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Nostalgia Ain't What It used to Be · Large Nerdron Collider

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Speaker 1: The Large Nerdron Collider podcast is a production of My
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to The Large Nerdron Collider,
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Speaker 1: the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
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Speaker 1: the world around us and how very excited we are
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Speaker 1: about them. I'm Ariel casting, and with me, as always
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Speaker 1: is long time favorite never out of Style, Never out
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Speaker 1: of this is not working, but he does. Jonathan Strickland. Wow,
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Speaker 1: that's that's possibly the second greatest introduction I have ever received.
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Speaker 1: Thank you, Ariel, And in return, I have a question
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Speaker 1: for you. Oh yeah, a question, So Ariel, as always,
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Speaker 1: I this episode with a question. I did not think
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Speaker 1: this one up ahead of time because I just realized that, wait,
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Speaker 1: that's something I'm supposed to do. So here's here's your
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Speaker 1: here's your off the cuff question. If you couldn't have
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Speaker 1: it any classic television series like you are living in
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Speaker 1: the world of that TV series and I'm talking about
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Speaker 1: a series from say, the late eighties or earlier, which
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Speaker 1: one would you pick? I'm gonna go with the easy answer.
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Speaker 1: And you know, not a lot of thought put into this,
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Speaker 1: but probably I love Lucy because I got red hair
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Speaker 1: and she's got red hair. And she's a goofball and
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Speaker 1: I'm a goofball, So it just seems like an easy
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Speaker 1: transition and fit. What about you, Well, if I'm going
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Speaker 1: to live in any nostalgic television series, it's gonna be
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Speaker 1: w k RP and Cincinnati because I've already got the
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Speaker 1: job skills to talk on the microphone and be a DJ,
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Speaker 1: and uh, it'd be it'd be an easy transition. Plus
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Speaker 1: some pretty awesome tunes in that era and uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: as like Dr Johnny Fever's got the night Shift. So
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Speaker 1: today we've got our our roundup of news in the
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Speaker 1: geek sphere, and we start off with something that is
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Speaker 1: equally absurd, and I guess not not so much shocking
2:17
Speaker 1: as it is like, well, of course they did, so
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Speaker 1: what is that aerial? Alright? So KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken
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Speaker 1: has come out with a gaming console and I thought
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Speaker 1: at first that this was a huge old joke, especially
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Speaker 1: after they came out with their Colonel Standers Love short
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Speaker 1: film early this Christmas season, yes, with Mario Loplaz playing
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Speaker 1: the colonel. But I should have known, because KFC really
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Speaker 1: likes to shoot for the fences, set out that phrase
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Speaker 1: book shoot for the moon, you know, aim for the fences,
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Speaker 1: something like that, something like that. Anyhow, you know with
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Speaker 1: the KFC double Down, they they like to experiment and
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Speaker 1: have fun, and uh, this time they're having fun with
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Speaker 1: a game console. So it is a gaming device that
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Speaker 1: also has a chamber to keep your KFC chicken warm,
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Speaker 1: which I will say it's a good thing because KFC
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Speaker 1: chicken once it gets cold and you have to reheat
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Speaker 1: it is not fantastic. But also better to just eat
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Speaker 1: it cold, no the crispy or not KFC. When they're
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Speaker 1: hot and they're fresh, they're good. After that, I'm picky
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Speaker 1: about reheating my chicken. So it's it's a thing, but
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Speaker 1: u But also, fried chicken is not really a great
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Speaker 1: gaming snack because it gets your fingers all oily and
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Speaker 1: then you're catching whatever controls that you're using, and so uh,
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Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting. It says that it's cross platform,
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Speaker 1: so I don't know what that means. So I'm pretty
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Speaker 1: sure that we would just call this a like a
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Speaker 1: gaming PC like this, that's what time. This is just
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Speaker 1: a gaming rig. It's not like it's an Xbox or
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Speaker 1: a PlayStation, which arguably those are also at this point
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Speaker 1: more or less just very specialized gaming computers. And um,
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Speaker 1: A couple of things on that I would think of
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Speaker 1: is that one, it does sound like it's a pretty
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Speaker 1: powerful machine based on on the specs that have been released. Two,
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Speaker 1: we don't know if or when this thing will ever
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Speaker 1: be available for purchase. It may very well be that
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Speaker 1: there is one it exists, but it will never become
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Speaker 1: a commercial product. That's a possibility. Or Two, when it
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Speaker 1: does become available, if it does, we don't know how
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Speaker 1: much it's gonna cost. And three my main thought was
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Speaker 1: that this, like you were saying, fried chicken and video
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Speaker 1: games not a great combination, not just because it gets
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Speaker 1: your fingers all greasy, but if you've ever had to
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Speaker 1: clean out like an oven or anything where you've been
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Speaker 1: cooking greasy food, it leaves that film over everything. And
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Speaker 1: I would imagine like, even though I know the airflow
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Speaker 1: for this device is to pull air away from the
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Speaker 1: electronic components up through the chamber where the chicken is
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Speaker 1: and then out through the top, I would be worried
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Speaker 1: about that build up of of oily residue affecting the
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Speaker 1: electronics below and drastically reducing the useful life of that
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Speaker 1: particular piece of hardware. I say that as the host
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Speaker 1: of a tech podcast, it just doesn't sound like a
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Speaker 1: good idea to me. Moving on, our next story is
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Speaker 1: that we heard recently that some of James Duhan's remains
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Speaker 1: that as the actor who played the original Scottie on
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Speaker 1: Star Trek, the original series, some of them have ended
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Speaker 1: up aboard the International Space Station and have actually been
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Speaker 1: up there for uh more than a decade now. And
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Speaker 1: this story goes along with the fact that he wanted
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Speaker 1: to have his remains uh shot into space, you know,
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Speaker 1: sort of a sort of a non to him as
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Speaker 1: his role in a very popular science fiction franchise, and
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Speaker 1: one part of his remains is criminated. It remains were
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Speaker 1: in a rocket that failed to reach orbit, so that
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Speaker 1: one did not quite make it into space. Another was
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Speaker 1: um pushed out the airlock of of a spacecraft, but
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Speaker 1: that minute just eventually deorbited and burned up on re entry.
