Greetings Operatives! In this episode Rob and Don are joined by their friend Chad to discuss the nerdly films of 2015. What was awesome? What barely made the grade? And what didn’t the trio like from 2015? Then we forge on into 2016, and discuss why a new film version of The Little Prince excites us more than Batman v. Superman, why Yo-Kai Watch may or may not be the next Pokemon, and why Pokemon GO! may result in kids getting a little more than just fresh air! All this, and a heaping helping of Nerd Rage are waiting for you in this New Years episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs!
Closing Music: Ode to Joy performed by Oliver Eckelt
Things Discussed or Mentioned:
Asterisk: the Mansions of the Gods trailer (this movie is also on Netflix at the moment)
Tintin
Inside Out trailer
Grave the Fireflies
Bambi’s Mother Dies (video)
The Little Prince (2015) trailer
The Little Prince (wiki)
Shawn the Sheep trailer
Pixels trailer
Tommy Boy
Futurama versus Pixels
What We Do in the Shadows trailer
World of Darkness
Fury Road trailer
Fist of the North Star (animated film)
The Road Warrior filming
The Man from UNCLE (2015) trailer
Bill Melendez
The Good Dinosaur trailer
Hogwarts is a Death Trap!
MST3K Revival
Ultron
Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris trailer
Space Pirate Captain Harlock trailer (also on Netflix right now)
Dr. Slump
Rosario + Vampire
Urusei Yatsura (aka LUM)
Gods of Egypt trailer
Batman v. Superman Trailer
Zootopia trailer
X-men Apocalypse trailer
Star Trek Beyond trailer
Independence Day 2 Trailer
BFG Trailer
Angry Birds Movie Trailer
Warcraft Trailer
Dolly Madison ZIngers/Peanuts Commercial
Yo-kai Watch (anime episode 1)
Yokai
Pokemon GO!
Stockholm Syndrome
Ingress AR Game
Niantic Inc.
One-Punch Man in a Nutshell (video)
Rick and Morty (video)
Thanks so much for the shout out!
It was interesting (except for the long drawn out inside baseball anime part 😉 )
Here’s a question. Do westerners look to the worst of other cultures’ geeky stuff (ie. 99% of anime) because they are bored with the stories told in western literature and need to break out of the box of the storytelling framework or is this something deeper?
And yes, the last Superman movie was a nearly perfect Superman movie. Someday I will blog about it. Since you guys had problems with the Christopher Reeves (You shouldn’t just say the Reeves’ Superman because that could be confused with George 😉 ) Superman films. What do you think is the best Superman movie to date? Superman Returns? The Superman serial?
Once again, animation doesn’t count!
>Do westerners look to the worst of other cultures’ geeky stuff (ie. 99% of anime) because they are bored with the stories told in western literature and need to break out of the box of the storytelling framework or is this something deeper?
That’s a good, and complex question. I DO think when it comes to entertainment the idea that “any rut not your own is new” holds true. I also think “worst” is up for interpretation, especially when applied to a broad category of material. Entertainment is based on novelty; people want to see something new, BUT if you make it TOO new folks won’t have any reference point and won’t know how to take it…. so it won’t go over.
I think one reason the Japanese stuff (especially the “shonen” style comics) took off here is ‘cos it’s not that different from what we’re used to. Most of what took off was basically superhero stuff. (“Naruto” is the X-Men if you scratch out “mutant” and write in “ninja.”) But even THAT depends on the viewer…. kids are more open to different than oldsters, so they took to the Japanese stuff ‘cos the differences from what they’d been exposed to wasn’t as serious for them. (Or as ingrained.) I remember one site I used to go to where there were a lot of comic fans from my age group…. making them big 80’s Marvel/DC fans. They complained A LOT about the poor quality of the current crop of Marvel and DC books, and would explain (in great detail) what these companies NEED to do to fix their books. Invariably those suggestions were things inherent to damned near every Japanese comic with a widespread N. American following. So while they should have taken solstice in being right, none of them could get over the differences enough to make the books palatable.
> the last Superman movie was a nearly perfect Superman movie. Someday I will blog about it.
You probably should, ‘cos I’d be interested in hearing why it struck such a chord with you, AND It’d be nice to hear something positive about it. Most reviews I’ve seen were of the “it’s horrible and raped my childhood!!!!” school of thought; and while I didn’t particularly care for the film, I didn’t think it was anywhere’s near the worst thing ever made.
