June 9, 2023 • 59 mins
What's this? The fabled lost episode from last week? No, Jonathan just had a very tough week and didn't get this slightly less than fresh episode edited and published in time. But good news, you get to enjoy this only a little stale episode AND you'll have a new one out soon!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, it's Jonathan. Before we jump into this episode.
It was recorded almost a week ago and has been
waiting to debut ever since. And this is all on me.
This wasn't a planned thing, just because I got overwhelmed
with lots of stuff and didn't have the mental energy
to edit and then publish this episode. Now, what this
(00:23):
means is you're actually going to get two episodes in
a very short time frame, one that was from a
week ago and one that is much more recent. For example,
in this episode, I believe we chat a little bit
about whether or not sag Aftra could potentially strike. They
voted in favor of a strike, not meaning that they
(00:44):
are going to strike, but that option is available to them.
In fact, it was an overwhelming vote for that. So
that's just one example of some outdated information that we
chat about in this episode. So I apologize for that.
That is again completely on me, and I wanted to
(01:06):
try and get this episode out to everybody, even though
it's a bit late, and even though we're gonna be
publishing another one shortly thereafter. But yeah, we had some
good conversations, so I definitely wanted to include it. Anyway,
that's enough hemming and haweing. Let's get to this very
overdue episode.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Larger Drun 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 Aerial cast in and with me as always is
the Sunday Fun Day.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Jonathan Strickland, Life and Plastic. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's fantastic. We don't have to pay royalties for saying that, Dewey.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I think. I think as long as we don't sing it,
we should be fun, all right.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Also, they probably felt underneath the time limit allowed.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Fun fact, there is there is no such thing as
a time limit for copyright. It's just that that technically
under fair use that the more you use an of
an original work, the less likely your argument of fair
use will hold up in court. But there is no
there is no U you know, cut off like you
people say, oh, I only use five seconds. Well guess
(02:33):
what doesn't matter. A court could still find you guilty
of copyright infringement. It's fun to not have actual guidelines.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, you know what. Sometimes I'm like, I want
to post this thing on TikTok can I it's really
hard to find the actual rules and regulations.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah well, and because like no, please go ahead, okay,
I will. And on top of that, like like on YouTube,
usually the worst thing that happens is you'll your monetization
will get struck and it'll go to whomever owns the
copyright to the work you were referencing or using. And
(03:13):
that's the worst of it, which can be bad if
you're depending on YouTube for your livelihood. But the other places,
like I don't know how litigious people get.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, well, like it. It's interesting because my band does
a few covers of songs, and like I would never
post an exact cover that we just do for fun
for friends, right, But some of the things we work
up pretty differently. And I'm like, I'd love to share
a little snippet of this on YouTube because it's awesome.
And I don't know if I need to ask permission.
I don't know if I need to pay royalties, Like
(03:45):
I don't mind giving giving the money to the people
who have earned it, you know, like I'm using somebody
else's work. I'm an actor, so I believed in getting
paid for your art. But it's hard to even find
like what to do, to do it, where to do it.
So many people on TikTok post covers all the time.
(04:06):
Yeah yeah, that most of them don't actually deal with
royalties or getting permission or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, and on TikTok, you know, it's hard to get
direct payment. Like you, there is a little bit of
ad revenue stuff going on on TikTok, but mostly it's
like you land a deal with a sponsor. Or. You're
using TikTok to get noticed enough to become an influencer
and get paid to you know, shill for a company.
(04:33):
So it's not quite the same as on YouTube. I
will say that parody is protected under fair use. However,
parody has a specific definition too, and typically whatever you
are parodying, the work you're doing needs to somehow comment
on the original work, which is why I often find
(04:55):
it funny when people talk about weird Al Yankovic, the
fact that he doesn't nes necessarily need to get permission
from the artists whom he parodies. He kind of does
because most of the time his parodies aren't commenting on
the original work. They're set to the same music and
(05:15):
some of the lyrics might have, you know, a structure
that's similar to the original song, but only in a
few instances, like smells like Teen's Spirit. Is he directly
commenting on the original work, and therefore under US copyright law,
that wouldn't that would not count as parody except in those,
you know instances like smells like teen Spirit so or
(05:39):
smells like Nirvana. So yeah, it's it's a complicated thing,
and the worst thing about it is these these things
get decided in court. So by that point it's already
like you are beyond where you want to be. If
you're in a courtroom, that's you don't want to be there.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah. Yeah, and this has been your law time education corner.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Not how expected to start this off?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, I mean like copyright law has a big it
plays a big part in the geek sphere, honestly, Yeah,
in lots of ways, because like you say, Ariel, like
there's there are fandoms out there that do their own
versions of stuff. I mean, heck, there there were those
kids who remade Indiana Jones and the Raiders the Lost
Arc in their backyard when they were kids. Like, there
(06:29):
are people who do these things, and it's through the
genuine love they bear for these geek properties. It doesn't
necessarily mean that it's one legal or one percent free
from copyright infringement. But depending upon the case, you might
not have anyone come after you, because, like if Spielberg
(06:51):
went after a bunch of kids, that would not look
good on Spielberg's part.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I agree. And it's even harder,
especially on things like TikTok, which I know you aren't
really on where in some of these other platforms where
some artists encourage people to use their music, it's that
whole I'd rather get it out there so more people
(07:16):
want to I honestly don't know how that business model works,
but I know that there are a lot of artists
like Megan Trainor who love it when people do stuff
to her music and they don't need permission to use
her music or cover it because it gives her more
exposure exposure. But yeah, just figuring that out is is hard.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, hard, It is hard, and that's why we're.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I have not rich enough to make you get a
lawyer for it.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're here to answer the hard questions,
and some questions aren't as hard as others, and when
those questions aren't too hard, we stick them in thirty
seconds or less.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I like that, segwe Jonathan.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Thank you, and we're going to get started now. On Wednesdays,
we paint pink unless some jerk has bought all the
pink paint in the world. That's kind of what happened
with the film Barbie, according to set production designer Sarah Greenwood.
She says, in the process of making Barbie's Dream World,
the crew used a lot of scenic pink paint from
(08:18):
the company Roscoe, so much that created a temporary worldwide shortage.
Might I suggest blue.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
That's actually a yes? And from when Farskate made Peacekeeper
Wars and I heard that they made Australia run out
of explosives empyrotechnics. Okay, fun fun fact. Next, How to
Train Your Dragon. If you have been listening to the
show for a while, you probably heard us mention that
(08:50):
they were DreamWorks Animation was looking at making a live
action How to Train Your Dragon and trying to figure
out how to make the dragons look both lovable and
realistic in not a creepy Uncanny Valley way. Well, I
don't know if they've done that, but they have cast
their main two characters, Hiccup and Astrid. Hiccup is being
(09:10):
played by Mason Thames, who was most recently in The
Black Phone, or at least recently, and Astrod is being
played by Nico Parker, who was in fact in season
one of the Last of Us. I think it's great
casting and I look forward to hearing more about this thing.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Excellent. Yeah, you know, I just watched The Black Phone.
That is a very difficult watch. Okay, good to know,
good to know going on to the next one. It's
so hard to say goodbye, so let's not That's what
Lionsgate is saying to the john Wick franchise. During an
earnings call, chairperson Joe Drake said, among other things, quote
(09:50):
when that five movie comes, it will be organic. End
the quote. Well, that definitely suggests a fifth john Wick movie,
and if you saw the fourth one, you'll no, it'll
require some interesting story gymnastics to make it happen. Keanu
is reportedly open to it if the story is right.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I think that's a good mindset if you're going to
continue it. I haven't seen the last one. There's no
good segue into this Pathfinder is making a Diablo esque
hack and slash action RPG video game right now, Pathfinder
Abomination Vaults is on Kickstarter and it will come to Steam.
(10:33):
And yeah, it's it's pretty much Pathfinder Diablo for That's
all I got to say about.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It, all right, Well, Disney recently held a round of layoffs,
one of a couple of big rounds to hit this year,
and among those let go was the person responsible for
saving Toy Story two from certain death. So the story
goes that a Pixar staff member accidentally deleted the files
to to Toy Story two when in development, but technical
(11:01):
director Galen Susman happened to have a backup copy due
to working remotely. Now Susman has been let go, and
I think that deserves a very sad Sarah McLaughlin song
that'll make us all cry.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I'm crying right now. More Diablo news, because I had
more to say about Diablo, just not about the Pathfinder version.
There are being held hardcore victory contests for Diablo for
where the first one thousand players who reach level one
hundred on hardcore will get their names on an in
game statue. If you recall from a previous episode. Hardcore
(11:38):
mode in the Blizzard world is where you like Herma
death when you die. And if you've played previous versions
of Diablo, yes, there can be strategy, but most people
I know, like me, play it where you just run
around and hack things and then die, and then hack
things and then die, and it's just kind of a
chaotic free for all.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I still am convinced that Diablo was created in concert
with computer mouse manufacturers, because you wear out the buttons
so fast on that darn game. Okay, Across the Spider
Verse is going very well in theaters right now, and
Sony is paying attention. Sony Repsy indicated that the company
is playing to bring a Miles Morales live action film
(12:21):
to screens in the future, as well as a Spider
Woman film as part of the extended Spider Verse at Sony,
you know, the one that doesn't appear to actually have
Spider Man in it very much. This is very early,
so not many details yet, although Hailey Steinfeld is rumored
to be considered for Spider Woman, which means she'd be
playing two characters in the MCU slash Spider Verse.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm as excited for this next news article as I
am for Spider Man Across the Universe which I haven't
seen yet, which is that the New York City Center
has announced its upcoming season for their Encore series, which
starts off with not including their current like fundraiser that's
at the end of the year, Once Upon a Mattress
starring Sutton Foster, who is Princess Fiona in the original
(13:05):
Shrek the Musical, which she's amazing. She's playing Princess Winnifred.
If you don't know, once Upon a Mattress is like
my favorite, one of my favorite musicals, tied with Beetlejuice.
Good pardon me. And also I've played Princess Winnifred and
it's like my dream role. I will play it every chance.
