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S7 E11: Up Late - Chasing the Dragon
65 Plays3 months ago
We sit down to discuss those magical gems in movies, TV shows and video games throughout our personal histories that will forever be fond memories, and will forever be the yard stick by which we measure modern media.
Beers Reviewed This Episode:
- Beer Fontaine - Big Otis - Imperial Stout - 9.5%
- Beer Fontaine - Petit Lourde '21 - Scotch Ale - 11%
- Beer Fontaine - Patience '23 - Imperial Stout - 11.5%
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Pixels and Pints Podcast
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixels and Pints Update, where we're going to hit one big long topic for an hour to an hour and a half, as well as drink a big strong beer, one each. We've all got the same brewery tonight. So that'll be interesting. All the different... Technically, I got a second.
00:00:36
Speaker
delightful My fridge's got beer in it too. I'm Dan. I'm here tonight with Tom with his two beers. Yeah, to their time. And Pete. Uh, hi. i Couldn't think of anything smart
Theme Introduction: 'Chasing the Dragon'
00:00:50
Speaker
to say. Enthusiastic Pete. yeah So tonight we decided, well, I decided and put it to the guys and they they agreed. We did.
00:01:00
Speaker
In this day and age, well, we're gonna do an episode called Chasing the Dragon. If you don't know what chasing the dragon is, it's a drug term where you are always chasing the same high as your first hit. So we thought we'd put this into practice ah with, sorry, bad choice of words. um Put this in because of this day and age where we're getting... meeting on Multiple sequels and ah remakes and redos and on tellings of this and that in TV. Cinematic universes.
00:01:39
Speaker
And things that just seem to burn out over time. There's a few things that spark this in in recent times, which is obviously the the Marvel universe um so i'm trying to... that's That's Pete pouring his nitro beer and almost flowing it over the rim. Thank God for physics physics and a meniscus.
00:02:03
Speaker
So, yeah, inspired by a few things, inspired by ah me being absolutely burnt out on all modern TV shows and not finding anything. We, yes. um The Marvel Cinematic Universe who seem to have caught the dragon this time around ah with the Deadpool and Wolverine, but they they chased it for a long time after Endgame. um ah Star Wars that recently Kathleen Kennedy says she ah wants to leave and retire on a high.
00:02:32
Speaker
Oh, really? She's got a time machine, does she? Yeah, so she'll be she'll be chasing the dragon there, I'm sure.
Beer Reviews and Personal Reflections
00:02:41
Speaker
So inspired by all those things, we've picked a movie, a TV show, a game and a beer going on theme for us all. Do you want to introduce your beer, Pete? It seems you've already poured it. Sure.
00:02:54
Speaker
So me to go first with my first little beer that I've oh i didn't finished. Oh, i didn't know didn but know it doesn't count. My to be a Tom. Hi, jacking. Hello. ah I can review these guys again, because I don't work from anymore. And I'm very excited because I went back to the brewery. I went back to batch the other day had a wonderful time. The guys are still great. um But now my ah embargo on reviewing batch beers on the podcast is done well and truly after my end of employment there.
00:03:21
Speaker
I'm very excited to get the newest edition of their coffee, uh, milk stout on nitro. Um, they've, uh, started using double roasters flight path as their, uh, their coffee of choice. Um, and it is good because they've basically gone back to a large format can to get more of the deliciousness. And I needed a real pick me up after work today. Um, there is a really, really nice pizza coffee flavor coming through.
00:03:48
Speaker
And then that sweet milkiness of your regular LC, um, your LC base coming through. And it's, it's almost more like, like a really like a triple shot marker. That's the kind of flavor I'm getting in terms of like, you're thinking like a coffee kind of thing. Um, and, uh, yes, but it's, it's good. Uh, it's good to see the guys. You can tell though, that they're, um,
00:04:12
Speaker
They got rid of their canning line and are using, um, printed labels, East coast, no using East coast to fill cans now. Um, and the nitro was very different to the the nitro pause I've had of years past. So, um, they had their own old canning line, the nitro kind of down pat. Um, it's still smooth and delicious. And don't get me wrong, but as someone who drank a lot of.
00:04:36
Speaker
Nitro batch beers over the years. You can, um, can kind of tell the difference just in seeing it in the head. The head was a lot, uh, bubbly, bubbly, and almost like fluffier as opposed to like the kind of solid creamy head you used to get in some of the ways they.
00:04:52
Speaker
packed their nitro views, but it's excellent. Um, I won't review it just cause it's a little, a little sneak peek that I might be able to do some more batch beers on the podcast, but it's, it's very, very enjoyable. Nice little coffee hit and it's going to get me through the next hour recording. So happy fucking days.
00:05:08
Speaker
Onto you Peter. So you'll just kind of jump in in the middle of the episode to review your actual beer. Yeah, i'm gonna I'm letting it warm up a bit. Yeah, cool. um So I'm drinking, this is probably, excuse me, where did that come from? Frog jumped in my throat. This is probably first episode in fucking seven seasons. So ah I think we're at, how many episodes are we up to? 120, 119, 120, somewhere around there.
00:05:36
Speaker
But I think we've ever been drinking that will ever review beers that were donated to us from listeners. So um huge thank you to the cat jumping up on me um to be Fontaine and Jeremy for supplying us with a little love pack of various fontaine beers.
00:05:56
Speaker
He's been a a listener for some time now and apparently we've gotten him through some big brutee so for the he's so um Thank you very much guys. This is
Favorite Movies and Their Impact
00:06:05
Speaker
the whiskey barrel imperial stout on nitro Now it's i mean it's a very dark black can with dark copper lettering on it, so it's it's hard to say on the camera. I had this off nitro the other day, so it's the same base beer on and off nitro. um and i'm just trying to I think it was the ah first beer I had for the night actually. so
00:06:29
Speaker
I'm fairly certain it's very similar. It's just obviously it has a different texture. um It's got a different mouthfeel. It's nice and kind of pillowy head. It was it yeah ah was a pretty good pour, to be honest with you.
00:06:42
Speaker
It was a good pour. That's probably the best pour that I've seen you do. Yeah. Usually I make a big fucking mess with nitro. Um, lots of, lots of solid coffee notes. It's got a really good bitterness, um, from the amount of coffee. The bourbon, bourbon barreling does come through. It's quite, it's not in your face. Sometimes it can be too subtle. Sometimes it can be kind of overpowering. This is kind of just about spot on for me.
00:07:09
Speaker
And some good chocolate chocolate notes coming through the base as well. Um, certainly when I was trying to clear the froth. I'm wondering if I was going to have to drink it with a straw. Uh, you get a lot of the kind of the milky, I wouldn't say milk chocolate, but you kind of get the milky texture and then you get the chocolate flavor through the, through the nitro head a lot more than you get in the flavor of the beer. But that's fucking excellent. Um, I'm going to have to give that a four and a half. That's a really fucking solid Imperial stat. So it's nice.
00:07:39
Speaker
So, is it bourbon or whiskey bound? Whiskey, my apologies. Yeah. Less sugar that way. Better for the hips. You leave my hips out of this episode, Tom. Well, they don't lie. And they bring all the boys to- no, never, wrong song. Carry on, Dan.
00:08:00
Speaker
I also have a beer fontane. So thank you for the guys or Jeremy for sending this over. And also he said we could do these on or off the podcast. We were not in any way obligated to do these on and review them. He just sent them over as a bit of a care package. I just want to throw that out there. And if he made a dumpster fire in a can, we would call it out. So that was the risk he was taking. Yes, definitely. But This is a fucking phenomenal beer. I don't know how many of these were actually in the pack ah because I saw this as soon as I took it out and I'm like, I'm keeping one of these or the only one of these. I can't remember if there was another one in there, but like I'm putting this aside because I want to drink it. It's says a Belgian quad, wee heavy. eat It's a ride. I got that one too. Yeah.
00:08:48
Speaker
Right. Right. Whiskey barrel aged. It's 11%. It's, uh, my Belgian French is terrible. Pity, uh, the road L U L O U R D E. Isn't that.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, I did. Definitely didn't get that. That's the, that's the oak barrel things, the Ludra that we were, we've talked about that before. Okay. Good. thing and like yeah Glad you know what you're talking about. i I just convincingly bullshit all the time. This is a fucking phenomenal beer. Like it's everything that it says. The just the beautifully short to the point description on the back of the bottle is once again, tickling my fancy.
00:09:34
Speaker
A beer, sorry, it's white riding and I've got less low light in you. A beer bought together by two ideas of a Belgian dark, strong ale with a wee bit of Scottish influence. A big soft malt beer with caramel and stone fruit flavours. It's balanced with sweet and spicy umami, a cognac-like finish. I don't know about the the the stone fruit flavours, but everything else that is there is Excellent. the You get the whiskey barrel, when I poured it, it had a ah light a light head to it. It's settled now, but the you got the whiskey barrel straight away on the aroma, the the woody whiskey smell of it, the spice of it there. The
00:10:21
Speaker
It's oozing with complimentary flavors all the way through it. there the The toffee and the the the wood and the whiskey and that the the slightly so salty, spicy umami characters there. It's it's absolutely phenomenal. It's incredible, actually. a ands for For something that's a blend of styles, it's a great because they don't always or very rarely work out when you try and blend styles because they have styles on their own for particular reasons. Um, but that's fantastic. I absolutely love it. And I'm going to have to try and sit because it is 11%. So what's it called? Sorry. What? I don't think it's actually called anything and unless it's just Lord 2021. So it's been barrel aged. No, this is the 23 2023. Okay.
00:11:21
Speaker
2023 got it. ah No, that was not in my my love package. Sorry, Pete. that's that's You might have to get online and get all good. All good. It's a it's a really it's a really beautiful label too. Like it's a simple it's just got some geometric.
00:11:40
Speaker
um Sorry, the white. That's capturing it. got it It's got that slightly beautifully embossed silver logo on the middle of it. The rest of the labels just matte. It's really nice texture. It feels nice. It's ah good it's ah it's great.
00:11:58
Speaker
And impeccably lined up too. He, I'm sure Jeremy double-checked that full setting him. it's absolutely It's absolutely ridiculous. If you didn't know there was a scene there, you would say it's just one layer, like. Yeah. Slipped it over the top and, slipped it over the top and stuck it on as a cylinder.
00:12:18
Speaker
I'll have to have to check mine once I it's still it's still wrapped in the paper in the fridge like very carefully laid laid to rest. Yes. I think I'm wrong. I think I was referring to another word that started with L and sounded a little bit like lewd photo photo. I think that's what I was thinking. We had the Hop Nation photo sours a while back. um Translates it's French for heavy.
00:12:43
Speaker
Oh, okay. We, we heavy. Oh, petite. Little heavy. Okay. Yep. That makes sense. Yep. Okay. That's fucking perfect sense. It's it's butifieds it french funny. i but we I've got it. So I've got a new guy. I know I'm going to derail this conversation before we get started. I got a new strap in everyone. New staff member at work that i've I've just employed. Um, and he's of French heritage grew up in the Caribbean.
00:13:11
Speaker
on one of the islands um and then spend a whole bunch of time in Montreal in Canada. um It's really funny because one of my other staff members that sits next to him, so it's kind of me against the window, then Seb, the new guy, and then Michael.