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Speaker 1: The third, though, appears to have been smuggled aboard the
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Speaker 1: International Space Station by Richard Garriott, who is also known
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Speaker 1: as Lord British, the creator of the Ultima series of
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Speaker 1: computer games, who in two thousand and eight was one
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Speaker 1: of a very small number of private citizens whoever got
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Speaker 1: a chance to visit the International Space Station. He paid
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Speaker 1: about thirty million dollars to do it, and as a
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Speaker 1: favor to one of James Dewan's relatives, he brought with
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Speaker 1: him a plaque that had James doing on it and
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Speaker 1: a little bit of his remains and then hit it
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Speaker 1: below the floorboards of part of the International Space Station.
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Speaker 1: So since two thousand and eight, Scotty's remains are part
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Speaker 1: of it have been aboard the International Space Station. UM,
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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to stay up there now,
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Speaker 1: but that was something I read today. I mean, I'm
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Speaker 1: not too mad by it, like that's I'm fine with it.
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Speaker 1: A weird thing, nonetheless, and we thought we would open
7:29
Speaker 1: the show with a couple of weird notes, but the
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Speaker 1: rest are are some pretty straightforward things, and it starts
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Speaker 1: to kind of tie into some of the other stuff
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Speaker 1: we'll talk about in this episode. One is that we
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Speaker 1: now know what Warner Brothers strategy is going to be
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Speaker 1: moving forward. After one we already reported about how the
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Speaker 1: company is going to release all of its movies simultaneously
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Speaker 1: to theaters and to the HBO Max streaming service. But
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Speaker 1: that's not what's gonna happen after that, right, No, well,
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Speaker 1: maybe two, we don't know, but they're planning on releasing
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Speaker 1: their movies in theaters once again. I know that in
8:13
Speaker 1: a previous episode we worried that theaters might be going
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Speaker 1: by the wayside, and I say, I stay worried because
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Speaker 1: Jonathan and I both like a movie theater experience sometimes.
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Speaker 1: But it seems like the studios, whether it's due to
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Speaker 1: UH production companies saying no, please don't just release us
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Speaker 1: on streaming, or whether they are really banking on the
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Speaker 1: movie theater industry rebuilding, are planning on still using movie theaters.
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Speaker 1: And I'm happy about it. I'm happy about two. And
8:45
Speaker 1: as we've kind of alluded to in previous episodes, this
8:48
Speaker 1: might be. It's probably is a necessity if we expect
8:52
Speaker 1: to get the same kind of films that we've become
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Speaker 1: used to over the last couple of decades, because without
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Speaker 1: those box office returns, you don't have the financial incentive
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Speaker 1: to produce blockbuster movies, not at the budgets that we've
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Speaker 1: been seeing. So without the movie theaters, movies are not
9:11
Speaker 1: going to be the same. So I think this is
9:14
Speaker 1: more good than bad, But it does mean that they're
9:18
Speaker 1: counting on movie theaters having a major comeback. I mean
9:22
Speaker 1: that being said. You know, Wonder Woman eighty four released
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Speaker 1: this Christmas, and despite not having a big box off
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Speaker 1: his opening, Uh, they are already in plans to make
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Speaker 1: a third one. Yep, it's already been greenlit. The film
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Speaker 1: pulled in sixteen point seven million dollars upon its debut, which, again,
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Speaker 1: if you look at recent blockbuster releases from like twenty
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Speaker 1: nineteen or earlier, that that would be considered a colossal
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Speaker 1: failure most terms. But in a year where many theaters
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Speaker 1: are are shut down, like their entire theater chains that
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Speaker 1: are shut down, and a lot of people are quarantining
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Speaker 1: at home, sixteen point seven million dollars is nothing to
10:01
Speaker 1: sneeze at. So we know that Patty Jenkins has been
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Speaker 1: signed to direct the third film, so just as she
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Speaker 1: did the first two. Uh, and both of us have
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Speaker 1: seen Wonder Woman eighty four at this point, Ariel, do
10:15
Speaker 1: you want to give like a non spoilery reaction to
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Speaker 1: what you felt about the movie? Sure, the opening was
10:24
Speaker 1: this is gonna be super vague. The opening was better
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Speaker 1: than I expected. I had seen like a little they
10:29
Speaker 1: released the opening clip from Wonder Woman on YouTube prior
10:33
Speaker 1: to the movie releasing, uh, and it was okay. But
10:36
Speaker 1: when I watched the clip in its entirety, as opposed
10:38
Speaker 1: to what had just been released on YouTube, I got
10:40
Speaker 1: very excited. Um. I think all of the characters really
10:43
Speaker 1: committed to the roles they were playing. And of course,
10:47
Speaker 1: you know, going in is a bit of a comic
10:50
Speaker 1: superhero supervillain nerd. I knew who all the characters were,
10:53
Speaker 1: and I knew some of their history outside of this movie,
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Speaker 1: and so I was able to connect with that. For
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Speaker 1: people who like some of my my family who have
11:01
Speaker 1: seen the movie, who um, weren't really familiar with who
11:05
Speaker 1: Robert Maneuver was or Max Lord Maxwell Lord, you know,
11:09
Speaker 1: the reveals for them kind of came too late in
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Speaker 1: the movie for them, like it didn't quite have the
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Speaker 1: piecing for growth that someone coming in fresh would need.