Every time there's an audition for this show, I will
do it. I don't care if I'm seventy five.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So other seen her do it?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, sorry, other things are doing Jelly's Last jem in Titanic.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So when I hear Sutton Foster, first of all, obviously
an amazing actress who has been in a ton of stuff,
but I will never forget where I saw her first,
which was playing Britt's girlfriend in Flight of the conchords
and she never ever sings in it.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That's hilarious and also a little bit of a shame.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah. Yeah, and obviously she's done. You know. She originated
some roles on Broadway, including Milly and Thoroughly Modern Milly,
and has played some really. She was in Music Man
with Hugh Jackman not too long ago, so yeah, she
is no stranger to the boards. Okay, here is the
penultimate thirty seconds or less story. Supernatural was a series
(14:20):
that lasted fifteen seasons, with each season seeing one or
both of the Winchester brothers dead until one of them
eventually stayed that way. But no spoilers, I'm not going
to tell you which one it was. The series The
Winchesters was about their parents, but the CW has canceled
it after only one season and no one else picked
it up. So while the brothers carried on my wayward
(14:42):
son for many years, the book is closing on mom
and Dad.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I want to say that's sad, but I haven't watched
The Winchesters at all. I have watched all of Supernatural,
have you.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I watched probably the first four or five seasons, and
then I fell off, like I was like in the
middle of a season and I just stopped and because
they were all kind of samey.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yes, there are a couple of seasons where I'm just like,
I can't I can't go on.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I can't even tell you. I can't even tell you
what the big bads were called, like Leviathans or something.
I don't know. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Oh yeah, that's still early No, that's fine. I'm the
one who took us off the thirty seconds or less.
The Leviathans were still pretty early on and not the
greatest villains. Some people might disagree, all right, last story.
I know that a bunch of people were sad that
HBO was taking off a bunch of shows off their
roster to save money on paying royalties, things like Westworld
(15:43):
and The Nevers. However, those shows have found a new
home at two B and apparently they're doing really well.
And this is especially great news for people who are
sad about the fact that Disney is removing some items
from their catalog because apparently, according to some interviews and
some hat tipping to be and Disney also have a
(16:06):
great relationship. So you those things that are going off
the platforms that you love, you may still be able
to watch.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, whether they will continue or not, like you know,
like the Winchesters, that's a different story, but at least
you will still be able to find the old episodes,
which you know. I definitely get frustrated when something just
disappears off a platform. It's one of the reasons why
I've started to buy some physical media again, because I
(16:38):
just I got tired. I got tired of stuff being
unavailable without warning.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah. Same, I mean, and even just as much as
like so Ash Versus the Evil Dead was a show
that was on Stars I think, and then I got
rid of Stars and I couldn't finish watching it. Well,
it came to Netflix, and I didn't realize that it
had like a day that it was going back off
of Netflix, so I didn't finish watching the series. And
now it's on like Epics or something. So I can't
(17:05):
watch a series unless I buy another streaming channel. So like, yeah,
I also have started buying physical media of the things
that I know I'll want to rewatch or the things
that I know that I want to have the option
to watch, Yeah, movies and TV shows.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, it's just the frustrating thing with that is you know,
they take up space and then you gotta figure out
where you're putting stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Look, you just cask of the manciato a wall with
them and.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, hey, no, don't take that. That's a load bearing
blu ray.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
You laugh. But have you seen my basement?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I have not, but I am sure. I mean, you
threatened a couple times where I thought that's where I
was gonna end up. But I just you know, you
let me how the trunk eventually, and everything was okay.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's all words, words, words, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Very like a whale. All right, So let's talk about
some of the stuff what we saw. We are, by
the way, we should have said this at the top.
I mean you did kind of. We're recording this on Sunday,
so this is a very late episode, or you can
think of it as super early if you prefer, but no,
it's late, and so we wanted to talk about some
(18:15):
of the stuff we've seen since the last time we convened.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, I guess I will start. I watched the first
episode of American Born Chinese this past Memorial Day weekend.
I liked it, honestly, and this is not what I expect.
It was a little slow, it was really cute. The
two lead actors had amazing chemistry together. They were so
(18:41):
much fun to watch. But I really enjoyed the like
the real life high school drama more than I did
the fantastical supernatural stuff that was happening in the show.
So if we've talked about American born Chinese on the
episodisode before, but if you don't remember, it's based off
(19:02):
a comic series is done by the shang Chi people,
and it's basically kind of like Mythology meets Everywhere, every
everything everywhere, all at once a little bit. It's at
least got some of the same actors.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, well, that's that's cool. You know, some of the
same actors also show up. And one of the things
I saw, although you don't I don't know. You don't
see them, you just hear them, which is Gremlins, like
Legend of the Magua. Some of the some of those
folks also do voices on that show, and I watched
episodes three and four of Gremlins, so I'm caught up
(19:40):
as we're recording this. I still enjoy it. There's a
character that I find really irritating, but I understand what
this character is doing and what purpose they are serving,
and I can't disagree with it. It's just one of
those where it's like, and you could even argue that's
the purpose of the character is to irritate you, in
(20:00):
which case doing a great job. But uh yeah, I
am still enjoying it very much. It's kind of interesting
how they're trying to balance out telling a narrative story
that stretches across a season with things being a little episodic,
like there's a little bit of Monster of the Week
(20:21):
syndrome going on with some of the episodes, but they're
also trying to progress the overall storyline. Kind of feels
like they're stopping to do side quests while try to
finish the main quest. That's what it feels like to me.
But still good. Still recommend it, other than the fact
that you know, as we've said, the fact that they
(20:42):
call Gizmo Gizmo and it's a prequel set in the
nineteen twenties means it actually is the worst cartoon ever made.
And the other thing I saw was the finale, the
series finale for Barry, which I was highly anticipating. I
was wondering how they were going to do it. And
I have to say I did not see it coming.
(21:04):
They just enjoy it, though, that is a very hard
question to answer because okay, like, okay, so I think
it was the right ending. I don't know if I
enjoyed it, because there are characters who are seeking redemption
(21:27):
who don't get redeemed. There are characters who shouldn't be
redeemed who appear to get redemption. Like there's there's a
lot going on, and ultimately, I think it's all the
choices made were the right ones, even the one that
was really surprising to me, but it was still kind
of a I don't know, like like it's kind of
(21:49):
like if a play ends but they they didn't. Like
if you were to watch a production of a Christmas
Carol and they they they tune up to I need
tim for God bless us everyone, but he doesn't say it.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
M gotcha, gotcha. That's interesting. I I really need to
catch up on Barry as soon as I finished Last
of Us and buy Apple TV for ted lass Ow
and Schmigadoon and all of the other things that watching.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, but is still fantastic.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, but this this weekend instead other than American born Chinese,
I did watch the entirety of season two of Barbecue Showdown.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
That's not geeky, it's food geeky.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Gotcha, it's not, but you know what it's for a
food competition show. Season two is really delightful. There's so
little like everybody is so supportive of each other and
in fact and in fact the there's a a like
a two of the contestants become like best friends, like
(22:57):
uh and there are two of my favorite people on
the on it. For season one, there were some people
who I was like, they kind of get on my
nerves or they've got kind of a bad attitude. But
this season didn't have that at all. It was delightful.
So yeah, maybe not geegee geeky to me, I like
food shows fair enough.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Well that that kind of sums up what we've watched.
I am. I am not going to talk about sordid
food because that's my that's my go to food stuff,
A bunch of Brits being silly in the kitchen. But
we're going to instead what's that?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I do like it?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Oh yeah, we're gonna talk instead about a whole bunch
of strike news w GA strike. It's still going on
as we record this. It's been a month now at
where this strike has been going on, and in just
a couple of days, sag AFTRA, the union that represents
(23:57):
actors in Hollywood, they have their negotiations with the studios
starting just on June seventh, and in advance of that,
they had been voting on a strike authorization, which isn't
the same thing as going on strike. It's just if
they have a strike authorization, it means when they go
(24:17):
into the negotiations they can tell the studios, hey, we're
already ready to strike. We've already held a vote and
they're ready to go.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
But we don't know what the result of that vote
is yet. They haven't announced it. I do know, however,
that the the picket lines have apparently made it to Georgia.
There were some picketing lines.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
I received an email asking me to picket a location.
I will not say where because I'm respecting the organizers
who sent me this message. It's probably because the iHeart
Media Podcast union is associated with the WGA East. I'm
(25:05):
guessing that's how I got the email. It was odd
to get it though, like it was an email calling
for me, not just me, Like it was an email
that was a blast email, but it was calling for
people in the area to go to a specific location
and picket it in advance of a production possibly ramping up.
See that, we're starting to see this kind of chess
(25:27):
game going on between studios and the writers, where the
writers are trying to rush to locations where filming is
supposed to happen, and studios are trying to secretly figure
out where they can shoot where the writers won't know
about it, where they can get a day's work in
without a picket line going up, because as we know,
(25:48):
if the picket line goes up and it just takes
two people to qualify as a picket line, if that,
if a line goes up, then other unions can choose
not to cross that picket line and that would end
up setting productions on hold. And in fact, that's been
happening in Hollywood, and like Ariel was saying in Georgia,
(26:09):
as various union members in WGA have gone to pick
it and protest, and then you know, like teamsters won't
cross that line, and once that happens, nothing else happens,
which is.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
In fact our next story talking about how effectiveness is.
It's so effective that like they've been putting out fake
call sheets and locations and times to try to get
production done.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the kind of like tactics that are
happening right now. And obviously even getting productions done right now,
that's just for the stuff that's already been written, anything
that requires rewrites or whatever, that's already on hold because
no one can do any writing work until the strike
is resolved. So nothing new is going to launch unless
(26:58):
it's already like in the can written, not in the can,
but totally like on the page written, and no one's
going to do any rewrites that could go forward theoretically,
although WGA could go and then put up a picket
line and that would potentially throw a monkey wrench in
the whole works. But yeah, anything that requires even a
little bit of writing it is on hold. So we're
(27:21):
probably like we're looking at a pretty significant impact on
productions right now.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah. I mean, this doesn't mean that people can't, you know,
create their own content or do non union stuff if
they aren't a part of the union. Technically, if you're
non union, you can still work on those projects, but
you don't you don't want to pass across picket lines.
You just don't that's not.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
No, it doesn't. It doesn't help you, and it hurts
everybody other than the studios, who certainly don't need any
They don't need to be coddled.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, speaking of helping yourself and hurting other people, although
I don't know if I fully agree with it. You
also added this story about how the Director's Guild of
America has signed a tentative deal with studios already, yes,
and how the WGA is not thrilled about it because
the possible SAG strike in the WGA strike gave DGA
(28:18):
the leverage to get their demands made and they're very
similar to what everybody else is asking for, right, Yeah,
but at the same time, like they all needed to
do the same thing. And if if people agreed to
do that for the directors, hopefully they'll agreed to do
it for the actors and the writers next. If not,
we're still not getting stuff made.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah. Yeah, So the WGA is kind of upset because
I mean, it's understandable, right, because the DGA could have
also gone on strike and made it a really big
collective union confrontation with the studios, but instead the studios
agreed to you know enough of the DGA requests that
(29:02):
the DGA was like, all right, we got ours, we
got what we want, so good luck you guys, and
peace out. And the WGA is like, the only reason
you got what you want is because we've been on
strike for a month and the studios are terrified of
another union going on strike. So literally, we did the
work for you to get what you wanted. Like, the
(29:23):
work we did is why you got the requests you have,
and you're throwing us under the bus. That's what the
WGA is effectively saying, which you can kind of get it.
