Rod, Karen, Bacon and Sterling discuss listener feedback, entertainment, FFX 16 dev has horrible racist take, Avatar 2 has huge budget, Gears of War movie, Kevin Conroy dies, man shoots PS4, Silk: Spider Society, Xbox Series S on sale, Fast X budget ballooning, Ice Dragon animated movie, Sonic designer arrested, Bog Iger back at Disney, Twitch streamer gets cracker pass, Blade reboot will be gritty, Marvel’s Avengers spokesperson removed, Indiana Jones will use de-aging tech, God Of War Ragnarok fastest selling first party PS game ever, Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive reboots, FTC will contest Activision Microsoft deal, Calisto Protocol DLC, Xbox upgrading Series X home, Bambi horror movie and Fable.
The Nerd Off: (Protected Content)
Greetings, fellow nerds!
Just wanted to post the clip of a deaged Robert Deniro beating a man up in The Irishman. A prime example of why you either don’t do this type of scene, or just have a younger actor portray the person in that time period. Hopefully in that Indiana Jones movie, Harrison Ford is only gonna be deaged while sitting in one place talking to someone instead of doing fight scenes that his joints can’t handle.
Skip to the 50-second mark.
https://youtu.be/KOisMk2oTvk
Thank y’all for bringing me nerdy news and keeping me from having to follow some of those sites and accounts that post questionable articles and don’t like Black people.
Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah (word to Smokey Robinson), Happy New Year, and Happy all of the holidays until the next Nerd Off!
~Tish
What it do Nerd Off Crew,
I hope all is well and you’re somewhere warm; eh, warmish since outside across the country is basically Hardhome.
I finished reading that Superior Spiderman last night (I’m late to everything and it takes me forever to finish things) and goddamn that was an incredible read that underscored the kind of person Peter Parker is and the type of legendary, diabolic hating ass hater Otto Octavious is. Every Mindscape panel of Otto should’ve been wearing a Steve Harvey suit with extra patterns on each arm. I really like how Marvel can take simple premises like that and tell such an enthralling story, Shit, that’s part of why I’ve enjoyed (and cried a bit) during this current MCU phase cuz loss and grief are hard emotions to tackle. And it definitely takes some folks to darker places than others.
Another reason I appreciate the MCU have an arc covering grief: it makes filtering out the bad faith complainers *even easier*!
Wakanda Forever definitely had me yelling “NIGGA!” several times at the screen. I appreciate podcasts like y’all, MTR Network, ADDSpace, etc cuz it’s never not refreshing to hear niggas talking at length about the things they enjoy.
I started played Nier: Replicant recently and realized the Shadowlord song has me in a goddamn chokehold. Y’all got any video game songs y’all fuck heavy with? To this day I’m convinced anyone can do anything if they listen to Guile’s theme song long enough.
I hope y’all have a wonderful holiday and thank you all for the dope content.
Peace,
Dough
G’Day Nerds
Quick update on Lets Build a Zoo, my breeding program got all the animals & all their population levels in the wild are thriving. The achievement I got for doing it said only 0.03% of people who played had done it.Â
I also finished the new Pokémon Scarlet game & completed the Pokédex.
What’s some nerd things you’re looking forward to in 2023?Â
Thanks for another year of fun shows.
Enjoy the holiday season everyoneÂ
WongaÂ
Hi y’all, Felix here. Ya boi has been on a work break the last week and a half and boy let me tell you, you know you’re working too hard when you physically can’t close your right hand and have to seek medical attention haha. Got it sorted after a doctor’s visit but after all that and still working through it a couple days before this break, I got my latest paycheck and bought myself a switch lite. Not touched my computer since (except to do taxes) and just been playing Samurai warriors 5 and monster hunter Rise. Took me a couple years but I finally got my switch after first being tempted by y’all’s recommendations 2 years ago. So far happy with the purchase although I’m legit shocked there’s not a Call of Duty game on switch. Can’t believe that’s a thing. I’ve bought Outer Worlds to scratch that itch and will have to wait until after Christmas for it to arrive because the postal service is on strike at the moment. (Fully support them btw but will cry nonetheless that my videogame didn’t arrive before Christmas lol)
Other than that, I watched avatar 2. Despite the hot takes Ive seen online I mostly enjoyed it. The VFX gotta be the greatest of all time easily and it’s insane how seamless everything is on a technical level. Storywise it has more in common with 80s family movies of kids trying to fit in at the new high school after their parents move house than your average sci-fi joint but any misgivings I had were made up for by the whole 3rd act. The action is just a different breed than what’s seen nowadays and its nice seeing some old school just “lemme choke this nigga out” typa action again haha.
I’ve also started watching The Peripheral on Amazon prime. I have no idea if anyone else has been watching this because the marketing is nonexistent and there’s not a lot of discussion around it but I’ve been enjoying this little sci-fi show. Feels like a mix of westworld and ready player one except not as obnoxious as either. My only complaint so far is the villain is played by a black woman and she’s just not bringing it unfortunately. I love me some black villainy but you gotta have some charisma. Can’t just be out here murdering people with bees and talking with a British accent sis. Hoping she’s better as it goes on but it’s not looking promising so far. Chloe Grace Moretz is great as the lead tho. First time I’ve liked her in something in a long time.
