RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media this seems like as good a place for this topic as any...

...so I'm working on a podcast series with some guys from work. we shoot the shit about nerd culture over wings and beers. that's pretty much the format. anyway, we are compiling an episode with a twofold topic. everyone's commented at length about how nobody expected star wars to amount to anything, but there are quite a few examples of films, video games, tv shows, music, and whatever else where serendipitous circumstances (good casting, perfect timing vis a vis culture at the time, etc.) turned something that should have been average at best into a staggering success. on the other hand, there have been quite a few films/games/whatever that seemed to have everything going for them, but either a change of directors or unanticipated political changes or some other combination of circumstances just doomed them to utter failure - or worse, forgettable mediocrity. kind of like how last action hero really wanted to be a witty, well-written send-up but nobody in the revolving door of creators could figure out just how straight to play it, so it ended up almost killing 90s action movies. can you think of any examples of either and maybe explain what you think went right/wrong? any contributions will be appreciated, and any I actually use will definitely be credited. thanks.

Weird Al mentioned that UHF tested through the roof for Orion, better than the first Robocop. The studio planned to make a franchise around him. They released it in the summer as a tentpole film. Summer of 89. Summer of Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II, Back to the Future II, etc.

ouch. I really like UHF, too, but against those? yeah.

What about dragonball evolution? It's got a couple of decent actors on the cast, it was produced around the time when special effects were already capable of showing guys that can fly fast and shoot big lasers from their hands, and the franchise it was based on had a built-in rabid fanbase. It's not like the source material required a deep, meaningful story with twists and turns - all dragonball movies follow the same formula: evil villain appears/kicks the shit out of everyone/protagonist powers up by defeating the villain. They really had very little excuse as to why they managed to piss off the demographic they were after.

Or Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It had a good story that is accessible to people who don't know shit about videogames, the voice cast was full of Hollywood A-Listers, and the CG was workable (it looks crap now, but it was good enough at the time.) It still performed below expectations. Maybe because when you put Final Fantasy in the title, the people who are going to see it expect Final Fantasy with swords, guns, swords that are guns, and giant dragons. Advent Children sort of proves it - the movie was just 50% fight scenes and 50% epilogue to a 3-disc playstation game. Yet it made big money.


On the other hand: Shaolin Soccer. Stephen Chiau is already big in his home turf (he regularly beats even Jacky Chan's movies on the box office), but his early movies were not suited for the west as they depended on a hybrid of slapstick, wordplay, and Hong Kong-specific pop culture references. Moviegoers at that time were even critical of films that use big budget CG, as most of the movies that tried were crappy fluff trying too hard to look like Hollywood films (they hated it because it was crappy, and partly because they consider big budget Hollywood as the enemy.)

Shaolin Soccer managed to get so big outside of Asia because of the Internet. And then after the rest of the world got wind of it, the influence sort of went back to Asia and influenced a whole bunch of crappy sports/martial arts hybrid films (there have been movies like that before but you can easily tell if a film was aping Shaolin Soccer, like when its posters boast about being "in the same vein as Shaolin Soccer." or when the story concerns shaolin masters that have the same uniform.) It even got a lot of kids interested in the sport. Usually it was the sport that gets people interested in a movie, not the other way around.

Right now Chiau is enjoying a good brand name because of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, to the point that people will check out CJ7 even though it wasn't really a Stephen Chiau-style film. He didn't even get bad rep for being one of the producers of Dragonball Evolution.

If you've got the UHF DVD, listen to the commentary. That's where he tells the story. He goes into more detail about how Orion was kissing his ass as they though that he'd be their big movie star for years to come and how they wouldn't look him in the eyes after it tanked.

Maybe Legend with Tom Cruise would fit the bill as could have been big but wasn't? He was a hot commodity after Risky Business and this followed after. Whimsy/fantasy is usually a category that almost always has a problem at the box office and this fell into it.

