The Birds and the Clown Bees

We've got a ton to talk about, from projects that will be delayed due to the writers' strike (plus other reasons) to trailers for upcoming games, series and films. Plus, Jonathan recounts his crappy morning walk and Ariel invents clown bees.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Large herdron Collider podcast, the
podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in the
world around us and how very excited we are about them.
I'm Aeriel cast In and with me, as always is
the Fantastical Friday. Jonathan Strickland. I don't know. I had
nothing I.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Got I got pooped on.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Ew. That's that's a different podcast, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
It's not. It's not a bit. It's not a bit Aerial.
It happened.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
I'm I'm sorry. Were you holding babies?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Were you? I was walking a dog and the dog
is not what pooped.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Dog pooped on you.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
No, the dog did not poop on me. I'm walking
my dog. I'm about a block and a half away
from my house, and then we're walking under some trees
and I feel some warm water hit my arm but
it's not water.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
No, at least you weren't looking up. Also, walk the dog.
You weren't just like out there with your yo yo. Right.
This was with actual like tible right.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
This was Yeah, this was with my fur baby, tiblt.
And he was very confused because we were just really
getting started, and I was like, nope, we're going back home,
and he's like, but we haven't done the walk yet.
I nope. I need to get I need to get
all of this off of me. I need to take
a very hot, very soapy shower, and I need you

(01:34):
to not ask any questions. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Uh yeah, yeah, I don't. My cats don't do that.
And I'm lucky enough that it's been super rare that
I've been pooped on by a bird. However, I did
the other day swallow a bug like it flew directly
into the back of my throat and down my throat.
So yeah, so no amount of soapy water that could
fix that.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think we've learned that going outside to touch grass
is not always as healing as they would like you
to think. Stay inside, be an indoor kid.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, just take your vitamin D if you do that.
The amount of people I know who have to take
vitamin D supplements because we stay indoors all the time
is massive. Slay everybody else. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I actually do get outside, you know, at least a
couple times a day, which is largely because of my dog,
and honestly, I am thankful for it. It's just this
was this was a particularly upsetting moment for me this morning,
and it's not like it's the first you know what.
We before we started recording, Ariel and I were talking

(02:41):
about disney World. I got pooped on at disney World once.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Oh that's really funny because I also had a bug
flying directly into the back of my throat on the
Slinky Dog.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
So in my case, it was a uh oh. It
was also Hollywood Studios, because I think it was Hollywood Studios.
I think it was when they were having one of
the the candlelight processions, but they had had it at
Hollywood Studios that year. I think usually it's at Epcot,
but I think it was that. And I was sitting
on a bench under a little tree waiting for the

(03:12):
procession to start, and I got pooped on, and I thought, well,
this does not put me in the holiday spirit.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
No, uh no guilding the Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
No no, no, but but enough go back.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I don't like that, I said that.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
No, Well, it's okay, we'll just uh, we'll just pretend
it didn't happen. I'm not going to edit it out though.
But no, we're going to now now segue first before
we get into the show. We wanted to take a
moment to remember the artist John Romita Senior. He passed
away this week. He was in his nineties. He lived
a long, long time, very influential artist. He co created

(03:51):
some famous characters in Marvel, including Mary Jane Watson, you know,
Spider Man's girlfriend slash wife, depending upon which version of
Spider Man you're reading. And he also co created Wolverine,
one of the most popular Marvel characters of all time.
But yes, he passed away this week. We just wanted
to take a moment to remember someone who has created

(04:16):
an incredibly popular and long lasting character, a couple of
them that we still talk about today. In fact, one
of the bits we'll be talking about in our thirty
seconds or less ends up tapping into that in a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, sad news. So our thoughts in LOFE go out
to mister Ramda's family.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yes, and yeah, make sure you take a look into
the work he did, because, like I said, extremely influential stuff.
A lot of the characters that you are familiar with
would not exist, or at least wouldn't exist the way
they do without him. But with that behind us, I
think Ariel, if you are ready, we can head over

(05:03):
to thirty seconds or less.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Heck, I don't got to be ready for a full
minute because you've got to go first.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, half a minute if I do it right.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Halfoot Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm ready. Okay, I should be clever,
but I was anti clever.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Okay, Okay, here we go. What's a force so powerful
it can stop a DC villain or a Marvel superhero
in their tracks? A writer's strike? Yes, word is out
that both the upcoming Max mini series focusing on the
Penguin and the Disney Plus Daredevil series are temporarily on
hold as the writer's strike continues. Oh also, Disney's wonder

(05:41):
Man series is on hold, as well as the film
Thunderbolts plus Blade, which is competing with Fantastic Four for
the film delayed the most number of times.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
I know this is thirty seconds or less. But I
hate when news articles say indefinitely for stuff like this,
because they put indefinitely because they don't want to win.
And these strikes are going to be over, it's not
that they're gone forever. I hate it. I hate the clickbait. Okay,
So remember back when we were getting like Battleship and
a promise of a Tetris Reequill and all of these

(06:17):
board game movies, and then they kind of all went
away before they came to fruition. Well, one of them
might be holding on. It is said that Tim's story
is working on a Monopoly movie that had a previous
script about a young man who lived on Baltic Avenue
and went to make a fortune. But it sounds like

(06:37):
he's not sure where he wants the script to go.
He has way too many competing ideas. So we'll see
if this one comes to fruition, if they boardwalk it
or some insert clever monopoly thing here.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
If it passes go and collects two hundred dollars it, Jonathan,
or if it goes to jail.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Are you so good at that?

Speaker 2 (07:02):
I had time to think about it while you were talking. Okay,
here's my next one. The Sun has set on Gotham Knights,
the CW show that asked the question what happens to
Gotham after Batman dies? The answer is it gets one
more year and then it's all over. The show featured
characters like the Joker's daughter who actually turned out to
be two faces daughter, Batman's adopted son, and some other

(07:25):
folks that casual fans like me wouldn't know at all.
It wasn't related to the Gotham Knights video game.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
By the way, I'm so behind on all that, I
didn't even realize the sun had risen on it yet.
It's shame. It's shame, okay, but also falls in line
with DC's current plan for things. Okay. Atari Atari, that
old school gaming system is coming out with its first

(07:52):
twenty six hundred cartridge in over thirty years. The game
is mister Run and Jump about a dude who's going
after his doggie and falls into the dark realm. A
lot of our stories are gonna deal with the dark today,
but you can also play it on PC or more
modern consoles. But if you have an old Autari and

(08:13):
you've been going, man, I wish I could pull this
out and play stuff again. Well, now it's like gonna
be pertinent and irrelevant. You're gonna have a new game
for it.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Cool. I was an Atari twenty six hundred kids, so
I think that's neat. Okay. Dead Bull three is not
only still coming out, it's actually moved up the schedule
and Wolverine's gonna be in it. But one person who
won't see in the movie is Zazzi Beats, who played
Domino in Dead Bool two. And that's a real shame
because I thought she was great in that movie and

(08:41):
the character was tons of fun. Side fact, because of
the writer's strike, Reynolds isn't allowed to improvise on set,
but he might be able to do it in post
production if the strike's over by that.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
I that's so weird to me because improvisation is usually
not scripted.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Right, But Ryan Reynolds is credited as a writer for
the movie, so if he makes something new up on
the spot, he's technically writing for the film.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Oh wow, wow, I think they'd be better. Just a
positive at that point writing ha segue That favorite book
of Jonathan's Ready Player one. It's three seconds or less
You Can't You Can't Argue with Me, written by Ernest Klin.
The author Ernest Klin is get making a new book.

(09:31):
This one is called Bridge to Bat City and it's
about a young girl named Ope Leaf Flatts who befriends
a colony of music loving bats and then they move
to Austin and get accepted for all being weirdos. It
sounds delightful, apparently, the writer used to tell these kind
of stories to his kids, and then he was like, Oh,
I'm going to make a book about it. So they

(09:51):
call it like a mostly true tall modern day tall tale.
It's coming out in twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Four Yeah, I guess no word yet. If like ninety
eight percent of the book is just going to be
references to different.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Songs, all right, it would be cute.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, Well, here we go. The Leprechaun franchise, which yes
has gone both into the hood twice and into outer space,
features a malicious, murderous Leprechaun slashing his way toward a
pot of goole. Now lions Gate is working on a
new entry. Sadly, Warwick Davis, who originated the role, isn't
expected to return. He wasn't in the last two films

(10:28):
that were in twenty fourteen and twenty eighteen either, And
I don't think Jennifer Andiston is going to be in
it either. She was in the first one.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
By the way, Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't
watch Leprecaun too scary?

