260: Stop Talking about Comic Books (or I'll Kill You)

Hi, this is Tom Kane, the voice of Yoda. And listening to Movie Meltdown, you. Are listening to Movie Meltdown. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.

It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million. Kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian and this week we are coming back in.

To our discussion on graphic novels. That have been turned into movies. But before we get to that, first I wanted to ask you, the listeners, for something. I would assume, since most of you are regular listeners and appreciate what we do every week, at least enough to head back here and download the new episodes, I just wanted to say, assuming you enjoy the show, please help us spread the word. There are more and more people discovering what a podcast is every day.

It's gone a long time and people had no idea what it was, but I've noticed there really are a lot more you know, normal people that are, they're figuring out technically what a podcast is and they're figuring out how to work them and how to use them. I know it's pretty complicated, but you know how the square regular people are. So they're coming around, they're learning what they are. And for those of us that have been listening to them for years, you know, I feel like it's our responsibility to maybe help them out and send them something that they might be interested in. So if you have some friends that are movie fans, or again, we're doing the new music show, you know, any of the other spinoff conversations that we delve into, anything that you think they would be interested in, please help us spread the word.

Send them some links, send them directly to MovieMeltdown.com. Just give them a way to discover a new podcast that they might be interested in. Because keep in mind, each week I upload a new episode, but it gets launched into the sea of information and media that is out there on the old internet. And the best way for people to learn about shows is from you. I mean, hearing about a show that their friends listen to is really the best way to bring people in and have them give it a try.

So I ask you hit the social media. I mean, assuming you're probably on Facebook or Twitter or something of that effect. I mean, Facebook is not the best option anymore. When I send things out, if people don't have it clicked, I mean, they've added all these new little options in there. So it doesn't necessarily make its way out to random people that I don't know, but it will if you post it on your wall and you message it to your friends directly.

If it's somebody you actually know, send them the word over if you think they'd like it. I think that would make a big difference. So yeah, send it out through Facebook, through Twitter. Is anybody still on iTunes? I really don't hear back from people anymore, so I don't know.

It still seems like a lot of downloads go out through iTunes, so... Assuming that you are on iTunes, it would be really great if you went on there and left us a five-star review. I mean, that is just a weird math equation that iTunes uses. And the more five-star reviews you get, the more, you know, we're going to end up at the top of a list somewhere or get featured. And that definitely would help out the show.

So if anybody's still on iTunes, haven't left us a review, please go do so. But yeah, if you've moved on to a different kind of player, I mean, recently we've been named as Player FM's podcast of the day at least twice now. So I really appreciate what they've been doing. They're kind of helping us get the word out about the show. So if you haven't tried Player FM, go check that one out.

We're featured on there. But you can send, you know, that's a good way to find the show. We have our own Movie Meltdown page through them. So go send people to that page. Same thing with slap-radio.com.

They had us as a featured show at one point, so that's another player that people can try out and use. I think we have the links to all of that stuff on moviemeltdown.com, right there on the homepage. So you can send them there, and they can subscribe through whatever system they want to use. But yeah, we've crossed into a new year here, and we're kind of, once again, we're taking it up a notch this year. We've got some new invites that have come to us this year.

We've been asked to come on and be part of some pretty big, established festivals this year. So I'm kind of looking forward to that, and I think it's going to open up a lot of new doors for the show. I'm also working on a couple of different plans, bringing in a couple of pretty amazing guests. There's a few that are already in the works now. in the upcoming months that I think are going to be amazing episodes, some great guests coming up. So all of this stuff, you know, is for you guys to look forward to and help us spread the word about the show.

And new people out there will definitely appreciate it, especially if you send the word over. So please do what you can to help us spread the word about the show. So with that, we will get back into our conversation this week. Now to bring you back into the scenario here, I'll give you the rundown once again as far as who we have on hand. Of course, I will be there.

Yoko is also there, who you've heard on several episodes in the last six months or so. And then the new recruits into the Meltdown gang, we've got both Josh and Cameron on hand. And as we said last episode, we are coming to you live via digital recording from The Destination. And they are a comic shop, and more than that, a pop culture emporium, if you will. But from there in, we sat down with a good portion of their staff.

So we had the owner, Brian, there, and then his employees, both Eric and Evan, are on hand. So we do want to thank the staff at The Destination for letting us come in and hang out and talk comics. Again, if you're interested, they are on Facebook, as everyone is, as we've said. Facebook.com slash Destination Comics. So check them out, like their page, and let them know that you heard about them on Movie Meltdown.

All right, so now we will get back into the grind. Yes, we are sitting in the middle of a comic book shop, so there's no surprise that we hit on a lot of different titles. And again, this is a continuation of the discussion that started last episode. So hopefully you've already heard that. If not, go back and download episode 259 entitled, simply enough, Graphic Novels to Movies, and then you will be up to speed.

And now we are going to get right back into the conversation here as we discuss both the right and wrong ways to turn a graphic novel into a movie. again just putting that much character into the graphic novels is something that not everybody does and then bothering to translate and try. To put that stuff in the movies is there you know and again i think that's the art to it though yeah is it the i'm not you know uh we're taking the lazy way out or is it Just probably the more factual, which is just so much content in a graphic novel to translate can take up. I mean, you might say it's a storyboard, which I can give you that. To some extent. But the dialogue, the transitioning of scene to scene, I mean.

And comic books can be done a little bit differently than in a movie, of course. I just think it's a time issue. With what we've seen with Sin City, I feel like if you wanted to do a movie verbatim, the comic, you could do it. But why? You got the book.

Just read the comic. That's why I like it better when movies take it to a different alternate universe. Well, that's why I like The Walking Dead because I enjoy both. Right. I don't have to know what happens.

That's an interesting way to go about it. To have a totally different skew. I mean, it's almost its own separate universe that takes off and you can then tell your story here that's sort of similar to the story over here but not exact. To which the plan with Walking Dead was to be exact. It was 100% exact and so many...

It's funny how... Things that I didn't... I thought to myself that maybe it's because they could have translated, but then to find out things like the guy that played Shane. His. Agent got him a deal where they couldn't kill him until the second season so they had to write around that they had to deal with it like okay and then they the prison they were supposed to be out of the prison and then AMC producers said no we spent all this money building that set you're staying in it one more season some of these are very practical reasons it's so funny and then the same thing with the governor they were like they go no you're keeping the governor until you everybody likes the governor exactly we're making money on the governor you're keeping him until we get rid of the prison I was like A.

Real dope in the comic. He was like, you know, you ever play D & D? He was chaotic stupid. You know what I'm talking about? That's one of those adjustments that they made that seems like it was better.

Oh, he was better in the show. Yeah, you see him as almost a politician. He's putting the spin on things. In the comic, he has a mullet. Yeah, he is stupid.

He's just a creepy-looking dude. Let's just point out, not all people with mullets are stupid. I didn't say that. I'm going to go back and say, I said the governor. No mullets allowed.

I think they rushed. They brought him back. Don't worry, Evan. People that have mullets don't have technology. Oh.

Spoilers for where you're going on this. If you haven't watched the latest Walking Dead. But go ahead. If you're not calling. But the thing, I think the, okay, so everybody, you knew he was coming back because of the finale.

But then they brought him back for what, three episodes? I liked it. It was good. Well, no, but if you're going to do that, I mean, it's one of those things where they brought him back and I was like, that's an interesting take. You see his perspective on what happened afterwards.

But they brought him back, and then I was like, oh, he's dead again. I mean, maybe because I didn't expect it, but it's just like I thought that that was rushed. But that was the whole thing. The way that it was said, it was, and again, I don't work for AMC or anything. I'm not his actual agent, but from the way that I understand it.

He has to die in the mid-season finale. No, he was to stay as long as the prison was there because they wanted to keep the popularity of him, and they wanted to keep the scent of the prison. So of course they both happened at the same time where they fall and they can't. Well, I mean, I guess, yeah, because that was one of his main motivations, but I guess he could have survived. I don't know.

It did seem really quick to bother bringing him back and then take him out of the equation that quickly. I like what they were doing. I was like, they were stretching it out. Was it three episodes? I think it was.

It was three or four. It was three or four. It wasn't very long. He was the main antagonist for a whole season. It's just like one of those things where it's like they brought him back and I was like, oh, it's interesting where he's going.

It's like maybe he can change and then like within an In an episode, he became super evil again. Okay, you know he was evil the whole time. He was, but he's hiding it really well. He wasn't even hiding it. He was just emotionally distraught.

Evil people can still be emotionally distraught. He was just emotionally distraught at the time. And I think he was just waiting for the right moment and opportunity, as evil people do. Now I'll snap and we're playing golf on the rooftop here. I think you just found an opportunity in a window.

But that goes to the point that me and Evan have talked about before about killing villains off too soon and things. A good example is they kept Loki for three movies, and they're talking about bringing him back for one more. There's no reason to kill great characters off and then be done with them. Well, they kept doing that, and they would barely induce people. Like the Batman series.