UHF was ok but I don't remember it being one of those where I left hoping they would make more. Star Wars however blew my mind when I saw it at the theater. I hadn't seen anything with such good special effects. On the other hand, us kids had talked it up so much that we were able to get the folks to take us to the drive in to see it again. That second time was so boring it felt good to get to the second feature (Logan's Run) We all went to see the Empire Strikes back and it was ok but I thought Yoda was dumb. By the time the third one came out we ended up going to the wrong theater and instead saw Staying Alive with John Travolta & Olivia Newton John. Years later I did see the third one and it would have easily topped Staying Alive. This is something I have to be careful talking about as I have many friends where the Star Wars movies were are so much more than what I got out of them.

I recall when Star Wars first came out, it got really bad reviews. Despite its budget and aesthetic quality, it was still fashionable to pan as juvenile and lowbrow anything in the science-fiction genre.
The original Star Trek tv series when it came out also received abysmal reviews, and only received the legitimacy it deserved over the years due to its enormous popularity (I was only 3 years old in 1966, but Allan Asherman in his book The Star Trek Compendium quotes a number of the reviews from TV Guide and elsewhere).

The movie St Elmo's Fire in 1984 had just about every up and coming "brat pack" star of the early/mid 1980's and unexpectedly bombed abysmally despite its star power. (And rightly so, it was an awful movie.)

And huge big-budget epics like Waterworld and The Postman that were expected to reap huge box-office went horribly the other way.

One I loved, Eddie and the Cruisers(1984) bombed in the theatre, but then gained great popularity when it gained exposure on cable. (Two others starring Michael Pare that I loved, The Philadelphia Experiment and Streets of Fire also were enjoyable movies that ranged from bomb-status to very mild success.)

Wag the Dog(1997) and The China Syndrome (1979), were two movies that enjoyed unexpected enormous success because they portrayed fictitious crises that actually occurred simultaneous with their release.

Another of my favorites that fits in the "nerd-culture" category is Buckaroo Banzai. That again performed poorly in the box-office but later became profitable and gained cult status.

One that followed a similar trajectory that didn't work for me was Big Trouble in Little China. Director John Carpenter said that was the movie that made him leave mainstream film-making, due to the rejection of what he considered, while unconventional, a very good film. Again a case of a movie that only received widespread recognition long after its release and commercial failure.

I would like to thank everyone for their input. except wondy. the global vegan agnostic marxist media conspiracy (that's VAMM to you uninitiated out there) said your points are all invalid as they consider you their... I think the phrase they used was 'class enemy'? anyway, thanks for playing, everyone. all good examples, but I think UHF, spirits within, and the postman are the ones that kind of stand out the most in my mind.

You're welcome.

here. you can tell this is our first episode; we'll definitely be working from outlines in the future. enjoy. thanks doc and som especially, but everyone's suggestions were taken into account.

You still live in Cleveland?? How have we never met face to face?? I thought you moved to michigan or some shit

no I was at BGSU for grad school but I've been back in the Cleveland area since the end of 2010.

Doog, Sammitch just doesn't want to meet you. Because you snore.

I'm surprised you could hear over your farting

my farts are silent, but deadly.

we'll figure something out, dooglas. if you're on the east side my store is at eastgate.

recorded episode 2 last week; it was going to be a star wars two-parter. well it still is one, I guess, we just ran out of time to get the second half recorded. just looking for some opinions on a few things.

1.) the prequels - I know, I know. but are they just objectively shitty films, or do they suffer from the core fandom having grown up since the originals? are we blind to some of the same quirks in the originals simply because we were kids at the time? if we could watch the originals for the first time right after the prequels, would the prequels seem to suck as much?

2.) what are you optimistic they'll get right with 7 through 9? based on lessons learned from the prequels, displacing potentially problematic expanded universe stuff to the 'legends' canon limbo, different creators on board this time... better than the prequels, at least?

3.) many fictional universes that are extremely popular in western cultures have comparatively limited pull in other societies. somehow, star wars seems to transcend those cultural divides, to say nothing of language barriers, generational differences, etc. how and why? what makes this particular world so appealing to so many people?

any opinions are welcome, even if I have to extensively paraphrase them to keep it a pg-13 podcast...