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Speaker 1: And for me, it just felt like there were some
11:24
Speaker 1: really fantastic moments and there was some really great character work,
11:27
Speaker 1: but plot wise, I felt like they jumped, especially in
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Speaker 1: the last third of the movie, from point A to
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Speaker 1: point C, without a lot of interconnecting tissue between the points.
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Speaker 1: And so for me personally, I enjoyed it, but if
11:42
Speaker 1: I think about it too hard, it falls a little flat. Yep.
11:45
Speaker 1: Same here, I felt like I felt the movie was bloated.
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Speaker 1: It's two and a half hours long, so I felt
11:51
Speaker 1: that the movie was too long. And yet I also
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Speaker 1: felt like there was a lot of connective tissue as
11:57
Speaker 1: you say, that's missing, Like there was a lot of jumping,
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Speaker 1: you know, like we have to put this scene in
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Speaker 1: because this thing has to happen, but we don't have
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Speaker 1: the time to connect it to the previous scene. And
12:09
Speaker 1: even as someone who's familiar with comic books and someone
12:11
Speaker 1: who was really paying attention during this movie, I was
12:14
Speaker 1: confused by the progression because I kept feeling like we
12:18
Speaker 1: were missing out on a connected scene, and that was
12:22
Speaker 1: really frustrating for me. There was also some questions I
12:25
Speaker 1: had that never get answered in that movie, one big
12:28
Speaker 1: one that I'm not going to ask because it's a
12:30
Speaker 1: it's an integral part. But maybe after we record, I'll
12:32
Speaker 1: ask you, Ariel, what you thought, um And yeah, I
12:36
Speaker 1: found it largely unsatisfying. I thought, as you say, the
12:39
Speaker 1: performances were fine, I thought the tone was also very strange,
12:43
Speaker 1: like the tone went all over the place, from very
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Speaker 1: lighthearted and almost home Alone esque with the opening highst sequence,
12:52
Speaker 1: to really dark and disturbing stuff. Um so it was
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Speaker 1: very it seemed like very inconsistent film to me. That
13:02
Speaker 1: being said, I also thought that the first Wonder Woman
13:04
Speaker 1: film was a billion times better, apart from the fact
13:08
Speaker 1: that their third act and in the first Wonder Woman
13:10
Speaker 1: movie also kind of goes off the rails. But my
13:13
Speaker 1: hope is that One Woman three will be more like
13:18
Speaker 1: the first film and less like the second film. It
13:21
Speaker 1: also makes me worried a little bit about Rogue Squadron,
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Speaker 1: another movie that Patty Jenkins is directing, although again we
13:27
Speaker 1: should also remember that writing and directing are two different things. Yes,
13:31
Speaker 1: and and you know, it's been this weird balance in
13:34
Speaker 1: the Justice League between Snyder's vision for the d C
13:38
Speaker 1: EU and what the writer's visions are for each individual
13:42
Speaker 1: movie and some of the audience saying we don't want
13:45
Speaker 1: something quite this dark. So it's been a weird balancing
13:47
Speaker 1: act they've been trying to figure out. You know, I'm
13:49
Speaker 1: still I'm still enjoying it enough that I'm happy to
13:53
Speaker 1: let them continue to try as long as they're willing,
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Speaker 1: Because I have enjoyed. You know, I liked Aquaman enough,
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Speaker 1: I enjoy the character again. The character work in Justice
14:02
Speaker 1: League was really good, even though the story was oh
14:05
Speaker 1: hum for me, you know, I liked the First Wonder
14:07
Speaker 1: Woman things like that. But that being said, um, kind
14:11
Speaker 1: of to tie the last story in with this one,
14:13
Speaker 1: I read right before we started recording that even though
14:16
Speaker 1: they were releasing movies to movie theaters in three they
14:21
Speaker 1: are also planning on releasing at least two d C
14:24
Speaker 1: movies a year to HBO Max with smaller, more risky
14:29
Speaker 1: characters like that Girl or Static Shock or things like that.
14:31
Speaker 1: So we'll see what happens. I'm kind of glad that
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Speaker 1: HBO Max is rolling in the d C television and
14:38
Speaker 1: they might do television series to all of the DC
14:41
Speaker 1: streaming network stuff, because that gives me a chance to
14:45
Speaker 1: watch it and get a chance. Very similar to Disney
14:48
Speaker 1: Plus and the Marvel World. Um well, we've got a
14:52
Speaker 1: lot to talk about with some nostalgic pieces, some nostalgic
14:56
Speaker 1: news items as well as a larger discussion. But before
14:59
Speaker 1: we get to that, we're gonna take a quick break. Okay,
15:13
Speaker 1: so we're gonna start talking about retro and nostalgic pieces.
