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Nursery Toys, Their Fantastical Journeys and Which Is the Best Cinematic Universe · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:10
  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and
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  I'm joined today by my friend over the other side of the Atlantic, Jacob Renaker. So Jacob
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  it's lovely to see you. Great to be here. So we've got sort of three main areas of conversation
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  today. The first wall is breaking news. We need a little chiron going down the bottom, don't we?
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  But it's breaking news of a different kind than normal. And the second is we want to talk about
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  what is the best cinematic universe. We're going to really duke it out here and argue for our best.
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  And then we're going to turn at the end to a new series that we're going to be doing, which is
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  to look at decades in publishing, starting in this case with the 1990s and picking out our top three
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  fantasy reads and we'll be working our way back through the 20th century and see what we can find.
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  Okay, but first of all breaking news. I need the, you know, that news. That's our music.
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  Yes, imagine, which is that we're about to have a royal visit to America. The King Charles
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  and Queen Camilla are coming for the American celebration of independence. And what is unusual
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  and what caught my eye and is relevant for fantasy fans is that in the gift giving,
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  Queen Camilla, who is a great sponsor hero of reading. She loves reading and she's behind any
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  sort of national campaign about get everyone reading. She is bringing a very special
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  character to be left behind in America, not Harry. It's actually rude because we are in the
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  hundredth anniversary year of Winnie the Pooh, which can you believe Winnie the Pooh is a hundred
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  years old. And the New York Public Library has a collection of A.A. Mills Sun's soft toys that
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  were the inspiration behind the, what became Winnie the Pooh. So E.R. and Tigger and Kanga and
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  all the rest of it. But they don't have room. And Queen Camilla has sourced a soft toy which would
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  have been in the same shape as the original room to give to the New York Public Library collection.
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  So they can have a complete set. So there we go, soft toy diplomacy. Now Jacob, that's all lovely.
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  And I'm sure that'll be one of the less contentious high spots of this particular visit.
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  But I was wondering as a result about how this whole idea of nursery school characters,
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  nursery, you know, nursery soft toys has been one of those big themes in fantasy,
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  which I've ever rethought about separately, but this gift has made me think about it.
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  So do you remember any stories, fantasy stories growing up, which had this as the idea,
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  you know, that the character's coming alive?
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  Yeah, this is great. And I just want to say a quick word about Winnie the Pooh having read those
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  with my child. I never, I don't remember reading the Winnie the Pooh series as a child. My
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  earliest memory is kind of the Disney cartoon adaptation, which I know. So now I'm
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  able to rectify that oversight. And it is absolutely holds up. Just terrible. Just so delightful.
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  The voice is so strong. It is those laugh out loud, funny bits for adults and super engaging
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  for four-year-olds, five-year-olds, and on up. So it's, yeah, it's, it certainly has left a legacy
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  in terms of fantasy. A story that I was familiar with younger, the Velveteen Rabbit by
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  Marjorie Williams, again, a toy, you know, inspired by a child's stuffed animal that then is so
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  worn out. It then gets discarded when new, new toys come along. And it's kind of this quest of
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  this animal who, who, who felt loved. And it's kind of, it is, it's surprisingly touching about
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  the transformative power of love and how love can make one real by both like receiving and
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  giving love. So Velveteen Rabbit was one, this kind of a, a sweeter softer one. One that, that really
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  captured my imagination as a child was the Indian and the cupboard series by Lynne Reed Banks
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  1980. So when I was a child, so this is this magic cupboard that whatever, you know, toys you put
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  in, you close it and open it up and they come to life and they have their own adventures.
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  And so it's very, you know, very close to toy story with that kind of channeling. But this was
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  you know, explicitly a magical cupboard that is imbuing these toys with with life. So that was
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  something when I was a kid that I would loved reading the books. They did a film adaptation
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  in the early 90s of the first book in the series. But yeah, but so my childhood I certainly had
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  these ideas of, you know, of toys having a life of their own, having adventures of their own.
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  And I feel like it's kind of what most children at least I did in my siblings and friends would
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  channel when you have these these animals, these creatures, these toys. Then then you're taking them
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  on adventures and you're voicing them and taking them in different places. So it seems, I mean,
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  it seems to be something even, you know, cross culturally something, you know, children and their
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  toys animating them and imagining what the life is like of this little object of theirs. So
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  yeah, so that was kind of my, my childhood. How about you in addition to the way the poo
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  were things that you see? Yeah, I was, so I, another one I remember from my,
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  my sort of growing up days at school was a book called The Little Wooden Horse, which was like a
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  horse on wheels that got battered and sort of broken down and almost rejected. So there's this
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  theme isn't there, which the velveteen rabbit is picking up and toy story later on is picking up.
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  You see idea that sometimes these stories about children's toys are about growing up,
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  things wearing out. There was actually also a TV series, absolute classic TV series called Bagpus,
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  which I don't know if it got to America. It was all of a post gate who was one of these
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  sources for all sorts of wonderful children's programming and the idea is you've got this old
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  cloth cat cat. He's a pink and white saggy old cloth cat who sits in the window of a curios shop
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  and his owner Emily finds broken down things to bring to the shop and then as soon as she goes the
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  animals come alive. So the cat there's a frog playing a banjo, there's a ragdoll, there's some
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  mice who have a little song about mending things and they repair the item and it's sort of early
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  upcycling and they tell a story about it, absolutely charming. So if you're looking for something
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  really gentle for your child, I would highly recommend Bagpus. I'm sure it's available,
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  but it's a similar idea that the animals have, or these stuffed animals have a life
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  when your back is turned. So that's, but the thing about Winnie the Pooh is that it's not about
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  the creatures are sort of moved out of being the move out of the nursery into the hundred-acre wood.