#1 I wouldn't say that they're objectively shitty films overall. They're just full of shitty parts, but as a whole they do a good job of expanding the story. Remove the bad acting parts from some of the actors, minimize the cheesy romance, take out the bit about midichlorians (there's no need to explain the technicalities of the force, anyway), while focusing more on the politics and machinations of Palpatine and you'll have a good prequel trilogy. They probably won't have enough to fill in 3 movies, though. Maybe they can pad it with more lightsaber fights.

#2 lightsaber fights. More of them. and J.J. Abrams will have an excuse to fill the scenes with sparks and lens flares. (odd bit of info. I don't know why J.J. Abrams is addicted to lens flares, but movies and specials started going hogwild with the lens flares when HD became a thing. It's one of the scenes/effects that help showcase HD resolution.)

3. Star Wars is popular across cultural and language barriers because LASER SWORDS goddamnit.

Back to one in a bit, as it's the meatier part of your queries (hehe, sounds like 'queer').

2)As I've said before, the reasons that Abrams is a terrible director for Star Trek make him a good choice for Star Wars. A good eye for pacing and action if not story. I want it to be wish fulfillment for all ages and not just a merchandising ploy to make kids have their parents buy them the latest lightsaber.

3)Lucas used Joseph Campbell's writings on the Hero's Journey as the basis of his story. Campbell claims that all cultures share certain elements in their folklore. Even with it being foreign, it is still familiar and, therefore accessible. Plus, laser swords.

1)There are many reasons why the prequels are shit and the originals aren't. I'll admit that nostalgia is a big part of it, but not all. First, I'll point out that kids who grew up when the prequels came out fucking loved them. I'm not surprised by that. What I'm not seeing that the originals had is that now, ten years + later, they're not going back to them as we did with 4-6, at least not that I've seen. They've left them behind as all other flash in the pan blockbusters are.

The biggest reason, though, is that the George Lucas of the 90's and 2000's isn't the same as the one in the 70's. The most obvious being that The Phantom Menace is the first film he'd directed since the very first Star Wars film. There's a twenty year gap between his directing jobs. It's like letting a doctor operate on you after he hadn't practiced medicine in twenty years. Yeah, he's visited the hospitals and even talked about the future of medicine and its importance; but he hasn't even done a physical in two decades. And we're not talking about a great doctor either. He was good to take out your tonsils; but if there was a major problem like your heart, you're seeing who else is on call. (Hey, how about that Jewish doctor, Speilberg? Can we get him?)

On top of not having directed a movie in decades, his first one is an FX heavy movie using technology that he'd never personally used. Yes, Lucas helped spearhead and even create, through ILM, CG effects for films; but he'd never actually made a movie himself with them. The last film he made used matte paintings, scale models, and animatronics. He didn't even try to dip his toes in to get used to the process with a smaller film with a few green screen shots. He did a movie that was like 90% CGI.

Lucas doesn't understand that sometimes it's what you can't do that helps create a movie. He'd complained over and over that FX weren't where they needed to be with the original trilogy to give him everything that he wanted. So they had to sacrifice and change certain things. Low budget directors like Carpenter will tell you that's where a lot of creativity comes from. Think of how different Jaws would be if the fucking shark had worked. Not getting everything you want can actually be good for the finished product, especially if you don't even really know what it is you want as the vast archives of contradictory Lucas interviews proves. As the saying goes, "Art isn't created. It's abandoned."

Finally, the Lucas of the prequels had no passion. He didn't love movies anymore. It was all clearly about $$$. He held a tight grip over something that he claims to love but really didn't give a shit for anymore (as the sell to Disney proved). Before he let other creative people take their shots and we got The Empire Strikes back. A fucking brilliant movie. Return wasn't as great because he came back in with "Hey, let's have some tribal teddy bears! That'll sell some fucking toys." When Lucas is out of the picture, or at least sidelined, the product is better. The prequels were shit, but the Clone Wars cartoon was damn good. The EU books and Dark Horse comics brought some great creators and stories to fandom, all without Lucas's help. He's a guy who just didn't get it. He never understood why Boba Fett was popular. Hell, he wasn't even convinced that his own movie was going to do well at all. He got lucky with Star Wars and forgot that it was the creative people he let in to help him that really created a huge franchise. He tried to capture lighting in a bottle for the prequels. He didn't make films as good as the originals, but he walked away with a shitload of money. I guess he won after all.