Every movie, it's like, and they're gone. I'm just like, have you ever seen Batman? Yeah, exactly. In the comic form, in the TV series, in the animated. They're overarching stories that go on for years and years with these characters.

So in an hour and a half, you kill off every one of the villains. I'm like, what are you going to do now? Still mad Catwoman never came back. It sucked, but. It's like having the closure.

I think that's the thing. It has to be a self-contained unit. That's why I think what movies are... To me, they seem like movies are evolving to where people don't need that. I don't know.

It seems like movie audiences are getting maybe. They're a little more sophisticated. Yeah, a little bit more sophisticated and intelligent where they don't need the immediate have to have a wrap up and. Have to put the button on. Yeah, exactly.

Because I don't understand that things could happen, you know. A good example is The Dark Knight. I mean, they don't kill him off. Yeah. And you're assuming, again, they didn't know how life was going to work out, but you would assume...

Had the series gone on, they could have brought him back in as another amazing performance. You're talking about the Joker. The Joker, yeah. He's your main villain, and they don't, unlike the first time around, within one movie, they kill him off. They just sort of planted that seed.

He was supposed to be in the second. Yeah, he's going to come back, and I'm sure he would have. I'm sorry, the third. Yeah, he was supposed to be in the third. I think we were just talking about this today.

The whole thing. I was talking about this with someone today. But the whole thing with the... He thought you were passing away. You don't know that's coming.

But yeah, I thought just from a story angle. Yeah, from a storytelling aspect, that was way more impressive to just be able to, again, them almost understanding Gotham more so than the previous movies. It's just like there's so many characters and they never go away. That's the downfall of Batman. He won't kill them.

He probably should. They're insane. But he won't because that's his, you know, that's his. His way of life. That's how he deals with things.

Well, Catwoman would kill him. Gotham found a giant city with statues and giant statues that hold bridges up. It is, too. I've seen it. Because as everybody knows, Batman and Robin, it's probably the best Batman movie.

Anything that brings Arnold Schwarzenegger more to the screen and gives him more lines. Agreed. Talk about destroying an awesome character. Probably the best. The animated version of Mr.

Freeze is phenomenal. And then what they did with Schwarzenegger. It just hurts me a lot. It really physically pains me to think about his horrible one-liners. The animated version of him is so good.

It's funny because I think you can actually look at the camera and see Uma Thurman just wondering why she's there. She's back there looking at her back. Oh, yeah. As soon as we're done. Rub her lips.

I remember that line. That was terrible. Wow. Oh i was gonna hit some of the other like uh bigger properties uh it's been a few years now but how about the crow oh gosh it's a huge property. You gotta like we gotta have 90s night where we watch the crow and the craft back to back i gotta do.

This crossover can we have them like doing magic on him. Yes i gotta actually i want to do this when i get home and i'm gonna watch interview the vampire like right after like this sounds like the best night ever. I don't know. I mean, I love The Crow, and it got taken horrible, horrible places. But I feel like it's another one of those, like, it was a good property on its own, but I felt like...

What is the director? Alex Proy. Oh, Alex Proy, yeah. He's amazing. I mean, again, he's one that, like, that situation, the real-life situation, kind of threw off his career, unfortunately.

But, I mean, that's the thing. How do you direct a movie after that? I mean, when you. Essentially, you know, it's not his fault, but, like, your lead dies in your film that you're making. Like, how do you carry on?

Did you see that bullet in. It, right? The follow-up? Yeah. I thought there was debris blocking it.

Or was that a comic roll? No I think it was his original idea yeah that's very overlooked he's an amazing visual director and he's had a few weird movies that he's made along the way but again they're always visually impressive so I feel like that one worked so well because he got the mood of that first one and like he found a way to translate it to film and again it's got weird issues it's odd to me that they still haven't put out the other footage that they cut out there's not some sort of director's cut that's come out it's haunted i guess but i mean there's all those weird all that extra stuff they shot with like the skull cowboy and stuff that was originally in the story that they then took out of the movie and i'm not even sure why i guess they were just tightening it up but i mean it would kind of explain some of the weird plot differences but i don't know i still think it's it's an amazing movie and it kind of got taken down almost by its fan base as we've said sometimes you like the property but not the fans that like it like me I don't know.

Are you a gothy kid that hangs out at the mall? Duh. That's what I thought. Duh. I recognized you from the mall.

Wearing your big black eye makeup. Duh, duh, duh. It had a weird following that came about. And they all loitered around Hot Topic. And, like, again, they almost brought it down.

I wish you wouldn't say such hurtful things about me. I mean, I'm, like, in the room. At least wait until I go to the bathroom. No, I usually like to throw out my insults at people while they're here. I mean, there's no point in talking about them behind their back.

But, no, I feel like. It didn't help it that the series of films got worse and worse and worse. That fourth one is. Four? Oh, my God.

It went that far? Would you not see the fourth one? I stopped it halfway through the second one. The second one's horrible. I mean, the fourth one is almost epic bad.

The fourth one is so ridiculous. Is it like Never Ending Story 3 bad? Probably. There's times when I'm just like, how is this a movie? And the people that got to do.

It, I'm just like, this is ridiculous. It went from theaters to direct a video to direct a trash can. Direct a coaster. And they just kept ripping off that same idea. I was like, if you do a different story, you can take that premise and turn it into something else.

But they just ripped off that same idea and almost did it. Oh, here's a different guy that goes through this exact same thing. You're missing the point of the story. There's obviously more stories than that one story in the series that ran for years. I don't know.

I felt like After that, nobody knew how to salvage. I mean, it got messed up anyway. But in the process of shooting it, everything fell apart. So the fact that we got a pretty decent movie out of that tragedy is kind of impressive, I thought. I love it.

But the same is right. He didn't do any of the other ones, right? Which one? Alex? No.

He didn't want anything to do with it. Rightfully, he didn't want anything to do with it. Because they're horrible. I didn't even see any of them. I refused.

The third one's almost watchable. The other two are a nightmare. I wrote down one that I guess this was a good one as like a property that was a comic a whole running comic series that then gets treated two different ways see which one you guys like better Dredd versus Judge Dredd I. Never liked those Dredd. Better than that Colonel Urban versus Stallone which one is the way to go for you guys I didn't like either one.

I didn't like any of that whole mess. I mean obviously I would say Dread is better out of the two but it's just to me and I made this joke to me it seems like they found a slow-mo camera and they're just like we've got to find some way to do slow motion and they're just like that's what I feel like two guys were like we spent a lot of money on a slow motion camera give them a joke called slow-mo. The movie's actually 30 minutes long quite a bit. That gets a little overdone. It was overdone way too much.

I guess I didn't read the series much, so I don't know if you have any more history on the series. I feel like as an action movie, it works pretty... The Urban one, not the Stallone one. The Stallone one is a mess, but... I felt like the Urban's a good action movie.

I liked that we didn't have to see his face, because you don't see Jonathan's face. There's no reason for him to do the whole. Except you're Stallone, and you want to make sure you get your face on the screen as much as possible. Yeah, but I thought it was good. I.

Megacity 1, I thought they did visually look really good. The franchise, I think, is just not. It's not, yeah. It's a specific target audience that you're going for, but I thought it was a good movie. I feel like RoboCop likes the same thing.

Needed more Rob Schneider. Needed more Rob Schneider. That would be great if the opening shot of the Dread movie is. Just Rob Schneider. Carl Urban just comes in and shoots Rob Schneider in the head.

I would watch the movie from that point. I'm like, this is awesome. But, yeah, I like the second one better. Make sure you do it with the cell phone camera, though. I want to linger on that.

But, no, the second one was... I mean, it was. Sorry. This is the one I actually had on. The first one was terrible.

That's how we review things, by the way. It's okay. I mean, I read boxed it. It was worth a dollar. Give it a golden meh.

Yeah, I get it. I get it. Oh, we do need. It reminds me of Rob's old rating system. If I were to take any shot at it, it's the...

Have you seen Raid the Redemption? Oh, my Lord. It's pretty much that, only in a mainstream superhero way. Yeah, I was thinking about that, yeah. It's kind of that same structure to the story, so...

But, I mean, again, it was a great action movie. So if you're going to steal from something, I guess steal. From a good action movie. I don't see how they don't, like, those type of movies, I think people died filming that. I think they killed some of the stunt actors.

Like, someone just honored their family by getting, like, some guy, like, the guy that got his head smashed against the wall four times in a row was like, I honor my family. And they were, like, jumping off from one level to another. I was like, somebody got killed. Yeah, you know, yeah, you see those, yeah. Somebody got killed.

Oh, at least Battle Royale happened. Yeah. That's what we can talk about. Oh, man. Manga, novel, manga, movie, and then really bad movie.

I love the manga, though. Like, that is one of the most gruesome manga. Because I like horror mangas a lot. Like Ito, like the guy who did Tomei, which is like the best horror manga ever. He's like, Ito is like the godfather of horror manga.

He draws the scariest stories. It's just unbelievable. It's like all body horror. Just unbelievable things happen to your body. It's disgusting.

