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S2 E1: Three craps in an hour!
30 Plays6 years ago
Somewhere between a triumphant return and the gory, pus-covered and certainly fatal evolution that creates a snake-monster that bursts out of your chest cavity while your space-faring colleagues look on, Bounty Hunter Banter has morphed into Pixels and Pints!
Join us as Dan and Pete, regularly joined by Chris, go back to ripping into everything pop-culture related whilst consuming the finest craft beer they can get their hands on!
Taking a look back at the year that was 2018, this oozy first episode covers everything from the new Predator to Solo, with a smattering of Spiderman the video game, Ash vs. the Evil Dead, CW's latest cross-over Elseworlds, and a smattering of others sure to cover you in goop.
Beers reviewed this episode:
1) Bodriggy Brewing Co. - Speccy Juice - Session IPA - 3.8% 2) Chur Brewing Co. - Tap Tap Taparoo - Pale Ale - 4.9% 3) Magic Rock Brewing - Inhaler - IPA - 4.5% 4) Garage Project - DFA - IPA - 7.5%
Thanks as always to Justin Gonzales for the amazing metal introoutro. And of course our fans, who have spent the last 12+ months hassling Chris at work asking if we'd ever get the band together - without you guys this wouldn't be happening!
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Transcript
Introduction to Pixels and Pints
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to the inaugural episode of our new podcast, Pixels and Pints.
00:00:22
Speaker
Joining me tonight is Dan. Hello. And I'm Pete. And this podcast is essentially going to be a, well, it is the ugly stepchild, brainchild evolution. A pre-hash Mark II. Morph of Downey Hunter Banta. So we're essentially going to be covering all our favorite pop culture, comics book, comic books, TV shows, movies, music, video games, potentially some board games and maybe some books from time to time, although we're not
00:00:51
Speaker
very fast readers anymore due to time.
Podcasting Challenges in Hospitality
00:00:54
Speaker
Definitely. And we're going to be tasting some craft beer while we go. So for our first episode, it's just going to be Dan and myself, Pete. Chris is going to join us as and when he can. Working in hospitality makes it a bit of a bitch to get a regular schedule happening. Which is why we're taking such a break. Yeah. So do you want to kick us off with the first topic, Dan?
00:01:18
Speaker
Um, well, I divided all mine up into the good, the bad, and the ugly for what came out in 2018.
2018 Review: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
00:01:25
Speaker
Uh, where do you want me to start? The good, the bad, or the ugly? There's, thankfully there's only one thing under bad. Yeah. Well, let's get that out of the way early because, um, you know, we don't want to kick off with, with too negative a spin. Oh, should we have a beer first? I think we should.
Craft Beer Tasting: Bog Riggety
00:01:37
Speaker
What are we having? Um, uh, I can't even pronounce this bog bog riggity.
00:01:44
Speaker
Yeah. Is it B? I read it as an R. Rod Riggety. Rod Riggety. Maybe. Speccy Juice. Is there written somewhere else better? No. No, Bog Riggety. It is B. Okay. B-O-D. Oh yeah, that makes sense. From Victoria, it's a session IPA. I thought we've probably had a couple of big days of drinking so we might lighten it up for the time being.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yes. Did you drink a lot over Christmas? I... You don't drink that much anymore anyway. No, I don't. I did drink six Wayward Brewing... What was it? The pink stuff. Ah, the... The Berlinovus. The Raspberry Berlinovus. Oh my god, it's so damn good. It is good, yeah. I could just keep drinking that until I passed out. Although I suspect after drinking six and not even slurring, I think I could probably get through a case and not pass out. Well, I think it's only like three and a half percent. No. No? It's like five and a half percent. Oh really? Is it that high? Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
I think it's five and a half. Anyway, what's this? Um, this is 3.8%. Yeah. Okay. So it is very session. Yeah. I got some, I got, I just got lighter ones cause I drank a shit ton over the last couple of days. So if you haven't tuned into Benny Hunter banter in the past, a couple of warnings, first of all, we swear a fuckload and we will not be bleeping anything out other than potentially the C-bomb unless I get too lazy to bother. Uh, so you've been warned and there'll be an explicit warning on the label.
Craft Beer and Pop Culture: Deadpool Label
00:03:10
Speaker
And in terms of beer content, we have one of the best brewers in the country, if you ask anyone other than Dan, who will tell you that he's not. I think that's a little blown out, but yeah, sure. So head brewer from the Australian Brewery and owner and brewer for Bounty Hunter Brewing. So I get to learn a shitload about the beer crafting process as we go through this, which is kind of cool.
00:03:35
Speaker
And the whole reason I bought this bog riggety specky was specky juice is because the unicorn, multi-colored head unicorn on the front with the bleeding nose, by the way, if you look closer, just reminded me of Deadpool. So it's just the only fucking reason I picked it up.
00:03:51
Speaker
I can kind of see that.
Movie Critiques: Predator and Avengers
00:03:54
Speaker
It is very light in flavour. Yeah, but it's got a good, if not a little strange hop character. I wonder if it's got some New Zealand hops in it. It's got sort of that spicy, florally kind of New Zealand hop character. It's got a good light body to it, but it's very dry as well, which I really like because I like dry beers. I don't like sweet, heavy, thick things.
00:04:19
Speaker
My palette is changing at the moment. You completely missed that. Yeah, I did. I said I don't like sweet, heavy, thick things. Right. Okay. Yeah. So it's probably best if we just left that alone in the past, Dan. Thanks for bringing it back up.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, look, my palate's kind of changing at the moment too, because I've recently quit smoking and realised just how little I could taste and smell, so... To me, this is really lightly flavoured. It affects heaves, yeah. But you do get the resin notes out of the hops. Yeah, yeah, it's a quite good hop. Quite well balanced, actually. Yeah, for such a 3.8% light, yeah. And you can certainly smell the spicy, kind of almost metallic scent out of it.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, in a good way. Yeah, there's no expiry date on it, so I don't know when it was packaged or when it's due, but yeah, it's good. Cool. It seems fairly fresh, so yeah, nice. It's easy to drink. Yeah, no. You're beyond that now, Peter. We're not bringing those tropes into this. You're beyond that. All right, so give us a first topic. What was the bad for you in 2018? Have you got bad as well, or have you just made a general list? I've just made a general list, and I've got good and bad things to say about most things. Well, my bad was the Predator.
00:05:29
Speaker
There'll be spoilers here. I refuse to fucking watch it. Okay, good. So frankly, once you've done the 11th fucking movie on a topic, it's done to death. The dead horse has been flogged well and truly. And yeah, and this one, it was and they tried to do it a different way. And Shane Black was directing it and you just missed the mark completely on almost everything in that entire movie, except the, uh, the military team that was the main focus or the main protagonists,
00:05:59
Speaker
rag tag team that he gets thrown in with. They're all an odd bunch. So it's very tropey. It's been done to death in every movie ever. Completely tropey, but I'd be interested to see what the Rotten Tomatoes
00:06:14
Speaker
percentage of it is. I'm sure it's pretty goddamn low. But yeah, the team that they throw together, it was really good, really interesting. They were fun. But the pacing of the entire moving is shocking. It's just everything is horribly thrown together. People are here and then all of a sudden they're somewhere else.
00:06:35
Speaker
the, what could be a spectacular scene of the predator breaking out of a containment facility area was okay. Right. But then they, they just, they, they rushed it and it should have been the centerpiece, the, the main central, uh, action scene of what the movie was, but they just missed the mark on it. And it was over in minutes and just almost schlock horror in points where it sprayed blood and
00:07:05
Speaker
They should just let it fucking die. I get they're trying to make money, but surely there's a different IP they can destroy? I mean, they've certainly finished destroying this. Yeah. Well, I mean, it could have been done well. I mean, they had the guy in a suit, the main predator. I am going to spoil this. But then the the predator is CG.
Comic Book Movies: Adaptations and Origins
00:07:24
Speaker
No, the one that the one is a bad CG like like Arnold Schwarzenegger terminate a fucking salvation bad or you know when he gets out with his balls? Yeah, it moves weird. Was it balls out? Yeah, it was balls out bad. Yeah. It had a strategically placed steam cloud.
00:07:43
Speaker
No, it was bad. It didn't move right. It didn't feel right because I mean, we're so used to seeing puppets as the puppets animatronic faces and guys in suits. So you get that real sense of movement. And the predators have the very guy in a suit way of movement and picking things up and that. So they have a very specific way of doing it. And then you throw a CG one and they just don't quite mesh into the scene. Well, yeah. Having said that, if you look at some of the higher
00:08:09
Speaker
you know, Hollywood budgeted movies these days, CGI is getting to a point where it's almost indistinguishable. They've come leaps and bounds. And like, obviously on my good list for this year was the Avengers Infinity War. Yeah, and a lot of those characters, you can't tell which are CG or which moments, because even real life characters these days, they're doing CG for some of the more advanced stunts.
