October 3, 2020 • 48 mins
This week on A Space Opera Podcast host Jon Justice covers:
-The Finale of Raised by Wolves
-Why The Rise of Skywalker is an incredible Space Opera. Looking at the movie with out previous films story expectations
-Listener Feedback
Embark: The all new Sci-Fi Space Opera, written by Star Wars enthusiast Jon Justice.. A must read for any Science Fiction fan! Get it now at the links below.
www.MyNerdWorld.net
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VTZSBVB
Email: TalkShowNerd@gmail.com
Twitter @TheMyNerdWorld @JonJustice
Instagram TheJonJustice
Facebook Jon Justice
Join the mailing list! TalkShowNerd@gmail.com
-The Finale of Raised by Wolves
-Why The Rise of Skywalker is an incredible Space Opera. Looking at the movie with out previous films story expectations
-Listener Feedback
Embark: The all new Sci-Fi Space Opera, written by Star Wars enthusiast Jon Justice.. A must read for any Science Fiction fan! Get it now at the links below.
www.MyNerdWorld.net
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VTZSBVB
Email: TalkShowNerd@gmail.com
Twitter @TheMyNerdWorld @JonJustice
Instagram TheJonJustice
Facebook Jon Justice
Join the mailing list! TalkShowNerd@gmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
It's My nerd World, a spaceopera podcast. I'm your host to John
Justice, and took a few weeksoff, but we're back in this week
a bit of a cheat. We'regonna be talking about the Rise of Skywalker,
not as a Star Wars film,but as a space opera. I'm
gonna lay out my arguments as towhy the Rise of Skywalker is one of
(00:24):
the best space opera films of thelast I we'll say twenty years plus.
We'll talk a little raised by Wolves. That series has wrapped up. I'll
give you my thoughts, and wehave listener feedback. Welcome to the show,
(00:53):
My nerd World. It is Mynerd World, and I'm glad you're
back with the Space Opera podcast thisweek. I am John Justice, and
I did take a little bit oftime off. There's been a lot going
on and I have been working reallyhard on my science fiction space opera series
(01:14):
Embark, available now in ebook,paperback and audiobook. You're listening to an
audio podcast. You like space operas, go and pick yourself up the Embark
trilogy, which is a fresh andrelevant take on the modern day space opera.
It's available on Amazon dot com.Go to my Nerdworld dot net.
(01:34):
So it took a couple of weeksoff, and in that time, I've
been jotting down notes about future spaceopera podcasts that I'm that I'm planning,
and I hope to be a littlebit more consistent, and I apologize for
that. That's the one thing aboutdoing podcasts that you really gotta do is
you got to make sure that youhave a level of consistency when pumping out
new programs. And unfortunately, whenyou have a full time job and you've
(01:57):
tackled as many things right self inflictedbusiness as I have, there's a few
things that fall by the wayside,and unfortunately, for the past two weeks,
that was the nature of a spaceopera podcast. But I'm glad the
show is back this week and reallylooking forward to getting into a couple of
items on this week's show. It'sgoing to be a bit of a cheat,
(02:20):
and I admit that I do hosta Star Wars podcast. I do
talk about the sequel trilogy, andcertainly the Rise of Skywalker, being the
most recently released theatrical film in theSkywalker series, and I am going to
be talking about the Rise of Skywalkeron this show today. But the reason
I'm going to be doing that isbecause I want to take some time and
(02:42):
talk about the Rise of Skywalker asa space opera film by itself and try
to separate it out from the StarWars trilogy and from the Star Wars sagas
as a whole. It's one ofthe things, one of many, but
it's one of the things that Ibelieve puts a ton of pressure on these
films is that they're not just sciencefiction movies. The Star Wars films are
(03:07):
not just space operas. The StarWars films, they are nostalgia. They
are life, for lack of abetter term, for a lot of people.
They are of incredible importance to generationsand millions of fans, and have
been since nineteen seventy two. Andbecause of that, I feel like the
(03:29):
films get treated rather unfairly on theirown merits. It's one of the things
that the sequel trilogy is unique forbecause the sequel trilogy having been released at
a time in society where we dolive in a digital age, and we
(03:52):
are interconnected and also disconnected because ofthat interconnectivity via social media in a way
that we havn't ever been before priorto the release of the sequel trilogy and
certainly the first two trilogies in theStar Wars series. And because of that,
the films do get picked apart singularly, but rarely do they ever get
(04:15):
looked at as their own entities.And I really do believe that the Star
Wars films, and especially the sequeltrilogies, do work on their own if
there were no other Star Wars films. So that's what we're going to be
talking about in a few minutes.Again. We also have them listener feedback
talk show nerd at gmail dot com, and I want to take a moment
(04:35):
too and invite you to go tomy nerdworld dot net. There is an
active blog. A couple times aweek. I'm putting up some pretty extensive
posts on a lot of different issues. This week there is some brief comments
about our president and our prayers goout to the president, the first lady
in the administration that's suffering from COVIDnineteen. That's this political as I'm going
(04:57):
to get apart from saying that Ido pray for our president and those that
have been infected with COVID nineteen andhope that everybody pulls through quickly. We
need leadership in this country right now. But the blog is focused on pop
culture, and so there's a lotof different things that I tackle, including
some behind the scenes looks at myEmbark science fiction space opera series. Also,
(05:20):
there is a brand new link tojoin my newsletter. I'm switching from
a mailing list to a newsletter,and I have some really cool exclusives just
for the individuals that sign up forthe free newsletter. So if you haven't
done that already, please go tomy nerdworld dot net and hit the link.
It's right there on the homepage underthe link where you can get details
(05:42):
about the space opera series. Allright, so let's start off here and
talk a little Raised by Wolves,the science fiction series on HBOMX. So.
I was really hyped up for Raisedby Wolves for a number of different
(06:02):
reasons. I love the fact thatwe're getting live action science fiction stories on
the small screen streaming, and thatwe've reached a place now where the special
effects and more specifically, the costsof the special effects that we get in
these shows is such that the qualityof the actual production is pretty spot on.
(06:26):
It's one of the issues that Ihave with so many older great science
fiction shows. I just have areally difficult time working past the limited budget
and the wonky early nineties, sorry, late nineties, early two thousand special
effects. And we're going to getinto a bit of that and listener feedback
this week friend of the show Ericmakes a comment about some of those past
(06:48):
series, and I'll dive a littlebit more into my hesitation to dive into
them just because I have such adifficult time working past the special effects.
But I love the fact now thatany new science fic series you get,
for the most part, it's goingto have a good amount of solid special
effects. And if they're not,they are going to make sure the special
(07:10):
effects they do have, even ifthey're limited because of the budget, are
solid as well. There's a goodlevel of consistency in terms of the aesthetic
of these shows on TV. SoI was excited by that the subject matter
of Raised by Wolves being so closeto Ridley Scott's alien universe. And I'm
still not convinced, man, andwe'll get into this here in a moment,
(07:31):
that this is not connected to thealien universe. If so, I
can't decide whether or not. I'mannoyed that Ridley Scott lifted so much of
his alien universe and put it intoRaised by Wolves. So started watching the
series with my wife. Finished itlast night, and at this point,
(07:51):
before I get into some details anda little bit of a little bit of
spoilers here, I'm not going toget all into it, so not full
spoilers, but more just sort ofyour surface level trailer esque stuff that you
would see in promotional material for Raisedby Wolves. I will continue to watch
the series. There's definitely going tobe a season two unless it didn't do
(08:11):
well enough to warrant a season two, but they did not wrap up the
story enough for it to be justa singular series on its own. I'll
definitely watch season two. But ifI'm going to rate it on a one
to ten scale, ten being thebest, one being the worst, I'm
probably gonna get it. Give itaround the six. There were episodes that
teetered on sevens, eights, andalmost nines at the start of the series,
(08:39):
but it took some really weird turnsthat I felt the series didn't need
to take. Now that's a difficultthing to say because I'm very much an
advocate of the subjectivity of looking atart, right, It's all subjective,
it's what you want. And Ican't help, as an individual writing stories
myself to look at these shows,especially a streaming show where you have,
(09:03):
you know, a lot of contentto analyze and examine. I can't help
but look at him from a creativelens, going, well, you know,
maybe I would have done this,and maybe I would have done that,
So I'll kind of focus on justwhat I didn't like. I didn't
like the fact that the show itselfdeviated from being grounded in a sense of
reality. You are looking at afuture where you have androids that can morph
(09:26):
and fly, called necromancers, andthey have unique and interesting abilities, especially
defensive and defensive abilities like that Ican get into and flying ships and stuff
I can get into. I don'tmind the religious aspect obviously of shows.
I find that really interesting and unique. But for me, I'd like a
(09:48):
little bit more specificity as to whycertain things are happening, rather than leaving
it as open and ambiguous as raisedby Wolves and that up doing towards the
end, I just I don't needmy handheld. I like smart sci fi,
but don't leave me completely hanging whereI'm still kind of scratching my head
(10:09):
at the end of the series.It got a little too graphic for my
tastes. And that's a total personalthing for me. I just don't like,
you know, I don't mind horrorto a certain extent. I don't
mind you know, blood and gutsand even the occasional sexuality or sex as
long as it's for me, youknow, done tastefully with my fingers.