You turn into a big pus ball and vomit and you smell real bad. There's a whole story about bad smells. I'm just saying. Very terrifying. Battle Royale is not done by him, but is the most gruesome comic I have ever read.

And I've read a lot. And I liked the movie. It was pretty good. What was your bad movie that you were referencing? Oh, the sequel.

Okay, the sequel. The sequel was pretty bad. And not the new mainstream thing that... I'm not taking from that novel. Because that's the thing.

That's why I have to. I haven't read the Battle Royale novel, though. Well, no. I was just going with our new version, which is now Hunger Games. Oh.

I can't... I can't... Like, again, I don't hate those movies. They have their good points, but, like. Do you like the first one?

It's not great, but. Like, it's got. It's just. I hated the shake. One of our cast, he hated it for that reason.

Yeah, I can't... He hated the camera work. It was all the camera work. I just thought, like, the only thing I'll give the Hunger Games versus Battle Royale, and I just went on this... rant the other day because I just re-watched Battle Royale because I saw the second Hunger Games and I was just like, it's just so missing what it needs to be doing. But I feel like what we don't see in Battle Royale the movie is the future world.

I think that is really interesting to see the world that led to this. What is built around having this game and having this go on I think would be interesting to see. We really don't get any of that. We get little shots of the news reporter and But almost nothing. We're just on the island the entire movie, which is good.

That's where I want to be, really. The story's way more interesting there. But they do spend a lot of time on that future world. And I think as the movie's going on in this Hunger Games thing, it's like that's more of what they're going to focus on now. They're now in the second one.

They're already getting away from the games. They're getting more to this weird future world battle that's going to go on. So I feel like it's got more potential if it leaves the games because it misses the boat on the games because they're it's so watered down and PG 13 and bullshit. Whereas battle royale is mean. Like it is the meanest scenario.

The graphic novels. Okay. So I think there's like 50 students. Yeah. Every single student gets to some story.

There's 13 graphic novels and everyone gets time. The, uh, the sociopath, like the main, um, antagonist. And then the, uh, the, the, like the really like sexy, um, the female, like, assassin that. Was really crazy. Like, she is, like, beyond belief crazy in the comic.

You know, she was the one that, like, had the, I think she had a comma or something, and she cut, like, her friend's. Neck open, or friend. And then, like, it's so, like, it was so crazy, because, like, everybody had, like, their own, like, they took time. about everybody and so like when someone died it was a. Big deal all right well i feel like in the movie like to again i think there's an art form to translating something to the film and like i feel like that movie for still being a relatively normal runtime like it's not like it's a three-hour movie like it spends a lot of time with it like you really do kind of feel like you know like you spend just enough time with them that you're invested in that's why you care about them and then every one of them they just kill them all off and that was really scary it's mean like it's just a vicious movie that like i love that they go out like they don't dial it back they're just like here's a bunch of kids they have to kill each other now half of them really are friends and they have to kill each other and you watch how each one deals with it it's like do they fall apart and just start firing at people as soon as they get out there like that one crazy kid right who immediately gets taken out or like you've got other ones that are plotting against them and you get ones that want to work together.

You get every aspect of how they want to break it down. And so again, I, and now, you know, hearing how much time they spend with everybody in the novel, that's one that I'm going to work backwards. I would go and invest time in the novel. There's 13 of them. They were released by Tokyo Hop in like 03 to 05.

They were, wow. Like so, oh gosh, it's so gruesome though. It's like anatomically correct. like it looks like it's out of an anatomy book like these like splits where people get cut up i mean like it would make jason vorhees blush i get how violent this is you wouldn't tell it's very the mask insanely transgressive piece yeah like whoa i'm on. Board for this that's awesome that's like what i heard i've only watched walking dead but I've heard the comic is a lot more nihilistic and brutal. And you don't like all the, you know, you don't, you're not so worried about making the characters likable.

Most people aren't likable. I've seen Battle Royale, but I haven't seen it. But it's to keep that brutality consistent. What's interesting, too, about the manga is a big thing with manga is a lot of times very formulaic in character design. Usually, and I've done this, like my comics, like I have like a formula that I go by, by like age group and stuff.

What I really like about this is every character looks different. Like, starkly different. Not just different shapes of hair or clothes. Like, they look like people. It's more Western in that way.

It's very good. I think you wanted to mention From Hell. Oh, yeah. That is. I've never read the comic, but I've seen the movie.

I've done both. I saw the movie first, and then I read it. The movie, it was interesting, those brothers. The Hughes brothers. Yeah.

It was a weird choice for them. That actually gave it a lot of them, yeah. Because they did a good job. Yeah, I watched a lot of the behind the scenes, which I don't normally do, but I was really taken by it. I don't like the way they twisted the ending, but they kind of made it a little, they happyed it up a bit too much.

There's no reason to get that one except with Sleepy Hollow. They're kind of just one movie. They really, well, it was one of those, I saw the trailer for From Hell, and I'm just like, is this the new Tim Burton? They really felt like they took a lot from the Tim Burton style. But they did put their own spin on it, I have to say.

They did a good job with it, but it felt very Tim Burton-esque. Yeah, it really is. I didn't think about that. Especially with Ian Holm and the way there's that scene where he's towards the end where his eyes are just black and they really capture that whole... I like that conspiracy theory with the Masonic interpretation.

But visually, though, the actual comic book was really heavily researched and Visually, the period, and they really caught that period really well. I have to read it. I like that Victorian age stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. Beautiful pen work.

And that was. Spread out over. I know it's serialized, and then it was put together. It wasn't done as a novel, I don't think. If we're doing along the horror lines, I haven't read the graphic novel.

Has anybody read the 30 Days of Night novel? Was 30 Days of Night before the movie or after the movie? I want to say it's after. Was it? It was a comic first.

Was it a comic first? Yeah, a comic first. I would love to because, man, I haven't seen either. And I, like, love, love vampire stories. Especially, I like the Byronic vampires the best.

But I do love, like, the Count Roloff, like, plague vampire. Like, early Count Dracula. Mm-hmm. Count Krauss-Kinsky, right? The gruesome.

Nosferatu. The non-romantic vampire. But I do like the Byronic. Vampires. The sparkly type, right?

No, I don't acknowledge those at all. No, no. Byronic vampires are way, mm-mm. Mm-mm. Like Lord Byron.

The psycho there. I'm getting flustered. Frank Langella. But is it, I mean, is it a decent graphic novel? Have you read it, or.

I have not. I'm going to have to read this. I can't. I barely remember the movie. I haven't seen it.

Is it good? I'm terrified. Is it bad? I didn't like it. I think it was just bad.

I think it started out, it was one of those that started out, okay, I see where it's going, I'm going to take a new twist, and it's like, oh, nope, it's everywhere, it's always on, okay. Let the right one in. I really like Ben Foster. Who played Angel. Oh, sorry.

No, go ahead. No, I didn't. Let the Right One In. I don't know if you guys saw that. I love that interpretation.

That's probably my favorite vampire movie. That was just a novel, wasn't it? Yeah, but as far as the vampire genre. That's what I've said before. That's an amazing film.

I know how the novel goes, and I feel like it made... smart choices in what it put on screen. I like the story it tells on screen better than I think. What it does in the novel. There's more space in the movie. Well and it makes it a better story between these two characters where you get into a lot of ugly stuff in the novel that like is good if you want extra details but I feel like it just sort of muddies the water where there's a bunch better purer story the way that it comes through on screen.

Yeah I agree. I saw the movie and then I read the book so it was interesting to get some more of the context of the characters but The way they streamlined it for the movie was, because there's that less is more approach. Even in the, there's not a lot of sound and there's just 30 second shots of just, you know, that area where he lives and, you know, it's really beautiful. So, speaking of Alan Moore and comic book movies, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That was a gem.

That was a couple of those that are like, do we want to address where this thing went? I didn't like the comic very much either, though. Did you? Yeah. He kind of, besides Watchmen, I can get those mixed up.

Apparently there's. I'm more into the Watchmen, right, guys? I always get Grant Morrison somehow mixed up with us. There's too many. They're both English, I think.

Yeah. I get them mixed up. I didn't like that book. Really? Yeah.

I don't know. It was boring to me, but maybe I need to reread it. It might be one of those things. That's the one with Sean Connery? Yeah.

That was his last movie, right? It's terrible. Yeah, that's the one that broke him. He was like, I'm not doing this. But because of that.

Yeah, literally. He said, this is it. But because of that, that's why we don't have Sean Connery as Gandalf. Well, it's because he didn't get those. No, but he said something like he was good.

He turned it down. He turned it down because he didn't... I don't think he got League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He just saw the paycheck and someone was like, yeah, do it. And then he was going to do.

I thought they offered him... Gandalf first. And he just didn't get the material. Maybe it's backwards. Maybe it's because of that.

They cast someone else and he sees his big property. I'm glad he didn't get it. I'm glad he didn't get it. No. No.

No. It would have been horrible. That would have been bad. Insert terrible impression. Right there.

The rapist. I think my impression of Sean Connery has been affected by Saturday Night Live. Yeah. That's just all I. Can think about.