00:13:25
Speaker
um michael Born in Hong Kong, Chinese heritage, but if you ever spoke to him over the phone and you hadn't met him, you would never know that he was Chinese. It's like Sui, Aussie accent as, except- But Sui is Aussie. Well, yes, but do you know what I mean? Like it's and Asian heritage, Chinese heritage. Yeah, you're right. he I mean, Sui was born and raised here, but um But you would never know that he had a Chinese heritage when you talk to him over the phone, except when he talks to anyone with any kind of accent. It doesn't matter what the accent is. The minute he's speaking to somebody on the phone, he slips into this thick Chinese accent. Really? And and it's always been it slightly entertaining, but now I've put him next to a guy with a French accent and now it's like, where is Michael and what have you done with him? So bizarre. Anyway, carry on. I don't know where they came from.
00:14:17
Speaker
It's story time, gentlemen. It was. um I might as well jump into my beer because I've cracked it and had ah had a fair few s sips. um I have the the Patience 22 Another Beer Fontaine. I've got two others left from the care package. um The Australian IPA was bang on as well. So Jeremy, if you listen to this, that was an absolute cracker. um I would
Comedy and Comedic Talent Discussion
00:14:44
Speaker
definitely be getting more of that. ah So this is patience 23. The whiskey barrel ah
00:14:50
Speaker
imperial stout. um They say on the back there that they have used an Australian single malt whiskey barrel, ah which they laid this in for one year. um and they very like I totally agree with them. One whole year of waiting, looking at barrels and being patient, knowing it's worth the wait. I imagine that must be very tempting as ah as a brewer, knowing you're making something that good and just staring at it.
00:15:12
Speaker
I'm for a year going wanted now can't have it go away is also that massive anxiety that it might not be good and. you get nothing I look it's it's kind of very similar description tip to Pete's except so much whiskey it's great in terms of like.
00:15:34
Speaker
This actually feels like I've without realizing dropped a shot of wheat like a boiler make it myself um like so much whiskey straight up front um ah like a real nice hit of booze it's not completely overpowering but it's that that that woody whiskey like barrel note coming straight through at the top and then it's just decadent chocolatey notes. um And it's it's a really long, long lasting beer on the palate, like just a couple of sips and i'm still it's still rolling around in there. um This is absolutely sensational. You know, it's 11.5%. That's for sure. I'm very warm and fuzzy all of a sudden. um And loving life. ah Yeah, this is definitely worth the wait. They've, you know, well done. Well done is all I can say.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I'm definitely giving that like 4.75. That's cracking. That's absolutely cracking. I think if, if it wasn't so much of a whiskey note up front, cause it is a bit jarring at first from, from the aroma, like when you first have the taste, it's that, that whiskey note. Um, but once you actually let it roll around your mouth and and and down the whole tongue, it's, it blends in perfectly. I think if it gives me a semi with the way you're describing it though.
00:16:50
Speaker
You're welcome. Um, if it didn't hit you that straight up front, I think it'd be a perfect five. It's just, it's a little bit too boozy, right? Right at the right of a tip, right? Just to finish you off. Thanks. im so to speak Dan, what was your score? Sorry, mate. I was just thinking about that while ah Tom was so talking about his, I, I think this one is perfectly barrel balanced. Uh, it's on that level. It's,
00:17:19
Speaker
I'm not going to mark it down for it just because it's my personal preference. It's probably a little too sweet for me, but the the rest of the flavors that are in there and that barrel just, it just works. the the whole The whole spice aspect of, and subtle spice, I'm not talking about big, big, heavy spice of any sort, but it's just the they that the the The whole combination of flavor in there is just fantastic. It's all so well integrated and balanced and blended. The sweetness works with it, even though it's not my preference.
00:17:55
Speaker
I think it it works absolutely brilliantly with all that. So it's a definite fight for me because that is a faultless beer in my mind. And I would be very interested if he's put that in competitions and what it's gotten. Because if I got that at the table judging, there that would be that would be gold medal stuff for sure. Close the book and walk out of the judging competition. Done for the day.
00:18:21
Speaker
I just wanted to. ah So it's funny, I don't know if it's if I'm tasting the flavors now, like the flavors change for me now because it's starting to warm up or because it's my brains reinforcing what I'm reading on the can. So there is very dark text on the back that talks about um ah smooth vanilla and caramel richness. And I'm getting a lot of caramel. I almost where there's caramel toffee.
00:18:47
Speaker
um on both the nose and in the flavor. It goes on to say it's a big Otis 2014 to 2024. Rest in peace Otis, a good boy, a great boy, the best boy. This bee was crafted with Maris Otter, rolls are yeah yeah rolled oats, chocolate wheat, roasted barley, special bee and crystal molds.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much got the same. Yeah. Yeah. I suspected it was the same base. The taste notes on the back are fantastic. They are. then It's no waffle. It's just, these are the things you, you, you, if you want to taste it. Like this is what we taste. So we want you to taste this. yeah Yeah. Yeah. They're fantastic. Also, it's a lovely purple. This can. Yeah. It's a very, very deep purple. Yeah. It's great. Not like my hand blue burglar shirt that I'm wearing today for those not watching on YouTube. but I wasn't going to say anything, but It was a hamburger shake. It was grimace, that's right. It's on the hamburger. Yeah, grimace, yeah. I'm also going to take a punt, because I know Jeremy will listen to this, and I'm going to be probably completely wrong. But the whiskey barrel that I would like to hope that I think they've used, I think they may have used the one of the starwood red wine barrels, because I'm getting really like red, winey, tanniny flavor coming through as it's warming up. Jeremy, if I've gotten that right,
00:20:09
Speaker
Thank you. If I've gotten it wrong, tell me otherwise. I'd love to know which whiskey you've used. Cause it's, it's fantastic. Yeah. I just, it's really, it's reminiscent of that. But yeah, that's my wild toss right on a coast of, you know, kind of thing. Nice.
00:20:24
Speaker
So our hour to hour and a half episode started with a 20 minute beer beer review.
Influential TV Shows and Their Legacy
00:20:29
Speaker
which is may You ruffled on for about eight um minutes about some like making phone calls. Was it pointing fingers? I was just pointing it out because it's amusing. Um, should we kick off with chasing the dragon? Sure. Let's do it.
00:20:45
Speaker
Dan, you've got some practice. Am I going? Seems I'm on the top of the list there. I think we've all got good movies, like great movies, just in different... We're more in line in the movies we've chosen, I think, than in the TV shows. I definitely think those movies definitely overlap as well. Oh, yeah. So my two Chasing the Dragon movies are Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. So the first two part of the Cornetto trilogy and what I base every English comedy I watch from now on. um on And some of them go, so I've got a beard hair in my mouth.
00:21:23
Speaker
has a good job. Yummy. It's like you even get some movies, the English comedies or horror comedies that liken themselves to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. And you go, yeah, OK, cool. I'll watch this. if it's If it's half as good, it's still going to be fun and funny. And they just don't even they don't even scratch the surface of the the the the filming of Edgar Wright and the comedic timing of um Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.
00:21:50
Speaker
and no it's just they They started with Shaun of the Dead and sue like so many other things got me onto Shaun of the Dead. He brought it over one one day um when I was like living over in Borkham Hills and he said, you've got to watch this. I think I probably watched it every night for at least the next two weeks after after he he got me on it. And I think the same was with when Hot Fuzz came out on DVD.
00:22:13
Speaker
I got that and I watched all of the behind the scenes I think the gag reel on the hot fuzz DVD is if not funnier than the movie because it's just ten fifteen minutes of the the the gag reel behind the scenes like editing for cuts ah that are just absolutely fucking hilarious I'm gonna know there's the great one in short of the dead where they doing the fence jumping yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
And it's just, you watch Simon Pegg jump off the trampoline and he goes off and then Nick Frost just goes and just smacks into the fence straight through it. So, and so is, is the, the kind of by virtue of the topic, are we, are we essentially saying that it's fucking hard to find a movie with that energy or that recaptures the energy that you got from that film, whatever that energy happens to be, because it mileage varies, obviously.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I tried to pick things that were not the stuff that we're talking too much about before. I know we've spoken about Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz quite a bit, but it's one of those things where a lot of movies repeat themselves, not so much anymore, but a lot of movies used to repeat themselves on TV or you're flicking through whatever your chosen streaming service and you go like, I just want something easy to watch.
00:23:32
Speaker
I just want something that I know is fun it live funny. but my Tickle's my funny bone. It speaks to me. Hot Fuzz was only on TV like two weeks ago. Me and Louise came in about halfway through it and she was watching it. I was doing something else and I ended up standing behind her on the lounge watching it.
00:23:50
Speaker
But way longer than I probably should have. Doing the classic dad watch. I'm not watching this. Yeah. And I just, it's, I can't think of a movie since Hot Fuzz that has, like even, even Nick Frost and Simon Pegg's other movies.
00:24:08
Speaker
all Paul wasn't as good. um I don't think World's End was as good as as the first two. and it just I think those those two set such a bar for me for English comedy. ah that i mean I know there's some incredible English comedy with Monty Pythons and all that sort of stuff. but and They set such a bar with English comedy and just comedy movies overall that it it's so hard for me to go, yep, that's as good as Hot Files because I just don't think there is one as good as Hot Files. I think it's worth talking about that tonight, too, in terms of what is it about that film or that that that property, that IP, that really stands the test of time and is difficult to find something like it in kind of modern cinema or modern games.
00:24:58
Speaker
it's a totally yeah I think that's a really good point because both of those movies are not political. They're not preachy. They don't try to tell you anything. They are sheer entertainment and and that's it. they well they' they're They're almost the perfect parodies. The perfect parody of a horror film and the perfect parody of an action cop film. yeah And then just that that was the problem with World's End was It didn't have a source. It didn't know what it wanted to be yeah like it was just a bit too. Oh, let's do all this again kind of thing. We'll get the same gang back together and I hope the magic kind of sticks and then it didn't. That was the problem. I also think it tried to be everything to everyone too with the amount of yes randomness towards the end of that film. Yeah. god out a hand but yeah
00:25:45
Speaker
And who know Simon Pegg was becoming to be a bit of a star by then and Nick Frost was doing some some other bits and pieces so who knows they they had they had a bit of head butting within hot fuzz um so who knows whether it just didn't didn't work out for him in that third movie or but maybe it was just.
00:26:01
Speaker
It's just the recapturing that magic. Maybe they were chasing that dragon too in the third episode of the Cornetta trailer. They always said it was going to be a a trilogy. And I mean, that's setting the bar really high when you've got two excellent movies. Cracking films, yeah. and And then you go for the third and you just you just yeah haven't quite captured that dragon again. i mean and so i mean I didn't think of that with this topic, but it's probably a very good analogy for it as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, Tom's one, the next one is a perfect example as well. Yes. Trying to chase it down the track with the comedy, but.
00:26:36
Speaker
I think what, especially just finishing off on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz is like Dan said before, like walking in halfway through doing something else, but you stand behind the couch and watch it. The replayability of that film is unending. It is the most watched film in my household. um Emma has ah has a tattoo on her arm that references it. A very obscure moment.
00:26:59
Speaker
And you'd love it. You'd love it. She's got a little, little postcard stamp with raspberries in it. Talk to me. She's just like, yeah. And purely because she loves that line of, oh, because everyone sells raspberries down here. Your dad sells raspberries, doesn't he Andy? Oh, and apples. It's just like, or apples in and then raspberries. Yeah. It's just that the most obscure throwaway reference from the two most annoying characters in that film. They just want to punch in the face, but they're just hilarious for doing it. Yeah. Um,
00:27:28
Speaker
But yeah, it's just no, nothing to watch. If we can't figure out what to watch, it's just fucking put on Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. It usually ends up being Hot Fuzz. Um, I think I prefer Shaun of the Dead over the two purely because, uh, just the originality of that when it came out, it's, it's still like the amount of times I walk around and see someone just with any sort of red on their shirt, you got red on you. Got red on you. I, I quote fucking, um, it's, it's on random all the time.