(10:31):
If it's me creating it, I'mgoing to default to less is more for
circumstances like that. But there weresome moments where several of them of the
middle episodes just dragged way, waytoo much. Heading into the last few
episodes in the season finale, Iwas theorizing that this was potentially a reboot
(10:52):
of the Alien Universe. As I'vementioned in previous podcasts, they're raised by
a Wolf series and Ridley Scott handin it does lift just a ton from
his Alien universe. The moments wherethe androids or the humans in the show
go into a computer simulation right sortof a you know, sort of very
(11:18):
generic way of saying when they're pluggingin and going into a simulation, the
textures and the graphics they use forthat simulation are identical to what was used
inside of Ridley Scott's most recent alienfilms, Prometheus and Alien Covenant. The
androids themselves might as well have comefrom the Alien universe. They look the
same, they talk the same,they have the same white blood. Even
(11:43):
one of the episodes where the mainvillain, if you will, the Mother
Android, goes inside the wrecked Archuman ship, she comes across some maintenance
androids. Those may finance androids lookidentical to the maintenance androids that were inside
(12:03):
of the Alien Isolation video game,which I really enjoyed, like shocked when
I thought, I was like,oh my gosh, those are the stupid
androids that I couldn't kill in thevideo game that were so mind numbingly frustrating.
So this set me down a paththat this could be a potential soft
reboot of the Alien Universe. NowI'm not still one hundred percent sure if
(12:24):
that's not the case, and withoutany spoilers, the finale, the season
finale of Season one of Raised byWolves did leave a lot on the table.
I didn't find the finale very satisfying. It left a lot of questions
I would have liked a few moreanswers. Ultimately, it felt like it
(12:50):
was trying to be Prometheus, andthat's probably if I was going to have
an issue with it from a personalangle, That's probably my biggest issue with
it. I am a big fanof Prometheus. I really got into and
appreciated what Ridley Scott was trying todo with his prequels to the Alien series.
(13:15):
I know, the Prometheus was noteverybody's bag. It is a strange
alien movie. Ridley Scott really doesopen up the alien universe in unique ways,
but he did world building in therethat I thought was really interesting and
unique. This idea of engineers andthe idea of these engineers talking about Prometheus
(13:39):
from another planet being the individuals whoput humans on Earth, but then also
having to reconcile Christianity and the beliefsof the main female protagonist from Prometheus in
God, I thought was really fascinating. On top of the technologology, the
(14:01):
androids, and ultimately the inception ofthe alien creature that we all came to
become so familiar with and we're suchfans of inside of those original Alien films.
Now, if you've never seen Prome, IFIs do not misunderstand. It
is weird, and it's pretty graphicas much as the if not more the
(14:24):
original Alien, and it really doessort of flip the script on what our
preconceived ideas were or what we knewabout the alien creatures, and it does
strip away a lot of the reallycool, you know, ambiguity from that
original Alien movie and the Alien youknow, the Alien films. Not to
(14:46):
wipe out on this too much,because they kind of do fall into that
space opera category. I would moveback further from Raised by Wolves from the
space opera category if we're being honest. I started that showoff on this Space
Opera podcast because of the similarities thathave with you with the vast majority of
your space operas and defining a spaceopera. Right at the end of the
(15:09):
day, I probably, after watchingthe whole series, probably would not put
it fully in the space opera category, even though it shares some similarities there.
The thing that I always found interestingabout the Alien universe, and specifically
going back to the seventies and lookingat Alien and Aliens those first two movies,
is that they really do have quitea bit in common. When you
look at the timeline of the seriesitself with the Star Wars movies and what
(15:31):
the directors and the creators of thatfranchise and Alien did, that really does
aligne quite a bit with what GeorgeLucas did, meaning George Lucas going back
and doing the prequels and giving usthe story of Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan
Kenobi and how he became Darth Vaderspoiler alert. It really is very much
like what Ridley Scott did in goingback and Prometheus and Alien Covenant and trying
(15:54):
to tell the backstory of that originalclassic seventies eighties film, and people have
argued, much like they did withStar Wars and at the time of the
prequels, of whether or not itwas necessary again, you know, doubling
back. I really liked Prometheus anAlien Covenant, and I know Ridley Scott
has said that he's planning on sortof redoing and revisiting Alien but starting over,
(16:15):
which is really kind of bumming meout because I would have liked one
more movie to connect Alien Covenant tothat original Alien film. But be that
as it may, let's get backto Raised by Wolves for a moment.
The end of Raised by Wolves feltlike Prometheus to me in a lot of
ways. I mean, and actually, the more that I even think about
it, and right now as Ispeak, it really does remind me like
(16:41):
it. It's more, it reallydoes feel like it was more of a
soft reboot of Prometheus than it wasof the original Alien movies, which again
I can't I can't help We'll wonderif that's where Ridley Scott is going,
if this is actually going to beconnected to Prometheus in some way, even
(17:02):
though the timelines don't really match up. But that was probably my biggest issue
is that the end of the endof Raised by Wolves was in a lot
of ways a bit of a carboncopy of Prometheus, and it makes me
scratch my head, going, really, Scott is an incredible filmmaker, an
incredible writer, and he's got toknow that. So what is he doing
(17:23):
so that enough is going to keepme watching this show just to find out
what ends up happening. I'll saythat at the end of the day,
if Raised by Wolves continues and it'snot connected with the Alien universe at all,
that's really weird because that's going tobe one of the first times that
I've ever seen a director, acreator of content lifts so much from one
(17:48):
universe and put it into another universewithout tying it in, unless it was
simply just a matter of we havethose designs. I like those designs.
Let's put them in our Raised byWolves universe. And if people, you
know, see the similarities, great, Most people probably won't because not a
whole lot of people ended up seeingPrometheus and Alien Covenant. So what do
(18:08):
you think? Talk show nerd atgmail dot com. Did you watch the
series? Were you familiar with Prometheus? Did you see the parallels? Did
you take away what I took away? Or do you have a completely different
opinion. I'd really like to know. Drop me an email, Talk Show
nerd at gmail dot coms being anawakening? Have you felt it? All?
(18:30):
Right, let's talk a little Riseof Skywalker. And I know this
is a cheat, and I knowI've got a lot of people listening to
this podcast, if not the vastmajority of you of you that listen to
this podcast, I'd also listen tomy Star Wars podcasts that are going why
don't you just do this on yourStar Wars podcast? You've talked about that
movie a ton already. Well,first off, I love the Rise of
(18:51):
Skywalker. I can never talk toomuch about that film, kind of like
the way that I was for TheLast Jedi. But secondly, like I
said before, I didn't want todo this on the Star Wars podcast because
I've talked about it so much,and I really just wanted to focus on
the Rise of Skywalker from the standpointof being a space opera and the elements
that you get in a space opera, a sweeping epic with a lot of
(19:14):
adventure, with fantasy elements involving multiplespecies of aliens right good versus evil space
battles, and the Rise of Skywalker. And one of the reasons why I
think I love this movie so muchis that, not only for me,
does it work as the finale ofthe nine parts saga. Could it work
(19:36):
better? Sure, but it reallyalso works just as a standalone film.
Now, if you're going well,not really, John, because you kind
of got to see the first twomovies of The Force Awakens, in The
Last Jedi at least, or certainlythe original trilogy to understand the Rise of
(19:56):
Skywalker. So if you are askingyourself that question, I am going to
say, do you really Let megive you an example. We'll start off
right at the beginning, I've basicallytaken a handful of points to discuss the
space opera aspect versus it just beinga Star Wars film. And we'll start
off specifically with the crawl Let's goback in time to nineteen seventy seven and
(20:22):
one of the as a promotion forthe Star Wars podcast this week, one
of the things they're going to betalking about. The main topic on the
Star Wars podcast this week is goingto be what makes Star Wars great in
terms of creating the stories and specificallywhat did George Lucas set out to do
originally and why did it end upworking. I mean, sometimes you just
(20:42):
sometimes you're just blessed man. SometimeGod just goes that's going to be huge.
You're welcome. The original Star Warshit at a certain time in the
country, at a certain time inthe pop culture and in cinema where nobody
had really seen anything like this,and you had a generation of children who
(21:03):
who were exposed to something that theynever even knew, a world that they
can relate to, but that wasalso set in this fantastical place in a
galaxy far far away that just sparkedthe imagination of millions of little kids and
their parents around around the planet.But going back to a New Hope reading
the crawl and remembering that Star Warsfirst off didn't have a New Hope title
(21:30):
attached to it. So when GeorgeLucas released it, it was just a
movie. It was a space operabefore it was a Star Wars movie.
We look at Star Wars almost asif it's it's its own genre, and
there are arguments to be made thatStar Wars is indeed its own genre.
(21:52):
However, I'm going to look atthis from just the angle of it being
a space opera. With the otherfilms that we've talked about, whether it's
you know, Serenity or Jupiter Ascendingor Valerian right, and these are more,
you know, more films that willbe covering this titan A that we'll
be talking about on the show.When I was five years old and I
(22:14):
went with my father to go seea New Hope at the time, just
Star Wars. When that yellow crawlrolled across the screen that George Lucas had
lifted from the Saturday Morning Flash,Gordon Cereals of his own youth, this
is all we knew is a periodof Civil War, rebel spaceships striking from
a hidden bass have won their firstvictory against the evil Galactic Empire. During
(22:38):
the battle, rebel spies managed tosteal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon,
the Death Star, an armored spacestation with enough power to destroy an
entire planet. Pursued by the Empire'ssinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard
her starship, custodian of the stolenplans that can save her people and restore
(23:00):
freedom to the galaxy. We didn'tknow anything about the Star Wars universe a
long time ago in a galaxy farfar away. Bam, there it is.
Sets the stage. Then we getthat opening crawl that I just read
that gives you all the details thatyou need to lock yourselves into this story.