00:08:29
Speaker
In a lot of those high budget movies, those blockbusters, I can't tell the difference anymore between CG and real. I actually think that's because they've kind of gotten to a point in the technology where CG is believable, but also the way they're shooting the live action scenes
00:08:46
Speaker
Almost gives it an unbelievable look. And so it actually balances out quite well between the CG in real life. Yeah. And I mean, I guess a lot of that Avengers stuff is green screened as well. You've got that artificial background blending with an artificial CG. It's not like the old days with plates in the background. No. One of the one of the great things about those blendings of CG, especially from the Marvel movies, is Bucky's arm.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah. It never, you never get a feeling that it's not a real piece of metal attached to him. And you just say it's just a fucking great, I think it's, it might be blue, the one he wears. Yeah. Well, I'm sure they change it out, but it looks like it moves and crinkles and everything, like a real arm and like it's actually made of metal. No, excellent. Well, you know, well, let's, that, that segues us quite well into Avengers. Let's talk about Avengers.
00:09:34
Speaker
I think it's probably being talked to, to death by everybody. Yeah, definitely.
00:09:41
Speaker
Great, I loved a certain point. They did justice to having so many characters in there. Everybody felt they got fair presence. The cats are running around.
Gaming Experience: PUBG
00:09:52
Speaker
No, he's taking a shit, is he? Yeah, I'm going to have to edit. Why? I'm going to have a cat shitting in the background. The cat can shit in the background. Yeah, look, for me, I've watched it three times now, and I fell asleep in the second and third sitting.
00:10:08
Speaker
Okay, I mean, I enjoyed it. But I don't know, there's something about it that was thoroughly enjoyable. The first time it was it's extremely predictable. The definitely the ending is very predictable. Oh my god, the big reveal moment. Look, I've got to say the first time I watched it, I was a little surprised. And again, all of this is going to be spoiler spoiler warning. Yes, definitely.
00:10:27
Speaker
If you haven't seen the biggest movie of 2018 and you're listening to a pop culture podcast. Yeah. And it's fucking 27th of December, right? So you've had fair warning as far as I'm concerned. So I was a little surprised that they killed everybody at the end. Like I was shocked while it was happening, particularly Peter Parker dying.
00:10:49
Speaker
And to be honest, that was a bit of a heart puller. It was a really well shot scene. And they gave him a little bit more time to fade away, same as they did with Bucky and going up to Steve Rogers. They put a little bit of emotion in
New Craft Beer Tasting
00:11:03
Speaker
it and Peter Parker took a little bit more to fade away.
00:11:06
Speaker
And it was, it was a real moment. Like it felt like a real moment. And yeah, I was a little bit saddened for a second. And, but obviously once the impact kicks in and you kind of come out of the cinema going, holy fuck, they just killed all of those superheroes. You know, immediately they're going to bring them all back at the start of the next movie. Definitely. Yeah. So it's, it's kind of predictable, but it's cool that they.
00:11:25
Speaker
I mean, you're committed and you already know, Spider-Man far from home happens. And I mean, there's no there's no hiding anything. The fact that they're coming back. Yeah. Look, the reality is comic books have been doing it for years. You know, comic books kill off characters quite regularly and for the most part somehow come back.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, in some way, shape or form. I mean, Barry Allen's been dead for a long, long time now, but the original Flash died in
TV Series Review: Ash vs Evil Dead
00:11:52
Speaker
a crisis on the Infinite Earth. But he still has made appearances over the years as well, as Barry Allen. He came back not long ago. Yeah, he's just not the problem. When I say not long ago, my timeline on comic books is way off. Is warped. Completely warped. I was trying to work out when the current run of Darth Vader started.
00:12:11
Speaker
And I'm thinking, no, they had to have been this year. Can't have been this year. No, no, it's 2016. There's almost 30 issues out. 2016, I would say. I mean, we were talking a ton bigger about it under banter for when we were at the pub doing that live show we were talking about later. Yeah, and I'm not necessarily sure that was the start either. So. Yeah. Anyway, I was actually thinking about that. So I watched X-Men First Class for the first time in a long time last night. And I was thinking about what pisses me off about
00:12:40
Speaker
Comic book movies the most, I've got pretty much everything that's out on 4K or Blu-ray in the Marvel and DC universe I've got. And I was sitting there wondering or flicking through my catalog as to what I would like to watch last night. And movies like, I mean, I watched Man of Steel. For the first time in a long time, I watched Man of Steel first and then followed up with First Class. I love Man of Steel. I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
00:13:05
Speaker
people bitch about it. It's so like, everybody goes after Superman returns. We just want Superman to punch something. You've got plenty of punching in it and everybody still complains. Oh, you didn't save enough people. Oh, Jesus Christ. I thought it was a great movie. And I think the origin story, they touched on slightly too much, but I've got to say that's what bugs me about a lot of the, the, uh, the, uh, justice league. So justice league, especially, um, doesn't bugs me about a lot of man's
Doctor Who: Jodie Whittaker's Impact
00:13:32
Speaker
going to be exactly the same.
00:13:33
Speaker
Look, here's the thing, right? I get the justification that the writers use is they're trying to appeal to a larger audience than comic book fans who already know the backstory for these characters. But...
00:13:48
Speaker
When we were kids, it's not like we went and looked for Spider-Man issue one to get his backstory. We picked up any fucking comic that was in the news agents. We read it. You went with the story that went from there. You pieced it together over time. Exactly right. And so I disagree with needing to do origin stories for these characters, given that as kids, we fell in love with comic books without those origin stories and they were revealed over time.
00:14:11
Speaker
Now, I think Superman does a decent job in there are selected flashbacks that deal with specific elements of his past.
00:14:20
Speaker
But they don't do the full origin story. This is how I learned how to fucking fly. Like they don't go through that shit in great detail. They did in Superman Returns. It's Man of Steel, they did. Not really. Not his learning to fly. Well, yeah, sorry, they did, but he was an adult. Whereas in Superman Returns, he does the leaping, jumping thing through the cornfields and smashes into the silo. That's what I was thinking. Very smallville, that was. It was very smallville.
00:14:46
Speaker
Anyway, I think we should move on to the next topic. Let's talk about a video game. So we've been playing PUBG lately, so Player Unknown's Battlegrounds.
00:14:55
Speaker
It's a, seriously, how many shits can one cat do in the space of 15 minutes? Is it the one cat or is it? It's the one cat. Which one? I think it's Kara. She's full of shit, quite literally, clearly. So we've been playing. I like Kara. You can have her mate, take her home. Yeah, my dog's there, yeah. So PUBG, I've got to say, like I've been, I played it a fair amount solo before I convinced both Dan and Chris to try it out.
00:15:22
Speaker
where I think the squad-based game is going to be much better. I've certainly
00:15:26
Speaker
I've played it with you a few times, Dan, and it's more enjoyable as a duo with all the squad tactics and... See, I won't play it single player. It doesn't interest me single player. So I've probably got 30 hours under my belt solo and I'm bored of it already. I will only play it as a group now. It's just not. And the great thing, I was talking to Chris about it too, is that the time that you've played it solo, it only affects your knowledge of
00:15:54
Speaker
the weapons and you get no extra skills for the character, the avatar, nothing comes from it. You might look a bit prettier or different depending on which way you want to go for the Bruce Lee yellow tracksuit that they've got now. You can purchase Bruce Lee or Kill Bill, which they're both the same tracksuit anyway.
00:16:16
Speaker
But yeah, I won't play it solo, but I really enjoy it. I do like the format of the game. I do like the fact... Sorry, you hadn't finished. No, that's all right. I do like the fact that no matter how many times you've played and for how long you've been playing, no matter how much real life money you spend on unlockables, you still start naked with no advantage over anyone else around you. And the level playing field every single time I think is good.
00:16:40
Speaker
So we're going to talk about the second B. And I got this one because it was Billy Madison.
00:16:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Tap, tap, taparoo. Yeah. It's from Cher Brewing in New Zealand. They are behemoth brewing in New Zealand. It's the extra paleo. I'm not going to, it's got a very big blurb on the back. I'm not going to go through the whole thing. 4.9%. This is that funky New Zealand hop character I've been telling you about. It's got almost that blue, blue, cheesy, diesel-y character. And that's not a bad thing. That's just what some New Zealand hops give. And that's very, um,
00:17:17
Speaker
The Cher guys are very much about New Zealand. I mean, New Zealand just do some of the best tops in the world. And now they do with a Gladfield Malt. They do some of the best specialty malts in the world as well. It's definitely a New Zealand extra pale owl. So it's definitely- So what makes it extra pale?
00:17:34
Speaker
I don't know, it's this whole new thing and I'm going to say this new wanky thing but the first beer we did for Bounty Hunter was an XPA as well. I don't know. It's not the alcohol content. No, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean, XPA's, extra pale ales, VPA's, whatever you want to call it. Fairy pale ales? Yeah, Nail's version, Nail from WA. Their version is VPA.
00:17:59
Speaker
Right. They do an SPA. Super pay. They do. They have, they have super, super VPA. So I think they're meant to be five to five and a half percent.
Spider-Man PS4 Review
00:18:11
Speaker
But because it's such a new, it's just a thing that sort of developed. There's no guidelines to it. It's not like it's a regulated
00:18:18
Speaker
industry anyway to start with. No, and I like them because they're usually lower in bitterness. They got very soft. Yeah, good hop character, but lower in bitterness. And that's kind of the way the trend that a lot of these new styles are taking. So the New Englands are very low in bitterness, but huge in in hoppy, juicy, fruity, hoppy characters.
