Deep Space and Dragons
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Deep Space and Dragons
Episode 86: Weddings, Wizards, and Writing.
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Can a horror movie tradition ignite romance and suspense all at once? Join us on "Deep Space and Dragons" as Richard and Karl usher in October with spine-chilling tales and heartwarming anecdotes. Karl surprises Richard by revealing his passion for horror flicks, a shared tradition with his fiancée that leads them to a spirited discussion on the ageless thrill of "Jaws." This episode is packed with unexpected twists, from Karl’s newfound hobby of painting virtual models to a whimsical exploration of Halloween customs across the globe.
Get ready for laughter and love as karl recounts his meticulously planned engagement proposal, complete with secret ring missions and a memorable Moose Jaw adventure. Richard listens in awe as Karl narrates the romantic escapades, including a touching stay at the Temple Garden Spa Hotel and the challenges of finding the perfect ring size. As they ponder the romantic allure of Moose Jaw, they even imagine what kind of Pokémon gym the town might host, blending romance with a touch of nerdy fun.
Switching gears, Richard shares his behind-the-scenes journey at a recent book festival, shedding light on the mentorship process and his third sci-fi novel. The dynamic duo doesn’t shy away from controversy, discussing the latest frustrations within Magic: The Gathering's Commander format and the nuanced changes in the new Dungeons & Dragons handbook. From card banishments to crafting systems, and even a light-hearted capybara trivia, this episode masterfully weaves together tales of horror, romance, gaming, and creative exploration, offering both hearty laughs and deep insights.
Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
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Hello and welcome to Richard, the honest and up-going and doesn't hide secrets from his best friend, and Carl. No comment Present Deep Space and Dragons. I'm Richard.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna lie, I'm Carl. Ah, suspicious.
Speaker 1:Implied secrecy Amazing, so shady, so mysterious, impidicious. Implied secrecy Amazing, so shady, so mysterious. And welcome to Deep Space and Dragons. Sometimes we talk nerd things. A lot of times we manifest products into existence. Sometimes Carl successfully makes a sandblaster, sometimes With multiverse theory.
Speaker 2:Oh, with multiverse theory. I've done it an infinite number of times, so I really don't need to do it again.
Speaker 1:Indeed, you're also a snowflake once. But moving on from that, what is new in the Carlverse?
Speaker 2:Um, well, you know, time for a little mini review Of Carl.
Speaker 1:Just a mini review of Carl in general Because, like at his peak, it's like 10 out of 10, but sometimes oof, like season 3, there's a bit of a quality drop in Carl.
Speaker 2:No, no. Now it's officially October, so we definitely have to watch horror movies. There is no evidence they're listening to this.
Speaker 1:in October this could be Ailey as an alpha satarni picking this up long after the last human has turned to dust.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I'm not going to bother mansplaining Halloween to aliens.
Speaker 1:No, definitely mansplate Halloween to aliens. Because, like imagine the ancient historian who sees the Nintendo 64 controllers and thinks we're some kind of horrifying three-armed nightmare creature and just do not understand why we stab pumpkins in the face and no one recorded why. Because everyone just assumed everyone knew what it was.
Speaker 2:Anyways, my girlfriend and I, well, my fiancé and I, what?
Speaker 1:No way. This is shocking information, not spoiled by meta at all.
Speaker 2:This is the first time I'm hearing of this in a fantastic live stream bit anyways, we have a tradition of watching horror movies as we get into Halloween and every now and then I see the image for a horror movie and it's a classic and it's like, hmm, I've never seen that you even paused for me to say congratulations.
Speaker 1:Fine, then, no congrats for you. Back to the horror movies.
Speaker 2:The horror movies are what's really important here, obviously.
Speaker 1:Good thing your fiancé doesn't listen to our show.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm multitasking here. I mean not at this exact moment, but throughout the episode.
Speaker 1:No, I like to assume you're doing the proposal in a hot air balloon right now while recording.
Speaker 2:Oh, that would have been more romantic.
Speaker 1:It's so expensive.
Speaker 2:After the horror movie, because obviously the horror movie and the proposal are on the same level of importance in my daily life.
Speaker 1:You know that's me with a lot of interesting things, Like I was late for work today because I was painting my virtual gumpla.
Speaker 2:Okay, but so we're scrolling through Netflix and Jaws pops up. I'm like you know, I've never actually seen it, and the only genre it's categorized as is horror.
Speaker 1:Oh, we need to pause for one moment because I have to do something. Using my divine Geass powers, I've just made Baby Shark play on a loop in every listener's head of this episode. You may continue.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, we ended up watching Jaws, the original Jaws from 1975, I believe. Apparently it's based on a book from 1974, which I put a hold on at the library, the e-book library, the Saskatchewan Library Consortium.
Speaker 1:For the record, we're not sponsored by libraries. I fully support libraries. If you're too, if you don't feel like buying my book, which would directly support this, or sending Carl unmarked bags of catch, which would directly support this, go support your local library and vicariously, I will thrive.
Speaker 2:So I'm firstly surprised. But so firstly I was surprised Some of these older movies are actually longer than I expected, because, like when I was growing up and maybe this was mostly for, like, kids' movies, but it was like 90 minutes was the runtime for almost all movies that I remember watching.
Speaker 1:Well, when we talk about Marvel, we always sass them for that.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but so the Shining was close to two hours, which was a little bit surprising.
Speaker 1:And a full hour of that was Ominous Hallways.
Speaker 2:And Jaws was a full two hours. It was like two hours and eight minutes or something like that. It was like two hours and eight minutes or something like that. So it was surprising how long it was, because I didn't realize people had the same kind of attention span. It was like a dip in movie length going into the late 80s, early 90s.
Speaker 1:There's some kind of joke about there going in a dip to see Jaws Like it exists.
Speaker 2:I'm just not quite sure of the configuration. Anyways, all in all, maybe I don't go out in the ocean enough, I don't know.
Speaker 1:You're insubstantial.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of landlocked, so maybe that's my problem If you're going out into the ocean more often.
Speaker 1:A the BC real estate market has been fixed by the ocean. More often A the BC real estate market has been fixed by the ocean swallowing it right but seriously, if we lost all the lakefront property in Canada, I'm not really quite sure how many billionaires we would lose. It would be a deep tragedy to us all, but please continue.
Speaker 2:Well, anyway, tldr, the movie is long and there's not a lot of action.
Speaker 1:Counterpoint. Tldr would have been a great name for our podcast. Yeah, that's pretty much what we do is. Sometimes we'll even come in to review something that neither of us have right to be like.
Speaker 2:Well, tldr, it ended mediocrely well. The ending of jaws was the most uh exciting part. Obviously uh, because you know they're in the sheriff and the marine biologist and the random fisherman hunter that's hunting jaws for ten thousand dollars captain ahab, yes, this wasn't enough, like ten thousand yeah, captain ahab, I'm for, I'm familiar anyways, they're all in the boat, and then, apparently, the production is famous for having an animatronic shark.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I was going to say it if you didn't. So I mean I will say it's so hard for CGI to beat practical effects.
Speaker 1:I was about to ask you. So what was better? Is that shark or James Cameron inventing underwater cameras for underwater green screening?
Speaker 2:Oh see, I think that shark was still better. I mean the overall concept and the visuals were a little bit like because it's from the 70s. So they have lots of weird lighting where people are like they're clearly in the dark in the night and then there's just like a spotlight shining on them so the camera can actually capture them, because the cameras were just old. So shadows and stuff are kind of weird when it's nighttime in the movies.