(23:22):
And what are you presented with?A very stark and clear, definitive
good versus evil tale. The badguys wearing black, the good girl at
the beginning is wearing white. Imean, it doesn't get there, you
go, it's right there, andyou're in it for the ride. You
didn't need backstory, you didn't needancillary material. You weren't asking. Maybe
(23:48):
it's unfair to say you they weren'tasking I wasn't asking for ancillary material.
What's this? You know? Imperialset it that this Stark guy is talking
about. Why didn't they go andshow us this is Darth Vader, a
robot? What about the Stormtroopers?I thought when I was a kim Starmtroopers
were robots. But I wasn't sittingback going why didn't they explain that they
(24:14):
were clones? We didn't do anyof that. We just opened up our
eyes and just allowed ourselves to getimmersed into this fantastical world that George Lucas
had created without knowing anything else.And when Star Wars came out, it
was just Star Wars and everybody lovedit, and it became the cultural phenomenon
that has sparked thousands of podcasts,millions of Twitter battles after all these years.
(24:40):
Right, it worked all by itself. Now, let's flash forward to
twenty nineteen and December and Star WarsThe Rise of Skywalker episode nine, the
last of the Skywalker saga films,directed by JJ and we'll do exactly the
(25:02):
same thing. Let's go and we'llstart off with the opening crawl from the
Rise of Skywalker the dead speak thegalaxy heard a mysterious, mysterious broadcast a
threat of revenge in the sinister voiceof the late Emperor Palpatine. General Leo
(25:22):
Organa dispatch dispatches secret agents to gatherintelligence, while Ray, the last hope
of the Jedi, trains for abattle against the diabolical First Order. Meanwhile,
Supreme Leader Kilo Ren rages in searchof the phantom Emperor, determined to
destroy any threat to his power.Now, criticism doesn't flow as good as
(25:48):
the original trilogy, crawl could bean observation based off of the forty plus
years that I've been living with thatCrawl from a New Hope for is not
even a year that I've been livingwith the Crawl from the Rise of Skywalker.
That being said, it is noless effective or ambiguous as the A
(26:14):
New Hope original Star Wars movie crawlwas. We just happened to have hours
upon hours of other material that ledup to this particular movie. But if
you take the Rise of Skywalker andjust release it without any other Star Wars
films out there, I'm gonna arguethat krawl works all by itself and gives
(26:36):
you all you need to know,there's a dead emperor who's vowing revenge.
There's a princess, a General LeoOrgana who dispatches agents to gather intelligence because
of this dead emperor who's vowing revenge. While Ray let's just imagine you've never
heard of her before, the LastHope of the Jedi. Oh, that's
(26:56):
interesting. Oh she's training. Okay, this must be some type of warrior
for battle against the diabolical First Order. Ah, main bad guys. Meanwhile,
Supreme Leader. Oh, he mustbe the leader of the bad guys
rages in search of the phantom Emperor, that dude that was dead in the
beginning, determined to destroy any threatto his power. There you go.
(27:19):
It's a little more convoluted than aNew Hope, I'll grant you that,
But at the same time, itis just as ambiguous and sets the stage
for this epic science fiction space operafilm. And as you get into the
details of the movie and as itplays out, try if you want to
have some fun. Okay, ifyou want to have some fun, watch
(27:42):
The Rise of Skywalker and just watchit from a movie standpoint. If you
can do that, I mean,that's that's kind of what I do because
I can shift back and forth.There's a lot of times where, just
because of how I consume content,I watch movies and listen to music based
off my mood on like George Costanzafrom Seinfeld for those that get their reference
(28:03):
right, I usually dress for mood. What's this look today? This is
morning missed. I watch films thatway, and there are times when I'll
sit back and go, well,I really want to watch blank, but
I also like, I really wantto watch the Rise of Skywalker. But
I also kind of really want towatch The Last Jedi. But I want
to watch the Rise of Skywalker first. But that seems to really dumb,
John, You should watch the LastJedi first because that movie came beforehand.
(28:25):
When the truth is, it doesn'treally change the movie going experience. That's
just the way my brain works.But sometimes I'll sit down and go,
I just want to go on aStar Wars adventure. And I can do
this with most of the Star Warsfilms, and I think that the Rise
of Skywalker does it better being observedand providing entertainment as just a film than
most any of the other Star Warsmovies. You can't do that with Empire
(28:51):
Strikes Back and Return to the Jedi. In my opinion, right Empire Strikes
Back, you might be able toget into it without seeing a new hope,
but you're gonna be a little lost, right. The story in the
Empire Strikes Back is more of acharacter tale that it is sort of a
we've got a mcguffin, we needto go and handle that mcguffin, right,
which is an element of the StarWars films, not all of them.
That's you know, that works reallyreally well, less so and absent
(29:17):
from the prequel trilogy, but thosewere definitely character driven films. But then
by the end of the Empire StrikesBack, you get this cliffhanger that you
have to watch Return of the Jedifor, and the same thing kind of
speaks from Return of the Jedi.You start off with a guy who is
in cased and frozen in something inthis big slug monster's palace. If you're
watching that movie without having ever seenthe other ones, you don't have any
(29:38):
sword of allegiance to that Han solocharacter or any importance, or there's no
gravity to him being captured because youspent no time with him before that isn't
necessarily true when it comes to afilm like The Last Jedi, or,
more specifically, because The Last Jediworks is as its own film too,
more specifically the Rise of Skywalker.When you actually dive into the story of
(30:02):
the Rise of Skywalker, you getthe beginning where the bad guy is searching
for the wayfinder. You get this, You get this quick dead opening they
call it right. You get thisquick opening of Kylo Ren finding this wayfinder,
traveling to this planet where we endup meeting instantly that mysterious thought to
(30:26):
be dead emperor that was mentioned inthe krawl. Then you jump into a
handful of our heroes and again imagineyou're meeting these individuals for the first time
who are on some kind of mission, end up being chased clearly by bad
guys. But what are they getting. Well, they're getting information that relates
to this message that went out thatwas in the opening crawl. This sets
(30:52):
them on a path when they getback to the heroes, where now we've
got a mission at hand. Ayoung girl who's training to be some type
of warrior. She has a mysteriousconnection with the bad guy of the film
that we saw earlier, and We'reimmediately presented with a mcguffin esque plot where
they have to find this Wayfinder becausethey have to get to this planet,
(31:15):
because they too have to stop thisevil bad guy who's emerged at the same
time while stopping the real, actualbad guy who has a connection with this
girl who's training to be a warrior. Now, my intent is not to
go through every single story and plotpoint of the film. I just wanted
to use the opening portion of TheRise of Skywalker to lead as the example
(31:40):
of why I feel like this movieworks on its own merits as a singular
story. Yes, it's wrapping upa nine story saga that started back in
nineteen seventy seven, and I thinkthat some of the criticism when it comes
to the Rise of Skywalker from StarWars fans is probably due to the fact
(32:01):
that it does actually work very wellon its own as a singular movie.
And I imagine that for a lotof people, the Wayfinder element and the
Raiders of the Lost Arc Goonies esqueaspect of these friends going on this adventure
to search for this thing being addedin this last film may have thrown off
(32:27):
the average fan who wasn't expecting toget a mcguffin esque element in this last
movie. Compare that to Revenge ofthe Sith and Return of the Jedi.
You didn't really have that. Youhad something familiar. When it came to
wanting to destroy the Desk. Startwo, you had plans that were already
(32:49):
stolen. So it really was moreof a poetry at rhymes and an echo
back to that first movie. Inthe original trilogy, you didn't have this
brand new element of Wayfinders and anew planet and a new religious sect that
that's out there in the Sith eternalwithin the Star Wars universe. I could
see justifiably for some fans why theymay not have gravitated towards that are connected
(33:15):
with that in that way. Whyare you adding in all these elements when
we already have this other stuff?But what I think that Chris Arrio and
jj Abrams were trying to do isexactly what they said. They wanted a
movie that wrapped up the saga butalso sat on its own, and I
really do believe that it did thatbrilliantly. Could it have leaned more into
(33:40):
the sequel trilogy and instead of doingWayfinders and Exagle and Sith Eternal done more
of what Return of the Jedi didin echoing the previous films. The Force
awakens without adding in new elements orcharacters. Sure did it. No,
(34:02):
did we meet new characters? Yes? Did some characters from other films not
get as much screen time as before? Yes, But looking at it just
as a space opera, it worksreally well in the singular the almost dream
like action and the diversity in theway that the action elements play out in
(34:23):
Ray versus Wren. It has thatelement of fantasy to it that I love
that standoff between Ray and Kylo Wrenin the desert when Kylo Wren is in
his tie whisper. I adore thatscene, even though it doesn't make a
whole heck of a lot of sense. It reminds me of an old Western
(34:45):
standoff, but done completely new anddifferent. Where here's this Jedi tapped into
the Force who's running through the desertwith a lit lightsaber, being chased down
by her member of the Diad rightdidn't really know it yet, but we
knew there was a connection there.Who's pushing her to get her to sort
(35:07):
of self realize what her lineage is. It isn't it works, he crashes
and still shows up. She triesto pull the transport that she thinks her
Chewbacca furry friend is in revealing spoileralert forest lightning coming from her hands that
sends shockwaves through her because now she'stotally confused about who she is. I
(35:27):
mean, that's the stuff of fantasyfilms, that's the stuff of fantasy epics
that fits really well and works reallywell inside of the space opera genre.
