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Episode 002 - Collectoholics
73 Plays9 months ago
In this episode, Andy and Shawn discuss what they've been watching and deep-dive into collecting.
If you would like to send in an email or voicemail, you can reach us at [email protected]
Chapters
00:00:00 Catching Up
00:04:20 Ghostbusters Trailer
00:10:00 More Stuff We're Watching
00:22:34 Highlander Reboot, Rogue Trooper, & More
00:40:05 Disney: Droids in Training
00:47:20 Collecting
01:13:25 Wrapping Up
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Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Reflections
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode number two of just shilling. I am your host Sean Hoffman and right across from me across the across the pond is my good buddy Andy Bell. How are you doing, buddy? Good evening, Sean. I'm good. Thank you. How are you keeping? I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. You know, it's been a
00:00:22
Speaker
It's been an up and down week, but we're here. That's awesome. It's already making the day and the week better. Just getting to hang out and chat about the stuff that we enjoy. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I know you and I covered it very quickly before we started recording, but yeah, this week's been extra super tough for me. We're going through quite reorg at work.
00:00:48
Speaker
quite the restructure, having to, or potentially having to say goodbye to some very, very good friends that I've made over 15 years. And it's tough. It's tough. It's never nice. It's never pretty. And for someone as sentimental as myself, I find it quite hard. So this week has been particularly tough for me.
00:01:17
Speaker
you know, why I'm so glad that we're talking tonight because it's it's quite a nice respite from the craziness that's going on in the office at the moment. That sucks to hear that, man. I'm glad that we get to have a moment of escape. But yeah, absolutely. We make it a little bit better. But you know, our thoughts are with all the people that are affected by all that stuff. And yeah, that's rough. Yeah.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough. These are clever people, infinitely more clever than I am. So I'm sure they'll land on their feet. But it's just, it's never nice. It's never a nice thing to have to go through. But anyway, we're here. And I'm pumped.
00:02:02
Speaker
because as I said, this is my nice little oasis away from the chaos of the normal world. So yeah,
Media Highlights and Reviews
00:02:11
Speaker
I guess we'll start off as we did last week with, so what have you heard? What's going on in the ether at the moment? What news has really, really shaped your world or what your world this week that we can perhaps talk about?
00:02:27
Speaker
From my side of things, there's a couple things that really stand out from this last week. The first one is that I'm really excited about. It's not necessarily news, but it was the release of the Masters of the Air show. I got to watch the first two episodes. Oh, yeah. I'm digging it. I'm digging it. Oh, good.
00:02:47
Speaker
Good, good. I don't have a lot of feedback. It's only two episodes, but it's different. But at the moment, is it as good quality as Band of Brothers and the Pacific? I think if you compare it to the first two episodes of those, like if you were watching those again from the very beginning, I think we're right along in that same vein. Oh, cool.
00:03:14
Speaker
Like I can tell it's gonna go some really cool when you see the previews and like, oh, this is gonna be awesome. But it's just setting it up. It's like introducing you to some of the characters. I am, like, I'm not gonna talk about, I mean, it's not really spoilers, but it's like, it is interesting to see that they're going with, they're really kind of focusing on like more of the leadership of the command and the group instead of like the other two, where it's more of like the low, like the infantry and kind of like a- Sure.
00:03:42
Speaker
the bottom. But it's interesting to kind of see it come from like a command, not a command, but like a leadership level. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. But no, I'm really enjoying it. I'm hoping that we can... I wish they would just release them all at once so I could just waste a Saturday and just get through all of them. But it's kind of cool to have that thing to look forward to weekly.
00:04:04
Speaker
That's cool. And I will get around to it as well. I promise you, I will get around to it. It's just that there's so much stuff to get through at the moment. It's one of many.
Nostalgia and Entertainment Discussion
00:04:16
Speaker
Yeah. The other thing that's more newsworthy that really stood out to me was the new Ghostbusters Frozen Empire trailer. Yeah.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, I was, I think growing up for me personally, I wasn't a huge Ghostbusters fan. I think it was more of a slightly different time. Like I definitely had the toys that I really remember. And like, it was interesting to me, but with the new kind of reboot and the stuff that they've been doing with, I mean, I've enjoyed all of them, but I think the stuff that they did with the most recent one, and then now this one coming up, it's like, it just feels,
00:04:54
Speaker
feels right. I really like the vibe they're going with. I don't think that vibe works for all franchises nor do I want it on all franchises where it's that very much of a a a rehash of the same thing that was before and like staying in that same vein and not really taking a lot of chances. That's kind of a kind of a negative way to say it but I think that's
00:05:17
Speaker
I'm saying it in a positive way. It's like I'm glad that they're kind of staying in that same vein for these Ghostbusters movies because I really like it. I don't want them to do that for other franchises, but no, this new trailer I think looks really fun and I'm excited for it. I'm excited for the movie to come out.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the original releases were epic in their own right. They were fantastic and we didn't get the continuation. It ended at Ghostbusters 2 for many, many years.
00:05:49
Speaker
Having it back, obviously you get the nostalgia feels from the original cast being there, but also you inject the kids into the whole thing as well, and they are such good actors. Especially Egon's granddaughter, I can't remember her name in the last one.
00:06:11
Speaker
There are really good bunch of kids that kind of bring a certain amount of enthusiasm and freshness to it. But yeah, it's the same old tropes. It's ghost busting. I mean, it's ghost busting. My understanding is that this is more akin to the cartoons, the story.
00:06:26
Speaker
Uh, it's, it's, it's, I don't know if you remember the original go, was it the real Ghostbusters? The, um, the original cartoon back in the, in the late eighties. Um, that's, that's what I remember watching specifically. Um, and my understanding is that, you know, they're getting away from Zool. They're getting away from some of the, um,
00:06:46
Speaker
the heavier stuff that kind of happened in the original films, and they're looking to color. If this thing has got layers going forward, they have to do one of two things. Obviously, at some point, they need to think what they're going to do with the original cast, because let's face it, they can't be around forever. And if this is a franchise that will continue on into the future, and I hope it does, because it really is like low risk. I mean, it's not, how can I put it? It's not a franchise that
00:07:17
Speaker
It's the end of the world if they go down a particular road that some fans like and some fans don't, and then we'll create schisms within the fandom. I don't think it's that kind of franchise anyway. I think it's having a laugh, quite frankly. And again, we say a lot on this pod, but it's not taking itself too seriously. So yeah, no, I'm looking forward to it. And the trainer looks really good. Looks really, really good.
00:07:43
Speaker
So I think that the villain looks like something that's either like a mixture. It's like a mixture of something from like a Zack Snyder film. And yeah, stop motioning almost. So I'm interested to see what they do with that. But I like what you said there, how it doesn't take itself too seriously. Like, I kind of think about it myself. It's like, I don't really care what the canon is. I think it's just, it's just fun. And your point of
00:08:05
Speaker
Like, what are they going to do with the older cast? I think maybe there's an expectation on my part where I'm hoping this is the film where there's there's more of that handoff. Yeah, like I could say if I zoom, if I zoom out a little bit, I could say, you know,
00:08:21
Speaker
they probably really wanna wait till the kids are old enough where they can kind of be independent in that world. And so you can't have a bunch of 13 year old kids fighting ghosts for a whole city. They don't have the means to do so in a lot of ways. So it's like, okay, and I imagine these kids are getting a little bit older, the actors. And so now it's like, okay, they're getting older. So then if they did a third one, then...