But man, if you start reading those tweets, it gets
like it's very courteous, but it's cold.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I I yeah, I get it, but I also aren't
they aren't all three unions basically working for the deal
that the DGA just got. If the DGA want on strike,
they may not have gotten the things they were asking for,
or at least had to have bargained more.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
It's possible, but see, I think the fear is that.
But if if the studios, well, I don't know, because
the studios can't go without the writers, like there's there's
no work without the writers. So it's it's really weird
because you figured that eventually the studios are going to
have to concede at least some of the points the
writers have made for things to move forward. But I mean,
(30:22):
at the same time, like some of the stuff that
the writers are really concerned about aren't directly impacting people
who do directing, right, Like, it's not like the stuff
that like with AI, the writers are worried about AI
potentially undercutting their their jobs and making it harder for
writers to get paid decent wages. Directors don't really have
to worry about that so far, so that's probably part
(30:45):
of it. But yeah, it's I mean, it's just tough because,
like it's the whole thing about unions, right, Collectively, you
have more power than you do individually. So I don't
think it lessens the WGA's power in this ongoing strike.
But I think they were really hoping that they would
get like a bigger boost from the d GA.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah yeah, but hopefully this will be a catalyst for
the w GA to get the things they've been asking for,
because again I don't think they're unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Same, Now on to some happier news. We got a
full trailer for something we talked about recently on the
show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem trailer, and it
just looks more and more charming everything I see about it.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Agreed, Yeah, the trailer, like we talked about a teaser
a couple like in the last episode or one before that.
So this trailer, the more I see of it, the
more I'm like, I love this vibe. Like it's got
that great balance between the very cartoony animated series version
of TMNT and the you know edgier, darker comic book
(32:02):
TM and T. I feel like this is the right balance.
It also tells me that Seth Rogen. Uh was it
Seth Rogan who wrote on this?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Uh? He's He's at least I think he co wrote it,
and I think he's co producing it.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Hey, everybody, how about some as m R. Listen to
that beautiful clicking, click clacking noise. Uh Seth Rogen is
a producer on it? Did he also? Did? He also write? Ah,
you you broke in my brain? Now?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Well, I was just going to say that it's it's
very cool and the.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Screenplay is by uh Seth Rogen Evan Goldberg, who also
works a lot with Seth Rogen and Jeff Rowe, who
worked on Gravity Falls and Disenchantment.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I was about to say, it feels very much like
he has a deep love for the original film version
of TM and T, which also had kind of a balance.
I don't think it was an ideal balance between the
cartoony and the edgy. I think it was a little
tonally inconsistent. But I feel like that's kind of the
(33:12):
starting grounds of the love that I feel for Mutant Mayhem.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah. Yeah, you know, Seth Rogen is doing that thing
that I love to see all actors do, which is
a break out of their like stereotypical comfort zone. So
I'm all for it. Yeah, because his normal his normal
sense of humor is not super my sense of humor.
I'm not. It just isn't.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You're not until all the stoner comedies.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
No, it's it's just not for me.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Also, they tend to They also tend to go a
little bit blue.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Like I don't. I don't mind blue if it's done
in a way that I feel as clever, But often
in those films, I just feel like it's it's there
to be a shock or a prize, and that's about
the extent of it, and then like once that wears off,
if the joke doesn't stick with you, then it's not
really that good of a joke. But I mean, I
(34:10):
say that just in general, I like Ariel like, I
don't watch stoner comedies. They don't have much appeal to me.
I think I've seen like maybe two super Troopers being
one of them, and while I can appreciate moments in them,
I'm just not of that particular demographic. So and there's
nothing wrong with folks who are, it's just not for me.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, there there are some I've seen as well where
I'm like, oh, I like these moments, but it's at
most a third of the movie. But you know, that's
why we have different media for different people. Like the
next thing, if you don't like stoner comedies or sup
or comic book cartoon movies, you can instead watch season
(34:55):
six of Black Mirror, which we got a full trailer for.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, uh, trailer looks good. Like the episodes, the episodes
look very distinct now. I think it looks like some
of them actually looked a little more like classic Twilight
Zone ish because Black Mirror obviously has a harder edge
to it than Twilight Zone did, but I think a
(35:18):
couple of them looked a little more kind of whimsical
Twilight so almost to the point of amazing stories whimsy.
I'm sure that that's just a part of those episodes.
And then things go really wrong and it gets really dark,
because that's kind of what Black Mirror is. But still
the trailer it wasn't all like oppressive doom and glue
(35:40):
mostly but not all.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I mean, it ended with oppressive doom and gloom. So
they did with the new full trailer for season six
of Black Mirror what Doctor Who did, which was give
us little clips, almost like mini trailers of each of
the episodes coming out and the titles. And there is
one with Aaron Paul that's in outer Space that I
agree has like it looks scary, but it also looks
very like Twilight Zone to me. Yeah, and I'm excited
(36:04):
to see what happens. There's also one that's rather self
referential in its content. And then the last one they
show us is Red Mirror, which I wonder if it's
going to become a like a Shuttered style spinoff series.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I guess it could be. It is a you know,
it's a. It's not a bad idea, I suppose, although
really Black Mirror is already so like it can get
pretty horrific. Uh oh, I guess I I guess it
doesn't go quite I mean, I haven't watched all the seasons.
I guess it doesn't go quite as far into outright
(36:42):
horror as that It usually is just very disturbing.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I just figured Black Mirror was because of the dark
content and Red Mirror is because it's going to be
bloody Goria's heck. But that's just my assumption.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Very possible. It's it's not a bad idea. Like, there
there are people who there are people who love the gore.
I appreciate a good gory scene, but again, just like
I was talking about with humor, I need there to
be a reason for it.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not. I'm not great with just gore
for core. That's just me. Another trailer called Hidden Strike
smooth with John c I was trying to figure out
a way to segue to this. But the problem is
(37:33):
is when I watched this trailer Hidden Strike with John
Cena and Jackie chan I was like, oh, this is
like this meets this, but also this meets this, but
also this meets this, and by that I mean Rush
Hour meets Expendables. I think was my winner.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, totally, yes, that that feels like it's very accurate
to me.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
But also Shaw and Hobbes meets mad Max or water World.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah. Yeah. The synopsis or the IMDb like blurb for
what this movie actually is this. This is the full
extent of what the blurb is. Two ex Special Forces
soldiers must escort a group of civilians along Baghdad's Highway
(38:19):
of Death to the safety of the Green Zone. That's it.
But it is like an action comedy with John Cena
and Jackie Chan And I watched it. I watched this,
not the movie, but the trailer, and I thought the
note I put in our little show notes was dumb
action film.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, sometimes dumb action can be fun. But it does
have some of the same team that did work on Expendables,
which I think is why it echoes that somewhat. And
I watched one of the Expendable movies. It wasn't the
first one, and it just didn't quite reach the point
I think it was trying to get to. For me.
I al We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
I've watched the first Expendles movie and bits of the
second one, and I felt the same way. I felt.
It was like like it felt like it was such
a dream team. I mean, you had all these action
movie icons brought together, and you know, anyone who was
a fan of action movies in the eighties, you know,
you always had these fantasies of, Man, I'm waiting for
(39:21):
that that dream team up of like Sylvester Stallone and
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, you know, and you know
others adding in as well, especially from like the the
Kung Fu films and all those action genres thrown in together,
it's gonna be amazing. And then you're like, oh, yeah, right,
(39:43):
you also need a good story and script for that
to really work. And we forgot. We just got it.
We spent so much money getting all these guys. We
forgot to pay for a good story.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah yeah, kind of the Fast, The Fast and the
Furious movies. Although we have some friends who freaking loved
the series, they're.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like everybody is yeah she she She flipped out big
time about the series.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah yeah, yeah, which I will I will watch at
some point. I'll give you my opinion once I do
it's it is lowered on my list. Something that barely
even made my radar was this trailer for I'm a Virgo,
because when I read the synopsis, it is one an
(40:37):
accurate movie to cover on this podcast. But when I
read the synopsis, for some reason, all of those little
data points did not get absorbed by my brain.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, if you want to hear the synopsis on this
one for IMDb, it would be a coming of age
joy ride about COOTI, a thirteen foot tall man who
escapes to experience the beauty and contradictions of the real world.
He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters
his idol named the hero.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, so he kind of like who is like a superhero.
When you watch the trailer, it's interesting, it looks it
looks a lot of like a lot of fun. To me,
I am a little I'm a little hesitant because I
personally did not enjoy Sorry to Bother You. I wanted to.
(41:33):
I went in thinking I'm gonna love this movie, but
it just got a little too art housey for me
to fully enjoy. I loved parts of it, and I
think the overall story is good, but it just it
got a little too bizarre for me, and it's I'm
a Virgo is done by the same people, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, it's so stifle. It looks it looks really intriguing,
Like I kind of hope they never even attempt to
explain how this young man who is quite young, ended
up being thirteen feet tall. I hope they never ever
explain it in the film, because I think that would
be amazing. But I don't know because I haven't seen it.
(42:17):
I just see the trailer, and the trailer they certainly
don't go into that. He just is.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, But I mean, if you've watched Sorry to Bother You,
and from watching the trailer f I'm of Virgo. They
do deal with racial and cultural issues and couch it
in the bizarre, So I love what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Watch it. There's like a whole there's a whole genre that.
I mean, it kind of spans multiple genres. But there
are several filmmakers, Jordan Peel being another one, who have
created some really interesting movies that do commentary about issues
that involve race and class and that sort of thing, uh,
(43:02):
that do it from an angle where that's not like
front and center, like this is what this movie is about.
But as you watch it, you're like, oh, that's what
this movie is about, right, Like you get it. But
the but the angle they take might not be you know,
head on. It might be at a different angle so
(43:23):
that you're pulled in by the high concept or whatever,
and then through the process, which is really what science
fiction does too. Like good science fiction is a commentary
on things that are going on in today's world, just
using the trappings of science and futurism and stuff to
(43:44):
tell it.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Yeah, giving it, giving it a nice I don't know,
A spoonful of sugar is not always the right thing, right,
but giving it some some flavor to bring people in.