00:27:59
Speaker
Anytime anyone says anything that's fucking random, that's the comment. My most, my most used gif is the Sean Cheersing. Like that's my my most used ah thing, but yeah. um Yes, the movie I've chosen basically on that same thing of replayability is um Super Troopers for me. And a lot of the things that I've chosen have come through a um
00:28:26
Speaker
I know I've never really agreed, well, not agreed, but I've i've never really ah proclaimed Dan's love of the cinematic experience as much as he has. But it comes from a shared a shared experience. It was me and some of my best mates at school. Super Trivus for us was the the pinnacle of cinema for us. We'd never seen anything funnier. This was obviously pretty Shaun of the Dead and all that kind of stuff, with which in my mind is You know, you got the Canadian influence here and you got the English influence here in the comedy and they're just as good as each other. But to this day, if you put super troopers on in front of me right now, I would just sit down there and just be like giggling my little ass off. I still find it as funny, but totally agree. The terms are chasing the dragon. All the other like movies from broken lizard after that have just
00:29:15
Speaker
just fall and short. They haven't been as good. beerfest was pretty fucking close. I'll give them that beerfest was the closest. Yeah. Slap and salmon. I didn't think it was but any good at all. And and super trippers too. Just didn't anywhere near cut remastered. They probably even should have tried to do it. Well, it was, ah it was again, a lot of repeating themselves and like, you know, as much as ah that's a funny segment in their first film, it doesn't work for the entire second film of that thing.
00:29:41
Speaker
But, um, yeah, it's just one of those things for me is like, I associate all that joy of watching that with thinking back to sitting there in the lounge room with the mates. Um, and just then that's all how, that's how we communicated for years was just entirely through quoting super troopers of each other. Oh, it didn't matter what we were going through. You could find a super troopers quote to to match the situation kind of thing.
00:30:04
Speaker
I think in all cases, we're going to end up having a very personal, emotional connection to all the content we're talking about tonight. um Yeah, that's cool. i think that's I think that's a big part of it too, though, is the the connection to it. i means If it's not an enjoyable product as it is, you're not going to have a shared experience around it either. I mean. ah i ah unless you'll Unless you're the some of those people who really like punishing themselves by watching really shit films and like enduring the punishment together. this there are there There is a sect of people out there who do love doing that. But not the ones that are so bad they're hilarious. Like, ah was it the Hindi version of Star Wars?
00:30:47
Speaker
was it Oh, I'm talking about like Turkish Star Wars. turkish turkish stars oh yeah That's incredible, that movie. It's just it's just something. um I've got too many movies. i' like ah The more we've been talking, the more movies come to mind. like oh As I was just talking about Super Troops, I was just like, oh, and there's that. Spaceballs and fucking because, you know, that's got its own thing around it. yeah um and And all of the Mel Brooks films, um you know, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So many good films and I just- Freddy got fingered. Another classic.
00:31:26
Speaker
I've actually never seen it. I've seen bits of, I've never got through it all. Need to be very high to really enjoy that film these days. we yeah So on my list, and I'm not going to talk about any of them at and in super length, but I might just describe why. So Terminator 2 for me was ah at a time when I was fairly young, it was wasn't my first R rated film, but it was it was pretty early on in R rated films for me. um It scared the shit out of me and yet it was fascinating. It had the exact right mix of action. The the humor was on beat. It never felt forced. It was just natural um and such such a diverse cast in terms of you really to throw all those people into that melting pot, Linda Hamilton, who'd done the first one and to bring Arnie in for the second one in a completely different character from the first movie.
00:32:21
Speaker
It just it just worked and it it was the peak for time in at a series. They've never been able to go back and and make a film that good um and full credit to James Cameron, the guy nails sequels, particularly back then in an era where anyone who made a sequel, it was always a fucking stinking pile of shit. And then James Cameron comes along, he makes aliens.
00:32:42
Speaker
ah You know a follow-up to an epic fucking movie and took it in a slightly different direction that work just as well in various reasons for different reasons and then t2 is his very next film from memory.
00:32:55
Speaker
shame he's gone off the fucking deep end since then. um Goonies. They went down to the deep end. Searching for Titanic. Yeah. yeah we did be b easy to be aer he was in the yeah He started in the in the deeps. Goonies, um to me, there I mean, there's a whole series of action adventure films aimed at kids around that time. There was um The Explorers with River Phoenix. There was um ah the Last Navigator with a kid with a kid that um my friends all teased me. I looked exactly like the actor at the time because I had that shaggy 70s style hair bowl haircut in the early 80s when I was growing up. Yeah, you're going to Google it. You're going to look at the title of the cover and you will see it. um I was muting myself because I was burping and I didn't want to cut it out. so um But Goonies, I mean, Goonies is a fucking brilliant film. It's such a great adventure. And I don't think they make those types of things anymore.
00:33:55
Speaker
yeah I haven't watched that film in so long, though. But you don't want to immediately maybe think of Goonies for that. It's timeless. Yeah. You could watch it today. You could put it any one of them. That's the thing. I sure I could. Absolutely. Yeah. And any one of our nieces nephews down in front of it and they wouldn't even look at the age of it, I think. And it's just because it's timeless. It's an adventure movie and it's relatable, well-written, well-acted for a bunch of kids. And completely innocent.
00:34:24
Speaker
There was no message. Completely innocent. There was no political message buried in there anywhere. In fact, it's probably these days, it's probably a little un-PC. Yeah, especially with Chunk. With Chunk. Who you guys. Well, that's, yeah. No, what's the dance they make you do before they open the door? Oh, the truffle. The truffle.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, and data. I mean, come on, like in terms of racial stereotyping, is it's out there. But yeah, but it was also innocent in its depiction of those those themes as well. Yeah, that maybe you wouldn't get away with making a film like that these days, but you get pretty close. um And I would even put Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in that same category of adventure action films that I thoroughly enjoyed as a kid, maybe less innocent and more aimed at adults there, but kind of same category. Beetlejuice.
00:35:15
Speaker
raw, off the hook humor, very on the line in terms of, you know, is it ah aimed at adults? Is it aimed at kids? It was very squarely aimed at adults, but I watched it as a kid and thoroughly he enjoyed it. Oh, I love it. We'll, we'll see if they, um, if they, uh, recapture that. dragon it yep yeah Um, but Batman, the original 1989 Batman, I just think there's just so much ah hard to describe but character and pizzazz to that film. um And whilst there have been other great Batman films, I don't think they've ever recaptured what same magic for me again. And then I put Black Hawk down in there. Now I put that in there because I'm ah I love war films. I love war films. so And that for me, it stands out way more than Saving Private Ryan.
00:36:05
Speaker
and Any of the other groundbreaking films, Black Hawk Down For Me is the one that I've probably rewatched a hundred times and still thoroughly enjoy. Don't know why. ah Fair enough. Still never seen it. Yeah, it's very good. I will, I will back pay it up and it is very good. I just, I prefer, I don't know. Look, they call it the, it wasn't even the great war. It was the greater war, but it's World War II films that really just, I think it's, it was, yeah, that's, they're the ones that really always get me, always get me somehow. Yeah. Yeah. And I've watched almost every war film that you can put your hands on that wasn't made in the forties and fifties. Um, and Black Hawk Down stands out for me. there' and It's not, it's, it's not the only one, um but that's not one of the ones that really stands out for me.
00:36:46
Speaker
I have thought of some other films that I just want to mention. Any classic Muppets film, Treasure Island.
00:36:55
Speaker
Muppets Christmas Carol, yeah. I watch Muppets Christmas Carol every Christmas. We watch it every Christmas night. I remember you saying that actually, yeah. We do. Emma fell asleep last this year, or last year, and I just went, perfect. Turned it up, cracked another beer, had the time of my life. But Scrooge, that brings Scrooge to mind for me with Peter Murray, or Bill Murray, sorry. Peter Murray? Yeah, Bill Murray. Bill Murray. Yeah, I'm thinking Peter from Ghostbusters Bill Murray. Yeah, carry on. Sorry, for a second I thought you'd meant Scrooge in Muppets Christmas Carol.
00:37:24
Speaker
No. So Michael Caine would come and slap you. um And then hook. i i I should have put hook there. Oh, there you are, Peter. The amount of times I've said that to you.
00:37:37
Speaker
For no reason, just you walk into the room. Oh, there you are, Peter. Yes. He just went to take a piss. We're in his house.
Co-op Video Games and Gameplay Mechanics
00:37:44
Speaker
But like that still, that the magic of that film still captures me every time I watch it. the the Plus it's the John Williams soundtrack. like Come on. And Robin Williams. oh you yeah There's not many films I haven't enjoyed with him in it.
00:37:57
Speaker
Oh man, the little kid when he's got Tootles marbles and he said Tootles lost his marbles, that fucking still gets me. I love it. it's just it did the hook is great Hook is a great one too. like yeah it's where It's another one of those ones. I mean, Robin Williams, you could bring up so many Robin Williams films.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, it was 10 years ago the other day since he passed. Yeah. Just on a sad note. Let's all cry now. Okay. You know what? I went back and not too long ago, it wasn't for his anniversary of his passing, but not too long ago, I was, don't know why, I just needed to search for some of his old stand up material.
00:38:32
Speaker
Fuck, he was funny. He was off the chain. He runs circles around most humans in terms of his ability to think of something funny on the fly. And yeah and for a long time, I've carried around this this idea that unlike most comedians who have to sit there and write material and test material and rewrite it and refine it.
00:38:51
Speaker
He was a guy that you could throw into a situation and he would just instantly be hilarious, not just funny, but hilarious. Yeah. So some of his improv stuff, some of his, ah because he was on a couple of improv shows, um, like American game shows sort of improv, um, just off the hook, hilarious. And then he stand up.
00:39:10
Speaker
He stand up was die status fantastic because he put himself and certainly in the early years he put himself into an improv situation where he would walk around and work the fucking crowd and would carry someone's jumper around and took someone scarf off the off their neck and put it around his head and played like eleven different characters this is before he was famous for that.
00:39:30
Speaker
So yeah, anyway, the only, the only, the only, the only comedian that I can compare that's in these days that, that I know of is Ross Noble. Ross Noble is incredible at just doing things just off the cuff. And I, I don't know how much he prepares his shows or how much I'd love to actually go and see him back to back, like on two different nights or the same tour, just to see how much is prepared and how much goes on because he's just.
00:40:00
Speaker
He had us on the floor one night where he was just talking to a woman in the front row when. She hold up but she held a bag on a lap the entire ah the entire session she was in the front row and he's like why did you hold it there did you think someone was gonna come and steal it and he does this whole.
00:40:18
Speaker
big, literal song and dance about her having ah a sore back. He was calling a crooked back girl and he was doing the Fergie or whoever it was. Literally did a song and dance on stage about it. And then he goes, so why haven't you just put your bag down? She goes, oh, I've got scoliosis.
00:40:38
Speaker
I have to admit, I haven't seen any live Ross Noble stuff. Oh, we went and saw him quite a bit. And he, absolute, absolute credit to him. You could see him go for a second. Oh, but and being Ross Noble and a comedian, he just leant into it. Like double, absolutely double down. But he didn't, because he's not an offensive.
00:41:03
Speaker
comedian He just doubled down on it and just went for it and he he he he apologized to her at the end of the ah at the end of the session and border a yeah like a Ross noble showbag thing and I held it out to her to come and get it from the stage and then as she just got there he dropped it.