Speaker 2 (10:42):
List Well it's trust me, Ariel. It's not too scary,
but it's also not good, so you don't need to
watch it.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
I'm I'm scared by killer clowns about her space, and
I'm still scared by Jaws in sometimes Jurassic Park. It's
too scary.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, fair enough?

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well, from lions Gate to DreamWorks, DreamWorks and Animation and
Netflix are partnering up for a new cartoon, Orion and
the Dark, about a young boy named Oriyan, who is
very anxious and has a lot of fears that they
call irrational fears, like bees and gutter clowns, falling off
a cliff. Some of those I think, like falling off
a cliff, I feel is a reasonable fear, but regardless,

(11:19):
his biggest fear is the Dark. I relate to that.
I think I've talked about it on the show before. However,
at one night, he is visited by the Dark, who
takes him on like a little Nemo kind of tour
around the world for Dark Adventures, and he learns it's
not something to be scared of. The open Like the
first look pictures look actually really cute. So maybe they're

(11:41):
helping me through my fears.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Maybe, but they just gave me a new fear of
clown bees. All right, Oh no, hey, you got last
of us on my haunted house. Hey, you got a
haunted house on my Last of Us? Say yep. Universal
is bringing us a Last of Us inspired haunt to
Halloween horror Nights at Universal Studios parks in Los Angeles
and in Orlando, Florida. The attractions will be based on

(12:06):
the games, not the mini series, so don't expect Zaddy
Pedro Pascal to pop out at you sucks. The attractions
open in early September, so get ready to run from
clickers and maniacs.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
That sounds delightful and scary. Hey you got bad cartoons
on my Scooby doo. Hey you guys give me.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Too my back cart got Oh well, Velma, isn't it?
It is?

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Apparently Velma, despite getting completely panned for the first season,
is getting a second season. You know why because once
everybody heard how bad it was, they're all like, well,
I have to see for myself, and so they all
watched it. So this goes to show you that sometimes
spite watching or hate watching the show to see how
bad it is will have bad adverse effects.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay, I'm sorry, Jonathan, I take responsibility for my part
in bringing Velma back. Actually, I think we had even
heard rumors before Velma season one was over that they
were already going to green light a season two. So
this just confirms what we were already kind of suspecting.
But it doesn't make it any better.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
No, And like the writer's strike gave them the perfect.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Out, Yeah, and they didn't take it.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Take it well.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Before we get into all the news items, this is
where we usually talk about stuff what we have watched, Ariel,
you got a few on here. I see why don'd
you talk about them? Sure?

Speaker 1 (13:30):
So I watched a lot of things last weekend. In
this week, First of all, I finished Last of Us.
There's a half of one episode I didn't watch because
I saw where it was going, and then I read
the plot for it and went, nope, these are topics
that I don't want to do.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, No, beyond traumatic for you, and that is perfectly
that's a perfectly acceptable thing to have chosen to do.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yes. However, I loved the series. I thought it was
so well done. You know it's not. There are very
happy moments, which I think is what makes it leaps
and bounds above the Walking Dead is like it is
more hopeful. It's also very hard at times, but I
thought super well done. I'm glad I finished it. Also,
I watched Power Rangers once and always. We had talked

(14:17):
about that a while ago on the show, which was
the Power Rangers thing where they get new people in
or sorry, oh lord, my air conditioning just went on everybody,
and I've lost my mind. The Power Rangers movie for Netflix,
where it's the original Black Ranger and Blue Ranger and
then they have like the second edition Red and Pink

(14:38):
Rangers come in and the Yellow Rangers daughter and it's
kind of like a memorial to Trainy the Yellow Ranger.
It was cute. It was a very long og Power
Rangers episode with some bizarre cgi interesting oh yeah, like
if you like Power Rangers then it was fun, not good,

(15:01):
but fun. And then also I watched The Little Mermaid.
I went in not yeah, not. I wasn't sure whether
I would be super critical because so far the live
action remakes haven't really hit me very well. Aladdin was
the best of them in my mind, and that was
still just okay, or whether I was going to just

(15:23):
nostalgically really love it because the Little Mermaid, for good
and for bad, was such a part of my life
and I've gone on like this large winding, evolutionary journey
of my thoughts on the property, but I actually really
enjoyed it. So there are a lot of shot for
shot moments, and like the first forty minutes of the

(15:44):
movie are pretty slow because it's a lot of setup
and a lot of like going through the ocean, and
it's beautiful and all that. But then they get to
the middle. Ariel gets to the mainland with her legs
right and turns into a freaking Rogers and Hammerstein's musical.
Like everything once she was on land was so wonderful.

(16:07):
I know some people don't like the scuttle Butt song,
which is scuttle and Sebastian rapping. I honestly thought it
kind of fit the way they did it give it
like a very like Sondheim modern general sort of a
feel to me at a time in the movie where
I felt like they would want to be hurrying up
so they would want to be talking faster, rapping all

(16:28):
of that. I absolutely loved. The lyrics they changed were fine.
Some of them could have been changed lest but again
it was totally fine. It didn't matter. And then they
added a little tweak to the very end, which kind
of gave the story like a moral or a message
that to my husband, who saw this with me because

(16:49):
he loves me very much, made the entire remake worth
it to him. So really liked it. I think it
is now the best of the live action remakes. I
also tried to watch try Gun, but the voiceover version
doesn't come out till next week, and I didn't get
to watch the Tony's, but I did totally watch the
Shucked and the Sweeney Todd performances from it.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
And what did you think?

Speaker 1 (17:12):
That's a lot of uh of the Tonies.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, of the of the performances.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Oh, Sweeney Todd I thought was great, Josh Grobin didn't
sound too opera e and Gatton Mattasaro Dustin from Stranger
Things whose name I have butchered was wonderful and everybody
was super super great. Shucked was pretty dang funny. I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna lie. Apparently the story takes

(17:39):
place in Cobb County because it's a corn musical.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, but not not Cobb County, Georgia. I amagine no.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
But it took me like a full sixty seconds to
realize that, because again, one of my one of the
people I know from back when I did community theater
as a teenager is in shocked. He's he's like this sad,
sap romantic lead. I think, dude, but no, it was
really cute and bizarre and corny. You should check it out, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I keep everything I've heard about it makes it
sound like it's kind of my bag. Like I love
puns and I love corny jokes, and obviously this one
has literally tons of both, and I would really dig it,
I'm sure. I Just part of me is like thinking
I want to experience it for the first time when
I actually see it on stage, and part of me

(18:32):
is thinking, maybe I should dive in and listen to
the soundtrack first. I go back and forth. I've done
both for different types of musicals, and yeah, I haven't
decided yet if that's what I'm gonna do so, but
I do know I will eventually see it. It's just
a question of when.

Speaker 1 (18:48):
You should watch the number from the Tonys, because that
might give you a better idea of which way you
want to go.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Okay, yeah, because I mean one number that's not gonna
that's not gonna ruin everything. For me, I didn't really
watch anything geeky this week. It has been a very
very busy week for me from work, and so I
just I was wiped out at the end of every
single day. I did watch quite a bit of the

(19:17):
previews and the trailers for various games as part of
the Summer Game Fest and the kind of surrounding conferences
and presentations. So like, I watched the Starfield presentation, and
that thing looks amazing. I was very very skeptical of it.
That's the game from Bethesda, the same company that does
Skyrim and the Fallout series. I wasn't sure what to think,

(19:42):
but it looks really cool. I worry that it's a
bit too wide open, that without more direction, it may
feel like you aren't sure what to do. And part
of me is like, yeah, it's awesome to be able
to do anything. But then if you don't have any
real direction, you may just feel like low lost in
options and you never really do anything. So I don't

(20:04):
know how that's going to play out when the game
goes live, but I will say it looks. It looks fun.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
So I didn't watch that is it is it world
exploratory or is it more like like a like a
mass effect sort of storyline, so sort of storyline.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
There's there is a storyline of sorts, at least of
some nature to it. But imagine that you have a
galaxy that's full of one thousand worlds and you can
visit them. You can get in a ship and you
can travel to them. The distance you can travel is
dependent upon the drive on your ship, and you can