Speaker 1:I mean better than Sharknado CGI-ing the blue sky gray, but it's still having the lighting effect of a sunny day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in any event I think it's worth watching as it's an iconic and classic film, but it was just kind of long and boring.
Speaker 1:To be fair, though, Avatar the Way of Water had a very similar problem.
Speaker 2:I definitely agree.
Speaker 1:It was a little bit long and boring and also for Avatar, the way of water, because I'm not quite sure why I decide this is my focal point for contrasting Jaws. It came out way too late after the original. The original wasn't good because of its plot and the sequel was so far away. I'm like what even happened in this movie other than ferngully kind of like, like the premise of jaws only worked once and the jaws sequel, sharknado, really is like the only direction you can go after that is you go from horror to slapstick comedy uh, yeah, I mean I don't know, there is a Jaws 2, I'm pretty sure yeah but there shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:That's my point is there shouldn't be a Jaws 2, more Jaws.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Jaws 2 in 1978.
Speaker 1:But moving along from that one. So yes, we're talking Jaws movie. So that was the Carl Flash fiction review, or is?
Speaker 2:there an entire episode on.
Speaker 1:Jaws somehow Because I did not do the homework.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't feel like there's enough there.
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe if we were like super analytical about the characters and whatnot, I mean we could do that YouTube thing where we do a reaction video where we have our talking heads on web cameras and the footage playing, but we have to block out the music that's copyrighted and have a video game playing in the bottom window to trick the copyright detector. It's a whole. Thing.
Speaker 2:That would be a fun amount of work.
Speaker 1:Because that's what I have right now.
Speaker 2:Surplus time, Um. But so then the other thing that's new with me is Well, so last week my then girlfriend and I were in Edmonton.
Speaker 1:I made so much fun of you for not being romantic enough. And then this happened. I'm so happy for this plot twist Because I spent a decent chunk of our last episode being like oh you better make sure that you leave your girlfriend in the hotel room to go ride water slides by yourself.
Speaker 2:No, I had water slide buddies.
Speaker 1:That was the thing I made fun of you for, specifically, was you had waterslide buddies who were not, in fact, your fiance.
Speaker 2:One of them almost chickened out and didn't want to take the skyscramer drop of doom.
Speaker 1:I mean to be fair. That is terrifying and that could have been me, like I can relate to. If it wasn't my sheer like need to defeat you, I'd probably chicken out Like if I didn't have a rival. I don't know if I could do it.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean probably check it out, like if I didn't have a rival, I don't know if I could do it. Uh well, I mean, it's a lot of fun, but you get going so fast. Like I think the poster said you could get up to like 64 kilometers an hour.
Speaker 1:Gotta go fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you go so fast, at least me personally. Anyway, I was kind of skipping across the water when I hit the bottom and I bruised my one butt, cheek Ha ha that's great.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. It makes me happy You've officially gotten too old for water slides.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, I'll still take it again. I'm too old when it bruises both my butt, cheeks Plus. You have a spare, like you're fine. Yeah, no, I'll still take it again.
Speaker 1:I'm too old when it bruises both my buttcheeks, Plus you have a spare like you're fine. Yeah, exactly that line's so much less badass when it's not about eyes.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're in Edmonton. Well, technically, just outside of Edmonton there's, like this outlet mall which I still don't. Maybe I should look it up, but outlet malls just seem to be regular malls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it's like we're painting a scenery with outlet mall. It's like when I was giving a copy I didn't know forever ago, where one of my writer friends used tire T-Y-R-E for a wagon wheel, and I'm like it's not the wrong word, you use the historically correct word, but it gives a certain image. So when you say tire, you think rubber, and then you say tire on a wagon, the wagon looks stupid in the mind's eye. When you say outlet mall, you move away from Mall of America and go oh yeah, the mall I can identify easily in my brain and probably has a Sears.
Speaker 2:Oddly enough, it did not have a Sears. It had a Winners, though.
Speaker 1:Eh, close enough, I'll take the win, I think Because I'm a winner here.
Speaker 2:But so she was shopping at Claire's and I told her I had to go to the washroom, which was true, but I actually also snuck away to the jewelry store and bought a ring.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, this was like a now's the chance, I'm a go for it, ok, ok. Because I was good One thing I wanted to make fun of you for is years ago Well, probably a decade now when I'm like hey, carll, can you lend me money so I can buy a cute gift for my girlfriend for our anniversary. I'm like I was really hoping, when your engagement came around, you'd be like hey, vlad, I know you have no money, but you owe me this money.
Speaker 2:So um, but so I I purchased the ring. I purchased it in a size six. I had measured one of her other rings with the calipers.
Speaker 1:All right, you're getting back points here. There's a little more prep work than this sounds like initially.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I mean, I've. Actually I proposed to her on her birthday. That was the whole shtick. People kept being like, oh, when are you guys going to get on her birthday? That was the whole shtick. People kept being like, oh, when are you guys going to get married? Oh. And she was all like, oh, I don't know if we're ever going to get married. And I'm sitting here, I'm like man, I've been thinking about proposing to you on your birthday for like six months.
Speaker 1:I thought you were about to say a year, because that's extremely funny, because you're like oh yeah, next year. I missed it this year. Shit, stupid, leap year.
Speaker 2:Ruining your calendar. But so I sneakily get the ring. I go back to Claire's and Megan's still shopping. Her mom is in there. I sneakily hand the ring off to her mom to put in her purse so that Megan won't see it.
Speaker 1:Ooh, okay, now this is getting spicy, okay, okay. You know, I love love, right, right.
Speaker 2:And so I managed to successfully get the ring into the car and into the center console, which I know that Megan won't check.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, we got some mind games going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean that. I mean, maybe I was gambling, but it paid off. Well, yeah, the gamble's what makes it exciting?
Speaker 1:because, like I hate to break this to you if you just had a ring box in your pocket, she's not checking your pockets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, except for the ring box is like square and pointy and would show pretty easily. Anyways, anyways.
Speaker 1:Suit.
Speaker 2:Best pocket. Anywho, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:You're right, you've thought of this. I'm mostly like. I enjoy testing your thought process here, because I'm getting distinct joy from this experience.
Speaker 2:So then we we walk past the jewelry store and a different jewelry store actually but uh, she decides that, uh, she should try on wearing rings. Uh, and uh, the lady should try on rings basically told her that her ring was she should get a size 7 ring and I'm like, oh well, I thought I had this right with the size 6, but whatever.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not like they're supposed to remove that ring constantly. Anyway, I'm sure it's fine. Just break the bone yeah.
Speaker 2:But so then we get back from Edmonton and the day we go to Moose Jaw with my parents.
Speaker 1:Primo location. Okay, so like Edmonton I was already minusing some points off you from because like it's a city of oil, like it's where the poison-type gym would be. Like now, moose Jaw, moose Jaw's nice. I can see like an ice type or a fairy type gym there, or actually fire weirdly enough in like the hot springs. There's a few ways, even dragon, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, I judge how romantic locations are by which type of Pokemon gym would be there. Please come at me for that. Are you sure it wouldn't be like a Stantler gym Be the normal type gym, you know?
Speaker 1:my brain was kind of pivoting that direction.
Speaker 2:And it'd be sad if it was the ghost type gym. Well, apparently there is a ghost tour trolley you can take, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's enough.