You get into the spaceship battle aspectof it and going to multiple planets,
and the Rise of Skywalker is fantasticwith regard to that the space battle at
the end. While I had mycomplaints originally about how it wasn't as linear
(35:50):
as I'd liked it to be,upon subsequent viewings and including the pacing at
the beginning of the film, thatkind of I found a little bit jarring
going back and watching some of theother movies, I realize, you know
what, that really isn't all thatunlike some other sequences that take place another
in other Star Wars films, inparticularly Rogue One. Rogue One's beginning is
it plays out very much in thesame way that the Rise of Skywalker does,
(36:12):
but getting back to this being justits own movie. There is a
science fiction fantasy element of the Riseof Skywalker that JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio
ended up injecting into this film,which does really make it a fantastic space
opera movie. And when you movethrough the film and you see, okay,
this story is really evolving, Andoh my gosh, this female that
(36:32):
we learned about the very beginning ofthe movie that's training to be this Jedi
warrior is actually connected to and relatedto by blood to that bad guy that
was mentioned in the opening crawl.Oh my gosh, and she's connected with
the battye who's in the film.Wow, this took a turn looking at
it through the lens of it notbeing a Star Wars movie but just being
(36:53):
a singular movie. And so asyou barrel towards the finale of this film
along the way, you end upgetting the wise mentor in Luke Skywalker,
you end up getting the passing ofanother mentor in Leia that means so much
to the bad guy in the film, who essentially helps him turn in the
(37:16):
same way that Luke Skywalker mentors Rayand helps her on her path towards destiny.
And then you reach this climactic finaleof arriving on Exagle and these multiple
events taking place of Ray facing hergrandfather, right the evil guy mentioned at
(37:39):
the beginning of the movie, whoplays every bit apart as the ultimate bad
guy, along with our heroes goingin and having to stop this massive army
of planet destroying spaceships. It doesn'treally get much more epic than that if
you're looking at this from a spaceopera lens and not comparing it to any
(38:02):
other films. And that's where Ithink the Star Wars movies really do get
treated unfairly because they're so often lookedat from a lens of being a part
of these other movies and not bythemselves. And you can do it both
ways. It works for me bothways. But I can't help but wonder
for those critics of the Rise ofSkywalker if they are capable, or maybe
(38:25):
you're a critic of the Rise ofSkywalker, if you're capable of going and
watching that movie just as a movie, because, like I said, put
it up against any other genre,any other movie within the same genre,
and it's better. It just isthose films that I mentioned before, Your
Serenity, your Valerian Your Jupiter,Ascending Star Trek two, The Wrath of
(38:52):
con Starship Troopers, Thor Wagnero ThoraWragnarok is an interesting one too, that
I believe also falls into this category. While that movie is is praised probably
more often than the Rise of Skywalkeris Thora Ragnarok to me also fits into
that category of if I'm just lookingfor a good space opera, I can
(39:15):
go Throwinthora wagnaroccause that's got everything inthere, as does Guardians of the Galaxy
Fifth Element. The Rise of Skywalkeron its own, paired against other space
opera genre films, I believe wouldbe much more well received than it was
being a Star Wars movie. Butas always, what do you think?
(39:38):
Talk show Nerd at gmail dot com. Talk show Nerd at gmail dot com.
Don't forget to go to my nerdworlddot net. Hit that link on
the homepage and get yourself signed upfor the newsletter my nerd World. All
right, let's go to a littlebit of listener feedback. This week,
Eric in Chicago, friend of theshow, said this on the news Space
(39:59):
Opera podcast. Will Battlestar Galactica makethe cut? Never got into Trek,
but Battlestar Galactica remake was some goodTV. Yes, I will be talking
about the Battlestar Galactica series at somepoint on the Space Opera podcast right here.
I enjoyed the series quite a bit. I'm still I haven't watched it
in its entirety. I'm through acouple of seasons. There's aspects of it
(40:21):
that I don't particularly care for,but again, it falls into that trap
of unfortunately being compared to my belovedStar Wars, and sometimes my head has
a hard time processing that through.But Battlestar Galactica is some amazing television and
and does benefit from the advancement inspecial effects technology. Because going back and
(40:44):
watching like even Star Trek Next Generationor even Firefly for that matter, it's
really difficult for me to go backand watch those shows, or the Babylon
fives right those earlier ones, evenportions of the expanse. It's hard um
that from that visual standpoint, Ijust get lost in it. One of
(41:04):
my favorite space opera television programs,and I own all the of the DVDs
for was Space of Above and Beyondby some of the guys that did the
X Files. I wish that somebodywould grab those stories and remake Space Above
and Beyond for a you know,for a modern show. Um, that
was some really cool, low budgetfor its low probably low budget even for
(41:29):
its time, but did a reallygood job of trying to provide some believable
special effects. The quality of theDVDs that I have now just don't hold
up on your big high definition bigscreens, and the CGI work in it
is so early that that too isa tough watch. But the story is
(41:50):
so great of these pilots, anda lot of what takes place in Space
Above and Beyond ended up seeping intothe storytelling of my Embark series. I
really wish that some but he wouldgo and revamp that with the modern special
effects technology. Thanks Eric for thefor the email. Owen Dawd, friend
of the show, says this,hey Man, Dune looks fantastic. Oh,
by the way, Dune's another onethat falls into this category of you're
(42:13):
thrust into this universe in Dune,set way in the future of a world
that you have not become familiar withat all. Right, That's just what
I mean. Most of the spaceoperas do that, and that's why again,
going back to Star Wars. Whythe Rise of Skywalker to me does
a really great job of establishing thisas a new universe that maybe you weren't
(42:34):
familiar with before, if the otherStar Wars films hadn't come before it,
much like Dune does, or Serenityor the other movies I mentioned. Owen
goes on to say I read Iread the book first and did not understand
it. It is, however,a blueprint for a lot of sci fi,
such as Star Wars, among others. The forty thousand he mentioned,
I'm not sure what he meant.I'm not familiar with that here, such
(42:58):
as forty k Star Wars among others. As a fan of the story in
the eighties film, I think it'sgoing to be fantastic. It's actually going
to be two separate films. Ican't wait to see what Denny to see
Denny's take on it. Yeah,I can't either. I watched that trailer
at least once a week. Recentlywent back and watched Blade Runder twenty forty
nine, and what I'm looking forwardto in Noone is that you've got a
(43:22):
real dense story in Dune. Nota fan of the eighties movie, however,
Denny has said openly that he wantsto make an action movie, and
so the trailer for Dune does sortof have that distinctive Dennyville New vibe because
he's very much a creator of anda master of the slow burn such as
(43:46):
Arrivals a good example definitely Blade Rundertwenty forty nine. But he's also really
good at making compelling films that aren'tnecessarily paced well, but the tension is
always there just under the surface thatyou don't need a lot of whiz bang
(44:07):
action to keep yourself enthralled. Sicariois the movie that's in my head right
now because that movie kind of itjust it just kind of it kind of
just trucks along, but there's thisunderlying tension in that film that just grabs
a hold of you from the fromthe opening of the movie. It just
does not let go. Thank youOwen for the email. A friend of
(44:29):
the show, Edwin from The LowdownShow says this, I love Star Trek
into Darkness as well. Did youknow that Trek fans hated the moment when
the film in the film when Spotyelled Cohn. They didn't like that Abrams
put that in the movie. Idid hear that. I heard it's the
equivalent of Vader yelling no at theend of Revenge of the Sith. Just
a tidbit of info. Interesting itis, and I remember that controversy wherein
(44:52):
Into Darkness they flipped the script andinstead of having the William Shatner yelling Cohn
it was, it ended up beingspot yelling. That Also, the con
reveal in the film, I know, was a big controversy with fans.
It would not have been as bigof a controversy if it hadn't been for
(45:15):
the fact that we had social mediaand those ideas to perpetuate and foster and
grow and infect everybody. That's justthe truth of it. That same thing
would have happened, as I've arguedmany times, if the original trilogy had
been released of Star Wars and wehad social networking like we do now.
But we didn't back then. Wehad those conversations among friends, and then
they died and we moved on withlife. We didn't stick to it,
(45:36):
we didn't belabor it, we didn'tlet those little things ruin the experience.
For me, it was for usit was more of an up or down.
Did you like or did you not? Like it. I liked it.
We watched it again. Absolutely nota I'm gonna do umteenth million podcasts,
you know, going over the sameground of why Lucas destroyed my childhood
and ruined Luke Skywalker for me?Gee, John, tell us how you
(46:00):
really feel. That wraps up theshow for this week. Thank you so
much for checking out at I'm Sorrya Space Opera Podcast. I almost said
a Star Wars podcast because I talkedto a bunch about Star Wars that will
not be happening again anytime soon.By the way, we will return to
your regularly scheduled non Star Wars programmingon a Space Opera Podcast next week as
we dive into one of my favoritespace opera films as well, and that
(46:22):
would be Joss Whedon's Serenity. Absolutelylove that movie. So if you want
to have some fun before next week'sshow and you have not seen Serenity,
go and watch it. You willnot be disappointed when it reminds you to
The Embarked Trilogy is available right nowat my nerdworld dot net or on Amazon
dot com. A science fiction adventureset in the future of a boy a
(46:44):
Star Wars and depeche Mode Fan andLove with the Girl in the Middle of
the Apocalypse and the two following books, Book two, A Treasure in Darkness
in book three, The Vanishing WarDon Corbin and The Asteroid of Misfortune coming
very soon, hope fully will beout sometime mid to late November. Cannot
wait to get that science fiction almostcomedy out for you guys to read and
(47:07):
listen to. And since you're listeningto the podcast and if you want things
to listen to, treat yourself thisweekend and go pick up the audio books
for the Embark trilogy. You likelistening to things you don't want to have
to read, so listen to mysoothing tones as they tell you a Grand
space opera adventure actually has some soundeffects in it too, and on occasion
(47:29):
I do voices badly. I knowthat I'm not really selling that, but
people do really enjoy the audiobooks.And if you enjoy the podcasts, you're
familiar with me. I can prettymuch guarantee you're gonna like the audio books
and it's almost thirty hours worth ofentertainment. So go to Amazon dot com
search for John jo and Justice,or go to my nerdworld dot net and
(47:51):
pick up your audiobook, or supportthe show and pick up a paperback or
e book. I would greatly appreciateit. Have yourself a fantastic week,
go watch some serenity, and I'lltalk to you again next week. Bye,
my nerd Road
It's My nerd World, a spaceopera podcast. I'm your host to John
Justice, and took a few weeksoff, but we're back in this week
a bit of a cheat. We'regonna be talking about the Rise of Skywalker,
not as a Star Wars film,but as a space opera. I'm
gonna lay out my arguments as towhy the Rise of Skywalker is one of
(00:24):
the best space opera films of thelast I we'll say twenty years plus.