15:18
Speaker 1: We've got a couple of other news items that fall
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Speaker 1: in with this, one of those being the Cobra Kai series,
15:24
Speaker 1: which originally released on YouTube Premium. It was a YouTube
15:27
Speaker 1: Premium exclusive. Now it is a Netflix original starting with
15:31
Speaker 1: season three, and we learned that they're going to actually
15:34
Speaker 1: release season three one week earlier than had previously been reported. Yeah,
15:41
Speaker 1: January one, So happy New Year's everyone. Uh. You know,
15:44
Speaker 1: Cobra Kai is one of those ones where I have
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Speaker 1: a lot of fun nostalgia for the Karate Kid. It
15:51
Speaker 1: took me a little bit to get into the series,
15:52
Speaker 1: but I think they're doing a really good job with it,
15:54
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, seeing Zabka go in all
15:59
Speaker 1: the times from like having little uh cameos and all
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Speaker 1: these other shows I've it does make me go, huh,
16:06
Speaker 1: I wonder how Johnny would have turned out. And so
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Speaker 1: I've been really enjoying the series for that, And it's
16:11
Speaker 1: fun that's building on that internet meme of who was
16:15
Speaker 1: the real villain in Karate Kid? Yeah, another man, it's
16:20
Speaker 1: just like this week looking at all of the ge canoes.
16:22
Speaker 1: It's all been nostalgia. Another one of those was news
16:25
Speaker 1: about the Barbie vague news about the Barbie movie that
16:29
Speaker 1: is in theory coming out sometime in the future that
16:32
Speaker 1: they've been trying to make for Fields a few years now. Yeah,
16:36
Speaker 1: Originally there were talks of a live action Barbie movie,
16:39
Speaker 1: I mean at least as as early as twenty fifteen,
16:41
Speaker 1: if not sooner or earlier, rather not sooner. But but
16:46
Speaker 1: those projects never really came to fruition. But currently there's
16:51
Speaker 1: a project that's helmed by uh, Greta Gerwig and Noah Bombach,
16:58
Speaker 1: who have written lots of movies together and separately and
17:03
Speaker 1: directed movies separately, who are working on this. And Margot
17:07
Speaker 1: Robbie is the actress who is attached to this, and um,
17:11
Speaker 1: we don't know much except to that Robbie said that
17:15
Speaker 1: the movie is both faithful to the intellectual property and
17:19
Speaker 1: yet is not what you think it is, which seems
17:22
Speaker 1: like that's an impossible combo. Yeah. Yeah, And and honestly,
17:27
Speaker 1: of all these things, of of you know, we'll get it,
17:30
Speaker 1: we'll get into this once we get past the last
17:32
Speaker 1: couple of news items. Of all the things that are nostalgic,
17:34
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I really don't want them to mess
17:36
Speaker 1: with the original story. Barbie is one that I don't
17:39
Speaker 1: particularly care if they I mean, the whole point of
17:41
Speaker 1: Barbie is to imagine new things. So yeah, I I
17:46
Speaker 1: personally I thought that the way Barbie was uh imagined
17:51
Speaker 1: in the Toy story movies worked really really well, Like
17:55
Speaker 1: it was a fun imagining of that character. A live
18:00
Speaker 1: action one, I've definitely like, Yeah, I don't even know
18:04
Speaker 1: what to expect. I mean, for one thing, that the
18:07
Speaker 1: toy has a lot of baggage attached to it when
18:11
Speaker 1: it comes to things like building up unrealistic body image
18:15
Speaker 1: expectations and that sort of thing. I mean, there's a long,
18:19
Speaker 1: long history of criticism directed towards the toy for that reason.
18:25
Speaker 1: So it does make me curious how they will or
18:29
Speaker 1: if they will even address that at all overtly or
18:34
Speaker 1: in subtext in the movie. I don't know, I just don't. Yeah,
18:37
Speaker 1: I guess. I guess we'll see if if this one
18:40
Speaker 1: actually launches and takes off and gets through production. Uh.
18:43
Speaker 1: You know, we also got another trailer for one Division
18:46
Speaker 1: that's coming up this week, and that you know that
18:49
Speaker 1: show is also making a lot on nostalgia and would
18:51
Speaker 1: leave it to Beaver and Grady Bunch. You know, it
18:55
Speaker 1: goes through all of these old sitcoms as is, Wanda
18:57
Speaker 1: is trying to imagine a perfect world toilet in with visions,
19:00
Speaker 1: so at least that's what we assume is going on.
19:03
Speaker 1: It's really hard to tell because we don't know if
19:05
Speaker 1: the world she inhabits, which is clearly a sitcom inspired
19:10
Speaker 1: world like The Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family and
19:14
Speaker 1: the Leave It to Beaver and all those kind of shows,
19:18
Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit of I Love Lucy in
19:20
Speaker 1: there too. All these things are are clearly part of it,
19:24
Speaker 1: but we don't know if this is Wanda's own creation,
19:28
Speaker 1: as she's you know, falling into madness, which would be
19:31
Speaker 1: kind of similar to a storyline that actually played out
19:33
Speaker 1: in the comics, or if she's been trapped there by
19:36
Speaker 1: some other entity. I've seen one guy who's really really
19:41
Speaker 1: swinging hard for it being Mephisto, who's behind everything. Um,
19:46
Speaker 1: we just don't know, but yes, that nostalgia element is
19:48
Speaker 1: definitely a big part of that trailer. And then finally
19:52
Speaker 1: we have a trailer. This was actually the one that
19:54
Speaker 1: kind of got us into thinking about this episode in
19:57
Speaker 1: the first place, because Ariel saw the trailer and then
20:00
Speaker 1: sent it my way for me to look at, and
20:03
Speaker 1: it's a film called Max Cloud, which I had no
20:08
Speaker 1: awareness of until Ariel sent me the link. It looks
20:11
Speaker 1: like a lower budget movie, but it has some some
20:14
Speaker 1: i would say pretty middle link to high names attached
20:17
Speaker 1: to it. It's got the woman from the new James
20:20
Speaker 1: Bond movie who's also and Captain Marvel, and someone from
20:23
Speaker 1: Westworld and someone from Legends of Tomorrow. It's so it's
20:27
Speaker 1: got all of these successful actors in it, but it
20:29
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a a B level movie, and it's, uh,
20:34
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about nostalgia and everything we've mentioned
20:36
Speaker 1: so far is banking off of a property that previously existed,
20:40
Speaker 1: and this movie is banking off of people's love for
20:43
Speaker 1: um eighties video gaming and that sort of feel of movies.