Speaker 2:But yeah, like Moose Jaw's, like Banff level's good, and then you know, moose Jaw was fine. I didn't actually propose in Moose Jaw because Okay, now it's getting twisty again.
Speaker 1:You mean you didn't take her to the Tragic Exploitation Tunnel and propose there, or at the El Capone restaurant?
Speaker 2:No, we went to the Bunker 24 tour because it's new and my parents hadn't seen it, hadn't done it yet. And then we spent the night. We booked separate rooms. We spent the night at the Temple Garden Spa Hotel because the hotel room includes access to the mineral pool. Yeah, that's just mineral pool. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's just generally awesome. Yeah, I've actually stayed there before, fun fact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they have free parking for hotel guests and everything else within walking distance. It's just generally a good time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a random pub I went to near there that had a menu that had 13 kinds of paralyzer. For some reason that was their thing, I don't know why so?
Speaker 2:then we spent the night there. We woke up, it was the day of her birthday. My parents gave her a birthday card, paid for breakfast, because we went out for breakfast and then basically we went in the hot spring for a little while and went back home and then we drove my parents' car out to Moose Jaw. So we got back, we had to pick up our car from their house and on the way home from their house I was just like, yeah, we're just gonna go to the mall for a second here, uh, and we went to the mall, uh, went to the jewelry store Pandora not sponsored, but that's, that's the store. Uh, they have a pretty good exchange policy, I think. Uh, because I just like went in there, uh, I gave showed them ring, gave them a receipt, uh, and they're like oh yeah, we'll exchange this for a size 7 for you.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I assume they're not going to fight you too much on this, although it would be funny if you come back and they're like oof rough story buddy, we got our Kleenex over on aisle 6.
Speaker 2:No, they had to do a little bit of finagling, because there's no provincial tax in Alberta but there is in Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1:Alberta, it's basically space Texas.
Speaker 2:But she was with me this time. So she sees me like exchanging this ring. Uh, she tries it on, she puts it on her ring finger, uh, and she's like, oh, are you wanting on this finger? And I'm like, oh, I guess we'll see um. And then this is, this is. I'm gonna lose points here for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah you've already lost a few, but the part where you're like okay, I gotta get the rig resized. Despite my sneakiness, I'll just bring her into the jewelry shop and play so Goku level dumb. What kind of food is marriage?
Speaker 2:When we got out to the car and we started driving home from the mall, I was like, yeah, I'm proposing to you. I'm kind of nervous and scared, but that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:And then she started crying a little bit and she said yes, Didn't say if you propose to me, I'll drive this into a telephone pole. So that's a win.
Speaker 2:I mean, I assume you were driving in this scenario, but still. That's what's new with me, what's new with you there, richard.
Speaker 1:Well, I can't top proposal espionage, because you see, what's really funny is you listen to the voice tones we have right, and you think I'd be the one doing exciting stuff and you'd be the chill one. But it's actually weirdly inversed Like I don't sound chill, but in factuality I am remarkably chill. So I went to a book festival this weekend where it was a bunch of street styles with different publishing houses were all set up and a friend of mine had their magazine. They're selling issues. I met up with another friend of mine, so I went on a book tour on Saturday.
Speaker 1:Ah and yeah, that's pretty much it. Work has kept me very. Between work and writing my third novel with a mentor. I have been extremely busy with being functional. Plus I was writing my writing my essay for law school.
Speaker 2:So your mentor is helping you write your third.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if I can go into full detail on this, so I'm going to be vague and cryptic as unnecessary but effectively how it works is. I'm working on my sci-fi novel and if people have been paying attention, they kind of have the gist of what I'm going for and it's like he's taking somewhere between a line editor role of each week going over a new chapter, but also because it's a mentorship, teaching me what life is like for a writer, things about writing for different IPs and stuff and just overall being a chill dude. So my Friday meetings are going over my book, but also going over his products and things.
Speaker 1:And because it's a mentorship, each hour he puts in he's been stockpiling richard hours he can put me to work doing and I'm like it'll be some kind of exciting project, and I don't know what it'll be yet, but yeah, so I'm gonna be cryptic and bizarre about it, but it's fun because it's like oh yeah I don't have to force this person to read my book and give me feedback, because the thing is, I have a great support system of loving people who will absolutely read a chapter of my work because they love and care about me shame. I'll have written the book by the time they get back to me.
Speaker 2:Shame. I'll have written the book by the time they get back to me. Sometimes I'm in that category.
Speaker 1:Like I'll be at the book launch signing the books and you'll be like so, chapter two, you had a typo. I'll be like that would have been great knowledge six months ago. Oh nope, typo's still there. Didn't catch it Great. I've only moved 200 of these. Actually, at the time of this recording, because I was going to a different writing festival this weekend. That was at one last weekend the Minuet of Sorcery was a free ebook and I think it goes till like Friday at midnight. It's free. So people are going to hear this and know that they could have had a free ebook but didn't win those airs. I could have had a free e-book but didn't win those airs. Yeah, just the Miduena.
Speaker 1:Sorcery, the e-book, for it's just straight up free for the next week. Because I get a certain number of free distributions I get to do and I then use those to climb on the top of the chart. Plus, it's a fun icebreaker. So like so-and-so will be like oh, this is my magazine. I'm like oh yeah, I'm an author, my book's free for the next week. If you want to check it out, I hand over the business card. They hand over their business card and the haggling's done. The haggling is done.
Speaker 2:It's better than my other strategy of taking some of my misprinted test copies and just hiding them on random library shelves.
Speaker 1:That's funny well, it's so. There's a thing in my on my campus, which is like a take a book, leave a bookshelf. I just occasionally put one there just to see if it disappears or not well, don't leave us in suspense oh, they'd always disappear and I'll never know who took this book.
Speaker 1:and I'm like, is it one of my enemies who just sees it is so mad they want to destroy it? Is it one of my friends being like, oh yeah, free book. Or is it just some random person? Be like, huh, what this? And I hope it's the third one? And they just think I'm some actual author. Well, I am an actual author, but you know what I mean, right, like, oh, I never read one by this guy before. Cool, yes, mystery books are great.
Speaker 2:Have you put any sequels in there to see if they disappear?
Speaker 1:No See, the idea is I give away the first book, so then people have to buy the sequel, or I give away the sequel so they have to buy the first book Right Like. This is a business 101, because that's what authors do. We make fat stacks of cash. Yep, that's what authors are famous for but yeah, I typically only put one on sale at a time to like encourage people to go get the other one.
Speaker 2:I wrote them with a big enough time skip.
Speaker 1:I was trying to do the dragon ball z dragon ball thing where if you start at z, you can go back and watch dragon ball and you don't really lose anything for doing it that way, right? I believe the Team Four Star line was weren't you an enemy in Dragon Ball, piccolo? No one watched Dragon Ball, right? But yeah, writing books, going to lit festivals, working my job I did have to come, so I was sick with a cold last week and wednesday is a bunch of practical workshop meeting type things like get up, do some stretches, network, and I'm like, oh no, it's my second week and I can't do the networking thing. I'm legitimately sad, actually, because working remote is efficient, but I'm a social butterfly despite being an introvert, so I need humans once in a while.
Speaker 1:So, they have this machine called an owl. It's this owl. You put it on the center of a table and it's a 360-degree camera that focuses in on people when they're talking and is also a speaker, okay, but it also has an owl face on it and it hoots once in a while to let people know it's active. Huh, so joining the meeting via magic owl is just awesome, right Like the audio quality like the technology of like.