00:08:49
Speaker
They're adults now and they're kind of running it on their own. So hopefully this is more of the handoff. If not, I don't really care. It just looks fun. And as long as I go in and I'm entertained for an hour and a half to hopefully not three hours, then that's a win in my book.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's one of those things that you can just go in, switch your brain off and eat a stack load of popcorn and drink a load of soda and not have to worry about what the consequences are or whether it's canon or all of the kind of nonsense that perhaps other franchises might get tied up in. It's a no. It's the one that's... Sorry, gone.
00:09:28
Speaker
No, no, I was gonna say, it really is that simple. It's gonna be a popcorn flick and I'm gonna have a blast watching it. So I'm all in.
In-depth Series Analysis
00:09:39
Speaker
On that same note, I know we briefly discussed it the other day, like through messaging and stuff, but I did just finish Monarch Legacy of Monsters too. And so I think that's in that same realm for me. When I first started it, I thought it was going to be
00:09:58
Speaker
more like hands-off, popcorn-y. Like, so I was doing stuff on my computer while I was watching it. And I think about the second or third episode, it's like, okay, I think I gotta like focus a little bit more. Like, I needed, and it wasn't just the subtitles, but it's also like, wait, what? What is happening? By the end of it, I was like, okay, that was really cool. Like, it's low risk. I mean, as long as you go with the right expectations,
00:10:25
Speaker
Like I went in thinking, I'm like, what are they going to do? How'd they make a an Apple TV show with Godzilla? And, you know, as long as you're not expecting kaiju fights every fifth scene, then I think you're going to be. Yeah. And you like that kind of story.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And like you, I'm not necessarily a massive Kaiju aficionado or indeed a fan. I do enjoy the Godzilla and the Kong films for what they are. There are friends that you and I have that are hugely, hugely into it, invested in that whole kind of franchise. But I just enjoy them for what they are. But you're right, it's not one of those
00:11:11
Speaker
Monarch is smarter than I gave it credit for or going into watching it in the first place, like you. There are two things you need to be aware of. The first being they jump around in time.
00:11:25
Speaker
during each episode, and it's very, very difficult to catch up and to understand, you know, at what point are we talking about the 40s, 50s, and 60s? At what point are we in the noughties and, you know, what's going on here? And they do that a heck of a lot. And I find myself, if I didn't concentrate on what was going on at any one time, I would lose my way very, very quickly and have to rewind.
00:11:49
Speaker
And then secondly, obviously an awful lot of it, there's a lot of awful lot of Easter eggs in there that go all the way back to the original Gareth Edwards film around G-Day and the folk that were around during those and subsequent films as well. There's a heck of a lot there that all ties together. And obviously you've got the opening scene is with
00:12:20
Speaker
Oh, come on, John, John Goodburn. John Goodburn from the Kong, from Skull Island. And then obviously you've got, and then
00:12:32
Speaker
the guys that end up being the founders of of monarch are hugely have links uh quite deep links with all of the other characters that we see and the story events that happen uh in those first in this first few Godzilla films and and because I hate the idea of missing something like that and not just
00:12:55
Speaker
and letting it just go by, I would find myself again going back and double checking, what do they mean by that? That clearly was a reference to something. What does it mean? I enjoyed it. I thought it was really clever. To your point, I thought the production values for a TV show were amazing. I thought that when Godzilla did finally get out and about every now and again, I thought that it looked fantastic.
00:13:19
Speaker
But there was very, he was used, oh sorry, the Kaiju were used very, very sparingly. And I understand why. It was really more about the human story and the foundation and the ongoing work that Monarch do. But I enjoyed it and what came away from it was a compelling story. And it's funny because
00:13:44
Speaker
I wasn't disappointed with having, with not having lots and lots of monster fights. And I understand that the latest Godzilla film from the guys over at the scruffies, there's not an awful lot of Godzilla in that movie, in the actual movie as well. It's more about the human story, which makes it so compelling. So yeah, no, I enjoyed it. It was a good one. And I hope that they get the green light for season two.
00:14:14
Speaker
I will like, when you mentioned like the human story, I think that is my one big story takeaway of just, I always like to pretend like I'm the fly on the wall when like story meetings and stuff are pitched or when somebody's writing or whatever. A lot of the stuff I've never been a part of and just, I'm just curious how it happens. It's one of those like life mysteries thing for me. And then, so for that, the thing that really stands out about monarch is,
00:14:42
Speaker
Like in case somebody see it, I won't like super spoil it, but like there's a dynamic story point that has to deal with kind of the main characters and some family stuff of like how it's all connected, like how they're all connected and like, and it's an absolutely brutal story point that halfway through the show, I'm like, why was that needed?
00:15:08
Speaker
And like, but it just makes it, it just makes it so much more, it gives it so much like more weight in a way that's unique. It's not there for shock value. It's not there for that. But it is brutal though. I think I know what you're talking about. And it hasn't yet been explained, has it? No, it hasn't. Like my assumption was that it's never going to be explained. It's just, you know, mistakes happen.
00:15:36
Speaker
kind of thing, but it's interesting. I mean, if they do a season two, I'm hoping they'll dive into kind of the key character in that equation, but maybe they will, maybe they won't, because they never really got into talking about them, like what their motives were fully.
00:16:02
Speaker
You got it more near the end, but that's probably the most intriguing part. Because you talked about the writing and how it was so much smarter. And that's kind of the vibe I got. I went in thinking, I'm like, this is going to be Pacific Rim when I first started watching. I'm like, I'm just going to watch things, beat the piss out of each other. And it's going to be awesome. But then it's like by second, third episode, I'm like, well, wait a minute.
00:16:25
Speaker
There's actually like relationships and stuff I need to keep track of. And there's the time jumps, which for people who haven't seen it and want to watch it, you're not supposed to get it. It's not supposed to make sense. And you flush it out over time. So be patient with that and don't try to like figure it out because that's the point. But with how intentional everything else was in that show, like I feel like that, I just keep calling it brutal because it's like, man, to just
00:16:55
Speaker
like to have a shocking element that strong, like there has to be a reason for it. And that was not fully explained, but that one just sits with me. I'm like, that is...
00:17:08
Speaker
for it not being a key plot point that critical to some arc and whatever. It's like, man, that's bold and pretty wild to be able to do. It sticks with me a lot. I'm like, man, that's the thing I really wanna know. It's like, why? Why did that happen? Like who?