00:18:38
Speaker
The XBA, the extra pale ales are just the pale al version of that. Yeah. I enjoy this. This is again, quite light on flavour. It's not a punch in the nutsack like a lot of the IPAs that we've been drinking recently. But it's definitely got that New Zealand hopcar. Yeah. And it's complex and certainly enjoyable. It's just, it's good that it doesn't, it's refreshing. It doesn't give you a punch in the mouth. It's super fresh too.
00:19:05
Speaker
I've been drinking a lot of sour lately, so drinking normal. Yeah, I avoided the sours because I was having sours lately too. So I just avoided getting any sours. I could drink sour all day long. But they're there because that this is the this is the chur monster or behemoth monster. I'm sure Pete will put some pitches up, but they just they just put him in different.
00:19:24
Speaker
Positions and outfits and it's such a simple, beautiful art style that they have. And it can just be completely transformed into anything. And they do do a lot of pop culture stuff. I think there was two or three pop culture reference ones there. They originally did...
00:19:42
Speaker
That's one tasty beverage. That's one tasty beverage. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that was one of their real early ones. So yeah. English motherfucker. Do you speak it? All right. So anyway.
CW's Elseworlds and Crisis on Infinite Earths
00:19:56
Speaker
You have to be careful. You don't accidentally drop the N word if you, if you quit that movie. I don't think there'll be any accidental droppings of that. Um, so we got them through the bad. What's what else have you got? Give me something good, Dan. What did you enjoy in 2018?
00:20:09
Speaker
Buck, I just finished it. It was played this year on Stan. We don't have Stan, so I just bought the box set. Finished up, never gonna see the character again. I hope we do, but the actors announced that he'll never be returning to this character, Ash versus the Evil Dead. I fucking love Ashley J. Williams. Bruce Campbell has been one of my favorite actors for a long time. He's done
00:20:39
Speaker
a huge amount of B grade movies. He wrote a book, uh, that called the, um, uh, what was it called? The, the life of a B grade movie style or something like that. And he read the audio book well before audio books were a thing I had to legally in quotation marks, download this, uh, from the internet many, many, many moons ago. So pass the statute of limitations as well. Yeah, I think well passed.
00:21:07
Speaker
So he he read the audiobook and I had no idea what it was and never looked into it Confessions of a B grade movie star as was called and he goes through it and he's talking about how he ends up on this movie with I got totally sidetracked here, but anyway He ends up getting this job with on a movie with Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere
00:21:30
Speaker
Fuck, they're not big, great actors. No, but he's, but that's, that's the whole thing about a movie. He was a big, great actor. And so he talks about himself getting the movie, getting the part in the big Hollywood movie with Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere and talks about drinking white tea with Richard Gere and all this weird shit.
Garage Project Beer Tasting
00:21:49
Speaker
And to him being this Uber like spiritualist hippie and everything like that. And then about halfway to three quarters of the way through the book,
00:21:57
Speaker
I was listening to it. It just takes a fucking sideways turn and it's a total work of fiction. It's the, I can't remember how it ends up in that, but it just, it just goes absolutely off the wall and it's just a total work of fiction. It's all bullshit. Complete bullshit. That's fantastic. And then sitting there listening to Bruce Campbell, he's written another one recently, which I've got to listen to.
00:22:20
Speaker
but just listening to him narrate it. And he does all like his sound effects. So if his character is falling off a hill or something in the background while he's talking, you hear him yeah, doing that in the background and it's, it's, it's great. And I love it. Cool. Um, so Ash versus evil dead season three, season two had a bit of a lull. It was okay. Season one was awesome. Season two had a bit of a lull season three was fucking brilliant back to evil dead, whoever directed,
00:22:49
Speaker
uh some of the episodes in season three absolutely took uh notes from sam ramy original evil dead i don't want to spoil it too much because you should watch are you a fan of evil dead stuff or look i've enjoyed i've enjoyed it so the first and third movies i enjoyed particularly well these are when they started they stopped taking themselves i mean it was always a big great horror ash versus the evil dead is
DC Movies: Faithful Adaptations?
00:23:12
Speaker
Far more slapstick than even army of darkness yeah well it's it's completely I enjoyed army of darkness thoroughly and I love that I mean the one-liners in that movie are ubiquitous and you see that fucking everywhere that's what ash versus the evil dead every episode every like then the 20-minute episodes there's yeah okay it's a nice time fillers I think there's 10 in a season yep and you can just watch and they go they they go back to back
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, I love 20 minute series. I've got to say there is a place for them in life, right? Definitely. They're awesome. So you can punch through Ash versus Evil Dead a season and a night. Yeah. Absolutely no problem. If you did want to watch them. Exactly. But I mean, that's why I love Big Bang Theory. It's a time filler. It's a 20 minute episode. It's a waste. Throw it on while you're waiting for dinner to cook or whatever.
00:23:59
Speaker
This season absolutely did Ash justice. It finished off the, it kind of finished off the Ash story. They could have kept going with it. I do think that if they do something evil dead again, it won't be Ash. You get introduced to Ash's daughter in season three. And the- Is she hot though? She's a teenager. Oh, that's really awkward. But is she hot then? No, I'm just kidding.
00:24:28
Speaker
She feels the role great. I mean, you can tell she's a young actor and the first couple of episodes she's in, you kind of go, you kind of look like you're finding your feet. But by the time it gets to her action scenes on her own, she's kicking ass and taking names. Definitely. She did a little, she has a little scene that's very reminiscent of Ash in Evil Dead 2 where he fights with his own hand.
00:24:54
Speaker
Um, she does a scene that's quite similar. Um, and, uh, she absolutely nailed the entire scene and it was, it was great from there on out. That was probably three or four episodes from the end, but she just held her own and you go, if they make another one, they need to put this young actress in or act on it. Um, they need to put her in the lead role and let it go. And Bruce Campbell signs off at the end, literally rides off into the sunset.
00:25:21
Speaker
and in his Ashmobile. I might have to check it out. I must admit, the concept was appealing to me, but it wasn't appealing enough for me to actually go out of my way to find it and start watching it.
Sydney Beer Week and Upcoming Events
00:25:35
Speaker
But speaking of good female leads, it's a perfect segue into Dr. Who. Oh yeah, okay. Well, I haven't watched any. I need to. Oh, I won't do any spoilers. No, no, no. All you can spoil basically is the overall arc. Which hasn't even finished yet, has it? No. So let me answer the question by talking about what I was going to talk about with Dr. Who.
00:26:00
Speaker
For anyone who doesn't watch the show, it is now officially the longest running science fiction series in history. Used to be held by Stargate. Yeah, it got obliterated by Doctor Who though. I mean, it's been running for like 50 years now, I think. Maybe not. Not continuously running though. No, that's true.
00:26:20
Speaker
It was black and white to start with though. So we're talking old, old, old school. Stargate was the longest continuous running, but it was then only 10 seasons. Yeah, which has been beaten by a bunch of shows now though. I mean fucking, maybe it's maybe episode count might be a bit different, but Supernatural has been running for 13 or 14 seasons now. Yeah, I don't know how they manage. I can't watch that. It's like, but it's still the same shit. It's days of our lives with werewolves. It's still, you turn it on.
00:26:49
Speaker
And expect something different you're not going to get anything different you know what i'm so i just we will get back to doctor who but i just finished watching Constantine now i had to fucking look in some dark dark corners of the internet to even find Constantine i went to jb hi fi and ask them if i could order it they said no.
00:27:06
Speaker
I can find it on Amazon in American region only on DVD. Is this because the, the publisher or they just, they just basically just deleted it. I have no idea. I just, I could not find Constantine. I was prepared to pay for it. I couldn't find it anywhere. I think it canceled, they canceled it even before it finished its season. Like so that I don't even think the last few actually aired. I don't understand how a show like, I guess I can now that I talk about it. I, I, it's offensive to me as a, as a fan of pop culture.
00:27:36
Speaker
that a series like Constantine as good as it fucking was and with the amount of depth that it had in it, the amount of history and culture that it took out of various different cultures and brought to life.
00:27:49
Speaker
how it can be axed after only one season, and yet something like Supernatural can run for 13 seasons where there are long 15 second stares like in Days of Our Lives. I don't get it. Yeah. And the brothers are arguing the same argument at the end of every episode. Maybe if he had an equally hot brother in Constantine, then the fan girls might've fucking kept that show alive. I don't know. Fan girls and fanboys.
00:28:14
Speaker
Thank you. Sure. Don't pigeonhole these days, Pete. We get in trouble for this shit, you know. Um, yeah, look, if you're a social justice warrior, please just tune out now. We don't, we don't need the noise. Um, look, Constantine, I thought was fantastic. It's not what I wanted to talk about. Doctor Who. So for the first time in the Doctor Who series, we're up to 14 doctors. They've cast a female lead as the doctor. I was excited for it. Uh, they put Jodie Whitaker in.
00:28:39
Speaker
She's an excellent, I think she's Scottish. No, I don't think she is. Peter Capaldi was Scottish. Yes, he was. But then actually a lot of them have been Scottish. I saw her on the Graham Norton show and she was making jokes about her hometown or home village. And it must have been somewhere like a backwater village. Must be Northern England. Yeah, because there were some real jokes. Like she was really putting shit on it.