I so, yeah, check out the trailer. See if it's
for you. It really looks interesting. I will get I
will give it a shot. Even though I didn't I
(44:07):
didn't fully enjoy. Sorry to bother you, I'm definitely gonna.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Watch this one.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah. I also definitely watch Good Omens Season two, which
we've been waiting for for a while.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, should come out this summer. We got the title sequence,
so we got to watch what the opening titles will be.
Although the opening titles will change slightly from episode to
episode and the titles like it's that same sort of
animated style that the titles of the first season used,
and people are trying to glean plausible meaning from what
(44:42):
the title sequence shows, which is pretty tricky because the
first season of Good Omens was based off a novel.
The second season of Good Omens is based off a
novel that was never written, so there's no source material
for anyone to rely upon to say like, oh, I
know where the story is going.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, there's source material because Pratchett and Gayman talked about it,
they just never published it, so not for us. There's
source material for Gaymen.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well I mean, I mean, there's no source material for
the speculation. How about that?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, yeah, But it makes sense to try to speculate
what's going to happen, because if you watch the season
one sequence title, everything that almost everything that happens in
that sequence title happens in some form or fashion within
the actual show, which is a really cool, fun little
easter egg hunt. But the second season title sequence looks good,
(45:34):
but almost all looks post apocalyptic to me.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Well, and it looks like there's like a billion characters
because it starts off with a zerofl and Crowley, the
Angel and Demon respectively, walking and then more and more
people start following them, and they walk through lots of
different scenes, including ones that look like they're historical, So
(45:57):
I think there's some where they're walking through like it's
going to be kind of like in the first season
of Good Omens, where you start to see incidents where
they encountered one another throughout history, not just present day.
But they also marched down to Hell, for example, and
the parade of people following them just gets bigger and bigger,
(46:18):
and there's such weird representations of characters that like, I
don't know if if any or all of them or
none of them will show up as characters in the series,
but man, it is funky. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
They also it looks like they also marched to heaven.
And there's an angel in the opening sequence that I
hope is John ham Gabriel, and because he was, he
is in anything that is not Mad Men. He is
delightfully fun Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
It's also interesting because that part was written for the series, right,
It wasn't like that wasn't that was one of the
ones that was created specifically for the series and not
from the novel. Itself, because the first season is is
fairly faithful to the original book, but not it's not,
you know, one to one. There are some deviations, which
(47:13):
is fine.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yeah yeah, and it also looks like they go to
outer space. I'm looking forward to it. I enjoyed Good
Omens way more than I anticipated I would. I liked
the book, but I was iffy on the show, and
then the show won me over same.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I also sat on the same bench that they sat
on at the end of it, so.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Oh, that's really cool. Was there a nightingale that sang
for you?
Speaker 1 (47:35):
No? No, But we were watching like swan swim in
the in the the little waterway across from us. So
I want to say Hyde Park? Was it Hyde Park?
Actually it might have, just I don't remember. I remember
that we went there, and when we were watching the series,
Becca and I got to the point where they were
(47:57):
sitting down on the bench, like, oh my gosh, I
think that might be the very same bench we sat
on when we were walking through that bark. And the
more we sat sat and watched, the more we're like, yeah, no,
those were our sight lines. That's the same bench.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
That is super cool. I'm a little jelly.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Well we had no I we had no way of
knowing at the time, so I couldn't you know, savor
sitting in David Tennant's butt crease.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Or whatever you can say you did it first.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, maybe he said in mine, Yes he did.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
In fact, our next story maybe should have gone up
with the strike news.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Honestly, Yeah, yeah, I didn't think about it, but yeah,
I probably should have moved that further up. Yeah. We
mentioned in our last episode about the the esports players
who were threatening to walk out of an event because
they wanted to support the effectively the minor leagues the
(49:00):
sports because the the the overarching agency that oversees the
whole thing, had made a new ruling saying that the
major teams no longer had to field minor teams, and
the players are like, that's not fair, that's gonna take
It's gonna end up cutting access to tons of people
(49:21):
who otherwise would be rising up in the sport to
take part in the major leagues down the line. And
so now things have escalated beyond that.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yeah, yeah, so uh so, Yeah, they have a two
week window to try to resolve stuff, and then the
pros might walk and if they do that means that
the that North America may not place for the World
Championships because they won't get their their season to do so,
(49:56):
and they want to keep the season so really interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, and and from what I understand, Riot Games is
even telling about just canceling the whole season, like yeah,
like that would be their response rather than the negotiation
of revisiting the ruling about fielding minor teams, They might
just cancel the whole season. Like it's it's it's starting
(50:25):
to become like a mutually assured destruction kind of standoff.
And it's hard to say how it's going to go
right now, but this is not the direction that I
was hoping for.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah, yeah, it looks like the LS. Well, the lc
SPA claimed that there had been attempts to get scab
players for the start of the season, not by them,
because they're saying, hey, that hurts everybody, don't do it,
Just don't do it. But hopefully, hopefully the fact that
(50:59):
they have disgrace period of two weeks to figure it out,
and that people are willing to come to talks during
those two weeks, hopefully they'll figure it out.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I sure hope so. And our final story is one
I just wanted to throw in to chat about a
little bit. So you may have heard of a game
called Redfall, which.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
I have not, Jonathan, what is it about?
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Okay? So red Fall is a game from the studio Arcane,
which made games like Dishonored two and such, and Redfall
is a multiplayer game, a cooperative multiplayer game where you
are trying to take down vampires. And it was one
of those games where when it was first being you know,
(51:44):
shown off, my first reaction was, Oh, this was Left
for Dead, except instead of zombies, they're vampires. But otherwise
it looks almost exactly the same. There were a little
bit of other reveals that made it seem a bit
different from that, but I don't know, it just never
seemed that exciting to me. Well, it turns out that
apparently people within the company Arcane weren't excited about it either.
(52:08):
There's a whole story that came out in Bloomberg. Jason
Schreyer wrote a great piece about it, and we all
have that in our show notes. But basically the way
it goes down is a few years ago, there was
this big push toward creating games as a service, where
you release a game, But the game has tons of
different micro transactions in it so that you can keep
(52:31):
making money off the game even after you release it,
because you know, obviously, if you just sell a game,
you can only sell it once to each person unless
they buy it for multiple platforms. But if you have
micro transactions, you can keep convincing those folks to hand
you money over and over again. Well, Arcane was told
to create a game, and the story is a little muddy,
(52:54):
but like it eventually came down of, hey, why don't
you make a game about vampires? People are crazy about vampires.
And they started development on it. As they were getting
closer to a point where the game was entering into
a finished product, the mandate to include micro transactions changed
because players hated it, so the purpose, the whole purpose
(53:19):
of developing the game went away, and they still had
to make a game. But apparently, like in the process,
Microsoft bought Arcane. They did a seven and a half
billion dollar purchase to buy the company Ourcane and the
people at Arcane reportedly were hoping that Microsoft would intervene
and cancel the project. Like you know, things have gone
(53:42):
bad when the project you're working on, you're hoping gets canceled,
like that's that's real bad. But instead Microsoft was like,
we're going to give you full autonomy. We're gonna let
you do what you want to do, which most of
the time is what you want, right. You don't want
the parent company to come in and interfere. Most of
the time, you want them to give you the freedom
(54:03):
to do what you need to do. But in this case,
people were hoping that Microsoft would come in and shut
it down and direct the group to making something else
because they did not believe in the game they were making.
And since it came out, Redfall has received terrible reviews
for multiple reasons, and it just seems like it's one
(54:27):
of those big, big misses in video game production history.
And like I said, we'll link to the article in
our show notes. It is worth reading if you want
to take the time to read the whole thing. But
really a sad story because you know, no one sets
out to make a bad game. It just sometimes happens.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yeah, like again, this is not a game I heard of. Honestly,
I didn't have time to fully read the article. I
don't even know in Bloomberg, so I had to find
a second artarticle that referenced the Bloomberg article because you
have to you have to subscribe to Bloomberg, I think.
But we'll try to find something that if you aren't subscribed,
you can also check out.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
I'll try to put both.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Links in there. But yeah, people put a lot of
time and effort into it, and you want, even if
you weren't gung ho about it, you want it to
be appreciated. That's that's that's sad.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yeah. I mean, we've seen other stories in the video
game space where something like this happens. I mean, the
really famous one would be Duke Nukem Forever, which was
in development hell for more than a decade, and it
was being called vaporware multiple years in a row because
it was announced years and years before it would ever
come out, and in the process, the studio that was
(55:45):
making it kept getting directions from the head of the
company saying, hey, this new video game engine is out.
I want us to switch to this video game engine
because it's better. And then everybody like, all the work
you had been doing for the previous video game engine
is no longer applicable, and you're like starting from scratch
all over again. The direction changed. There was feature creep.
(56:08):
It just it was like every bad thing that could
happen in the process of making a game kind of
happened in that the same sort of thing appears to
have happened over at Arcane. It is a real shame
because Arcane makes really good games. There are games that
aren't necessarily the biggest sellers, but they're good, they're really
(56:29):
well made, and it's just seeing something like this is
really a shame. And especially you know, you worry that
Microsoft will end up assuming that Arcane isn't worthwhile because
of that, when that's not really the case. Was like,
this was the result of a lot of bad things
(56:51):
lining up at the same time. And so my hope
is that Microsoft doesn't just assume that Arcane is, you know,
worthless or something. Although apparently a lot of people have
already left the studio. So it's a shame.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah. So, on that very sad note, we're gonna end
our episode if they want to, if people want to
contact us and commiserate on the sadness of that or
the happiness of any of the things we've talked about. Otherwise,
how should they reach out?
Speaker 1 (57:24):
Jonathan, Well, what you're gonna need to do is you're
gonna need to get yourself a trampoline. I'm gonna go
out onto that trampoline and you're gonna get someone to
double bounce you. When you get double bounced high enough,
you will feel as if you can reach up and
touch the clouds. That's exactly what you have to do.
You have to touch the clouds. You have to. You
(57:44):
have to do it before you fall back down again.
You have to. You don't want to know what happens
if you don't. You have to touch the cloud and
when you do, you'll hear me say good job, buddy.
Then you can ask me your questions.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Wow. And if you're afraid that your insurance will not
cover that kind of activity, you can reach out to
us via social media or email on Twitter where llenc
Underscore podcast on Instagram, Facebook, and discord. We're a large
Nurdroun Collider and you can email us at large Neurdron
Pod at gmail dot com. You can also check the
(58:23):
show notes that we've mentioned a few times on our
website www dot large Neurdron collider dot com.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Yes, and until next time, I am Jonathan, I'm an
insurance liability Strickland and I.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Am Ariel do you think of these things? In advance castin.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
The Large Nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Caston and reduced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again. Curse That by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin
McLeod of. Incomptech dot com put the Desert without about
Hey, y'all, it's Jonathan. Before we jump into this episode.
