of other stuff is going on in other parts
of the Middle Earth, but we don't care about that
bit because that's not where Pinocchio is. So they get

(51:36):
inside the volcano and then Pinocchio kind of starts smoldering
a bit because wood and lava don't mix. But sam
Wise pushes Pinocchio toward a cliff where the ring can
be thrown into the lava, except, of course, Pinocchio can't
throw the ring because he is I repeat once again,
a puppet. But then Gollum, overcoming his intense fear of puppets,
pounces on Pinocchio in an attempt to rest away the

(51:59):
ring and he does so, but then Gollum loses his
balance in the process and tumbles over the side of
the cliff and Sam Wise grabs Pinocchio and pulls him
out the volcano, and then they get ready to die. Well,
Sam gets ready to die. Pinocchio is a puppet. He's
not alive, So Samways says a sweet goodbye to Pinocchio,
but then he sees a miraculous sight an eagle descending

(52:19):
to rescue them, and Sam Ways and Pinocchio eventually returned
to the shire, and Sam Ways quietly plops Pinocchio back
at that same writing desk we saw at the beginning
of these movies. And Pinocchio is a bit worse for
wear now some of his strings are broken, He's got
scorch marks from the volcano on him. Oh, also, Gollum
bit off one of his fingers, but he is home.

(52:39):
And then many decades later, the elves load Pinocchio onto
a ship heading to the Gray Havens because they think
it's funny. The end. I I love your I love
how your mashup of Lord of the Rings and Pinocchio
is really just like Weekend at Bernie's. Yeah, you're right,

(53:00):
there's an awful lot of weekend at Bernie's there. I
did not, however, incorporate any of Weekend at Bernie's too,
because at no point does the puppet move on its own. No. No,
And of first I was like, here, a little me
just calling him just a puppet. But he is just
a puppet, and that's okay. He's never alive in my story.
He's just a puppet the very end, the elves having

(53:21):
the good humor to let him onto boat. That was.
That was a brilliant cherry on top. It's always good
to have a little extra wood on board in case
you ever have to patch a hole in the boat.
So I'm glad that's where you went with that sentence. Yeah.
So that was my attempt at mashing up Pinocchio and

(53:41):
Lord of the Rings. I did originally. I was originally
going to have it where Pinocchio was a an animated
puppet going through Lord of the Rings. But then I thought, well,
this is just Lord of the Rings. Let's make it
really weird. Yeah. Yeah, well I think you did brilliantly,
my friend. And to our wonderful, delightful listeners out there,
if you've got a different idea of how Pinocchio and

(54:04):
Lord of the Ring should be mashed up, you should
write us and tell us, Yeah, maybe your idea is
that Frodo starts lying like crazy because his nose will
sharpen to a lance and he can skewer the Ring
raiths or something, because that would have been cool if
you want to do that. Though, If you want to
send us like a longer version of a mashup that
you have come up with, or you just have suggestions

(54:26):
for us, maybe mash ups that you think you would
like us to cover, or maybe discussion topics that you
would like us to chat about, please send us an email.
The address is l n C at I heart media
dot com. Yep. You can also reach out to us
for shorter comments on social media. On Twitter we are
ellen c Underscore Podcast, and on Facebook and Instagram we

(54:48):
are large nerd drown Collider. If you want to see
the show notes, the best way to do that is
to go to large Nerd droun collider dot com. We've
referenced them a couple of times, but I don't think
we've actually said the name of the website for a while.
But yes, that's where Ariel puts up the show notes
that has a list of all the stories we talk about.
Sometimes some extra stuff in there too. Let's check that out. Yes,

(55:10):
and you know, if you like the show, we haven't
asked you to do this in a while either. Please
tell your friends, rate, review, share, all those other wonderful things,
because we love hearing from you, and the more people
we hear from, the better. Exactly. That's really what makes
fandom so special is the actual community. It's not just
the fact that we love this geeky stuff. It's that

(55:31):
we share that love with other people who also have
that love of geeky stuff, and and great things come
out of that. We've seen it time and again. So
until next time, I am Jonathan the Nine Fingers Strickland
and I am Ariel. Let your Conscience be your guide
cast and yeah, m hm m m m m. The

(56:13):
Large New Drunk Collider is a production of I Heart
Radio and was created by Ariel Kasten. Jonathan Strickland is
the executive producer. This show is produced, edited and published
by Tory Harrison. For more podcasts on my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,