We'll talk a little raised by Wolves. That series has wrapped up. I'll
give you my thoughts, and wehave listener feedback. Welcome to the show,
(00:53):
My nerd World. It is Mynerd World, and I'm glad you're
back with the Space Opera podcast thisweek. I am John Justice, and
I did take a little bit oftime off. There's been a lot going
on and I have been working reallyhard on my science fiction space opera series
(01:14):
Embark, available now in ebook,paperback and audiobook. You're listening to an
audio podcast. You like space operas, go and pick yourself up the Embark
trilogy, which is a fresh andrelevant take on the modern day space opera.
It's available on Amazon dot com.Go to my Nerdworld dot net.
(01:34):
So it took a couple of weeksoff, and in that time, I've
been jotting down notes about future spaceopera podcasts that I'm that I'm planning,
and I hope to be a littlebit more consistent, and I apologize for
that. That's the one thing aboutdoing podcasts that you really gotta do is
you got to make sure that youhave a level of consistency when pumping out
new programs. And unfortunately, whenyou have a full time job and you've
(01:57):
tackled as many things right self inflictedbusiness as I have, there's a few
things that fall by the wayside,and unfortunately, for the past two weeks,
that was the nature of a spaceopera podcast. But I'm glad the
show is back this week and reallylooking forward to getting into a couple of
items on this week's show. It'sgoing to be a bit of a cheat,
(02:20):
and I admit that I do hosta Star Wars podcast. I do
talk about the sequel trilogy, andcertainly the Rise of Skywalker, being the
most recently released theatrical film in theSkywalker series, and I am going to
be talking about the Rise of Skywalkeron this show today. But the reason
I'm going to be doing that isbecause I want to take some time and
(02:42):
talk about the Rise of Skywalker asa space opera film by itself and try
to separate it out from the StarWars trilogy and from the Star Wars sagas
as a whole. It's one ofthe things, one of many, but
it's one of the things that Ibelieve puts a ton of pressure on these
films is that they're not just sciencefiction movies. The Star Wars films are
(03:07):
not just space operas. The StarWars films, they are nostalgia. They
are life, for lack of abetter term, for a lot of people.
They are of incredible importance to generationsand millions of fans, and have
been since nineteen seventy two. Andbecause of that, I feel like the
(03:29):
films get treated rather unfairly on theirown merits. It's one of the things
that the sequel trilogy is unique forbecause the sequel trilogy having been released at
a time in society where we dolive in a digital age, and we
(03:52):
are interconnected and also disconnected because ofthat interconnectivity via social media in a way
that we havn't ever been before priorto the release of the sequel trilogy and
certainly the first two trilogies in theStar Wars series. And because of that,
the films do get picked apart singularly, but rarely do they ever get
(04:15):
looked at as their own entities.And I really do believe that the Star
Wars films, and especially the sequeltrilogies, do work on their own if
there were no other Star Wars films. So that's what we're going to be
talking about in a few minutes.Again. We also have them listener feedback
talk show nerd at gmail dot com, and I want to take a moment
(04:35):
too and invite you to go tomy nerdworld dot net. There is an
active blog. A couple times aweek. I'm putting up some pretty extensive
posts on a lot of different issues. This week there is some brief comments
about our president and our prayers goout to the president, the first lady
in the administration that's suffering from COVIDnineteen. That's this political as I'm going
(04:57):
to get apart from saying that Ido pray for our president and those that
have been infected with COVID nineteen andhope that everybody pulls through quickly. We
need leadership in this country right now. But the blog is focused on pop
culture, and so there's a lotof different things that I tackle, including
some behind the scenes looks at myEmbark science fiction space opera series. Also,
(05:20):
there is a brand new link tojoin my newsletter. I'm switching from
a mailing list to a newsletter,and I have some really cool exclusives just
for the individuals that sign up forthe free newsletter. So if you haven't
done that already, please go tomy nerdworld dot net and hit the link.
It's right there on the homepage underthe link where you can get details
(05:42):
about the space opera series. Allright, so let's start off here and
talk a little Raised by Wolves,the science fiction series on HBOMX. So.
I was really hyped up for Raisedby Wolves for a number of different
(06:02):
reasons. I love the fact thatwe're getting live action science fiction stories on
the small screen streaming, and thatwe've reached a place now where the special
effects and more specifically, the costsof the special effects that we get in
these shows is such that the qualityof the actual production is pretty spot on.
(06:26):
It's one of the issues that Ihave with so many older great science
fiction shows. I just have areally difficult time working past the limited budget
and the wonky early nineties, sorry, late nineties, early two thousand special
effects. And we're going to getinto a bit of that and listener feedback
this week friend of the show Ericmakes a comment about some of those past
(06:48):
series, and I'll dive a littlebit more into my hesitation to dive into
them just because I have such adifficult time working past the special effects.
But I love the fact now thatany new science fic series you get,
for the most part, it's goingto have a good amount of solid special
effects. And if they're not,they are going to make sure the special
(07:10):
effects they do have, even ifthey're limited because of the budget, are
solid as well. There's a goodlevel of consistency in terms of the aesthetic
of these shows on TV. SoI was excited by that the subject matter
of Raised by Wolves being so closeto Ridley Scott's alien universe. And I'm
still not convinced, man, andwe'll get into this here in a moment,
(07:31):
that this is not connected to thealien universe. If so, I
can't decide whether or not. I'mannoyed that Ridley Scott lifted so much of
his alien universe and put it intoRaised by Wolves. So started watching the
series with my wife. Finished itlast night, and at this point,
(07:51):
before I get into some details anda little bit of a little bit of
spoilers here, I'm not going toget all into it, so not full
spoilers, but more just sort ofyour surface level trailer esque stuff that you
would see in promotional material for Raisedby Wolves. I will continue to watch
the series. There's definitely going tobe a season two unless it didn't do
(08:11):
well enough to warrant a season two, but they did not wrap up the
story enough for it to be justa singular series on its own. I'll
definitely watch season two. But ifI'm going to rate it on a one
to ten scale, ten being thebest, one being the worst, I'm
probably gonna get it. Give itaround the six. There were episodes that
teetered on sevens, eights, andalmost nines at the start of the series,
(08:39):
but it took some really weird turnsthat I felt the series didn't need
to take. Now that's a difficultthing to say because I'm very much an
advocate of the subjectivity of looking atart, right, It's all subjective,
it's what you want. And Ican't help, as an individual writing stories
myself to look at these shows,especially a streaming show where you have,
(09:03):
you know, a lot of contentto analyze and examine. I can't help
but look at him from a creativelens, going, well, you know,
maybe I would have done this,and maybe I would have done that,
So I'll kind of focus on justwhat I didn't like. I didn't
like the fact that the show itselfdeviated from being grounded in a sense of
reality. You are looking at afuture where you have androids that can morph
(09:26):
and fly, called necromancers, andthey have unique and interesting abilities, especially
defensive and defensive abilities like that Ican get into and flying ships and stuff
I can get into. I don'tmind the religious aspect obviously of shows.
I find that really interesting and unique. But for me, I'd like a
(09:48):
little bit more specificity as to whycertain things are happening, rather than leaving
it as open and ambiguous as raisedby Wolves and that up doing towards the
end, I just I don't needmy handheld. I like smart sci fi,
but don't leave me completely hanging whereI'm still kind of scratching my head
(10:09):
at the end of the series.It got a little too graphic for my
tastes. And that's a total personalthing for me. I just don't like,
you know, I don't mind horrorto a certain extent. I don't
mind you know, blood and gutsand even the occasional sexuality or sex as
long as it's for me, youknow, done tastefully with my fingers.
(10:31):
If it's me creating it, I'mgoing to default to less is more for
circumstances like that. But there weresome moments where several of them of the
middle episodes just dragged way, waytoo much. Heading into the last few
episodes in the season finale, Iwas theorizing that this was potentially a reboot
(10:52):
of the Alien Universe. As I'vementioned in previous podcasts, they're raised by
a Wolf series and Ridley Scott handin it does lift just a ton from
his Alien universe. The moments wherethe androids or the humans in the show
go into a computer simulation right sortof a you know, sort of very
(11:18):
generic way of saying when they're pluggingin and going into a simulation, the
textures and the graphics they use forthat simulation are identical to what was used
inside of Ridley Scott's most recent alienfilms, Prometheus and Alien Covenant. The
androids themselves might as well have comefrom the Alien universe. They look the
same, they talk the same,they have the same white blood. Even
(11:43):
one of the episodes where the mainvillain, if you will, the Mother
Android, goes inside the wrecked Archuman ship, she comes across some maintenance
androids. Those may finance androids lookidentical to the maintenance androids that were inside
(12:03):
of the Alien Isolation video game,which I really enjoyed, like shocked when
I thought, I was like,oh my gosh, those are the stupid
androids that I couldn't kill in thevideo game that were so mind numbingly frustrating.