00:41:20
Speaker
ah Wow. And he he did. And then again, to his credit, he jumped off stage and picked it up for her, but he just, he just could not resist that final laugh of getting that crowd to just laugh at this thing that, and I mean, she was, she was good. but She was obviously good about it, but he just let into it. It was, it was one of the funniest. I probably would have had a heart attack if I'd been there. I honestly would have had a heart attack. i was i'm I'm actually crying now, just thinking. So am I. I don't even fucking see it.
00:41:52
Speaker
um It was so funny. Yeah yeah I don't think Robin Williams was unique it was unique in in terms of being funny on the fly, I just think he he was best better than everyone else. He that i ever was. I mean, Russell Peter's crowd work is fucking hilarious at times as well, ah where he picks various people out of the crowd, but a lot of it's pretty prepared jokes. The Robin Williams side of things in terms of,
00:42:16
Speaker
It's films in the all those films he's in now finding out about all the moments that he improvised that made it to the final cut because they were that authentic. There was one I saw the other day, which was the scene in the birdcage when they're in the back in the kitchen tasting something and he's freaking out and he naturally fell over. Like he just slipped over, but kept going and worked it in. And you see the other guys struggling to keep it together. But he's like, no, no, no, like keep going, keep going. Everything's got to go. And they kept it in the final cut of the film. It's in there forever now. yeah um There was another one about in in Goodwill hunting he's talked the same way talks about his wife farting in yeah bed. that that was That was highly improvised. yep
00:42:54
Speaker
like and you just i didn't know and poor um It's amazing. It's amazing. And Matt Damon's absolutely pissing himself. And that's entirely authentic. yeah It's that kind of math. That's the magic that he brought to films. yeah um Amazing, amazing actor.
00:43:10
Speaker
Anyway, I think we're going to have to move on. Yeah, look at what this has inspired. These conversations that this has inspired. Going to have to, um sorry, Dan, to interrupt. I was trying to do it off air because I sent you a message. I turned it down. Oh, did you? So I'm getting, I'm actually hearing Tom through your headset. Oh, you want me to turn my headset down? not like That's me. What you're hearing is an old man. I wanted you to turn your game down too, because you are clipping a bit, but that's all right. We can cut all this out. We'll see how we go. See how we go with that. So, on to TV shows. On to TV shows. Do you want me to go first, because I'm the outlier here? Yeah, sure. Yep.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yeah, I just think of like, i obviously we've talked about this at length and in previous recordings about how i've I've really struggled to get into TV shows in recent years. I've really fallen off catching up with TV. I've i've dropped series halfway through that I'm just never going to pick up because they're just not engaging me enough. um But they I think back to these shows and again, that's that shared experience that we've we've talked about before.
00:44:12
Speaker
but The top gear and the walking with dinosaurs, walking with prehistoric, those documentaries, those old BBC ones. that was That was my family's Sunday night. that was You rushed on, whatever you were doing on a Sunday, you got home by eight o'clock so you could watch Top Gear with that. and I now still crave watching those three idiots, absolute idiots, not dissimilar to us, but with motor vehicles going at fast speeds. A whole lot more money just for the record. Yes, so much more money. but like
00:44:45
Speaker
just watching the way those three idiots interact and they've fallen off out of grace. they've They've been dropped by studio after studio, but like i it's one of the few ongoing TV series that I ah crave new content for constantly, and it's the only one I continually go back for. I think I got on the hype train for Walking Dead, dropped that after the start of the season with Negan. Cause it was just like, it's too much. You guys talking about the boys, it's, you know, I haven't started season four. Cause again, it's too much of the same thing. Um, game of thrones, obviously the last two seasons fell out. I've had now started a house of dragon enjoying it once one episode in so far, everybody We hated the ending of the latest season and I don't see it, so we can talk about that next episode. When I catch up, we can talk about it. I always love a nature documentary. I love a little yeah blue planet or ah or a planet Earth for David Attenborough and then just seeing it for dinosaurs. I was like, this is great. This is perfect. This is my child coming coming to fruition. But again, we sat down as a family unit and watched it and we didn't do that very often.
00:45:54
Speaker
We're off doing, you know, the family upstairs watching something they all watch. I'd be downstairs playing Nintendo. My brother would be off doing something else. You know, one of the other siblings would be off doing something else. But for some reason, these shows.
00:46:05
Speaker
where all of us sitting down together, um, as a big family unit of up to seven people, we'd all watch it crying, laughing, watching these three idiots often almost kill themselves in motor vehicles. Um, and yeah, it's just, that's that for me. They're the few TV shows that I still go back to like without fail. Yeah. respond And track them down, make sure I get new episodes. I never really got into either of those two things.
00:46:31
Speaker
i'm I'm not a car person and Top Gear, I really enjoyed. If it was on, I'd definitely watch it. And I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it, but I would definitely watch it. And I mean, that's another perfect version of chasing the dragon. I mean, they tried to replace Clarkson and And May and Hammond and it never worked. it never worked they' And the Australian version never worked. And the Australian version's now on Paramount Plus or it's like only on a streaming service, not even on a free-to-air TV. i mean they've And I'm sure there's multiple versions around the world. Absolutely there is. yeah have never That have never broken that international market to do it. And I mean, these were English guys.
00:47:12
Speaker
with English celebrities, yeah, we knew some of them, um, and some probably more than others, cause there was a lot of sports stars and things like that in there. Uh, so. didn't really appeal to other countries if they didn't know who these celebrities were to come in to do hot laps and things like that. But I mean, the sheer charisma of the three main people and the the humor of what they were doing, even if you weren't a car person, you'd enjoy it. Like it was just, it was just fun to watch. And you would probably learn something because you went along.
00:47:43
Speaker
ah Couple of things yeah yeah i look like i said i never really got into it i have enjoyed every episode i've seen because i obviously it's impossible not to come across them from time to time. um But yeah i never kind of went out of my way to sit down and watch them but i can totally relate to what you're talking about a family unit for me now family communicating growing up our family time was set around t.v. it was always movies or t.v. shows so that i can a hundred percent relate to back when you had to rent.
00:48:10
Speaker
a video tape with one episode. A Friday night run down to Blockbuster. With one episode of a TV series on it. Yeah.
00:48:20
Speaker
Anyway, Dan, I'm going to have to stop and feed the cats in a second. so that's We want to wait can take a break after TV shows if you'd like. yeah i mean yeah i'm i'm gonna I'm going to actually, I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to call all three of these TV shows classics. One of them probably only actually probably quite qualifies as a classic because more widely ah widely established, which is math.
00:48:42
Speaker
I mean, MASH for me, I still feel like I haven't seen every episode, but I think I've probably definitely seen every episode multiple times. I've probably only watched two or three episodes. It was always on when I was a kid. It was always on Channel 7, about 4.30 in the afternoon. yep There must have been something else on at that time. There must have been something else on at that time. i So much of it went over my head, thinking back on it. no yeah And you watch, you watch season one. I mean, I got the box set, uh, any, many years ago and you watch season one and there was no laugh track. So it's, it's very dry. It's quite different. Um, when you, when you watch that season and then it sort of become more mainstream as it went on from there and.
00:49:26
Speaker
Like i so I still remember the the the deaths that happened in it and yeah and the the the the people that stepped out and the switching of characters and things like that. and i just it's It was quite emotional for a half an hour comedy TV show. yeah was yeah I mean, it was quite heavy in what it was dealing with, but it dealt with it in a very lighthearted way. And I think that's how more people in the world should see this But they also don't make TV series like that anymore. And again, I think that's kind of the point of that this yeah this topic.
00:50:04
Speaker
Definitely. And I mean, then you, you talk at the, so my next to a classic sci-fi TV, one had 11 seasons and multiple movies. And one got one season and a single movie. Uh, we're talking Stargate SG one, which went for 11 seasons. Uh, it was your typical monster of the week with an overarching story for the season. Like you never got boring. to seet Never got boring.
00:50:29
Speaker
It's one of the few series I can, I can genuinely say 11 seasons. and It was repetitive as fuck as it was formulaic and yet it was never boring. And it evolved too. It wasn't, it wasn't just sticking to the same thing for the sake of this is the, this is the method that works for us. Oh, can you, sorry. No, no, no, it's fine. Um,
00:50:56
Speaker
you You went from the Gould in the first few seasons to the replicators in the middle, to the Ori at the end, and it was it was saying something about a religion, it was saying ancient religion, it was saying something about technology, and then it was saying something about modern religion. And it was all wrapped up into this fan but fantastical sci-fi world that was still grounded in our own, which is fantastic.
00:51:20
Speaker
And then Firefly, Firefly and Serenity. So it was ah gone too soon, but yeah it was, we've we've spoken about it many times about how it's ah the victim of the the reality TV show boom of the the early 2000s, a brilliantly acted, brilliantly written and directed, even though Joss Whedon has come up as issues um in in later years. But I mean, you can't fault these, the work that he did in the late 90s, 2000s, and the creativity that was there. And I mean, if Firefly wasn't such a phenomenal, phenomenally written and acted show, it wouldn't have been called for to be renewed multiple, multiple, multiple times over the
00:52:07
Speaker
rumors, continuous. And my thing with these is, and one of the things that it sort of inspired this to and why I've bowed out from a bit of TV at the moment is Good versus evil. You know who the good guys are. We're not in morally gray areas. The team of SG-1 were the good guys, the ghoul enslaving civilizations across the galaxy were the bad guys. The Firefly guys were, yeah, they were thieves working against the the the overall government of that because of the civil war that they lost and this and that. But when it came to a moral choice,
00:52:45
Speaker
they They made the right choice every time. They made the right choice. they Captain Mel Reynolds had a very straight, narrow moral compass. Exactly. and even And even Jane, like Jane was the jane was the one that- Jane Town's one of the best at it. Yes, Jane Town. Yes, is excellent. And jane Jane, you could say, was the morally grey one there, but No matter what, he all way he complained all the way through, but how the character was written and acted, he was still always going to make the right choice. Even if he was saying, no, we need to leave. He knew that the rest of them weren't going to, so he was going to stay with his friends and make the right choice. And I think that's the big thing now, this this morally gray area where
00:53:31
Speaker
good and evil doesn't seem to exist. The ah good are a good chunk evil, but the evil aren't a good chunk good at these characters in these TV shows and movies that are coming out now. It's a it's a real drag on me. So This is why these that's that's drag on just there's a space there. for those time just here But I think I don't look there's older TV shows and movies that have explored characters that are morally ambiguous in an interesting way that was entertaining and I think that's good TV and good movies.
00:54:05
Speaker
I think these days, everyone being morally ambiguous in an unoriginal way is what what the drag is. It's it's just. Well, I think the thing is, is because everyone knows that everyone, everyone's kind of morally ambiguous when it comes when it comes down to it at the end of the day, like in in your day to day life.
00:54:21
Speaker
So you don't necessarily want that in your entertainment. You want to know, you want that idea ideal idealistic hero archetype. You want to see that person who kind of makes the good, or kind of shows the good kind of thing, and you want your villain to be bad. Well, you wouldn't argue that Sin City was a bad movie, because but but certainly there was moral ambiguity and throughout the main characters and the main cast in Sin City.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, I just think you go you go into a movie called Sin City, you know what you're expecting. But what I guess my point is, what I'm saying is the difference isn't so much. And I look, I don't disagree with your time. Yeah, you know, there were more black and white characters and that is that is a layer of entertainment. But at the same time, I actually think what's missing these days is not that everybody is morally ambiguous or that We've got less easily identifiable heroes versus villains. I actually think it's because there's no depth to them. If you're going to do morally ambiguous. Which I was going to get to. Sorry, Tom. Sorry. the my they got off I was going to say that that's just people are now using moral ambiguity as a way of disguising some bad character writing is basically was was the end of that point. Yeah. People are more. Again, we're on the same page. It's just. yeah yes
00:55:39
Speaker
yeah Jump the gun there, Peter. Sorry, my bad. I just i just think that that that these days, are too many characters in TV shows and movies are just cardboard cutouts. there They represent one thing. They're way too atomic in that sense. And there's no complexity to the characters. If you're going to do gray, you have to be complex. You can't just strap slap a label on something and that make the entire character psyche about that one thing, which to be honest, it's probably more a political message these tastes as well. We just slap like labels on things and make their the entire existence be around that thing, or at least try and push people towards that idea. And I think Hollywood's kind of reinforcing that.