(20:44):
upgrade that drive as you earn credits in the game. Uh,
But you can go and visit these things. You can
go do side quests, you can be a pirate, you
can be a smuggler, you can do all this kind
of stuff. Or you could just focus on like the
main storyline missions. But it looks to me like it's
like think of it like like a game like Skyrim,

(21:07):
like especially Skyrim, where yeah, there's a narrative, there's a story,
but you could totally turn your back on that story
and just focus on other stuff for your entire playthrough
and never feel like you missed out. You'll you might
you'll eventually peter out just because you've played for so long.
And that's kind of what I'm worried about with Starfield,

(21:27):
because I'm definitely one of those people who when I
play a game, if I come across a side quest,
I'm immediately diverted, Like I don't. I'm like, I need
to finish this before I go any further in the story,
because what if by going further in the story, I
cut off my ability to do the side quest. So
games like that I find a little like I almost

(21:49):
never finish them because I get so bogged down and
trying to do all the side quests. So I don't
know how I'm gonna feel about it. Ultimately, it does
look like it'll be fun, so I'll probably end up
getting it when it comes out, and they have a
couple of different special editions that look really cool too,
But yeah, I'm a bit concerned it'll be another one
of those titles where I start playing and then you know,

(22:10):
two hundred hours in, I haven't gotten really that far
in the story, and I just put it down and
never pick it up again.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
And that's kind of what happened to me is Skyrim.
It was so open world, and it was like my
first video like my first proper video game that I
owned that like, I didn't go back to it, which
is why I keep saying I need to go and
replace Skyrim. But even with like mass effect, I ended
up looking up like a, here's the order you need
to do all your quests in to end where you

(22:37):
can find them to make sure that I wouldn't block
off those things because I wanted the very best outcome
for my character.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
It might be cheating now I understand that, though, I
mean I totally get that. It's yeah, it's it's a
it's a tough thing to to really resist, right uh.
Like it's again, you're given all these choices. It's like
if you're doing a Choose your own adventure game or

(23:05):
book rather and you're reading through and you get to
an ending and you're like, oh, I bet that's not
the best ending. And you know, it's just that feeling
like you want the best outcome and yeah, you could
just do a full replay, but that's a lot of investment.
So I totally get it, Like I've been there, and
you know, it's very frustrating to have put that much

(23:26):
time into a game and then realize, oh, this isn't
the good ending, Like oh man, what did I do?
Where did I go wrong? And Yeah, very frustrating experience.
I will say one other shout out, I want to
give it, we didn't really well. Two shout outs. First
of all, see if Thieves has an expansion coming out
that has the Monkey Island characters in it and the

(23:50):
music and everything. Like, they had a little preview where
you get to go to Monkey Island, or rather you
get to go to an island where the characters from
Monkey Island are on there, including Guybrush, three BOYD, world
Famous Pirate, and I was like, this is amazing that
they did this crossover because I love the Monkey Island series.
The other thing is there's a game called South of
Midnight that you only get to really see a cinematic

(24:13):
from that, but my gosh, that game looks amazing and
atmospheric and creepy and filled with like the mythology of
Louisiana and the Bayou, and man, I am eager to
see more of South of Midnight.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
I think I think there was no this is not
the one I was thinking of. There was another kind
of weird, creepy Western game that came out I think
last year that was getting confused with Anyhow, I have
to definitely check out those trailers for sure, because they
sound like they'd be for me as well. Yeah, so

(24:53):
I'm sorry you didn't get to watch more giky things,
but a full weekend of video games is up there.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, no, it's pretty geeky. It's just that that happened
to be also for work, so it was I probably
would have watched them anyway, let's be honest. But like
you know, I was covering it because we didn't get
E three this year. I was covering that kind of
to talk about what stuff was coming out despite the
fact that there's no E three, and and sort of
how Summer Game Fest has kind of taken the torch

(25:24):
that was dropped by E three, and whether E three
will be back again in the future. We don't know.
Speaking of things we don't know, I've got a list
of projects that are currently facing delays because of the
writer's strike. This actually plays into like the first two
stories in our lineup, because first I'm gonna go more general,

(25:46):
and then we're gonna talk about Disney, particularly because as
we know, Disney owns about half of all the entertainment
out there, So we'll start with the other half first.
So the writer's strike still going on, and here are
some of the things that have been impacted. First of all,
Late Night TV Saturday Night Live, that kind of stuff.

(26:08):
We knew that was going to be impacted. It was
impacted right away. It continues to be so. But also
a Night of the Seven Kingdoms The Hedge Night, which
is a Game of Throne spinoff that you may or
may not have known what was happening. It's been delayed.
George R. R. Martin has expressed his support for the

(26:28):
writers with that regard. American Dad and Family Guy are
both delayed. Seth is really supportive of writers as well.
Cobra Kai is now delayed. This one really hurts. Severance
is now delayed. I can't wait to see what happens
in season two of Severance, but I'm gonna have to

(26:51):
Stranger things has been delayed. Yellowjackets got one day into
work on season three when the strike happened, so it's delayed.
And Good Omens is not delayed because it was already
shot by the time the writer's strike happened. But because
of the writer's strike, Neil Gaiman will not be participating

(27:12):
in promoting the series, which he says really hurts, but
he's abiding by the writer's strike. He is part of
the Writer's Guild of America, so that's a rundown of
the non Disney stuff what has been delayed.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
That's a lot but also expected.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, and that list is just going to get longer,
I mean the longer the strike goes on. And if
the sag Aftra union strikes as well, it'll be an
even bigger impact obviously. But then we talk about Disney.
So gosh, Disney announced a whole bunch of changes to
its schedule. And you know that Disney occasionally comes out

(27:57):
and puts these incredibly ambitious timeline lines down, like we've
seen it with Marvel, We've seen it with Star Wars,
and sometimes things go wrong and the plans change, and
that has happened big time because partly because of the
writer's strike. There may be other reasons as well, but
I assume the writer strike is playing a big part

(28:18):
of it.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, except for Deadpool, which has gotten moved up, yes,
which is which is weird because of what you previously
told us about him like having to go put put
in improvn post.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Well, it sounds like what they're doing right now is
they're sticking strictly to the script as written, and they're
just doing the script as written. And if the strike
ends while they're still going through post production. Because Deadpool
wears a mask, Reynolds can go in and just record
additional dialogue that is played over a masked Deadpool and

(29:00):
throw in improvised lines after the fact. Of course, it
will still have to fit within the context of the scene.
But yeah, it's now going to be on May third,
twenty twenty four. Previously it had been scheduled for November
of twenty twenty four, So that's one exception. Everything else, though,
is different. Like Captain America, Brave New World has been
pushed back from May of next year to July. Thunderbolts

(29:24):
was in July, now it's pushed to December of next year. Blade,
which once again is delayed, was September of twenty twenty four,
now it's Valentine's Day twenty twenty five. Fantastic four got
pushed again. It was February twenty twenty five. It's been
pushed to May second, twenty twenty five. Avatar three was

(29:46):
supposed to be at the end of twenty twenty four,
now'll be the end of twenty twenty five. Avatar four
was supposed to be twenty twenty six, Now it's twenty
twenty nine, so three years difference. Avatar five was supposed
to be twenty twenty eight, now it's twenty thirty one.
I can't believe we're talking that far out at this point.