Great analysis, doc. You guys should do the podcast together. Seriously

I honestly would like you to conference-call in on an episode in the near future, doc.

Probably not a good idea. The work week pretty much expends all the energy I have that prevents me from yelling out 'fuck' every other sentence.

Plus, I'm real busy with my Jazz Tap classes.

It's a podcast. I'm pretty sure the use of the word fuck is allowed

thedoctor will have to practice yelling out "birds and bees" instead of "fuck."

honestly I allowed two iterations of 'bullshit' in my last one; I don't think I'll hold guests to the same standards. I've thought about having doc call in at some point in the future; I also am really thinking about doing an all-about-zombies episode at some point and seeing if grimmers will phone in some valuable opinions.

I may in the future. There is still the issue of my Jazz Tap classes.

I think an interesting topic would be comparing the successes of Star Trek vs. Star Wars. Laying out the definitive elements that make Star Trek appealing, as compared to the core elements that make Star Wars have a big following.

For virtually everyone, I think Star Trek is more appealing in its optimistic vision of the future. And also its attempt to portray realistically in a detailed way a technologically beleiveable vision of the future. Star Trek in all its forms also has much more allegory to modern social and political issues, and reference to history and culture. And of course, the camaraderie of the main characters.

Star Wars I see more as lighthearted space-fantasy combined with really cool special effects, but not striving for the same level of realism as Star Trek.

Myself, I've always loved Star Trek and (yes, blasphemy, I know!) had only minimal to indifferent interest in the Star Wars franchise. I enjoyed the initial three 1977-1983 films as a visual feast, but found the storyline shallow and (particularly Return of the Jedi) nauseatingly "cute" in many segments. For me Empire Strikes Back was the best of the three.
The three more recent prequels were also great visually, but while having some complexity, had a lot of dialogue that was difficult to sit through.



I think this as a suggested podcast topic might have wider audience appeal, because geek or not, everyone is familiar with these franchises. I'm more of a layman, particularly on Star Wars, and I'd be interested in what self-described expert geeks have to say on the subject.

Regarding the first podcast specifically, I have to admit, I was completely lost during a few parts of your podcast, particularly the segments on video games (which I have no familiarity with). You on several topics referred to something by name only once at the beginning of discussing a movie or game, and I didn't catch the name of what you moved the topic to. Or made comparisons to other works and the subject became murky whether you were referring to the initial movie or game, or the one you compared it to.

There was also a bit of crosstalk where some of it was inaudible, and it wasn't clear who among the three of you was saying what.
Just letting you know, so you can maybe define the subject with more clarity in future shows.

I also wondered why you did it as an audio show, rather than taping it with a video camera, where you could post it on Youtube or elsewhere.

episode 2 just went live last night. go check it out here.

You're welcome, for taking the time to give you constructive criticism.

oh, thanks. yeah we've discussed how to make it less confusing when it comes to who's talking, but I think we just always assumed our voices were distinctive enough that a listener could differentiate without too much trouble. we'll keep looking at that. we had already recorded #2 before your last post.

I'd cut your intro music down. 30 seconds is too much. You're not a TV show. You don't have opening credits. Keep it short. People are already listening to you jaw on for an hour. Don't make it anymore tedious than needs to be.

Plus, I don't give a shit what kind of wings you're eating. It's more of a gimmick for you than for the audience. Unless you post a recipe or something somewhere, it is totally superfluous to anyone listening.

thanks for the input. I'm probably going to cut back on the music and use more little snippets like the fucking around with a microphone clips I used on either side of the intro. or just use one thirty-second clip and fade into the intro smack in the middle so there's fifteen seconds on either side. some of the music transitions are purposely a little long to eventually leave room if we need to drop ads in, but I definitely see how it kind of drags a bit when it's just the music.

the wing sauce trivia wasn't my idea, but both of my cohosts are very attached to it and I feel like I sometimes exert a bit too much of a creative monopoly so I'm gonna let them enjoy that. we will eventually have a site where we can host episodes and embed content from our various social media outlets, and I imagine that'll include recipes. we actually discussed a couple random things like that since we're starting to pull in ad revenue and will be able to open up a site with future merch potential if this whole thing takes off. if we eventually get to a few thousand regular listeners it'd be fun to sell (cheaply of course) a Nerds With Wings 'cookbook' or Terrible Theremin t-shirts just for shits and giggles. that's a long way off - if it ever happens at all - but if we do ever get to that point I don't want it to sneak up on us without us knowing where to go from there.

but again, thank you for the suggestions, and if you have any more (about specific episodes or the show in general) I'd appreciate hearing them.