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  So they have a whole world in which they are they're in their native in that world and that's
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  where the adventure's happened and it's all about play isn't it and sort of jokes and the
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  child can laugh at the characters Christopher Robin is more intelligent and you know he's the one
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  they go to for help so it's a it's very empowering I would say for a kid and of course it
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  taps into a level for adults too because there are certain archetypes. My husband once came home and
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  said that they've done some management training thing where the training had been about describing
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  different members of their team in terms of Winnie the Pooh and the gentle way of rather than saying
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  you're bossy or you're you know you're over enthusiastic you say you're a bit like Tigger and
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  you're a bit like rabbit you know who is the ear is the question yeah the there wasn't ear I know
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  him well the one who would always say it's all the new horribly wrong so it's clearly tapping into
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  something so you can try that in your next you know group building meeting that's a great idea
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  but you mentioned of course toy story so I think we should yeah there's there's this idea has
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  lent itself to the engine in the cupboard is very much like night at the museum don't you think
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  right yes yes exactly yeah and toy story seems very much like the velveteen rabbit but perhaps
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  there's a my American on this you can explain the connections you see between those am I right
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  and think that yeah yeah that is yeah yeah very much so yeah kind of night at the museum is more
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  of a Indian in the cupboard so you and Indian again American Indian Native American Indigenous folks
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  that's so but the toys use have the you know the old cowboys and Indians shows that they would have
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  and they all kind of like take a place in the American West that's the you know the the the
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  righteous upright white settlers coming in and yeah right so that's where yes when this
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  is going to say the Indian in the cupboard so this is you know it's being published in 1980 so
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  it's being written and imagined much earlier than that with those kind of cultural ideas that
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  it's playing with and so in some in some ways it's almost a way to work through some of those
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  you know some of those cultural ideas through the form of toys right and that's what we're seeing
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  with with toy story right so it's it's a film that's about you know toys playing with each other
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  but like you said it's also something it's a kind of a locus to be able to to explore the idea of
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  growing up growing out of things you even have you know toy story to talking about the speculative
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  markets of you know toy you've been vintage there's so it's kind of a critique of certain different
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  things with the new upcoming toy story was just talking with our child about this one you know
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  the the villain is a tablet an electronic tablet that is you know children's attention is being pulled
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  to this is their new toy and the other kind of tactile toys are kind of being left in the dust and
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  and kind of so it's a way to explore imagination and children and in the you know competing
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  entertainments for children and what those effects have on them from the perspective of
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  the toys themselves which which is really interesting so I think yeah so they they become
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  yeah yeah yeah a way to explore some of these different deeper things something that you said
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  about Winnie the Pooh and the the the world itself that kind of sets it apart just really stood
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  out to me the this the hundred acre wood becomes this kind of persistent fantasy realm and Christopher
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  Robin whores in some of these other stories you know that there's the child in Indian in a cupboard
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  you know the child is a major focus of that but Christopher Robin he's kind of he he's kind of
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  intersects the story at certain points comes in but really it's about the adventures that these
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  toys are having on their own but it's again like it's a second it's it's almost a secondary almost
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  like portal fantasy or you're just kind of there and then the character from this other world is
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  the one that's kind of coming in and intruding even though he's the reason for the being of this
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  world and even yeah at the end of the you know Christopher Robin saga if you want to call it that
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  with House of Pooh Corner and Winnie the Pooh that you know when he talks about you know kind of
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  moving on and growing up and yet this world is still continuing to exist there's some yes there's
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  some some really interesting things there in terms of building world building in terms of an entire
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  fantasy world because you could have it like toy story that's entirely situated in our world
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  and it's dealing with you know there are people there are toys there's there's a clear distinction
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  between the two and the only place these these toys can explore is our world and so you have like
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  a toy's eye view of our world it can be kind of a critique a satire exploration of our world
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  but with something like the hundred-acre woods there it's like you said kind of a self-contained
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  kind of ecosystem a fantasy world that then has its own rules it has some ideas that are kind of
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  filtered through these animals you know with birthdays and other things that are being
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  kind of worked through the the simple understanding of these creatures so it's if a child was
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  kind of creating their own world and doing the world building themselves it's staying consistent
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  to that which is really interesting over what a persistent world fantasy world looked like
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  that was created by a child and if the child wasn't there how would it spin on and keep going
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  in the absence of that child which I think is the the brilliant moves that that melness making
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  in that and also something that you know fantasy writers since have paid attention to and kind