So this set me down a paththat this could be a potential soft
reboot of the Alien Universe. NowI'm not still one hundred percent sure if
(12:24):
that's not the case, and withoutany spoilers, the finale, the season
finale of Season one of Raised byWolves did leave a lot on the table.
I didn't find the finale very satisfying. It left a lot of questions
I would have liked a few moreanswers. Ultimately, it felt like it
(12:50):
was trying to be Prometheus, andthat's probably if I was going to have
an issue with it from a personalangle, That's probably my biggest issue with
it. I am a big fanof Prometheus. I really got into and
appreciated what Ridley Scott was trying todo with his prequels to the Alien series.
(13:15):
I know, the Prometheus was noteverybody's bag. It is a strange
alien movie. Ridley Scott really doesopen up the alien universe in unique ways,
but he did world building in therethat I thought was really interesting and
unique. This idea of engineers andthe idea of these engineers talking about Prometheus
(13:39):
from another planet being the individuals whoput humans on Earth, but then also
having to reconcile Christianity and the beliefsof the main female protagonist from Prometheus in
God, I thought was really fascinating. On top of the technologology, the
(14:01):
androids, and ultimately the inception ofthe alien creature that we all came to
become so familiar with and we're suchfans of inside of those original Alien films.
Now, if you've never seen Prome, IFIs do not misunderstand. It
is weird, and it's pretty graphicas much as the if not more the
(14:24):
original Alien, and it really doessort of flip the script on what our
preconceived ideas were or what we knewabout the alien creatures, and it does
strip away a lot of the reallycool, you know, ambiguity from that
original Alien movie and the Alien youknow, the Alien films. Not to
(14:46):
wipe out on this too much,because they kind of do fall into that
space opera category. I would moveback further from Raised by Wolves from the
space opera category if we're being honest. I started that showoff on this Space
Opera podcast because of the similarities thathave with you with the vast majority of
your space operas and defining a spaceopera. Right at the end of the
(15:09):
day, I probably, after watchingthe whole series, probably would not put
it fully in the space opera category, even though it shares some similarities there.
The thing that I always found interestingabout the Alien universe, and specifically
going back to the seventies and lookingat Alien and Aliens those first two movies,
is that they really do have quitea bit in common. When you
look at the timeline of the seriesitself with the Star Wars movies and what
(15:31):
the directors and the creators of thatfranchise and Alien did, that really does
aligne quite a bit with what GeorgeLucas did, meaning George Lucas going back
and doing the prequels and giving usthe story of Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan
Kenobi and how he became Darth Vaderspoiler alert. It really is very much
like what Ridley Scott did in goingback and Prometheus and Alien Covenant and trying
(15:54):
to tell the backstory of that originalclassic seventies eighties film, and people have
argued, much like they did withStar Wars and at the time of the
prequels, of whether or not itwas necessary again, you know, doubling
back. I really liked Prometheus anAlien Covenant, and I know Ridley Scott
has said that he's planning on sortof redoing and revisiting Alien but starting over,
(16:15):
which is really kind of bumming meout because I would have liked one
more movie to connect Alien Covenant tothat original Alien film. But be that
as it may, let's get backto Raised by Wolves for a moment.
The end of Raised by Wolves feltlike Prometheus to me in a lot of
ways. I mean, and actually, the more that I even think about
it, and right now as Ispeak, it really does remind me like
(16:41):
it. It's more, it reallydoes feel like it was more of a
soft reboot of Prometheus than it wasof the original Alien movies, which again
I can't I can't help We'll wonderif that's where Ridley Scott is going,
if this is actually going to beconnected to Prometheus in some way, even
(17:02):
though the timelines don't really match up. But that was probably my biggest issue
is that the end of the endof Raised by Wolves was in a lot
of ways a bit of a carboncopy of Prometheus, and it makes me
scratch my head, going, really, Scott is an incredible filmmaker, an
incredible writer, and he's got toknow that. So what is he doing
(17:23):
so that enough is going to keepme watching this show just to find out
what ends up happening. I'll saythat at the end of the day,
if Raised by Wolves continues and it'snot connected with the Alien universe at all,
that's really weird because that's going tobe one of the first times that
I've ever seen a director, acreator of content lifts so much from one
(17:48):
universe and put it into another universewithout tying it in, unless it was
simply just a matter of we havethose designs. I like those designs.
Let's put them in our Raised byWolves universe. And if people, you
know, see the similarities, great, Most people probably won't because not a
whole lot of people ended up seeingPrometheus and Alien Covenant. So what do
(18:08):
you think? Talk show nerd atgmail dot com. Did you watch the
series? Were you familiar with Prometheus? Did you see the parallels? Did
you take away what I took away? Or do you have a completely different
opinion. I'd really like to know. Drop me an email, Talk Show
nerd at gmail dot coms being anawakening? Have you felt it? All?
(18:30):
Right, let's talk a little Riseof Skywalker. And I know this
is a cheat, and I knowI've got a lot of people listening to
this podcast, if not the vastmajority of you of you that listen to
this podcast, I'd also listen tomy Star Wars podcasts that are going why
don't you just do this on yourStar Wars podcast? You've talked about that
movie a ton already. Well,first off, I love the Rise of
(18:51):
Skywalker. I can never talk toomuch about that film, kind of like
the way that I was for TheLast Jedi. But secondly, like I
said before, I didn't want todo this on the Star Wars podcast because
I've talked about it so much,and I really just wanted to focus on
the Rise of Skywalker from the standpointof being a space opera and the elements
that you get in a space opera, a sweeping epic with a lot of
(19:14):
adventure, with fantasy elements involving multiplespecies of aliens right good versus evil space
battles, and the Rise of Skywalker. And one of the reasons why I
think I love this movie so muchis that, not only for me,
does it work as the finale ofthe nine parts saga. Could it work
(19:36):
better? Sure, but it reallyalso works just as a standalone film.
Now, if you're going well,not really, John, because you kind
of got to see the first twomovies of The Force Awakens, in The
Last Jedi at least, or certainlythe original trilogy to understand the Rise of
(19:56):
Skywalker. So if you are askingyourself that question, I am going to
say, do you really Let megive you an example. We'll start off
right at the beginning, I've basicallytaken a handful of points to discuss the
space opera aspect versus it just beinga Star Wars film. And we'll start
off specifically with the crawl Let's goback in time to nineteen seventy seven and
(20:22):
one of the as a promotion forthe Star Wars podcast this week, one
of the things they're going to betalking about. The main topic on the
Star Wars podcast this week is goingto be what makes Star Wars great in
terms of creating the stories and specificallywhat did George Lucas set out to do
originally and why did it end upworking. I mean, sometimes you just
(20:42):
sometimes you're just blessed man. SometimeGod just goes that's going to be huge.
You're welcome. The original Star Warshit at a certain time in the
country, at a certain time inthe pop culture and in cinema where nobody
had really seen anything like this,and you had a generation of children who
(21:03):
who were exposed to something that theynever even knew, a world that they
can relate to, but that wasalso set in this fantastical place in a
galaxy far far away that just sparkedthe imagination of millions of little kids and
their parents around around the planet.But going back to a New Hope reading
the crawl and remembering that Star Warsfirst off didn't have a New Hope title
(21:30):
attached to it. So when GeorgeLucas released it, it was just a
movie. It was a space operabefore it was a Star Wars movie.
We look at Star Wars almost asif it's it's its own genre, and
there are arguments to be made thatStar Wars is indeed its own genre.
(21:52):
However, I'm going to look atthis from just the angle of it being
a space opera. With the otherfilms that we've talked about, whether it's
you know, Serenity or Jupiter Ascendingor Valerian right, and these are more,
you know, more films that willbe covering this titan A that we'll
be talking about on the show.When I was five years old and I
(22:14):
went with my father to go seea New Hope at the time, just
Star Wars. When that yellow crawlrolled across the screen that George Lucas had
lifted from the Saturday Morning Flash,Gordon Cereals of his own youth, this
is all we knew is a periodof Civil War, rebel spaceships striking from
a hidden bass have won their firstvictory against the evil Galactic Empire. During
(22:38):
the battle, rebel spies managed tosteal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon,
the Death Star, an armored spacestation with enough power to destroy an
entire planet. Pursued by the Empire'ssinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard
her starship, custodian of the stolenplans that can save her people and restore
(23:00):
freedom to the galaxy. We didn'tknow anything about the Star Wars universe a
long time ago in a galaxy farfar away. Bam, there it is.
Sets the stage. Then we getthat opening crawl that I just read
that gives you all the details thatyou need to lock yourselves into this story.
(23:22):
And what are you presented with?A very stark and clear, definitive
good versus evil tale. The badguys wearing black, the good girl at
the beginning is wearing white. Imean, it doesn't get there, you
go, it's right there, andyou're in it for the ride. You
didn't need backstory, you didn't needancillary material. You weren't asking. Maybe
(23:48):
it's unfair to say you they weren'tasking I wasn't asking for ancillary material.
What's this? You know? Imperialset it that this Stark guy is talking
about. Why didn't they go andshow us this is Darth Vader, a
robot? What about the Stormtroopers?I thought when I was a kim Starmtroopers
were robots. But I wasn't sittingback going why didn't they explain that they
(24:14):
were clones? We didn't do anyof that. We just opened up our
eyes and just allowed ourselves to getimmersed into this fantastical world that George Lucas
had created without knowing anything else.And when Star Wars came out, it
was just Star Wars and everybody lovedit, and it became the cultural phenomenon
that has sparked thousands of podcasts,millions of Twitter battles after all these years.