00:17:28
Speaker
But yeah, that was crazy. It was a good show I enjoyed. I'm not like buying Monarch merch or anything like that. I'm not that into it, but it was a fun four days of time when I binged it and was like, ah, when season two comes out, I'm gonna be really into that. Awesome, awesome. Any other news you picked up this week or anything else you watched this week that was noteworthy in the mind of Sean Hoffman?
00:17:56
Speaker
Um, I finished it right before that. Cause I've been, I think the podcast has motivated me to, to watch stuff more and like kind of stay up on it, but I did finish echo and that was really good. We can, we can, I don't, uh, I really enjoyed that. It was different than expected and kind of goes back. Can we, can we put that, let's put a pin in that until I finish it. Cause I've finished it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't finished it yet, but, um, I'm hearing really good things from a lot of people that were kind of, I wouldn't say burnout from, from, from, um,
00:18:24
Speaker
the Marvel content on Disney Plus, but they certainly didn't expect this. And I'm hearing really good things. Really good things. Yeah, it's not in-game. And I think that's the positive part of it. Well, we talked about this, didn't we? We talked about this in our dummy
00:18:46
Speaker
Well, episode zero, we talked about the idea of how do you sustain the excitement of permanently ramping expectations and excitement with the next great thing, which you can't, because it diminishes the original Avengers moment somewhat, if you just keep it going to be bigger and better
00:19:15
Speaker
every time. So they can't reset themselves. I'm all for that. I've got time. I'm not going anywhere. So no, it's good. It's good. And smart TV, from what I'm hearing, it's a very considered... That's the word I was thinking of. It's a very considered production, which I think is great.
00:19:38
Speaker
I think that's a common thread in the stuff that we've been talking about. Very considered character stories and not like about a single character, but like a character development and like the interpersonal relationships between individuals and like really leaning on that as story notes instead of it being I'm
00:19:57
Speaker
I'm gonna pick on Aquaman. It's like, I'm Aquaman. Here's my powers. This is what I do. And let me go fight the evil Aquaman. It's like, it's more story driven, more character development, more fleshed out. That's good stuff. Good stuff. Really good stuff.
Upcoming Films and Reboots
00:20:13
Speaker
So what about you? Are there any other big news that you've come across this week?
00:20:18
Speaker
News, yes, there's a couple of things I've had my ears twitching this week. Obviously, I also saw the Ghostbusters Australia where that came out, loved it. Thought, yeah, that's going to be a great film to go and see, switch my brain off. Top Gun 3.
00:20:40
Speaker
has been announced. I'm not a particularly, so the original Top Gun came out when I was a teenager, and it was one of those films that inspired a generation, myself included, I'm gonna be a fighter pilot. Yeah, but you're too big, and you've got bad eyesight, so that's not gonna happen, is it? But the point I'm trying to make is that back in the 80s, Top Gun, when it was originally released, was an amazing,
00:21:15
Speaker
recruitment movie for young men like myself to aspire to be flying around in jet planes and join the military, which I soon shave myself off and didn't go down that road. But anyway, the point being is that I've never been a massive, massive fan, a diehard top gun.
00:21:39
Speaker
fan. I enjoyed the sequel that came out a couple of years ago. It certainly saved the box office when it came in the most dire of times during lockdown or post lockdown, sorry. And there's a third film coming out. It would be great if there was a little bit more of a different kind of plot in that there's an objective from
00:22:04
Speaker
a foreign superpower that's a threat to the world that has to be taken out. It'll be nice to see them do something different. But heck, I mean, it's a Tom Cruise movie. It's going to be glamorous. It's going to be amazing. The guy's absolutely insane when it comes down to doing his own stunts and making it feel as real as he possibly can make it. So I'm looking forward to that one.
00:22:34
Speaker
Highlander, Highlander, the original one with Christopher Lambert, is in my top 10 of all of favorite films of all time in my mind. I didn't care so much for the sequels. The second one in particular was quite bizarre and quite strange to get and took quite a lot of effort to get.
00:22:58
Speaker
to get my head round because as a viewing public kind of completely went opposite against the grain of the or the themes of the original the original movie but the original movie for me came out at the right time amazing banging soundtrack from Queen and
00:23:15
Speaker
the subject master at that moment in time was really, really fresh. Um, and then obviously, like I said, you got, you got Christopher Lambert, but most importantly, you got this awesome guy in Clancy Brown playing the, the main protagonist. Uh, he was absolutely awesome in that role. Um, it's going to have a reboot. It sounds like a reboot rather than, um, um,
00:23:39
Speaker
a follow on or a reimagining. It looks like it's gonna start from scratch all over again. And we've got Henry Cavill in the title role of Highlander. If it was anyone else, I probably would be less excited because we are at a stage in our lives where reboots, remakes, reimaginations of old classic media seem to be the norm.
00:24:08
Speaker
And it can work and sometimes it doesn't work. And so the idea originally of a reboot of Highlander wasn't particularly welcomed by me, shall we say, but knowing it's Henry Cavill and knowing the amount of love that he has for source material, we saw that with Witcher.
00:24:32
Speaker
knowing how he will make sure he can do the best possible job he can. I feel good about that and if there's a way that he can really bring back the
00:24:45
Speaker
the romantic and the classic and historic feels of the original film will be absolutely awesome. So I'm looking forward to that. And I'll be honest with you, I perhaps wasn't until it was confirmed that Henry's involved.
00:25:09
Speaker
And then lastly, in terms of news that I picked up this week, and I think for an awful lot of you guys, but also our listeners as well, they won't know what I'm talking about. But there was, as a kid, I used to read an awful lot of comics. One of my favorite comic was 2000 AD.
00:25:29
Speaker
2008 obviously was the publication that gave birth to the likes of Judge Dredd and other types of characters. And I love the Dredd films anyway, especially the one, the most recent one with Carl Urban. I think it's awesome and an amazing, an amazing take on the original comic.
00:25:58
Speaker
However, there was also another storyline called Rogue Trooper. And Rogue Trooper is basically a genetically engineered infantryman. Think of it very much like the Spartans, if you like, in Halo, albeit they're leaner, they're faster, they're quicker, and less more of a heavy. But the point being is that he is one of many genetic infantry
00:26:22
Speaker
that were developed to fight a particular civil war across the galaxy. It was very clearly back in the 80s, very, very akin, despite being in a futuristic setting, it was very, very much like the west versus the east. It was very, very much focused on the excitement and the fear that we had during the Cold War.
00:26:52
Speaker
And I'm not going to ruin it for anyone, but the point being is there is a story whereby he is on his own and he has to make his way back to a particular location for a particular reason. And he's got a lot of equipment with him, which becomes more relevant without giving any spoilers.
00:27:16
Speaker
His equipment is everything to him. And there's a reason for that. And it's a beautiful story. It's a fantastic story. It's really, really good fun. And I'm really looking forward to it turning into, I believe it's a film. I could be wrong. It's going to be animated. I did a little reading on it. I didn't read too deep into the story stuff. Sorry, I forgot that part. Yeah, I forgot that part. But is it an animated film or is it an animated series?
