December 30, 2020 • 39 mins
There are a ton of properties coming out that are trading on our nostalgia for decades past. And with 2020 being the way it was, who could blame us for loving them? Jonathan and Ariel explore when nostalgia works and when it's a crutch.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large Nerdron Collider podcast is a production of My
Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to The Large Nerdron Collider,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how very excited we are
(00:28):
about them. I'm Ariel casting, and with me, as always
is long time favorite never out of Style, Never out
of this is not working, but he does. Jonathan Strickland. Wow,
that's that's possibly the second greatest introduction I have ever received.
Thank you, Ariel, And in return, I have a question
(00:50):
for you. Oh yeah, a question, So Ariel, as always,
I this episode with a question. I did not think
this one up ahead of time because I just realized that, wait,
that's something I'm supposed to do. So here's here's your
here's your off the cuff question. If you couldn't have
(01:12):
it any classic television series like you are living in
the world of that TV series and I'm talking about
a series from say, the late eighties or earlier, which
one would you pick? I'm gonna go with the easy answer.
And you know, not a lot of thought put into this,
but probably I love Lucy because I got red hair
(01:35):
and she's got red hair. And she's a goofball and
I'm a goofball, So it just seems like an easy
transition and fit. What about you, Well, if I'm going
to live in any nostalgic television series, it's gonna be
w k RP and Cincinnati because I've already got the
job skills to talk on the microphone and be a DJ,
and uh, it'd be it'd be an easy transition. Plus
(01:56):
some pretty awesome tunes in that era and uh, you know,
as like Dr Johnny Fever's got the night Shift. So
today we've got our our roundup of news in the
geek sphere, and we start off with something that is
equally absurd, and I guess not not so much shocking
(02:17):
as it is like, well, of course they did, so
what is that aerial? Alright? So KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken
has come out with a gaming console and I thought
at first that this was a huge old joke, especially
after they came out with their Colonel Standers Love short
film early this Christmas season, yes, with Mario Loplaz playing
(02:40):
the colonel. But I should have known, because KFC really
likes to shoot for the fences, set out that phrase
book shoot for the moon, you know, aim for the fences,
something like that, something like that. Anyhow, you know with
the KFC double Down, they they like to experiment and
have fun, and uh, this time they're having fun with
(03:00):
a game console. So it is a gaming device that
also has a chamber to keep your KFC chicken warm,
which I will say it's a good thing because KFC
chicken once it gets cold and you have to reheat
it is not fantastic. But also better to just eat
it cold, no the crispy or not KFC. When they're
(03:29):
hot and they're fresh, they're good. After that, I'm picky
about reheating my chicken. So it's it's a thing, but
u But also, fried chicken is not really a great
gaming snack because it gets your fingers all oily and
then you're catching whatever controls that you're using, and so uh,
you know, it's interesting. It says that it's cross platform,
(03:51):
so I don't know what that means. So I'm pretty
sure that we would just call this a like a
gaming PC like this, that's what time. This is just
a gaming rig. It's not like it's an Xbox or
a PlayStation, which arguably those are also at this point
more or less just very specialized gaming computers. And um,
(04:12):
A couple of things on that I would think of
is that one, it does sound like it's a pretty
powerful machine based on on the specs that have been released. Two,
we don't know if or when this thing will ever
be available for purchase. It may very well be that
there is one it exists, but it will never become
a commercial product. That's a possibility. Or Two, when it
(04:32):
does become available, if it does, we don't know how
much it's gonna cost. And three my main thought was
that this, like you were saying, fried chicken and video
games not a great combination, not just because it gets
your fingers all greasy, but if you've ever had to
clean out like an oven or anything where you've been
(04:53):
cooking greasy food, it leaves that film over everything. And
I would imagine like, even though I know the airflow
for this device is to pull air away from the
electronic components up through the chamber where the chicken is
and then out through the top, I would be worried
about that build up of of oily residue affecting the
(05:16):
electronics below and drastically reducing the useful life of that
particular piece of hardware. I say that as the host
of a tech podcast, it just doesn't sound like a
good idea to me. Moving on, our next story is
that we heard recently that some of James Duhan's remains
(05:37):
that as the actor who played the original Scottie on
Star Trek, the original series, some of them have ended
up aboard the International Space Station and have actually been
up there for uh more than a decade now. And
this story goes along with the fact that he wanted
to have his remains uh shot into space, you know,
(05:58):
sort of a sort of a non to him as
his role in a very popular science fiction franchise, and
one part of his remains is criminated. It remains were
in a rocket that failed to reach orbit, so that
one did not quite make it into space. Another was
um pushed out the airlock of of a spacecraft, but
(06:20):
that minute just eventually deorbited and burned up on re entry.
The third, though, appears to have been smuggled aboard the
International Space Station by Richard Garriott, who is also known
as Lord British, the creator of the Ultima series of
computer games, who in two thousand and eight was one
of a very small number of private citizens whoever got
(06:44):
a chance to visit the International Space Station. He paid
about thirty million dollars to do it, and as a
favor to one of James Dewan's relatives, he brought with
him a plaque that had James doing on it and
a little bit of his remains and then hit it
below the floorboards of part of the International Space Station.
(07:05):
So since two thousand and eight, Scotty's remains are part
of it have been aboard the International Space Station. UM,
I don't know if it's going to stay up there now,
but that was something I read today. I mean, I'm
not too mad by it, like that's I'm fine with it.
(07:26):
A weird thing, nonetheless, and we thought we would open
the show with a couple of weird notes, but the
rest are are some pretty straightforward things, and it starts
to kind of tie into some of the other stuff
we'll talk about in this episode. One is that we
now know what Warner Brothers strategy is going to be
moving forward. After one we already reported about how the
(07:48):
company is going to release all of its movies simultaneously
to theaters and to the HBO Max streaming service. But
that's not what's gonna happen after that, right, No, well,
maybe two, we don't know, but they're planning on releasing
(08:10):
their movies in theaters once again. I know that in
a previous episode we worried that theaters might be going
by the wayside, and I say, I stay worried because
Jonathan and I both like a movie theater experience sometimes.
But it seems like the studios, whether it's due to
UH production companies saying no, please don't just release us
(08:32):
on streaming, or whether they are really banking on the
movie theater industry rebuilding, are planning on still using movie theaters.
And I'm happy about it. I'm happy about two. And
as we've kind of alluded to in previous episodes, this
might be. It's probably is a necessity if we expect
to get the same kind of films that we've become
(08:55):
used to over the last couple of decades, because without
those box office returns, you don't have the financial incentive
to produce blockbuster movies, not at the budgets that we've
been seeing. So without the movie theaters, movies are not
going to be the same. So I think this is
more good than bad, But it does mean that they're
(09:18):
counting on movie theaters having a major comeback. I mean
that being said. You know, Wonder Woman eighty four released
this Christmas, and despite not having a big box off
his opening, Uh, they are already in plans to make
a third one. Yep, it's already been greenlit. The film
pulled in sixteen point seven million dollars upon its debut, which, again,
(09:41):
if you look at recent blockbuster releases from like twenty
nineteen or earlier, that that would be considered a colossal
failure most terms. But in a year where many theaters
are are shut down, like their entire theater chains that
are shut down, and a lot of people are quarantining
at home, sixteen point seven million dollars is nothing to
(10:01):
sneeze at. So we know that Patty Jenkins has been
signed to direct the third film, so just as she
did the first two. Uh, and both of us have
seen Wonder Woman eighty four at this point, Ariel, do
you want to give like a non spoilery reaction to
what you felt about the movie? Sure, the opening was
(10:24):
this is gonna be super vague. The opening was better
than I expected. I had seen like a little they
released the opening clip from Wonder Woman on YouTube prior
to the movie releasing, uh, and it was okay. But
when I watched the clip in its entirety, as opposed
to what had just been released on YouTube, I got
very excited. Um. I think all of the characters really
committed to the roles they were playing. And of course,
(10:47):
you know, going in is a bit of a comic
superhero supervillain nerd. I knew who all the characters were,
and I knew some of their history outside of this movie,
and so I was able to connect with that. For
people who like some of my my family who have
seen the movie, who um, weren't really familiar with who
Robert Maneuver was or Max Lord Maxwell Lord, you know,
(11:09):
the reveals for them kind of came too late in
the movie for them, like it didn't quite have the
piecing for growth that someone coming in fresh would need.