(30:07):
You know that date's gonna change. Avengers The Kang Dynasty
was supposed to be twenty twenty five, Now it'll be
May first, twenty twenty six. And Avenger Secret Wars was
supposed to be twenty twenty six, now it's going to
be twenty twenty seven. There's an untitled Star Wars film
that was supposed to come out in December of twenty
twenty five, now it'll be May twenty twenty six. And

(30:28):
then a second untitled Star Wars film was added for
December twenty twenty six, so we'll get two Star Wars
movies that year for some reason, and then a third
one the following year.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
I'm already tired.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah. I also didn't mention Thunderbolts, which has been delayed,
and wonder Man, which has been delayed, and Daredevil Born Again.
Oh I mentioned. Yeah, Yeah, that's true. I true, but yeah,
those are those are all delayed too, And yeah, it's
just it's obviously one of the dangers when you announ
these very ambitious slates that things can change and you know,

(31:04):
everything can shift around. I think also the Avenger stuff,
like we've talked about this that Jonathan Major's and the
legal issues that he faces could potentially be playing a
part in that. So this isn't all necessarily just due
to the writer's strike. There are probably other elements. I mean,
I can't imagine the writer's strike is having that big

(31:24):
of an effect on the Avatar films, apart from the
fact that those are so cgi heavy.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
I mean, it could be because yeah, they can't be
writing on it. I don't know, I don't know. You know,
everything's going to change again if SAYAFRA goes into a
strike anyhow.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
So that's true. But yeah, that's kind of I mean,
like it's important to kind of remember at the end
of the day. Yes, it's frustrating to see stuff you
were looking forward to get pushed further in the future,
but ultimately, if it means that writers are going to
have their issues addressed, that's okay. It's a small price

(32:05):
to pay.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Listen. Listen. I will admit that I slightly disassociated once
you said Fantastic four was delayed to twenty twenty five.
I'm like, there's still more chance for me to get
cast as Ben Grimm. I don't actually know if that's true.
I don't know how many people they've cast already.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
I still think that you being the rock of Yancey
Street is a long shot, Ariel. I love you to death,
but it is it look like.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
I know it's a long shot. I know that it's
probably not even smart casting, but it can be a
thing that I would like to do.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Anyhow Well, we've got plenty of other news to talk
about that doesn't necessarily involve the writer's strike. And one
thing that I thought was interesting is that so the
Golden Globe Awards, which used to be the domain of
the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has been through the ringer

(33:01):
the last couple of years, with you know, conversations about
how how much there was a lack of diversity in
representation in nominations and in presenters and all that sort
of stuff, and it sort of was besieged by critics.
And something interesting is happening now where the Golon Gloves

(33:23):
is no longer going to be a Hollywood Foreign Press
Association presentation.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
No, it's going to be for profit.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, Dick Clark Productions has bought it.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
I realize that for profit means that they're going to
try to get like sponsorship and commercial and things like
that for it, but it for some reason, my brain
just jumps immediate to immediately to like the biggest buyers
get the best, best rewards or something.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Well, if we're I mean, if we're being a real areal,
that's kind of what awards are like today. I mean,
like Oscars. It's no secret that when Oscar season comes around,
movie studios spend a whole lot of money trying to
campaign for their films and their stars to be nominated
and to win. So yeah, I mean, like I'm sour

(34:16):
on awards in general because I often feel that they
aren't really genuine, that they don't really go to necessarily
the person or the project that most deserves them. I
also find it kind of weird to pit art and
artists against each other, Like I don't like to think

(34:36):
of art as being competitive, and that's part of the
problem I have with it. But yeah, I definitely think
that if the Golden Globes were to remain relevant, there
did need to be a change. It just shocked me
that it was going to be like literally the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association essentially dissolving and this Dick Clark Production's
coming in to take it over.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah. Well, I mean some of the people from the
form press are coming over to this new some of
them to the new system.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, speaking of awards shows and kind of paying to play,
have you been following Game Changers trying to get an Emmy?

Speaker 2 (35:15):
No? I did not even know about this.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
So yeah, So Hank Green, who listeners. If you don't
know who he is, I know him mainly from TikTok
of like I know he does other stuff, but he
does like how did this video happen? Let me explain
the magic behind this or the science behind this. He's
kind of like an Adam Conover type.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
But yeah, older people all out there you know him
because he's He and his brother have had a YouTube
series for literally years.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah. Anyhow, he had mentioned that Game Changers, which is
the game show that changes every time on Dropout TV,
should get an Emmy, and so Samuraich, who owns the company,
was like, you know what, maybe we'll try. Now they
got in there. They got in their submission a little
bit late, and because of the writers strike, all of

(36:01):
the money that they had for their four year consideration
campaign to try to get momentum on gaining that Emmy,
because like you said, there's legit campaigning for these awards,
they have instead donated to the Entertainment Community Fund to
help out artists during the writers strike. So they're asking
for people, if you like Game Changers and you think

(36:23):
it should win an Emmy, to tweet about it with
hashtag Emmy for Game Changers or any for game Changer,
which is kind of interesting because it just goes back
to the things we talked about about campaigning and all
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, that show, by the way, is a real joy
because the whole game of the show is to figure
out what the game is. Right.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Sometimes sometimes they tell you upfront.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
That's true, but more often than not, what happens is
you've got the competitors who are sitting there and like
the gimmick is, you don't know what the game is
when you go into it, and that you will be told,
possibly at the very beginning, or the game is to
figure out what the game is, and you might be
asked questions and you'll give answers and you kind of

(37:07):
judge by the response to your answers about whether or
not you're doing the right thing. In other cases, like
you were saying Ariel like the like it's it's it's
a giveaway at the at the very beginning, like yes,
this game is all about making sounds based upon a prompt,
like you have to make a sound with your human
body and human voice that is based off this prompt

(37:29):
and the best. If it's good, then Sam Reisch will
give you points, and if it's not, then he'll just
be a real jerk about it.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Or like their Christmas Price game where they have to
explain you're going to open a box and it's going
to have something in it, either a good prize or
a bad thing you have to do, and you've got
to try to get people to steal it or not
steal it, depending on whether you want to keep it
or not.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, so a light elephant type of thing.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, if you're a fan of drop out like us
or game changers like us, you know, help help them
out because they're grass rotten their amy nod. But also
if you aren't and you're like, huh, maybe I want
to check it out. It is not safe for kids.
Don't let your kids watch it?

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yes, all right, So next up, we're going to talk
about a couple of games that were shown off this
past week, ones that I did not mention when we
were chatting about stuff we've seen. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, from here on out, it's the
oops all trailers.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's all trailers. In fact, I
don't know why I put you know what, After we
do the two that I have listed, let's do the
last one on the list too, because it's also a
video game trailer, and I don't know why I didn't
schedule it properly. Okay, that's a little bit behind the scenes.
I organized the show lineup and I did a whoopsie.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
I put that last one in.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
So yeah, but I didn't change its order, all right,
And this way we'll end with a horror movie the
way we're supposed to. Okay, So first up is we
got a trailer for a new entry in the Faisel franchise,
now Fable. I don't know how many of y'all have
played the Fable games. The first one was a lot

(39:06):
of fun. The concept was to have this very open
kind of game system, fantasy world, lots of magic, and
the choices you made would determine your character's fate, like
they could become more and more saintly, are more and
more evil, and your appearance would change based on that.

(39:27):
It's very similar to what you would see in games
like Knights in the Old Republic, Fable great game, Fable two,
still a pretty good game. Fable three. Not a lot
of people like Fable three. And then it went quiet
for more than a decade, and we got a teaser
for the new Fable game and it has a particularly
beloved nerdy actor in it.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, Richard Aoati, who is Moss in the IT crowd.
He also does Travelman and tech Man jadget Man, Yeah,
Gadget Adgetman. He's kind of like the narrator of this
new trailer. First of all, the only memories I have
of the first Fable game or that your character had
to eat food at certain points. And one of my

(40:13):
dear friends was visiting and playing the game. We were
all watching him and we kept feeding him chips, and
every time we'd feed him a chip while he was
playing the game, he'd eat with as his character. It
was ridiculous fun, that's all I remember from the original.
But yeah, Richard Aiawati is kind of the the narrator
of the trailer. You find out throughout the trailer. Maybe

(40:35):
also a bad guy. I'm not sure, it depends. It
depends on your view of various Fables and fairy tales.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Definitely, you definitely find out that he's taller than you
would have expected.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yes, yes, Honestly, this trailer made me really excited to
play this new Fable game, despite the fact that I
did not personally play the first one. Although I will
say like his face had some serious uncanny valley going on,
like his eyes in his mouth did not feel like
they belonged on the rest of his head.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah. Well, and I don't know if he even appears
in the game or if that was literally just made
as a teaser and that's all we'll ever see. I
don't know one way or the other. But I do
know that this version, this title of Fable is coming
from a different game studio than the one that made
the original trilogy, but it definitely seems to have that

(41:31):
quirky sense of humor that I associate with the Fable games.
So I too, am eager to get a chance to
see some more from this.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
One, although if Richard Ayoadi is not in it, I
might put down the game and never played again.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Totally I get it. Well. The next one that we
have is if you thought Goat Simulator was absurd fun
but seriously lacking in firepower, could I interest you in
Squirrel with a.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (42:03):
You could, although I would I would say like, if
you want to up the firepower from Goat Simulator, you
want to do the untitled Goose game because you can
pick up a knife and chase people with that. That's
the middle step between Goat Simulator and score with a gun.
But yes, I didn't know this game was coming out.
Apparently it was announced that it was happening like last year,

(42:25):
and I completely missed it. And it is a hitman
drops a gun and a squirrel picks it up and
goes on a rampage. Like why why is this a game?