Yeah. Your mother, Trebek. Your mother, Balrog. Shuck on it, Trebek. Some people say I can't help it.

I assure you this isn't the case. It's just that I feel you get more out of life when you follow your S with an H. So, S with an H, it's simply my way. The two go together like flowers in May. Life is more fun, brother, make no mistake, when you follow your S with an H.

A 00 spy or a medicine man, the cop who helped Elliot Nash. Eternally bound by. This sound, indeed obsessed by the way these two letters clash. Why does the sun come up? Some might argue this isn't important.

And now, before the next show starts, let's enjoy an intermission. You'll find our snack bar chock full of good things to eat and drink. Tasty, tempting hot dogs, thirst-quenching soft drinks, fresh, crunchy popcorn. A complete assortment of delicious candy and a full line of cigarettes. You've plenty of time, so visit the snack bar now.

A tasty treat will double your enjoyment of the show. For your convenience, we shall keep you informed of the remaining intermission time. Emergency. Batman speaking. Warning all of you to brace yourselves for big news.

The biggest. Tell them, Robin. Holy superlatives, Batman! It's really exciting. Soon, very soon, Batman and I will be batapulting right out of your TV sets and onto your theater screens.

That's right, Robin. Our first full-length motion picture feature in color opens a whole new world of thrills. The big screen gives us more space on land, sea, and in the air to challenge the most bataclysmic collection of super criminals that ever plotted to take over the world. Number one, the Riddler. Question, who's going to make the feathers fly and knock Batman and Robin out of the sky?

Number two, the Joker. Have you heard this one? It'll kill you, Batman. Number three, the Penguin. There are two eggs this wily bird is going to scramble, Batman and Robin.

Number four, the Catwoman. Oh, you're going to see the perfect crime when I get Batman in my claws. And that's just a sample of the exciting exploits ahead in our first feature motion picture. Holy memoranda, folks. Make a note not to miss it.

Good thinking, Robin. I'm not with you. Sick of this dress and these Jimmy Choo's. Taking them off cause I feel a fool. Trying to dress up when I'm missing you, fool.

I'ma step out of this lingerie. Curl up in a bar with something haze. In ballet. With nothing but your t-shirt on. With nothing but your t-shirt.

On. So I brought a cool thing to show everybody. I think you guys know I'm a geek, and it's been going on for quite a while. So in moving things around, I also have moved many times in the last several years, and I have most of my stuff still in boxes. And I went over and picked some up.

They were still stored away at someone else's house. And I went over and was, like, digging through stuff and found, like, three or four boxes of these old T-shirts. And I had, like, so many I started going through, and I'm like, wow, this just shows how far back my, like, movie geekdom goes. Do they have Suncoast tags on them? Some might have, yeah.

And some go well before that, too. So that's the thing. Like, as I went into this, I was like, okay, this... I mean, most of them are way, like, they're... I mean, half of them are, like, little kid sizes, and, like, there's others that still are, like, way too long gone that I can't wear anymore, or... worn out or like you name it like they're falling apart but being the movie geek that i am god forbid i throw them away So then I was like, well, okay, here's what I'm going to do.

So you're going to offer up us to each pick our own falling apart kid-sized T-shirts? No, you don't get that. They're mine, damn it. I said I was a geek. Geeks don't give their stuff away.

They just show off. They show off. I feel... Just gloat about your broken clothes. Yeah, I'm pretty proud.

Of them, too. And you'll understand why in a moment. I feel like, okay, what we need is the T-shirt project. Where we go through and document these ridiculous shirts that I certainly have a good collection to kick things off. But I encourage everyone else, if you're an old school geek and you have your own t-shirts, maybe you don't still have them laying around like some sort of hoarding weirdo.

But if you have pictures of you wearing one when you're four, that's cool. I'm going to cap it off about ten years. I think it needs to be something that's at least ten years. Old, so. I was going to say, all I got is about 20 Dick Tracy t-shirts.

I might have a few of those in there, too. So I'm assuming you probably have all the ones I have. But, you know, I thought this time it would be fitting. Here's the one I brought that I just kind of came across today. It's a good tie-in.

Oh, wow. This is a nice original issue RoboCop. Yeah. That's why they need to go to the website and go to the link right at the top that says the t-shirt project. And they can see this one.

Are you modeling them in the photos? I'm going to find, I think the first one that's going to go up is going to be modeled by a skeleton. And then I might have to find some other random. We can get Paul Brokaw to wear all your t-shirts. I don't think, that's the thing.

I can't wear most of them. So I'm gonna have to find some poor soul but yeah this one actually it's a few years after Robocop came out because it's the copyright on it is Orion Pictures and it's 1990 so within a few years they put this weird Robocop shirt out that obviously I had to have I wonder what's with the 321 05 at the top there yeah Don't you know that? You call yourself a RoboCop fan. What is it? Hella fun.

Okay, yeah, yeah, that's... Somebody Google that and we'll find out. It's probably his ammo count. Anyway, I thought that was entertaining. I don't care if anybody else does.

You said we don't get to see any more of them in there? That's the teaser there. And then from here on out, we're going to start posting them. So like once a week... It's the teaser shirt.

No, no. See, I didn't say that because... that's going down the Robocop road, and I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to use it any chance. Robocop. Every road in Detroit.

But if you want to do something cheesy, all right, we'll go T-shirt Tuesday is when we'll post the new shirts. As cheesy as if I were to dress like that for Halloween, I'd be Robocop. So anyway, I don't know. I'm entertained by that. So go to MovieMeltdown.com.

Look for the t-shirt project. We're going to be posting them every week. You guys are invited to take part, as is everyone listening. We're going to throw it out there. Find some fun old photos of you being a geek back in the day and send them in.

I think that's how you proclaimed your geekdom when you were a kid. You bought a dorky t-shirt. Guess what? It hasn't really gone away, actually. Does Herbie the Lovebug t-shirt count?

If you've got it, let's see it. Take off your t-shirt. Take off your t-shirt. Take off your t-shirt. Can't hear a song but the band that's on it.

Take off your t-shirt. Take off your t-shirt. Take off your t-shirt. Can't hear a song but the band that's on it. Post size tag and faded.

Decal disintegrated. How I suffered. Hi, this is Emma Caulfield, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. It's part of your problem, you know. You haven't seen enough movies.

All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. And now, on with the show. Something in the air. Something familiar. It smells like a song.

I'm hunting in the woods again with claws of adamantium. These f * * * ing things can. Chop through anything. I'll chop apart that redwood tree and slice the wings off of a bee. I'm not a circus freak.

I'm Wolverine. No one knows my pain. No one knows my hell My unbreakable frame Is just a prison cell I can't remember before I think I fought in some wars How did I get these mutton chops? My wife was taken away. Now I'm in love with Jean Grey.

But she's involved with Cyclops. I can heal any body part except this broken heart. I think of any other ones that have gone horribly wrong. Well, there you go. That's a good one.

We were just... Bashing that one last week. Don't bring it up. It's not real. The first half of that was okay.

And then it was okay. Okay, I gave it two meh. The first half is okay. One half meh, which sounds like there should be more meh. Anyway, the first part was not bad.

Okay, not bad. When I say okay, it's not bad. I think it's just hilarious they took a character that his staple is He is the Merc with a mouth. That's the second half. No, it's the second half.

The second half was terrible. His staple is, I say cocky, witty things. No, it's terrible. And then they're like, hey, take that guy's mouth away. That's a good one.

What happens if we sew his mouth? Oh, and then, by the way, fucking swords come out of his arm. Yeah, yeah. He turns into Baraka with teleportation. And they're in there.

Can he bend his arm or not? I don't think so. I maintain that as bullshit. I feel like they ran out of money. Ryan Reynolds, like, they had to let him go.

And then they had a 12-year-old write the last 20 minutes. He's got laser eyes. He's got laser eyes. Okay, wait. That idea totally works for Axe Cop, though.

Oh, yeah. That's true. Fair enough. Didn't quite work for Origins, though. No.

Oh, I'm so, oh. It was bad. And the second one, see, that's the one thing, I feel like it's just like, it ruined my childhood less. And I was like, the second one was okay, but it, you know, it didn't do anything for me. It wasn't like, you know, I mean, I'm jaded since seeing the Avengers, so it's like what I expect of the stereotypical property from comic books. the second one.

Is interesting just because it doesn't make it a massively superhero movie it's just kind of his story and by the end he gets a little closer to a superhero again we last time complained about the cheesy wrap up but most of the movie is kind of a straight it could just be a normal guy doing some of this stuff with a few exceptions but for the most part it plays out like a real human. Story aren't you tired of. Origin stories though? It just seems like we constantly have to revisit what is going on. And at this point, the source material is out there.

Why don't you just let the people go back? Especially on bigger properties. I've said this before. I was like, we don't need it for Batman, Spider-Man, Superman. We don't need another origin story.

Like the Iron Man one. That was a good one. Not that many people really, like, mainstream people didn't know his origin. You can tell an origin story with that. That was a good idea.