And for me, it just felt like there were some
really fantastic moments and there was some really great character work,
but plot wise, I felt like they jumped, especially in
(11:32):
the last third of the movie, from point A to
point C, without a lot of interconnecting tissue between the points.
And so for me personally, I enjoyed it, but if
I think about it too hard, it falls a little flat. Yep.
Same here, I felt like I felt the movie was bloated.
It's two and a half hours long, so I felt
that the movie was too long. And yet I also
(11:53):
felt like there was a lot of connective tissue as
you say, that's missing, Like there was a lot of jumping,
you know, like we have to put this scene in
because this thing has to happen, but we don't have
the time to connect it to the previous scene. And
even as someone who's familiar with comic books and someone
who was really paying attention during this movie, I was
(12:14):
confused by the progression because I kept feeling like we
were missing out on a connected scene, and that was
really frustrating for me. There was also some questions I
had that never get answered in that movie, one big
one that I'm not going to ask because it's a
it's an integral part. But maybe after we record, I'll
ask you, Ariel, what you thought, um And yeah, I
(12:36):
found it largely unsatisfying. I thought, as you say, the
performances were fine, I thought the tone was also very strange,
like the tone went all over the place, from very
lighthearted and almost home Alone esque with the opening highst sequence,
to really dark and disturbing stuff. Um so it was
(12:58):
very it seemed like very inconsistent film to me. That
being said, I also thought that the first Wonder Woman
film was a billion times better, apart from the fact
that their third act and in the first Wonder Woman
movie also kind of goes off the rails. But my
hope is that One Woman three will be more like
(13:18):
the first film and less like the second film. It
also makes me worried a little bit about Rogue Squadron,
another movie that Patty Jenkins is directing, although again we
should also remember that writing and directing are two different things. Yes,
and and you know, it's been this weird balance in
the Justice League between Snyder's vision for the d C
EU and what the writer's visions are for each individual
(13:42):
movie and some of the audience saying we don't want
something quite this dark. So it's been a weird balancing
act they've been trying to figure out. You know, I'm
still I'm still enjoying it enough that I'm happy to
let them continue to try as long as they're willing,
Because I have enjoyed. You know, I liked Aquaman enough,
I enjoy the character again. The character work in Justice
(14:02):
League was really good, even though the story was oh
hum for me, you know, I liked the First Wonder
Woman things like that. But that being said, um, kind
of to tie the last story in with this one,
I read right before we started recording that even though
they were releasing movies to movie theaters in three they
are also planning on releasing at least two d C
(14:24):
movies a year to HBO Max with smaller, more risky
characters like that Girl or Static Shock or things like that.
So we'll see what happens. I'm kind of glad that
HBO Max is rolling in the d C television and
they might do television series to all of the DC
streaming network stuff, because that gives me a chance to
(14:45):
watch it and get a chance. Very similar to Disney
Plus and the Marvel World. Um well, we've got a
lot to talk about with some nostalgic pieces, some nostalgic
news items as well as a larger discussion. But before
we get to that, we're gonna take a quick break. Okay,
(15:13):
so we're gonna start talking about retro and nostalgic pieces.
We've got a couple of other news items that fall
in with this, one of those being the Cobra Kai series,
which originally released on YouTube Premium. It was a YouTube
Premium exclusive. Now it is a Netflix original starting with
season three, and we learned that they're going to actually
(15:34):
release season three one week earlier than had previously been reported. Yeah,
January one, So happy New Year's everyone. Uh. You know,
Cobra Kai is one of those ones where I have
a lot of fun nostalgia for the Karate Kid. It
took me a little bit to get into the series,
but I think they're doing a really good job with it,
(15:54):
and I think, you know, seeing Zabka go in all
the times from like having little uh cameos and all
these other shows I've it does make me go, huh,
I wonder how Johnny would have turned out. And so
I've been really enjoying the series for that, And it's
fun that's building on that internet meme of who was
(16:15):
the real villain in Karate Kid? Yeah, another man, it's
just like this week looking at all of the ge canoes.
It's all been nostalgia. Another one of those was news
about the Barbie vague news about the Barbie movie that
is in theory coming out sometime in the future that
they've been trying to make for Fields a few years now. Yeah,
(16:36):
Originally there were talks of a live action Barbie movie,
I mean at least as as early as twenty fifteen,
if not sooner or earlier, rather not sooner. But but
those projects never really came to fruition. But currently there's
a project that's helmed by uh, Greta Gerwig and Noah Bombach,
(16:58):
who have written lots of movies together and separately and
directed movies separately, who are working on this. And Margot
Robbie is the actress who is attached to this, and um,
we don't know much except to that Robbie said that
the movie is both faithful to the intellectual property and
(17:19):
yet is not what you think it is, which seems
like that's an impossible combo. Yeah. Yeah, And and honestly,
of all these things, of of you know, we'll get it,
we'll get into this once we get past the last
couple of news items. Of all the things that are nostalgic,
and I'm like, I really don't want them to mess
with the original story. Barbie is one that I don't
particularly care if they I mean, the whole point of
(17:41):
Barbie is to imagine new things. So yeah, I I
personally I thought that the way Barbie was uh imagined
in the Toy story movies worked really really well, Like
it was a fun imagining of that character. A live
action one, I've definitely like, Yeah, I don't even know
(18:04):
what to expect. I mean, for one thing, that the
toy has a lot of baggage attached to it when
it comes to things like building up unrealistic body image
expectations and that sort of thing. I mean, there's a long,
long history of criticism directed towards the toy for that reason.
(18:25):
So it does make me curious how they will or
if they will even address that at all overtly or
in subtext in the movie. I don't know, I just don't. Yeah,
I guess. I guess we'll see if if this one
actually launches and takes off and gets through production. Uh.
You know, we also got another trailer for one Division
(18:46):
that's coming up this week, and that you know that
show is also making a lot on nostalgia and would
leave it to Beaver and Grady Bunch. You know, it
goes through all of these old sitcoms as is, Wanda
is trying to imagine a perfect world toilet in with visions,
so at least that's what we assume is going on.