00:29:06
Speaker
So Jodie Whitaker was in Broadchurch. Stephen Moffat was the showrunner with Matt Smith. He left at the same time as Matt Smith did and Chris Chibnall took over as lead writer. So Chris Chibnall also came across from Broadchurch. Now I've never watched Broadchurch. Broadchurch isn't the one with David Tennon, is it? No. It very sadly stands on a wet English beach in the picture.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yes. It is? I think it is. That rings a bell. It is a murder mystery kind of detective series. But anyway, so Jodie Whitaker cast as Dr. Who. I've got to say, I've been impressed with the treatment. I was worried. First of all, well, actually, the only thing I was really worried is that it is. There you go. That's right. Sad looking sad on an English beach. A dreary English beach. I love David Tennant. You can't stop me from loving David Tennant. It's such a dreary fucking photo though.
00:30:00
Speaker
You know what's interesting? Peter Capaldi had a Scottish accent in Doctor Who. But if you've ever seen an interview with David Tennant, he has a thicker Scottish accent, but all the way through Doctor Who, he sounded just like a general person.
00:30:14
Speaker
Are you sure she's in Broadchurch? Oh, wait. No, I fucked the photo. I tried to zoom in. You broke it. My technical aptitude has never improved. And it never will. So, yeah, no, Jodie Whittaker is definitely from Broadchurch, as is Chris Gemmill.
00:30:31
Speaker
Point is, I was, the only thing I was really worried about with a female doctor who... Oh yeah, she's got dark hair. That's why I couldn't see it. She does have dark hair and she's got a little bit more weight on, but a look of it all... No, she's wearing a goddamn enormous trench coat is what she's doing. Yeah, that's my excuse for the last 20 years Dan. Been wearing a big fucking trench coat. Anyway... Big trench coat with shoulder pads. The only thing I was worried about was that they would make too big a deal out of the fact that it was female.
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, I've heard that they haven't, which is great. And they haven't. They've done a brilliant job. I mean, they tipped their hat to it a couple of times. It wasn't overdone. She's brilliant as a doctor. She's got her own idiosyncrasies. She's got her own quirks. All of the best doctors since 2015 when they relaunched. Sorry, 2015? 10.
00:31:14
Speaker
No two thousand ten yeah yeah since they relaunched the best doctors have always been the ones that bring the rain was matt smith stop yeah was I'm gonna voice brought their own idiosyncrasies there in the best of this and they've been creative with how they've put those idiosyncrasies between yeah between the different doctors that's right um but
00:31:33
Speaker
And this is the big but. I have been disappointed with the writing. So I say that because whilst they haven't made too big a deal out of the fact that she's female, she's a great actress, she fills the shoes very well.
00:31:49
Speaker
The best Doctor Who seasons, in my opinion, are the ones that are self-contained stories, but they contribute to an overall arc. And you get that holy fuck moment towards the end of the season, or towards the end of multiple seasons, if you look at Bad Wolf, if you look at The Cracks from Matt Smith's first two seasons, I think. Yeah, yeah. Probably, I think two, yeah. When you find out the TARDIS explodes, and that's what created The Cracks.
00:32:12
Speaker
there isn't any uh overall arc at all that you know of that i know of and then they did the silence the silence was a pretty shit arc i've got to say that was the second arc for matt smith i really quite liked him yeah i looked at the characters the silence were cool but i just what i didn't think they did enough with the arc but with jody there isn't really any art that i can just see interesting
00:32:36
Speaker
Thing to have concept concept. Yeah to have people forget and the way that they They've been following around in history and no one knows. Yeah Yeah, creepy as hell. Yeah, but we've finished our first season with Jodie Whitaker. So a whole season's done I haven't seen the Christmas special yet because I haven't been able to legally obtain it So apart from that where they didn't plan on ABC and
00:33:01
Speaker
Well, they might have I might have missed it, but I think the I view only allows you to go back a certain amount of time. I haven't actually looked all that hard for it. But my point is there's really not been much of an arc threading it together and that to me is a bit of a disappointment. Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker
But I like the characters. I'm interested to see where they take it. I think it's great. They've done a female Doctor Who. I've noticed that there are now starting to put some more diverse characters in as the friends. You no longer have a male Doctor with a female attendant without the sexual tension that there was in the 50s and 60s and 70s.
00:33:37
Speaker
So they've kind of progressed from there. I think that's why the Matt Smith and Amy Pond worked so well. Cause there wasn't that sexual tension? There wasn't, no. She was like a daughter figure to him, a daughter and a friend. And then Rory came in a season or two later, but he was always there, but came in more heavily. And Amy Pond was fucking smoking hot, which also helped a bit. That's bygones. Matt Smith didn't notice that. Yeah. And so was Clara for the record.
00:34:05
Speaker
So anyway, look, I think Jodie Whittaker is they're doing a great job with casting her as a female. I'm interested to see where they take it. Hopefully, hopefully they can start to build towards an arc because I want to see a bigger story. Yeah. That's what really drove it before the end. I mean, once you realize, like you said, those holy fuck moments where all of a sudden you realized
00:34:24
Speaker
what the meaning of the crack was. Yeah, exactly right. The box that they got put in? No, I want to say Necronomicon, but it's not. It's something similar to that. It is something similar, yeah. Yeah, no, I really enjoy the arcs. There's really only been a couple of seasons full of fillers where it's all fillers and they were, I think Matt Smith did one or two seasons of just fillers where there really wasn't a thread carrying it all together.
00:34:51
Speaker
and certainly David Tennant did a couple of seasons like that as well. Yeah. But they were always kind of fillers after a really good arc and before another really good arc. Yeah, we kind of needed a bit of a relaxed point. That's right. And I have to say the one difference I will say, I still love, and I know we've been talking about this topic way too long now, but Russell T Davies, so the original lead writer for
00:35:14
Speaker
before Doctor Who when it relaunched. The one thing I loved about his writing style that I don't think they've ever really captured since, and Matt Smith with Stephen Moffat, when he took over, he went from two IC to head writer when Russell T Davies moved on to go and do, what was it, Sherlock? When he moved on...
00:35:35
Speaker
I found Russell T Davies had a lot more depth to the series. He defined the series as really a story about no matter how. I'm sure you've banged on about this before. I probably have, but people could be new to the series and I want to make the point again, Dan. It's tattooed on my fucking arm. It's my favorite series. There was a humanity to it all.
00:35:55
Speaker
It was about, you know, making you feel or realise just how small and insignificant you are in a massive universe of populated sentient species. And that's one thing they do do very well with the entire series seasons. It is lived in. Fill out the world. There's always something new, but there's always that character that you've seen that race before or that person's been in it. And it might just be a passing something.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah. Or they're mentioned or they're spoken about, they'll refer back to old episodes. You've even got the same actors playing multiple characters, which is a bit of a weird thing, but there's apparently quite a small ball in Wales when they're shooting characters. Stargate did it. Yeah, that's true too. Well, Stargate did it too. Yeah. A lot of times. They did. Although their makeup made it a little bit easier to hide that.
00:36:39
Speaker
My point was, no matter how small and insignificant you realised you were in the universe, it was always about how important the little guy was. That was the core definition of Doctor Who when it relaunched. And I think they've lost that along the way. It's really, there's not much of a pull to it anymore. It's more about the coolness of the character itself and the exploration of time and space.
00:36:59
Speaker
Anyway, so we've done Doctor Who to death. Should we get into the third beer? Yep. We've done plenty of good. We've done one bad, semi-bad. So what have you got? We'll do an ugly. Okay. We might get some hate mail for this. I love hate mail. Spiderman PS4.
00:37:16
Speaker
Right, I haven't checked it out. I had no interest in checking it out. I've never enjoyed, other than Injustice, which was a beat-em-up and it had limited lifespan for me, I've never really enjoyed a video game from a comic book. Arkham. Oh, okay, yeah, you're right, okay. Clearly I don't drink enough. I'm too busy and I've forgotten Arkham.
00:37:36
Speaker
Anyway, this is this takes heavily from Arkham. Right. And it's like, it's a good game. It's a very, very good game. But it's also a very ugly game. Not visually ugly. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful settings, great transitions. There's no day night cycle. When you when you finish a mission, it goes into a different
00:37:57
Speaker
day setting. Right. So because most of the missions are self contained either in buildings or in segregated parts of the city or bits and pieces like that. So it, it then throws you into a night or a morning. So you start off just in broad daylight, right? And then the end of the first mission or couple of missions down, it might throw you into all the sort of turning point missions. Yeah.
00:38:23
Speaker
it might throw you into night time, but then the next one you go into it might be morning. But it's not a cycle, it's a setting for a mission more than anything else. No, it's then sets the open world time. Okay. Right. So then you'll go into another mission later on or two missions down or three missions down.
00:38:40
Speaker
and then it'll be when you come back out of the mission back into the open world, it'll be morning or it'll be rainy and overcast and that stays, that doesn't change until you do the next mission and it changes the cycle, which is great. I think it's really good. I mean, it's a clever use rather than just having another day-night cycle. They probably saved some processing power, not having to transition
00:39:05
Speaker
lights and shadows and cars and headlights and... Sure, but when you look at the video games that are out now for PS4 and Xbox One, you know, AC, Assassin's Creed, Odyssey and Origins both have fully integrated day-night cycles. And this is also funny you should mention that because this is also where it takes its ugly part from. Okay.