But, like, watching, like, how many times do we need to see all of those? Well, as many times as they do the reboot. That's the problem is they reboot. But you have to have somewhere to start. I mean, you have to have an origin.

I mean, you can't just. I don't think we have to, really. I mean, well, I've been watching. We don't have to. We don't have to.

But I think even, like. Imagine a kid in, like, it's the same thing. Imagine a kid 20 years from now doesn't, never picked up a copy. Because we're talking about the gateway getting in. It's like.

So they get in and all of a sudden you start the Batman movie. Maybe it's their first step into. At the beginning of the movie you say, hey, you should probably go and read this. But if you don't start somewhere, that's if someone's picking up. You don't know where anybody's going to get into the genre or the.

I think we're just spoiling the audience too much at this point. I don't want to pander. I'm not saying pander. No, we're definitely pandering. But I'm just like, well, think back like when I was a kid, even just going back to comics.

Like, did I ever start at the beginning? Like, I'd flip through an old box and be like... This Batman looks awesome. Look at the cover. And I just start reading it.

I didn't have to go back and research. I just read the story. Yeah, but you can't... No, I get it. He used to say they won't start on the third movie.

He used to say they don't turn on TBS one night. And the third movie's on. I'm not saying. Okay, but there's an origin to that. Whatever you see is an origin.

I mean, you can't just be like... You couldn't get that comic because it's a multi-thousand dollar comic and it's 30 years old. I got it. I got the answer. This brings back memories of when I worked at a comic store.

You're pretty bullshit. It's been in front of me the whole time. We just teach this shit in schools. There we go. And then we're good.

This is how it should be. We don't need literature. Comic history. I think that's the history. Big Bang Theory starts with a Big Bang.

At a certain point, if you're talking. About kids in the future, like. Spider-Man came out 50 years ago. Almost 60. Yeah, 50 years.

Everybody knows his damn origin story. Even if they don't know anything about Spider-Man. It's in the theme song for God's sake. That's all we need. It's a minute and a half theme song.

You're like, I'm good. Let's go. Here's what we do. We start every superhero movie now with an old cranky man coming out. You damn kids should know.

This by now. We save like 20, 30 minutes. So it's young Indiana Jones? You bastards. Let me tell you a story about when I was a kid.

Sorry. I don't like it, but I see it's a necessity because you never know when people are going to come in and yes but. Again i feel like it's spoiling them i'm like i i'm also thinking of like the animated stuff like the again like the animated series like i could come in any episode i get it like you're gonna get like you piece together the story and if you don't tough luck don't be an idiot like if you really care you'll go back and do research like i feel like you it is up to the viewer like we're spoiling them just giving them everything every time to the point that we're We're devaluing the movie. They don't care. They just want to make money, though.

I know. That's what's important. That's the problem. We're not talking about high art here. It should be, though.

I mean, there's a middle ground. There are so many movies. That get made that are great. But the masses don't appreciate high art, and they don't value art. It doesn't matter to them.

They want garbage to freaking distract themselves for an hour and 30 minutes. They don't want high art. We have to work around stupid people. That kind of stuff makes people mad. They don't like their sensibilities being ruffled.

But don't you like a fresh take on something? I mean, you can take it and have a fresh take. If it's good, but I almost feel like it needs to be long enough. Like, you know, if it's been... 20 years if you want to reboot something, but if it's been five years.

Or 10 years. Well, the Man of Steel. The Man of Steel, and they try to reboot. They try to reboot with Superman Returns. I know.

Colossal failure. You can't take another... You can't reboot without having an origin on that, especially with another... Okay, remember that shit that happened like 10 years ago? Didn't happen, and. and it's new.

Well, maybe I. Feel like it's rushed too much. Yeah. I can see pacing. I see it's necessity, but it's wallpaper.

The Avengers. The reason I like the Avengers is because they decided, hey, let's just don't come out and do the Avengers and then try to wrap everybody's story in that. let's do everybody leading up to this you know this. But these are all origin stories those are all origin but it took it took it it's years of planning it's but they all had an origin though i mean and i give you that they didn't come out like you you know. It's the whole there had never been an iron man movie before there had never been yeah four and even like on batman i can understand that but like I guess not. Yeah, but it was terrible.

There was Captain America, too. Yeah, yeah. Nobody really counts any of those. But then that's what we say. We have one origin.

It's like, go back to the 94 and watch that. We do it once. We do it right. We don't do it again. Spider-Man came out in 2009.

Or no, sorry, 2009. 2000. Oh, gosh. I don't know where I got that. And the new one came out in 2012, which is.

Kind of a big gap. You set a precedent here? Say a decade? A decade you can do a new origin if you need me? See, I think that one's too soon, though.

I think it's too soon. Because I think a lot of kids have seen... The old ones, too, because it's Spider-Man and it's a movie, why not? So when they're that close together. You don't really need to...

But did they spend. I mean, I don't know how much time they actually... They didn't spend... I mean, they spent some time, but they did it different. It was a twist.

It was a different. It was different, and I liked the new one better than the way they did it in the. First one, but. I'm just saying, I'm a devil's advocate. Everybody's got to have an origin.

We know the origins. For us, we're jaded because we know we've seen it. We've been there for the. I'm kind of on the fence with both of them. I mean, I can see where it could be done right.

I guess the biggest origin that drives me nuts that I... It's over and over again as Batman. I mean, it's just. Batman's the one. But I feel like with those characters, if it's a strong enough character, you can come in in the middle.

If you just watched The Dark Knight, would you be like, well, forget this. I don't know how it started. You could come into The Dark Knight and get enough of who he is as a character and just watch that. Even if you didn't see Batman Begins, that was a decent reboot story. I mean, that was a decent origin to come back to, but I don't think you'd have to have it.

Again, it's so ingrained and our pop culture at this point, that I feel like you could just come in. Because that's what I feel like I loved even on the animated shows that were on, any of them, like Batman or Spider-Man or any of them. They would just be a huge arcing story, and you could come in on any of them, and you didn't have to start over. You just come in, and it's the same way with comics. You just pick up whichever.

One you want. You have to, though. You get it, and you, I don't know. How many times do they also, in the sequels and stuff, make an offhanded reference to, you know, Bruce does this because his parents were killed. I mean, just through context and stuff, you pick up what, you know, little things.

That you're missing. I do get the, like, just start hammering over the head because, like, here's what I always, I kind of watch this too, but, like, especially the animated stuff that I see, anytime there's a character that comes on screen, they say their name, like, Oh, Spider-Man's here! Oh, it's Black Bolt! Hello, I'm Superman, and I am here to save the day. And who are you addressing?

Superman, you go over there. Batman, you go over there. Wonder Woman, clearly the only person that's coming. You're like, oh, I finally get this. Alright, it makes sense now.

I like numbers and pictures. Again, I just feel like we give people too, like I feel like it's different, somehow we feel like it's different because they're superheroes. Like any other movie, like you don't necessarily, like, get their origin. Like, with a lot of movies, especially, like, again, the more indie stuff, like, you can pick up somebody's story, like, midway in, and you spend, like, maybe a week's worth of time with them, and then you kind of feel like you know where they're going at the end of it, but it's not like you've got, like, well, here's where they were born, and you don't get, like, a 30-minute, you know, build-up as to how they got to this point in their life. Like, there's a lot of movies out there that you can just come in, and because they're doing a good job with the storytelling... it explains the character, and there are things that you pick up that you understand why they're doing what they're doing, and I don't think you have to start over every time.

I think if you're a good writer, you can write it into the plot that you understand what's going on. Yeah, but it's comic books, and comic books aren't intimidating to people. Yeah, I think we're still dumbing it down, though. I think. I don't, and I hate to kind of flip-flop on my issue, because I hate it.

I don't like rehashing stories over and over, but at the same time, I. And my eyes are opened up to the fact that as much as I, in my community, you know, the community of owning a comic book store and hanging out with the people that I talk to, yes, I'm saying, oh, it's mainstream. But, you know, it's not as mainstream as I think I would like it to be. I mean, there are people that come in here daily and, you know, will ask me who certain characters were, and they'll point to people like Spider-Man or Superman, and they just don't know. Why do you suppose that comics are threatening comics?

I've been around forever and it's hard to get in. It's a huge undertaking to do any problem. People think it's hard to get in. It's actually quite easy if you just start reading. They repeat the information all the time that's necessary to understand what's going on.

But there's a perceived barrier of entry. It's this big thing that's been going on and you can't possibly jump on now. I don't know if it's threatening so much. I mean, I guess the word is. Overwhelming?

It's kind of. I guess the verbiage can be. Daunting. Like I was someone that didn't come out of the comic closet, if you will, until much, much later in my life. I was someone that always kept that part of my life hidden because social cues told me not to release that.

I didn't know anything. I was always a dork. It's okay. I think that there's a lot of kids in that position that– maybe myself was in as a teenager where maybe they want to get into it. Maybe they are into it secretly, but they're, you know, they're, the culture is still, we still have a culture that, uh, that is very much driven around sports.