00:56:18
Speaker
It definitely is. And I mean, that's one of these things, too, is it's like you look at all of these. And I mean, some of the movies and TV shows we're talking about so far are old. Older, like they're 10 to 15 years old. But it's they're totally older. Super Trivers is 2001.
00:56:39
Speaker
So 20, 23 years. yeah years old um So they're they're taking some of these things from back then and trying to inject them into a populace now.
00:56:51
Speaker
trying to inject them into TV shows and movies now without fleshing them out. And I mean, yeah, that's, that's exactly the hole that some of the Marvel characters have fallen into with these movies post-Endgame. They spent 2008 to whenever Endgame coming out, really focusing on three main characters with Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. And they flesh those guys out really well. And then the others were support characters that were well fleshed out once the main guys had been established and which led to.
00:57:28
Speaker
There's seven or eight people that were involved in Endgame, like, and you being emotionally attached to almost every single one of those seven or eight characters across two, two movies, but they just, yeah they just kind of lost that afterwards. And they, they took the wrong, they took the ah wrong lessons from what happened in that that phase one through three or four, whatever it was, and and then tried to roll it out for different characters that didn't have the backstory or where it fleshed out enough for people to care about.
00:57:58
Speaker
But I also think they focus on the wrong aspects of the characters that they were dragging into that supporting cast like even Ant-Man. Ant-Man's a phase two, phase three character. Must be phase three. He came in pretty late, but he was there for Civil War. End of phase two. Yeah. So he was the last one of phase two. Yeah. So it's absolutely connected. Yeah. Yeah. So smack bang in the middle of that first kind of section, that first era. And yet.
00:58:25
Speaker
I didn't find him a compelling character, but the comic book is quite compelling. Like the character in the comic book has a lot more depth to it than they have kind of displayed in the in the movies. And I find a lot of the content they've done since just doesn't have that emotional context to it anymore. I have to say they did a decent job with Tom Holland's Spider-Man, but I think that's because of Tom Holland more than it is about Spider-Man.
00:58:52
Speaker
Anyway, um anything else on that before I play off through mine? I'll play through my TV shows first. and okay yeah That way we can kind of, yeah, yeah midpoint. um And I've talked about this to death, so I'm not going to do it again. 2005 Doctor Who, um season two. So when when David Tennant came in um and the first couple of seasons of David Tennant, we're just, ah they've never managed to recapture that magic for me. um And the very first episode of Matt Smith.
00:59:23
Speaker
When he walks through the, the. There's my David. Nice. When he, when he walks through the 3d hologram of all of the past doctors, that was still, that's actually the very first episode I watched and then went all the way back to Chris Eccleston. I didn't even know they had relaunched. stock Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So I didn't know that they had restarted doctor who until 2010. I just happened to meet my parents house and the first Matt Smith episode was playing.
00:59:53
Speaker
I'm like, what the fuck are we watching? That was like another, I know you were going to put Doctor Who in, which is why I didn't, because it was like, that was again, we watched Doctor Who with Dad, because Dad was the massive Whovian. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the very first episode I watched was season, episode one of season six. So 2010, 2011, I was at my parents house, they put some shit on, I was kind of half watching and half talking to them and I'm like, the fuck is going on? Who?
01:00:19
Speaker
that Is that the fucking TARDIS? What the, what the fuck? Because, you know, the last, how the last Doctor Who episode I had watched would have been, um, Baker, Tom Baker, when I was hiding behind a couch as a kid. So, and so I went home and I went and I rolled out the the Jolly Roger and I went all the way back to Chris Eccleston and just gobbled that whole thing up. So, yeah yeah um, and these days it's just, ah it's a hollow shell of what it used to be. It's just, it's just not, it's not, yeah I haven't been on back since Capaldi.
01:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, Capaldi, like both. em writing well yeah We just dropped off. I watched a few episodes of Jodie and liked Jodie as a doctor. But just again, that there was almost too much of a supporting cast. I think she was an she's an excellent actress. I really enjoy her in other stuff. She just came off like, unfortunately, she came off a really Boring shitty season and never got yesterday have the chance to run and i'm I'm trying really hard to like the new doctor I'm I am and I'll probably continue making an effort for at least the next half season, but yeah, it just it's not aimed at me It's it's too political. It's I don't it's not that I i thought your review of I thought your review of it was was very well done
01:01:33
Speaker
Thanks. HouseMD, I just finished rewatching the entire platform from start to finish. And i do i and and all the way through... never lupus It's never lupus. almost got It had just touched my lips and I'm like, nah, you started to say it and I'm like, gotta pull the glass away.
01:01:52
Speaker
the There are very few shows, in my opinion, made sense that TV shows that have pushed boundaries in a way that I can just sit there. It's it's the only series, it's one of the only series I can think of that I genuinely end up in tears laughing through several episodes a season. it I live alone with cats, like I'm the crazy cat lady. It's one of the only shows that makes me fucking barely laugh alone in my apartment watching.
01:02:20
Speaker
My only problem with House is it did exactly what I said Stargate didn't do is it never evolved. It was always, it it it stayed the same across the 67Cs that it ran. no I'd disagree. I'd say it evolved. I think, I think, ah I think it went deeper into its own. To an extent.
01:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think some of some of the the season five, season six for memory um when they really delved into his painkiller addiction. That was fucking heavy. That was super fucking heavy. and And the other reason it resonates for me is it's so, and and ironically, for very similar reasons to the old Doctor Who in a very different format, it is so fucking human.
01:03:03
Speaker
The characters are flawed in a really believable manner that makes you buy into the the emotion behind it. There's for every berry belly laugh, there's some really dark, sad moments that there's a couple of tearjerker out there too. Absolutely. And by the way, there was like 11 seasons.
01:03:20
Speaker
What was there that many yeah yeah two thousand four to two thousand twelve um i don't have enough money i am db sorry no eight seasons my bad eight seasons, i'm close to what you said that what i said i'm in the last one is star trek at tng next gen, the i could have picked any of the star trekks i never really watch ds nine,
01:03:40
Speaker
um I recently went back and watched TNG g start to finish just because I knew there were episodes that I hadn't seen. um Voyager for me was the one that fucking hooked me. um because I really like the high tech nature of it and then went back to TNG and loved it all the way through. But to me again, episodic content to me just isn't like that anymore. That's another creature feature TV series that just never really staled for me because I had that exploration and had that celebration of the the best parts of humanity. It never failed to acknowledge the darker parts, but it still celebrated the
01:04:16
Speaker
the bright parts, and it's kind of similar again to Doctor Who. You know, Doctor Who, the the bits that I liked, the seasons that I liked celebrated what it was to be human and how everybody's important and unique and and the the exploring, you know, I don't know if you remember some of the the really early episodes with Tenet and the wonder on, I think he was at the end of Earth. They were on the on the viewing platform to watch Earth blow up.
01:04:44
Speaker
And he's like and he just has this wonderment about him that restaurant at the end of the world. Very similar. End of the universe. but But he just describes that, you know, but look at you now as a race. You're, you're everywhere. You're, you spread yourself across the galaxy. You are the explorers. We get a million, million alien races and you are the explorers. So yeah. Anyway. In stark contrast to the agent Smith of the matrix being like, you are a cancer.
01:05:13
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. I think we'll take it. Oh, there's a new upload episode. Best monologues. Oh, strap yourselves in. we're doing we're doing yeah and you have You have to perform it. that's At the end of your beer, you have to perform your favorite monologue. the Second twist, no Blade Runner.
01:05:36
Speaker
No Blade Runner. Yeah. Okay. Blade Runner. The the best monologue ever on film. can be I literally think that that's easily the best ad lib monologue of all time. Anyway, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.
01:05:50
Speaker
ah that then ten then it then then and and and and hey and then then then then and then then and and and and hey hit the third and and and then then and and e I think we're back. I'm not a hundred percent sure. You think we're back? We we can talk about her in chasing the dragon for video games. um We're at the halfway point, but I think it's probably more likely the two thirds point to be honest. Definitely the two thirds point. I think this will go quicker. Yeah. um Do you want to kick off Dan?
01:06:21
Speaker
Again, these are, these are another part of why this sort of inspired the idea in my head. So I've got my Friday night crew of, uh, Suey Kelvins and Steve. So the, the four of us play, play games every Friday night. We have since lockdown. Uh, and the very first, just Pete's little bastard. I've been jealous. I've been jealous since the start. It's unfortunate. Cause most of the games we play are four player. Uh, so the very cold and there are walls after me.
01:06:53
Speaker
Well, it used to be sin check. Dan and I playing fucking um grand theft auto online when that first came out. That was kind of the last real gaming crew. Anyway, carry on. Tell us your story, Dan. but that the first The first game we played as the the group was suggested by Kelvin and it's a game called Pulsar. I've mentioned it before and it's basically and it it's an indie game, but it's basically Star Trek.
01:07:21
Speaker
running a starship, jumping between sectors and doing whatever needs to be done in the sectors. And the way we've been talking about it recently, because we've we just last two weeks ago, we jumped into a new a new version that we called ah Void Crew that we thought might be something similar. um But it was same, same, but different in a bad way.
01:07:44
Speaker
And what we ended up deciding was Pulsar is the first real co-op game we've played. okay So we've we've played a lot of games which are parallel play with each other. So as a group, so even Vermintide, things like that, where you play different characters within a group.
01:08:04
Speaker
through a mission, but what you do within that level, within that mission affects your other guys, but doesn't really affect your other guys. Everybody can kind of do everything. It's this and that. With Pulsar, you're a Starship crew, you run the Starship together, but you have your jobs. You have, and you you are assigned your jobs. You're like,
01:08:27
Speaker
Red shirts, yellow shirts, blue shirts, you you are, it is Star Trek, so you are assigned what you have to do. Only the captain of the ship can access the star map. Only the captain of the ship can um plot the jumps and start and command the crew in certain things.
01:08:45
Speaker
The engineer has his skills. I played the engineer and he has to balance all of the power and usage and the coolant and the ships and repair things as you go and like adjust the power for the pilot, adjust the power for the weapons, whatever is needed to be done. The engineer has to do that within the vital moments of combat or whatever the scenario happens to be. the pilot has to fly, the gunner has to gun, and the captain has to... Captain the ship. Captain, they have to direct the crew. So we decided this is the only true co-op game we've actually ever played. Like a lot of the other games are co-op games, but this is the only true co-op game where you need to do your... Because it's one shared outcome. Yes, you need to do your assigned job
01:09:40
Speaker
for the success of the mission. If you don't do your assigned job, the mission does not succeed and the ship blows up and that's game over. Isn't it the premise and the drawcard to Skull and Bones? Isn't it very similar but set in a very different kind of ship? No, I think Skull and Bones, you are just a captain of your ship. You don't you don't you don't work as a crew.
01:10:02
Speaker
not well No, well, no, I think it's more it's more like it's it's multiplayer online. So it's an amada of ships that each individual player pilots. Yeah. OK. But even even if you want to draw comparisons there, Pete, Sea of Thieves.