Captain Sammitch


You could almost call him "Captain Sammitch 3.0", but apart from an intense training regimen and a few UFC appearances during the RDCW's hiatus, not much has changed for the premier face in the RDCW. Much of the stuff that remains the same is copied verbatim from Sammitch's previous bio.


■Persona: All-around face, bordering on heroic face, but not afraid to make a little mischief now and then. Sammitch is fiercely loyal and loves playing to the crowd. While he exemplifies clean wrestling and frowns on cheap shots, Sammitch is far from naïve and will fight fire with fire once the book goes out the window, which was very useful in winning and holding the hardcore title. Captain Sammitch can easily be considered a veteran of the RDCW by now, and that wealth of experience combined with experience from fights in the UFC and elsewhere keeps him cool as ice in the face of adversity. Though he's still more of a cruiserweight than a heavyweight, long hours of training have closed the gap a little more, and even if he's not the biggest wrestler in the ring, Sammitch is still one of the most dangerous by far.


■Entrance Music: The guitar hook to Peace of Mind by Boston.


■Clothing and Equipment: Standard ring attire for Captain Sammitch consists of either white warmup pants and New Balances with blue trim and a Peyton Manning jersey or black warmup pants and New Balances with white trim and his "Badass Pirate T-Shirt". Out of the ring, Sammitch is comfortably stylish, usually wearing a combination of dress casual and upscale athletic attire. For hardcore matches, Captain Sammitch wields a bo staff to great advantage.


■Wrestling Style: Again, though Captain Sammitch isn't a true heavyweight, he can easily wrestle them. He still relies on technically solid mat skills at close range and mixed martial-arts skills at arm's length, with a handful of spectacular high-flying moves in between. Sammitch's moveset is very deep - only his signature moves below can be concisely listed - and his moveset and style of fighting have been carefully arranged from films of his many bouts and of bouts featuring his rivals and most frequent opponents. The goal is to be able to predict and have an answer for as many of his opponent's moves as possible.


■Signature Moves: The Sammitch Suplex (cross-body German suplex, often daisy-chained), the Sammitch Strike (lotus blossom open-palm strike to an opponent's solar plexus), the Sammitch Spin (rapid spinning kick), the Sammitch Submission (Walls of Jericho), and the Sammitch Slam (powerbomb finisher, best from the top rope). These are only the best-known and flashiest moves in Sammitch's moveset.


■Affiliation: The faction formerly known as the Sudden Death Connection has lost several of its members, but the core of Captain Sammitch, Chewy Walrus, and Killconey is still intact and promises to remain one of the most powerful factions in the RDCW even as they continue to search for a new collective identity. Sammitch has assumed the role of the group's de facto leader after Penwing's departure, although for a long time even before then he had been a mentor and trainer for his teammates, and he is hoping to make his handful of fighters into a premier faction while also attempting to 'clean up' much of the "dirty wrestling" and cheap shots that he feels are harming the RDCW.

uploaded episode 3 - second half of the star wars convo - at http://is.gd/6BefV0. took some of the advice I was given - shortened up the music segments significantly, streamlined my intro and wrapup segments, and concentrated more on the actual discussion topics. thank you again for everyone who contributed.

sunday night we did a special episode. three women joined us and helped us examine the representation and portrayal of women in nerd culture. it was a pretty fun conversation but also a very informative one. I hope to have that one uploaded a week from this sunday.

we don't want the whole podcast to be double-episodes and super-serious topics. we're looking at doing a lot of mini-episodes about more compact topics as well, so any suggestions are welcome.

Anime: What the fuck is wrong with the Japanese?

I'm sorry. You were asking for one episode ideas.