It's very much driven around. Well, we have a culture that, uh, rewards the extrovert. Yeah. And, uh, introverted people by nature readers. Well, you know, it's just because introverted people, um, renew their energy.

By being alone. And what do you do when you're alone? You read. Recon books. So it's like an extroverted world, like a sports star is an extroverted person, almost, you know, like, stereotypically.

And the world.... Rewards that kind of behavior. At least the Western world. Yeah, definitely our country does. But I still feel like it's changed.

I don't think you give it other countries credit. I can only speak for us. I don't want to talk about. The rest of the world. I think sometimes we do beat on ourselves a little bit.

We go like, oh, we have football and we reward that, but you have not seen people fans until you've seen soccer fans until you've seen oh yeah. But they're different hardcore and they have different structure to it yeah but. It's not like the grass is always greener on the other side it's always you know. But I feel like it's still like as much as it's still like that weight is still there for kids. I feel like it's a different world than it was.

Oh, no, I agree. Even 20 years ago. Yeah, I agree. It's a massively different world. It's an easier world to get into.

It's also really acceptable for people to be into, like, nerdy stuff. Because, like, nerd is, like, now the, like, it's so, like, fetishized. Oh, yeah. Like, there's a freaking, okay, I hope I don't offend anybody here, but, like, there's an awful genre of music called nerdcore. Yes, there is.

I'm a nerdcore rapper. You talk about, like, when people do, like, the 8-bit sound type thing. There's rappers who are nerdcore rappers. It's so bad. Wow.

But it's good in a way because, like, it's making it so it's okay for people to like this stuff and they don't get ostracized for it. It's kind of that same, the Big Bang thing. It makes it more acceptable in the mainstream, so maybe you don't get picked on at school like you used to. You know what's funny is that it's. Being extroverted with your nerd culture.

We're going to take the metaphor you were just using. I mean, it's an extroverted way of expressing the fact that, yes, I'm a nerd, and do you need to express it that way? They have a right to. I just don't like it at all. It's totally subjective.

It's changed. Now you have people who probably aren't nerds or wouldn't have been nerds back then that now they feel like they can own it because it's cool to be nerds. Or they just say they are because it is cool. Nerdposers. I don't like the use of the P word.

It's very pretentious. It's one of those things where you become gatekeepers because now nerds are cool. Now I'm like, But I didn't want nerd to be cool in this way. I wanted nerd to be cool just because of the Big Bang Theory and all this stuff like that. I wanted to be accepted.

On my terms. I wanted to be accepted on my terms. I got punched in the face when. I was a kid for doing what I love. I wanted to rub it in there.

It's sad to the lockers. Yeah. I'm going to say I'm doing comic books. That's what I did. Now it's acceptable because of all this stuff that is disingenuine.

That's the thing. Yeah. Because I'm not... In a lot of aspects, Big Bang Theory, and we keep referring to this, but it's disingenuine, but... Because of that, so...

But have any, I mean... Nerds legitimate now in a disingenuous way. I don't know the ages around the table, but I'm 28. I'm sure we're all somewhere around that age. Way off.

Well, I'm a little bit older than you guys, so I might be the oldest one here. I'm 63. The last time we were in a high school environment has been quite a long time. I mean, I almost feel like we need an expert. We don't know if It's just as easy today as it was for kids growing up that, like myself, or like you said, you got punched in the face and everything.

I don't know if you actually got punched. In the face. Maybe I did. Kicked in the shin. Is it easier now because of the movies and everything, or are we just out of it?

It's a little... I think it's more acceptable. I think there wasn't... Like, it became... Like with each generation, I think it becomes more acceptable.

Like you look, even like the 70s, you get the Star Wars kids. Well, suddenly it makes sense. a billion dollars. It's like, well, it's okay to be a sci-fi nerd. Kinda. We'll still beat your ass if you like, you know, Star Trek too much.

But it's kind of okay. I like that shirt. You get one shirt. You get that one shirt with Luke on it, but that's it. No backpack.

You're gonna have trouble. Yeah, because you see kids, like, in, like, real garish, like, mall fashion wearing, like, American or... Captain America hoodie or something. And, like, yeah, they totally... But, see, that's what we're talking about.

Like, you had that cute, like, Batman thing I would totally wear. Like... Yeah, like, that's okay to wear now. Like, that would not be okay. It all became acceptable.

Like, in that 90s period, they kind of threw open the doors. And again, it was almost for the wrong reasons sometimes. But, like, I was referencing the goth kids. Like, goth became so mainstream. Don't get me started.

But that's what I... I knew people that were into it well before it became popular. And then... I saw kids wandering around the mall wearing that, and I'm like, it wouldn't have been acceptable even five years ago. But that argument to me, something we've talked about before, I'm referring to myself and Evan and Eric and everybody else, is a lot of times you get these people that don't know what they're wearing.

They just wear it because Hot Topic had it or the Sprinters had it. My sister-in-law bought her son a Green Lantern shirt thinking it was a Sheldon shirt. Yeah well we've had we've had part of this whole conversation is fuck you big bad dude we've. Had customers that you know that you try to they walk in with let's say the Batman shirt or Batman shirt on and you try to engage them like oh Batman I like and they don't know what you're talking they're like oh this is from Batman I mean we had a person at the Gaslight Festival that was wearing a Millennium Falcon shirt that had the Millennium Falcon. Blueprint and they're like oh you like Star.

Wars and they're like Oh! Yeah, like, they didn't understand, and they were like, they were like, I just thought it was a really cool, like, blueprint design thing. It's like, what? Like, what do you think that is? Yeah, this thing up here where it says Millennium, huh?

Yeah, I think that thing is. Yeah. And then they take it off immediately and burn it. Yeah. Screw this.

Yeah. Nerds. But be careful, because you're entering that realm where you're making people feel shitty for what they like. But they didn't even like that one. No, no, no.

Are you talking. About, like, with sports or anything? Well, like, no, no, like. We were saying before, like, when you were talking earlier about, like, the Watchmen and these pretentious, snotty people are, like, your pedestrian for liking Marvel zombies. You have to always be aware.

Do you think I've done any sports? I love basketball. No, that's not my point at all. That's not my point at all. My point is.

It's really easy to be offended by somebody's like snotty behavior and then turn right around and do it again. It's not about sports at all. I think what you're misunderstanding is that we did not make fun of the person with the Liam Falcon thing. It was more of the thing where you're saying that people walk around with their shirts on. I think a lot of times people are given those shirts and not knowing what those shirts are.

Yeah. Cool designs of a shirt. Again, I think it's the genuine angle. If you are genuinely interested in whatever, like, go to town. That's awesome.

But it's the people that kind of come at it and like, They get on board with it because it's popular and they really don't even know what they're dealing with. Like that, I don't know. That applies to sports too. Yeah. It's funny to people.

Like if you live in a major league sports city, oh yeah, I'm totally a Colts fan and not give a shit about the Colts just because that's the popular thing. One of my favorites is the kids singing about the plague and not even knowing about it. Ring Around the Rosies. Oh yeah. That's a perfect example.

It's like Ring Around the Rosies. It's just a longer gap of time so it's like misappropriated. Cultural reference oh not knowing the oh my gosh. Sorry it's just a song that you sing as a kid yeah. But we have we're just like the time what am I trying to say like the bell curve of just how much is being we're exposed to so much on such a smaller scale of time where Millennium Falcon can be yeah you can lose sight of its actual original meaning but I wear an underoos when I was a kid did you guys oh yeah oh yeah still wearing underoos right now The same ones.

The same ones. It took a lot of work, but I'm in them. I think I sang Bring Around the Roses in my underwears. Yeah, exactly. But that's the thing.

Spider-Man underwears? How did they get that shirt? Well, I think we're just talking about it more directly. Why are they wearing that shirt? How did they get that shirt?

I mean, if you like something, you would seek that shirt, but I guess that's a thing. Some people really don't give a fuck what they wear. They just want a shirt. I just need to wear a shirt today to get in your establishment. Again, the freeze t-shirt, they go on.

Some people just don't care. I mean, they're just ambivalent to it. Or in gangster rap, wearing sports where the two. Things don't have anything. It's the color scheme.

It means something other than what it says. Yeah. Yeah, it represents something different than what it was intended. But no, I mean, that's true. There is a lot...

Like, it is a joke, again, when we're making fun of America here, that, like, free t-shirt day. Like, you could care less what it... Like, if there's one thing people love, it's a free t-shirt. So it's like, that's kind of true. Like, you could set up whatever and give out a shirt with whatever you want on it, and I bet...

Within a while, you'll see them wandering around the city, and people have no idea what they're wearing. Oh, it doesn't even have to be their size. People freak out over it. I'm giving free. T-shirts out here sometimes, and the sizes are off, and people just are like, oh, I'll take it.

I was thinking the size ones. Like the ones that are like just like a tent and you just wear it and it's like down your neck. Oh, the one size fits all. I love the one size. I love how they package them in like this.

They suck all the air out of like a bag and it's so conformed and you pull it out and it's like unfolding a flag. You better do it right. Well, you definitely veered off into general nerd culture here. Do we have any other comics we want to hit? Is there anything major that you wanted to talk about that we haven't already?