>Once again, animation doesn’t count!
That seems arbitrary. Especially considering that the traits that make for good plot, character and story aren’t inherent to any specific medium….
>What do you think is the best Superman movie to date?
Y’know…. that’s a tough one. I’m not a huge Superman fan, and for me it’s really tough to do an interesting story with the guy. There isn’t too much that’s a challenger for him…. especially if you’re going back to the Silver/Bronze age version wherein he had an almost unlimited set of powers at whatever level was necessary to save the day. (Ha HA! I beat him with my Super-Sudoku solving powers!) You can do more character driven stories, but even then Superman…. like many legacy characters carries a lot of the constraints placed on him from his inception. He’s the ultimate good guy; good because that’s who he is, powers or no. so there isn’t a lot of ambiguity to play with. You can’t tempt him with too much, and any time the writer does, it usually feels weird and spurious.
That in mind; I haven’t really liked ANY of the Superman movies that have been done over the years. The newer ones are way too mopey, the 80’s ones are stiff and slow, and the REALLY old ones were hamstrung by the technical limits of the day.
Don C.
That’s tough but fair, (as the Red Panda adventures would say).
I think the cartoons don’t count for Superman and the superhero clans (I like them too btw my general dislike of animation is left to mostly anime that are mostly as painful to watch as Pokemon and Sailor Moon. Every time I sit down to watch one of those I think, “But… I can’t.. even… AHHHH!” The plots are horrible. The characters are so cartoonish that they wouldn’t be allowed in a cartoon outside of anime. And the Magical Wedding Powers really?!! ARGH #rantover)
That being said, I get the feeling your dislike for superheroes matches mine for most anime.
Alex Ross does great artwork for Supes. Superman is a god. As Frank Miller would say, there are three gods in the DC Universe and the rest are demi-gods. He gets it. You tell Superman stories in the same vast canvas as you tell great mythic tales. You ground the realism of Superman with the basic tales of Clark Kent. Finding that balance has always been very difficult for people. Facts are street level Superman is simply Clark Kent unable to do what he’s supposed to do.
And Superman was best in the comics when John Byrne depowered him back to his near original state (Although he still could fly).
Great Superman stories buttress up against the great philosophical questions of power and responsibility (Sorry Spidey). The truth is, Superman SHOULD run the world as an autocrat. He doesn’t. And its that press between helping without taking over which makes for the biggest moral challenges in the modern age. It’s the question that constantly fights between Left and Right on the political spectrum, between collectivism and individuality, between greed and anonymity.
One of my Superman like heroes is OverMan (the actual translation from the Übermensch of Nietzsche. As you can guess, he’s the result of a Nazi vicious scientist torturing his son (Kind of like Tom Strong when you think of it, although OverMan was originally before that creation)
His struggle will be more pronounced than Kal-el’s.
There are many great stories that could be told by Superman. And goodness knows, everyone needs a hero, like Steve Rogers, who can help us remember that there are lines and actions we can take that are always just muddied.
Cheers!
J
>I get the feeling your dislike for superheroes matches mine for most anime.
Thing is, I don’t dislike superheroes. I don’t think they’re the end all/be all of comic books, but I don’t dislike them. Of course, I’ve found that to a lot of my peers…. the 80’s comic crowd…. that SOUNDS like I hate them ‘cos back then superheroes were it for comics. (At least that was the impression you got from the industry.) I’ve also suspected that’s where a lot of oldster hate for the Japanese stuff comes from; that it seems like the Japanese comics drove Marvel and DC out of the top spot. (When the truth is Marvel and DC drove them out….)
It also shows one of the problems I run into a lot when discussing comics and the like. You can mention almost any superhero and I can speak of then with some authority ‘cos I’ve probably read their comics, seen the films, have a familiarity with them. (I’ve read A LOT of comics….) I find that doesn’t work the other way; that a lot of the folks who don’t care for the Japanese stuff don’t have a lot of experience with it. So when I say “it’s not all giggly schoolgirls” they don’t have any real context for that, and any examples I provide are essentially meaningless ‘cos the other person hasn’t partaken of them. At best I get a “yeah… yeah, maybe it’s not ALL the same…. grumble grumble…. which lasts until the next point comes up in the discussion.