20:49
Speaker 1: So it almost feels kind of like a Tron movie
20:52
Speaker 1: or or The Last Starfighter where a girl gets suck
20:55
Speaker 1: into a video game and becomes one of the characters,
20:58
Speaker 1: or like to Mungie and Um. Clarity ensues, her friend
21:02
Speaker 1: finds the game and she's got to convince her friend
21:04
Speaker 1: that she the character in this old eighties game is
21:08
Speaker 1: her and that she sucked in the game and they
21:10
Speaker 1: have to find that guys, and she has to find
21:13
Speaker 1: some way to get back out of the game. Yeah,
21:17
Speaker 1: it's funny because if you watch the trailer, it's a
21:19
Speaker 1: combination of so many things. I said in our notes,
21:22
Speaker 1: that's a combination of like wreck It, Ralph and Toy
21:24
Speaker 1: Story and Jumanji. Um. But it's also I would think
21:29
Speaker 1: kind of a a uh, kind of a throwback to
21:33
Speaker 1: movies like Big where a character makes a wish, the
21:37
Speaker 1: wish comes true somehow, and then the character realizes that
21:41
Speaker 1: the consequences of that wish were not what they expected
21:44
Speaker 1: and they have to find some way to reverse it.
21:47
Speaker 1: So it's like a combination of all those things. And
21:49
Speaker 1: it is very much uh tagged into the nostalgia of
21:54
Speaker 1: a genre of video games from the eighties, So not
21:57
Speaker 1: a specific title, but more like the general way that
22:01
Speaker 1: that smash them up, fight them up, side scrolling video
22:04
Speaker 1: games worked, you know, stuff like Double Dragon, that kind
22:07
Speaker 1: of stuff back in the eighties. And yeah, but it's
22:10
Speaker 1: very much trading heavily on nostalgia. But for me, like
22:14
Speaker 1: I have interest in seeing it because not because I
22:17
Speaker 1: think it's going to be phenomenal cinema, but because unlike
22:22
Speaker 1: Cobra Kai, which I do enjoy, or coming to America,
22:24
Speaker 1: to which I'm sure I will enjoy, it's something new
22:29
Speaker 1: built off of the love of something old. So I
22:32
Speaker 1: guess the question for you, Jonathan, is so much of
22:35
Speaker 1: our media now is is focusing on these things that
22:38
Speaker 1: we loved in the past. And I know there's always
22:40
Speaker 1: the Internet thing going around of there are no new stories,
22:43
Speaker 1: just old stories that people are rehashing. You know, I'd
22:46
Speaker 1: say Stranger Things is a new story even though it
22:48
Speaker 1: focuses on the eighties or you know, things like that.
22:53
Speaker 1: Do you do you like stuff that banks heavily on
22:55
Speaker 1: the nostalgia or would you prefer something that's new, that's
22:58
Speaker 1: set in the future nowadays, or or something like that.
23:01
Speaker 1: I don't have any problem with something that that taps
23:04
Speaker 1: into nostalgia if it's doing so from a genuine place,
23:09
Speaker 1: and that the setting is an integral component to the storytelling.
23:16
Speaker 1: To me, like, that's what makes it work. And this
23:19
Speaker 1: is not anything new, it's I mean, we notice it
23:21
Speaker 1: because now we're seeing the media reflect the stuff that
23:26
Speaker 1: was popular when Ariel and I were kids, right, Um,
23:29
Speaker 1: But this happens all the time, Like when I was
23:32
Speaker 1: a kid. One of the big movies that was really
23:35
Speaker 1: popular was Greece, which in turn was a nostalgic piece
23:39
Speaker 1: about being a teenager in the nineteen fifties, uh, in
23:43
Speaker 1: the in the uh you know, nineties and early two thousands.
23:47
Speaker 1: You look at things like that seventies show and again
23:50
Speaker 1: you're looking back at a something that happened twenty to
23:53
Speaker 1: thirty years previously. So this is a cycle we see
23:56
Speaker 1: all the time where the media of the day is
23:59
Speaker 1: reflecting the childhood loves of the people who are watching it.
24:03
Speaker 1: So you look at how the age of the average
24:05
Speaker 1: viewer subtract twenty to thirty years and that's what's that's
24:10
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're going to see in the media.
24:11
Speaker 1: And this happens a lot, and if it is done well,
24:14
Speaker 1: I like it. And there're certain ones that really play
24:19
Speaker 1: with the nostalgic criteria and they do it well. There's
24:24
Speaker 1: a movie called Turbo Kid that is this crazy, schlocky
24:29
Speaker 1: science fiction action movie exceedingly violent, but in a very
24:35
Speaker 1: kind of tongue in cheek cartoon ish way. Um, but
24:39
Speaker 1: it comes across as like you watch and you're like,
24:41
Speaker 1: I could totally see this having been made in the
24:43
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, except the sensibility of it is a little
24:47
Speaker 1: too advanced for the nineteen eighties, and the effects are
24:51
Speaker 1: actually a little too advanced for the nineteen eighties. But
24:53
Speaker 1: other than that, it feels like it could have been
24:57
Speaker 1: lifted from that era of really weird, over the top
25:01
Speaker 1: science fiction films, stuff like Big Trouble in Little China
25:04
Speaker 1: or buck Ru Bonsai. Um. And so when it when
25:08
Speaker 1: does that, when it feels like it's it's a genuine story.