00:27:46
Speaker
I think it's a, I believe it's a film and I know. Oh, right. Okay. Cause I hope it's my leg. I mean, my own, I mean, I should have done my research before, before I opened my mouth, but the point being is that it's a really, really good story. Um, I forgot, yes, I forgot to say that it was, it's animated, which for me is fantastic because it's one of those stories that will, there's so much world building, um, that they can do whatever they
00:28:11
Speaker
one through animation a lot easier than perhaps they could do in real with practical effects and so on and so forth. So I'm really stoked for that. And I hope it does. If it is a film, I hope it goes on and on and on because the story is very, very protracted in itself to get to
00:28:35
Speaker
his end destination and his end objective. But it's a great, it's a great, great subject. And I'm really, I'm really, really stoked about that. I'd say that that's the most, that's the one thing this week that really got me pumped. Outside of the news. Sorry, go on. So to jump in on that real quick. I mean, I did, I wasn't familiar with it ahead of time.
00:28:54
Speaker
But I saw your note. You saw your note about it. So I kind of dug in just to. Yeah. I was like, I have no idea what that is. So let me dig in. And I was actually pretty taken by it to you. It's like the fact that it's it is going to be a film. I just I just looked it up. OK. And they're they're doing it. They're kind of animating it with with character animation using unreal engine five. And so that's they showed like a still of like of it. And I'm like, I think I think it's just a really like like, wow, that's not.
00:29:22
Speaker
anything to write home about, but the story, I'm not gonna, I won't spoil it either, because I don't know the full story, I just know like the rough synopsis, which I won't touch on some of the things that you were kind of talking about, but one thing that has me excited is the, I mean, the stuff you didn't talk about, but I'm hoping that they bring in, like it has a lot of potential to really talk about, you know,
00:29:45
Speaker
like the mental and emotional aspects of that story. And I'm hoping they touch on it. I think that's just from what I do know about it. I'm like, this could be, this could be really, really cool, really compelling, a really deep and meaningful story. And now my hopes are, my hopes are pretty high, even though I've never read the comic.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah it will and it was a superb comic series and some of the tropes in it may actually feel quite familiar to those folks that enjoy animation like the Bad Batch or Clone Wars for example because these genetic infantrymen are actually
00:30:26
Speaker
they are they are created to fight so it's very similar to what we saw in in we've seen out of lucasville albeit this was you know this is this is the original this is this is this goes back to the uh late 70s and 80s so i'm definitely looking forward to that i think i told you
00:30:47
Speaker
What I'm watching I'm sorry.
Current Watchlist Recommendations
00:30:49
Speaker
I'm still I'm still I'm carrying on with for all mankind. I'm loving it I'm absolutely loving for all mankind. It's a real it's really smart in that as I said it I think I said to you that the original synopsis is that what if Russia had landed on the moon before the US and then now progressing in from the 70s to the 80s and Should we say that space is becoming?
00:31:23
Speaker
objective, especially the moon. And what's really smart about it is actually the subtle stuff. So you see all the main story, the main plot, so bases being built on the moon, conflict, not conflict, but tensions between Russia and the US rising and there being some frustrations there. But the real subtle stuff in the background is really cool because they've already changed history.
00:31:41
Speaker
the next political and military
00:31:51
Speaker
There's things like, and it's the background stuff that I really sometimes really zone in on, and it's oblivious to most folk, but I'll zone in on it. For example, now they're in the 80s, they
00:32:06
Speaker
there's a scene being played out. And in the background, there's something going on the TV, there's something on the television that's just going on in the background. And what I found really fascinating as a Brit was that they were covering because it was the early nights, I think it was like A3, when
00:32:26
Speaker
Prince Charles, now King Charles of the UK, married Diana Spencer, as everyone knows, Princess Diana. But in the background of this scene taking place, he didn't marry her, and he actually married the woman he's married to now, Camilla, which is what he always wanted anyway, if it hadn't been for the
00:32:49
Speaker
the bureaucratic bullshit of our own monarchy and the rules of, or the supposed rules back then of who monarchs should be marrying and who they shouldn't be marrying. He would have married his current wife 20 or 30 years ago, but he didn't.
00:33:06
Speaker
Um, but in the story, it's a subtle thing in the background. He married Camilla instead of Diana, which I thought, actually that's quite funny. Um, or sorry, actually quite smart that, you know, he kind of, it kind of happened the way it kind of probably should have done, uh, as opposed to, yeah, as opposed to unfortunately, the way it, the way it, um, ended up, which created an awful lot of heartache for that, um,
00:33:33
Speaker
for that tormented family. Anyway, so I've been watching that and it's been good fun. I had the weekend to myself. I don't know if you picked up on this in the messaging. Lucy, love it a bit. She went off to London to go and see the girls and she went and taken a show with them. So she stayed overnight. So I had the TV to myself.
00:33:53
Speaker
a good 24 hours, which was brilliant. So I picked up on a few things. First one was, I got to see, well, a, shall we say, a non-popcorn film, a proper film, because I wanted to, you know, give myself a little bit of culture. So I ended up watching Killer of the Flower Moon. Amazing film. I would say a must-watch to everyone. And I would argue that, you know, the
00:34:22
Speaker
it needs to be in anyone's reading material as well in terms of the novel. I mean, it's a phenomenal film, heart-wrenching and really quite sad that
00:34:39
Speaker
historical elements to it. Yeah, there was so much lawlessness around when it came down to the treatment of the Indigenous Americans. It was a really, really good film, and I implore everyone to watch it. I also then thought, hey, I need to cheer myself up now, so I need to watch some popcorn trash. So I ended up watching Bird Box Barcelona. If you remember the first Bird Box was Sandra Bullock. It was a Netflix exclusive whereby
00:35:08
Speaker
if you like an otherworldly or an alien species that nobody can see, basically takes over your mind if you see them. So hence the reason why most folk blindfold or they blindfold themselves and they try to, and in the first film, Sandra Bullock and her children, I think it is, or make it to a safe haven
00:35:37
Speaker
by using their cunning and other senses as opposed to to their eyesight. So I saw the sequel. It's not a sequel actually, it's more of a spin-off from that and it's in Spanish. It's called Bird Box Barcelona and I quite like
00:35:53
Speaker
subtitles films every now and again in a language that I don't well first of all first of all I tried it initially with dubbing don't do that it's awful it's absolutely awful so I did watch it with subtitles and it's an okay story but it wasn't
00:36:09
Speaker
There was nothing particularly original about it. It was very much, you know, there was a start, beginning and end. It kind of expanded the bot universe, which I'm really, really happy about. But I wouldn't say it was my favorite of the stuff that I watched. I watched Extraction 2.