>I think the cartoons don’t count for Superman and the superhero clans (I like them too btw my general dislike of animation is left to mostly anime
THAT seems really weird to me. You don’t like animation because even though there’s plenty you DO like the fact that stuff you don’t exists detracts from it?
>Alex Ross does great artwork for Supes. Superman is a god. As Frank Miller would say, there are three gods in the DC Universe and the rest are demi-gods.
Superman, Batman and Irwin Schwab.
>He gets it. You tell Superman stories in the same vast canvas as you tell great mythic tales.
Which is VERY true, but that doesn’t make for easy storytelling. Especially if you have comic that needs to come out every month.
>street level Superman is simply Clark Kent unable to do what he’s supposed to do.
Kinda. The problem with Clark Kent is that he’s STILL Superman. He makes it easier for us to empathize with Supes, but Kent isn’t subject to a lot of the things that concern us…. or he is only on the face of things…. so there are some limits there, too. Clark Kent can lose his job, but it’s not like US losing our job…. not really…. ‘cos a solar powered extraterrestrial doesn’t have to worry about starving, and he’s not gonna freeze to death on a street corner.
I think that’s why you had the Silver Age happen the way it did. (Epitomized by the Marvel “hero with problems” idea.) The godlike hero had been put through it’s paces so many times that readers felt it to be extremely old hat. So…. you start playing it from the other side; not a godlike figure, but a mere mortal with the accoutrements of the godlike figure: the powers, the responsibility…. the seeds of a “realistic” story and setting brought about by the need to ground the character in the same sort of world the reader lives in. (To the point of actually setting stories in real world locations.)
…and then THAT reaches it’s epitome with the “grimdark dark grim” hero of the 90’s and everybody laments for the return of the legends….
>Superman was best in the comics when John Byrne depowered him back to his near original state (Although he still could fly).
A lot of people liked that run. I think it was a good compromise between the Silver Age “Lois is coming for dinner? I’ll use my Super-Baking power to make a cake!” and the 80’s “No! Superheroes is serious and pertinent!” movements.
>Great Superman stories buttress up against the great philosophical questions of power and responsibility (Sorry Spidey).
Or rather, they SHOULD. And Spidey should be a different kind of story altogether, since Superman represents responsibility from a position of strength and Spidey represents responsibility from a position of weakness. (Obligation, specifically.) Mostly though both usually feature one guy in tights hitting another….
*Spiderman is a good example of the difference ‘cos he’s supposed to represent us as heroes. The first thing he decides to do with his powers is cash in…. which is a lot more realistic than “use them to protect humanity.” He becomes a hero because circumstance (and guilt) FORCE him to. Superman doesn’t have that kind of doubt, or selfishness. He’s not supposed to; he’s Superman.
>Superman SHOULD run the world as an autocrat. He doesn’t. And its that press between helping without taking over which makes for the biggest moral challenges in the modern age. It’s the question that constantly fights between Left and Right on the political spectrum, between collectivism and individuality, between greed and anonymity.
…. the problem is that it doesn’t present these dilemmas to Supes. As his powers put him on another plane from the rest of us mortals, so too does his moral bearing. HE’S above these things because he’s SO good and noble. It’s what he is. The trick to a good Superman story is the bad guy; that’s where you see this dilemma play out. So Mongul shows us Supes without a sense of duty, Luthor is selfish Superman (with a weird real estate fixation according to the movies….) Brainiac is compassionless Superman….
I don’t think any of the movies really hit that point, and that’s why they feel kinda blah to me. They’re either straight up action stories, or they try too hard to make Supes relatable. Like the last one when we saw WAY too much of mopey Clark wandering from job to job.
>One of my Superman like heroes is OverMan
Interesting choice. Have you read “Gladiator” by Philip Wylie? It’s on Project Gutenberg, and covers a fair bit of this sort of thing. (It’s also VERY 80’s “grimdark dark grim”…. 50 years before.)
>There are many great stories that could be told by Superman.
Yup. But it requires a certain bit of flair and awareness that a lot of writers don’t have. I think that’s why in a conversation about Supes I wouldn’t rule out the animated versions, since that’s where you’re likely to see something close to a full realization of the character.
Don C.