00:39:25
Speaker
There's three different types of currency in the game that you have to get to buy upgrades or costumes or this or by that. And then, um,
00:39:38
Speaker
Can you get the black suit, the symbiote suit? I don't know, I didn't get that far into collecting shit. And then the map is just dotted with crap. Crap what? I mean, shit to do or boring shit to do? I mean, there's shit to do, but it's, and each little bit, this is why it's in the ugly, not in the bad, because by no way, shape or form, a bad game. It's actually,
00:40:06
Speaker
A very, very good game. It's received a lot of praise for the voice acting. The voice acting is great. The way that you take phone calls while you're swinging around and the actor recorded two lines of dialogue for every
00:40:21
Speaker
phone call. For every line that he says, for when he's stopped on a building or not swinging, and then when he's exerting himself swinging. So he's out of breath when he's swinging. Exactly. That's cool. It is. It's great. It's a great, beautiful little details. Every time you collect a backpack from when he's changed and webbed his backpack to a building, there's a little story about something that's in the backpack, a time in Peter's life where
00:40:48
Speaker
Right. It was a science award, or it was when he first worked with Osborn. Why the fuck is he carrying this shit around with him while he's swinging through the fucking city, stopping crime? He's not. That's why he's changed. He got changed and he webs it to a building.
00:40:58
Speaker
Yes, but why is it even in his backpack? I don't carry my fucking high school trophies around in my backpack. No, but it's like it's stuff that you meant to go. It's stuff that he had on him that day. That event happened that day. Okay. So it's in that backpack and he's just lost all these backpacks over the years. Gotcha. So it's kind of like Chris losing mobile phones. Exactly like Chris losing mobile phones. And some of them turn up, some of they don't. And I'm sure there's stories about all of them. Mostly they don't.
00:41:24
Speaker
But it's things like that. But they're interesting little things, but there's so fucking many of them. Like every section has so many of them. And then you've got these landmarks, New York landmarks.
00:41:37
Speaker
Beautifully built, beautifully rendered in the engine that they use. And you've got to take photos of them because he's finding himself doing photography again. So you've got to find a nice position to take a photo of it. You don't have to find a nice position. You get a crappy shot from wherever. It doesn't really matter. You still get the token. But there's that and there's so many of them. But once again, they're nice to look at, but there's so many of them. And then there's,
00:42:05
Speaker
They've got to have a pretty big draw to make it not fucking boring. And as someone who likes to get Platinum trophies for PlayStation 4 games, I've done a lot of boring shit over the years in video games. There are grindy ones, collecting feathers in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood or any of the... Oh, you collect feathers in this, but they're attached to pigeons.
00:42:25
Speaker
Right. Some random dude, I'm sure he's got something to do with, I'm not a Spider-Man aficionado. So some dude loses all these homing pigeons, so you've got to track them down. Okay. I'm not getting the reference either. And I've read a lot of Spider-Man, but... He calls him by his name, so... Okay. It's obviously a character. Yeah. And yet I would say, and we won't talk about AC Origins now, it'll be a topic for a future podcast, but
00:42:52
Speaker
but I getting the platinum trophy for that you have to visit every single location in the game and there are fucking hundreds and it is a huge map and yet I was never bored I was never bored yeah see I don't do any of that yeah but most people wouldn't yeah
00:43:07
Speaker
I think with the Arkham games, there was a lot of Riddler trophies and that around the place, but they were always enjoyable. They were interesting, but they weren't overdone. They weren't overused. They contributed to the ethos in the story in an interesting way. Exactly. You wouldn't otherwise have seen. And that's exactly what all of these things to collect in Spider-Man is lacking.
00:43:29
Speaker
Completely lacking the best part about that game and I've spoken at length about this with Ben from 1989 he He agrees that the best part of that about that game is the the random events and crimes that happen in the city Just when you're swinging around right just on a day-to-day that have nothing to do with the story arc They're not side missions that makes you feel you're in a lived-in way
00:43:50
Speaker
You're in a lived-in world and you're contributing to helping these people out of the city. And that's fun. You jump in for 10 minutes and you can just swing around and stop crimes and clear this out. And it's great fun. Some of the missions are very creative in the way they do, but it's like they introduce an aspect like a... I forget what you fucking call it now.
00:44:15
Speaker
I don't know something the style of gameplay within the within the game you sneak around as mary jane at one point and you're pointing out spider-man's on the ceiling and you're pointing out spider-man that this guy is now not being watched. Take him down right and you go there introducing this mechanic and then you go awesome there's gonna be more missions like this no.
00:44:37
Speaker
That's it just just that one right just that you don't get to use this awesome thing that they've just introduced so is it poor writing is that what it is i know i think the writings done it's a it repeats a few things that have gone through a spider-man movies and comic books some of the baddies are there already on the ark or whatever the the prisoners in the marvel universe.
00:45:00
Speaker
Um, it is the arc, but then some of them don't even have their abilities or this or that. And it's just, it's, it's weird. It seems lazy. It's, it's different. It's not, it's a great game. It is a great game, but it's a fucking ugly game. If you're not into collecting tokens, because it stresses me to fuck out looking at that mini map and looking at those bits and pieces all over.
00:45:22
Speaker
Look, I've got to say, I mean, I've hated getting platinum trophies and I've loved getting platinum trophies. There are games that I've platinumed that I can honestly say I have enjoyed more because it forced me to see the entire world. And there are games where it's forced me to do shit that have not contributed at all to my... I'm noting in agreeance. Yeah. It just, yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
I don't know. To me, I've got to say as a rat for 2018, I feel like there were some huge games in 2018 that came out that were like shining beacons.
00:45:56
Speaker
Things like Red Dead Redemption 2, which everyone's been waiting fucking five years for longer. But it's getting hammered for saying that Rockstar's method of gameplay is old and outdated. Red Dead Redemption 2 is an amazing game. But everyone that loves Red Dead 1 has often said, I'll play another fucking game, a new storyline in the original engine. Don't even upgrade the graphics. I'll play the old game. Just put it on a modern console. Don't upgrade the graphics. Just give us access to it again.
00:46:26
Speaker
Divinity 2, AC Odyssey came out, so there's been some big... God of War. God of War. There's been some really big games, but other than those huge games that have come out, I feel like 2018's been a bit of a dry spell for PlayStation 4. Apart from some cornerstone games, I just feel like the general mid... The mid-range stuff has been missing, the AA stuff, not the AAA stuff. Exactly. It definitely has been missing, and even some of the...
00:46:54
Speaker
the real good indie stuff. Like I've looked at the PS Plus stuff for the last few months. Yeah, I'm the same. And we will talk about Divinity II at some point soon, because we are playing that as well, slowly, although PUBG's kind of distracted us for a little while. Oh, you know, I meant to mention it when you were talking about PUBG too. I've said it a couple of times while we've been playing, but every time you say it, if I don't say it out loud, I say it in my head, because you always say, I've got a machine gun.
00:47:20
Speaker
and I always have to go ho ho ho. I've said it a couple of times and if I don't say it out loud, it's in my head. It's my favorite Christmas story. Exactly. This is Inhaler Hoppy Pale from... This being our third beer. Magic Rock in the UK. Unfortunately, I think it's suffering from travel. I've got to say, it looks, smells and tastes like an IPA.
00:47:48
Speaker
There's quite a lot of hop character in it. It's not too resiny, but there's quite a lot, and it's a much deeper amber than I expect out of a pale. Yeah, well, English pale. It's oxidization and a little bit of heat stress as well. Yeah, you can taste that little bit of extra bitterness that I don't think was intended. Yeah, yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yeah. So that's not bad though. It's not, it's not horrible. It's not, it's not great. It's a fucking awesome can, which is why I got it too. It's a black can. It's a black, black can black lead. Um, but a beautiful colored pattern that looks like eyeballs, crazy, crazy eyeballs on it.
00:48:25
Speaker
I think you're right about the oxidation. I actually think that when this was fresh, this would probably taste quite juicy and the juice is kind of given away to just the citrus bitterness rather than the flavour. Yeah, it is suffering from that extra bitterness from a bit of bit of age and heat.
00:48:40
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately, but it's a it's another light on the one. It's a four point something. It says 1.2 standard drinks. So it's got to be four point something. I look I'd drink it again if it was fresh 4.5. But to me, it's not a power in its current English. Yeah, we don't drink many English. That's true. I mean, they're just nobody really makes them because the strains just don't like them.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah. Unfortunately. I'm Australian and I don't particularly like this. Fair enough. There you go. I fit right into that. What do you got? I've got, um, see that's why I cop shit because I actually enjoy the popcorn bubble gum junk that is the, oh no, I can't say that. I can't, that's a really horrible lead up. I will get, I hate my mouth for that too. If there's any, any, uh, teenagers listening, um, which I recommend against CW series. So, um, flash, flash arrow.
00:49:33
Speaker
Supergirl and DC Legends of tomorrow. They often do crossovers leading into Christmas. That's a common thing. That's what they do every year. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much every year. I think it was a couple of years ago, they actually did a musical crossover. How generic are their regular episodes?