It's really hard to tell because we don't know if
the world she inhabits, which is clearly a sitcom inspired
(19:10):
world like The Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family and
the Leave It to Beaver and all those kind of shows,
maybe even a little bit of I Love Lucy in
there too. All these things are are clearly part of it,
but we don't know if this is Wanda's own creation,
as she's you know, falling into madness, which would be
(19:31):
kind of similar to a storyline that actually played out
in the comics, or if she's been trapped there by
some other entity. I've seen one guy who's really really
swinging hard for it being Mephisto, who's behind everything. Um,
we just don't know, but yes, that nostalgia element is
definitely a big part of that trailer. And then finally
(19:52):
we have a trailer. This was actually the one that
kind of got us into thinking about this episode in
the first place, because Ariel saw the trailer and then
sent it my way for me to look at, and
it's a film called Max Cloud, which I had no
awareness of until Ariel sent me the link. It looks
like a lower budget movie, but it has some some
(20:14):
i would say pretty middle link to high names attached
to it. It's got the woman from the new James
Bond movie who's also and Captain Marvel, and someone from
Westworld and someone from Legends of Tomorrow. It's so it's
got all of these successful actors in it, but it
looks kind of like a a B level movie, and it's, uh,
(20:34):
you know, we're talking about nostalgia and everything we've mentioned
so far is banking off of a property that previously existed,
and this movie is banking off of people's love for
um eighties video gaming and that sort of feel of movies.
So it almost feels kind of like a Tron movie
or or The Last Starfighter where a girl gets suck
(20:55):
into a video game and becomes one of the characters,
or like to Mungie and Um. Clarity ensues, her friend
finds the game and she's got to convince her friend
that she the character in this old eighties game is
her and that she sucked in the game and they
have to find that guys, and she has to find
some way to get back out of the game. Yeah,
(21:17):
it's funny because if you watch the trailer, it's a
combination of so many things. I said in our notes,
that's a combination of like wreck It, Ralph and Toy
Story and Jumanji. Um. But it's also I would think
kind of a a uh, kind of a throwback to
movies like Big where a character makes a wish, the
(21:37):
wish comes true somehow, and then the character realizes that
the consequences of that wish were not what they expected
and they have to find some way to reverse it.
So it's like a combination of all those things. And
it is very much uh tagged into the nostalgia of
a genre of video games from the eighties, So not
a specific title, but more like the general way that
(22:01):
that smash them up, fight them up, side scrolling video
games worked, you know, stuff like Double Dragon, that kind
of stuff back in the eighties. And yeah, but it's
very much trading heavily on nostalgia. But for me, like
I have interest in seeing it because not because I
think it's going to be phenomenal cinema, but because unlike
(22:22):
Cobra Kai, which I do enjoy, or coming to America,
to which I'm sure I will enjoy, it's something new
built off of the love of something old. So I
guess the question for you, Jonathan, is so much of
our media now is is focusing on these things that
we loved in the past. And I know there's always
the Internet thing going around of there are no new stories,
(22:43):
just old stories that people are rehashing. You know, I'd
say Stranger Things is a new story even though it
focuses on the eighties or you know, things like that.
Do you do you like stuff that banks heavily on
the nostalgia or would you prefer something that's new, that's
set in the future nowadays, or or something like that.
I don't have any problem with something that that taps
(23:04):
into nostalgia if it's doing so from a genuine place,
and that the setting is an integral component to the storytelling.
To me, like, that's what makes it work. And this
is not anything new, it's I mean, we notice it
because now we're seeing the media reflect the stuff that
(23:26):
was popular when Ariel and I were kids, right, Um,
But this happens all the time, Like when I was
a kid. One of the big movies that was really
popular was Greece, which in turn was a nostalgic piece
about being a teenager in the nineteen fifties, uh, in
the in the uh you know, nineties and early two thousands.
(23:47):
You look at things like that seventies show and again
you're looking back at a something that happened twenty to
thirty years previously. So this is a cycle we see
all the time where the media of the day is
reflecting the childhood loves of the people who are watching it.
So you look at how the age of the average
viewer subtract twenty to thirty years and that's what's that's
(24:10):
the stuff that you're going to see in the media.
And this happens a lot, and if it is done well,
I like it. And there're certain ones that really play
with the nostalgic criteria and they do it well. There's
a movie called Turbo Kid that is this crazy, schlocky
science fiction action movie exceedingly violent, but in a very
(24:35):
kind of tongue in cheek cartoon ish way. Um, but
it comes across as like you watch and you're like,
I could totally see this having been made in the
nineteen eighties, except the sensibility of it is a little
too advanced for the nineteen eighties, and the effects are
actually a little too advanced for the nineteen eighties. But
other than that, it feels like it could have been
(24:57):
lifted from that era of really weird, over the top
science fiction films, stuff like Big Trouble in Little China
or buck Ru Bonsai. Um. And so when it when
does that, when it feels like it's it's a genuine story.
To me, it's no different than if you were doing
a period piece that was set in like you know,
(25:18):
medieval Spain or something. You're just you're you've it's it's
this period and the setting of the story you want
to tell. It's when you just are trying to cash
in on that and your story doesn't have much story
to it and you're just relying on that nostalgia to
carry you through, that's when it falls flat for me.
What about you? Um, I feel the same way. You know.
(25:41):
I I was raised on so much sci fi that
I kind of like looking to the future, But I
don't mind if it's got a hint of the past
in there. Um. You know, for instance, the not new
now but newer Star Trek movies where they went back
to the old James Kirk you know, were they the
most mind blowing cinema ever. No, but it was new
(26:02):
stories with old characters I love that still looked to
the future and that was kind of fun for the
most part. They did just straight up rabbit con in
the second one. But yeah, yeah, well except that they
also made Spok a raving lunatic. In the second one.
He was angry punching action hero, which is about as
non spot as you get. But you know, I do.
(26:25):
I do, like you know, some movies that are made
just for the the one quick laugh. Something I don't
have to think about very much is why I like
watching bad movies, you know. So Kung Fury, which actually
haven't watched, is an example of that where I'm like,
I would watch this, it would be funny because I
haven't had what nostalgia they throw in their ruined for me,
but it would probably be like a one time watch.
(26:47):
And then there are other examples like Stranger Things is
set in the nineteen eighties and is also clearly a
love letter to some of the most influential filmmakers of
the eighties, like Steven Spielberg's influence on the filmmakers or
the series makers for Stranger Things is incredibly obvious. If
you watch that show their nods to Alien in season two,
(27:11):
there's their nods to the Thing, John Carpenter's the Thing
as well. So plus all the lovecraft Ian imagery, there's
all the D and D imagery, There's there's a ton
of influences. But again it feels genuine within that story
of it. When the film version of it came out,
they made a decision to shift the timeline of it.
(27:34):
Now when it came out as a novel, it came
out in nineteen eight six, So the six novel of it,
the childhood's were taking place in the in the fifties,
not in the eighties, because you go back thirty years
or I think it's twenty seven years something like that.
It's I forget now how many years the Pennywise goes
into hibernation then comes back out. But anyway, the childhood
(27:58):
was set at a different time period because the current
events were set in n six. When the movie comes out,
they just shift everything up so that the adults are
modern day childhood is nineteen eighties um. And again that
was a way to connect to the audience of today,
because if you if you said it where modern day
was the nineteen eighties and the childhood was nineteen fifties,
(28:20):
you would no longer connect with the majority of your audience.
So that was a very calculated decision. And I think,
you know, with it and with Stranger Things, more with
Stranger Things than with it when you put in that
nostalgia like albeit you know they're both set in the eighties,
which you know is my childhood time. But when you
(28:40):
when you put in the little things like the alien
or the thing orb or whatever. You know, all these
little nods and they're subtle and you have to pick
up on them and you have to work for it.
It's much more rewarding. We have a mash up that
we need to present, but first I think we're gonna
chill for a second and take a quick break. You
(29:14):
came up with a mash up to create the ultimate
nostalgic experience, can you explain? Yes, So, Jonathan, I are
going what are we gonna What are we gonna mash up?