Speaker 1:I don't even want to know how much the owl cost and the fact that it just like links me into a Zoom meeting, which is going to be worse than physically being there, but it worked remarkably well and the novelty amuses me Because, you see, I'm not used to jobs that care about you as a human being, right.
Speaker 1:So if I have a cold and I'm like, oh, carl, I can't come in and do pizzas today because I have a cold. You'd be like, oh, carl, I can't come in and do pizzas today because I have a cold. You'd be like, well, someone better cover your shift and you ain't getting paid for this. And we low-key hate you for doing the responsible thing of not spreading a virus, right right, where these academic jobs are like, no, don't come in, he'll have tea next to you. Do not come in, seriously, we'll send you home. You're ill. You do not come in, seriously, we'll send you home, you're ill. You can't work while ill. And I'm like it's so funny to me because the food job should never let someone work sick, if you think about that logistically for a single second oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:If you're sick, you should stay home. I don't really condone the the capitalistic behavior of the food service industry.
Speaker 1:But like I honestly believe, government needs to step up and give set numbers of sick days to people because businesses aren't doing that on their own Right Cause, and also I don't mind if someone uses up a sick day to just take a random personal day. A lot of food service jobs. I've worked like to pretend that it's the fate of the world. It'll be like oh no, if Redacted doesn't come in during this big rush, it's our busiest day. The store will burn down. It's like no, what'll happen is you'll make the food slightly slower, but the oven already has eight pizzas in it, so you're capped. It just means the other five people will have to work slightly harder because you can physically only produce food so fast. And if you're not producing food so fast that you're physically capped, then you really didn't actually need that guy that desperately.
Speaker 1:And anytime they're like oh, we're only scheduling one person, there's no one else who could possibly work. My thought isn't oh no, what a jerk for betraying the team. It's hire another person.
Speaker 1:Have two people there have three. Yeah, I know you have to sell an extra pizza an hour to pay for that third guy, but you know everyone would be happier Just putting some facts out there that two large pizzas for 40 bucks should probably cover that third guy's hourly salary Just by selling a couple of them. I'm not actually sure of the markup in the numbers, but it's really not that many pizzas per hour to keep a minimum wage employee on. That's probably true. I almost thought you were going to un-actually me with actual numbers because you have those, but then I'd have to reveal my cards.
Speaker 2:I'm all about those secrets.
Speaker 1:Well, I really enjoyed. One time I was talking to one of my supervisors working a student job and I'm like, if my actions stop a student from dropping out and that one student pays the entire tuition of their time here, who otherwise wouldn't, doesn't that pay my salary indefinitely, like just one student?
Speaker 2:Save one student.
Speaker 1:Well, it makes them 20 grand. Yeah, so my minimum wage isn't taking 20 grand out of there. And if I save two students, boom, infinite money. Glitch. It's true, if you had each student recruit one other student in your school, it would just make infinite money.
Speaker 2:Well, so speaking of infinite money? Not necessarily.
Speaker 1:Actually, great pivot to Wizards of the Coast. Perfect pivot, no doubts. So I know you're going to rant about the commander thing and I'm going to rant about the 5.5 edition thing. So we're about half hour into this episode. We've definitely done the weddings part of the episode, so now time for the wizards part of the episode, oof.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I'm just like a little bit curious, like, I assume, just like a little bit curious, I assume you have at least heard about the commander bands that they put in.
Speaker 1:So you know what's wild. I don't play magic anymore Not really Right Nor do I have any friends who are actively playing magic. I pretty much pivoted to flesh and blood and then pivoted to being broke. So card games are on hiatus until I get through this next semester. But like they messed up so bad that I'm well aware of this. Think about this. I didn't look it up, I didn't research it, I just threw passive, like existing in social spaces through my author connections and my tabletop connections. Know that they messed up commander bands. Think about that for a second. That'd be like you're working at a pizzeria and McDonald's screwed up so hard. You're talking about the McRib, yeah, but please recap it, because there's no way every listener knows about this, or maybe they do.
Speaker 2:So, commander, as a magic format, was created by the community as a way to use their excess bulk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, back when it was EDH. I honestly think a person I knew in Calgary, a judge named Gavin, may have been responsible for transitioning it into a real format, but I might just be misremembering my 12-year-old days. So none of that is true, don't at me. But also it might be.
Speaker 2:So I mean the community came together and created a rule, set for a different way to play Magic, so they could use cards that rarely see play in tournaments.
Speaker 1:To quote a quote I've heard before the stupid dumb shit. It was a way to get away with using a card, no matter how stupid, good or bad. Right, Because you're only using one.
Speaker 2:But so then, Wizards of the Coast became aware of Elder Dragon, Highlander as it was called at the time.
Speaker 1:And I'm not sure why they decided to transition it to calling it Commander. Oh, I know exactly why. Three reasons why you wouldn't call it Elder Dragon Highlander. First, highlander's a protected IP. Second, you don't only use Elder Dragons in this one. In the original one you did. You had to literally pick one of the Elder Dragons Right. And third, commanders sounded like good branding, so like this is a marketing department network. But I do think they probably actually heard the phrase Highlander and are like, can we do that? They didn't want a.
Speaker 2:Palworld situation on their hands didn't want a pal world situation on their hands, but so wizards officially recognized the the format by releasing pre-constructed commander decks.
Speaker 1:I think I actually got the first cycle of those I think we might have.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure I played with them anyways, with you and panda.
Speaker 2:But so then, as the game rose, as the format rose in popularity, with them, anyways, with you and Panda. So then, as the game rose, as the format rose in popularity with the community, the Wizards began pushing the format more and more to the point where nowadays they release a commander deck set with every single standard set that they release, even Modern Masters, which was printed directly into the Modern format. Instead of giving players a Modern deck that they could buy off the shelf, they gave players a commander deck with the Modern Master cards and some of these cards. I don't remember when it was first printed, but one card in particular, the Jeweled Lotus. It specifically says right on the card generates three mana only for your commander. And so the rules committee, uh, which is not, which was not officially affiliated with wizards of the coast, uh, but the rules committee, uh, they, when the first card was first printed, apparently, they basically said hey, like, don't print this card, it is not good for magic, and Wizards went and printed it anyways.
Speaker 1:They like to do that these days. Pardon, they like to do that these days. Complexity Creep has been a real problem. I remember when a 1-2-4-1 was completely viable and it was in fact good.
Speaker 2:But so they really pushed um this one, the jewel lotus in particular, uh, and the mana crypt. There they um, they made it the, the face card of their commander master set, which is I don't know, like maybe a year old I don't know how old it is.
Speaker 1:Recent enough to really anger people.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, because people were buying those packs like crazy because there were so many valuable cards and the Jeweled Lotus, excuse me, the Jeweled Lotus really enabled people to play the game very quickly and consistently and it became a very expensive card. And same thing with the Lost Caverns of Ixalan, with the Mana Crypt. They released these neon sets of each of the nine colors of Mana Crypt in their collector boosters.
Speaker 1:Which I hate that, by the way. I hate chase cards, by the way. I hate chase cards full stop when they're like, oh, we should just make regular cards and then nicer premium cards. I'm like, or you could just make all the cards nice, you jerks.