I mean, there's Still like 15 more I could rattle off. Everyone, just like anything else we need to cover that you'll be like, ah, I can't believe we didn't talk about. Whatever. I have a feeling it's going to happen later. I'm sure we will.

I mean, again, there's a ton of them here. But I guess I don't want to just rattle them off. Maybe we shouldn't so we have those moments later on. I want to have that moment now. Of the stuff that I just came across that we haven't talked about.

Let's see. Old Boy being originally. That's a lot. That movie made me mad. And it got remade as well.

It gave me a hell of a hard time. I'll never watch that movie again. That's like watching, you know, like Requiem for a Dream. That's my never-watch-again movie. Yeah.

That's, yeah. Is that the one with Robert Williams? Yeah. Yeah, you're funny. So the fact that that was a comic originally is kind of mind-blowing.

Oldboy was a comic? Was it a Korean comic? Yeah, South Korean. Wow. Well, it's definitely not North Korean here.

There ain't any comics up there. However, I read a really compelling graphic novel that was written about North Korea, and I wish I could remember the name of it, but it was about this animator and his animation... was being done in North Korea to save money. And so he rewrote this graphic novel about his time in North Korea and it was terrifying. I like the stuff that he saw. I wish I could, I could probably look it up, but that's a big read.

You should read that. Sounds kind of like Persepolis. No, but I'm just saying that's a new, another reminded me of another new one. Like I still need to watch that one. I've seen the trailer.

I'm like, that looks good. Amazing. That's a good one. If you guys haven't seen it, I like. That one a lot.

Talking about movies you never want to see again brings to mind Grave of the Fireflies. I love that. I want to see that, though, because I've never seen that. It's good, but it's just like I watched it alone in an attic, and when I was over, I went downstairs and cried. It was just so sad.

Maybe a different part of the house you would have been all right. Or if there's just been a friend there to be like, buddy, it's not real. Friend in the attic or myself in the kitchen. But I do want to see. That keeps popping up, and I keep hearing good things about it.

I just haven't tracked it down. I mean, it's out there. I think I first saw it streaming somewhere on the internet. See, I get it. Well, I say track it down.

I was like, it's not on Netflix. That's as much tracking as it is. Instant queue. It doesn't take much tracking. No.

No, this is back before Netflix. Back when you had to, like, you used to be able to watch anime on YouTube before they realized that they had to get rid. Of all that. And they haven't taken it down. Yeah.

Or, like, I just Google, like, watch this for free. All right. So this graphic novel. Now, I'm not really good at pronouncing things, so please. It's the capital of North Korea.

So it's Pyongyang. Pyongyang. Pyongyang. A Journey in North Korea. And it was written by Guy Delis.

He's a French person, so it's probably mispronounced, too. But this graphic novel was really compelling. Because, I mean, we don't really know a lot about North Korea, the hermit country. And I still think it's so interesting. This country is so crazy.

I just can't get enough. This is the first time you actually... get to see it in comic form, like what's going on. And some of the things, like for instance, he goes, you know, like the whole time I was there, I never saw one disabled person or one old person on the street. What does that say? It's made of people.

Yeah. It's really good though. We don't know a lot about that country. It really is. You know, and in the information world, it's really this black hole of just not knowing really.

They, uh, HBO has a show, I forgot the name of it. Vice. Vice, yeah. And they sent a crew over. It started off before.

I watched that on YouTube. But I just saw it on HBO. That's a good one. And they sent a crew over and It was just so eerie. It's alien, isn't it?

Yeah. First off, I didn't think they had tall buildings. They had the tallest buildings. Yeah. I did not think they had these.

The people are starving and they have the tallest buildings. Let your season on. And that was the other thing. The city, the entire country is usually black. Yeah.

But when they were there all these lights and they just they put on this show and this whole it's just it's scary it's very scary to find out what's like they went to an office building they interviewed somebody and they were just like talking Oh, no, they were searching. They were on the computers, but they weren't actually doing anything. They were doing this. So it was like every TV show. Yeah, they were doing this, and the camera crew got a peek of one and got in trouble, got pushed back.

Got a peek of one. They were just on the Google homepage typing in the search bar. Did I do that a couple hours a day? The search bar was, please help us, please help us. It's very eerie, the show that they put on.

Because if they're putting that much of a show on, what is behind the. Well, those people are dead. Sadly, that's true. Another graphic novel that I really love that became an animated movie was Cat Shit 1, Apocalypse Meow. Have you guys read that?

Too funny for me. No. It's dark. It's dark. Because the Japanese version of this manga is called Cat Shit 1.

And it is so good. If you don't understand, like I did for a long time, about what happened in the Vietnam War, this is a really good book to read because it will break it down for you. And the way they drew it was the American army is depicted as rabbits. The Vietnamese army is depicted as felines. The Japanese army is depicted as chimps. the Russians are depicted as bears, and the pandas are Chinese.

And it breaks down every battle. And it's dark. It is dark, guys. Like, there's a freaking cat, and he's going through the brush, and he has rabbit ears around his neck. And he's like, yeah, like, it is.

Because I really love the Vietnam, like, drama movies. Like, I just like war movies in general. And so, like, I just ate this manga up. And it's, like, drawn so cute. And this is, like, a reason I love anime so much is that juxtaposition of like horror and just saccharine cuteness like and they just put it together it's just like what is going on It's cute because, like, you see.

This sounds like Watership Down. I was going to say Watership Down. I'm still recovering from Watership Down. It makes you hate bunnies. This rabbit.

Like, you see, like, the rabbit, like, GIs, and they're, like, going to these brothels, and they're taking, like, the cat, like, feline-like girls into, like, rooms. So I'm like, how's that going to work? That's what I was thinking. God disapproves. You thought about that a lot.

Yeah, I did. I was like, seriously. That's a wholly different manga. Read that. That's cool devices.

Oh, is it? Yeah. First episode of Protosaurus. While we're doing the ones from other countries, has anybody seen Chicken with Plums? No.

I've heard a really good thing. I think it just made its way over here recently. I think it's listed as 2011, but I think we just started getting versions of it over here as far as the movie. But yeah, it started out as like a graphic novel. It's like a French-German version, but I don't know.

I just didn't know if anybody else had seen it. I think I was talking about it and said it was really good. I missed the Evangelion midnight movie. Oh. Which one?

I didn't know. Because, like, I went to karaoke and I would... I have Rei Ayanami tattooed on my arm. That's how much I love Evangelion. Like, and I would...

If I would have known... Because I've seen the other ones. It's just so weird. Yeah. It's my favorite anime ever.

Like, ever. And I was like, oh, man. And it was sold... It was actually sold out, which is real rare for a midnight movie. Yeah.

It's harder to get people to leave the house. Right. It's rough. You forgot about 300. Yeah, well.

Oh, yeah. It was on here. That was one of them. I... Again, it's just.

I have that in my background. I don't know what they're calling it, but there's an actual sequel. Isn't it like a prequel? 299. Rise of an Empire?

Rise of something, isn't it? Yeah, I forgot what it's called. Oh, so Lena Headey could be alive. He's a weird director. He's so fixated on very specific things.

Mostly the human body. He's very obsessed with it. Watching Superman lift stuff up with his shirt off, I was just like, man, you really like him, don't you? But it's that same thing. He does it with both genders, too.

He's very weird and fixated. On the physical form. I did not like that. You're talking about Sucker Punch? Yeah, I was like, Sucker Punch is the middle version.

I wanted to like that, but I was like, it's just... It's kind of fascinating. I'm not going to say it's good, but looking back, because we did a pretty light pass on it when we talked about it the first time we watched it. And then since then, I almost want to go back and revisit it and do a whole other episode. Because there's layer upon layer of weird stuff going on.

And again, it's a lot of weird. Like, it's the most inside a director's head you can get. Like, it's so weird. That was all him, right? Yeah.

He wrote it. He directed it. Like, it was his property. And it's like, it's so inside his head. He plays baby doll.

To a weird, scary place. I don't know. I feel like that. But again, with all of his other, like, he's done so many treatments of other people's work. It's kind of weird seeing his own stuff and seeing it gets even more twisted.

Yeah. But I felt like, yeah, 300 was that. I'd like to re-watch Sucker Punch 2 and think about it. I've watched it once, but I kind of glazed over it so quickly. Because I saw it in the theater and I was just like, I even had issues with it in the theater.

But now I've built into huge issues with it. Have you read the graphic novel? It's a real short one. Is it one he did beforehand? You talking about 300?

No, I was talking about Sucker Punch, which is not even a graphic novel. But no, 300, I have not read the novel. It's a really short one. Yeah. It's an easy read.

Is that also Frank Miller? Who did 300? Frank Miller. Okay. He has a color one, too.

I'm trying to think who's got the most graphic novels turned into film. Frank Miller's... with. What two stanley yeah all right godfather of graphic novels i gotta leave now you. Didn't mention hellboy which we hadn't gotten to that no i. I thought i heard someone over here mentioned hellboy uh that's a pretty huge yeah it's a big.