Speaker 2 (42:35):
And if you're thinking, hey, a scroll is so small
if it were to fire a gun, the gun would
end up creating such force that it would shoot the
squirrel backward. Well guess what you just latched onto a
fundamental component of the game's mechanics.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
So interesting, so interesting and really like. I have friends
who are homeowners who hate squirrels because they have a
real squirrel problem. I don't hate squirrels. Some times I
wish they would leave my stuff alone, but I think
they're pretty cute. But for these people who who like
squirrels are their arch nemesis, I feel like this game
is a nightmare for them.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah. No, it's It's like the equivalent of being playing
Dead for daylight, Dead by Daylight for them. The trailer
is goofy. I mean honestly, as I was watching and
I was like, this looks like the type of game
where I appreciate the concept more than I would actually
enjoy playing the game. So, while I don't plan on

(43:34):
picking this one up, kudos to game developers for continuing
to come up with outside the box thinking when it
comes to what's a good game concept. I mean, think
about that someone had to come up with this idea
and then convince other people that that idea was good
enough to pour the time and resources in necessary to

(43:54):
make a game out of it.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah. Yeah, you know what, though, I bet a lot
of people are gonna play it.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Sure, Yeah, I honestly think like this if the game
is well one if the game is either really good
or coincident paradoxically, if the game is really bad. I
have a feeling it's gonna be a big hit with
like certain YouTube and Twitch streaming channels.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, I I don't know if I'm gonna play it.
I did play some Goat simulator and I also played
some untitled Goose game, and I just I got frustrated
with both of them.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
The controls and the camera are both weird in both
of those games.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah. Yeah, But something you might get frustrated with but
I would not is the new lamp Laders League gig
that's coming out, which I mistitled on our show line up,
which is like a turn based monster Huntererye Rogues Gallery

(45:03):
sort of fun thing.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, it's a squad based game, so if you're like
playing those games where you have four or five members
on your squad and in a turn you can move
people or get them into cover or fire that kind
of thing. But these are characters who are all kind
of misfits and outcasts, and they have different abilities. So

(45:27):
like you have one character who's best at at sort
of sneaky flanking maneuvers, and you know characters who are
better at that brute force that type of thing, and
it's it's all about putting together the right combination of
characters and tactics to take down whatever enemies you're going
up against. I'm just terrible at those games, which is

(45:47):
why I think the aesthetic looks amazing. It has sort
of a steam punky kind of feel to it, or
at least or at least a sort of fantasy punky
kind of feel to it, like if it were set
in the eighteen hundreds kind of era, and I thought
it looked neat. But I just I'm just I'm terrible

(46:08):
at those games.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
I'm not always the best at them either. I'm pretty
good at like where it's where you just have a
turn order, so like the Penny Arcade games, which honestly,
when I first started watching this trailer, I thought this
was a new Penny Arcade game and I was super
excited about it. But at least one of those is
also turn based, and maybe both of them I don't

(46:32):
remember now it's been a while. But like I can,
I can figure out the best move for the person
whose turn it is, but sometimes knowing how to equip
my team is harder. Like I struggled with that again
in Mass Effect. I keep going back to Mass Effect.
It's one of the few games that I've like finished
finished the entire series of I play a lot of

(46:54):
games I'm not and then I get distracted with something
shiny and I don't finish them. But uh, yeah, I'm
super into this. I'd be more into it if it
were another penny Ardcade game, but I'm super into this.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Well you know what, Uh, I think it looks great
for what it is. So maybe I'll be one of
those that I'll again watch playthroughs on YouTube because often
that's what that's how where my go to is for
games where I just I'm like, I appreciate this, but
I know that it's not It doesn't play to my
strength and I would find it frustrating. I feel the
same way about like competitive shooters. I just know I'm

(47:34):
you know, I'm turning forty eight pretty soon. I am
not of the age where I have the twitch skills
to match up against the young'ins out there, so for
me that there's no point in playing those games. I
would just be bullet Sponge and uh. But I like
watching I like watching people who are really good at them,
so probably gonna feel the same way about this one.

(47:56):
But maybe if I watch enough of it and I think, hey,
maybe this is the game get me into that genre
and that style of games, maybe that's the one I
pick up. Although I would have guessed that if any
game would have done that, it would have been the
the Mario versus Rabids games.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Yeah, that's an interesting one. Honestly, I don't I don't
have I have time for games, but I have a
hard time being like, okay, let me go down and
turn on my game system and start a game right now.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, I hear that. Well, let's talk a bit about
all the trailers for passive entertainment now that we're done
with the game stuff. And first up is the trailer
for Carl's Date, which I assume has been attached to Elemental.
So some of y'all listening to this may have already
seen it.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
It has in fact been attached to Elemental.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, so so for some of you, this isn't news,
this is olds because you already saw it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
So apparently there's this old guy in Disney name with
a dog, and.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
You are killing me right now going on a date.
You're killing so obviously this is Carl from Pixars UP,
and I would not be.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Able to tell you that was his name in a vacuum, Oh.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
My gosh, and is he is betraying his deceased wife,
the love of his life and going on a date.
And I hated this. I hated it. I hated it,
and like, yes, I know people should be allowed to
move on, and that he had been grieving for her,

(49:37):
and that the end of UP was kind of his
reconciliation of grief, and I get all of that, but
she she gave him a grape soda pop pen aeriel.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
I don't understand that. But listen, listen, Jonathan. It's been
over ten years since his wife passed away in UP,
because UP happened in two thousand and nine.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
And now I don't know if I don't know if
it's okay. It can't be here for a year because
Doug is spry as hell. There's no way that dog
would still be that sprite ten years later.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Dick, Dick van Dyke, you know, like anyhow, he was
seventy eight in UP according to IMDb, so he could
be eighty eight, and so there are some very sprite
eighty ninety. No, but Van Dyke is a very Doug
is the dog.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Okay, Doug is the dog. Doug is in Doug is
in Up. And dogs do not age gracefully over the
course of the decade.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
So okay, well touche there, Jonathan. You got me. However, I,
as someone who has absolutely no emotional connection to this character,
I think it's fine that he's able.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
To move on. And because she hasn't watched it, she
has not watched it. Y'all where memories When you watch
the first ten minutes of Up, and it absolutely wrecks
you emotionally, like angry, crying, sobs racking your body in
the theater, to the point where the little kid next

(51:18):
to you says to their mommy, Mommy, the people next
to me are crying. Then it's very hard to let
go of that.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
You're a you're really selling this movie to me, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
It's it's a great movie. But yes, those first two
let me put to you. I'll tell you a little story.
My wife and I we were on a Disney cruise
and we were getting ready to go on an excursion.
Now we had already seen Up many times, so we're
getting ready to go on an excursion. When you go
on an excursion, you have to meet in a common
area in the ship, and different excursions meet in different spots.

(51:51):
So we were told to meet in this one lounge.
So we all go and we sit down in the
lounge and as we sit down, Up begins to play,
and everybody in that lounge starts to kind of give
side glances to each other and shift nervously in their
seats because we're all wondering will the excursion leave before
things get tragic in the intro to Up? And the

(52:12):
answer to that was no, the excursions did not leave,
And so when we were all getting on the buses,
we were doing so crying.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
I mean, that sounds horrible. Why would I want to
do that to myself? Jonathan? Can I skip the first
ten minutes of Off and just watch the rest?