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  of probably been affected by in their own writing I think one of the problems about now if you
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  were saying well what would you do about it is a lot of our toys for the nursery you know
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  children's room rather than nursery these days are very often branded already so I'm thinking about
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  Barbie it's very knowing that Barbie has a Barbie film which has its meta level and then you've got
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  the use of things like Thomas the Tank Engine in and movie there's a sort of element of them being
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  subsumed into branding and I don't know and of course there is now the the toys made from to
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  rather than starting with the books they start with the sort of screen version even the Harry Potter
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  it's what have you they are sort of screen screen influence rather than booking so you're getting
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  it coming back the other way and what I rather like in these earlier examples is that it is that
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  random toy that the the the child loved did in the nursery and where we might want to rest
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  this discussion is of course who is our favorite of all of this most unlikely toy to become a hero
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  character I mean I would yeah so I just as I'm tempted to say Rover random
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  I mean the ten toy of Tolkien but actually a bonus points for obscurity in terms of that
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  but yeah but the Tom Bombadil so yeah Julia tell us a little bit give us a background on Tom
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  Bombadil and it's a it's tacked on Tolkien so yeah this it's kind of I think he came from
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  Germany Austria somewhere anyway it's the sort of odd toy that washed up in the Tolkien nursery I've
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  been given to them a sort of nomic type character and I mean I imagine what was happening was
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  anyone who's had small children knows it they say tell us a story and you look around the room
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  and think oh okay I will pick this toy so Tolkien probably picked up this this character and invented
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  this world of Tom Bombadil and poems and this this character who he then folded into
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  not the Hobbit where he might have been expected he folded into the Lord the Rings and takes on
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  a kind of demigod pan green man you know somewhere in that world or archetypal god like images
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  and I imagine the actual original you have to think really hard if you look at the original toy to
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  sort of project it into being it's actually imaginatively powerful creature but of course that's
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  what a child's imagination does it takes a you know a toilet row and a bit of tissue paper and says
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  it's a rocket game to space you know we do a lot as a child and it's all about play so I think
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  that's the essential element for fantasy and it connects Winnie the Pooh Tolkien barbie or whatever
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  is the idea of play just taking something tactile and saying what are we going to do with this where
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  would it fit in a story so anyway well done Queen Camilla for thinking of that or her people who
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  did her research for her that seems to be a very nice thing to take to America on the anniversary
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  is it 250 years of my thinking is that right so you're 250 probably I'm a poor
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  I think it is yeah it's a 200 yeah yeah yeah we've just celebrated Jane Austen 250
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  so we're in the right ballpark yeah always welcome back America if you want to
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  I personally will probably take you up I'll be back isn't that what that song is in Hamilton
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  right yes exactly I dare King Charles to sing it at the banquet anyway so moving on we are now
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  going to think about cinematic universes so first of all we need to define our terms the reason I
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  wanted this as a topic is that when we think about fantasy now there is so much influence on popular
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  culture by what they call cinematic universes and they're folding all sorts of things into this
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  idea it's me it's really a kind of exploitable IP is the business case you you have a really
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  strong central idea and then you spin out connected stories in films or TV series and so on so
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  I think the key thing to sort of guide our conversation about this is it has to be extendable we
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  have to be able to sit here and think well if we were going to do a story in that universe a bit
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  like fan fiction I would do some such it's got to have that extendable limitless feel so not
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  sort of one-off books that like 1984 that don't suggest going elsewhere you wouldn't want to do
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  a 1984 universe and 1985 yeah right yeah I mean it's just not a thing is it um so I was thinking
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  about groups and I'll probably come back and ask you about each one of those first of all is the
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  kind of the most obvious which is the superhero group which is largely marvel and DC
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  and then we've got some very strong contenders in the world of sci-fi so we've got Star Trek
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  good old Star Trek Star Wars of course which is doing this to the end degree and a long running one
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  but a recent and not entirely successful entry into the universe is Doctor Who but that is extendable
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  and then we've got fantasy properties that kind of stand alone so I was thinking here Harry Potter
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  of course Jurassic Park because that's been extended and and I thought what about some other big
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  ones that don't quite make the grade so I was thinking well I don't they have extended hungry
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  games but it seems to be just going up and down the same timeline yeah rather than sort of spreading
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  and then Twilight that sort of that huge craze it was the biggest thing of course in about the 2010s
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  that seemed to be a sort of limited thing and didn't go anywhere in terms of you wouldn't say
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  there was a Twilight universe there was a Twilight series of books but the films didn't then
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  lead into anything else or haven't yet so I would say they're quite a good mentioning them as
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  because they're big book series mentioning them sort of shows you where I do my cut off they don't
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  qualify where it's the others do and I'm not putting in here talking because the books are the
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  extension not stream and I'm not putting in here non-ear because it hasn't extended beyond