You know we can mash up, man, while we've already
done that. You guys haven't heard it yet. We'll come
out in the future. But you know what, what can
we do that isn't doesn't already exist? Because the more
(29:34):
you rehash old properties, the more they get blended together.
So we took something that was just truly nostalgia back
to the future is because you know, we're nostalgic about
it now. And then we took something that is nostalgic
about back to the future but modern, stranger things, and
(29:54):
we said, what would this be like? Would this even work?
I guess we'll find out. So do you want me
to go first? Or do you want to go first? Um?
I guess I will go first because I'm pretty sure
yours is going to be better than stop saying that
every single time you go first. I'm like, oh, that's
such a good idea. All right, I want to hear yours.
(30:17):
I just like your idea so much. I'm just supporting you, Okay,
So Appreciation Society, Yes, Upside Down to the Future. Marty
McFly and Doc Brown are added again after a tweak
to their Dolorean where they add tacking on particles to
improve its time jumping capability. They are off to thirty
one years in the future once again. Here back to
(30:38):
the future too. They went thirty years in the future
to make sure they didn't mess it up with their
time traveling antics. They just can't leave well enough alone,
but the tachyon particles, in conjunction with the flex capacitor
opened a dimensional rift and they end up in what
looks like a weird jumble between Indiana and Georgia. As
they exit the car, they realize they are still in
the eighties, darker, more bleak version of the eighties. What
(31:02):
has happened that they must be in an alternate universe.
As they scour the city this Indiana Georgia, the hybrid City,
looking for parts to fix their Deloreans so they can
return to their timeline instead of their time, they come
across a bunch of kids looking for their friend Will.
When they see Doc and Marty, they stop looking and
start to freak out, pointing and screaming, running towards Doc Marty,
(31:22):
seemingly knowing who they are. Doc Marty, not wanting to
upset the timeline, further, run into the woods and that's
when they see it, No, not not Pennywise, the demigorgan,
and it sees them as a demogorgon double takes it
starts slowly towards Marty and Doc. As he gets close
to Doc and Marty, it's mouth head thingy starts to
(31:45):
slowly open. In a last digit effort of self defense,
Doc throws a right hook straight into the ribs of
the demogorgon and they hear familiar ouch. All of a sudden,
the monster's mouth opens and a beefy blonde head pops out.
It's Biff Tannin. Then they see the cameras all around them.
If says, what heck are you two doing here on set?
He explains that they are in two thousand sixteen on
a TV set, Their DeLorean isn't broken, and they are
(32:07):
in fact movie stars in the future. Not having ever
expected that they would be famous, they decide, huh, well,
what's a hurry back? And they stick around for a while.
What havoc will this week? We'll find out in the
sequel back to the present twin Pining for Home. Okay,
first of all, my hat is off to you. The
fact that you reference that Stranger Things is shot in
(32:30):
Georgia but said in Indiana in your meta fiction is
perfect and once again aerial somehow we have taken exact
opposite approaches to our pitches without sharing them, So now
is my chance to share with you. Back to Stranger Things,
(32:55):
it's and Marty McFly is helping old Doc Brown with
an experiment. Why is Marty friends with Doc Brown that
in itself is one of life's great mysteries? But perhaps
it's so that Marty can occasionally access Doc Brown's insanely
overpowered amplifiers. Anyway, Marty ends up ducking into a time
machine made out of a Dolorean to escape some terrorists
(33:17):
who come after Doc Brown for the theft of plutonium.
Marty goes back to the past to so pretty much
at this point, everything is playing out like the original
Back to the Future film, except this time in the past,
Marty encounters a young, ambitious scientist in his late twenties
named Martin Brenner. Marty and Martin bonding over sharing the
(33:40):
same name, because we know in movie universes, that's the
closest bond you can have. Uh. They worked together with
Doc Brown to solve the time traveling issue, but all
the while we see Brenner viewing the proceedings with a
calculated eye, something that Doc Brown finds concerning but necessary
in order to get Marty back home to nineteen eighty five. Eventually,
(34:04):
with the help of Doc Brown and Martin Brenner, Marty
is able to return to nineteen five. Only things have changed.
His father is not, as it turns out, a popular
science fiction novelist, but rather an important scientist, and he
doesn't live in California anymore. When Marty returns to nineteen
eighty five and he sees that Doc has survived the
(34:25):
terrorist attack, he is told by his old friend that
his father and mother left California for Indiana after his
dad accepted a position in a lab his dad's boss,
Martin Brenner, and so Marty and Doc traveled to Indiana
to find out what's going on. They go to Hawkins, Indiana,
a town where weird stuff has been happening for a
couple of years, and they learned that George McFly is
(34:48):
Brenner's successor, Brenner having been consumed by the demogorgan two
years earlier. George is obsessed with tracking down a young
teenager referred to as Eleven, even as the barrier of
reality are breaking down in Hawkins. They also learned that
Marty is named after the deceased Brenner, and Marty is
horrified to hear that his namesake has been up to
(35:09):
these terrible things. Marty tries to reconcile what is happening.
He is heading back to his little motel room in
Hawkins when he encounters a group of kids Mike Wheeler,
Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Will Buyers, and the aforementioned eleven.
They're investigating why rats keep us floating. From there, we
are pulled into a complicated story about how scientists using
(35:32):
technology adapted from Doc Brown's time travel devices have opened
up a portal to other dimensions that now threaten the
safety of everyone in Hawkins and beyond, and Marty is
faced with a new challenge to go back in time
again and prevent Martin Brenner from being part of his
solution without being spotted by his past self in the process.
(35:57):
Oh and it's super hard to do because now magnets
don't work, and that messes with the time circuits and
the DeLorean. So at the end of the movie, Doc Brown, Marty,
and science teacher Scott Clark played by my friend Randy
Havens figure out how to send Marty back to nineteen
fifty five, again setting up the inevitable sequel the end. Oh,
(36:20):
I love it, And if that is not the actual
next season of Stranger Things Stranger Things season four, I'm
going to be sorely disappointed. I mean, like it's to me,
it's fascinating that we both went in different directions like
you went. You went with the parallel universe approach and
I went with a well back to the future too
taught us about alternate futures because of altering the past
(36:43):
and uh, and I thought, well, if we just throw
Martin Brenner, who is, by the way, the bad guy
in season one of Stranger Things, he's the scientist who's
going after eleven, if we just transport him and he
would have been about twenty nine, I guess, like I
did some calculations, he would have been in his twenties.
In Uh, then that makes it all work out for
(37:06):
the storyline of of Stranger Things and Back to the Future.
So that's why I went with it. I really like it,
you know, I feel like this was the exact right
amount of original story and nostalgia for me. But we
are curious what you guys think. If you have your
own ideas of what a mash up between Back to
the Future and Stranger Things would look like, or if
(37:28):
you have any suggestions for future mashups or just things
that you would like us to cover. You know, important
topics in the gecko sphere, so you should reach out
to us. How do they do that aerial, Well, they
can send us a d M or a message on Twitter,
Facebook or Instagram. On Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast
and on Instagram and Facebook. We're just large and or
(37:49):
Drunk Collider And you know, if you like us, make
sure to tell your friends about us, get them to
listen and leave us a review. Yes, it really goes
a long way to helping the show gettist and we
want to reach as many geeks as possible so we
could share the love. And until next time, I have
been Jonathan Strickland and I have been Ariel cast In.
(38:11):
Unless my doppel ganger is changing the future right now,
don't don't time. Laudie the Large New Drunk Colliders production
(38:39):
of I Heart Radio and was created by Ariel cast In.
Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer. This episode was produced
by Torri Harrison and edited by Max Williams. For more
podcast in My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
The Large Nerdron Collider podcast is a production of My
Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to The Large Nerdron Collider,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how very excited we are
(00:28):
about them. I'm Ariel casting, and with me, as always
is long time favorite never out of Style, Never out
of this is not working, but he does. Jonathan Strickland. Wow,
that's that's possibly the second greatest introduction I have ever received.
Thank you, Ariel, And in return, I have a question
(00:50):
for you. Oh yeah, a question, So Ariel, as always,
I this episode with a question. I did not think
this one up ahead of time because I just realized that, wait,
that's something I'm supposed to do. So here's here's your
here's your off the cuff question. If you couldn't have
(01:12):
it any classic television series like you are living in
the world of that TV series and I'm talking about
a series from say, the late eighties or earlier, which
one would you pick? I'm gonna go with the easy answer.
And you know, not a lot of thought put into this,
but probably I love Lucy because I got red hair
(01:35):
and she's got red hair. And she's a goofball and
I'm a goofball, So it just seems like an easy
transition and fit. What about you, Well, if I'm going
to live in any nostalgic television series, it's gonna be
w k RP and Cincinnati because I've already got the
job skills to talk on the microphone and be a DJ,
and uh, it'd be it'd be an easy transition. Plus
(01:56):
some pretty awesome tunes in that era and uh, you know,
as like Dr Johnny Fever's got the night Shift. So
today we've got our our roundup of news in the
geek sphere, and we start off with something that is
equally absurd, and I guess not not so much shocking
(02:17):
as it is like, well, of course they did, so
what is that aerial? Alright? So KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken
has come out with a gaming console and I thought
at first that this was a huge old joke, especially
after they came out with their Colonel Standers Love short
film early this Christmas season, yes, with Mario Loplaz playing
(02:40):
the colonel. But I should have known, because KFC really
likes to shoot for the fences, set out that phrase
book shoot for the moon, you know, aim for the fences,
something like that, something like that. Anyhow, you know with
the KFC double Down, they they like to experiment and
have fun, and uh, this time they're having fun with
(03:00):
a game console. So it is a gaming device that
also has a chamber to keep your KFC chicken warm,
which I will say it's a good thing because KFC
chicken once it gets cold and you have to reheat
it is not fantastic. But also better to just eat
it cold, no the crispy or not KFC. When they're
(03:29):
hot and they're fresh, they're good. After that, I'm picky
about reheating my chicken. So it's it's a thing, but
u But also, fried chicken is not really a great
gaming snack because it gets your fingers all oily and
then you're catching whatever controls that you're using, and so uh,
you know, it's interesting. It says that it's cross platform,
(03:51):
so I don't know what that means. So I'm pretty
sure that we would just call this a like a
gaming PC like this, that's what time. This is just
a gaming rig. It's not like it's an Xbox or
a PlayStation, which arguably those are also at this point
more or less just very specialized gaming computers. And um,
(04:12):
A couple of things on that I would think of
is that one, it does sound like it's a pretty
powerful machine based on on the specs that have been released. Two,
we don't know if or when this thing will ever
be available for purchase. It may very well be that
there is one it exists, but it will never become
a commercial product. That's a possibility. Or Two, when it
(04:32):
does become available, if it does, we don't know how
much it's gonna cost. And three my main thought was
that this, like you were saying, fried chicken and video
games not a great combination, not just because it gets
your fingers all greasy, but if you've ever had to
clean out like an oven or anything where you've been
(04:53):
cooking greasy food, it leaves that film over everything. And
I would imagine like, even though I know the airflow
for this device is to pull air away from the
electronic components up through the chamber where the chicken is
and then out through the top, I would be worried
about that build up of of oily residue affecting the
(05:16):
electronics below and drastically reducing the useful life of that
particular piece of hardware. I say that as the host
of a tech podcast, it just doesn't sound like a
good idea to me. Moving on, our next story is
that we heard recently that some of James Duhan's remains
(05:37):
that as the actor who played the original Scottie on
Star Trek, the original series, some of them have ended
up aboard the International Space Station and have actually been
up there for uh more than a decade now. And
this story goes along with the fact that he wanted
to have his remains uh shot into space, you know,
(05:58):
sort of a sort of a non to him as
his role in a very popular science fiction franchise, and
one part of his remains is criminated. It remains were
in a rocket that failed to reach orbit, so that
one did not quite make it into space. Another was
um pushed out the airlock of of a spacecraft, but
(06:20):
that minute just eventually deorbited and burned up on re entry.
The third, though, appears to have been smuggled aboard the
International Space Station by Richard Garriott, who is also known
as Lord British, the creator of the Ultima series of
computer games, who in two thousand and eight was one
of a very small number of private citizens whoever got
(06:44):
a chance to visit the International Space Station. He paid
about thirty million dollars to do it, and as a
favor to one of James Dewan's relatives, he brought with
him a plaque that had James doing on it and
a little bit of his remains and then hit it
below the floorboards of part of the International Space Station.
(07:05):
So since two thousand and eight, Scotty's remains are part
of it have been aboard the International Space Station. UM,
I don't know if it's going to stay up there now,
but that was something I read today. I mean, I'm
not too mad by it, like that's I'm fine with it.
(07:26):
A weird thing, nonetheless, and we thought we would open
the show with a couple of weird notes, but the
rest are are some pretty straightforward things, and it starts
to kind of tie into some of the other stuff
we'll talk about in this episode. One is that we
now know what Warner Brothers strategy is going to be
moving forward. After one we already reported about how the
(07:48):
company is going to release all of its movies simultaneously
to theaters and to the HBO Max streaming service. But
that's not what's gonna happen after that, right, No, well,
maybe two, we don't know, but they're planning on releasing
(08:10):
their movies in theaters once again. I know that in
a previous episode we worried that theaters might be going
by the wayside, and I say, I stay worried because
Jonathan and I both like a movie theater experience sometimes.
But it seems like the studios, whether it's due to
UH production companies saying no, please don't just release us
(08:32):
on streaming, or whether they are really banking on the
movie theater industry rebuilding, are planning on still using movie theaters.
And I'm happy about it. I'm happy about two. And
as we've kind of alluded to in previous episodes, this
might be. It's probably is a necessity if we expect
to get the same kind of films that we've become
(08:55):
used to over the last couple of decades, because without
those box office returns, you don't have the financial incentive
to produce blockbuster movies, not at the budgets that we've
been seeing. So without the movie theaters, movies are not
going to be the same. So I think this is
more good than bad, But it does mean that they're
(09:18):
counting on movie theaters having a major comeback. I mean
that being said. You know, Wonder Woman eighty four released
this Christmas, and despite not having a big box off
his opening, Uh, they are already in plans to make
a third one. Yep, it's already been greenlit. The film
pulled in sixteen point seven million dollars upon its debut, which, again,
(09:41):
if you look at recent blockbuster releases from like twenty
nineteen or earlier, that that would be considered a colossal
failure most terms. But in a year where many theaters
are are shut down, like their entire theater chains that
are shut down, and a lot of people are quarantining
at home, sixteen point seven million dollars is nothing to
(10:01):
sneeze at. So we know that Patty Jenkins has been
signed to direct the third film, so just as she
did the first two. Uh, and both of us have
seen Wonder Woman eighty four at this point, Ariel, do
you want to give like a non spoilery reaction to
what you felt about the movie? Sure, the opening was
(10:24):
this is gonna be super vague. The opening was better
than I expected. I had seen like a little they
released the opening clip from Wonder Woman on YouTube prior
to the movie releasing, uh, and it was okay. But
when I watched the clip in its entirety, as opposed
to what had just been released on YouTube, I got
very excited. Um. I think all of the characters really
committed to the roles they were playing. And of course,
(10:47):
you know, going in is a bit of a comic
superhero supervillain nerd. I knew who all the characters were,
and I knew some of their history outside of this movie,
and so I was able to connect with that. For
people who like some of my my family who have
seen the movie, who um, weren't really familiar with who
Robert Maneuver was or Max Lord Maxwell Lord, you know,
(11:09):
the reveals for them kind of came too late in
the movie for them, like it didn't quite have the
piecing for growth that someone coming in fresh would need.