25:12
Speaker 1: To me, it's no different than if you were doing
25:14
Speaker 1: a period piece that was set in like you know,
25:18
Speaker 1: medieval Spain or something. You're just you're you've it's it's
25:21
Speaker 1: this period and the setting of the story you want
25:24
Speaker 1: to tell. It's when you just are trying to cash
25:27
Speaker 1: in on that and your story doesn't have much story
25:31
Speaker 1: to it and you're just relying on that nostalgia to
25:34
Speaker 1: carry you through, that's when it falls flat for me.
25:37
Speaker 1: What about you? Um, I feel the same way. You know.
25:41
Speaker 1: I I was raised on so much sci fi that
25:43
Speaker 1: I kind of like looking to the future, But I
25:46
Speaker 1: don't mind if it's got a hint of the past
25:48
Speaker 1: in there. Um. You know, for instance, the not new
25:53
Speaker 1: now but newer Star Trek movies where they went back
25:56
Speaker 1: to the old James Kirk you know, were they the
26:00
Speaker 1: most mind blowing cinema ever. No, but it was new
26:02
Speaker 1: stories with old characters I love that still looked to
26:04
Speaker 1: the future and that was kind of fun for the
26:06
Speaker 1: most part. They did just straight up rabbit con in
26:08
Speaker 1: the second one. But yeah, yeah, well except that they
26:11
Speaker 1: also made Spok a raving lunatic. In the second one.
26:16
Speaker 1: He was angry punching action hero, which is about as
26:21
Speaker 1: non spot as you get. But you know, I do.
26:25
Speaker 1: I do, like you know, some movies that are made
26:28
Speaker 1: just for the the one quick laugh. Something I don't
26:32
Speaker 1: have to think about very much is why I like
26:34
Speaker 1: watching bad movies, you know. So Kung Fury, which actually
26:37
Speaker 1: haven't watched, is an example of that where I'm like,
26:39
Speaker 1: I would watch this, it would be funny because I
26:41
Speaker 1: haven't had what nostalgia they throw in their ruined for me,
26:44
Speaker 1: but it would probably be like a one time watch.
26:47
Speaker 1: And then there are other examples like Stranger Things is
26:49
Speaker 1: set in the nineteen eighties and is also clearly a
26:54
Speaker 1: love letter to some of the most influential filmmakers of
26:57
Speaker 1: the eighties, like Steven Spielberg's influence on the filmmakers or
27:02
Speaker 1: the series makers for Stranger Things is incredibly obvious. If
27:07
Speaker 1: you watch that show their nods to Alien in season two,
27:11
Speaker 1: there's their nods to the Thing, John Carpenter's the Thing
27:14
Speaker 1: as well. So plus all the lovecraft Ian imagery, there's
27:18
Speaker 1: all the D and D imagery, There's there's a ton
27:21
Speaker 1: of influences. But again it feels genuine within that story
27:26
Speaker 1: of it. When the film version of it came out,
27:30
Speaker 1: they made a decision to shift the timeline of it.
27:34
Speaker 1: Now when it came out as a novel, it came
27:35
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eight six, So the six novel of it,
27:40
Speaker 1: the childhood's were taking place in the in the fifties,
27:43
Speaker 1: not in the eighties, because you go back thirty years
27:47
Speaker 1: or I think it's twenty seven years something like that.
27:50
Speaker 1: It's I forget now how many years the Pennywise goes
27:53
Speaker 1: into hibernation then comes back out. But anyway, the childhood
27:58
Speaker 1: was set at a different time period because the current
28:01
Speaker 1: events were set in n six. When the movie comes out,
28:04
Speaker 1: they just shift everything up so that the adults are
28:07
Speaker 1: modern day childhood is nineteen eighties um. And again that
28:11
Speaker 1: was a way to connect to the audience of today,
28:14
Speaker 1: because if you if you said it where modern day
28:17
Speaker 1: was the nineteen eighties and the childhood was nineteen fifties,
28:20
Speaker 1: you would no longer connect with the majority of your audience.
28:23
Speaker 1: So that was a very calculated decision. And I think,
28:27
Speaker 1: you know, with it and with Stranger Things, more with
28:30
Speaker 1: Stranger Things than with it when you put in that
28:33
Speaker 1: nostalgia like albeit you know they're both set in the eighties,
28:36
Speaker 1: which you know is my childhood time. But when you
28:40
Speaker 1: when you put in the little things like the alien
28:42
Speaker 1: or the thing orb or whatever. You know, all these
28:45
Speaker 1: little nods and they're subtle and you have to pick
28:48
Speaker 1: up on them and you have to work for it.
28:50
Speaker 1: It's much more rewarding. We have a mash up that
28:53
Speaker 1: we need to present, but first I think we're gonna
28:55
Speaker 1: chill for a second and take a quick break. You
29:14
Speaker 1: came up with a mash up to create the ultimate
29:17
Speaker 1: nostalgic experience, can you explain? Yes, So, Jonathan, I are
29:21
Speaker 1: going what are we gonna What are we gonna mash up?
29:23
Speaker 1: You know we can mash up, man, while we've already
29:25
Speaker 1: done that. You guys haven't heard it yet. We'll come
29:27
Speaker 1: out in the future. But you know what, what can
29:30
Speaker 1: we do that isn't doesn't already exist? Because the more
29:34
Speaker 1: you rehash old properties, the more they get blended together.