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  the book series no well yeah so we're both as yeah so I mean unless unless you're you also taking
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  a seriously that's one of those ideas like the let's say cinematic universe yeah is it limited to
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  film or are you also like can we also include prestige uh television as well right let's say yes
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  you are announcing early 2010s but then it's also so like there's the extension story aspect so you
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  have role-playing games that are specifically like set within Tolkien universe that are like
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  allowing for additional non-canonical stories right that are allowing people to to tap into
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  that that have like official rule books on how to tell your own stories in these sorts of
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  universe so I think that speaks to the potency of some of these uh you know some of these story
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  worlds which is you know the the middle-earth um larger legendarium um Narnia Narnia also has a
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  German only role-playing game a system official officially licensed sanction by the Tolkien
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  estate and a series of choose-around adventure uh Narnia books uh that were published so you have
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  you have some of these different extension stories but limiting right so that's a part of the
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  consideration for this it could just sprawl and go all over the place the video games as well um
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  a shadow of mordor shadow of war for uh or lord of the rings there's the online lord of the rings
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  game so there's like certain of things but then so they're all iKey related but if we're talking
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  about um you know kind of a coordinated story uh like you were saying like with the say marvel
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  universe where you have somebody a Kevin Feige who is yeah kind of orchestrating and saying this
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  is a coherent story that we're trying to tell across x number of movies slash tv shows um
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  then yeah so we're limiting it to that kind of dimension of the extension of these kind of story
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  worlds then uh yeah that's the cinematic would include in the cinema in the film and kind of
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  television series that are directly tied in um to those storylines that are happening in film uh
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  is that right yeah defining our kind of terms again yeah so the pro yeah you could argue that but
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  I kind of would like to take Tolkien and see if there is out to the mix yeah yeah yeah because
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  I'm biased towards them and also I don't think that an extendable game or a or an extendable computer
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  game um is has quite the same standing as another film or another tv series so let's keep it on the
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  screen just so that we we can limit what we're talking about yes yes yes yes um so when you say
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  yeah so when you say like so when you in your mind when you're saying best what are the synonyms
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  that you're working with for for best like we're not like the word something like so is it
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  is it the most coherent or cohesive that's one way of saying the best right uh is it the most
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  immersive uh uh which is kind of I guess kind of along with that is it the most rewarding uh for the
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  broadest wath of uh of fans for that so when you say best what are you what is in Julia's mind uh
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  what like the best cinematic universe I guess it might come down to the one I like the most
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  that could be you know emit your own bias but I think what I'm getting at is I'm interested in
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  this idea of what is a cinematic universe and I think it has to be the one that when you finished
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  a film there's still appetite to find out more stories in that same universe they haven't exhausted
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  the material so there's a feeling of it could go on and keep getting and not get worse not get
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  not sort of wear out by being overextended so the material is marshalled carefully
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  so that you feel as though it's fresh ground that's being tilled but you want to see what the crop
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  comes up to use as an agricultural image um does have to have range and versatility and
• 26:08
  contemporary relevance right I think as well so something which actually makes you think oh yeah
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  that's really interesting that's made me see something new so it's easier when you start talking
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  about examples so people say you know DC has struggled to find itself and people have found some
• 26:27
  of the more offbeat versions of DC were the ones that people have liked you know um
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  is it a suicide squad and things like that yes right yeah yeah they're not my cup of tea
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  um but I can see so I would say DC it has an appeal and of course they've got
• 26:46
  what Superman and um Batman do they have both of those yes yeah correct um
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  but there is a sort of element there well I I have problems with superhero movies in that
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  they're always about basically the same character you know sorry I'm gonna get letters not letters
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  emails people protesting but the the idea of someone who is a kind of slightly isolated figure
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  with special powers you know off you go right um and often in a sort of contemporary
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  world so for me there's a limit I they're enjoyable but there's a certain amount of when you see
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  a Superman origin story when they do another one it's pretty much the same just updated for a new
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  world right um Marvel I think have they've tried to do some really interesting things
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  but for me the only bit of the universe that still has any interest to me is actually Spider-Man
• 27:56
  I don't know what you're addressing yeah why is that yeah yeah I'm interested to kind of drill
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  down on that but largely because of the the casting I'm still care about the that character
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  uh and perhaps after the next one maybe we wouldn't have had enough because he's getting old and you
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  know right right it's a coming of age story and they've reset it quite well this time if
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  everyone forgetting who he is so um I really enjoyed the Iron Man early on and I enjoyed the adventures
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  as they the banter as they were happening but they sort of lost I'm familiar I don't really
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  grab on to anything else and I think that's been the problem they've had tried to do new things with
• 28:42
  the marbles and have a quite found their way um and maybe it's just we need a you know
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  10 years off right 10 years off superhero movies I don't know what do you feel about the DC marble