00:49:55
Speaker
Um, none. They're not generic at all, actually. I've got to say this for CW. So, so the reason why I think it cops shit is it is, it is too emotional not to be a, uh, aimed very squarely at the late teen, early 20 year old demographic. You do get the, the mushy over dramatized shit. The acting has gotten significantly better as they've kind of settled into their roles. It's not overacted as much as it used to be. If you go back to season one of any of those series, it was very overacted.
00:50:24
Speaker
And they've kind of smoothed out that. It seems to be what I always catch because that's what they seem to only repeat the early ones on TV. That's right. But I will say that every single season of every one of those four series, there's always been an overarching arc for the season.
00:50:42
Speaker
So they're after Savitar in flash for the whole season. Yeah, they're after the thinker in flash for the whole season arrows fighting, you know Deathstroke or you know, this this they've done a great job of writing I've got to say as much as it is written for that demographic And as adults as 30 something year olds, we kind of see through it. It is very well written But this year's crossover
00:51:06
Speaker
What are you going to say Dan? So it just, it's from what you're saying there, it sounds like it hasn't really evolved that much from like Lois and Clark. Oh no, it is much less. It is much less teeny bopper than Lois and Clark and it's a lot less than say Smallville.
00:51:26
Speaker
Oh, OK. Yeah, that was that was terribly overactive and hard to watch. And you know what? There are differences. So Arrow is quite made bloody leaders 15 years ago. Yeah, that's that's true, too. And there are differences between the CW series. So Flash and Arrow, for example, are probably the two primaries. They've got a very different feel. Arrow is quite gritty. He fucking max. You know, he kills people on a regular basis. You almost said it. You almost got the city, Bob.
00:51:54
Speaker
Whereas Flash doesn't believe in killing. And they've done a decent job of bringing in, you know, one of the common Flash characters, trickster kind of jokey attitude to life. He does have a lot of fun. And I think they've done that justice. That was one of the contention points was always good in the comic books between Batman and Oliver. Yep.
00:52:18
Speaker
because of Oliver's nonchalant killing people, and obviously Batman dead against it. And they are very different characters too, although Batman and Arrow are quite similar in grittiness. But even the background of their history, their story is very similar. And they don't have true superhero powers, they're not metahumans. No, no, no, they're just, yeah. So they've got that in common as well, they're just extremely skilled.
00:52:44
Speaker
So, yeah, one of the recent crossovers in the last couple of years, they actually did a musical episode. I've heard about it. Which I thought was OK. I walked into it thinking this is going to be fucking terrible. It's really not up my alley. But even in the old days, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the musicals were pretty good. That's that's true. But then you do have Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist both came from Glee. So it's kind of unsurprising. OK, so they can. And I don't remember Stephen Ammel doing any singing.
00:53:11
Speaker
now that I think about it. Anyway, I wanted to talk about this most recent crossover where they did... Before you get there, was there a reason behind the singing one?
00:53:19
Speaker
Um, not really. Not really. Not really. Just some random. They're in a parallel universe. It's a bit hazy now. They're in a parallel universe and a couple of them had to sing to survive. It was kind of 1920s. Like it makes perfect sense. But all of the other crossovers that I can remember have had all four shows. So stay, um, arrow flash legends of tomorrow, uh, which, uh, consist almost exclusively of characters from the other three series and supergirl.
00:53:50
Speaker
For this year's crossover, they only did Supergirl, Flash and Arrow. They were doing the Elseworlds series. Now, I don't know if Elseworlds is a reference to a comic arc that leads up to Crisis on Infinite Earths. No, I've never really read any Elseworlds, but I think they're like Marvel's version of What If.
00:54:10
Speaker
So the yeah, although having said that Marvel did what if because I've got quite a few Spider-Man what if Mary Jane and DC is done else worlds as well. Oh, right. They're saying that the DC equivalent of what if it's what if so it's these it's these I don't know if they if we change the fundamentals of the universe, what would happen?
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah, but I don't know if they're like a parallel or one of the Earths in the DC universe or whether they're like the what-if stories where they're completely separate from. So what they did this time was they put, it's going to be a little bit hard to explain, they put Stephen Ammel, the actor that plays Arrow, they made him flash and they put Grant Guston, who plays Flash, into Arrow's body. But
00:54:56
Speaker
The actors didn't. I know it's hard. Yeah. Well, I forgot to, I forgot to ask you this the other day when you were trying to explain it to me. So if they look in the mirror, do they look like themselves or is it? They look like themselves. Okay. So it's not that movie trope where they, they, the actors there, but if they look in the mirror, it's the other one. No.
00:55:11
Speaker
So they are, so Stephen Ammel is the Flash in the Elseworlds and everybody in the Flash universe recognises Stephen Ammel, the actor, as the Flash character and vice versa. So everyone in the Arrow universe recognises Grant Gustin who usually plays Flash as the Arrow and the only people that know they're in the wrong universes is Flash and Arrow.
00:55:36
Speaker
Yes so and Supergirl was kind of super they brought Supergirl in from another earth who recognises that they're swapped that's how I got around that so essentially they're talking about the monitor who changes the fundamentals of the universe you can rewrite destiny and that's that's kind of how it leads into the storyline yes the anti-monitor.
00:55:57
Speaker
We'll be in it at some stage. At some point, yes. But this guy is the monitor, so he's kind of... He's a malevolent. He's not a bad guy, but he's not a good guy either. He's quite prepared to fuck with people and kill them, or have them die. Dan's expression from this last beer is quite...
00:56:18
Speaker
Quite good. It was enjoyable. Watch your expression then. That was a holy shitballs Batman. No, it was a whole lot of confusion. Okay. Um, look, the crossover was excellent. I've got to say I thoroughly enjoy. I don't think I've laughed at an episode in on TV in a long time, as much as I did with this primarily because
00:56:35
Speaker
The flash, traditionally, is quite a light-hearted, everything's about love, I run for love, I run for happiness, and the arrow's like, I'm gonna mack motherfuckers left and right, you're in my way, I'm putting an arrow through your eyes. And then to have them swap, and then tell each other that, hey, Steven Ammel, if you want a current flash in this alternate universe,
00:56:57
Speaker
If you want to run faster, you need to embrace love and happiness and Stephen. I remember you saying that. Yeah. And Stephen Amles like, hey, that's right. And, and, and he turns around to arrow in this alternate universe, the original flash character and says, if you, if you want to fight like I do, then you need to harden the fuck up.
00:57:15
Speaker
And the interplay between those two characters was hilarious. And then you've kind of got Supergirl as a third party to kind of mediate between the two and they did a brilliant job. The actual storyline in the three episodes was brilliant. Okay, so it's only three episodes. That's right. It's really well written.
00:57:31
Speaker
And most excitingly, it does lead into, you know, in 2019, we will be doing Crisis on Infinite Earths. And I've got to say, I'm really impressed and surprised that they're tackling such a monumental comic series. They've got Superman. They do have Superman. That's why they're going to do it. And they have Batwoman. Somehow they managed to get the rights to bring Gotham and Batwoman into it. They do make references to Bruce Wayne and Batman, although he's not in it.
00:57:59
Speaker
Um, I don't know what's changed about the IP that's going on or who's got rights to which intellectual property, but I'm, I was impressed. And I've got to say that, um, Oh, what's the actress, uh, Ruby Rose as Batwoman was fucking pausing. I couldn't have been happier with, uh, their casting. She's skinnier than I remember her. She, yeah, she was when she was in, um,
00:58:20
Speaker
Orange is the new black. Yeah. Super skinny. Yeah, she's extremely skinny now. She needs to put some... She's almost tank girl skinny. Beef on. Yeah. Anyway, so talk about this fourth and final beer. So this is the DFA from the Garage Project, previously known as Death from Above. We'll always be known in our hearts as Death from Above. Well, actually, what they write on the back is actually quite a good homage to it. They wrote, DFA is dead, long live DFA.
00:58:47
Speaker
Demis flavor amorum is amore. We choose to stand for love for love DFA. Oh, we choose to stand for love. That's obviously what those Latin words mean. Demis for vorum amore. Well, amore is definitely love. So we choose to stand for love. DFA is a surprising blend marrying mango Vietnamese mint, lime and chili with high with a hit of citrus from Centennial and Amarillo and Citra hops.
00:59:16
Speaker
How old is it? Cause I don't get a lot of that. I can get the hint of chili. Yeah. I wouldn't have picked up on it if you hadn't mentioned it, but I probably, it's not that old. It's probably four months. Okay. Um, a lot of what you just said, I do not get the meat. Now that I didn't get mint until I actually read that it was mint on there. Yeah. Yeah. More in the aroma, but it's, it's light on.
00:59:44
Speaker
Yeah, some not bad. It's it's a bigger beer than I generally like. Yeah, it's quite a quite a big flavor. But having that mango and everything in there, I think it's that fruit might have overpowering not aged real well that well. Yeah, it's not bad. Like I said, but you know, I'm
01:00:01
Speaker
kind of turn to sours and sessionable pails these days. It's a heavy, it's a heavy bodied IPA completely opposite to those first two. Yeah. I'm spitting everything. That's why we've got pop filters. You can name this pop filter mine now. Yeah, that, and I mean, look, I enjoy milk stout. I enjoy bigger beers sometimes, but I've got to be in the mood.