And for me, it just felt like there were some
really fantastic moments and there was some really great character work,
but plot wise, I felt like they jumped, especially in
(11:32):
the last third of the movie, from point A to
point C, without a lot of interconnecting tissue between the points.
And so for me personally, I enjoyed it, but if
I think about it too hard, it falls a little flat. Yep.
Same here, I felt like I felt the movie was bloated.
It's two and a half hours long, so I felt
that the movie was too long. And yet I also
(11:53):
felt like there was a lot of connective tissue as
you say, that's missing, Like there was a lot of jumping,
you know, like we have to put this scene in
because this thing has to happen, but we don't have
the time to connect it to the previous scene. And
even as someone who's familiar with comic books and someone
who was really paying attention during this movie, I was
(12:14):
confused by the progression because I kept feeling like we
were missing out on a connected scene, and that was
really frustrating for me. There was also some questions I
had that never get answered in that movie, one big
one that I'm not going to ask because it's a
it's an integral part. But maybe after we record, I'll
ask you, Ariel, what you thought, um And yeah, I
(12:36):
found it largely unsatisfying. I thought, as you say, the
performances were fine, I thought the tone was also very strange,
like the tone went all over the place, from very
lighthearted and almost home Alone esque with the opening highst sequence,
to really dark and disturbing stuff. Um so it was
(12:58):
very it seemed like very inconsistent film to me. That
being said, I also thought that the first Wonder Woman
film was a billion times better, apart from the fact
that their third act and in the first Wonder Woman
movie also kind of goes off the rails. But my
hope is that One Woman three will be more like
(13:18):
the first film and less like the second film. It
also makes me worried a little bit about Rogue Squadron,
another movie that Patty Jenkins is directing, although again we
should also remember that writing and directing are two different things. Yes,
and and you know, it's been this weird balance in
the Justice League between Snyder's vision for the d C
EU and what the writer's visions are for each individual
(13:42):
movie and some of the audience saying we don't want
something quite this dark. So it's been a weird balancing
act they've been trying to figure out. You know, I'm
still I'm still enjoying it enough that I'm happy to
let them continue to try as long as they're willing,
Because I have enjoyed. You know, I liked Aquaman enough,
I enjoy the character again. The character work in Justice
(14:02):
League was really good, even though the story was oh
hum for me, you know, I liked the First Wonder
Woman things like that. But that being said, um, kind
of to tie the last story in with this one,
I read right before we started recording that even though
they were releasing movies to movie theaters in three they
are also planning on releasing at least two d C
(14:24):
movies a year to HBO Max with smaller, more risky
characters like that Girl or Static Shock or things like that.
So we'll see what happens. I'm kind of glad that
HBO Max is rolling in the d C television and
they might do television series to all of the DC
streaming network stuff, because that gives me a chance to
(14:45):
watch it and get a chance. Very similar to Disney
Plus and the Marvel World. Um well, we've got a
lot to talk about with some nostalgic pieces, some nostalgic
news items as well as a larger discussion. But before
we get to that, we're gonna take a quick break. Okay,
(15:13):
so we're gonna start talking about retro and nostalgic pieces.
We've got a couple of other news items that fall
in with this, one of those being the Cobra Kai series,
which originally released on YouTube Premium. It was a YouTube
Premium exclusive. Now it is a Netflix original starting with
season three, and we learned that they're going to actually
(15:34):
release season three one week earlier than had previously been reported. Yeah,
January one, So happy New Year's everyone. Uh. You know,
Cobra Kai is one of those ones where I have
a lot of fun nostalgia for the Karate Kid. It
took me a little bit to get into the series,
but I think they're doing a really good job with it,
(15:54):
and I think, you know, seeing Zabka go in all
the times from like having little uh cameos and all
these other shows I've it does make me go, huh,
I wonder how Johnny would have turned out. And so
I've been really enjoying the series for that, And it's
fun that's building on that internet meme of who was
(16:15):
the real villain in Karate Kid? Yeah, another man, it's
just like this week looking at all of the ge canoes.
It's all been nostalgia. Another one of those was news
about the Barbie vague news about the Barbie movie that
is in theory coming out sometime in the future that
they've been trying to make for Fields a few years now. Yeah,
(16:36):
Originally there were talks of a live action Barbie movie,
I mean at least as as early as twenty fifteen,
if not sooner or earlier, rather not sooner. But but
those projects never really came to fruition. But currently there's
a project that's helmed by uh, Greta Gerwig and Noah Bombach,
(16:58):
who have written lots of movies together and separately and
directed movies separately, who are working on this. And Margot
Robbie is the actress who is attached to this, and um,
we don't know much except to that Robbie said that
the movie is both faithful to the intellectual property and
(17:19):
yet is not what you think it is, which seems
like that's an impossible combo. Yeah. Yeah, And and honestly,
of all these things, of of you know, we'll get it,
we'll get into this once we get past the last
couple of news items. Of all the things that are nostalgic,
and I'm like, I really don't want them to mess
with the original story. Barbie is one that I don't
particularly care if they I mean, the whole point of
(17:41):
Barbie is to imagine new things. So yeah, I I
personally I thought that the way Barbie was uh imagined
in the Toy story movies worked really really well, Like
it was a fun imagining of that character. A live
action one, I've definitely like, Yeah, I don't even know
(18:04):
what to expect. I mean, for one thing, that the
toy has a lot of baggage attached to it when
it comes to things like building up unrealistic body image
expectations and that sort of thing. I mean, there's a long,
long history of criticism directed towards the toy for that reason.
(18:25):
So it does make me curious how they will or
if they will even address that at all overtly or
in subtext in the movie. I don't know, I just don't. Yeah,
I guess. I guess we'll see if if this one
actually launches and takes off and gets through production. Uh.
You know, we also got another trailer for one Division
(18:46):
that's coming up this week, and that you know that
show is also making a lot on nostalgia and would
leave it to Beaver and Grady Bunch. You know, it
goes through all of these old sitcoms as is, Wanda
is trying to imagine a perfect world toilet in with visions,
so at least that's what we assume is going on.
It's really hard to tell because we don't know if
the world she inhabits, which is clearly a sitcom inspired
(19:10):
world like The Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family and
the Leave It to Beaver and all those kind of shows,
maybe even a little bit of I Love Lucy in
there too. All these things are are clearly part of it,
but we don't know if this is Wanda's own creation,
as she's you know, falling into madness, which would be
(19:31):
kind of similar to a storyline that actually played out
in the comics, or if she's been trapped there by
some other entity. I've seen one guy who's really really
swinging hard for it being Mephisto, who's behind everything. Um,
we just don't know, but yes, that nostalgia element is
definitely a big part of that trailer. And then finally
(19:52):
we have a trailer. This was actually the one that
kind of got us into thinking about this episode in
the first place, because Ariel saw the trailer and then
sent it my way for me to look at, and
it's a film called Max Cloud, which I had no
awareness of until Ariel sent me the link. It looks
like a lower budget movie, but it has some some
(20:14):
i would say pretty middle link to high names attached
to it. It's got the woman from the new James
Bond movie who's also and Captain Marvel, and someone from
Westworld and someone from Legends of Tomorrow. It's so it's
got all of these successful actors in it, but it
looks kind of like a a B level movie, and it's, uh,
(20:34):
you know, we're talking about nostalgia and everything we've mentioned
so far is banking off of a property that previously existed,
and this movie is banking off of people's love for
um eighties video gaming and that sort of feel of movies.