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  yeah that's it's interesting yes like marble clearly they've uh done a lot of thinking and
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  kind of like architectural story architecture and I should have gone back in time as well so they've
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  they've also done the um uh who's that character the um I'm trying to think for the name of the
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  the female um lead in a series in the early she's in the sort of 1960s uh
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  oh you're in Carter yes thank you and then it also captured America himself is back in the
• 29:38
  first world second world war so right they have you do have some given it some bright
• 29:43
  period yeah you can do period pieces right which they've done sometimes with yeah the the first
• 29:48
  Captain Marvel movie was supposed you know was a was a 1990s you know kind of like period piece you
• 29:54
  called the 90s a period which apparently you can now at this point um but right so the Captain
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  America the first one was taking place 1940s um so you do have some of those you know different
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  different places yeah it's so I think what's what's allowed it at the early goings uh the first
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  the culminating in and game which is going to be re-released in theaters uh in case you didn't get
• 30:15
  a chance to see it one of the two times that it was in theaters previously there's going to be
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  additional material this time uh that will help uh to connect it to their upcoming Avengers you
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  know kind of the the next saga uh kind of lost a little bit of steam like you're mentioning here
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  in the middle after the Thanos Infinity uh Infinity War they call the Infinity saga so after that
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  I think it was really they had each of the pieces well orchestrated put together they're building off
• 30:43
  of each other um and they're all limited to films at this point yeah now after you get there then
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  it's they're also extending it into television right with Disney Plus um and during the pandemic
• 30:53
  is when you start having this kind of the the the gold rush of streaming uh television
• 30:59
  yeah and so that kind of like it it uh it's interesting uh looking at yeah what's happened there
• 31:06
  with with Marvel and I can't believe the name of the book that I uh read it was kind of unofficial
• 31:11
  uh kind of history of the Marvel cinematic universe that was talking about how these pieces that
• 31:16
  early attempts to try to do this sort of thing interconnected superhero universes adapting
• 31:20
  on a book material and then what was it for Marvel that made it stick and then how did it kind of
• 31:25
  peter out um the difficulties and really the difficulties in this part uh so the the what is
• 31:31
  allowed it to cohere has been kind of a singular singular creative vision weapon fight um so he's
• 31:36
  able to put those pieces and they have it kind of pretty tight uh but then once they started going
• 31:41
  to television there were so many more episodes and so much more content that you could have one
• 31:45
  person really that was able to be there in the editing room for everyone of those when you usually
• 31:50
  only have you know two movies may be coming out a year versus two movies plus two tv series that
• 31:56
  each have eight to ten episodes um and others that are in various forms of production so yeah I
• 32:03
  so I think that looking at that first saga um the infinity saga um all those together they're
• 32:10
  also they're able to play with different genres right so like winter soldier is supposed to be
• 32:14
  kind of like a spy thriller um uh you have uh Antman which is kind of a heist which is a heist film
• 32:21
  the first Antman kind of a heist film so they're they're they're kind of instead of just having the
• 32:26
  same like you're saying just a superhero stereotypical superhero story they're trying to take
• 32:32
  superhero story plus add this genre um to be able to give it uh I think a little bit broader
• 32:38
  appeal hopefully I think uh to a broader audience um and then you know for more of the comedy
• 32:44
  end right so Thor ended up you know started as uh you know Shakespeare light uh and then
• 32:50
  kind of leaning into Chris Hemsworth's uh comedic abilities and that character goes from a
• 32:55
  serious again like the Rob Downey junior Iron Man calls him kind of your Shakespeare in the part
• 33:01
  I think at one at one point um or just saying that he's kind of a more serious character
• 33:06
  to then more of a comedic relief and it has moments of seriousness but
• 33:12
  but Taika what TT bringing up bringing him into direct later movies um that they're like
• 33:18
  leaning into the community yeah I'm going to be up the rails though didn't it that one
• 33:21
  right right and so then you've got the Loki TV series which right because I think it absent in the
• 33:28
  the way if it if it's going to work this cinematic universe okay Kevin Feige sort of universal
• 33:34
  vision but also it's absolutely key who they're casting and Tom Hiddleston was a very good casting
• 33:39
  as Loki but watching Loki the series it's a kind of Doctor Who retread a very high you know um
• 33:47
  the the issues there if you've been watching Doctor Who since the 60s you see them tackling the
• 33:54
  same thing about someone moving through time and all this kind of thing yeah so um I did enjoy
• 34:00
  that series but I also thought hmm I think I think I know where you've got some of these ideas from
• 34:05
  you know um but I do like him as an actor and I think one of the problems you have of course is
• 34:12
  people get wedded to certain characters and they don't um expand to take in the new characters coming
• 34:19
  in there's no next generation it's like saying that I only like the first generation romantic
• 34:25
  power it's not the second generation oh my first or say that they're all retreads yeah no
• 34:31
  that's a good point that's what they're doing so marvel at the shoot because of in in in part
• 34:35
  I'm sure like as part of the reflection of what you're just saying there like Robert Downey
• 34:40
  Jr. was so central to the identity as a character right he's just you know he's witty he's charismatic
• 34:48
  and and smart and so he's a character that people just like to see on the screen
• 34:52
  um uh and so they're bringing so he will now uh Robert Downey Jr. is going to be
• 34:59
  now is presented as the villain for this upcoming cycle of of Marvel cinematic stories so
• 35:10
  so rather than just like you know trying to pass the torch where they kind of did but then
• 35:14
  ran it but then it's how actor centric this is right um the actor who is supposed to kind of
• 35:19
  be the main villain for the following section of of films uh rent legal trouble publicly legal
• 35:28
  trouble and so there was some distancing they had to now take the the actor who is in this role
• 35:32
  rather than just recasting the role decided to kind of pivot on what they were doing so
• 35:37
  yeah so it's going back to the well uh if you're focusing on actors rather than characters but I
• 35:43
  guess like the character is so tied up with the um the actor themselves that it can be hard to
• 35:49
  see somebody else cast in that role well if they're good so I think they bring a new energy like
• 35:54
  the go back to Spider-Man each time they've cast it there's been a new kind of energy to it
• 35:59
  and of course we can't you shouldn't really carry on this conversation without mentioning the fact
• 36:03
  this all comes from comics so that's the the original well is a comic book world and there's
• 36:08
  lots of potential storylines from that they're using which those who have followed the comics
• 36:14
  really enjoying seeing from the interpreter so in terms of I think Marvel perhaps a bit less so
• 36:22
  DC but Marvel is definitely a strong contender for ticking the boxes for what I was thinking of
• 36:28
  as the best cinematic unit in that it's very extendable when they get it right it makes
• 36:36
  a very good film and a lot of money but a very good film film that sort of um is the four quadrant
• 36:43
  film it pleases everybody if they cast it well it works really really well so we'll just leave
• 36:50
  superheroes for a second so um let's talk about science fiction so Star Trek Star Wars and Dr.