01:00:21
Speaker
I haven't had the DFA for a long time. That's why I wanted it. 7.5%. Uh, it's got a big body to it. It's got a big multi-body to it. A lot of residual sweetness that, uh, that hop, that hopper resonance sort of hop, resinous hop, um, bitterness sort of lingers quite a bit. Once again, it's not bad. It's not bad in any way, shape or form. It's just big in comparison to me saying, I only got light ones this time.
01:00:47
Speaker
Well look, just to close out on the CW crossover, I'm looking forward to Crisis on Infinite Earths. It's one of my favourite all-time comic series to watch major characters dive permanently, although it was in an alternate universe. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it.
01:01:06
Speaker
And to have in this crossover, to have evil black suited Superman was fucking sick with the Mandarin colored suit from it's almost new 52 52. Yeah, really well, well done. And once we had conversation a couple of days ago, it was also there to the point now where they can do those things. They can make it interesting, do something different.
01:01:29
Speaker
and have fun with the IP they've got rather than supernatural recycling the same shit for 12 seasons that you could write the script yourself these days. You know what pisses me off about that though? If they just did that for the fucking DC movies, we'd have decent DC movies.
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah. Just pick a fucking series that has been popular and retell that story faithfully without going through, now we're going to show you, you know, Flash's backstory. Now we're going to show you fucking Aquaman's, they didn't really do Aquaman's backstory, but I just, I can't see. They will in Aquaman. Of course. I can't see how you can have hundreds of thousands of fucking brilliant comics and not extract five or six good movies.
01:02:13
Speaker
Marvel's done a brilliant fucking job. They picked Civil War. Civil War was a huge series, 102 or 105 comics in that series, and they distilled it into what? Completely different. Yes, but my point is... Well, not completely different, but... My point is, you don't even have to be a good writer to land a good fucking comic book movie. You need to pick good writing from a comic and then turn it into a fucking movie. It's not that hard.
01:02:34
Speaker
They're taking another shit? Yes. Seriously, this might be the last time we ever do this here. Three and an hour and a half? I know. It's ridiculous. Anyway, give us another topic, Dan. Well done that one. We kind of talked about Darth Vader comics. They're just fucking awesome, so read them. We kind of talked about Red Dead.
01:02:55
Speaker
Real smooth, Dan. What? Leave us in to another topic. Yeah, I'm going there. He's padding. I am padding. Haunting of Hill House. Did you watch that? No. I've heard good things. I'm not even going to talk about it then if you haven't watched it. Okay. Sydney Beer Week. What's going on with Sydney Beer Week?
01:03:12
Speaker
No, just that was sort of just on there to have some beer stuff, beer related stuff to talk about. I think Sydney Beer Week that was the first time that Dave's events and tours. First time Dave's and events and tours ran Sydney Beer Week. Last year.
01:03:29
Speaker
this year. 2018. They were part of it last year, but this year they ran the whole thing. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. 2018. Yeah. The one just gone. They did a great job. They did thoroughly enjoyed it. There was so much on across the board. They, they put out the pamphlets for it and you can really spray them from there. Yes. They put out the pamphlets for it. It was easy to read, easy to navigate. They, they use the website. They,
01:03:59
Speaker
marketing things the way they should have. Still think there's too many beers to get through in a weekend. Oh, yeah, it's the whole thing. That's got nothing to do with Dave. That's just Oh, yeah, the whole thing was the whole thing was huge. There was no way you were even getting to half of war. So you're just looking forward to how they run next year. Yeah, so this this was, well, this was their second year of being part of it. I mean, Dave was a part of it a few years ago, running bosses and that unofficially. Last year, there were partners in it. This year, they ran it.
01:04:29
Speaker
So be interesting to see how much bigger and better it gets. Yep. I'm going to give you guys a shameless plug because I'm not actually part of Bounty Hunter. So you guys have entered into. Oh shit. Yeah, we should talk about it. Yeah. So the hottest, what is the hottest 100? Yeah, Gab's hottest 100. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. So go and vote if you're a beer drinker and you've tried any of the Bounty Hunter brewing beers, go and vote on the Gab's website. Vote, vote Bounty Hunter in.
01:04:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's everything that we've released in, not released, everything that was sold. Available in 2018. Yeah, sold in 2018. And there's some fucking massive beers in there. There's some big ones on there. My personal pick's world date. There are lots of reasons why I want to see that get up there. Not least of which is it is genuinely my favourite bounty hunter beer. It's my favourite sour beer that you guys have done and my favourite sour beer full stop. I think we might see a return of that at some stage. I fucking hope so.
01:05:20
Speaker
But yeah, they did a good job. I'm really looking forward to what they're doing. Looking forward to Gabs next year. Benny Hunter's got a stand there with Spooning Goats in 1989. We've gone three ways in a big ass booth. In a big stand to put in an arcade and put some games on. I'll be there to heck with you fuckers. Yeah, you know, so it's going to be a good day in Sydney. So I think Sydney Gabs last year was great. I mean, they built it even more.
01:05:48
Speaker
I appreciate that it's only one day because it actually forces the crowds to be bigger and better. But I think it would reach out to a few more people if it was, say, a Friday night and the Saturday. Don't need a Sunday session. The Friday night and the Saturday.
01:06:05
Speaker
would be, would be good. I don't know. They get a lot of fucking people on Sunday though, trying to jam all those people into a Friday and Saturday. The Melbourne one, by the time you get to Sunday, working it is such a drag. But it's not for the workers, Dan. Yeah, four day hangovers, man. Fuck you guys. Just deal with it. We fucking get down there on, we've gotten down there on the Wednesdays. Are you doing a booth in Melbourne this year, Benny Hunter?
01:06:29
Speaker
No, no, no, just Sydney. So we get down there for the Australian brewery on, well, previous years, we've gotten down there on the Wednesday because we've
Road Trip to Melbourne
01:06:36
Speaker
driven. You get in there, you do a fucking 12 hour drive or whatever it is in the big ass van we've got. You go, we're just checking in and we're going to bed. And then you get to Melbourne, you go, no, we need to eat and have a beer.
01:06:49
Speaker
20 years later you are there's a photo on social media of man max lying on the floor in the booth waiting for the bar.
Behind the Scenes: Event Preparations
01:06:57
Speaker
I can show on from wayward was carrying his bar in your carrying his stock up took a photo of us and posted it on instagram me and max are asleep on the floor.
01:07:06
Speaker
So we were hungover as shit. And then Thursday night, we did it again. And then Friday, the rest of the crew turned up. So it's just a weekend. It's a massive one weekend. It's a fucking week. It's a week of your life, right? Goddamn liver killer. And it leads straight from Melbourne into Sydney, right? So you've got maybe a week or two between? You get the weekend. So yeah, the Melbourne's on the weekend. Then we drive back on the Monday. And we do it in one hit. And then you get that weekend in between. But it doesn't feel like you do. And then you roll straight into Sydney.
01:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, because you've got to catch up on all the work. And then you've got to prep for the Sydney one as well. Because it's only one day, you've got to bump in, get your shit ready, get it all, get your stand all set up, then serve for the entire day and then rock up on the Sunday morning, fucking bump out and get it back to work. So here's the aspect of preparing tasty beverages that you don't get to hear about often.
01:07:55
Speaker
There's a lot of work that goes on in the background beyond just the brewing process. Goddamn hard work. All right, so we need a last topic to kind of run out of the episode because we're running out of time. We don't want to make this too long. What do you got? Venom.
Movie Discussion: Solo
01:08:08
Speaker
Venom? Look, there were a few of those. I mean, Ant, Venom, Wasp, Venom. I think if I'd seen Venom, it would have made it into the ugly section because I've got Solo in there and I fucking love Solo, but it definitely falls into the ugly section. I watched Solo last night. I watched a lot of movies last night.
01:08:23
Speaker
Very lonely last night. It was, you know, let's talk about solo. Let's finish with solo. I think that's a, that's a good movie to go. You've put it in ugly though. It is. I love it. I think it's great, but it's definitely fucking ugly. Why? Because once again, it's a pretty movie. I think it, I think it was a good fun adventure that filled out. To me, it felt like an India to Jones. Yeah, it was, it was an adventure. Which is perfect for solo. Yeah. If you're going to tell a solo story, you want it to feel like an indie.
01:08:50
Speaker
I think Ivan Alkenwright, whoever you say his name was good. I think... What's his name? Pad. Gambino. Gambino. What's his name? We need a Chris here for this. He's got a didatic memory for fucking actors name. I do know his goddamn name. Baby Gambino. I don't know. Well... Donald Glover.
01:09:13
Speaker
Yep. He was awesome as Lando. I would watch a movie with him in it. I think they've scratched it now. They probably have. That was the movie everybody wanted. Do Lando. But I guess they had to see whether the character was Billy Dee Williams was so charismatic. He was. That if the actor was going to screw it up and not carry that charisma over. But he more than did. He was great.