So it almost feels kind of like a Tron movie
or or The Last Starfighter where a girl gets suck
(20:55):
into a video game and becomes one of the characters,
or like to Mungie and Um. Clarity ensues, her friend
finds the game and she's got to convince her friend
that she the character in this old eighties game is
her and that she sucked in the game and they
have to find that guys, and she has to find
some way to get back out of the game. Yeah,
(21:17):
it's funny because if you watch the trailer, it's a
combination of so many things. I said in our notes,
that's a combination of like wreck It, Ralph and Toy
Story and Jumanji. Um. But it's also I would think
kind of a a uh, kind of a throwback to
movies like Big where a character makes a wish, the
(21:37):
wish comes true somehow, and then the character realizes that
the consequences of that wish were not what they expected
and they have to find some way to reverse it.
So it's like a combination of all those things. And
it is very much uh tagged into the nostalgia of
a genre of video games from the eighties, So not
a specific title, but more like the general way that
(22:01):
that smash them up, fight them up, side scrolling video
games worked, you know, stuff like Double Dragon, that kind
of stuff back in the eighties. And yeah, but it's
very much trading heavily on nostalgia. But for me, like
I have interest in seeing it because not because I
think it's going to be phenomenal cinema, but because unlike
(22:22):
Cobra Kai, which I do enjoy, or coming to America,
to which I'm sure I will enjoy, it's something new
built off of the love of something old. So I
guess the question for you, Jonathan, is so much of
our media now is is focusing on these things that
we loved in the past. And I know there's always
the Internet thing going around of there are no new stories,
(22:43):
just old stories that people are rehashing. You know, I'd
say Stranger Things is a new story even though it
focuses on the eighties or you know, things like that.
Do you do you like stuff that banks heavily on
the nostalgia or would you prefer something that's new, that's
set in the future nowadays, or or something like that.
I don't have any problem with something that that taps
(23:04):
into nostalgia if it's doing so from a genuine place,
and that the setting is an integral component to the storytelling.
To me, like, that's what makes it work. And this
is not anything new, it's I mean, we notice it
because now we're seeing the media reflect the stuff that
(23:26):
was popular when Ariel and I were kids, right, Um,
But this happens all the time, Like when I was
a kid. One of the big movies that was really
popular was Greece, which in turn was a nostalgic piece
about being a teenager in the nineteen fifties, uh, in
the in the uh you know, nineties and early two thousands.
(23:47):
You look at things like that seventies show and again
you're looking back at a something that happened twenty to
thirty years previously. So this is a cycle we see
all the time where the media of the day is
reflecting the childhood loves of the people who are watching it.
So you look at how the age of the average
viewer subtract twenty to thirty years and that's what's that's
(24:10):
the stuff that you're going to see in the media.
And this happens a lot, and if it is done well,
I like it. And there're certain ones that really play
with the nostalgic criteria and they do it well. There's
a movie called Turbo Kid that is this crazy, schlocky
science fiction action movie exceedingly violent, but in a very
(24:35):
kind of tongue in cheek cartoon ish way. Um, but
it comes across as like you watch and you're like,
I could totally see this having been made in the
nineteen eighties, except the sensibility of it is a little
too advanced for the nineteen eighties, and the effects are
actually a little too advanced for the nineteen eighties. But
other than that, it feels like it could have been
(24:57):
lifted from that era of really weird, over the top
science fiction films, stuff like Big Trouble in Little China
or buck Ru Bonsai. Um. And so when it when
does that, when it feels like it's it's a genuine story.
To me, it's no different than if you were doing
a period piece that was set in like you know,
(25:18):
medieval Spain or something. You're just you're you've it's it's
this period and the setting of the story you want
to tell. It's when you just are trying to cash
in on that and your story doesn't have much story
to it and you're just relying on that nostalgia to
carry you through, that's when it falls flat for me.
What about you? Um, I feel the same way. You know.
(25:41):
I I was raised on so much sci fi that
I kind of like looking to the future, But I
don't mind if it's got a hint of the past
in there. Um. You know, for instance, the not new
now but newer Star Trek movies where they went back
to the old James Kirk you know, were they the
most mind blowing cinema ever. No, but it was new
(26:02):
stories with old characters I love that still looked to
the future and that was kind of fun for the
most part. They did just straight up rabbit con in
the second one. But yeah, yeah, well except that they
also made Spok a raving lunatic. In the second one.
He was angry punching action hero, which is about as
non spot as you get. But you know, I do.
(26:25):
I do, like you know, some movies that are made
just for the the one quick laugh. Something I don't
have to think about very much is why I like
watching bad movies, you know. So Kung Fury, which actually
haven't watched, is an example of that where I'm like,
I would watch this, it would be funny because I
haven't had what nostalgia they throw in their ruined for me,
but it would probably be like a one time watch.
(26:47):
And then there are other examples like Stranger Things is
set in the nineteen eighties and is also clearly a
love letter to some of the most influential filmmakers of
the eighties, like Steven Spielberg's influence on the filmmakers or
the series makers for Stranger Things is incredibly obvious. If
you watch that show their nods to Alien in season two,
(27:11):
there's their nods to the Thing, John Carpenter's the Thing
as well. So plus all the lovecraft Ian imagery, there's
all the D and D imagery, There's there's a ton
of influences. But again it feels genuine within that story
of it. When the film version of it came out,
they made a decision to shift the timeline of it.
(27:34):
Now when it came out as a novel, it came
out in nineteen eight six, So the six novel of it,
the childhood's were taking place in the in the fifties,
not in the eighties, because you go back thirty years
or I think it's twenty seven years something like that.
It's I forget now how many years the Pennywise goes
into hibernation then comes back out. But anyway, the childhood
(27:58):
was set at a different time period because the current
events were set in n six. When the movie comes out,
they just shift everything up so that the adults are
modern day childhood is nineteen eighties um. And again that
was a way to connect to the audience of today,
because if you if you said it where modern day
was the nineteen eighties and the childhood was nineteen fifties,
(28:20):
you would no longer connect with the majority of your audience.
So that was a very calculated decision. And I think,
you know, with it and with Stranger Things, more with
Stranger Things than with it when you put in that
nostalgia like albeit you know they're both set in the eighties,
which you know is my childhood time. But when you
(28:40):
when you put in the little things like the alien
or the thing orb or whatever. You know, all these
little nods and they're subtle and you have to pick
up on them and you have to work for it.
It's much more rewarding. We have a mash up that
we need to present, but first I think we're gonna
chill for a second and take a quick break. You
(29:14):
came up with a mash up to create the ultimate
nostalgic experience, can you explain? Yes, So, Jonathan, I are
going what are we gonna What are we gonna mash up?
You know we can mash up, man, while we've already
done that. You guys haven't heard it yet. We'll come
out in the future. But you know what, what can
we do that isn't doesn't already exist? Because the more
(29:34):
you rehash old properties, the more they get blended together.