• 36:58
  Who now I think Dr. Who is a bit of an odd one to put in is they try to make this into a universe
• 37:05
  and it kind of hasn't worked in that they didn't get a big viewership with the money with the
• 37:11
  Disney um link up and that sort of dropped away but oddly enough in terms of concept
• 37:19
  Dr. Who is wonderfully extendable because of it's very simple idea man
• 37:25
  well time lord man woman probably in a weird kind of spaceship which goes through time and space
• 37:32
  and so yes that is very extendable very simple um I hope they can make it work when they go back to
• 37:41
  it because I think I like the idea but I don't think it's it's worked as an extended universe
• 37:47
  so I will knock that off the list so we'll leave unless you want to argue for it to be back on
• 37:53
  but we'll leave Star Trek and Star Wars there I've got a feeling that the world is divided into
• 37:58
  those who like Star Trek more than Star Wars and vice versa which side of this cutthroat battle
• 38:05
  to you for them um I am I am on the Star Wars side of that I appreciate Star Trek
• 38:13
  oh this is good I guess I have I have reasons for the like okay your definitions of and
• 38:18
  reasons for what what qualifies as one that's you know extendable um so yeah for for Star Wars
• 38:26
  again like if you're looking just limiting it to films uh I would I would also count you so you
• 38:32
  see um made for TV films you have that what Star Wars early on even in the 80s right spinning out
• 38:37
  from um from a turn of the Jedi you have a couple of Ewok made for TV movies this small
• 38:43
  it's really deep dive yeah that I oh this is on so and I and I love those as a child so that
• 38:49
  which because um rather than having the adults as the primary actors and movers that Ewok movies had
• 38:57
  children a couple of children whose parents um were lost initially uh and then they were having to
• 39:02
  navigate this world themselves so for me as a child being able to see myself kind of in this
• 39:08
  universe that just added even more for me so you have so you have an extension from the big screen
• 39:14
  to the small screen not in like telling ongoing you know television series although they did have
• 39:18
  a uh a droids cartoon with uh C3PO and R2D2 um and at Ewok's cartoon so you have so you have these
• 39:25
  early ideas most those are primarily just for selling toys um uh said and bring play sets and
• 39:32
  that sort of thing um because R2D2 did have rights didn't maintain the rights to um merchandising
• 39:38
  was what his big coup uh or early on that the studio had the rights to the film and distribution
• 39:45
  everything but then he was going to maintain rights for merchandising and then merchandising
• 39:50
  and that's what allowed him to put money into sequels um and to try other attempts to extend the
• 39:57
  universe in different ways like the prequels uh but you wouldn't have been possible unless
• 40:01
  he had that money himself to do the stupid lot so you have a you know a singular person at least
• 40:06
  the beginning who's kind of making these decisions creative decisions um I think in terms of like
• 40:11
  now contemporary you do have uh both animated um series that are continuing on stories that are
• 40:19
  seen as canonical that are enriching the experience that are exploring periods between two of the
• 40:23
  films um so the Clone Wars uh for instance was a long-running um uh animated series um you then
• 40:31
  you also have uh live and the girls also rebels pulling different kind of in between periods
• 40:38
  have interstitial uh storytelling that they're trying to exploiting what's happening between these
• 40:43
  blockbuster uh you know films that you're seeing there is kind of what their strategy has been
• 40:50
  and so to your point about things that are being able to explore different areas and that
• 40:54
  have relevance for uh different uh you know contemporary issues um so while some of those
• 41:03
  series say like um you know book of Boba Fett specifically was kind of like was hoping to like
• 41:08
  a nostalgia right there so here's a character and you're hoping to get people people who didn't
• 41:12
  know anything about Star Wars probably wouldn't be drawn to book of Boba Fett um Mandalorian I think
• 41:17
  they're able to be successful again this is pandemic golden age of streaming um people are at home
• 41:22
  and then you have a story this kind of unique take of a kind of bounty hunter character who then
• 41:28
  is tasked with protecting a child and then so you have this kind of lone wolf and cub dynamic that
• 41:34
  hasn't been uh that you've seen elsewhere and in other uh in other media but in the Star Wars
• 41:40
  universe was something that I think connected a lot of people thought it was fun in a way is kind of
• 41:44
  more um you know self-contained storytelling um but to bring it to more of the modern relevance um
• 41:50
  and or uh which is kind of not dealing with the fantastical and like the scientific advancements
• 41:57
  it's more of a uh really like a political thriller and it's focusing on people on the ground the
• 42:03
  people that are you're on the big screen you're looking at the you know emperor you're looking at
• 42:07
  these leaders these rulers people with like fantastic powers but this series is focusing on
• 42:12
  people on the ground the people in you know office conference rooms and not that they're like
• 42:19
  they're really dealing with every day you see somebody eating cereal talking this guy who
• 42:29
  lives at home with his parents still he's he's an adult and he's eating cereal like this this one
• 42:35
  anyway so like there's so there's a lot that it is kind of like related but it's it's talking about
• 42:39
  you know issues of of political importance in today's world when you have threats of you know
• 42:45
  of regimes are people that are rising to power and abusing power and who's complicit in that uh
• 42:51
  and so I think that's the reason why it does have you know nominated the season two of and
• 42:55
  or nominated for 14 Emmys winning five of those um so there's certainly some ways of approaching
• 43:02
  the the material that lends itself to contemporary relevance um so that's one of the reasons why
• 43:07
  I think you can and it's a broad enough base that you can have a political thriller that's where that
• 43:13
  was so that was that's released or kind of like political espionage that's released five months
• 43:18
  after a Obi-Wan series that's more of the traditional like swashbuckling high adventure kind of like
• 43:26
  little brow uh more sort of the humor isn't as as deep but then the andor is is is exploring
• 43:32
  certain themes of of morality um whereas Obi-Wan is more kind of like action adventure and those