Speaker 2:But so then the rules committee. There was one other card that either desperately needed to reprint. It was called the Dockside Extortionist, and it also just made a whole bunch of mana and allowed people to make really big, swingy plays exploding out of nowhere, potentially at the start of the game, because it was just cheap and easy, which is so dumb, by the way.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to call out every commander player right now.
Speaker 2:So imagine you.
Speaker 1:Will you're adults and you get your four friends come over for a game of magic?
Speaker 1:You're playing a format that has 40 life and can take up to 10 turns and people get to play big stupid creatures. You get to order a pizza and then it'll arrive in the middle of the game and then Dude A is like you know what would be really funny If I kill one of them on the first turn and I'm like why, dude A? Why do you need five mana on turn two to make 30 treasure? The game's supposed to be slow. That's a person who goes all in on the third round of poker and you stop inviting them to poker night. That's just people's logic confusing me more than anything. It's like what format are you playing this commander in and are you trying to make your friends not want to play Magic with you?
Speaker 2:Well see, I definitely agree. There is a place for more competitive decks like that.
Speaker 1:I've never seen that place. They keep saying it exists. But I'm like where are you bringing your $100,000 commander deck?
Speaker 2:well. So from my understanding, um again, like I don't know, um, I guess I don't know that many commander players, but people who are really dedicated to building the most powerful decks and the combos and stuff that they can they'll find like Discord servers. They'll do webcam commander. So when people really want to play with that kind of power level, you find your group to play with. But when you come to a casual table, like you kind of got to know your group and the guy that's coming with the extremely powerful Mana Crypt, jeweled Lotus, dockside Extortionist, when they're coming to the table with those cards, it's like does everybody else have the same level of power? Because otherwise that's just rude. But that's not really here. There I'm not telling people how to have fun, because I am, we'll do have.
Speaker 1:I'm playing those kinds of games I love telling people how fun because they'll tie into a later part of this explanation. But yes to tldr it. They banned very powerful cards within a year of printing these cards specifically for this format. So they literally To make a non-magic explanation of why I am enraged by Jewel Lotus. It literally only functions in Commander. It has the word Commander in the name of the card. Like you cannot use it in any other way, which it's a home for this card and they specifically made it to sell stuff and then got rid of it before you could use it. That's why people are furious is why would you think the commander card printed for commander in the commander set would not be allowed to be using commander? It would be like buying apple headphones and them having an apple phone jack and then there being no form code on your bottom of your phone.
Speaker 2:That would just be insane but see, then, the the other reason that people are really upset too, um is, uh, they uh sent out this um mystery box. I don't, I don't know if it was like the mystery boosters, maybe, um, that's from the tournament where they had mystery booster two, which was apparently one of the most well-received sets ever, if you actually got a chance to go to the tournament, which you didn't, but anyways. So they, they're shipping these uh tournament mystery booster boxes. Um, and wouldn't you know it, they come with commander masters boosters and Lost Caverns of Ixalan boosters, and then they ship out these premium March of the Machine Commander decks. It's a resale package. It has two resale promos and, wouldn't you know it, that one also. It didn't come with Lost Caverns of Ixalan, but it also came with Commander Masters. So they have stuff on sale right now that specifically shipped with Commander Masters.
Speaker 1:That you cannot in fact use in Commander Masters.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, they only banned one card out of the set, so I understand a lot of people lost financial value, but I think the packs are still filled with cool cards and they're worth purchasing.
Speaker 1:So my problem is the ethics, not the cards. So I don't actually care about the health of Commander.
Speaker 1:that much what I do care about is creating a premium product, creating artificial scarcity for that product, putting that product on the cover of something and then saying you can't use this product that you just bought off us. That's where I draw the line. They made something for some. They made DLC for a game that doesn't work with the game. They literally made a Smash Bros downloadable character that would only work on the DS version and not the Switch version, like that's just bad business practices. But Magic, for the last like three years, has just been vomiting out IP, vomiting out alternate, special, super hyper, mega editions that all just curve in a gentle breeze, by the way, so they're not actually good cardboard. And the thing is I'm reading this article they posted about why they banned these cards. And the thing is, the players who play this game are the ones upset about this, because it's not like Commander has tournaments with prize pools and is played competitively, right, so they could just listen.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean now, it would be catastrophic for them to walk back their bands. I think that'd be worse than sticking to their guns. Um, but they basically, yeah, they, they banned, uh, jeweled lotus, mana crypts, dioxide extortionist. And then one other card that they openly admitted to be a design mistake called nadu winged wisdom yeah, yeah, apparently that just didn't function correctly. Just straight up they're like yeah, that was a design mistake, it broke the modern format and it's Breaking Commander, so we're just going to get rid of it.
Speaker 1:So here's my thoughts on banning cards. I am fine banning cards that do not function as intended, like the anti-cards. Well, I mean they function as intended. Well, not really.
Speaker 1:Like, for example, when I was playing Standard a lot a while back, there was a combo that involved playing a zero-cost artifact and then a two-cost counter spell called Tibble's Trickery, which then you're countering it, but the side effect of this counter is you look at your top cards and cheat a card into play. The card was written to be used on your opponent. And then people are like ooh, I found this fun exploit. Those matches on online matches and tournaments were just unfun because your opponent was rolling dice to see if they oops, they won and it's like, yeah, I would have banned that instantly because why would you make a card that costs two that gives you a free seven drop occasionally?
Speaker 1:That's not fun for either player.
Speaker 2:Or there was the one land that you can make it into a creature and then you can put a token, a counter, on it that made it so you couldn't lose the game, and then it stopped being a creature at the end of the turn, so no one can interact with it because it's a land.
Speaker 1:Oh, I did that for a while.
Speaker 2:They ended up banning that combo too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you should?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it got banned because it's just not a fun way to play the game. It's just annoying.
Speaker 1:Right. So the game it's just annoying. So that's my thoughts. Is banning things that waste both players' time or banning things that feel like a game exploit. It'd be like in Smash Bros if you had a thing where if you threw a bomb, caught it and dashed at the right time, it would glitch you back onto the stage. That's the kind of thing I'm fine with banning. Like speedrunner tactics do not feel like they belong in competitive play for games, right. So on to the thing I'm indifferent to slash Wizards of the Coast will walk back D&D things because it seems to be one of their weak spots.
Speaker 2:Okay, actually there's just one more thing about the band which I found interesting.
Speaker 1:I do not condone people threatening anyone for any reason online Unless it's us, we would find it kind of funny.
Speaker 2:We would kind of find it funny. But apparently there was such violent outcry from the well, probably a very vocal minority of the fanbase that the Rules Committee stepped down, they resigned, and Wizards of the fanbase that the Rules Committee stepped down, they resigned and Wizards of the Coast took over the Rules Committee directly. And so now, whatever the Rules Committee says, they are directly under Wizards of the Coast. And if Wizards of the Coast says we can't ban that card because we want to make money, there's no guardrail, because now Wizards of the Coast. And if Wizards of the Coast says we can't ban that card because we want to make money, there's no guardrail, because now Wizards of the Coast owns the rules committee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a terrible outcome of this Worst possible outcome, such a bad outcome. I'm worried they'd intentionally stage this Like this feels, like a conspiracy-level. Worst possible outcome for the players.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so they said that they were talking about Dockside Extortionist in particular, like conspiracy level, worst possible outcome for the players. Well, okay, so they said that they were talking about Dockside Extortionist in particular for the past year. Yeah, but Wizards of the Coast plans their products at least a year in advance. So maybe they were planning on banning Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt a year ago and Wizards of the Coast said no, because they were putting them in these products that are scheduled to come out in the next year or worse.