So we took something that was just truly nostalgia back
to the future is because you know, we're nostalgic about
it now. And then we took something that is nostalgic
about back to the future but modern, stranger things, and
(29:54):
we said, what would this be like? Would this even work?
I guess we'll find out. So do you want me
to go first? Or do you want to go first? Um?
I guess I will go first because I'm pretty sure
yours is going to be better than stop saying that
every single time you go first. I'm like, oh, that's
such a good idea. All right, I want to hear yours.
(30:17):
I just like your idea so much. I'm just supporting you, Okay,
So Appreciation Society, Yes, Upside Down to the Future. Marty
McFly and Doc Brown are added again after a tweak
to their Dolorean where they add tacking on particles to
improve its time jumping capability. They are off to thirty
one years in the future once again. Here back to
(30:38):
the future too. They went thirty years in the future
to make sure they didn't mess it up with their
time traveling antics. They just can't leave well enough alone,
but the tachyon particles, in conjunction with the flex capacitor
opened a dimensional rift and they end up in what
looks like a weird jumble between Indiana and Georgia. As
they exit the car, they realize they are still in
the eighties, darker, more bleak version of the eighties. What
(31:02):
has happened that they must be in an alternate universe.
As they scour the city this Indiana Georgia, the hybrid City,
looking for parts to fix their Deloreans so they can
return to their timeline instead of their time, they come
across a bunch of kids looking for their friend Will.
When they see Doc and Marty, they stop looking and
start to freak out, pointing and screaming, running towards Doc Marty,
(31:22):
seemingly knowing who they are. Doc Marty, not wanting to
upset the timeline, further, run into the woods and that's
when they see it, No, not not Pennywise, the demigorgan,
and it sees them as a demogorgon double takes it
starts slowly towards Marty and Doc. As he gets close
to Doc and Marty, it's mouth head thingy starts to
(31:45):
slowly open. In a last digit effort of self defense,
Doc throws a right hook straight into the ribs of
the demogorgon and they hear familiar ouch. All of a sudden,
the monster's mouth opens and a beefy blonde head pops out.
It's Biff Tannin. Then they see the cameras all around them.
If says, what heck are you two doing here on set?
He explains that they are in two thousand sixteen on
a TV set, Their DeLorean isn't broken, and they are
(32:07):
in fact movie stars in the future. Not having ever
expected that they would be famous, they decide, huh, well,
what's a hurry back? And they stick around for a while.
What havoc will this week? We'll find out in the
sequel back to the present twin Pining for Home. Okay,
first of all, my hat is off to you. The
fact that you reference that Stranger Things is shot in
(32:30):
Georgia but said in Indiana in your meta fiction is
perfect and once again aerial somehow we have taken exact
opposite approaches to our pitches without sharing them, So now
is my chance to share with you. Back to Stranger Things,
(32:55):
it's and Marty McFly is helping old Doc Brown with
an experiment. Why is Marty friends with Doc Brown that
in itself is one of life's great mysteries? But perhaps
it's so that Marty can occasionally access Doc Brown's insanely
overpowered amplifiers. Anyway, Marty ends up ducking into a time
machine made out of a Dolorean to escape some terrorists
(33:17):
who come after Doc Brown for the theft of plutonium.
Marty goes back to the past to so pretty much
at this point, everything is playing out like the original
Back to the Future film, except this time in the past,
Marty encounters a young, ambitious scientist in his late twenties
named Martin Brenner. Marty and Martin bonding over sharing the
(33:40):
same name, because we know in movie universes, that's the
closest bond you can have. Uh. They worked together with
Doc Brown to solve the time traveling issue, but all
the while we see Brenner viewing the proceedings with a
calculated eye, something that Doc Brown finds concerning but necessary
in order to get Marty back home to nineteen eighty five. Eventually,
(34:04):
with the help of Doc Brown and Martin Brenner, Marty
is able to return to nineteen five. Only things have changed.
His father is not, as it turns out, a popular
science fiction novelist, but rather an important scientist, and he
doesn't live in California anymore. When Marty returns to nineteen
eighty five and he sees that Doc has survived the
(34:25):
terrorist attack, he is told by his old friend that
his father and mother left California for Indiana after his
dad accepted a position in a lab his dad's boss,
Martin Brenner, and so Marty and Doc traveled to Indiana
to find out what's going on. They go to Hawkins, Indiana,
a town where weird stuff has been happening for a
couple of years, and they learned that George McFly is
(34:48):
Brenner's successor, Brenner having been consumed by the demogorgan two
years earlier. George is obsessed with tracking down a young
teenager referred to as Eleven, even as the barrier of
reality are breaking down in Hawkins. They also learned that
Marty is named after the deceased Brenner, and Marty is
horrified to hear that his namesake has been up to
(35:09):
these terrible things. Marty tries to reconcile what is happening.
He is heading back to his little motel room in
Hawkins when he encounters a group of kids Mike Wheeler,
Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Will Buyers, and the aforementioned eleven.
They're investigating why rats keep us floating. From there, we
are pulled into a complicated story about how scientists using
(35:32):
technology adapted from Doc Brown's time travel devices have opened
up a portal to other dimensions that now threaten the
safety of everyone in Hawkins and beyond, and Marty is
faced with a new challenge to go back in time
again and prevent Martin Brenner from being part of his
solution without being spotted by his past self in the process.
(35:57):
Oh and it's super hard to do because now magnets
don't work, and that messes with the time circuits and
the DeLorean. So at the end of the movie, Doc Brown, Marty,
and science teacher Scott Clark played by my friend Randy
Havens figure out how to send Marty back to nineteen
fifty five, again setting up the inevitable sequel the end. Oh,
(36:20):
I love it, And if that is not the actual
next season of Stranger Things Stranger Things season four, I'm
going to be sorely disappointed. I mean, like it's to me,
it's fascinating that we both went in different directions like
you went. You went with the parallel universe approach and
I went with a well back to the future too
taught us about alternate futures because of altering the past
(36:43):
and uh, and I thought, well, if we just throw
Martin Brenner, who is, by the way, the bad guy
in season one of Stranger Things, he's the scientist who's
going after eleven, if we just transport him and he
would have been about twenty nine, I guess, like I
did some calculations, he would have been in his twenties.
In Uh, then that makes it all work out for
(37:06):
the storyline of of Stranger Things and Back to the Future.
So that's why I went with it. I really like it,
you know, I feel like this was the exact right
amount of original story and nostalgia for me. But we
are curious what you guys think. If you have your
own ideas of what a mash up between Back to
the Future and Stranger Things would look like, or if
(37:28):
you have any suggestions for future mashups or just things
that you would like us to cover. You know, important
topics in the gecko sphere, so you should reach out
to us. How do they do that aerial, Well, they
can send us a d M or a message on Twitter,
Facebook or Instagram. On Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast
and on Instagram and Facebook. We're just large and or
(37:49):
Drunk Collider And you know, if you like us, make
sure to tell your friends about us, get them to
listen and leave us a review. Yes, it really goes
a long way to helping the show gettist and we
want to reach as many geeks as possible so we
could share the love. And until next time, I have
been Jonathan Strickland and I have been Ariel cast In.
(38:11):
Unless my doppel ganger is changing the future right now,
don't don't time. Laudie the Large New Drunk Colliders production
(38:39):
of I Heart Radio and was created by Ariel cast In.
Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer. This episode was produced
by Torri Harrison and edited by Max Williams. For more
podcast in My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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