• 43:39
  are being released within five months of each other and so I think that speaks to the um you know
• 43:43
  the broadness of where you can appropriate the central material too yeah and I think one thing
• 43:50
  that Star Wars does do quite well is morally imperfect characters whereas um I would say on
• 43:58
  the whole Star Trek is a slightly more um clear on its values you know uh there's a sort of more
• 44:07
  of a sense of it being the goodest versus the bad is and even when they do do different time periods
• 44:15
  within Star Trek it still looks fairly futuristic because that's its fun um the reason I like Star
• 44:22
  Trek I think is largely to do with the questions raised I find the questions raised in it particularly
• 44:30
  the next generation era I know that there's the thing about in terms of when they make films
• 44:38
  every other film is a dud apparently but there were several really really good
• 44:45
  films plus the the the new versions of the old stuff um it's Chris Pine I think it is isn't it
• 44:54
  get my Chris's right they were very good I thought very well thought through and I liked some of the
• 45:02
  interplay between the different series so you would have a sort of 90s series that would reference
• 45:11
  in the 80s series and the costumes that people wore there all sort of in jokes time and of course
• 45:18
  it was held together by Patrick Stewart's very strong um performance and I think of all of it the
• 45:27
  one that I would choose as the most interesting of all of the Star Trek stuff is the next is the
• 45:35
  first contact film which riffs on all idea that being assimilated into a collective and the
• 45:42
  the damage that's done to the the captain figure in a way it's master and commander Patrick O'Brien
• 45:49
  but in space you know if you like the ideas of a more community at sea and of course there are
• 45:56
  lots of the other series which I've enjoyed and I did watch in the 90s I watch less now because it's
• 46:01
  on a service I don't have but I did watch Picard the retirement yes right I thought the last
• 46:09
  series of that which had a lot of the old time was coming back on was actually very moving and
• 46:13
  very good the middle of the series I was asking on but the first and the first yeah right so I think
• 46:21
  for me I find Star Wars a bit tiresome and I don't really forgive it was tiresome that sounds a bit mean
• 46:30
  but what do I mean by that um the sort of the the the the the the false eye concept and just the way
• 46:43
  it doesn't kind of land as for me um just you know that somebody else it will and they'll say it's
• 46:53
  amazing I think partly I really enjoyed as a child the first three that came out logically
• 47:01
  and I sort of believe or suspended belief in it all got shot to pieces by the pre-course
• 47:08
  right and it destroyed it and then I took my kids to see the sequels I realized I was watching the
• 47:16
  same film again just rehashed yeah and so I just thought oh no you've ran out of material right
• 47:22
  and all was nice to see that they haven't run out of material yeah yeah so let me yeah I think
• 47:27
  I think I destroyed my faith in the Star Wars yeah and unders understandably so yeah and I think
• 47:32
  yeah and I absolutely agree with you about the Star Trek that Star Trek from its inception was meant
• 47:37
  as a social commentary right that's that each so so even with and they did that really well with
• 47:43
  next generation um so each and you can have these you know kind of stand alone episodes right it's very
• 47:50
  um uh you know it's a it's a serial and it would be episodic in that way and that you have
• 47:56
  and sometimes you have serial elements that are you know kind of overarching mythology like the
• 48:00
  board would come in and come out right so every once in a while and it's picking up that thread
• 48:04
  but largely you could just you know tune in for the planet of the week uh and and it's social issue
• 48:09
  that it's exploring through that planet's culture um uh that week that's what made it I think so
• 48:15
  so popular um and have such uh longevity uh in so it's so many different uh guys' uh with the
• 48:22
  different series so I think absolutely it's better it's it's much better suited to be more relevant
• 48:27
  to contemporary audiences with yeah if if you're willing to go that route rather than just say it's
• 48:32
  just spaceships and you know uh explosions and uh action um and you can travel through space but if
• 48:41
  you're actually looking at social issues um political issues that's really what it's I think best suited
• 48:46
  for so Star Wars in terms of it yeah running dry I think so this is with the sequels um the sequel
• 48:52
  trilogy with uh Ryan Johnson's the last uh Jedi um that that one really wrinkled a lot of people
• 48:58
  because he was doing things differently and kind of like reintroducing this idea like mystery to
• 49:03
  the forest whereas it was kind of taxonomized um and made more scientific and it functions better
• 49:11
  when it is more nebulous and it ill-defined but I think they're able to instill a more of a sense of
• 49:16
  wonder there um there's other reasons why people didn't like it but I think there was an attempt to
• 49:21
  do something kind of fresh with it but then the fandom uh I think a lot of vocal fandom was
• 49:27
  opposed to seeing something different and kind of wanted more something that I would like that
• 49:31
  here's my pitch for you for looking at the potential the Star Wars has so there's a series that
• 49:36
  Star Wars has done there's done there's done three series uh of this called Star Wars visions um
• 49:42
  they opened it up to first the first series about eight episodes they're like 15 minutes each
• 49:47
  and they went to um Japanese animation studios and said you can tell any story any type of story
• 49:54
  you want here it's not canon it's not going to be included in the broader universe but take the
• 49:59
  Star Wars property and tell whatever story you're excited about um and there's some really that
• 50:04
  they're wildly different um in terms of you know some are following a musical band and drama
• 50:10
  they're having somebody else's is following you know a spy um some of them deal with the force um
• 50:15
  and Jedi and like one hat there's one uh that is kind of like a samurai like a ronin uh
• 50:21
  character who's like without uh you know a tribe and it just kind of like wandering as kind of like
• 50:26
  this not like vigilante justice kind of in in some way or like a reluctant um uh enforcer um so
• 50:33
  there's some really and beautiful and different types of animation and different types of storytelling
• 50:37
  that they haven't done quite yet in the in the mainstream um so they did that for the first and