29:37
Speaker 1: So we took something that was just truly nostalgia back
29:42
Speaker 1: to the future is because you know, we're nostalgic about
29:45
Speaker 1: it now. And then we took something that is nostalgic
29:50
Speaker 1: about back to the future but modern, stranger things, and
29:54
Speaker 1: we said, what would this be like? Would this even work?
29:59
Speaker 1: I guess we'll find out. So do you want me
30:00
Speaker 1: to go first? Or do you want to go first? Um?
30:05
Speaker 1: I guess I will go first because I'm pretty sure
30:07
Speaker 1: yours is going to be better than stop saying that
30:10
Speaker 1: every single time you go first. I'm like, oh, that's
30:13
Speaker 1: such a good idea. All right, I want to hear yours.
30:17
Speaker 1: I just like your idea so much. I'm just supporting you, Okay,
30:19
Speaker 1: So Appreciation Society, Yes, Upside Down to the Future. Marty
30:26
Speaker 1: McFly and Doc Brown are added again after a tweak
30:29
Speaker 1: to their Dolorean where they add tacking on particles to
30:32
Speaker 1: improve its time jumping capability. They are off to thirty
30:35
Speaker 1: one years in the future once again. Here back to
30:38
Speaker 1: the future too. They went thirty years in the future
30:40
Speaker 1: to make sure they didn't mess it up with their
30:42
Speaker 1: time traveling antics. They just can't leave well enough alone,
30:46
Speaker 1: but the tachyon particles, in conjunction with the flex capacitor
30:49
Speaker 1: opened a dimensional rift and they end up in what
30:51
Speaker 1: looks like a weird jumble between Indiana and Georgia. As
30:54
Speaker 1: they exit the car, they realize they are still in
30:57
Speaker 1: the eighties, darker, more bleak version of the eighties. What
31:02
Speaker 1: has happened that they must be in an alternate universe.
31:05
Speaker 1: As they scour the city this Indiana Georgia, the hybrid City,
31:09
Speaker 1: looking for parts to fix their Deloreans so they can
31:11
Speaker 1: return to their timeline instead of their time, they come
31:15
Speaker 1: across a bunch of kids looking for their friend Will.
31:17
Speaker 1: When they see Doc and Marty, they stop looking and
31:19
Speaker 1: start to freak out, pointing and screaming, running towards Doc Marty,
31:22
Speaker 1: seemingly knowing who they are. Doc Marty, not wanting to
31:25
Speaker 1: upset the timeline, further, run into the woods and that's
31:29
Speaker 1: when they see it, No, not not Pennywise, the demigorgan,
31:35
Speaker 1: and it sees them as a demogorgon double takes it
31:39
Speaker 1: starts slowly towards Marty and Doc. As he gets close
31:42
Speaker 1: to Doc and Marty, it's mouth head thingy starts to
31:45
Speaker 1: slowly open. In a last digit effort of self defense,
31:48
Speaker 1: Doc throws a right hook straight into the ribs of
31:50
Speaker 1: the demogorgon and they hear familiar ouch. All of a sudden,
31:53
Speaker 1: the monster's mouth opens and a beefy blonde head pops out.
31:56
Speaker 1: It's Biff Tannin. Then they see the cameras all around them.
31:59
Speaker 1: If says, what heck are you two doing here on set?
32:02
Speaker 1: He explains that they are in two thousand sixteen on
32:04
Speaker 1: a TV set, Their DeLorean isn't broken, and they are
32:07
Speaker 1: in fact movie stars in the future. Not having ever
32:10
Speaker 1: expected that they would be famous, they decide, huh, well,
32:14
Speaker 1: what's a hurry back? And they stick around for a while.
32:17
Speaker 1: What havoc will this week? We'll find out in the
32:19
Speaker 1: sequel back to the present twin Pining for Home. Okay,
32:24
Speaker 1: first of all, my hat is off to you. The
32:26
Speaker 1: fact that you reference that Stranger Things is shot in
32:30
Speaker 1: Georgia but said in Indiana in your meta fiction is
32:35
Speaker 1: perfect and once again aerial somehow we have taken exact
32:43
Speaker 1: opposite approaches to our pitches without sharing them, So now
32:49
Speaker 1: is my chance to share with you. Back to Stranger Things,
32:55
Speaker 1: it's and Marty McFly is helping old Doc Brown with
32:59
Speaker 1: an experiment. Why is Marty friends with Doc Brown that
33:03
Speaker 1: in itself is one of life's great mysteries? But perhaps
33:06
Speaker 1: it's so that Marty can occasionally access Doc Brown's insanely
33:09
Speaker 1: overpowered amplifiers. Anyway, Marty ends up ducking into a time
33:14
Speaker 1: machine made out of a Dolorean to escape some terrorists
33:17
Speaker 1: who come after Doc Brown for the theft of plutonium.
33:20
Speaker 1: Marty goes back to the past to so pretty much
33:23
Speaker 1: at this point, everything is playing out like the original
33:26
Speaker 1: Back to the Future film, except this time in the past,
33:30
Speaker 1: Marty encounters a young, ambitious scientist in his late twenties
33:34
Speaker 1: named Martin Brenner. Marty and Martin bonding over sharing the
33:40
Speaker 1: same name, because we know in movie universes, that's the
33:44
Speaker 1: closest bond you can have. Uh. They worked together with
33:48
Speaker 1: Doc Brown to solve the time traveling issue, but all
33:52
Speaker 1: the while we see Brenner viewing the proceedings with a
33:55
Speaker 1: calculated eye, something that Doc Brown finds concerning but necessary
34:00
Speaker 1: in order to get Marty back home to nineteen eighty five. Eventually,
34:04
Speaker 1: with the help of Doc Brown and Martin Brenner, Marty
34:07
Speaker 1: is able to return to nineteen five. Only things have changed.