(24:40):
Right, it worked all by itself. Now, let's flash forward to
twenty nineteen and December and Star WarsThe Rise of Skywalker episode nine, the
last of the Skywalker saga films,directed by JJ and we'll do exactly the
(25:02):
same thing. Let's go and we'llstart off with the opening crawl from the
Rise of Skywalker the dead speak thegalaxy heard a mysterious, mysterious broadcast a
threat of revenge in the sinister voiceof the late Emperor Palpatine. General Leo
(25:22):
Organa dispatch dispatches secret agents to gatherintelligence, while Ray, the last hope
of the Jedi, trains for abattle against the diabolical First Order. Meanwhile,
Supreme Leader Kilo Ren rages in searchof the phantom Emperor, determined to
destroy any threat to his power.Now, criticism doesn't flow as good as
(25:48):
the original trilogy, crawl could bean observation based off of the forty plus
years that I've been living with thatCrawl from a New Hope for is not
even a year that I've been livingwith the Crawl from the Rise of Skywalker.
That being said, it is noless effective or ambiguous as the A
(26:14):
New Hope original Star Wars movie crawlwas. We just happened to have hours
upon hours of other material that ledup to this particular movie. But if
you take the Rise of Skywalker andjust release it without any other Star Wars
films out there, I'm gonna arguethat krawl works all by itself and gives
(26:36):
you all you need to know,there's a dead emperor who's vowing revenge.
There's a princess, a General LeoOrgana who dispatches agents to gather intelligence because
of this dead emperor who's vowing revenge. While Ray let's just imagine you've never
heard of her before, the LastHope of the Jedi. Oh, that's
(26:56):
interesting. Oh she's training. Okay, this must be some type of warrior
for battle against the diabolical First Order. Ah, main bad guys. Meanwhile,
Supreme Leader. Oh, he mustbe the leader of the bad guys
rages in search of the phantom Emperor, that dude that was dead in the
beginning, determined to destroy any threatto his power. There you go.
(27:19):
It's a little more convoluted than aNew Hope, I'll grant you that,
But at the same time, itis just as ambiguous and sets the stage
for this epic science fiction space operafilm. And as you get into the
details of the movie and as itplays out, try if you want to
have some fun. Okay, ifyou want to have some fun, watch
(27:42):
The Rise of Skywalker and just watchit from a movie standpoint. If you
can do that, I mean,that's that's kind of what I do because
I can shift back and forth.There's a lot of times where, just
because of how I consume content,I watch movies and listen to music based
off my mood on like George Costanzafrom Seinfeld for those that get their reference
(28:03):
right, I usually dress for mood. What's this look today? This is
morning missed. I watch films thatway, and there are times when I'll
sit back and go, well,I really want to watch blank, but
I also like, I really wantto watch the Rise of Skywalker. But
I also kind of really want towatch The Last Jedi. But I want
to watch the Rise of Skywalker first. But that seems to really dumb,
John, You should watch the LastJedi first because that movie came beforehand.
(28:25):
When the truth is, it doesn'treally change the movie going experience. That's
just the way my brain works.But sometimes I'll sit down and go,
I just want to go on aStar Wars adventure. And I can do
this with most of the Star Warsfilms, and I think that the Rise
of Skywalker does it better being observedand providing entertainment as just a film than
most any of the other Star Warsmovies. You can't do that with Empire
(28:51):
Strikes Back and Return to the Jedi. In my opinion, right Empire Strikes
Back, you might be able toget into it without seeing a new hope,
but you're gonna be a little lost, right. The story in the
Empire Strikes Back is more of acharacter tale that it is sort of a
we've got a mcguffin, we needto go and handle that mcguffin, right,
which is an element of the StarWars films, not all of them.
That's you know, that works reallyreally well, less so and absent
(29:17):
from the prequel trilogy, but thosewere definitely character driven films. But then
by the end of the Empire StrikesBack, you get this cliffhanger that you
have to watch Return of the Jedifor, and the same thing kind of
speaks from Return of the Jedi.You start off with a guy who is
in cased and frozen in something inthis big slug monster's palace. If you're
watching that movie without having ever seenthe other ones, you don't have any
(29:38):
sword of allegiance to that Han solocharacter or any importance, or there's no
gravity to him being captured because youspent no time with him before that isn't
necessarily true when it comes to afilm like The Last Jedi, or,
more specifically, because The Last Jediworks is as its own film too,
more specifically the Rise of Skywalker.When you actually dive into the story of
(30:02):
the Rise of Skywalker, you getthe beginning where the bad guy is searching
for the wayfinder. You get this, You get this quick dead opening they
call it right. You get thisquick opening of Kylo Ren finding this wayfinder,
traveling to this planet where we endup meeting instantly that mysterious thought to
(30:26):
be dead emperor that was mentioned inthe krawl. Then you jump into a
handful of our heroes and again imagineyou're meeting these individuals for the first time
who are on some kind of mission, end up being chased clearly by bad
guys. But what are they getting. Well, they're getting information that relates
to this message that went out thatwas in the opening crawl. This sets
(30:52):
them on a path when they getback to the heroes, where now we've
got a mission at hand. Ayoung girl who's training to be some type
of warrior. She has a mysteriousconnection with the bad guy of the film
that we saw earlier, and We'reimmediately presented with a mcguffin esque plot where
they have to find this Wayfinder becausethey have to get to this planet,
(31:15):
because they too have to stop thisevil bad guy who's emerged at the same
time while stopping the real, actualbad guy who has a connection with this
girl who's training to be a warrior. Now, my intent is not to
go through every single story and plotpoint of the film. I just wanted
to use the opening portion of TheRise of Skywalker to lead as the example
(31:40):
of why I feel like this movieworks on its own merits as a singular
story. Yes, it's wrapping upa nine story saga that started back in
nineteen seventy seven, and I thinkthat some of the criticism when it comes
to the Rise of Skywalker from StarWars fans is probably due to the fact
(32:01):
that it does actually work very wellon its own as a singular movie.
And I imagine that for a lotof people, the Wayfinder element and the
Raiders of the Lost Arc Goonies esqueaspect of these friends going on this adventure
to search for this thing being addedin this last film may have thrown off
(32:27):
the average fan who wasn't expecting toget a mcguffin esque element in this last
movie. Compare that to Revenge ofthe Sith and Return of the Jedi.
You didn't really have that. Youhad something familiar. When it came to
wanting to destroy the Desk. Startwo, you had plans that were already
(32:49):
stolen. So it really was moreof a poetry at rhymes and an echo
back to that first movie. Inthe original trilogy, you didn't have this
brand new element of Wayfinders and anew planet and a new religious sect that
that's out there in the Sith eternalwithin the Star Wars universe. I could
see justifiably for some fans why theymay not have gravitated towards that are connected
(33:15):
with that in that way. Whyare you adding in all these elements when
we already have this other stuff?But what I think that Chris Arrio and
jj Abrams were trying to do isexactly what they said. They wanted a
movie that wrapped up the saga butalso sat on its own, and I
really do believe that it did thatbrilliantly. Could it have leaned more into
(33:40):
the sequel trilogy and instead of doingWayfinders and Exagle and Sith Eternal done more
of what Return of the Jedi didin echoing the previous films. The Force
awakens without adding in new elements orcharacters. Sure did it. No,
(34:02):
did we meet new characters? Yes? Did some characters from other films not
get as much screen time as before? Yes, But looking at it just
as a space opera, it worksreally well in the singular the almost dream
like action and the diversity in theway that the action elements play out in
(34:23):
Ray versus Wren. It has thatelement of fantasy to it that I love
that standoff between Ray and Kylo Wrenin the desert when Kylo Wren is in
his tie whisper. I adore thatscene, even though it doesn't make a
whole heck of a lot of sense. It reminds me of an old Western
(34:45):
standoff, but done completely new anddifferent. Where here's this Jedi tapped into
the Force who's running through the desertwith a lit lightsaber, being chased down
by her member of the Diad rightdidn't really know it yet, but we
knew there was a connection there.Who's pushing her to get her to sort
(35:07):
of self realize what her lineage is. It isn't it works, he crashes
and still shows up. She triesto pull the transport that she thinks her
Chewbacca furry friend is in revealing spoileralert forest lightning coming from her hands that
sends shockwaves through her because now she'stotally confused about who she is. I
(35:27):
mean, that's the stuff of fantasyfilms, that's the stuff of fantasy epics
that fits really well and works reallywell inside of the space opera genre.
You get into the spaceship battle aspectof it and going to multiple planets,
and the Rise of Skywalker is fantasticwith regard to that the space battle at
the end. While I had mycomplaints originally about how it wasn't as linear
(35:50):
as I'd liked it to be,upon subsequent viewings and including the pacing at
the beginning of the film, thatkind of I found a little bit jarring
going back and watching some of theother movies, I realize, you know
what, that really isn't all thatunlike some other sequences that take place another
in other Star Wars films, inparticularly Rogue One. Rogue One's beginning is
it plays out very much in thesame way that the Rise of Skywalker does,
(36:12):
but getting back to this being justits own movie. There is a
science fiction fantasy element of the Riseof Skywalker that JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio
ended up injecting into this film,which does really make it a fantastic space
opera movie. And when you movethrough the film and you see, okay,
this story is really evolving, Andoh my gosh, this female that
(36:32):
we learned about the very beginning ofthe movie that's training to be this Jedi
warrior is actually connected to and relatedto by blood to that bad guy that
was mentioned in the opening crawl.Oh my gosh, and she's connected with
the battye who's in the film.Wow, this took a turn looking at
it through the lens of it notbeing a Star Wars movie but just being
(36:53):
a singular movie. And so asyou barrel towards the finale of this film
along the way, you end upgetting the wise mentor in Luke Skywalker,
you end up getting the passing ofanother mentor in Leia that means so much
to the bad guy in the film, who essentially helps him turn in the
(37:16):
same way that Luke Skywalker mentors Rayand helps her on her path towards destiny.
