Tag: SciFi

♫ Three two one.. let’s jam..

Do those few words blow your mind out with a brass section? Do you immediately start thinking about bloodshot eyes, gunplay, and corgis?  Well, if not, then you are probably going to be very confused about this episode, as we are talking about the end of the Netflix live-action of Cowboy Bebop.

Bounty Hunters against the world – and we are only watching the last episode… does it hold up? Was the show worth another season? Is anime even possible to do right on the bigger screen?

Let’s talk about it here – on The End: Cowboy Bebop

Ok, here we go, space cowboy…

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It’s the last of the YEAR 8 themed episodes, so now we get to The End… with our thinnest premise yet.  STARG8.

What started as a surprising cult-hit of a sci-fi movie that, I say having seen it recently, still holds up — turned into a television epic that spanned multiple television shows, a couple made-for-tv movies, and a universe of characters. 

This though, is the original. Stargate SG-1 and the end of its 10 season run.

Did it live up to its legacy? Was it simply a stopgap between one show and another network? Well, there’s only one way you are going to find out – and that is by either watching ten years of leaping through gates to mysterious lands, boldly going where no man has go– sorry, wrong one… you could watch the original, or you could just listen to our take on The End: Stargate SG-1

Ok, here we go!

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Since ‘This is the May’ or ‘The Fourth Be With You’ or ‘Revenge of the Sith’ or ‘Bleep Bloop BawThirteeneep’ month, we decided to not just give you ONE episode of a galaxy far far away, but a couple of them!

This one was live on Twitch on May 4th, so go sign-up so you don’t miss next month’s. We could have talked Mando again.. we could have talked Battle of Endor – we decided to go back and check to see if the Star Wars from a decade ago holds up. Does the Trade Alliance negotiations make a good story? What about a 3 hour podrace? And love stories abound…. that’s right, it’s the heel turn of Anakin himself, the Star Wars Prequels.

So settle in as we dive into 6+ hours of everyone’s life that has been hotly debated since the’sa come out to the biggum movie screens.

Ok here we go!

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A Long Time Ago… On A Podcast Far Far Away…

The Somethings are getting in on all of the May the Fourth fun, jumping parsecs ahead of all of the other podcasts and discussing some of their favorite toys of the Star Wars universe. From blasters to droids to ships to those cool binocular things – Hatton and PCR are breaking down some of the coolest toys from the universe of the light and dark sides. 

And if you happen to be seeing this the day it posts, the boys will be live on Twitch tonight with another sojourn into a particular star war – some come hang out!

So sith right back… ok, here we Grogu…

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Let’s discuss some nostalgia porn, as it isn’t all created equal.  First, let me mention Meddling Kids which is a novel I read last year that blew me away. A group of twenty-somethings that bear a remarkable similarity to a group of teenage detective sleuths and their snack-hungry dog have all grown up and are dealing with the PTSD of the things they saw as kids.  From being faced with murder to the supernatural, they have grown-up like the kids from It have – repressing everything.

The nostalgia in Meddling Kids is biting and funny and a new take on tropes as the not-Scooby Gang bump into Lovecraftian Lore, it analyzes not simply what the characters would be like if they actually had to deal with fantastical Hanna-Barbara cartoon mysteries, but talks about the relationships of these people. Why is the book smart nerd friends with the stoner and the ‘nice guy’. It takes its premise through brutality and emotional turmoil and makes these fictional kids feel like they could fit in a real-ish world.  It stunned me, and I highly recommend it.

Now, let’s discuss the other side of nostalgia porn, and the reason I picked this topic to talk about.  I enjoyed Ready Player One, the book. I caught it early on the hype train and it tickles quite a few of my weird sub-sub-genre’s of stories. It hits on ‘movies as game’ like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Midnight Madness, and Jumanji. It features one of my particular eras of nerddom that doesn’t get a lot of notice, 1980s computer culture – and mixes it with science fiction, comics, Brat Pack pop culture, and a thousand other things that were the bread and butter of my pre-teen youth. There was one thing that stuck in my craw about it though, and that was we are watching a ‘day after the day after tomorrow’ type world and the creators of said world seem obsessed with this era of culture. Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand that this is a love letter to that era, but in a book about video games with the grand master video game makers of all time.. you would think they also liked things a bit more ambitious than NETHACK.  All of that said – I enjoyed RP1. I thought it was cute and fun and itched the popcorny itches it was designed to itch, even though it is not without its flaws…. unlike its sequel….