It was recorded almost a week ago and has been
waiting to debut ever since. And this is all on me.
This wasn't a planned thing, just because I got overwhelmed
with lots of stuff and didn't have the mental energy
to edit and then publish this episode. Now, what this
(00:23):
means is you're actually going to get two episodes in
a very short time frame, one that was from a
week ago and one that is much more recent. For example,
in this episode, I believe we chat a little bit
about whether or not sag Aftra could potentially strike. They
voted in favor of a strike, not meaning that they
(00:44):
are going to strike, but that option is available to them.
In fact, it was an overwhelming vote for that. So
that's just one example of some outdated information that we
chat about in this episode. So I apologize for that.
That is again completely on me, and I wanted to
(01:06):
try and get this episode out to everybody, even though
it's a bit late, and even though we're gonna be
publishing another one shortly thereafter. But yeah, we had some
good conversations, so I definitely wanted to include it. Anyway,
that's enough hemming and haweing. Let's get to this very
overdue episode.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Larger Drun 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 Aerial cast in and with me as always is
the Sunday Fun Day.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Jonathan Strickland, Life and Plastic. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's fantastic. We don't have to pay royalties for saying that, Dewey.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I think. I think as long as we don't sing it,
we should be fun, all right.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Also, they probably felt underneath the time limit allowed.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Fun fact, there is there is no such thing as
a time limit for copyright. It's just that that technically
under fair use that the more you use an of
an original work, the less likely your argument of fair
use will hold up in court. But there is no
there is no U you know, cut off like you
people say, oh, I only use five seconds. Well guess
(02:33):
what doesn't matter. A court could still find you guilty
of copyright infringement. It's fun to not have actual guidelines.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, you know what. Sometimes I'm like, I want
to post this thing on TikTok can I it's really
hard to find the actual rules and regulations.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah well, and because like no, please go ahead, okay,
I will. And on top of that, like like on YouTube,
usually the worst thing that happens is you'll your monetization
will get struck and it'll go to whomever owns the
copyright to the work you were referencing or using. And
(03:13):
that's the worst of it, which can be bad if
you're depending on YouTube for your livelihood. But the other places,
like I don't know how litigious people get.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, well, like it. It's interesting because my band does
a few covers of songs, and like I would never
post an exact cover that we just do for fun
for friends, right, But some of the things we work
up pretty differently. And I'm like, I'd love to share
a little snippet of this on YouTube because it's awesome.
And I don't know if I need to ask permission.
I don't know if I need to pay royalties, Like
(03:45):
I don't mind giving giving the money to the people
who have earned it, you know, like I'm using somebody
else's work. I'm an actor, so I believed in getting
paid for your art. But it's hard to even find
like what to do, to do it, where to do it.
So many people on TikTok post covers all the time.
(04:06):
Yeah yeah, that most of them don't actually deal with
royalties or getting permission or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, and on TikTok, you know, it's hard to get
direct payment. Like you, there is a little bit of
ad revenue stuff going on on TikTok, but mostly it's
like you land a deal with a sponsor. Or. You're
using TikTok to get noticed enough to become an influencer
and get paid to you know, shill for a company.
(04:33):
So it's not quite the same as on YouTube. I
will say that parody is protected under fair use. However,
parody has a specific definition too, and typically whatever you
are parodying, the work you're doing needs to somehow comment
on the original work, which is why I often find
(04:55):
it funny when people talk about weird Al Yankovic, the
fact that he doesn't nes necessarily need to get permission
from the artists whom he parodies. He kind of does
because most of the time his parodies aren't commenting on
the original work. They're set to the same music and
(05:15):
some of the lyrics might have, you know, a structure
that's similar to the original song, but only in a
few instances, like smells like Teen's Spirit. Is he directly
commenting on the original work, and therefore under US copyright law,
that wouldn't that would not count as parody except in those,
you know instances like smells like teen Spirit so or
(05:39):
smells like Nirvana. So yeah, it's it's a complicated thing,
and the worst thing about it is these these things
get decided in court. So by that point it's already
like you are beyond where you want to be. If
you're in a courtroom, that's you don't want to be there.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah. Yeah, and this has been your law time education corner.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Not how expected to start this off?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Well, I mean like copyright law has a big it
plays a big part in the geek sphere, honestly, Yeah,
in lots of ways, because like you say, Ariel, like
there's there are fandoms out there that do their own
versions of stuff. I mean, heck, there there were those
kids who remade Indiana Jones and the Raiders the Lost
Arc in their backyard when they were kids. Like, there
(06:29):
are people who do these things, and it's through the
genuine love they bear for these geek properties. It doesn't
necessarily mean that it's one legal or one percent free
from copyright infringement. But depending upon the case, you might
not have anyone come after you, because, like if Spielberg
(06:51):
went after a bunch of kids, that would not look
good on Spielberg's part.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, I agree. And it's even harder,
especially on things like TikTok, which I know you aren't
really on where in some of these other platforms where
some artists encourage people to use their music, it's that
whole I'd rather get it out there so more people
(07:16):
want to I honestly don't know how that business model works,
but I know that there are a lot of artists
like Megan Trainor who love it when people do stuff
to her music and they don't need permission to use
her music or cover it because it gives her more
exposure exposure. But yeah, just figuring that out is is hard.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, hard, It is hard, and that's why we're.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I have not rich enough to make you get a
lawyer for it.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're here to answer the hard questions,
and some questions aren't as hard as others, and when
those questions aren't too hard, we stick them in thirty
seconds or less.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I like that, segwe Jonathan.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Thank you, and we're going to get started now. On Wednesdays,
we paint pink unless some jerk has bought all the
pink paint in the world. That's kind of what happened
with the film Barbie, according to set production designer Sarah Greenwood.
She says, in the process of making Barbie's Dream World,
the crew used a lot of scenic pink paint from
(08:18):
the company Roscoe, so much that created a temporary worldwide shortage.
Might I suggest blue.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
That's actually a yes? And from when Farskate made Peacekeeper
Wars and I heard that they made Australia run out
of explosives empyrotechnics. Okay, fun fun fact. Next, How to
Train Your Dragon. If you have been listening to the
show for a while, you probably heard us mention that
(08:50):
they were DreamWorks Animation was looking at making a live
action How to Train Your Dragon and trying to figure
out how to make the dragons look both lovable and
realistic in not a creepy Uncanny Valley way. Well, I
don't know if they've done that, but they have cast
their main two characters, Hiccup and Astrid. Hiccup is being
(09:10):
played by Mason Thames, who was most recently in The
Black Phone, or at least recently, and Astrod is being
played by Nico Parker, who was in fact in season
one of the Last of Us. I think it's great
casting and I look forward to hearing more about this thing.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Excellent. Yeah, you know, I just watched The Black Phone.
That is a very difficult watch. Okay, good to know,
good to know going on to the next one. It's
so hard to say goodbye, so let's not That's what
Lionsgate is saying to the john Wick franchise. During an
earnings call, chairperson Joe Drake said, among other things, quote
(09:50):
when that five movie comes, it will be organic. End
the quote. Well, that definitely suggests a fifth john Wick movie,
and if you saw the fourth one, you'll no, it'll
require some interesting story gymnastics to make it happen. Keanu
is reportedly open to it if the story is right.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I think that's a good mindset if you're going to
continue it. I haven't seen the last one. There's no
good segue into this Pathfinder is making a Diablo esque
hack and slash action RPG video game right now, Pathfinder
Abomination Vaults is on Kickstarter and it will come to Steam.
(10:33):
And yeah, it's it's pretty much Pathfinder Diablo for That's
all I got to say about.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It, all right, Well, Disney recently held a round of layoffs,
one of a couple of big rounds to hit this year,
and among those let go was the person responsible for
saving Toy Story two from certain death. So the story
goes that a Pixar staff member accidentally deleted the files
to to Toy Story two when in development, but technical
(11:01):
director Galen Susman happened to have a backup copy due
to working remotely. Now Susman has been let go, and
I think that deserves a very sad Sarah McLaughlin song
that'll make us all cry.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I'm crying right now. More Diablo news, because I had
more to say about Diablo, just not about the Pathfinder version.
There are being held hardcore victory contests for Diablo for
where the first one thousand players who reach level one
hundred on hardcore will get their names on an in
game statue. If you recall from a previous episode. Hardcore
(11:38):
mode in the Blizzard world is where you like Herma
death when you die. And if you've played previous versions
of Diablo, yes, there can be strategy, but most people
I know, like me, play it where you just run
around and hack things and then die, and then hack
things and then die, and it's just kind of a
chaotic free for all.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I still am convinced that Diablo was created in concert
with computer mouse manufacturers, because you wear out the buttons
so fast on that darn game. Okay, Across the Spider
Verse is going very well in theaters right now, and
Sony is paying attention. Sony Repsy indicated that the company
is playing to bring a Miles Morales live action film
(12:21):
to screens in the future, as well as a Spider
Woman film as part of the extended Spider Verse at Sony,
you know, the one that doesn't appear to actually have
Spider Man in it very much. This is very early,
so not many details yet, although Hailey Steinfeld is rumored
to be considered for Spider Woman, which means she'd be
playing two characters in the MCU slash Spider Verse.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm as excited for this next news article as I
am for Spider Man Across the Universe which I haven't
seen yet, which is that the New York City Center
has announced its upcoming season for their Encore series, which
starts off with not including their current like fundraiser that's
at the end of the year, Once Upon a Mattress
starring Sutton Foster, who is Princess Fiona in the original
(13:05):
Shrek the Musical, which she's amazing. She's playing Princess Winnifred.
If you don't know, once Upon a Mattress is like
my favorite, one of my favorite musicals, tied with Beetlejuice.
Good pardon me. And also I've played Princess Winnifred and
it's like my dream role. I will play it every chance.