Speaker 2 (52:28):
You absolutely can't, because the entire to understand why things
are the way they are, you have to have seen
those first ten minutes and.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Already understand why they are the way they are. This
man had a love of his life and she passed away,
and it's very sad.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
But it's also very beautiful. And that's why I think, like,
to me, the first ten minutes of up like, I
wouldn't change a thing. It is incredibly tragic and emotionally
traumatizing and important. It's like, it's like if you were like, well,
why don't we do Bambi but not have his mom
get killed? Cool spoiler by the way, No, how could

(53:07):
you know? They're making the live action Bambi, So some
people out there may not have seen the original and
they might not know.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I mean that's true. Maybe maybe something different will have
Maybe we'll think the mom died in the in the
live action remake, but she'll actually be alive, and that
would be the best remake ever.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
I think the important thing to realize is that Carl
should have died a widow, a widower, and never gone
on another date. Ever.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Again, that's so flipp and mean, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I mean she deserved better, man.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Anyhow, Oh maybe maybe Earth also deserves better. In Disney
and Pixar's new feature Ilio Ellio, Ilio Elio about a
young boy who accidentally, well he's not act deadly abducted.
He's purposefully abducted by aliens, but it's due to a

(54:04):
mis understanding and communication about how Earth works.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
On the the aliens assume that Alio is the leader
when they're like take me to your leader kind of stuff.
They think he's the one, and although he attempts to
explain that that's not the case, he rapidly backtracks when
he discovers that that if they don't think he's the one,

(54:31):
things are going to go poorly for him.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Yeah, yeah, they're This trailer looks pretty cute to me.
It's kind of like a mix between Men in Black
and like the prequel Senate scenes from Star Wars. Yeah,
but there's some like surprisingly dark little moments in it.

(54:55):
They aren't scary, but they're definitely like dark humor in
this trailer that really one of the aliens talks about
consuming its parental figure, which is not unheard of in
the animal world, but a little a little disturbing when
you hear it from Assension talking being.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Yeah, but then he also explains that that's not something
his species normally does. It's just it's just sort of
the hymn thing.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Yeah, but that's extra creepy though.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
That's why it's a joke.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Like it surprised me, honestly, that was in a Disney
Pixar movie.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
But we so it reminds me of a couple of
things too. So it reminds me a little bit of
Laser Team, which was from Rooster Teeth, and that the
plot of that is that aliens come down, like they
send a suit of powered armor to Earth that's meant
to go to a specific champion, but instead this group

(55:49):
of idiots for idiots accidentally ends up each putting on
a part of the armor and it bonds with each
of them and they have to become the Earth champion
based on an alien. And then it also reminds me
of an episode of a British sci fi comedy series
called Hyperdrive, which is sort of good and sort of not,

(56:11):
like it's it's okay. It's it's got Nick Frost in
it and he's great in it, but the scripts are
just okay for the most part. But anyway, there's an
episode where people's people are put into peril for the
like entertainment of aliens. They're like viewing it like it's
reality TV. So it's it's making me think of kind
of those things too.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Yeah, yeah, I can totally see that. Honestly, it looks
it looks pretty cute. It does have a very rounded
art style, so like Luca good dinosaur style to it.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
Yeah, the ideas are not like photorealistic humans in.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
This one, No, but it looks charming kind of.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
Also reminds me a little bit of of the style
of like Turning Red.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Yes, definitely the style of Turning Red, which I quite enjoyed.
So hopefully Ilia will be just as awesome. Something else
that looks I guess charming is the right word. It
looks charming to me is Pnemona.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah, this trailer is for Netflix Films, based off a
graphic novel, and it looks really amusing and entertaining to me.
Basic premise is that it's a well it's a computer
animated film, just like Elo and the Atrocity. That is
Carl's Date and Naemona is about a young woman who

(57:34):
is a shape shifter and is ready to be a villain,
like the world has treated her poorly and she's just
she's chomping at the bit to be a bad guy.
She just needs a bigger bad guy to latch onto
and become a sidekick, and she thinks she's found one.
Only that bad guy doesn't consider himself to be a
bad guy. He feels like he's completely misunderstood and has

(57:57):
been framed, and so it's kind of a mismatched buddy
comedy sort of thing. And it looks, it looks really good.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Did you say chomping at the bit because she shape
shifts into various animals.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Well, yeah, and I also called her a shape shifter,
but yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah, but chomping at the bit anyhow, like you could
shape shift into different people, you could just be odo
from deep sets.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
That's true, that's true. We see her initially shape shift
into a rhinoceros. Everything she turns into is pinkish, by
the way, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Which is adorable. From reading the description of the show
a little bit, it's possible that the person that she
gloms onto is actually hunting her. Well we'll see, Like
that's not a certainty, but yeah, it looks. It looks
a little edgy, a little cheeky, and very cute. And

(58:50):
I almost didn't watch this trailer, but then you put
it in our lineup and I'm really really glad you did.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Yeah, me too, Like it was one of those things
where at the last minute I just happened to notice
it when I is trolling YouTube and I saw that
and I thought, well, I'll give it a try, and
as I watched it, I thought, this is this is
I mean, it looks really good, Like the animation looks
really good and like to the level of quality that
I would associate with something like a Pixar But it's

(59:17):
not a Pixar film, And uh yeah, that's what really
dro you know, pulled me into it initially. And I
like the character designs too. I thought the character designs
looked really fun. So I'm glad that I'm glad checked
it out. I do look forward to seeing that.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Right next, we're going to talk about Landscape with an
Invisible Hand, which is a movie that, uh is going
back to the whole alien thing again. Yes, it's like
a it. The trailer reads like a lighthearted teeny bopper
Black Mirror or an episode of The Orville.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Totally. Yeah, yeah, I can totally get the Black Mirror vibes. Yeah,
the the gimmick as you discover in the trailer, like
it's first set up like it's a teenage romantic comedy,
coming of age kind of film, but then as it
plays on, you realize, like these kids are actually you know,

(01:00:15):
maybe they once had a genuine crush on each other,
but they've kind of moved away from that. However, the
human race is under the uh I was gonna say thumb,
but really it's like sucker Pad of these weird alien
critters that watch humans for entertainment, and they find romance

(01:00:36):
particularly fascinating to watch because it isn't something that they
naturally experience. And so these two people are now essentially
putting on a show of having a relationship in order
to get paid. Essentially, it's almost like being a live streamer,
except instead of streaming games or chat or whatever, your

(01:00:59):
streaming your relationship with someone else. And if the aliens
find it entertaining and entrancing, they pay for it. And
it it's got some really interesting ideas, and it's also
presented in a way like it doesn't come across like
it's a science fiction film in the style of the trailer.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Yeah, it comes across as like a teeny bobber film.
It is interesting. So I think I think that people
stream their lives in general, but it's that, as one
of the other characters in the trailer I think calls
it courtship drama gets the higher payout. So these two
teenagers pretend to be in love it also seems like
maybe they fall in love trying to fix their fix

(01:01:41):
their mistake, or maybe they just discover that they're really
good friends. And maybe the Aliens. Now now I'm just
going into a theory on it, maybe the aliens discover
that friendship is is the best magic of all. I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
Maybe we find out the aliens were inside us the
whole time. Oh, just like in the movie Aliens.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
I don't want one of those crab flipper people inside
of me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Oh no, once they get big enough, they burst out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
So Jonathan Gross, Okay, but you've seen the alien movies. Yes,
but I don't like My body is not the cinema
in which these aliens need to watch their drama. But
it is interesting because also The Orville did have an

(01:02:29):
episode on this where they go to a planet where
everybody's lives are basically live streamed, and then like people
get up votes and down votes, and if you get
too many down votes then they think.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
They like execute you or they lock you up or something.
So it's it's kind of a concept that's been played
with before, but it is a kind of a fun
new take on it. Like, honestly, seeing these goofy pink
aliens as the creatures that are holding the control. Like
that surprised me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Yeah, yeah, because they don't look particularly threatening. They look weird,
but not like menacing. But yeah, again reminds me of
that Hyperdrive episode. This is not an ad for Hyperdrive.
I don't necessarily think you should seek out Hyperdrive and
watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Are they paying you, Jonathan to say no, No, they
aren't paying me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
I don't think it. I don't think it's even like
I watched it when it was on Netflix, but I
think it's been off Netflix for years at this point.
I believe I did at one point consider possibly importing
some DVDs and just playing them on a region free
player because they're almost good enough. Like like, I think