And then you reach this climactic finaleof arriving on Exagle and these multiple
events taking place of Ray facing hergrandfather, right the evil guy mentioned at
(37:39):
the beginning of the movie, whoplays every bit apart as the ultimate bad
guy, along with our heroes goingin and having to stop this massive army
of planet destroying spaceships. It doesn'treally get much more epic than that if
you're looking at this from a spaceopera lens and not comparing it to any
(38:02):
other films. And that's where Ithink the Star Wars movies really do get
treated unfairly because they're so often lookedat from a lens of being a part
of these other movies and not bythemselves. And you can do it both
ways. It works for me bothways. But I can't help but wonder
for those critics of the Rise ofSkywalker if they are capable, or maybe
(38:25):
you're a critic of the Rise ofSkywalker, if you're capable of going and
watching that movie just as a movie, because, like I said, put
it up against any other genre,any other movie within the same genre,
and it's better. It just isthose films that I mentioned before, Your
Serenity, your Valerian Your Jupiter,Ascending Star Trek two, The Wrath of
(38:52):
con Starship Troopers, Thor Wagnero ThoraWragnarok is an interesting one too, that
I believe also falls into this category. While that movie is is praised probably
more often than the Rise of Skywalkeris Thora Ragnarok to me also fits into
that category of if I'm just lookingfor a good space opera, I can
(39:15):
go Throwinthora wagnaroccause that's got everything inthere, as does Guardians of the Galaxy
Fifth Element. The Rise of Skywalkeron its own, paired against other space
opera genre films, I believe wouldbe much more well received than it was
being a Star Wars movie. Butas always, what do you think?
(39:38):
Talk show Nerd at gmail dot com. Talk show Nerd at gmail dot com.
Don't forget to go to my nerdworlddot net. Hit that link on
the homepage and get yourself signed upfor the newsletter my nerd World. All
right, let's go to a littlebit of listener feedback. This week,
Eric in Chicago, friend of theshow, said this on the news Space
(39:59):
Opera podcast. Will Battlestar Galactica makethe cut? Never got into Trek,
but Battlestar Galactica remake was some goodTV. Yes, I will be talking
about the Battlestar Galactica series at somepoint on the Space Opera podcast right here.
I enjoyed the series quite a bit. I'm still I haven't watched it
in its entirety. I'm through acouple of seasons. There's aspects of it
(40:21):
that I don't particularly care for,but again, it falls into that trap
of unfortunately being compared to my belovedStar Wars, and sometimes my head has
a hard time processing that through.But Battlestar Galactica is some amazing television and
and does benefit from the advancement inspecial effects technology. Because going back and
(40:44):
watching like even Star Trek Next Generationor even Firefly for that matter, it's
really difficult for me to go backand watch those shows, or the Babylon
fives right those earlier ones, evenportions of the expanse. It's hard um
that from that visual standpoint, Ijust get lost in it. One of
(41:04):
my favorite space opera television programs,and I own all the of the DVDs
for was Space of Above and Beyondby some of the guys that did the
X Files. I wish that somebodywould grab those stories and remake Space Above
and Beyond for a you know,for a modern show. Um, that
was some really cool, low budgetfor its low probably low budget even for
(41:29):
its time, but did a reallygood job of trying to provide some believable
special effects. The quality of theDVDs that I have now just don't hold
up on your big high definition bigscreens, and the CGI work in it
is so early that that too isa tough watch. But the story is
(41:50):
so great of these pilots, anda lot of what takes place in Space
Above and Beyond ended up seeping intothe storytelling of my Embark series. I
really wish that some but he wouldgo and revamp that with the modern special
effects technology. Thanks Eric for thefor the email. Owen Dawd, friend
of the show, says this,hey Man, Dune looks fantastic. Oh,
by the way, Dune's another onethat falls into this category of you're
(42:13):
thrust into this universe in Dune,set way in the future of a world
that you have not become familiar withat all. Right, That's just what
I mean. Most of the spaceoperas do that, and that's why again,
going back to Star Wars. Whythe Rise of Skywalker to me does
a really great job of establishing thisas a new universe that maybe you weren't
(42:34):
familiar with before, if the otherStar Wars films hadn't come before it,
much like Dune does, or Serenityor the other movies I mentioned. Owen
goes on to say I read Iread the book first and did not understand
it. It is, however,a blueprint for a lot of sci fi,
such as Star Wars, among others. The forty thousand he mentioned,
I'm not sure what he meant.I'm not familiar with that here, such
(42:58):
as forty k Star Wars among others. As a fan of the story in
the eighties film, I think it'sgoing to be fantastic. It's actually going
to be two separate films. Ican't wait to see what Denny to see
Denny's take on it. Yeah,I can't either. I watched that trailer
at least once a week. Recentlywent back and watched Blade Runder twenty forty
nine, and what I'm looking forwardto in Noone is that you've got a
(43:22):
real dense story in Dune. Nota fan of the eighties movie, however,
Denny has said openly that he wantsto make an action movie, and
so the trailer for Dune does sortof have that distinctive Dennyville New vibe because
he's very much a creator of anda master of the slow burn such as
(43:46):
Arrivals a good example definitely Blade Rundertwenty forty nine. But he's also really
good at making compelling films that aren'tnecessarily paced well, but the tension is
always there just under the surface thatyou don't need a lot of whiz bang
(44:07):
action to keep yourself enthralled. Sicariois the movie that's in my head right
now because that movie kind of itjust it just kind of it kind of
just trucks along, but there's thisunderlying tension in that film that just grabs
a hold of you from the fromthe opening of the movie. It just
does not let go. Thank youOwen for the email. A friend of
(44:29):
the show, Edwin from The LowdownShow says this, I love Star Trek
into Darkness as well. Did youknow that Trek fans hated the moment when
the film in the film when Spotyelled Cohn. They didn't like that Abrams
put that in the movie. Idid hear that. I heard it's the
equivalent of Vader yelling no at theend of Revenge of the Sith. Just
a tidbit of info. Interesting itis, and I remember that controversy wherein
(44:52):
Into Darkness they flipped the script andinstead of having the William Shatner yelling Cohn
it was, it ended up beingspot yelling. That Also, the con
reveal in the film, I know, was a big controversy with fans.
It would not have been as bigof a controversy if it hadn't been for
(45:15):
the fact that we had social mediaand those ideas to perpetuate and foster and
grow and infect everybody. That's justthe truth of it. That same thing
would have happened, as I've arguedmany times, if the original trilogy had
been released of Star Wars and wehad social networking like we do now.
But we didn't back then. Wehad those conversations among friends, and then
they died and we moved on withlife. We didn't stick to it,
(45:36):
we didn't belabor it, we didn'tlet those little things ruin the experience.
For me, it was for usit was more of an up or down.
Did you like or did you not? Like it. I liked it.
We watched it again. Absolutely nota I'm gonna do umteenth million podcasts,
you know, going over the sameground of why Lucas destroyed my childhood
and ruined Luke Skywalker for me?Gee, John, tell us how you
(46:00):
really feel. That wraps up theshow for this week. Thank you so
much for checking out at I'm Sorrya Space Opera Podcast. I almost said
a Star Wars podcast because I talkedto a bunch about Star Wars that will
not be happening again anytime soon.By the way, we will return to
your regularly scheduled non Star Wars programmingon a Space Opera Podcast next week as
we dive into one of my favoritespace opera films as well, and that
(46:22):
would be Joss Whedon's Serenity. Absolutelylove that movie. So if you want
to have some fun before next week'sshow and you have not seen Serenity,
go and watch it. You willnot be disappointed when it reminds you to
The Embarked Trilogy is available right nowat my nerdworld dot net or on Amazon
dot com. A science fiction adventureset in the future of a boy a
(46:44):
Star Wars and depeche Mode Fan andLove with the Girl in the Middle of
the Apocalypse and the two following books, Book two, A Treasure in Darkness
in book three, The Vanishing WarDon Corbin and The Asteroid of Misfortune coming
very soon, hope fully will beout sometime mid to late November. Cannot
wait to get that science fiction almostcomedy out for you guys to read and
(47:07):
listen to. And since you're listeningto the podcast and if you want things
to listen to, treat yourself thisweekend and go pick up the audio books
for the Embark trilogy. You likelistening to things you don't want to have
to read, so listen to mysoothing tones as they tell you a Grand
space opera adventure actually has some soundeffects in it too, and on occasion
(47:29):
I do voices badly. I knowthat I'm not really selling that, but
people do really enjoy the audiobooks.And if you enjoy the podcasts, you're
familiar with me. I can prettymuch guarantee you're gonna like the audio books
and it's almost thirty hours worth ofentertainment. So go to Amazon dot com
search for John jo and Justice,or go to my nerdworld dot net and
(47:51):
pick up your audiobook, or supportthe show and pick up a paperback or
e book. I would greatly appreciateit. Have yourself a fantastic week,
go watch some serenity, and I'lltalk to you again next week. Bye,
my nerd Road
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UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!