34:11
Speaker 1: His father is not, as it turns out, a popular
34:14
Speaker 1: science fiction novelist, but rather an important scientist, and he
34:19
Speaker 1: doesn't live in California anymore. When Marty returns to nineteen
34:23
Speaker 1: eighty five and he sees that Doc has survived the
34:25
Speaker 1: terrorist attack, he is told by his old friend that
34:28
Speaker 1: his father and mother left California for Indiana after his
34:32
Speaker 1: dad accepted a position in a lab his dad's boss,
34:36
Speaker 1: Martin Brenner, and so Marty and Doc traveled to Indiana
34:39
Speaker 1: to find out what's going on. They go to Hawkins, Indiana,
34:43
Speaker 1: a town where weird stuff has been happening for a
34:45
Speaker 1: couple of years, and they learned that George McFly is
34:48
Speaker 1: Brenner's successor, Brenner having been consumed by the demogorgan two
34:52
Speaker 1: years earlier. George is obsessed with tracking down a young
34:56
Speaker 1: teenager referred to as Eleven, even as the barrier of
35:00
Speaker 1: reality are breaking down in Hawkins. They also learned that
35:03
Speaker 1: Marty is named after the deceased Brenner, and Marty is
35:06
Speaker 1: horrified to hear that his namesake has been up to
35:09
Speaker 1: these terrible things. Marty tries to reconcile what is happening.
35:12
Speaker 1: He is heading back to his little motel room in
35:15
Speaker 1: Hawkins when he encounters a group of kids Mike Wheeler,
35:19
Speaker 1: Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Will Buyers, and the aforementioned eleven.
35:24
Speaker 1: They're investigating why rats keep us floating. From there, we
35:28
Speaker 1: are pulled into a complicated story about how scientists using
35:32
Speaker 1: technology adapted from Doc Brown's time travel devices have opened
35:37
Speaker 1: up a portal to other dimensions that now threaten the
35:40
Speaker 1: safety of everyone in Hawkins and beyond, and Marty is
35:44
Speaker 1: faced with a new challenge to go back in time
35:47
Speaker 1: again and prevent Martin Brenner from being part of his
35:52
Speaker 1: solution without being spotted by his past self in the process.
35:57
Speaker 1: Oh and it's super hard to do because now magnets
36:00
Speaker 1: don't work, and that messes with the time circuits and
36:03
Speaker 1: the DeLorean. So at the end of the movie, Doc Brown, Marty,
36:07
Speaker 1: and science teacher Scott Clark played by my friend Randy
36:11
Speaker 1: Havens figure out how to send Marty back to nineteen
36:15
Speaker 1: fifty five, again setting up the inevitable sequel the end. Oh,
36:20
Speaker 1: I love it, And if that is not the actual
36:24
Speaker 1: next season of Stranger Things Stranger Things season four, I'm
36:27
Speaker 1: going to be sorely disappointed. I mean, like it's to me,
36:30
Speaker 1: it's fascinating that we both went in different directions like
36:33
Speaker 1: you went. You went with the parallel universe approach and
36:36
Speaker 1: I went with a well back to the future too
36:38
Speaker 1: taught us about alternate futures because of altering the past
36:43
Speaker 1: and uh, and I thought, well, if we just throw
36:45
Speaker 1: Martin Brenner, who is, by the way, the bad guy
36:46
Speaker 1: in season one of Stranger Things, he's the scientist who's
36:50
Speaker 1: going after eleven, if we just transport him and he
36:54
Speaker 1: would have been about twenty nine, I guess, like I
36:58
Speaker 1: did some calculations, he would have been in his twenties.
37:01
Speaker 1: In Uh, then that makes it all work out for
37:06
Speaker 1: the storyline of of Stranger Things and Back to the Future.
37:10
Speaker 1: So that's why I went with it. I really like it,
37:13
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like this was the exact right
37:16
Speaker 1: amount of original story and nostalgia for me. But we
37:20
Speaker 1: are curious what you guys think. If you have your
37:23
Speaker 1: own ideas of what a mash up between Back to
37:25
Speaker 1: the Future and Stranger Things would look like, or if
37:28
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for future mashups or just things
37:32
Speaker 1: that you would like us to cover. You know, important
37:34
Speaker 1: topics in the gecko sphere, so you should reach out
37:36
Speaker 1: to us. How do they do that aerial, Well, they
37:39
Speaker 1: can send us a d M or a message on Twitter,
37:42
Speaker 1: Facebook or Instagram. On Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast
37:46
Speaker 1: and on Instagram and Facebook. We're just large and or
37:49
Speaker 1: Drunk Collider And you know, if you like us, make
37:52
Speaker 1: sure to tell your friends about us, get them to
37:54
Speaker 1: listen and leave us a review. Yes, it really goes
37:58
Speaker 1: a long way to helping the show gettist and we
38:01
Speaker 1: want to reach as many geeks as possible so we
38:03
Speaker 1: could share the love. And until next time, I have
38:07
Speaker 1: been Jonathan Strickland and I have been Ariel cast In.
38:11
Speaker 1: Unless my doppel ganger is changing the future right now,
38:17
Speaker 1: don't don't time. Laudie the Large New Drunk Colliders production
38:39
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and was created by Ariel cast In.
38:43
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer. This episode was produced
38:47
Speaker 1: by Torri Harrison and edited by Max Williams. For more
38:51
Speaker 1: podcast in My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
38:54
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.