(01:03:42):
of it as being kind of akin to Red Dwarf.
Like I think Red Dwarf is a show that has
huge cultural impact in the UK, but it's not nearly
as good as people who are fans of it like
to think.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Yeah, apparently you can stream it on Prime video. It
probably it might have a cost to it, but you
can stream it on Prime Video.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Gotcha? Well, how about how about we move away from
aliens and we talk about dark conspiracies that we don't
fully understand with they Clone Tyrone.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Oh sure, Oh I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
I totally skipped over one, didn't I you did.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
I was like, but there are aliens in the new
Foundation trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
You know what, Let's do Foundation and then we'll go
to They Clone Tyrone because then we'll start getting into
the horror stuff. Anyway, Okay, but I'm not cutting this out.
We're just going with it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
It's hard. I need like a signal, except for we've
both turned our cameras off, so you can't be like, yeah,
keep you can't give me like that directorial. Keep rolling.
We're still rolling. Thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Hey, hey, Ariel, tell me about Foundation season two before
I go off script and talk about they Clone Tyrone.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Well, it probably does have to do with conspiracy theories,
but it is an outer space and it does have
aliens the end.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah, yeah, you still we Neither of us have watched
the first season of Foundation right now, Okay, no.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
But it is it is high on my list because
like the first season looked, and again I didn't watch
it, it looked much more like Dune esque in like the
outer space soap opera drama ish kind of realm and
season two feels a lot more from the trailer again,
feels a lot more like actiony and sci fi and
they're maybe like they it's like Dune meets Dragon Rids

(01:05:31):
of Hearne. I'm not entirely sure, but there's aliens and
a lot of a lot of fun sci fi type
things in the trailer that make me want to go,
want to watch it and see what is happening.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Yeah, and maybe you don't remember this either, but I
want to say that when we were talking about Foundation
before that, we were chatting about how at least some
of that because again neither of us have watched it,
and I haven't read the Foundation series, did you?

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
I did not know, Okay, because from my understanding is
the first season doesn't super follow it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
That's what I was going to say. Yeah, that was
my recollection was that when we talked about Foundation, part
of what the response was was that the first season
was a lot of setup but did not actually seem
to follow the original books. So maybe season two is
getting into that. It's hard to say because since neither

(01:06:30):
of us have read it, and neither of us watched
the first season, we are as in the dark about
this as we can possibly be.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Yeah, Honestly, when I watched it, I mean I do
like Asimov, who is the writer. Originally when I was like, oh,
this kind of looks like what does it look like
to me for comparison? And I was going to say
that it looks like the Expanse, but that is literally
only because Jared Harris is in both of them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Yeah, I thought that it had like in my brain,
I kept getting it mixed up with enders game, even
though I wouldn't say that they they uh you know,
resembled one another apart from the fact that they're both
science fiction stories.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
Yeah. Yeah, it's got that same sort of like adventure
dark but not too dark feel, although that could be
a completely wrong read ER's game is pretty dark, but
it's very palatable dark.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Yeah. Well, since we have little useful information to impart
about Foundation season two, how about we move on to
the horror of Dolores. Nob kidding, we're gonna do they
cloned Tyrone?

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Yeah, you can, you can jump wherever you want to.
I've got our spreadsheet open, Jonathan and I will just
yes and you till the cows come home.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Well, it's all horror from here on out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Oh, yeah, because we already talked about Lamplighter's dang it,
and it goes from least scary to most because honestly,
they cloned Tyrone. Looks more like a dark comedy than
a horror to me.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Yeah, yeah, no, it looks like it looks like they
took some elements of black exploitation films like which obviously
we've seen a whole bunch of resurgence of that kind
of stuff in recent years, right where it's that that
sort of seventies era black action, black horror movie type

(01:08:22):
of films that were really popular and were exploitative, that's
why they were called black exploitation. But now it's done
in a very like tongue in cheek knowing way in
the more recent versions that we're getting, and it has
an element of that, probably possibly because Jamie Fox is
playing a pimp, an actual pimp in the in the film,

(01:08:45):
and yeah, there's like a conspiracy element. It kind of
has like invasion of the body Snatcher's energy because people
are being replaced by clones, which also gets into some
other fairly recent horror slash science fiction movies that I'm
not gonna mention by name because it's kind of like
the big reveal of those movies, and if you still

(01:09:07):
haven't seen one, I don't want to ruin it for you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
I think I know what movie you're talking about, but
we'll talk about it offline. Yeah, it's it's interesting. It
does look interesting. I Uh. At first, I thought, like,
are all the clones the main three characters or they
just still clones to different people and they clone Tyrone.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
I think it's clones of lots of different people and
it's just that Tyrone encounters his own clone and that's
what tips them off that there's something sinister going on.
And you find out like that there are in very
mundane places like say a convenience store, there are secret
entrances to like underground facilities where this stuff is happening.

(01:09:46):
And I don't know. I mean, there's something about it
that just is really like kind of wacky, but not outright.
It's just full on comedy that that strikes me as
the a good balance. So I'm very intrigued by this trailer.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
I am too. Also, John Boyega is in it, and
he it took me a second to realize it was
John Boyega. He looks very different from how I'm used
to seeing him.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
So yeah, and he's doing an American accent too, He's
not he's not speaking in his normal British accent.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
That will always throw me. It will always throw me,
even if I have good facial recognition, I'll be like,
am I wrong because you're your an American accent sometimes, like
an American accent. If it's not done right, I'll pick
up on it. It gets really annoying sometimes because especially
if you've got like an Australian actor who hasn't learned

(01:10:39):
to put the g's and I say this, I make
mistakes on my accent work all the time because it's
not native to me. And unless I'm spending hours and
hours dissecting the script and figuring out how to pronounce everything,
I'm gonna mess up. But a lot of Australian actors,
for instance, will if they've got a word ending in
I say any like anything, you know in America we

(01:11:03):
say anything. Australian say anything, yeah, And it will always
tick me off.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
And so you also get like specifically in the UK,
when UK people in England are doing American accents, they
tend to hit the rs atle too hard.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Yeah, that was about to say the same thing. Yeah,
it's a or they tend to go a little bit
like New York by accident.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Yeah, but like if you listen, if you watch the
first season of House, for example, as great as Hugh
Laurie is, like when you hear him hit those rs,
or watch Doctor Strange and been at cumber Batch when
they're saying words that end with an eer, they hit
those rs super hard.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Yeah. It it almost gives it this weird It's the
opposite of like Transatlantic, but it gives the same feel.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Yeah. Uh So, anyway, I still think that that trailer
was a good one. I'm looking forward to seeing that movie.
You know. It definitely caught my attention. And the next
one also got my attention. It's another kind of dark
comedy horror movie called The Horror of Dolores Roach, and

(01:12:21):
the trailer introduces us to Dolores, who is a woman
who is in prison. She's gotten out. She's trying to
land a job. She's having a lot of trouble doing it.
She's getting the run around, and she has a friend
who gives her the chance to have her own kind
of massage therapy business because he's trying to help her out.

(01:12:47):
She I guess. She gives him a massage one day
and he's like, Oh, this is good enough for you
to do professionally, even though you don't haven't been trained
in it, So she starts getting massage work. Then this
is all in the trailer, so I'm not giving anything away,
but she is assaulted essentially by a client who is
trying to get her to do more than what she

(01:13:09):
is advertising, and she ends up killing him. And then
she is horrified to learn that her friend is more
than happy to help her dispose of the body, and
then she suspects that that disposal might be very you
know Sweeny Toddish.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Yeah, and fanatas I don't like cannibalism stories, I realize
I've seen Sweeney Todd and I've listened to the music,
and I even liked Josh Grobn's performance in The Tony's
But for some reason, when I have to watch it
in a TV show or a movie, it super squeaks
me out, and no change here is like, maybe I'll

(01:13:51):
like it because I really like because I like Sweeney
Todd and because I really really like Justina Machado, who
I know her mostly from being the mom in the
reboot of One Day at a Time, but I don't know.
It started turning my stomach by the end of the trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Jonathan, Oh, gosh, see, I just thought it was like
darkly comedic, and I'm totally on board.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
I don't like cannibalism stories. I really really don't.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Everyone's got their thing, you know, there's nothing wrong with that, Like,
you know, having something that you're not you're not cool with.
There's there's that's totally legit. Our friend Shay, for example,
would hate the next movie that's on our list. Not
that I'm jumping down there yet, but she really has
a thing about like demonic possession movies. She really does