• 50:42
  the third season the Japanese studios the second season that they did um they expanded that to
• 50:49
  different global animation studios uh including cartoon saloon which did secretive kels song of the
• 50:56
  sea wind walkers it's an irish um uh animation uh outfit um they did one of these that's that's
• 51:04
  wonderful just like the visuals and the storytelling um kind of almost you you can tell
• 51:08
  it's uh influenced by uh like Celtic mythology kind of and how it's it's relating to light
• 51:16
  and dark um so they had one also the ardman animation uh animators um so there's a walless and
• 51:23
  grommet essentially version it's called uh yeah like i am your mother so around the play on you know
• 51:27
  luke i'm your father but it's about a mother daughter who's through her struggling and their
• 51:32
  relationship and so it's you know it's a claymation animated um funny um touching uh at times um
• 51:39
  and so they have a one of these uh they build y'all 15 minutes or so 10 15 minutes so they're very short
• 51:44
  they have some from like a Portugal um uh south africa i believe is one of the other anime stories so
• 51:49
  it's just seeing the the breadth of different kind of like cultural and visual influences
• 51:55
  they're brought to these stories and the freedom that they have to not have to try to fit firmly
• 51:59
  into canon that's one of the challenges when you're dealing with these kind of cinematic universes
• 52:04
  not breaking uh the infrastructure the larger infrastructure that's in place so the so these
• 52:10
  animators are given kind of a pocket they say like you do whatever you want um and so there's some
• 52:14
  really interesting stories and i think the evidence for potential for some really um i think special
• 52:21
  relevant um visually interesting and exciting stories to kind of breed new life into something
• 52:26
  that can easily get stale um uh and people can become satan dissatisfied with so that's my argument
• 52:33
  for for what i think is hopeful about the cinematic universe is seeing like these really rich
• 52:39
  kind of almost like proof of concepts for here wildly different things that you can do with this
• 52:44
  central property so that's what's kind of still exciting that's what excites me most about it
• 52:49
  not the overarching kind of official all the movies are going to be released and which ones you
• 52:53
  have to go see in which order to understand what's happening but these these spots of heroic creative
• 52:59
  that are untethered with canonical considerations and what kind of story taking the basic building blocks
• 53:05
  could you tell that is exciting for you and then ignite your imagination the fact that you have so
• 53:10
  many different stories that this property is igniting so many different creatives and so many
• 53:14
  different ways um is hopeful to me that's very persuasive and i've all gone look those up because
• 53:21
  obviously i can't reject it with i haven't tried so we're running a bit long here so we're probably
• 53:27
  put our discussion about the 1990s into a second part but just to finish this off i mentioned
• 53:32
  in passing the other sort of cinematic universe of course Harry Potter and i had in mind here how it's
• 53:39
  extended to um you know rides and worlds and um again we were we're not particularly looking at
• 53:48
  the video game well but there is obviously a massive Harry Potter video game thing with sort of
• 53:55
  an earlier you know the Hogwarts idea can move through different periods in history and yeah
• 54:01
  all that stuff and i also mentioned Jurassic Park pretty much for a similar reason because it
• 54:06
  seems as though it's gone into sort of rides and what have you um i think they have less of a universe
• 54:13
  claim in that the spin-offs cling very much to the original story so i think perhaps they're more
• 54:23
  of a world as opposed to the universe so i'd probably say a Harry Potter world a Jurassic Park
• 54:30
  world and not a universe whereas others i think so just for the ease of being able to describe
• 54:38
  anything let's let's draw the line there a few agree with me on that yeah agreed okay so who are
• 54:44
  you going to vote for we've done Marvel we've done DC Star Trek Star Wars Doctor Who yeah i think
• 54:51
  i haven't mentioned i think that's so the only yeah who are you going to go dressed up as to
• 54:59
  you know yeah i have yeah i like i think because i already actually have a lightsaber that's
• 55:08
  given them as a birthday gift so i have to for budget saving purposes at the very least i have to
• 55:15
  commit to a star it's just like yeah just in part and like you said it's something that we like
• 55:20
  and i think a lot of our tastes are shaped in childhood um uh either good or bad and experiences
• 55:26
  and so i watched a lot more like Star Wars and the toys that were available there uh
• 55:33
  were part were like integral core memory core like emotional development for me is tied up with
• 55:40
  Star Wars i did have next generation toys though as well uh yeah but they weren't they weren't
• 55:45
  there weren't nearly as like well thought out or like part of a larger ecosystem of toys um so i
• 55:50
  think yeah so my tastes i think you'll see that way and there's there's no tag yeah there's
• 55:55
  end novels and things like so that's like there's such like nostalgia and like personal like
• 56:00
  connection to that that it's hard for me to like fully disentangle from that um in terms of if i'm
• 56:07
  to have to if i have to pick one for me and my internal universe i have to have to go with Star Wars
• 56:16
  that's a slightly different thing about which one you would sort of internally imagine um so i think
• 56:21
  for me probably i'd like i would have liked it to be doctor who but i don't think it is because of
• 56:29
  the sort of relative failure of the last round of trying to develop that so at the moment until i
• 56:34
  watch these other things i'm still more star Trek than anything else more i respect that you know
• 56:40
  marvel is fine but it's i guess maybe i'm too old yeah too old for superhero you're not too old i'm
• 56:46
  not saying yes you're too old but like it can be like it's it's very limited you're young uh and
• 56:52
  vibrant i enjoy the films i do enjoy films but i don't invest it whereas i think there's a more range
• 56:57
  of issues and stuff which i find interesting that's what okay right so that's the end of um
• 57:05
  this section uh and now we're going to move off into the 1990s which we'll put into a set
• 57:12
  project um so come back and join us next week for the 1990s
• 57:22
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• 57:29
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