00:36:28
Speaker
with Chris Hemsworth, absolutely loved it. It's a completely nonsensical, silly, silly, silly action movie. And I loved every minute of it. It was brilliant. In particular, the first half. So in the first half, there is a particular scene, which is basically the first action scene in inverted commas. And it goes on for
00:36:54
Speaker
20, 30 minutes, this scene, this big caper that happens at the beginning. And it's all filmed, and if it's not filmed in one shot, and if it's not filmed in one shot, it's down well edited, extremely well to look like it. It's a little bit like what they did in, was it 1917 or 19? 1917, yeah.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah, in 1917, and it was all kind of one continuous shot. A little bit like that, but goodness me, they squeeze in the action within that consistent action scene. It's really, really good. The second half of the film is a little bit cookie cutter.
00:37:37
Speaker
But I'm okay with that because Chris Hemsworth looking beautiful on the screen with lots of guns, an unlimited supply of ammunition by the looks of it, and pretty much beating the crap out of everyone. And I really, really enjoyed it. And then lastly, it was a surprise. It was getting late at night. It was about 1 in the morning. I thought, oh, let's just go for the gamble. Let's have a look at something. And it's a film called Vespa.
00:38:07
Speaker
And it's about, how can I explain this? It's about, it's a very dystopian film and it's about a young lady that's looking after her very sick father and she is a botanist. She's an amazingly clever girl that knows all about plants and fungi and
00:38:33
Speaker
the rest of it. And she's basically living in squalor, and the surrounding villages are all in squalor as well. And they basically are servitude to, because it's a dystopian environment, they're servitude to these big citadels, which is where obviously the middle and upper class live, and they kind of work for them and trade with them.
00:38:59
Speaker
And it's a beautiful story. Again, it's a slow burn. But I found it fascinating. It's a very cheaply made film. It's done on a shoestring. But I don't know if you ever saw the film Prospect with
00:39:17
Speaker
Pedro Pascal Yes, yes It's it's it's kind of that kind of budget value if you know what I mean but because of that there's such a dependence on the on the acting and the character development in the story and less the special effects and The and the wow factors and I have to say I really really enjoyed it I thought if it's
00:39:41
Speaker
Is it gonna rock the world as a film? No, it's not. Is it the best film I've ever seen? Of course it's not, but it's just a nice story. It's a really, really nice story and has some nice emotional beats all the way through it.
00:39:58
Speaker
that I think someone like yourself would enjoy. It's really chilled. It's a good film. So that's what I've been watching. The other thing that I did watch, and you started me off on this, unfortunately, or fortunately, sorry, remember we talked last week about Disney Imagineering?
00:40:16
Speaker
Well I've gone down a rabbit hole with Disney Imagineering and I haven't started the actual series itself on Disney Plus but I'm watching an awful lot of the YouTube videos from the Imagineering team and there was one video in particular around these
00:40:37
Speaker
three droids that they're building, these real droids they're building for Disney Parks, they're building for Galaxy's Edge that I found endearing. And what I loved about it, if you don't mind me sharing with our listeners, when I sent you the clip, you said, yeah, I've already seen this. And funny enough, I call these guys Huey, Dewey and Louie. And I was
00:41:00
Speaker
Which I thought, no, no, no, I thought that was fantastic. The reason why I thought it was fantastic, there's a film called Silent Running back from the 70s, where there are three mechanic droids, you know, you might call them astromechs, but they're three mechanics that are maintaining this ship with a very, very last rainforest and keeping it protected because the Earth's in shit. And they're called Huey, Dewey and Louie. And so for me, when you said that,
00:41:30
Speaker
I didn't respond to you, but it was exactly what I thought when I first saw these working droids that they're currently testing for Galaxy's Edge. But yeah, you sent me down a rabbit hole on YouTube on these Imagineering guys. They're so damn clever.
00:41:48
Speaker
It's crazy. I don't know if you had a chance to look at the second channel that I sent you where it's the research. That's some heady stuff in there, but it's pretty wild as well. I've spent way too much time mostly pretending like I know what they're talking about. Like I skipped the ones where they're talking over white papers, but they're like, I remember when I first started following it, it was bright. I think it was right after like Frozen came out.
00:42:12
Speaker
Um, cause they had a whole demonstration video on how they worked out the snow physics in frozen, like, oh, it's a, you have a snowball, like how should snow collapse and like behave and like, it's.
00:42:28
Speaker
I don't begin to understand it, but it's just interesting. They're like, no, that's not right. And I'm like, they look the same to me. They're like, no, it's got a clump and do these other things. I'm like, no, I need to watch this. This is interesting stuff that is just wild to me that there's people out there solving these problems of like, that's snow. It's not real enough. And I think we take it for granted after a while. And it really kind of made me appreciate the advancements
00:42:56
Speaker
and stuff like computer animation and all that. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, no, I loved it. I'm loving all of that stuff. You've got me hooked, brother. You really have, which is good. You were mentioning a minute ago of how Vesper is kind of like a
00:43:13
Speaker
I don't think it was relaxing, but you kind of said something in that calm, in that way. It reminded me of something else that I watched recently, but it's usually like right before I go to bed, like we will usually watch something relaxing for a long time. Like something that's kind of like you can shut your brain off and just kind of enjoy. For a long time that was like going through bluey and things like that. The one we watched recently was on Netflix, that Pokemon concierge show. I don't know if you see that or not.
00:43:44
Speaker
I haven't seen it though. We watched that and I was at a pretty critical point in my life when I was introduced to Pokemon Blue and Red. I should not have passed
00:43:58
Speaker
the sixth grade because I played that game so much, which was, it's a crazy story because my school was actually hit by a tornado the fall of previous years. So I had to spend my sixth grade year in trailer, like these trailer classrooms. So we used to just like sit in the closet under all the coats and play Pokemon. And so it's like a weird contextual thing. But so like, I know Pokemon is like meaningful to me, but
00:44:19
Speaker
But then we watch this show and it is what it looks like. It's just kind of just like cutesy, like almost like Wes Anderson style Pokemon show, like double kind of stop animation stuff. But I kind of walked away. I recommend it, but it's not like, hey, put it to the top of your list. Because I don't know who it's for. I don't know who like the target audience is because there was times when I was watching him like,
00:44:45
Speaker
Like I get, I'm enjoying this, but like it doesn't feel like it's for adults, but it also doesn't feel like it's for kids. It just feels like it's like, we just, we made a thing and we thought it was kind of cool. And so here it is. But it's definitely interesting. And I'm curious to know if anybody else has that kind of takeaway of like, it wasn't, like it was very, it's very surface level. Yeah.
00:45:10
Speaker
and cutesy and whatever, but it's like, man, they had to have cost a lot of money to make. And that's just kind of where I'm stuck with of like, why did they make this? Who did they make this for? Like, was that just like, hey, let's make a stop motion looking Pokemon show. And so I stayed with that a lot, but it was fun. I enjoyed it.
00:45:30
Speaker
It wasn't life changing, but it was nice to watch an episode or two before going to bed and kind of shutting the switches off. So there was that. Yeah, but that's sometimes what you need.
Comfort Content Exploration
00:45:42
Speaker
The last thing you need for me anyway, when I've got to use my brain during the week enough as it is, sometimes I just want something that gives me more of a brain massage rather than a brain workout.