Speaker 1:Wizards of the Coast said yes and put them in these products. That's the thing that has people upset is yeah, if they knew this was happening and then sold them anyway. They're evil.
Speaker 2:Well, we already know they're evil. That's just the one last thing that I wanted to say. It was just about the rules committee just basically being absorbed by the parent company, which is most likely not going to be good for the game.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine it will be so. Wizards of the Coast is like they're a weird one, because nerds are their audience, who pay attention to the terms and conditions and hold them accountable, but they're run by Hasbro, who don't care if there's lead in their Transformers action figures.
Speaker 2:Allegedly Don't sue me.
Speaker 1:Wizards of the Coast, don't sue me. Hasbro. I'm sure you can say with confidence you've never had lead in any of your toys that you've been making since the 50s. I'm sure it's fine, I'm sure Complete faith. So they're announcing their new player's handbook, new monster manual, new this and that, but they're announcing it like it's backwards compatible.
Speaker 1:And then it's like, oh yeah, it's backwards compatible with spells If you manually homebrew them in because it's going to use the new stuff. And then the fans are like, no, we will destroy you. But what's weird to me is how little I care about the new Player's Handbook.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the Player's Handbook that was most recently published is the newest edition.
Speaker 1:So, this edition came out about a decade ago and now they're putting out one D&D. They're calling it because they don't want to call it newest edition. So fifth edition came out about a decade ago, right, and now they're putting out one D&D. They're calling it because they don't want to call it sixth edition and that player's handbook, or the 2024 player's handbook as they've been calling it, comes out like last week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, like I went to Dragon's Den to pick up commander decks Perfect. I love casual formats and especially Ark Enemy. The newest set of Commander decks had all four of them have Ark Enemy schemes and I was like I really want those schemes. So I had to buy all four of them and luckily my local game store had a 20% sale on for their own games.
Speaker 1:Hashtag support local game stores.
Speaker 2:So I got these Commander decks at a discount, which was good. But I saw a new player's handbook and I kind of thumbed through it and I saw it had more class options, but I'm not sure if that's the D&D 1 or if that's still D&D 5e.
Speaker 1:So it just says D&D Player's Handbook on it, which is like it was probably the new one, and that's kind of my problem with it. So I played a lot of different RPGs, not just D&D, and my group sticks with 5th edition. So if you look at D&D Beyond, like the old rogue versus the new rogue, the new rogue's like, yeah, you can reduce your number of sneak attack dice to do extra damage and you can gain weapon masteries to do extra effects.
Speaker 1:But it's like such a little update when it's like every class, now they all get their subclass at level 3, for example. Okay, and I'm like, oh, if you guys had went one step further and made it that every subclass was functional with every class, that'd be awesome. Or, like Monk, have switched from key points to focus points.
Speaker 1:And you can spend focus points when you use Step of the Wind to disengage and double your speed. But like there's a kind of changes you would only notice if you play a lot of dnd and they're all like balance patch kind of changes. Like balder's gate made bigger changes to like how gameplay functions than this did. I think they actually added in the boulders gate you can use a potion as a bonus action and they took out the exploit that you could use an infinite number of smites on a turn when you can only do one smite a turn, now, not one smite and attack. But they're like.
Speaker 1:But we gave the paladin a bunch of other power-ups, but like it's just weird that I don't care, like, but like it's just weird that I don't care like I have a paycheck and a job now I could just buy this new player's handbook. But because it's only a half update where it's like oh so all my players would then have to use a new handbook and even with like book sharing, I don't think they'd even be bothered to remake their character right like I don't think they'd even be bothered to remake their character Like.
Speaker 1:I don't think they'd update their wizard to the new wizard, even though it would only take pushing one button and they would just get more powers, because then they'd have to read more, because all of the classes are wordier than they were before, because they wanted to make it backwards compatible with all the adventures and da-da-ba-da-ba-da-ba.
Speaker 2:So it's weird to me to be like, um, the new edition just isn't quite new enough. Well, yeah, it doesn't even sound like it's a 5.5.
Speaker 1:It's like well, you say it's balance patches and it's like, like I said, it's weird because I bought a lot of D&D books and I'm like all the games that are blatant D&D 5e clones that are built on the same framework. None of them have grabbed me. In. Tales of the Valiant did not grab me, even though it was very similar, because, as I mentioned before, switching my players onto a new anything is like pulling teeth. They'll only try a new game if it's in a different genre. If I want them to try a new genre of RPG, it has to be like oh, we're doing Space Marines, so D&D won't work at all.
Speaker 1:Or if it's like oh, let's play D&D with different dice mechanics, I'd be like no. Or if I'm like, let's play TTRPGZ, the anime punchy one, it's easier to sell them on different mechanics, but then they'd want to try it once and then go back to our D&D campaign, Right, and it's like they have a new player's handbook, a new Dungeons Master Guide coming out at some point and then a new Monster Manual. It's funny because I've run so much D&D but I'm so disappointed with this product because it doesn't like. So, as you mentioned, it'd be bad if they walk back their bans for magic, right? I kind of wanted bans for D&D.
Speaker 1:I kind of want this new edition to just be like no, you can't do this dumb bullshit anymore, because people are out here being like oh, this is my rogue paladin multi-class, so I can use oath of vengeance to get automatic sneak attack to then smite my sneak attack to auto crit. So it's like this isn't a game where a casual balance patch isn't going to stop people from immediately trying to break it but it's also not a competitive game so it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:So, like I would almost prefer if, like it came out with less subclass and simpler classes, or like came out sufficiently different because, like trying to be like, hey, carl, if I run a new campaign, you should get the new player's handbook so you can be the new barbarian with the path of the world tree. I feel like you'd rather just buy the book that had the path of the world tree in it than get a full player's handbook. Yeah, but that's my mini rant is that pure capitalism is by not calling it an addition and not rendering anything outdated. This just tells me that this will be out. And then in four years they'll put out the 28, 20, 28 players handbook and then digitally update the content on bn beyond, archive the old content and just they're trying to turn dnd into a live service game, and I'm not a fan because it's so pointless like their big thing is backgrounds.
Speaker 1:Now come with an origin feat. I'm like okay, I could just give people a feat at level one. Are the feats new? They're slightly different. We made them slightly worse than regular feats, okay.
Speaker 1:Or it's like we took half-elf out because of the implications. I'm like, oh so, did you put a cool crossing races to make unique races mechanic? No, we just took half-elf out. I'm like that's so lame, so dagger heart, critical roles, new game, actually like solved this so beautifully? So, oh, you have a card that's your character's race, right, which has two bullet points on it. So, so, for example, a dwarf would have bullet point one, resistant to poison or whatever. Bullet point two carry more. And to make a mixed one, you just take the first bullet point of any one card and the second bullet point of any other card, right, so you can be your half dwarf, half fairy nonsense character you want to be and it functions and that makes me happy. Plus, like they're all about the community gaming license, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Speaker 1:But that's my mini-rant is that, like you're trying to get me to buy a player's handbook, would I have rather have bought something interesting? And it's like they tried their other approach of like gamifying magic, the gathering sets, and be like buy the balder's gate, sorry, buy the ravnica book, or buy the strixhaven book, but then they stopped, didn't like putting content to do with it. It was the weirdest strategy, because they're like here's a ravnica book but we didn't put a ravnica campaign with it and I'm like you could have went ravnica player's hand Handbook, ravnica Dungeon Master's Guide and Ravnica Adventure and then it would feel different enough to justify getting the set of them. But when you can mix and match everything, your flavor kind of breaks down, a bit Like they have their Eberron Guide for how to make your cool steampunk stuff.