01:10:16
Speaker
Sea of Thieves is you you would go, okay, well Sea of Thieves is just Pulsar as pirate. No, it's not, because in Sea of Thieves, you have no difference between you and the next person. Yeah, someone might drop, someone might steer the ship. Someone might look at the map or someone steering the ship. Someone might and arm the cannons, but you aren't Assigned those jobs you are a blue science officer you are a gold commanding officer you are a ah red security officer. um so it it's goingnna probably closer Close to the world a war craft where if everyone doesn't play their role in a raid everybody dies you just. du
01:10:55
Speaker
Yes and no, because there's this just a multiplayer game. Just can't be. the World of Warcraft is just yeah, it's just a multiplayer game. This is this is a true co-op. Like if we have no captain, we cannot jump. Yeah. Well, I disagree with you then with in terms of my experience with in terms of the type of ah wow experience I'm talking about. If you don't have a tank in your group of five, if you're doing a five man raid, if you don't have a tank, you don't go into the dungeon because you'll get insta wiped. If you don't have a healer, you get insta wiped. But you could do go into the dungeon.
01:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, you could physically go in there. It just wouldn't be able to get past the first trash mob. But yeah, without a captain impulsive, you don't jump. You don't do anything. You stay in that sector and you die of hunger in that sector. No hunger involved, but I'm just using that analogy. yeah So we're we're saying this is the only.
01:11:54
Speaker
the only true co-op game we ever played and we played a lot over the last three or four years ah and we're still we're still literally chasing that dragon we played void crew two weeks ago and yeah there was some incredibly funny moments where.
01:12:09
Speaker
Sui, me and Sui were standing by the exit door airlock and he opened the exit door. He disengaged the safety switch and then proceeded to open the inner door. He's got a video clip of it. And I, I laughed so much, I i actually couldn't breathe. I was, I went silent on the video for a good 30 seconds to a minute because I was, I was double over laughing because he voided me into space. I had no, the jet packs are in the exit.
01:12:40
Speaker
the spacesuits are in the airlock and we hadn't made it into the airlock. So he voided us into space and I had no jet back. So I was just i was just stranded. there was that the The only thing that they could have done was side shift the ship over to me and swallow me up in the airlock so I could get back in, but that wasn't happening.
01:12:59
Speaker
so There was some funny moments like that, but it was a mission-based thing. It was very unbalanced, so you couldn't act like a crew. You couldn't repair the ship and continue on to the next jump. Even though that those mechanics were there for you to do, it just felt really unbalanced. and there was ah there just there wasn't There wasn't that magic to it. Pulsar is You set off at the start of your mission, you jump over the galaxy. There's no break in it. The only break you get is when you're going through hyperspace to the next sector. like It's not mission based. There isn't finish a mission, go to a menu, restart, pick another mission, go there. It's It's very much set out on that exploration like Star Trek. You go out to achieve this mission and you go to space stations and you put your wishes into the captain for him to buy things within the space stations that you're at, upgrades or coolants or things to keep the ship running or upgrade the ship. Where do we spend our credits? What do we what sort of sector we dump to next? Do we jump to a ah sector that's got a planet that we can go down and explore and do some puzzles and then come back up, do an away mission?
01:14:07
Speaker
Things like that. I mean, Pulsar is an incredible game done by an indie crew.
Exploring Favorite Video Games
01:14:11
Speaker
So it's fantastic. And we have been chasing that dragon since 2020 to try and find that backup again. So I'll run through my other ones real quick. So my other one was... Oh, just quickly before you do, Dan. So I just did quickly look up Sea of Thieves in terms of that. There is an option to play Sea of Thieves as a four person crew doing essentially what you just said. But the difference is you can just go in solo and sail your ship around, do you think? Yeah, right.
01:14:37
Speaker
There's an option to do what I'm sure it was advertised as crew. If you come in with a four-player crew, you literally you have someone who steers, somebody man's cannon, someone navigates, um and someone who scouts from crows nests, like, and you all board together. So you can, you could do it, but it's not. But that then you could also go, cool, the guys have gone. I'm going to take my little ship out and I can do a solo adventure.
01:15:01
Speaker
So we we did we did play Sea of Thieves as well, and we did we took on those roles as well. And Sea of Thieves is fine, but there's there' actually not that much happening in the world. but um the The other one that we've been sort of chasing to, we Valheim was the first ah survival game that we we played together as well. ah And we kind of hit a high point with their ah playing that too.
01:15:27
Speaker
It's very simple graphics it's got a very peaceful fun world we were logging in during the week sort of two to three nights a week and whether it was two to three or all of us logging in just to collect resources so when friday night came around our resources were there we could do some building,
01:15:46
Speaker
We could go out and explore the next area and things like that. We've played a lot of survival games since, um and crafting survival games since, and we've never quite hit that. that ah Maybe two of us are really into it and two of us aren't, um but it has never been a game since we've played Valheim that in that survival ah that's surviv crafting genre that we've all gone, yep, I want to be in this world two to three nights a week, I think, My parents, I'm pretty sure still still log in from time to time just to make stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredibly peaceful. yeah Yeah. Incredibly peaceful just to get in the music, the sun setting, all that. Just go and do a little bit of crafting, a little bit of Viking exploration. And it's just, it just hit a whole bunch of notes.
01:16:38
Speaker
And my last one is um just Monkey Island, Secret of Monkey Island, Adventure Games. It was the first one I was exposed to. Cause if you had that, I probably would have. And I just, I just don't think anything, like even after all the Monkey Islands, full throttle, Day of the Tentacle, I just don't think anything ever hit that magic of ah that Secret of Monkey Island. They've done them, they've done several remasters of them, another one recently. So it'd be interesting to jump in and play that again through. so That's me waffling for a good 10 minutes. So I'll be to you guys. Tom. Uh, look, i I think I've talked about it before, but the game that still I think about on the regular and I will never stop thinking about it. And I know that if I ever went back and played it or if they, they rebuilt it from the ground up and gave it new graphics and all that kind of stuff.
01:17:30
Speaker
don't think it ever reached those heights. And it is ultimately, it is the ultimate dragon for me and it is Lord of the Rings, the third age. I was obsessed with that game. I have not replayed a game as many times as I have that. It was a PS2 GameCube era. You had a party of six. You could take three into battle. It was turn-based combat um and you ran kind of parallel to the fellowship, uh, through the entire trilogy of films. It was at the height of, of, of, of, you know, the Lord drinks films coming out, um, was when it was released. Uh, you started off with a, with your gondorian soldier, you had your, uh, elf and your dwarf. Um, and then you got, oh, this is testing the memory. You got, uh, Rohirrim,
01:18:21
Speaker
a Rohirrim shield maiden who didn't have a shield, but she double wielded axes and she was useless. Um, but, and then you got a, You got a Ranger of the North, and then you got, for some unknown reason, still to this day, you got a Rohirrim soldier, one of the Rohirrim, who for some reason could suck the soul out of an enemy. um and if you gave him like Literally, he went he like put his hand forward, Mortal Kombat-style, and there was like this purple swirling like energy that came out.
01:18:55
Speaker
And if you gave him enough soul stone, so they were element stones, if you gave him enough, you overpowered him to the point where he could one shot the eye of Sauron. Which you fought at one point. You fought the eye of Sauron and if you had him powered up enough, if you changed the way his specs worked, he could just literally just go up and just would absorb the eye of Sauron and then just walk away spinning his spear above his head.
01:19:24
Speaker
and he's full Rohiramama. But it was just like, There were plenty of tie-in games to the movies. you weren't like You remember the Two Towers game, that great hack and slash. You had the Return of the King game, which was excellent. It was phenomenal. um You had a War of Middle Earth coming out at that time, 1 and 2, which you know expanded on like some of the more lore elements. And then Third Age just like kind of snuck in. It's kind of been forgotten about, but no it's the game I replayed the most. i
01:19:55
Speaker
I easily have start to finish that over 20 times and i I've never got sick of it. I fucking loved it. I've never seen it before. I'm watching, I've got a, I've got an hour gameplay and I'm just sort of scrubbing through it. I've never seen this game before. Wow. I fucking loved it. You fought the Balrog. You like ran through the entirety of Moria. Um, you were in Etrus. You, you went through Fangorn forest. You did everything. You went to every location. Uh, yeah, killing, killing on the pellin or fields.
01:20:25
Speaker
yeah But it was just at the height when like Final Fantasy X was out um and and like they really started bringing over those turn-based combat systems from JPRGs into Western RPGs. and it was For me, it was like the perfect thing because I really couldn't get into a lot of the JPRG stories. like I just couldn't figure out what the fuck they were talking about half the time.
01:20:48
Speaker
Yes, like I love Final Fantasy 10. But a lot of the time I was confused by the humour and the story beats. I was just like, they just don't work. And it was bad translation back then. That's basically what it was. But this just really fucking well, I adore and love this game and think about it more often than I should. It is my Roman Empire. I think about that more than I think about the Roman Empire.
01:21:09
Speaker
um Just a single player experience but i so I just start to finish it so many times. um and look if If I had it on ah on um on a modern system, I'd definitely be playing it again. The graphics would look shit, but I don't care. It was just yeah. And then you had the whole Howard Shaw soundtrack the whole way through. It was just a magical experience.
01:21:28
Speaker
um And I've, yeah, no game has ever come close to that for me. um ah Maybe Ocarina of a Time, maybe. um The other thing as well, again, a shared experience, but it was, um I've talked about it before, playing games like Titan Quest with my mates at the internet cafe, and we'd always try and make time to catch up. And we'd sit in there and we'd go through a certain thing. We'd always have one mate who had to go back to town to sell these items so he could get enough gold or, you know,
01:21:54
Speaker
because That's all he did he went around collecting items on the ground will killing all the enemies um but the same crew same crew of guys and it's similar to what damn was talking about those four of us and then we had on. We all will be back at my mate james house and we be playing smash brothers from ten pm until you know five am everyday trying to get.
01:22:13
Speaker
The way making weird rules for ourselves, for our weird combats, you know, like, Oh, everyone has to play as Kirby. So you can't absorb everyone's powers. And then who's the best Kirby player? It's like, that's just dumb, but sure. It was four in the morning and we were all, you know, a few beers deep and having a great time. But it's like the, those, those memories live on. And like that's, I don't think I've ever had a multiplayer experience like that. And never, I don't think I have a will going forward. Like.
01:22:41
Speaker
Just that was straight out of high school. We were free as a bird, but we just chose not stick ourselves in a sweaty little room with one little box fan in the middle of summer in Chatswood and fire up the game cube and play smash brothers for eight hours straight while smashing beers. And then someone would bring out their tobacco. I bought my made a Gandalf tobacco pipe for his birthday one year. And then suddenly he's smoking that while playing Smash Brothers. i tell her I'm like, this is the weirdest combination. and But yeah, it's just like, it's, it's that heyday of that, that post high school freedom. yeah You know, ah we were kings of the world. We could do whatever we want. And we chose to sit in a room and play games for hours on end. And I would literally trade anything in the world for it. Um, it was, it was, yeah, nothing will ever take that away from me. And it's a very special memory that I fondly love bringing up with people. But yeah.
01:23:34
Speaker
Again, that shared experience of that, it's just that the endless banter and and and horrible things we said to each other in the middle of the night probably pissed the fuck out of the neighbours as well. like they must doubt this but yeah Peter, on to you. Um, I went back even further because my first video game experiences were less multiplayer. I, I did the land party thing for a long time. That was a middle of honor allied the assault and that kind of era of, of yeah. Mohawk's the best fucking, Dave, the snafla rifle. We used to have a German manager in my first job and we had a um a massive land party pretty much every Friday night.