(01:14:37):
not like those. They really bother her. And so I
don't think there's anything wrong with having like that. That
one thing that you just can't stand see. For me,
it typically is anything that's in the torture porn category,
like Hostile or Saw, like those movies where the horror
is mostly in how much physical mutilation can we visit

(01:15:01):
upon a character before we ultimately kill that character off
or whatever. I'm not interested in those movies. Those don't
do anything for me. I don't find them entertaining. I
just find them like upsetting and not in a way
where I'm like thoughtful about it. It's just upsetting, Like
there's nothing artful or creative in my mind of those

(01:15:23):
kinds of movies. So I'm not a big fan this
one because of the kind of dark comedy nature of
it I am interested in. But I totally get it,
Like there's, you know, nothing wrong with having a hard
out for specific types of content.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Well, and it's gotten harder over the years as like
as I get older, I'm like, I just don't have
room in my life for this particular content anymore. And
that's really fine, Like you said, but we should jump
onto the next trailer because we're running pretty long. Yeah,
you've got something important to say.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
All I was gonna say, Ariel, is that I learned
that this was really a sticking point for you the
last I litit you and said what's eating you? And
you decked me.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
I mean, come on, now, we've known eature other long
enough you should have known better.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
And to be fair, I deserved it before I even
opened my mouth.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
So that's not true. You're a delightful friend, thank you.
Unlike this next trailer, which was not a delightful friend
to me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
Nor were any of the friends in the trailer delightful
to each other. So we already watched a teaser trailer
for this or an early trailer for this movie. It's
called Talk to Me. This is the movie where a
group of young are they supposed to be teens or
are they young adults?

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
I think teenagers, but it's unclear.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
Yeah, they're all played by young adults, but maybe they're
supposed to be teenagers. But it's that one where they've
got like this weird like it looks like a mannequin
hand with cymbals drawn all over it, a left hand,
by the way, and you are to clasp the hand
and say talk to me, and then you are briefly
possessed by a spirit who then can communicate. So it's

(01:17:07):
sort of like using a Wigi board, acceptancetead of a
Wigi board, it's this hand. And you know, we saw
the first trailer that things go wrong, that the possession
ends up extending beyond the time it's supposed to happen,
and that this thing that kids are playing with has
now become deadly, and that first trailer I thought was okay,

(01:17:28):
Like I didn't really feel a need to see the
movie after watching it because I just didn't grab me,
so to speak. But this one I thought was way
more effective and way creepier.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
So now you do you feel like you need to
watch it?

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
Is that because you're left handed and you really relate
to being vilified for being left handed?

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
Well, we are also known as the sinister ones because
sinister is old French for left So yes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
Yeah, I didn't catch that so good on Husually, I
didn't catch it was a left hand, but that that's clever.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Yes, So what did you think that since I made
you watch this?

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Well, I'm gonna admit I watched it on one point
five time speed because you put in our notes super scary.
I I thought the acting in it was really good.
Like the main girl who the main character who carries

(01:18:29):
the possession longer than she's supposed to, although I'm sure
it's more than just her, but the main character just
portrayed the various peaks and valleys she went through in
the journey of her character and the trailer very well.
I thought, in a way that was like believable, but
not heavy hand and not heavy handed it The concept

(01:18:51):
honestly is both scary and also a little like why
why would you do that? Like I don't know, I
don't know. Sometimes I get that with horror movies. I'm
just like, why are these people doing this thing?

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
I mean, it's to me. To me, it's it is
an extension of the whole like friends getting together and
doing like like the like the campground creepy stuff. Whether
it's it's you know, a Ouiji board, which truly isn't creepy.
It's made by Hasbro. Come on, it's it's a board game. Essentially,

(01:19:24):
it's based off spirit boards, which I guess are arguably
slightly more creepy because it's not like, oh I accidentally
grabbed the Ouija board instead of Monopoly, but like, it
also reminds me of things like when kids would play
stiff as a board, light as a feather, that kind
of thing, and like it's it's a it's obviously a
step further than that, right. It's because because everyone who's

(01:19:47):
involved in this appears to understand that this is a
real phenomenon. They're not like, they're not like just staring
at a mirror and saying bloody Mary, and they they're
ninety five percent sure nothing's going to happen. Five percent
is doubting it. They know something's gonna happen, which definitely
pushes it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
That's the thing for me is it's like, okay, I
played almost as landed some born stiff as a feather.
Maybe that's why it never worked for me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
I can tell you that it never worked for me.
But that's because I love my tacos.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
I mean same, I was. I've always been at least tall.
I used to be skinny and tall, but my friends
were never really able to lift me up with their fingertips.
It took way too many of them to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
I had to have a palette driver lift me up.
So I hear you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
But but that's the thing is, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
Like it's too far. It's pushing too too far.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
It's too far. Yeah, that's that's it, because I'm like,
you know, you see this is bad. It's like it's
like I know this is bad. I'm seeing these very
legitimate proof facts of this thing happening. So it's no
longer a game, and it's just like, how like I
guess it's like playing chicken.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
I don't know. Yeah, no, I see what you're saying,
Like I totally. I think I think that's gonna be
the factor where you either buy into it or you don't,
Like you have to buy into this. Would there be
such a case where people would encounter something that is
clearly malevolent, clearly supernatural, clearly actually is happening, and yet

(01:21:22):
they would still engage in that activity for fun, kind
of in a in a truth or Dare sort of
situation where you're you know, you're one you're trying to
prove to everybody else that you're brave enough to do it,
or two you just find it amusing, like that is
pushing it super super far. And if you are able
to go with that and say like, Okay, I'm all

(01:21:43):
right with that, I mean, I don't think this would
really play out that way, but I'm okay, then I
think you could kind of engage with the movie. But
if you're looking at and you're like, this doesn't even
strike me as being remotely realistic. I mean, take all
the supernatural stuff out, but like, if something were this
truly known to be this dangerous, it doesn't make sense

(01:22:06):
to me that characters would seek it out for fun.
I think that's a legit like thing to balk at
it's just for me. Like, since I love so many
different horror movies and I've seen so many really bad ones,
this one looks like, Yes, the premise itself is faulty,
but the execution looks like it might be really good.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
Yeah, I get that. Like I said, the acting was
very good. It was very it was it wasn't too hammy,
which can often be a problem with horror movies, to
try to hammer home the kind of the bizarreness of
the situation. And that is the last thing we have

(01:22:46):
to talk about, and we should wrap it up because
this has been a very long episode.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yes, it has been a very long episode, and so
it is time for us to end the show, which
Ariel has to launch into.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
Thank you for joining us. I've been Eric Jonathan. How
can people reach out to us if they have thoughts
on horror movies or cute cartoons or any of the
things that we've talked about.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
Well, to reach me, you're going to need to go
and take a walk on an early morning, just as
the sun is coming up. Gonna walk down the lane,
listening carefully, and if you hear a call, that's then
you know you have just heard the bird that pooped

(01:23:29):
on me this morning. And your job is to climb
a tree and catch that bird, take it back home,
and slap a diaper on it, and say you know
why this is happening. And then you can go and
release the bird, unharmed but diapered, so that it never
again can poop upon my person. And three days later

(01:23:50):
you'll hear a knock at your door and it'll be me,
and I'll say, I know what you did, and I
appreciate it. What's your question?

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
I you know, I really like that because I was
afraid ending on a horror note, it would also end
on a horror note. Thank you, Jonathan, you are a
kind hearted soul to help this poor bird's incontinent in continents.
If you don't like birds, or you can't climb trees,
or you just don't have any diapers lying around, you

(01:24:20):
can also reach out to us on social media and
I'll make sure Jonathan gets it. On Twitter. We're llenc
Underscore podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Discord. We're a large
Nerdron Collider. You can also email us at large nerderonpodat
gmail dot com. I usually post a Discord invite in
our show notes on our website, though I'm behind a

(01:24:42):
couple of weeks again. I'll get those up this weekend.
But if you want a discord invite and you can't
make one work, just email us and I'll do that
for you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
Yes, until next time, I'm Jonathan, I'm covered in Strickland.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
And I'm Ariel. I can talk to you. Good words
have cast.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
In The large Nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Caston
and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted, published again. Cursed at
by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin McLeod of incomptech dot

(01:25:24):
com