Every time there's an audition for this show, I will
do it. I don't care if I'm seventy five.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So other seen her do it?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, sorry, other things are doing Jelly's Last jem in Titanic.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So when I hear Sutton Foster, first of all, obviously
an amazing actress who has been in a ton of stuff,
but I will never forget where I saw her first,
which was playing Britt's girlfriend in Flight of the conchords
and she never ever sings in it.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That's hilarious and also a little bit of a shame.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah. Yeah, and obviously she's done. You know. She originated
some roles on Broadway, including Milly and Thoroughly Modern Milly,
and has played some really. She was in Music Man
with Hugh Jackman not too long ago, so yeah, she
is no stranger to the boards. Okay, here is the
penultimate thirty seconds or less story. Supernatural was a series
(14:20):
that lasted fifteen seasons, with each season seeing one or
both of the Winchester brothers dead until one of them
eventually stayed that way. But no spoilers, I'm not going
to tell you which one it was. The series The
Winchesters was about their parents, but the CW has canceled
it after only one season and no one else picked
it up. So while the brothers carried on my wayward
(14:42):
son for many years, the book is closing on mom
and Dad.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I want to say that's sad, but I haven't watched
The Winchesters at all. I have watched all of Supernatural,
have you.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I watched probably the first four or five seasons, and
then I fell off, like I was like in the
middle of a season and I just stopped and because
they were all kind of samey.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yes, there are a couple of seasons where I'm just like,
I can't I can't go on.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I can't even tell you. I can't even tell you
what the big bads were called, like Leviathans or something.
I don't know. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Oh yeah, that's still early No, that's fine. I'm the
one who took us off the thirty seconds or less.
The Leviathans were still pretty early on and not the
greatest villains. Some people might disagree, all right, last story.
I know that a bunch of people were sad that
HBO was taking off a bunch of shows off their
roster to save money on paying royalties, things like Westworld
(15:43):
and The Nevers. However, those shows have found a new
home at two B and apparently they're doing really well.
And this is especially great news for people who are
sad about the fact that Disney is removing some items
from their catalog because apparently, according to some interviews and
some hat tipping to be and Disney also have a
(16:06):
great relationship. So you those things that are going off
the platforms that you love, you may still be able
to watch.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, whether they will continue or not, like you know,
like the Winchesters, that's a different story, but at least
you will still be able to find the old episodes,
which you know. I definitely get frustrated when something just
disappears off a platform. It's one of the reasons why
I've started to buy some physical media again, because I
(16:38):
just I got tired. I got tired of stuff being
unavailable without warning.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah. Same, I mean, and even just as much as
like so Ash Versus the Evil Dead was a show
that was on Stars I think, and then I got
rid of Stars and I couldn't finish watching it. Well,
it came to Netflix, and I didn't realize that it
had like a day that it was going back off
of Netflix, so I didn't finish watching the series. And
now it's on like Epics or something. So I can't
(17:05):
watch a series unless I buy another streaming channel. So like, yeah,
I also have started buying physical media of the things
that I know I'll want to rewatch or the things
that I know that I want to have the option
to watch, Yeah, movies and TV shows.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, it's just the frustrating thing with that is you know,
they take up space and then you gotta figure out
where you're putting stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Look, you just cask of the manciato a wall with
them and.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, hey, no, don't take that. That's a load bearing
blu ray.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
You laugh. But have you seen my basement?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I have not, but I am sure. I mean, you
threatened a couple times where I thought that's where I
was gonna end up. But I just you know, you
let me how the trunk eventually, and everything was okay.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's all words, words, words, okay.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Very like a whale. All right, So let's talk about
some of the stuff what we saw. We are, by
the way, we should have said this at the top.
I mean you did kind of. We're recording this on Sunday,
so this is a very late episode, or you can
think of it as super early if you prefer, but no,
it's late, and so we wanted to talk about some
(18:15):
of the stuff we've seen since the last time we convened.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, I guess I will start. I watched the first
episode of American Born Chinese this past Memorial Day weekend.
I liked it, honestly, and this is not what I expect.
It was a little slow, it was really cute. The
two lead actors had amazing chemistry together. They were so
(18:41):
much fun to watch. But I really enjoyed the like
the real life high school drama more than I did
the fantastical supernatural stuff that was happening in the show.
So if we've talked about American born Chinese on the
episodisode before, but if you don't remember, it's based off
(19:02):
a comic series is done by the shang Chi people,
and it's basically kind of like Mythology meets Everywhere, every
everything everywhere, all at once a little bit. It's at
least got some of the same actors.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, well, that's that's cool. You know, some of the
same actors also show up. And one of the things
I saw, although you don't I don't know. You don't
see them, you just hear them, which is Gremlins, like
Legend of the Magua. Some of the some of those
folks also do voices on that show, and I watched
episodes three and four of Gremlins, so I'm caught up
(19:40):
as we're recording this. I still enjoy it. There's a
character that I find really irritating, but I understand what
this character is doing and what purpose they are serving,
and I can't disagree with it. It's just one of
those where it's like, and you could even argue that's
the purpose of the character is to irritate you, in
(20:00):
which case doing a great job. But uh yeah, I
am still enjoying it very much. It's kind of interesting
how they're trying to balance out telling a narrative story
that stretches across a season with things being a little episodic,
like there's a little bit of Monster of the Week
(20:21):
syndrome going on with some of the episodes, but they're
also trying to progress the overall storyline. Kind of feels
like they're stopping to do side quests while try to
finish the main quest. That's what it feels like to me.
But still good. Still recommend it, other than the fact
that you know, as we've said, the fact that they
(20:42):
call Gizmo Gizmo and it's a prequel set in the
nineteen twenties means it actually is the worst cartoon ever made.
And the other thing I saw was the finale, the
series finale for Barry, which I was highly anticipating. I
was wondering how they were going to do it. And
I have to say I did not see it coming.
(21:04):
They just enjoy it, though, that is a very hard
question to answer because okay, like, okay, so I think
it was the right ending. I don't know if I
enjoyed it, because there are characters who are seeking redemption
(21:27):
who don't get redeemed. There are characters who shouldn't be
redeemed who appear to get redemption. Like there's there's a
lot going on, and ultimately, I think it's all the
choices made were the right ones, even the one that
was really surprising to me, but it was still kind
of a I don't know, like like it's kind of
(21:49):
like if a play ends but they they didn't. Like
if you were to watch a production of a Christmas
Carol and they they they tune up to I need
tim for God bless us everyone, but he doesn't say it.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
M gotcha, gotcha. That's interesting. I I really need to
catch up on Barry as soon as I finished Last
of Us and buy Apple TV for ted lass Ow
and Schmigadoon and all of the other things that watching.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, but is still fantastic.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, but this this weekend instead other than American born Chinese,
I did watch the entirety of season two of Barbecue Showdown.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
That's not geeky, it's food geeky.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Gotcha, it's not, but you know what it's for a
food competition show. Season two is really delightful. There's so
little like everybody is so supportive of each other and
in fact and in fact the there's a a like
a two of the contestants become like best friends, like
(22:57):
uh and there are two of my favorite people on
the on it. For season one, there were some people
who I was like, they kind of get on my
nerves or they've got kind of a bad attitude. But
this season didn't have that at all. It was delightful.
So yeah, maybe not geegee geeky to me, I like
food shows fair enough.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Well that that kind of sums up what we've watched.
I am. I am not going to talk about sordid
food because that's my that's my go to food stuff,
A bunch of Brits being silly in the kitchen. But
we're going to instead what's that?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I do like it?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Oh yeah, we're gonna talk instead about a whole bunch
of strike news w GA strike. It's still going on
as we record this. It's been a month now at
where this strike has been going on, and in just
a couple of days, sag AFTRA, the union that represents
(23:57):
actors in Hollywood, they have their negotiations with the studios
starting just on June seventh, and in advance of that,
they had been voting on a strike authorization, which isn't
the same thing as going on strike. It's just if
they have a strike authorization, it means when they go
(24:17):
into the negotiations they can tell the studios, hey, we're
already ready to strike. We've already held a vote and
they're ready to go.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
But we don't know what the result of that vote
is yet. They haven't announced it. I do know, however,
that the the picket lines have apparently made it to Georgia.
There were some picketing lines.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
I received an email asking me to picket a location.
I will not say where because I'm respecting the organizers
who sent me this message. It's probably because the iHeart
Media Podcast union is associated with the WGA East. I'm
(25:05):
guessing that's how I got the email. It was odd
to get it though, like it was an email calling
for me, not just me, Like it was an email
that was a blast email, but it was calling for
people in the area to go to a specific location
and picket it in advance of a production possibly ramping up.
See that, we're starting to see this kind of chess
(25:27):
game going on between studios and the writers, where the
writers are trying to rush to locations where filming is
supposed to happen, and studios are trying to secretly figure
out where they can shoot where the writers won't know
about it, where they can get a day's work in
without a picket line going up, because as we know,
(25:48):
if the picket line goes up and it just takes
two people to qualify as a picket line, if that,
if a line goes up, then other unions can choose
not to cross that picket line and that would end
up setting productions on hold. And in fact, that's been
happening in Hollywood, and like Ariel was saying in Georgia,
(26:09):
as various union members in WGA have gone to pick
it and protest, and then you know, like teamsters won't
cross that line, and once that happens, nothing else happens,
which is.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
In fact our next story talking about how effectiveness is.
It's so effective that like they've been putting out fake
call sheets and locations and times to try to get
production done.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the kind of like tactics that are
happening right now. And obviously even getting productions done right now,
that's just for the stuff that's already been written, anything
that requires rewrites or whatever, that's already on hold because
no one can do any writing work until the strike
is resolved. So nothing new is going to launch unless
(26:58):
it's already like in the can written, not in the can,
but totally like on the page written, and no one's
going to do any rewrites that could go forward theoretically,
although WGA could go and then put up a picket
line and that would potentially throw a monkey wrench in
the whole works. But yeah, anything that requires even a
little bit of writing it is on hold. So we're
(27:21):
probably like we're looking at a pretty significant impact on
productions right now.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah. I mean, this doesn't mean that people can't, you know,
create their own content or do non union stuff if
they aren't a part of the union. Technically, if you're
non union, you can still work on those projects, but
you don't you don't want to pass across picket lines.
You just don't that's not.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
No, it doesn't. It doesn't help you, and it hurts
everybody other than the studios, who certainly don't need any
They don't need to be coddled.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, speaking of helping yourself and hurting other people, although
I don't know if I fully agree with it. You
also added this story about how the Director's Guild of
America has signed a tentative deal with studios already, yes,
and how the WGA is not thrilled about it because
the possible SAG strike in the WGA strike gave DGA
(28:18):
the leverage to get their demands made and they're very
similar to what everybody else is asking for, right, Yeah,
but at the same time, like they all needed to
do the same thing. And if if people agreed to
do that for the directors, hopefully they'll agreed to do
it for the actors and the writers next. If not,
we're still not getting stuff made.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah. Yeah, So the WGA is kind of upset because
I mean, it's understandable, right, because the DGA could have
also gone on strike and made it a really big
collective union confrontation with the studios, but instead the studios
agreed to you know enough of the DGA requests that
(29:02):
the DGA was like, all right, we got ours, we
got what we want, so good luck you guys, and
peace out. And the WGA is like, the only reason
you got what you want is because we've been on
strike for a month and the studios are terrified of
another union going on strike. So literally, we did the
work for you to get what you wanted. Like, the
(29:23):
work we did is why you got the requests you have,
and you're throwing us under the bus. That's what the
WGA is effectively saying, which you can kind of get it.