00:46:00
Speaker
So, so, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm fine with that. And quite often I'll stick on old stuff. One of the things I'm rewatching at the moment is, um, the old Battlestar Galactica, not the old Battlestar Galactica, sorry, the reboot, the reboot from, um, um, from the, from the noughties. Um, not the noughties, the, yeah, they're not as old. Yeah, they're not as old. The reboot, you know, with, um, uh,
00:46:27
Speaker
those guys. I'm re-watching that and it's not because I wouldn't call it calming, but it's reassuringly familiar. I know what's coming up. I love the
00:46:45
Speaker
Again, it's one of those chicken cheerful gorilla tactics of filmmaking that they use with a handicap. Everything's a handicap, even in our space. I love it and I can stick it on the background. I can
00:47:01
Speaker
read at the same time or I can fall asleep and not worry about what I've missed. I don't have to use my brain. And sometimes there's something quite cathartic about having content like that that you haven't got to overthink and just relax and let it go with the flow. So yeah, I'm with you, buddy. I already am with you. Right. We've got to be careful on time here, my friend, because we need to
00:47:30
Speaker
move on to the next discussion, or this week's discussion, shall we say, which I think you and I agreed that we'd talk a little bit about collecting, because it was something we mentioned in our original draft or our original dummy run, episode zero, and we said we'd come back to it. So I've got three questions for you. The first is, when did you start? What are the origins of your collecting? When did you start? And what did you start with?
00:48:00
Speaker
I think that is a very good place to start. And I'm sure, just to kind of touch on, I'm sure collecting is gonna be a recurring topic, but this is a good segue, a good entry into it. For me, collecting started when I was, I think for all of us, probably like a little kid, and specifically with Star Wars, Star Wars toys and things like that.
00:48:27
Speaker
I really enjoyed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I wouldn't say I collected them.
Collecting and Childhood Memories
00:48:34
Speaker
And so later in life when it kind of became like a more of the look back on your childhood stuff, but with collecting it really kind of became, it was really mostly Star Wars specifically.
00:48:46
Speaker
there was a line of old Star Wars toys. I'm not old. Not as old Star Wars toys. The Star Wars action fleet vehicles that was probably the first time that I felt like that need to collect something like there were other toy lines that I had where it's like
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah, I like these and I'd like more, but the Star Wars Action Fleet vehicles, which were like, they're kind of gloob, micro-machines, like little vehicles that were the size of maybe a grapefruit or whatever. And it was, that ignited my passion for one, Star Wars vehicles, and like in the detail and the things like that. But they just kind of released them and they were hard to come by. And I think that was what ignited it.
00:49:32
Speaker
And I kind of sat on that for many, many, many years until I became an adult and had my own money and whatever. And with like the advent of like eBay and things like that, I think that was kind of the first real trigger of like, hey, I wonder if they have any of those old toys that like I still think about to this day. And I was like,
00:49:50
Speaker
Like there was always there's like one specifically I'm like, I had to make it as one of those ones where it's like, okay, you get one thing for your birthday or whatever it was and you got to pick between two and you pick you pick the one you make a pick, but that one you didn't pick lives with you forever. You're like, yeah, what if
00:50:07
Speaker
How would my life be different if I would have picked that other one? Maybe, like, you never know. It would have been better or worse. But that's all I think about all the time. And so that's what triggered him. Like, I'm going to get on eBay. Like, did I? I wonder if anybody's got one of those. And it just went down the rabbit hole. And it's all history from then. And what's funny is that collecting of the, because I picked up more of those, obviously. That actually led me to, because they discontinued that line and then
00:50:33
Speaker
I wanted them. It helped me realize that I actually just love the ships. And so I was like, man, I really wish they'd bring Action Fleet back, which is funny because now they have micro galaxy squadrons, which is like a revamp of it. And awesome. They're crushing it. But it actually led me into skit modeling. They're really good, aren't they? Really? They're awesome. Exceptional. Yeah.
00:50:54
Speaker
They're they're irritatingly hard to get like they created they lean into that marketing of like, oh, here's all the normal ones. But then here's this one that we're like, only making a handful of. So here here you go scalpers sell it online for like $1,000 a pop and I just I don't like that. I just let me let me have them like
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah. I don't like the false sense of like the false scarcity stuff. It's an interesting scale as well, because I don't know if you saw this week, again, I should have probably picked it up in the news part. But there are those three, I sent it to you guys a few days ago in the in the Discord.
00:51:33
Speaker
There's those three new LEGO sets that are coming out. Is it the MIDI sets? And I thought of you first, because I thought, goodness me, that looks pretty much almost identical scale to the Mission Fleet stuff that you get fired up about. So I think that I wouldn't be surprised if LEGO has taken a look at that.
00:52:00
Speaker
that scale and certainly the popularity of that particular run and thinking, oh, I could do something here. Because of course, they've done all the big stuff. They've done all the big stuff. Everything can't be UCS. You can't do UCS scale for everything. We've only got so much shelving space and coffee tables and wherever people are storing these. I do think that those releases were interesting ships to pick for that. It's very interesting.
00:52:30
Speaker
the collecting stuff eventually led me into like tabletop gaming because I had that Star Wars X-Wing miniatures game. I'm like, oh, and then that's it's like you could you could see the progression and there's like after playing a couple tournaments of that, I'm like, hey, you know what I don't like? I don't like standing over this table for three hours. I actually just like the ships and I like to paint them. And then it's like, you know what I could do? I could then I discovered Bandai scale models. Yeah. For Star Wars, which are the level of detail and stuff that I
00:52:59
Speaker
Craved and then also like as being somebody who sits at a computer all day to be able to kind of step away and force myself to Spend time and do stuff with my hands, which I really really enjoyed and like I won't say I'm a I'm a I'm not a gifted painter It's never been something but to force myself to work at it like and now
00:53:20
Speaker
Like I could go to the store and buy a bunch of toys or I could buy a bunch of modeling crap and work really, really hard on something that's really, really special and important to me. It kind of slows down the collecting in some ways. As I say this with all this crap behind me on the video feed, but it's like, I don't have any more room. So I need to slow it down and do stuff that's more meaningful. Cause I can't afford like a million hot toys or things like that. So how do I make higher quality items
00:53:48
Speaker
specifically with ships, which is getting crazy with 3D printing now. It's getting really wild. There's some sellers out there who are selling some very nice, very highly detailed models that I have to like block on my router so I don't go to them or get their news because it's very tempting to get like, oh, it's a one sixth scale. Yeah.
00:54:12
Speaker
There's a guy that I follow and I follow, he's actually part of our community, but very much on the periphery. Really good guy called James and he's a very, very clever maker.
00:54:28
Speaker
And he, like many folk, scratch build and kit bashed an awful lot of creative stuff. And he discovered the 3D printer, and it's changed his life. It's absolutely changed his life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I don't have the skill or the
00:54:56
Speaker
the kind of disposable cash at the moment to go down that line. But I am in awe and I do respect folk like yourself that go down that rabbit hole. I just wish I was better at the modeling part of it.