01:24:15
Speaker
It was called Fragfest. And his thick German accent while playing mohar was just perfect. yeah We're going to do Stalingrad. We must do Stalingrad. Like, dude, don't say it with that. It doesn't have another accent. So I went further back. I went to Zach McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders. I have talked about that game on this podcast before. It was one of the early Lucasfilm games using the SCUM engine. ah It was after Manic Mansion on the Commodore 64. Maniac Mansion. Maniac Mansion. Sorry, Manic Mansion.
01:24:49
Speaker
um I think that's a song. Anyway, um but yeah, the old Lucasfilm or LucasArts video games. Zack McCracken always stood out in my mind as one of those adventure, click click you know, point and click adventure films in the same vein as Secret of Monkey Island, but its storyline captivated me as a teenager.
01:25:11
Speaker
What's the body language going on there, Dan? Are you reading about it? I'm watching. Yeah. It's um ah yeah fucking hilarious. It's just bringing back memories of how these these are these older games used to play where you would go walk to, but then you had to pick multiple things yeah to to tell the character what to do. I mean, it was, it really was just an evolution, ah a video game evolution of tabletop gaming.
01:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's really what they were going for. Yeah, yeah. um I just remember Zach. In Zach, there was a yak milk, you had to collect the the yak hair and there's just so many random memories that don't make any sense to anyone unless you play the game. um and And so that whole series of games, but Zach McCracken's the one that stands out for me. And then um all the dungeon crawlers. So Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder one, two and three. I remember sitting there so excited as a probably a preteen.
01:26:05
Speaker
into my teenage years where you had like. I don't know, 15, three and a half inch floppy disks that you had to fucking, you know, insert in order to install the game. I remember dungeon master, you had to, to eject ah halfway through one of the dungeons. And I remember we couldn't, I couldn't find the second disc for like an hour and I was probably in tears. I'm fairly certain I was crying. Where the fuck's the second disc? I wouldn't have been swearing at the time. Three brothers. Yeah. yeah
01:26:39
Speaker
Eye of the Beholder, um I have fond memories of Eye of the Beholder 3, I think we went to the Games Wizards, um yeah the the video game store at the time, back when it was all bricks and mortar, um and coming home with the big box, the big cardboard box with all the disks inside and the big manual. um Even Black Crypt was a lot later, and yeah, that was an Amiga game rather than a C64 game, but though all those Dungeon Crawlers I remember, and I copied my dad, I remember sitting there with grid paper, drawing the maps, because it was before you had automatic maps and they're all, they're all real time games. So the the monsters moved in real time and you could move around in real time, but it was all grid based, so.
01:27:25
Speaker
You know, four steps forward, two steps to the right would always be the coral into the next dungeon. And a lot of the puzzles in the games are spatially based. So you had to pick up a rock from this room and move it to the other side of the dungeon, put a rock there or find the special sword and put the sword in the sconce or the the torch in the in the four sconces to open up.
Nostalgia in Gaming and Visual Styles
01:27:48
Speaker
that's ah It's unlocking a memory for me, Pete. Fuck.
01:27:51
Speaker
And then you fall into it and and then you you fuck up one of the pit like the the pressure plate um puzzles and a pit opens up and you drop three floors down, take a shit load of damage during a dark room, and then you're surrounded by bad guys. And if you manage to survive, then you have to work your way back up to where you were because your map's all fucked up.
01:28:10
Speaker
Now you you're flipping through grid paper trying to figure out where the fuck you are. So, yeah, now I have lots of fun memories of those kinds of games. And thank I know they still make them, like Steam, you can still go out and get, oh we were talking about the Legend of Grimrock. They've actually done a sequel now. um And there are modern dungeon crawlers, but to me, I'm almost hesitant to want to test them out because Legend of Grimrock was good, but I don't want to tarnish the memory.
01:28:37
Speaker
But it's also chasing that dragon. That's exactly what this episode's about. You have that, that ingrained, like that is part of who you are. Yeah. A hundred percent. You were never going to capture that dragon again because that is, that was a ah ah special time in time space yeah that has molded who you are. and I mean, is also why we're here having this discussion. It's like it's it's kind of come around. So it's it's one of those things like it's just,
01:29:07
Speaker
And I mean I guess the end of this conversation I mean. Not cutting you short here it's something to think about down the track is ah should we try and recapture that dragon. i I think a lot of modern films, ah especially based in the the the universes, let's just use the term they use, universes that we love, um have relied too heavily on nostalgia and taking us back to that um without any meaningful content behind it. and In a way, a lot of like tarnished a lot of people's memories of that nostalgia.
01:29:43
Speaker
Um, I, I think unless you're doing it in a lovingly crafting way. Um, and we were talking about ports, like just going back to straight ports. Some of them play so horribly on modern consoles, but why, why ruin my childhood by giving me the option of playing this game again, if you're not going to lovingly like rebuild it, like don't do a cheap cash-in perfect example.
01:30:08
Speaker
Um, is when I played pod racer on from 64 and I played it on PS five and it was like, this is dumb. Why the fuck am I playing a 64 64 game on the PS five? It was, you know, it was just there like, it was like, you know, minimal amount of cash was five bucks, whatever. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go back and play it. And it was fun to play it for a bit, but it was just like, no, I've got all this modern technology. I would want you, especially in a game sense. I want you to go back.
01:30:37
Speaker
create me a pod racer game again using modern real engine five or whatever up to now yeah and blow my fucking socks off. I think that's, that's a better way of like creating that magic and going back and like loving the straight porch. I think is the, the easy cash sale soldier hit.
01:30:59
Speaker
100%, and to me, like, I don't have problems with nostalgic callbacks. No. But if you can trust, like, Captain Marvel was a cheap cash-in on nostalgic callbacks to the 80s and 90s, compared to um Stranger Things, where it's set in that world, and yeah and there's a lot more depth to those that nostalgia. It's not just, oh, look at the posts that we put in the background. How cool are we? Because we made a callback to that movie that was out at that time.
01:31:29
Speaker
That's to me that's that's a cash-in attempt, but there's no depth to it. It doesn't try and capture the spirit. And I would say on that just like, and I i agree that I think the the the the setting in the 90s was a good idea, but it was cheaply done. um And it was too much.
01:31:49
Speaker
Well, yeah, but I think it would have been if they'd done it in a series like Stranger Things, it would have worked. But because it's done in a two hour film, it doesn't have the the legs to stand on kind of thing. Yeah. But I like totally get what you're saying. 100% what you're saying. They felt like sets. There was too many references. Stranger Things felt like the world because yes we can relate to that because we were born in that world. um But Captain Marvel felt like sets.
01:32:16
Speaker
Yeah, I just think Captain Marvel tried to tick too many boxes of nostalgia in too short a time frame. And I don't mean the two hour time frame. I mean the blockbuster scene.
01:32:27
Speaker
There aren't too many okay right obvious references. yeah okay Don't want to derail this, so remind me of something when this topic is coming to an end. Sure. um Even elvara Elvira, if you look up the Elvira video game, it was another dungeon crawler, but it had it had an actress on the front who had a very, very low cut top on it. It's in pixelated fucking 8-bit graphics, but it was like,
01:32:55
Speaker
There's boobies and and I would have been what I would have been so 1990. So I would have been eight when that game came out. um I probably would have been 11 or 12. That's fucking what's the name from the Adams family? Cassandra Peterson.
01:33:11
Speaker
um Was the actress they used yeah, and I don't think I even ever played the game. It's another dungeon crawler I might have played it, but I always remember or I don't I shouldn't be looking at that because that's naughty but it's a lot real so Let's admit we all walk down the nudie aisle in the video store back in the day and was looking Oh maybe you know I actually don't know definitely probably I'm just out of innocent curiosity but to me like i yeah I could probably there are games still coming out to this day that are that fit into that dungeon crawler genre I just hmm I don't want to ruin the memory and yet I've gone through some really interesting walks through through nostalgia I went the PSP came out.
01:33:53
Speaker
One of the first games I bought was Sid Meier's Pirates. Now that's a game that I was too young to understand how to play successfully. I enjoyed the game, but i I couldn't finish it because I was too young and stupid. And I played that on the PSP from start to finish and absolutely fucking loved it. And to me that recaptured the magic.
01:34:14
Speaker
I'm the same. Switch ah the flight to America I had and I got 80 out of 120 stars in Mario 64. I had the time of my life. I don't regret not sleeping on that flight at all.
01:34:25
Speaker
And I never will. i ah it was I was so captivated by being back in that castle um and just running around collecting stars and doing triple jumps off walls and shit. like And just the magic of the music and everything. It was just like, this is perfect. But it was but that was a straight port which worked. it's It's like that was able to recapture the magic. But I think some other games I've played that have been ports and like the good one that I haven't touched. which Thankfully, I've kind of listened, you know, stubborn dickhead that I am often not listen to other people's reviews of stuff until I've tried it myself because I always know best for what's on my head with you there 100%. But the re um the ports they did of the old school Battlefront one and two that they recently redid for modern consoles and
01:35:15
Speaker
Everyone is talking about just how jarringly badly it's done and just like it's clipping and it's just, there's there's no, there's no, none of the magic that was there when you played it the first time. Like really glad that I stayed away from that. Like that's, that's a, that's a thing I'm very glad that I stayed away from kind of thing. Um, yeah. Dan, what were you going to say, mate?
01:35:36
Speaker
So and this this actually had nothing to do with my thoughts of this, uh, this topic at all. But what popped up in my YouTube feed was one of those people that creates, um, modern, um, IPs in AI as different envisaged as different things. And one of them was Baldur's Gate in Panavision.
01:36:01
Speaker
so Panavision back in the old... Like 60s Panavision. Yeah, Jason and the... And I was looking at that. Like Thunderbirds? No, not. Panavision was definitely Panavision. No, just like Jason and the Argonauts. Like that kind of old school, original Clash of the Titans. That sort of aesthetic and feel. And I was like,
01:36:24
Speaker
If someone made a movie in that style without trying to put filters, without trying to put HD over the top of it, but using modern CGI in it for any monsters or anything like that, that could be a truly incredible, unique experience. Yeah.
01:36:46
Speaker
Because it's it's a visual, yeah got ah it's a traditional Hollywood aspect that really works and it feels fantastical and old and clean and there's something about it. And then if you were to interject a modern CGI orc into that, but it's still in that older Panavision style.
01:37:13
Speaker
That's something that could really spark the imagination and the interest of a lot of people. us Yeah. On the reverse of that. So have you guys watched Godzilla minus one yet? No, not yet. No. Okay. Just watch that. And then come back to me about that point. But the reverse in terms of what you're saying about putting the modern CGI ork into so it's modern the graphics, but old school story style storytelling style. No, no, it's like that.
01:37:41
Speaker
the The Panavision Monster in a modern shot film. It works amazingly well. I'm watching the Baldur's Gate AI in the 1950s. Doesn't it look incredible? It fucking does. but looks something yeah Wouldn't that be something that if you saw a trailer for that, that would be like,
01:38:04
Speaker
Fuck me, like not only does it go to those sick days when I had chicken pox when I was like five or six, yeah and I got to watch Jason and the Argonauts and- It reminds me of Red Sonja for some reason. Yeah, definitely. Well, Red Sonja, yeah, a little bit the Little Red Sonja was probably a little bit later. Panavision sort of 60s, 70s, Red Sonja was 80s. Sinbad, the original Sinbad movies.
01:38:27
Speaker
Like, if it just it's it it just feels that that could be something that really stood out these days. Like, choose that aesthetic, but don't make a joke of it. mean don't Like, they do it seriously. seriously yeah And do it not as a as ah as ah as a token thing, do it really lean into it and do it in in that. yeah commit We are going to make plastic sets again.