01:09:44
Speaker
Oh, Woody Harrelson as an anchor character for a most named movie. I mean, Woody's fucking brilliant. Amelia Clark. Yeah, Amelia Clark from Game of Thrones, Queen of Dragons. And then Woody Harrelson's love interest that's only in it for like 10 minutes. And she would have been awesome. Fandy Newton. Yes. So what has she been in? I reckon Westwell. Lots of stuff. She's the main protagonist in Westwell. She's great. But her character was awesome.
01:10:13
Speaker
And so was the little monkey pilot that was voiced by... Oh, and the robot, IB L3-37. Yeah, so she was part of the Ugly. I enjoyed her. You know what fucked with my head though? She sounds a hell of a lot. So the actress that voices her is Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She sounds so much like the tall chick from Game of Thrones.
01:10:39
Speaker
Oh yeah, she does, doesn't she? Yeah, when you put those... It's fun, she has my head. Yeah. So if you watch the behind the scenes stuff, she was actually there in the costume. Oh, that's awesome. And it gives a character something to interact with too. That's how you get the... because that...
01:10:53
Speaker
That robot, that droid, moves like you would expect a human in an awkward... With some fucked up headphones. Yeah, with the weird hips that she's got in the costume. But she's got so much character. I enjoyed that character thoroughly. And I've got to say, they've made a point, since they've taken C3PO and R2D2 out for some of the extra movies,
01:11:15
Speaker
They've done a brilliant job of filling the void with characterful droids. But they were trying, I felt they tried too hard to get the next K2SO. Yeah. Because everybody loved K2. That's true. And he had just the right level of personality, but she was too much
01:11:33
Speaker
It was like the, the comments, the comments, some of the comments just fell flat and were horrible, but, but then how she interacted. There's a lot of subtle comments that aren't, they don't stand very, very alone that you, you pick up the second or third watch. There's a lot of undertone there.
01:11:50
Speaker
But how she interacted with Lando on the bridge of the ship and they were both completely in sync and salute each other before they go into hyperspace, that stuff was great, but... Gwendoline Christie or Gwendoline Christie is the character I was talking about. She was actually Captain Phasma, that's right. It sounds a hell of a lot like her. She does sound very much like her, yeah. To the point where I had to look it up when I was watching it again last night. Yeah, to see who, yeah. But I've got to say, I was impressed, I'm going to try now, Alden and... Alden, I can write.
01:12:18
Speaker
Okay, I don't know how you get a K out of that, but anyway, I thought he was excellent in his ability to represent without being perfect, granted, Han Solo's original mannerisms. Not the actor so much, Harrison Ford has his own mannerisms, granted, but
01:12:37
Speaker
But the mannerisms that Harrison injected into Han Solo, I think he did a brilliant job of replicating. I did, yeah. And he was slightly younger. Yeah, even his voice. If you close your eyes, it's easy to imagine that being voiced by Harrison Ford. The cockiness was just right, that sort of attitude. But even the breaks in his sentence structure. Yeah, OK. I've got to give props to the actor for studying Harrison Ford's style and representing that.
01:13:05
Speaker
Overall, I thought it was a brilliant movie. So why is it in your ugly column? Because there's the stupid bits, right? You've got to have stupid bits. Well, no, the bad bits, the ugly bits. Ever since George Lucas sold the IP, there's been stupid bits in every Star Wars fucking movie. No, no, no. A lot of purple hair doesn't make sense fucking well. Okay, so this is the solo version of that was how he got his solo name.
01:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, so now named by an Imperial random talking about this in apparently this is coming up in the comic books. Anybody who came into the Imperial Navy or army that didn't have a name, a people were named solo.
01:13:51
Speaker
That sounds like a reverse justification. It does sound like a reverse justification because if the douchebag general or the douchebag imperial officer had known that he would have wouldn't have had this inquisitive look on his face. I wonder what I'll call you. I wonder what I'll call him. It would have just been imperial law. You're a solo. Yeah. And that would have been better. I don't think it would have been good, but it would have been better.
01:14:14
Speaker
I just, I just, the idea that a fucking random Imperial soldier in the middle of fucking nowhere on Corellia named a key character in the Star Wars universe, not even that movie, but the whole universe is offensive to me. It's just, it is such a disrespect to the fans. That's my opinion. But then the thing that isn't disrespect to the fans is the absolute amazing interaction and friendship between Han and Chewie.
01:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, that was really, really well done. 100% the best part of the entire movie was those two interacting with each other and just the little comments here and there, just between each other and just... To me, it was the... So to me, the solo movie was a perfect happy counterpoint to the death of the Harrison character in the last Star Wars movie. Yeah.
01:15:02
Speaker
Um, and, and that really did bring a tear. And that genuinely did. And I think that was the rest of the movie brought different types of tears. So where the fuck did you do that? So when, uh, Han Solo died, spoiler, if you haven't seen The Force Awakens, good serial, you've had almost what? 18 months. Yep. And, uh, Chewie's reaction to his death. And so that was, I think to me, I think it was, I don't know if it was written with design, but it was almost like those stories you hear about a,
01:15:31
Speaker
Like a golden retriever reacting to their owner's death in real life. But that's a very bad analogy because he's a sentient character. He's not a pet. I get it. He's an equal. But it's the same actor that plays Chewie now.
01:15:52
Speaker
Right. So the young guy that plays Chewie. So the original actor for Chewie, which I should know his name. I can picture him. So he only played Chewie in The Force Awakens in the sitting parts because he's old and he's got problems with his hips or something. So he couldn't lug the suit around there. He is like seven foot tall or something stupid like that. Yeah, he's massive. So now the young Swedish guy who plays
01:16:17
Speaker
Chewy now. He played the walking moving parts in The Force Awakens and now he is Chewbacca. That's cool. I like that. You watch the behind the scenes of the Chewy stuff on Solo. You've got the DVD. I do. Watch the Chewy stuff. It's amazing what this young dude does in that fucking suit. He's diving over things and doing commando roles with rifles and everything like that and how he moves
01:16:45
Speaker
and fights in the actual suit. It's obviously very different to how it was back in 1970. But just him moving in that. It's a heavy looking suit. I thoroughly enjoyed just even the mud scene with the fight scene when he meets Chewbacca. That felt very gritty and real.
01:17:01
Speaker
And the fact that you saw him speak Shirley Wook when he was about to be drowned and calls him a big dumb Wookie and all those names that he calls him throughout all of it. The interactions were perfect. Even him getting in the shower. It's like we couldn't have done this one at a time. Yeah, I agree. It is quintessential interaction between those two characters. But then there's the ugly parts.
01:17:24
Speaker
The black hole space Cthulhu? Surely they're smart enough. They're at a point now in Hollywood where they get... And this goes for all the comic book movies from DC as well and all the movies we love. Surely there are enough fans to play test this shit who have the balls to give them honest feedback that these dumbasses don't just fucking play it for some mega fans and go, give us the real feedback. What do you genuinely think?
01:17:52
Speaker
I loved it, except this is terrible, you need to fucking rewrite it. And they need to do it at a point where it's financially viable for them to go back and kind of re-shoot stuff. Even if you fucking storyboard or comic book this shit. I mean, if you look at the Clone Wars series,
01:18:11
Speaker
3D animated TV series are after their third different series now. If you did the whole movie like that, it would be realistic enough that... The voice actors can go in for a day and just read their lines. Just fuck around. It's not going to be polished. It's not going to be perfect. But it would give a solid set of fans a decent enough view of the movie to go.
01:18:31
Speaker
Why the fuck does that purple head woman need to be in this movie at all? And why does she need to go back? It's got a fucking autopilot, you dumbass. And where's Akbar? And where is Akbar? The fucking, you know, the general in the series gets macked without any fucking fanfare at all. Yeah, totally agree. So the one last thing that doesn't
01:18:54
Speaker
That unless people are reading the books, the interaction between Han and Chewbacca was they liberate Kashyyyk in the life debt novel, which is canon. Yep. And so I read all the books before they officially stamped it all canon. So it's not canon. Well, it's legends now. Yeah. But the canon ones, they liberate Kashyyyk and Han Solo finds out Leia's pregnant. She comes and helps them get away. So they head back.
01:19:20
Speaker
layer head back to the uh the planet that the the um the resistance not the resistance the new republic are setting up on um and han says to chewy because chewy is saying to help the the wookies um you've got to come back at some stage because i can't i can't imagine my son growing up without knowing you yeah yeah so it's a pretty sad moment yeah but there was that just
01:19:44
Speaker
cemented their relationship together before the events of The Force Awakens. So that was just a, to me, that was a very nice throwback and just to see the solo, the interaction and everything like that. Totally great.
Future Episodes and Podcast Name Origin
01:19:59
Speaker
Cool. All right. That's it for the first episode of Games and Grog. I kind of skipped an of there because it just doesn't work. Which was the original name of our
01:20:09
Speaker
WhatsApp chat. It was when we were spitballing ideas for a podcast. So I think it was well before that. It was back when we were playing GTA online. Yeah. Fuck. I miss the good parts of that game and I still hate the rest of it. Yeah. So we'll be doing this on a regular basis. Not sure what the regularity is, but it will be less than six monthly and well, more frequently than six monthly and less than fortnightly. So we'll probably settle on monthly.
01:20:34
Speaker
But yeah, hopefully you enjoyed it and tune in soon for the next episode. Thank you. Thanks guys. Bye. Bye.