00:55:12
Speaker
There's a fortune to be made by somebody if they are good at 3D modeling, to do that kind of stuff. I mean, you gotta be good about like keeping your stuff to yourself, like not letting it get resold on Etsy and stuff, but there's a market for that of people who are hungry and have that disposable income and don't have the modeling skills themselves to print and do these high quality figures, et cetera, et cetera. And then-
00:55:42
Speaker
and do things like that. But that's pretty much the core. I mean, obviously now I have a room full of stuff and now that I'm older and when I do have disposable income and it's whatever, I like to dabble in some of the stuff that I remember as a kid and kind of recollect some of those items. I mean, Star Wars is the big one, but I still dip in,
00:56:09
Speaker
turtles a lot. If I see something, there's just a lot of, but there's a lot of crap out there. So it's hard. I think it's, I don't have the patience or like the drive to really like go for it. Like look for the deal. It's like, yeah, it plops in my lap. I'll go after it.
00:56:25
Speaker
I don't know. I also like the retro like re the redos. So like, I don't know if you can see his Voltron over here behind me. He that's not old. But I remember playing with my brother's old like metal 900 pound metal Voltron toys. And it's like, yeah, it lives. It lives better in your head than what it does in real life, because you'll see it. And it's like, that's not as cool as I remember. But you know, it is cool when they remake new ones like this that are a million times better.
00:56:52
Speaker
And so I kind of get stuck in that loop again. That's interesting, actually, because I was thinking about it. I was thinking about this the other day. The original kind of figures over in the UK was manufactured, same stuff, but it was manufactured by a company called Palatoy. And the quality of some of it was absolute bobbins. It was rubbish.
00:57:19
Speaker
And you can compare to what we could get as kids to Black Series, for example. I mean, some of the latest Black Series with penless tech and the laser printing or the laser scan faces and everything, it's a different world. It's phenomenal, but it doesn't actually
00:57:38
Speaker
It's not necessarily better, do you know what I mean? It's really strange. Okay, so I've got one last question for you and then we can kind of spin it if needs be. But if money was no object, so we know your origins, which is very much about collecting toys as a child, you then moved into more hands-on and your collecting has very much moved into
00:58:07
Speaker
build really earning your collection because you're building it from scratch. And then lastly, if money was no object, is there anything out there that you've seen, including real props that you can get in an auction, but is there anything else you've seen at the moment that if money was no object, that that would look amazing above your fireplace in Lake Tahoe or wherever in your office?
00:58:32
Speaker
There's, so I kind of have a two-pronged answer to that of like, especially since money is no object. The easy one is, I think there is like an innate desire
00:58:45
Speaker
in me to have some kind of real screen used prop. Like every time I go to Celebration, I go to like the prop store. Like there's always the auction booth that are like, in two months we're about to sell this like decaying Yoda mask or whatever, like a screen used lightsaber hilt or whatever. Like I don't need it to be like a hero level screen use thing, but I think there is a desire to have something like tangible
00:59:15
Speaker
from one of the franchises that I love. Star Wars would be the best. I don't have a specific item, in all honesty. I think it depends. I made a mistake of buying something from one of those auction sites a while, years ago, and now they send me the huge booklets. They're like,
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah, you bought one thing. Here you go. And so I'll look through them every once in a while and be like, wow, that's cool. That's cool. But I don't but I don't really have anything like that. I'd love to do something like that. And I think on the other end of the spectrum is I would love to build or
00:59:50
Speaker
like the ultimate model, like just the most ridiculous scale, but I think the money, no object part is, because one, they're usually very, very expensive. And especially at that scale, but it's the money, no object comes into play with, I want the space and the tools to do it properly. I want like,
01:00:10
Speaker
And yeah, that's- Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, the money and the object piece is also making sure that you're comfortable enough that you can live while you're building this stuff. It's having an income. I want that Adam Savage level workspace and just tools to be like, I'm gonna build a two foot tall tie bomber and have the proper tools to do it and not have to skimp or do whatever and just really make it
01:00:39
Speaker
like that Holy Grail of whatever that is, that would be the ultimate for me. It's just some ship model that is basically like the ones when the Mandalorian first came out and they're like, we built the Mandalorian ship. I don't know why I'm drawing a blank on it right now. And we do it, we put it on the rig and all this stuff. It's like, yeah, I wanna build that. I wanna do it just like they're doing it and not have it be something that's already pre-done, like especially scratch build.
01:01:09
Speaker
Just the time and the money to really do it right at the level and scale that they did back in the day. But yeah, that's the dream. That's the dream right there. Yeah, you just have to say to Madison, I'm going to be gone for a couple of months. Make sure the cats are fed. Look after yourself. Shut the door. Emerge two months later. Look at this. Two foot. Two foot. Screen accurate.
01:01:38
Speaker
Tie bomber. Fantastic. You make that sound so easy. Like, just do it. Just say that. It's like, okay. Okay. I need you to coach me through it.
01:01:53
Speaker
I'm a little bit more... My aspirations, if money was no object, is a little bit more lazy than yourself, but I'll talk about that. Much like yourself, my collecting was very much as a kid based on Star Wars. Star Wars was the first thing I actually started collecting in terms of using my own money. As a kid, my mum and dad,
01:02:16
Speaker
I wouldn't say put me out to work, but they kind of encouraged us as kids to get jobs. So I had a paper round. I had a few jobs around the village that I grew up in. And as a result of that, I would treat myself every couple of weeks with a new figure. And I would say that the original palette, sorry, the original cat kenna run or pallet toy run, really was the first thing that I collected with Ernest that I'd pay for myself.
01:02:43
Speaker
in many, many ways. And over Christmas birthdays, I'd be lucky that my mum and dad would work their butts off and would be able to afford to get me a few of the vehicles, which unfortunately are probably in landfill these days, but it's one of those things. And then, and there wasn't, I can't remember a time where there was something else that I collected
01:03:15
Speaker
as much of in earnest because before Star Wars, like most kids, my mum and dad, we're talking about the 70s, different time. My mum and dad did what stereotypical 1970s parents did and they bought me what we call an action man in the UK, which you guys would call a G.I. Joe, 12 inch, the 12 inch figure.
01:03:44
Speaker
based on the British army and it was a rough and tough type of action figure in those days that parents bought for their kids because that's what young boys like, isn't it? But I wouldn't say it was a collection because it was one of those things that I remember that young having
01:04:08
Speaker
but not really following up on myself in any way at all. So really, as I said, for me, Star Wars was the one thing that I really did collect, and I tried to collect them all, stealing another brand's toy slogan. And then that progressed into,
01:04:34
Speaker
I would say certainly in my late teens and early twenties, I've got heavily involved in collecting games, collecting video games. So it was the start of, if you like,
01:04:49
Speaker
the console generations you could see the next generation I was really into collecting especially was easier than those days because either on CD or on a cartridge and I collected an awful lot of them
01:05:05
Speaker
going back over the years for a long, long, long time until it got to a point in the end where it's like, well, this is just taking up space. I'm actually doing anything with that, with this stuff. There's an awful lot, don't get me wrong, there's an awful lot of friends within this community that I know have all of their rigs out. They've still got their stuff.