Speaker 1:But even that doesn't have a lot. You can really do with it, like I found when I ran a ravnica campaign. I ended up just fusing it at random with water's deep dragon heist to make it make more sensible sense I mean, I really enjoyed that campaign.
Speaker 2:It's just uh when your players don't know what they want.
Speaker 1:It was really hard for me to get player buy-in, which is part of like I don't want to blame that I used Ravnica as a setting, but I think part of my problem was I used Ravnica as a setting, yeah, so I tried to explain it right. Like oh, you're in a guild and each of these guilds gets a thing and they're connected and only you and the is it player really actually like leveraged the setting and everyone else is like yeah, no, we're gonna build an inn and live our best house domestic lives and I'm like alright, I'm a DM.
Speaker 1:What people want man also? It's weird that they released the player's handbook and then they're releasing the Dungeon Master's Guide separately and I would definitely care more about that to kind of see what they've done with it. But it looks like they put in like bases that level up and adjusted magical items and they're like and we fixed crafting.
Speaker 1:I'm like I doubt you fixed crafting, your crafting was so broken in 5e that there's no way you put in the effort to make it a good system, because what they'd have to do. And why has no tabletop RPG done this, carl? Why do monster stat blocks not have a drops table? Can you answer me why? No one at Wizards of the coast has played monster hunter and thought to themselves every player ever is going to harvest this razzalos. So we should just list what the razzalos drops and what you can build from it on the razzalos's sheet, like if each monster said like a list of items you could craft from that monster on the monster sheet. Perfect D&D, right, like you kill a zombie. It's like things you can craft with the zombie and it's like bone basket. Like, especially to give a table. Like you can either get this many rations or get these claws, this fang, and it says right on it what you can make with those parts. Be awesome and only take four lines of text per monster.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it depends how complicated your crafting system is.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the point is you don't want it to be complicated. It's D&D. People are going to say what they want to do and then that's the thing I think Wizards doesn't quite understand about their own game how the actual gameplay works is player says what they want to do, dm says how the player can do it works is player says what they want to do. Dm says how the player can do it. Dm rolls dice. A player rolls dice. Dm describes thing.
Speaker 1:Your players aren't gonna say um, I would like to to use two months of downtime to spend two cold pieces a day to craft an uncommon comment magic item that's a fire sword, because that means they're already metagaming too hard for my taste.
Speaker 1:What they're going to say is can I make this dragon into something cool? It's like they don't want to craft, they just want to say that they crafted. Most players aren't that creative. So, if you like, for our party, for example, which are relatively artsy people, if there's a dead dragon and you've seen what they do, their first thought is I want dragon scales for some kind of armor, maybe a dragon claw or dragon fang for some kind of weapon and X number of rations from it. So I don't need to give them rules on how they would build a hang glider.
Speaker 1:Rules on how they would build a hang glider. What I need to is what the weapon does they're going to make out of it, what the armor does they're going to make out of it and how much food they get. And then letting them only pick one of those three options. And if then the Carl in the group's like actually I want to make a dragon hang glider, like any good DM I was in look up the list of magic items for a hang glider, see how much the item the dragon would normally give me is worth, and be like yeah, oh yeah, you could probably make a hang glider, sure?
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Uh, the hang glider, because you'd absolutely make a hang glider.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, Check yes.
Speaker 1:I would, you'd made a stone boat. I still want to know if that's actually possible.
Speaker 2:It made sense in my brain. It made sense in my brain too, although I really didn't think about that. You just have to make sure that this place has more water than it weighs.
Speaker 1:Right, probably have to be very thin, but this isn't like a Mythbusters problem, not an Us problem.
Speaker 2:Buster's problem, not an us problem.
Speaker 1:But to recap our episode, because I feel like doing that at the end now, We've talked about the movie Jaws and how the practical effects are better than Sharknado. Carl did not get left at the altar yet, but has set himself up for that story later possibly. Okay, he managed to sneakily get measurements and then just give up and bring her to the shop Then, because all things in Carl's mind are of equal importance. We then talked about the commander band list, how some players will build things that are unnecessary, but really it's the logistics of selling a product willingly that you will not be able to use and having a rules committee written internally.
Speaker 1:And then Richard bitched about the new player's handbook, just not quite having not going far enough to really excite him about it. Do you have any closing thoughts on these topics before we pivot to the random question of the day?
Speaker 2:No, I think that pretty much covers everything. Alright, our random question and even if we Random question of the day, no, I think that pretty much covers everything.
Speaker 1:All right, our random question, and even if we've used this one already, we'll probably have a different answer, but this feels like a pretty original one Name, one movie you think needed a sequel.
Speaker 2:A movie I think needed a sequel Right.
Speaker 1:Hmm, it's a good one, right? Because sequels are usually like like a shot in the face, like I'm trying to think of a movie that's like left things unanswered enough, I'd want more right? Well, because I mean like the so my answer is ironic, given the speech just gave I really like the dnd movie and I want a sequel.
Speaker 1:I don't even know if I want the same characters, I just want a sequel. Given the speech just gave, I really liked the D&D movie Ooh, and I want a sequel. I don't even know if I want the same characters, I just want a sequel, like if they just gave it a different cast every time and just like kept Jonathan, I'd be good. Yeah, like that movie did not do as well as it should have for it being the most entertaining fantasy movie I've seen in the last 20 years.
Speaker 2:I mean it was genuinely entertaining. It just Didn't do much to differentiate itself From anything that Marvel was doing.
Speaker 1:Well, it did one big thing. It was actually a fantasy movie that didn't take itself seriously, because everything went Game of Thrones. And I'm like oh, a fantasy thing where someone acknowledges that you cast a spell to ask five questions Like yeah, no, this is great.
Speaker 2:So yeah, d&d movie, that's a good choice. Definitely not the Princess Bride, that's a good choice.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Definitely not the Princess Bride. That could not be sequeled well.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, there is a sequel book about her baby, about Princess Buttercup's baby. I have the physical book, and it included the first chapter of the sequel book. I never read it though.
Speaker 1:That doesn't bode well if you haven't read it and you have it.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't have. I have the book Princess Bride and it included a bonus chapter. That was the first chapter of the next book, but I never bothered to actually find the next book Because there's no sequel for the movie.
Speaker 1:Maybe a Shining sequel where they actually make the Shining a plot point. No, especially like with. You know what was weird. The Top Gun sequel was actually good.
Speaker 2:The Top Gun sequel was better than the original.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wild. You cannot understand how low my expectations were for that movie. For me to be like that was pretty good is like huge prey. You know what was a really dumb movie I enjoyed recently? They actually did a crossover movie between Ken Ganesh and Grappler Baki. I would love a sequel to that because it was just a stupid idea and I liked it. You took your unrelated punchy animes and gave them a crossover. That made sense.
Speaker 2:See like I'm having trouble thinking of movies that deserved a sequel that weren't like Alita. Movies that deserved a sequel that weren't like like Alita. Battle Angel deserves a sequel but like a sequel is on the way, so that's not going to be very relevant when the sequel actually comes out.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's funny when you're like, although, to be fair, we can manifest things, so now you could just take credit for it.