The news about the new avatar series following the avatar after korra was exciting this morning. What’s gonna be interesting is seeing the advancement of time after korra and seeing how they approach this next series. Hopefully the avatar team bring on some She-Ra writers and various Voltron staff as well as the animators that worked on the recent dragon age anime.
And lastly the only other things I’ve had time to keep up with besides a variety of audiobooks I listened to while working was Chainsaw man and the dragon age anime. The chainsaw man anime went past where I stopped reading the manga at around episode 8 and since then has only gotten more interesting. I’m hoping it gets to the point that fans keep hyping up soon because the vague comments from these people are getting annoying lol.
In terms of the dragon age anime, I have to say that show ended up making me care about that franchise again. Having been so long since the last bits of content like the comics I don’t read or the dlc, it’s nice seeing them actually do the slavery stuff that they did so goddamn horribly in the games well for once. I haven’t seen a slave owner this fun to shit on in a while and the ending was incredibly satisfying. Also shout-out to our girl Kimberly brooks one of the most prolific black women in voice acting as the lead character. Nice to see her get more main roles in stuff. Also shout-out to the animation studio here, Red Dog Culture House who did some of the most fun action scenes ive seen since Voltron. They’ve come a long way from promo videos for Korean MMOs and that one episode of cannon busters. Highly recommended even if you don’t care about dragon age because who doesn’t want to see a slave owner get shit on every now and again haha.
Ok love y’all, Felix out. Can’t wait for the podcast as usual.
Never thought I’d see the day where The Rock would be whoring out for a film that is as compelling as watching paint dry. Made up facts that the movie was profitable (it’s not, needed $600M to break even), brought back poor Henry Cavill for nothing (lost two jobs: Supes & Witcher) and couldn’t even outgross Eternals Worldwide. No actor does this. None of them, yet, because he’s trying his damnest to make a franchise stick, he has to make these Ryan Howard-style swings for a sorry film. If The Rock could sell on the film being no.1 for three weeks straight in theaters, would’ve been fine, but nope, he needs to be dogmatic about a boring, 15 years in the making, sorry project.
Poor Cavill lost two jobs. Unfortunate but I understand James Gunn is fumigating the stench of Snyder away from DC. They’re boys, sure, but Gunn is better at character shit than Snyder ever was, imo. This’ll come at the expense of prior actors but it needs to be done. Pretty sure Feige got something for him. I really wished his Supes would work, just wasn’t meant to be. Too much elseworlds, objectivist stuff, really stunted the DCEU. Burn it all and start over. Been time.
Been seeing a lot of the Avatar debate and, uh, yeah, I don’t care anymore. Whatever side you’re on, I think everyone is overdoing it. I think the first film is OK, yet, these needless debates of it being colonization, tech demo CGI, Live-action Ferngully, it’s all a crock of shit. People are just doing too much. Cameron’s a great filmmaker, despite this series not being for me. I do plan on seeing it Thursday night and I do look forward to it from an aesthetics standpoint. Cameron, along with his team, always created compelling worlds, characters and stories. I’m not going to get into whether this culturally had prominence because again, people are doing too much. Hope the sequel is better than the first film. Three hours is a massive investment.
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year, y’all. See you in the new year.
Hi Rod, Karen and esteemed guests,
Rod, I cannot tell you how thrilled I was to hear you talk up Victor LaValle’s Eve on the last episode. I love Eve and the story LaValle has been weaving. LaValle has been one of my favorite writers ever since I came across his work in the re-imagined Frankenstein comic series, Destroyer. I was all in when I discovered that LaValle, a Black Associate Professor at Columbia University, incorporated Black people in his updated look at the classic character. LaValle is also currently penning Sabretooth for Marvel and that is great as well. Between his foray into comics and his acclaimed fantasy/horror books (The Ballad of Black Tom and The Changeling are two of my favorites), LaValle is building quite a name for himself.
Kevin Conroy’s passing away made me so sad. I love him as Batman. I own the series and I too always hear his voice when I see portrayals of the character, and will forever judge others by the excellent standard Conroy set. The salute the Empire State Building did for Conroy made me smile. It proved that for a whole lot of people other he was also their Batman.
As a professor, I use public domain stories, images, and songs when putting together lessons (if I don’t have time to put together my own shit). As Public Domain Day 2023 approaches, there are some very notable properties on the list: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927 Movie), Kafka’s Amerika (1927 Novel), and – appropriately- The Best Things in Life Are Free (1927 Ray Henderson Song).
https://copyrightlately.com/public-domain-day-2023/
That being said, I will miss Kevin Conroy, and I am so glad that he was able to play live-action batman once before he died (in the CW Crisis On Infinite Earths). It was an amazing performance and it was wonderful to see him embody the character.
Thank you for that Sean! More for my digital hoarding addiction. I download books, audiobooks, comics, scholarly journal articles and historically relevant audio recordings.
Thank you for that Sean! More for my digital hoarding addiction. I download books, audiobooks, comics, scholarly journal articles and historically relevant audio recordings. The article and the site are great.