01:05:27
Speaker
and they're still playing those retro games. I was just collecting it for sake of collecting it. And it was sitting on shelves. So I thought, well, that's not particularly healthy anymore. And because of the time and the, should we say, the drought in Star Wars at the time, that really dropped off quite significantly. And then in recent years, as just before the acquisition and things like Black Series and
01:05:57
Speaker
Well, I think I said on our first app that I've been married now to Lucy for 30 years. She's always brought me the occasional daft thing, shall we say. The Chewbacca mask, the plushies that I've got over here, all of the occasional piece of junk or furniture in my den.
01:06:24
Speaker
because she knows what I like. But I wouldn't consider that collecting. And then when the Black Series came out, I thought, this is something else. And it blew my brain because you had the original, shall we say, rather basic at best, 3.75-inch figures when I was a kid. And then 10 years later, they obviously had the extremely muscular power of the force figures that came out, which
01:06:54
Speaker
are, in my mind, legendary. I know that I bought a load recently, for example, when I went on a toy hunt with a couple of the scruffy guys, I bought some of them recently. And they're worthless. I mean, you can pretty much
01:07:13
Speaker
buy them for a pound a go at the moment if they're out of box. But they're hysterically disproportionate as figures. And I think they're fantastic because for all the- There's so much plastic in them that we're going to use in the fuel, our cars in 20 years. Oh, it's hilarious. Honestly, they're so, so hilarious. I mean, that original, well, not original, but the power of the force
01:07:37
Speaker
one Luke Skywalker is it just makes me laugh how muscular the guy is it's it's hilarious anyway so Black Series came out and I got the bug I got the bug pretty much straight away they were you know they were reasonably articulate
01:07:55
Speaker
They were painted extremely well. They were, at that time, the premier or the premium action figure experience for Star Wars, they looked great. They were proportionate. And I went down that rabbit hole. But I think I said to you a couple of weeks back that I really did have to pull myself back from that when, A, I kind of
01:08:24
Speaker
lost interest in the mindset, or I lost the mindset, sorry, not lost interest, but lost the mindset, I had to get them all because they really had started ramping production and introducing more and more a year.
01:08:44
Speaker
And then secondly, the bizarre distribution policy or process that Hasbro has been following for the last couple of years kind of turned me off a little bit in the kind of what the product when the entertainment was fresh in my brain and out and out there. And so therefore, I have given away an awful lot of my collection. And what I have left is really what I do collect, which is
01:09:13
Speaker
as I said, you know, Chewie's my guy. So I've got anything to do with the Wookiees.
01:09:22
Speaker
I won't go into too much of an explanation because I did it a few weeks back on the, on the, on the scruffy looking podcasters, but, um, uh, the occasional piece of, of Lego, I mean, I've got, I've managed to get my hands up very lucky and I've got the UCS lay in Falcon, which was bought, um, during lockdown. And it's something that I built with my daughters as well. So we were all stuck inside. Um, they came away from,
01:09:49
Speaker
They came home because they were also in lockdown where they were working, so they came home. And for two weeks or so, we built that thing behind me. So it means an awful lot to me. I mean, in any other world, I wouldn't have been able to afford it, but the family holiday had obviously been cancelled that year, so I thought,
01:10:10
Speaker
I'm going to get a bit of Lego. And that's it. If money was no object, there are three things. And these are three things that I've thought about a lot, which is the reason why I wanted to ask you that question. There is a company in the States called Regal Robot.
01:10:26
Speaker
and they make the most amazing screen accurate collectibles. They're extortionately expensive because they are so damn good. And the first thing I would want, if money was no object, I would love a torn, torn head. So they do a torn, torn head almost like it's mounted on a shield.
01:10:50
Speaker
that you could put on the wall, a little bit like in Jabba's Palace, but I'd have that above my fire, my open fire at home, a torn, torn head. Other people might have moose heads or, I don't know, bare, stuffed bears or whatever. I'd have a torn, torn head. And the two other things I would love, sorry, the next thing I would love is a, there's a company called
01:11:19
Speaker
Forget it. I can't remember the name. I think it's called Dejarik Creations. I could be completely wrong. Anyway, the point being is they have manufactured a life size gaming table from the from the Falcon to the Holoches table. I would love that as well.
01:11:35
Speaker
And then the last thing I want, which is the number one thing I would like, is a true-to-scale, accurate, fully working with flashing lights, hand and carbonite to mount on the wall. They're the three things that I would want. If A-Money was no object and I had perhaps another house to put it in,
01:12:00
Speaker
that didn't offend my wife in any way whatsoever, it would be the torn-torn head, the stuffed torn-torn head, it would be the hollow chest table, and it would be a true-to-life replica of Han and Carp Night. I would like to add something to my list based on what you've said, because it's reminded me.
01:12:26
Speaker
not to go into story time, but Madison and I met when we worked at Disney World and we worked at Country Bear Jamboree, among other things. And inside of that ride or show, there are three animatronic heads mounted on the wall. One is a buffalo, one is a moose, and one is like a deer or an elk. And I want
01:12:48
Speaker
those three animatronic heads mounted on my wall. And then maybe once every couple days or hours, I want them to like come alive, move around, like look their eye, look around. Cause they're mounted like their trophy, like their trophy heads like that. But they'll blink and they talk in the show, but I don't want them to talk. I just want them to like blink and like look around and then just stop. And then don't move for like three days. I like. There we go. Shoot for the moon.
01:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, well that's the point of that part of the question. You know, it would be awesome. It would be absolutely awesome.
Acknowledgements and Future Topics
01:13:27
Speaker
Okay, so listen, that's one of the many, many subjects that you and I have got on our list that we're going to cover over both this week and the coming weeks. So I think we did a pretty good job there, my friend.
01:13:41
Speaker
I think so too. One thing I want to set in stone now so we can talk about it sometime in the future is we did get a nice shout out from our friends over at the Sith List and they happened to mention something about
01:13:57
Speaker
There could potentially be some negative thoughts around Taylor Swift maybe being cast in Star Wars. And I think there's a lot of positives to that, but I won't go into them this week. I'll let people stew on it. But I'd love to throw that in there for next week, because I think there's a lot of positives that could come from that. That's just my thought.
01:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure between here and next week we can think of exciting roles that she could play in Star Wars. But on a serious note, thank you so much guys for shouting, giving us a shout out. It really is appreciated and we love you, great deal. Second. Okay, my friend. So that's another week done. This is number two.
01:14:43
Speaker
officially our second, but really our third. So we're still doing it. We're still moving and shaking. I look forward to speaking to you next week, my friend. Yeah, same as well. If people want to find us anywhere, just go to our website at justshillin.com. You have links to all of the podcasts all over the place that they're hosted now.
01:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, find links to everything there. Oh, excellent. Take care, folks. Stay safe. Stay happy. Bye.