But man, if you start reading those tweets, it gets
like it's very courteous, but it's cold.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I I yeah, I get it, but I also aren't
they aren't all three unions basically working for the deal
that the DGA just got. If the DGA want on strike,
they may not have gotten the things they were asking for,
or at least had to have bargained more.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
It's possible, but see, I think the fear is that.
But if if the studios, well, I don't know, because
the studios can't go without the writers, like there's there's
no work without the writers. So it's it's really weird
because you figured that eventually the studios are going to
have to concede at least some of the points the
writers have made for things to move forward. But I mean,
(30:22):
at the same time, like some of the stuff that
the writers are really concerned about aren't directly impacting people
who do directing, right, Like, it's not like the stuff
that like with AI, the writers are worried about AI
potentially undercutting their their jobs and making it harder for
writers to get paid decent wages. Directors don't really have
to worry about that so far, so that's probably part
(30:45):
of it. But yeah, it's I mean, it's just tough because,
like it's the whole thing about unions, right, Collectively, you
have more power than you do individually. So I don't
think it lessens the WGA's power in this ongoing strike.
But I think they were really hoping that they would
get like a bigger boost from the d GA.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah yeah, but hopefully this will be a catalyst for
the w GA to get the things they've been asking for,
because again I don't think they're unreasonable.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Same, Now on to some happier news. We got a
full trailer for something we talked about recently on the
show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem trailer, and it
just looks more and more charming everything I see about it.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Agreed, Yeah, the trailer, like we talked about a teaser
a couple like in the last episode or one before that.
So this trailer, the more I see of it, the
more I'm like, I love this vibe. Like it's got
that great balance between the very cartoony animated series version
of TMNT and the you know edgier, darker comic book
(32:02):
TM and T. I feel like this is the right balance.
It also tells me that Seth Rogen. Uh was it
Seth Rogan who wrote on this?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Uh? He's He's at least I think he co wrote it,
and I think he's co producing it.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Hey, everybody, how about some as m R. Listen to
that beautiful clicking, click clacking noise. Uh Seth Rogen is
a producer on it? Did he also? Did? He also write? Ah,
you you broke in my brain? Now?
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Well, I was just going to say that it's it's
very cool and the.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Screenplay is by uh Seth Rogen Evan Goldberg, who also
works a lot with Seth Rogen and Jeff Rowe, who
worked on Gravity Falls and Disenchantment.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I was about to say, it feels very much like
he has a deep love for the original film version
of TM and T, which also had kind of a balance.
I don't think it was an ideal balance between the
cartoony and the edgy. I think it was a little
tonally inconsistent. But I feel like that's kind of the
(33:12):
starting grounds of the love that I feel for Mutant Mayhem.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah. Yeah, you know, Seth Rogen is doing that thing
that I love to see all actors do, which is
a break out of their like stereotypical comfort zone. So
I'm all for it. Yeah, because his normal his normal
sense of humor is not super my sense of humor.
I'm not. It just isn't.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You're not until all the stoner comedies.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
No, it's it's just not for me.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Also, they tend to They also tend to go a
little bit blue.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Like I don't. I don't mind blue if it's done
in a way that I feel as clever, But often
in those films, I just feel like it's it's there
to be a shock or a prize, and that's about
the extent of it, and then like once that wears off,
if the joke doesn't stick with you, then it's not
really that good of a joke. But I mean, I
(34:10):
say that just in general, I like Ariel like, I
don't watch stoner comedies. They don't have much appeal to me.
I think I've seen like maybe two super Troopers being
one of them, and while I can appreciate moments in them,
I'm just not of that particular demographic. So and there's
nothing wrong with folks who are, it's just not for me.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, there there are some I've seen as well where
I'm like, oh, I like these moments, but it's at
most a third of the movie. But you know, that's
why we have different media for different people. Like the
next thing, if you don't like stoner comedies or sup
or comic book cartoon movies, you can instead watch season
(34:55):
six of Black Mirror, which we got a full trailer for.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, uh, trailer looks good. Like the episodes, the episodes
look very distinct now. I think it looks like some
of them actually looked a little more like classic Twilight
Zone ish because Black Mirror obviously has a harder edge
to it than Twilight Zone did, but I think a
(35:18):
couple of them looked a little more kind of whimsical
Twilight so almost to the point of amazing stories whimsy.
I'm sure that that's just a part of those episodes.
And then things go really wrong and it gets really dark,
because that's kind of what Black Mirror is. But still
the trailer it wasn't all like oppressive doom and glue
(35:40):
mostly but not all.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I mean, it ended with oppressive doom and gloom. So
they did with the new full trailer for season six
of Black Mirror what Doctor Who did, which was give
us little clips, almost like mini trailers of each of
the episodes coming out and the titles. And there is
one with Aaron Paul that's in outer Space that I
agree has like it looks scary, but it also looks
very like Twilight Zone to me. Yeah, and I'm excited
(36:04):
to see what happens. There's also one that's rather self
referential in its content. And then the last one they
show us is Red Mirror, which I wonder if it's
going to become a like a Shuttered style spinoff series.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I guess it could be. It is a you know,
it's a. It's not a bad idea, I suppose, although
really Black Mirror is already so like it can get
pretty horrific. Uh oh, I guess I I guess it
doesn't go quite I mean, I haven't watched all the seasons.
I guess it doesn't go quite as far into outright
(36:42):
horror as that It usually is just very disturbing.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I just figured Black Mirror was because of the dark
content and Red Mirror is because it's going to be
bloody Goria's heck. But that's just my assumption.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Very possible. It's it's not a bad idea. Like, there
there are people who there are people who love the gore.
I appreciate a good gory scene, but again, just like
I was talking about with humor, I need there to
be a reason for it.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not. I'm not great with just gore
for core. That's just me. Another trailer called Hidden Strike
smooth with John c I was trying to figure out
a way to segue to this. But the problem is
(37:33):
is when I watched this trailer Hidden Strike with John
Cena and Jackie chan I was like, oh, this is
like this meets this, but also this meets this, but
also this meets this, and by that I mean Rush
Hour meets Expendables. I think was my winner.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, totally, yes, that that feels like it's very accurate
to me.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
But also Shaw and Hobbes meets mad Max or water World.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah. Yeah. The synopsis or the IMDb like blurb for
what this movie actually is this. This is the full
extent of what the blurb is. Two ex Special Forces
soldiers must escort a group of civilians along Baghdad's Highway
(38:19):
of Death to the safety of the Green Zone. That's it.
But it is like an action comedy with John Cena
and Jackie Chan And I watched it. I watched this,
not the movie, but the trailer, and I thought the
note I put in our little show notes was dumb
action film.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yeah, sometimes dumb action can be fun. But it does
have some of the same team that did work on Expendables,
which I think is why it echoes that somewhat. And
I watched one of the Expendable movies. It wasn't the
first one, and it just didn't quite reach the point
I think it was trying to get to. For me.
I al We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
I've watched the first Expendles movie and bits of the
second one, and I felt the same way. I felt.
It was like like it felt like it was such
a dream team. I mean, you had all these action
movie icons brought together, and you know, anyone who was
a fan of action movies in the eighties, you know,
you always had these fantasies of, Man, I'm waiting for
(39:21):
that that dream team up of like Sylvester Stallone and
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, you know, and you know
others adding in as well, especially from like the the
Kung Fu films and all those action genres thrown in together,
it's gonna be amazing. And then you're like, oh, yeah, right,
(39:43):
you also need a good story and script for that
to really work. And we forgot. We just got it.
We spent so much money getting all these guys. We
forgot to pay for a good story.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah yeah, kind of the Fast, The Fast and the
Furious movies. Although we have some friends who freaking loved
the series, they're.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Like everybody is yeah she she She flipped out big
time about the series.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yeah yeah, yeah, which I will I will watch at
some point. I'll give you my opinion once I do
it's it is lowered on my list. Something that barely
even made my radar was this trailer for I'm a Virgo,
because when I read the synopsis, it is one an
(40:37):
accurate movie to cover on this podcast. But when I
read the synopsis, for some reason, all of those little
data points did not get absorbed by my brain.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, if you want to hear the synopsis on this
one for IMDb, it would be a coming of age
joy ride about COOTI, a thirteen foot tall man who
escapes to experience the beauty and contradictions of the real world.
He forms friendships, finds love, navigates awkward situations, and encounters
his idol named the hero.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, so he kind of like who is like a superhero.
When you watch the trailer, it's interesting, it looks it
looks a lot of like a lot of fun. To me,
I am a little I'm a little hesitant because I
personally did not enjoy Sorry to Bother You. I wanted to.
(41:33):
I went in thinking I'm gonna love this movie, but
it just got a little too art housey for me
to fully enjoy. I loved parts of it, and I
think the overall story is good, but it just it
got a little too bizarre for me, and it's I'm
a Virgo is done by the same people, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, it's so stifle. It looks it looks really intriguing,
Like I kind of hope they never even attempt to
explain how this young man who is quite young, ended
up being thirteen feet tall. I hope they never ever
explain it in the film, because I think that would
be amazing. But I don't know because I haven't seen it.
(42:17):
I just see the trailer, and the trailer they certainly
don't go into that. He just is.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, But I mean, if you've watched Sorry to Bother You,
and from watching the trailer f I'm of Virgo. They
do deal with racial and cultural issues and couch it
in the bizarre, So I love what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Watch it. There's like a whole there's a whole genre that.
I mean, it kind of spans multiple genres. But there
are several filmmakers, Jordan Peel being another one, who have
created some really interesting movies that do commentary about issues
that involve race and class and that sort of thing, uh,
(43:02):
that do it from an angle where that's not like
front and center, like this is what this movie is about.
But as you watch it, you're like, oh, that's what
this movie is about, right, Like you get it. But
the but the angle they take might not be you know,
head on. It might be at a different angle so
(43:23):
that you're pulled in by the high concept or whatever,
and then through the process, which is really what science
fiction does too. Like good science fiction is a commentary
on things that are going on in today's world, just
using the trappings of science and futurism and stuff to
(43:44):
tell it.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Yeah, giving it, giving it a nice I don't know,
A spoonful of sugar is not always the right thing, right,
but giving it some some flavor to bring people in.
I so, yeah, check out the trailer. See if it's
for you. It really looks interesting. I will get I
will give it a shot. Even though I didn't I
(44:07):
didn't fully enjoy. Sorry to bother you, I'm definitely gonna.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Watch this one.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah. I also definitely watch Good Omens Season two, which
we've been waiting for for a while.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, should come out this summer. We got the title sequence,
so we got to watch what the opening titles will be.