You see, Ready Player Two is now out and it has given up on everything that even remotely made RP1 enjoyable and doubled down on the thing that made it annoying. Yes, there’s another fetch quest. Yes, the band gets back together. Yes, the stakes are raised… and it is because of those things that everything else falls off a cliff. Without delving too deeply into spoiler territory, RP2 puts lives at stake.  It isn’t about an evil corporation and a young plucky hero… it’s about millions of lives in peril and our, now infinitely rich and yet somehow still remarkably naive, hero – with his encyclopedic knowledge of everything his idols have ever done, spends literal chapters spilling about movies and music. He goes into explicit detail about the life of John Hughes and into deep Tolkien ephemera. He whines about his lack of romance and realizes all of the mistakes he’s made and the missteps he’s taken (none of which that we get to see, mind you) — all while telling us about the trees on Chewbacca’s home planet.  There are millions of lives depending on his journey and he can’t help but idly giggle like a schoolgirl because he sees a computer generated Juliette Lewis — a Juliette Lewis that he literally could have delivered to his virtual bedroom and programmed to ride his Natural Born Killer from Dusk Til Dawn.

Nostalgia porn has its place to make a story taste the way it’s supposed to taste, like one of my all time favorite movies, Super 8 or something as charming as La La Land… but when your narrative only serves to plate nostalgia instead of tell a good story dressed in it — all I want to do is go find a new story that doesn’t need to tell me all of the stories that it relies on.

Every week, the Somethings will be giving you a little something extra, so please check back every week for reviews, lists, cool finds, and more!

It’s Lord of the Flies in space.. or at least that’s the way it starts.

By the end we have factions fighting factions, a semi-omniscient judge deciding the fate of humanity, the weakest excuse to ever make an ending “appear” happy… but is it?

We’re talking about Space Romance In Space – The 100! Find out if  the CW knocks it out of this world or grounds it down like a frakkin toaster… on THE END: THE 100 

Ok here we all go.. and go.. and go.. and go.. and go.. and imagine 95 more of those…

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We got a message not so long ago from our good friend Big Kev, of a show you might remember, Big Kev’s Geek Stuff, now far flung years into the future with Geek Stuff: TNG (@GeekStuffTNG) – and a conversation about Solo broke out.

You see, Rob and I have mixed opinions on Solo… was it good? Was it good enough? Was it just nostalgic pablum?

The battle lines have been drawn… on the Somethingside, myself and Rob. On the side of the defense, we have not only Big Kev, but actor and long time friend of the Somethings and New Jersey actor Erik A.

So settle in and make your opinions known – it’s time for a
Something In Review: REDUX

Ok, here we go!

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Have you checked out Livestream For The Cure yet? You should.

It’s time to return to head on back to a long time ago and take a trip to a galaxy not nearby at all….

That’s right – the Somethings, always present and ready with the cutting edge commentary – are ready to talk Star Wars. If you are a Wars’y type, you likely have your opinion on whether Abrams & The Mouse nailed it, missed it, or middled it… but now you get to find out how much you disagree with two other guys on the internet!

So gather your Sith Powers (or Jedi Powers, I guess…) and get ready to boldly go where every other podcast has gone before already! It’s time to review The Rise of Skywalker! (..or is it The Skywalkers?) ..it doesn’t matter. (..and stick around, the end has a treat)

Ok, here we go!

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Have you checked out Livestream For The Cure yet? You should.

It is time, yet again friends, for a journey to the last episode of a show – whether or not we’ve seen the rest of it.

This time, we harken back to a time when shows had a lot of set-up and then endings that felt kind of thrown out of nowhere. A time of mysterious islands and scenes that felt like they were ripped from escape rooms… mysteries abound, answers lesser so. It’s time for The End, with a show Rob has seen and Hatton has not – The Event.

Was it good? Was it bad? It only got one season and ends on a cliffhanger, so the answer is probably obvious… find out what we think on — The End.

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Last month we started a brand new Stories to Amaze with the confusing conspiracy that we call D E M – but we’ve been making these radiodramas for a year or two now over on our Patreon.

With so many folks stuck at home, and the rest working during the apocalypse to provide us with ambulances, fast food, and groceries – we thought you all deserve a little extra.

Combined all together into one convenient file, get ready to head off into the deepest reaches of Weird Science with…..

Storiiieees Toooooo Amaaaaaaaze!

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