And again giving it to a director who actually cared about the property you got pretty good movies out of. It I don't think... They had two of them, right? Yeah, they had the two. I don't think I ever saw the second one.

I'm wondering if he's coming back. He says that he's still working on a Justice League Dark movie, which would be awesome, because he's really good at weird supernatural shit, but I don't think any studios would. Ever let him make that movie. Well, if Guardians of the Galaxy does well, then all the weird shit can start to come out of the world. Yeah, the DC has a lot more to sort out than.

Hmm. And Marvel does. Yeah, they do have a Quilt Man, I think, is one of their villains. Quilt Man. I mean, I just, cinematically, they have a lot to fix before they're really on the same level as Marvel.

I want to see the Marvel Lockjaw movie. It's so cute. That dog looks like Lockjaw. What was the cat's name? One Furball, isn't it?

I think it was Furball and Lockjaw, yeah. He had a toonie fork on his head, man. I just put that on my pug, and he was just like Lockjaw. That's how they communicate. Any rocketeer fans no i like i it's one of those i i the movie's just so much damn fun i like the movie i haven't read the comic but i i i think they made a fun movie out of it it's ridiculous at points but again i think it also he he does a good job capturing that time period i think he really does sort of he seemed like he liked that era that he set it in and he does a pretty good job with that.

Well, yeah, it does feel like it was pulled out of that. Like if you're a kid watching, like if that came out during that, obviously, well, if that came out during that time, you'd freak out. Cause it's like, what is this happening? This is normally black and white. But I'm just saying that's like, it was directly pulled, um, you know, from the mindset of, of that, that decade.

Yeah. I mean, even to the point of adding in that villain, who's basically just the, the, their fictional version of, of Rondo that like it's, they even have a villain from other movies of that era, uh, put in there as a real guy in their fictional world. But yeah, I mean, he's just such a tribute to that time period that I think that angle of it's pretty good. Again, it has its silly moments, but it's important. If you guys haven't seen it, or read it, rather, read the Akira manga, too.

I was watching that the other day, actually. Yeah, I was lucky enough to see it at Baxter when they re-released it with the new... Because they released Akira in the mid-2000s with different voice actors. Remember that? Huh.

I remember them doing it. It's kind of lame. Because I had the Letterboxd tape when I was a kid, and it was like, oh, wow. Because I really liked Akira. But the manga is really good.

It's like five huge graphic novels. I remember when I first got into collecting comics, I would find these sporadic comics. Usually a book of music exchange, and they were in color, these Akira books. And then they re-released it. In 99, 2000, and there were these huge graphic novels, like this big, and they're black and white.

And Tetsuo was my favorite character. And all this character development for Tetsuo, which is so great. He's having headaches, and then he's a blob thing and exploding in a hallway. He has this whole great story. I don't know.

If you guys haven't read it, read them. They're so good. They're so weird. I really like that movie. I've never had a chance to get over to the comics.

I like the soundtrack, too, like the weird light chanting. I swear I've heard some of those tracks on NPR sometimes. And some of the weirdest transitions I'll hear then. I'm like, were y'all watching Akira? What's going on back there?

The first graphic novel I think I ever read was this adaptation of Gilgamesh. It just came to mind. There's some ninjas in it. No, really, it's fascinating. Like you have these ninjas stalking you.

That's so strange. Because that's the oldest known epic, right? Is that right? I think there was something written during the Mesopotamian era. A woman, actually, which was the first story ever written.

But then Gilgamesh is, I think, the first epic. I just took an art history, Western art history class. I think that's what I read. Might be talking about the epic poetry form, if you want to get that kind of deep. Maybe it was the first example.

Sorry, I'm an English major, guys. No, no, actually, I mean, that's why. I brought it up, because I wasn't quite sure. But it's really, it's a really cool graphic novel. And I think it was written as a graphic novel.

It wasn't, like, a serialized. Weird. But it's, I. Think he had a twin, and there was a woman in it. It was sort of like a Baroness-type character that was sending these ninjas to, like, assassinate him.

Anyway, that's all I can recall. I didn't know if you'd even heard of it. It's pretty amazing. I still want to see Why the Last Man. They can do that.

That's how hard is that? It's a monkey, a man, and a mask. A bunch of women. We can do this. Have you guys read Why?

Yeah, the saga is supposed to be coming out. One day, all mammals with the Y chromosome die. Except for Yorick and. His pet monkey. It's amazing.

And chaos ensues. That would happen. Because like airplanes just fly up falling from the sky because the pilot's dead and cars crashing and he's trying to like get back to his girlfriend and the last time he spoke he had like this really ambiguous conversation like a really bad one when she was in Australia like right before this happened and then he's like trying to get to Australia to find her and it's done it's a pretty long series but it's complete yeah like I haven't actually read the last graphic novel so I'm going to reread it all over again Um, but that is, it's good. Yeah. I've always, I don't know.

I just always liked the independent Western books better. I just could never, I couldn't empathize with like the superhero comics as much. Like some of them, like I said, were standalone that were so good. And I just could never get, like the X-Men were close to something I could empathize to because of the mutant human struggle. But yeah, that's weird.

I don't, I think I'm like the only comic fans like that. I'm sure there's other stuff. There's another. I mean, there's a lot. Carl.

He's like that. I don't know. They say they're big comic fans, but I can't say. It's the form of, like, I've been drawing comics since I was eight years old. I mean, no joke.

Like, every day. I mean, it's my life. But, yeah. I think we've put a nice dent in it. Yeah.

There's a few more we can save we can do a reboot later if you. Want we can do a reboot the origins yeah exactly go back to the origins and hit all these again go over them one more time reboot this podcast so do we have to do an origin story for the podcast yeah. No because they can figure it out yeah they get right in the middle of the show and they're like oh I know these idiots talking I get it it's cool they understand. There's a wikipedia article for that I mean come on. You damn kids!

Wouldn't it be great if before every movie they just displayed the Wicked Beauty? Okay, cool. While you're sitting there waiting, instead of watching previews, just read about it. I get it, okay. And we just end up, thank you for saving us 30 minutes of bullshit we already know.

Or they can pass. Out the programs that they do, like the Shakespeare ones. Like, here's the acts broken down. They pass out a comic. A backstory pamphlet.

That's what we need. Read this while you watch your preview. Eventually you're just going to start giving people comic books before the movie. They just leave and read the comic books. It comes full circle.

There you go. They just need a little intro version. It'd be like your primer to get you in there. And then you're like, alright, I'm caught up. Go on with the story.

Well, speaking of handing out comic books, hey, where should people come to get their comic books? Comic book I mean throw those plugs throw those plugs in there one. More time just teasing oh you want me to throw a plug okay they should come to the destination at 5031 Shelbyville Road located behind Dee's Crafts and the Best Buy Shopping Center and they should talk to one of the friendly staff there maybe Evan Pack I'm not that friendly or Eric Gravely. But you don't openly make fun of them no we don't we don't judge here that's true no we don't judge at all see there you go now That's a mistake. If so, we wouldn't be here.

If anything, customers judge me. You can make fun of us. You can make fun of us. You can come in and make fun of us to our faces. Just buy a couple comics.

Just buy stuff. Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry about the tears on your comic book. Come back any time. So, yes, I thought we'd throw that out there because we wanted to thank you for letting us come loiter around in here.

I thank you all for coming. It's been fun. It's been fun, and I'm all up for coming back. And all these comics we talked about. All these trades and graphic novels and comics.

We talked about. Where will we get those? You can get them. You just plugged. At 5031 Shelby Road.

You're doing an origin story. You're rebooting. Reboot. Reboot the plug. Don't reboot the plug.

All right. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening.

Stop talking about comic books or I'll kill you. I don't care if the Hulk could defeat the Man. Of Steel I'm gonna rearrange your face if you continue to debate Whether Logan's claws could pierce Steve Rogers' shield I just couldn't care less if they'd. Bring back Kraven. And I don't care if Spider-Man's.

A clone Stop spending all our cash on back issues of The Flash Or I swear to God you're gonna spend your twilight years alone. You can call them graphic novels. They're still just plain old comic books to me. And I don't see why you. Must always ceaselessly discuss the post-zero hour continuity.

For the last time, I won't read those Kirby X-Men. You know that I prefer the work he did for DC. We did it, guys. Was Hudson Hawk a graphic book or a comic? Hudson Hawk?

I never saw that movie. Oh, that Bruce Willis thing? What? I know. I know people that that's like their favorite movie.

You're thinking of Red, which was a comic. Which we didn't address. Oh, Red. Yeah. We forgot about Red, yeah.

That was. All the old people and secret agents. Let's just redo it. All right. So anyway, Red.

Run it back. We forgot Red. Run it back. Helen Mirren and John Malkovich saved the world. Just add Red.

Just add Red. Yeah. I'll just be like this. Hey, remember Red? Yeah.

No, tell me how that is. It's a really good movie and a good trade. You should read it. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at movie meltdown.com.

Talk hard.