Although the opening titles will change slightly from episode to
episode and the titles like it's that same sort of
animated style that the titles of the first season used,
and people are trying to glean plausible meaning from what
(44:42):
the title sequence shows, which is pretty tricky because the
first season of Good Omens was based off a novel.
The second season of Good Omens is based off a
novel that was never written, so there's no source material
for anyone to rely upon to say like, oh, I
know where the story is going.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, there's source material because Pratchett and Gayman talked about it,
they just never published it, so not for us. There's
source material for Gaymen.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well I mean, I mean, there's no source material for
the speculation. How about that?
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, yeah, But it makes sense to try to speculate
what's going to happen, because if you watch the season
one sequence title, everything that almost everything that happens in
that sequence title happens in some form or fashion within
the actual show, which is a really cool, fun little
easter egg hunt. But the second season title sequence looks good,
(45:34):
but almost all looks post apocalyptic to me.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Well, and it looks like there's like a billion characters
because it starts off with a zerofl and Crowley, the
Angel and Demon respectively, walking and then more and more
people start following them, and they walk through lots of
different scenes, including ones that look like they're historical, So
(45:57):
I think there's some where they're walking through like it's
going to be kind of like in the first season
of Good Omens, where you start to see incidents where
they encountered one another throughout history, not just present day.
But they also marched down to Hell, for example, and
the parade of people following them just gets bigger and bigger,
(46:18):
and there's such weird representations of characters that like, I
don't know if if any or all of them or
none of them will show up as characters in the series,
but man, it is funky. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
They also it looks like they also marched to heaven.
And there's an angel in the opening sequence that I
hope is John ham Gabriel, and because he was, he
is in anything that is not Mad Men. He is
delightfully fun Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
It's also interesting because that part was written for the series, right,
It wasn't like that wasn't that was one of the
ones that was created specifically for the series and not
from the novel. Itself, because the first season is is
fairly faithful to the original book, but not it's not,
you know, one to one. There are some deviations, which
(47:13):
is fine.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yeah yeah, and it also looks like they go to
outer space. I'm looking forward to it. I enjoyed Good
Omens way more than I anticipated I would. I liked
the book, but I was iffy on the show, and
then the show won me over same.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I also sat on the same bench that they sat
on at the end of it, so.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Oh, that's really cool. Was there a nightingale that sang
for you?
Speaker 1 (47:35):
No? No, But we were watching like swan swim in
the in the the little waterway across from us. So
I want to say Hyde Park? Was it Hyde Park?
Actually it might have, just I don't remember. I remember
that we went there, and when we were watching the series,
Becca and I got to the point where they were
(47:57):
sitting down on the bench, like, oh my gosh, I
think that might be the very same bench we sat
on when we were walking through that bark. And the
more we sat sat and watched, the more we're like, yeah, no,
those were our sight lines. That's the same bench.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
That is super cool. I'm a little jelly.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Well we had no I we had no way of
knowing at the time, so I couldn't you know, savor
sitting in David Tennant's butt crease.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Or whatever you can say you did it first.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah, maybe he said in mine, Yes he did.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
In fact, our next story maybe should have gone up
with the strike news.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Honestly, Yeah, yeah, I didn't think about it, but yeah,
I probably should have moved that further up. Yeah. We
mentioned in our last episode about the the esports players
who were threatening to walk out of an event because
they wanted to support the effectively the minor leagues the
(49:00):
sports because the the the overarching agency that oversees the
whole thing, had made a new ruling saying that the
major teams no longer had to field minor teams, and
the players are like, that's not fair, that's gonna take
It's gonna end up cutting access to tons of people
(49:21):
who otherwise would be rising up in the sport to
take part in the major leagues down the line. And
so now things have escalated beyond that.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
Yeah, yeah, so uh so, Yeah, they have a two
week window to try to resolve stuff, and then the
pros might walk and if they do that means that
the that North America may not place for the World
Championships because they won't get their their season to do so,
(49:56):
and they want to keep the season so really interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Yeah, and and from what I understand, Riot Games is
even telling about just canceling the whole season, like yeah,
like that would be their response rather than the negotiation
of revisiting the ruling about fielding minor teams, They might
just cancel the whole season. Like it's it's it's starting
(50:25):
to become like a mutually assured destruction kind of standoff.
And it's hard to say how it's going to go
right now, but this is not the direction that I
was hoping for.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah, yeah, it looks like the LS. Well, the lc
SPA claimed that there had been attempts to get scab
players for the start of the season, not by them,
because they're saying, hey, that hurts everybody, don't do it,
Just don't do it. But hopefully, hopefully the fact that
(50:59):
they have disgrace period of two weeks to figure it out,
and that people are willing to come to talks during
those two weeks, hopefully they'll figure it out.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I sure hope so. And our final story is one
I just wanted to throw in to chat about a
little bit. So you may have heard of a game
called Redfall, which.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
I have not, Jonathan, what is it about?
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Okay? So red Fall is a game from the studio Arcane,
which made games like Dishonored two and such, and Redfall
is a multiplayer game, a cooperative multiplayer game where you
are trying to take down vampires. And it was one
of those games where when it was first being you know,
(51:44):
shown off, my first reaction was, Oh, this was Left
for Dead, except instead of zombies, they're vampires. But otherwise
it looks almost exactly the same. There were a little
bit of other reveals that made it seem a bit
different from that, but I don't know, it just never
seemed that exciting to me. Well, it turns out that
apparently people within the company Arcane weren't excited about it either.
(52:08):
There's a whole story that came out in Bloomberg. Jason
Schreyer wrote a great piece about it, and we all
have that in our show notes. But basically the way
it goes down is a few years ago, there was
this big push toward creating games as a service, where
you release a game, But the game has tons of
different micro transactions in it so that you can keep
(52:31):
making money off the game even after you release it,
because you know, obviously, if you just sell a game,
you can only sell it once to each person unless
they buy it for multiple platforms. But if you have
micro transactions, you can keep convincing those folks to hand
you money over and over again. Well, Arcane was told
to create a game, and the story is a little muddy,
(52:54):
but like it eventually came down of, hey, why don't
you make a game about vampires? People are crazy about vampires.
And they started development on it. As they were getting
closer to a point where the game was entering into
a finished product, the mandate to include micro transactions changed
because players hated it, so the purpose, the whole purpose
(53:19):
of developing the game went away, and they still had
to make a game. But apparently, like in the process,
Microsoft bought Arcane. They did a seven and a half
billion dollar purchase to buy the company Ourcane and the
people at Arcane reportedly were hoping that Microsoft would intervene
and cancel the project. Like you know, things have gone
(53:42):
bad when the project you're working on, you're hoping gets canceled,
like that's that's real bad. But instead Microsoft was like,
we're going to give you full autonomy. We're gonna let
you do what you want to do, which most of
the time is what you want, right. You don't want
the parent company to come in and interfere. Most of
the time, you want them to give you the freedom
(54:03):
to do what you need to do. But in this case,
people were hoping that Microsoft would come in and shut
it down and direct the group to making something else
because they did not believe in the game they were making.
And since it came out, Redfall has received terrible reviews
for multiple reasons, and it just seems like it's one
(54:27):
of those big, big misses in video game production history.
And like I said, we'll link to the article in
our show notes. It is worth reading if you want
to take the time to read the whole thing. But
really a sad story because you know, no one sets
out to make a bad game. It just sometimes happens.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yeah, like again, this is not a game I heard of. Honestly,
I didn't have time to fully read the article. I
don't even know in Bloomberg, so I had to find
a second artarticle that referenced the Bloomberg article because you
have to you have to subscribe to Bloomberg, I think.
But we'll try to find something that if you aren't subscribed,
you can also check out.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
I'll try to put both.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Links in there. But yeah, people put a lot of
time and effort into it, and you want, even if
you weren't gung ho about it, you want it to
be appreciated. That's that's that's sad.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yeah. I mean, we've seen other stories in the video
game space where something like this happens. I mean, the
really famous one would be Duke Nukem Forever, which was
in development hell for more than a decade, and it
was being called vaporware multiple years in a row because
it was announced years and years before it would ever
come out, and in the process, the studio that was
(55:45):
making it kept getting directions from the head of the
company saying, hey, this new video game engine is out.
I want us to switch to this video game engine
because it's better. And then everybody like, all the work
you had been doing for the previous video game engine
is no longer applicable, and you're like starting from scratch
all over again. The direction changed. There was feature creep.
(56:08):
It just it was like every bad thing that could
happen in the process of making a game kind of
happened in that the same sort of thing appears to
have happened over at Arcane. It is a real shame
because Arcane makes really good games. There are games that
aren't necessarily the biggest sellers, but they're good, they're really
(56:29):
well made, and it's just seeing something like this is
really a shame. And especially you know, you worry that
Microsoft will end up assuming that Arcane isn't worthwhile because
of that, when that's not really the case. Was like,
this was the result of a lot of bad things
(56:51):
lining up at the same time. And so my hope
is that Microsoft doesn't just assume that Arcane is, you know,
worthless or something. Although apparently a lot of people have
already left the studio. So it's a shame.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah. So, on that very sad note, we're gonna end
our episode if they want to, if people want to
contact us and commiserate on the sadness of that or
the happiness of any of the things we've talked about. Otherwise,
how should they reach out?
Speaker 1 (57:24):
Jonathan, Well, what you're gonna need to do is you're
gonna need to get yourself a trampoline. I'm gonna go
out onto that trampoline and you're gonna get someone to
double bounce you. When you get double bounced high enough,
you will feel as if you can reach up and
touch the clouds. That's exactly what you have to do.
You have to touch the clouds. You have to. You
(57:44):
have to do it before you fall back down again.
You have to. You don't want to know what happens
if you don't. You have to touch the cloud and
when you do, you'll hear me say good job, buddy.
Then you can ask me your questions.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Wow. And if you're afraid that your insurance will not
cover that kind of activity, you can reach out to
us via social media or email on Twitter where llenc
Underscore podcast on Instagram, Facebook, and discord. We're a large
Nurdroun Collider and you can email us at large Neurdron
Pod at gmail dot com. You can also check the
(58:23):
show notes that we've mentioned a few times on our
website www dot large Neurdron collider dot com.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Yes, and until next time, I am Jonathan, I'm an
insurance liability Strickland and I.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Am Ariel do you think of these things? In advance castin.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
The Large Nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Caston and reduced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again. Curse That by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin
McLeod of. Incomptech dot com put the Desert without about
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!