01:38:52
Speaker
yeah and but but Yeah, that was 100%. Thunderbirds was entirely shot in Panavision. The original Thunderbirds was all shot in Panavision. Yeah. And I just think that those, these are the things of like chasing those dragons that would actually work. Bring those things back that really talk to, but yeah I mean, it does have to be backed up by a good traditional story.
01:39:14
Speaker
But i think it's i think it's some of those things that could could really work and like make a fucking billion dollars because it's something unique and different. The fucking beholder at the end of that sequence is amazing until until everyone fucking does it that's the problem that you have.
01:39:31
Speaker
Yeah. You get that first couple of ones that do it really well. And then you have, you know, but again, you have the Jason, the drag. Yeah, that's it. They're chasing that. You have your Sony's and you have your Disney's and you have your Fox's all making all different, all different IPs. They'll bring back clash of the Titans and all those ones against. You know, it's pointless me having lights in my kind of recording studio when the fucking cat sits right in front of it. It's a cool shot from my angle, from what you guys can't see, but it's kind of like the bat symbol in front of the fucking moon. That's the cat right now. But just notice how dark my shot went.
Craft Beer Experiences and Unique Flavors
01:40:09
Speaker
Shall we quickly move through some beers that have blown our minds and then we'll wrap the episode because we're running out of time pretty quickly. Yep. Yep. We'll call it here. Who's gone first?
01:40:18
Speaker
I'll go first because i got one that's very simple i just got the the ah mountain goat high tail ale on nitro just a four and a half percent red ale on nitro it was one of the the pioneering kind of craft beers they made it for 10 years then they stopped stage they they ah curved it just before it just before or just after the buyer i can't remember when they when they moved as part of ceb but that beer was one of the first Like the young Henry's real out was one of the first on that, that journey into craft that i I took and that really captivated me. Um, he says, as he's drinking a red hour now, obviously they've taken hold into my brain and we'll never let go and never learn, never shall they? Um, Slick Reef by Yulies, by the way, fucking crack it. Um,
01:41:03
Speaker
But yeah, it's just, that that's one beer that's always stuck with me. um When Young Henry's brought back the the real owl, this year actually, for some of their some the anniversary beers, I was ecstatic. I was just like, oh, good. They've gone back to making good quality beer again. Let's go. And I went in and I...
01:41:20
Speaker
smashed like eight pints of it and I had the greatest time because it was, you know, it's three and a half percent. Just a lovely traditional English, like real ale, a little bit amber, perfect multi caramel, a little bit of hot character. Fantastic. Um, but yeah, I just, it was, it was a pioneering start of my, my, um, my craft beer journey. If you want to call it that, if we call it what did I don't know what we call it these day, independent craft, whatever you want to call it. Um, good beer journey. Let's call it my good beer journey. Um,
01:41:47
Speaker
But then just any old school West coast still for me, you're making a good old school West coast. Um, uh, the three in my fridge right now. Uh, and, you know, not to tickle your undercarriage, Pete, uh, Dan, but yes, there is a West, uh, Escal West coast in there. There's, there's grifter Big Sur and there's batch West coast. They're, they're mine. They're my three go tos. They're they' my they're my three yeah equal podium. Um, yeah, I would smash those bees any day of the week, but yeah, that's, that's, that's my beers that I'll always go back to.
01:42:19
Speaker
and pia okay Okay, for me chasing the dragon for craft because my whole craft be journey has been recorded on this podcast. That was the point at the start was that i I knew nothing about craft really, and you guys were taking me on the journey so everything I've learned about craft beer I've learned on this podcast.
01:42:39
Speaker
um But the one that stands out for me more than anything is Moondogs Baron of Barrels. The first year we sat down there for the new year episode, we hadn't recorded in person. feedback and sensation I think that was maybe Covid year, maybe.
01:42:53
Speaker
That was like the end of COVID. Yeah. I think it was the first time we'd gotten money together for a long time. And it's, and you know what? It's as much about the shared experience of just watching, watching Dan just melt, like just silence.
01:43:11
Speaker
And that that first reaction as much as the flavor and it all plays together I've tried I think I've bought. And I think I'm pretty sure in that episode you turn to me and I'm just glugging it. I mean it was a spectacular beer. Yeah. But um yeah I've tried it two more times since and.
01:43:29
Speaker
I've been chasing the dragon and has not been as good because it wasn't that shared experience. I wasn't roasty warm from the imperial stats because we did the brick lane trilogy of fear before. That was the fucking, probably the pissiest episode we've had. That was the five hour episode, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It was the, I think it was the darkest night. That's the thing. We were just, we were just having a fucking time with the, the boys were on. We had seen each other for ages. Thin Lizzie, Q the Thin Lizzie, the boys were back in town. Yeah.
01:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, so that's that's definitely my beer of chasing the dragon. Yeah. yeah And my ones, I've mentioned it. ah I'm sure I've mentioned that over the years. Far too many times. Yes. Cakehole. Cakehole of Moondog. i I love it. As soon as the weather turns cold, I'm pretty sure you just yell, Cakehole. They don't make it anymore, man. I went into Moondog, down in Melbourne. I've been there several times and I said, have you got any Cakehole? And I was like, don't forget about that in ages. And I was like, don't fucking laugh at me. yeah He's like, I like that beer all right. Pack of C words.
01:44:30
Speaker
it ah It's it's it's just it's phenomenal be I loved it it was just it exactly is what it says it is yeah to yeah it doesn't pretend to be anything more it provides the flavor and is the one beer that I've never ever tried to replicate. Yeah right that I've that I've liked so you you refuse to chase that dragon in your own professional lives yeah I guess yeah I refuse to try and yeah make it make it out of my own.
01:44:58
Speaker
brain. You're not cocky enough, kid. yeah um I was cocky enough to try and remake Day of the Dead by Garage Project, which is my other beer, which is I'm very disappointed that they don't make that anymore.
01:45:09
Speaker
Uh, it was a, uh, a coffee chocolate Mexican, um, there's a Mexican drink that it's named after. And, uh, I know the one. Yeah. Probably the first, um, doc from doctor's orders bought me a bottle of that for one Christmas. And, uh, it was probably the first very unique craft beer that I tried. Hmm.
01:45:37
Speaker
And I did try and arrogantly remake that a couple of times. never obviously made it to the the standards of that they made it. And ah I'm really disappointed that these guys don't make either of those beers anymore because I love it. It's just like, day of the dead was chocolate, coffee, chili, lowly carbonated, just fucking 700 mil bottle, 750 mil bottle. You can still get the the the artwork and posters and t-shirts are all on their website. They just don't make the beer anymore. yeah Or they don't release it in Australia. i
01:46:10
Speaker
ah just Yeah, I don't know. Organic blue agave syrup. Don't forget the agave. Yes. Yeah, the agave in it. So, there was a lot to it. And it was ah it was a fantastic beer in the some of the earlier years of garage projects. So, yeah, that's a big one. Sorry, Dan. No, I was just going to say, just going off what Tom said, my introduction to craft beer back in ah the early, very early 2000s was a little creatures pale ale. And I still remember the taste of that very first little creatures pale ale. And I'm like, I didn't know beer could taste like this. And, uh, it was just the hop character. And just it before that, I didn't know, I didn't, yeah, i do everything else for me for me, it was, it was the multi goodness.
01:46:55
Speaker
Yeah, but you were, you were probably spoiled for choices by the time you were 18. Yeah, there was two extra dry platinums or two extra dryers. And I got the platinums cause they were 8% and they got an 8 pack and fucked you the fuck up. yeah I'll have a case of Teddy's. Thanks. Um, I drank so much Ted platinum. It wasn't funny. Yeah. God, I'm surprised my liver didn't shut down. wasn twenty one There wasn't Ted platinums when I was drinking Ted's. Um,
01:47:24
Speaker
No, you missed it later. That was that was around the year the the years of the Stollies. So Stollies came out and Jeez did that redefine how drunk women would get in nightclubs. And I'm not I'm not saying anything dark there at all. And then the Schmidt off double blacks came out and just fucking wiped the floor with them. That was the start of the premix era, really. um You just just reminded me, Dan, there's one more that has to go in there is chasing the dragon and that's flesh wound by the dark.
01:47:50
Speaker
I drank so much flesh when that was the stone beer on on volcanic rock. yeah I was obsessed with that beer at the start of the the podcast. I just had the garage projects speaking of.
01:48:04
Speaker
combining the two stories, they just re-released their red hot rock ale, their volcanic stone red ale. I'd had a can of it the other week. It was amazing. ah Highly if you can grab it, if you can find it, and grab it. Pete's already on the website. yeah so You might need to the keyboard he's ah might look ah look up some ah some bottle shops, but I had it the other the other week and it was i was I was thoroughly impressed with it. I almost I was like, oh, do I cla ah crack the Slick Creek or do I grab the actual the stone and wood stone beer? I have the can of that in the fridge. I was like, oh, I'll save that for when I'm not going to.
01:48:42
Speaker
Completely demolished that canvas I have, yeah, but um yeah, try that one. yeah Get your mouth around that. That was an Imperial Irish red Steinby flesh wound. Oh, this one is an Imperial. It's it's ah it's lower ABV, but it was very, very good. This this was on the low end of Imperial, 7%. I'm just looking at it now. Yeah.
01:49:05
Speaker
yeah but um Yeah. Oh, there's been so many cracking beers over the years. I can think of, I think, you know, I remember fondly remember the time I tasted my first barley wine, uh, real bad. Yeah. Um, tastes my first barley wine with mates. And it was just like, I didn't know beer could be that strong.
01:49:21
Speaker
yeah i I thought it was beer or spirits and it was that mind, that just mind opening thing. It was a, it was a six string bar one. I remember and I had it just before I was in uncle hops and it was the month before I took over and, and got given the place to run. We were there for a mate's birthday and it was just like, Hey, try this. This is 12 and a half percent. I was like, Oh yeah, you can really taste the booze. And then I was like, Oh shit. I'm fucked off a, you know, that's a light barley wine. I mean, the Bali one you gave us was 20%. I think it's 20%. I don't think it's a Bali one. I think it's an imperial. No, but you're right. It's like Bali ones are usually about 16%. Yeah. Whereas actual ones only about 13 and a half, 14%.
01:50:08
Speaker
Yeah. Um, but yeah, that was one of the, yeah, those six string from the central coast, one of their, yeah, early, early day beers. I remember that. And then sure enough, long enough, not long after that, I was running my own craft bar and buying beers myself. And, um, the old uncle hops.
01:50:27
Speaker
Rest in peace. I still remember the Mountie County day that we did, but who was that? Was that, that wasn't Moondog? No, that was stock aid and it was a pain from Stockade. yeah Good old Kane Mantle. Yes. I think stuff- We were floating around somewhere, good old Kane. I think that'll probably wrap us for the episode. chasing Yeah, I think that's a beautiful point to end on. Yes, toasty and warm from all the beers.
01:50:52
Speaker
In the scotch. In the scotch. What are you drinking, scotch wise? The McAllen 12 year old sherry barrel aged. Yes, we were talking about that a couple of weeks ago. I'm impressed. You are not nearly alcoholic enough because.
01:51:08
Speaker
If I talk about something two weeks ago, that bottle's probably gone a week and a half ago. Hey man, it's $165 a bottle. i You gotta intercut it with other things. No, I don't drink much these days anyway, but, uh, special occasions. Fair enough. All right. If you made it this far, thank you very much for listening. We'll see you in a couple of weeks for the normal news and reviews episode. Essentially. Bye. Bye.