Speaker 2:I've been. I've been watching news about Alita Battle Angel. There hasn't been anything concrete Because James Cameron is busy with his Quintilogy of Avatar movies.
Speaker 1:That's definitely things that don't need more sequel. They're good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, the sequel to Alita Battle Angel, that's what I really want to see. I really hope I see that within my lifetime. I absolutely loved the first movie and I absolutely loved the manga that it's based on. It was so good.
Speaker 2:The movie was just such a great adaptation of three distinct plot arcs and just kind of made them happen concurrently and just they did it well, which is truly impressive I really did enjoy elita, battle angel, and then read the, the manga, and I was like, yeah, that movie was a really good adaptation as I'm just laughing at how ghost in the shell just looked.
Speaker 1:Worse live action in every way than an animated movie from the 70s by like a lot. I also want the second gundam hathaway movie to ever get the come out, but like oh yeah gundam hathaway.
Speaker 2:That's that movie.
Speaker 1:Didn't really need to be gundam, but it was interesting but that's probably what made it good is it didn't need to be Gundam. Like I've watched enough Gundam, I'm not about to come out here and be like we need more Char's counterattack. Yeah, what we need is a ninth Unicorn movie. Oh, they actually had one, nah Hathaway, specifically because they did something different. I'd like to see sequeled. Oh man, so many anime movies are just so notoriously bad. One last hot take I'm curious if yours. Before I wrap up the episode, what do you think's worse? Anime movies that are just a completely pointless filler arc, like tree of might, or anime movies that are just a plot arc of the show that they took out of the anime and made a show, like demon slayer or the gundam seed well, yeah, I guess the guam Seed movies. What's worse? A movie where you just straight up take a plot arc out of the manga, or a movie that's a filler arc?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean so JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The movies are a superior way to enjoy the first two seasons.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that's a bold claim. I'm not disagreeing, but it's a bold statement.
Speaker 2:Well, and I feel the same about the Dragon Ball Super movies, where the movies were just a superior way to enjoy those first two seasons.
Speaker 1:So I was searching on YouTube and I actually found that someone had edited the next few Dragon Ball Super plot arcs into movie form.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, yeah, that's correct. Absolutely, the Shampa tournament could have been a movie. The Goku Blackheart could have been a movie, the pre-Tournament of Power less so, but like a two-parter movie, like you go pre-Tournament of Power, then Tournament of Power.
Speaker 2:So, when done well, I believe that the season turned into a movie is just generally, the examples I just gave are like the best-case scenarios.
Speaker 1:but most of these, the filler arcs, they don't they feel like they need something like they feel like they need to be a little more buffered to be canon, like for Dragon Ball examples, the history of Trunks and the Bardock ones were good because they could have been canon right. So you're like, oh, this is a fun side story. If Naruto had made a Kakashi movie, that probably would have been pretty good.
Speaker 2:But then Naruto made a stupid Rainbow Chakra movie and it's like it's the perfect example of everything wrong with doing that. Exactly. I think I've seen more egregious examples of bad filler movies than I have of bad season turned into a movie.
Speaker 1:I agree. But it's kind of ironic to say, though, because at least, like when you write a filler movie, there's writing involved, like to like throw Inuyasha under the bus for a second. Indywasha had four movies. Two of them were pretty good Like nothing in them really mattered, but it's like this is the story of how our dad died and his third sword that makes zombies, and we got new team attacks. I'm like, okay, okay, I can vibe on this, because at least someone had to write this. But yeah, the best way to watch Gundam Seed and Seed Destiny is the DVD releases in movie form, not the new version they put on Netflix. Oh, I don't have time to get into this or episodes that count, but I'm going to let you in on something.
Speaker 1:Netflix recently added Seed, seed Destiny and Seed Freedom. However, I like these series dubbed. They did a new dub for them and changed names. What so? They call Lachis Lacoose. Okay, so they call Lachis Lacoose in the movie, and me and my brother are like, why would you? And then it matched in Seed and Seed Destiny. They went back and dubbed it to match their bad pronunciations in the movie and they just like change random iconic lines.
Speaker 1:I'm like the problem that I've watched enough Gundam Seed to know that you change this random throwaway line. But it's like there's like when Kira throws a punch at Sai, he's like Kira's like don't even try and pick a fight with me, you have no chance. And the new dub's like Sai, you shouldn't try and attack me. It's not fair. And I'm like hey, hey, wait a minute, you took the bite out of this. I should not be that familiar with the show, but I caught you, or they. So at the very start of Seed he yells take Kigali, she's a girl. Right To put it in the escape capsule. And then this one, they're like take her, she's just a kid. And they pulled the sexism out of taking women in children first, which was an interesting choice because I feel like take the girl is what you do in an emergency shelter. But apparently we've hit that point of woke where men and women should die equally in emergencies.
Speaker 2:Good job society One more. We've hit that point of woke where men and women should die equally in emergencies. Good job society.
Speaker 1:One more random aside we're doing a double feature because we haven't done an episode in a while so Secret Invasion or whatever the Marvel show was about Nick Fury oh okay, was that the correct reaction? Marvel show about Nick Fury. Oh, okay, was that the correct reaction.
Speaker 2:So in the Infinity War in the movie, when the snap happens, samuel L Jackson is like mother and then he gets snapped right Like you do. Right, but they were so dedicated to character assassination in the Secret Wars show they redubbed that line.
Speaker 1:The Secret Wars show is the worst thing I've ever seen. And the reason it's the worst thing I've ever seen and that's a bold claim is they had all of the money on Earth to make this and all of the good IP on Earth. They had Skrulls, shapeshifting superheroes, robert Downey Jr if they wanted him right, this was Disney's full budget if they wanted it. And they had the shapeshifting aliens not shapeshift. They had the power-stealing aliens, not steal powers. One of the stolen powers was magic rings that it used and they didn't have Samuel L Jackson cause any noticeable effect in his story the Raiders of the Lost Ark Tim, where, if he wasn't in the movie, it would have went the exact same way in the series.
Speaker 2:Oh, I just you were talking about dubs and it just made me laugh at the fact that, like I say, the whole series is just insane. Character assassination of Nick Fury, and it's just funny that they went so far as to redub the line when he gets snapped away, instead of being he's like oh no, and then he just fades away.
Speaker 1:It's so bad they took the bite out of it, but yeah. So they added Olive Seed, which I've been going through again because I enjoyed it Not saying it's good. Not putting that on the record on the internet, but I am enjoying it okay, but, like, the dub is just kind of worse. But that might just be nostalgia, right, it might just be. I know it's different and it bugs me, right, right. But like, also, I could just push a button and switch it to subtitle and not have this problem.
Speaker 2:But you, you know, yeah, but sometimes the translation in the subtitles doesn't transfer over to what you know from the dub either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just too aware of this particular franchise. It's a problem.
Speaker 2:And Anyways, yeah, we should probably tell people to self-care hydrate exercise.
Speaker 1:Right, like I almost want to give them an arbitrary instruction just to see if they do it Like go download some pictures of capybaras in hot springs, because I mean that makes me happy Like I've started sending my friend capybara pictures, because they're just awesome.
Speaker 2:Capybaras are the ones that just go and chill next to crocodiles, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're the world's largest rodent, with no natural predators Also they'll knock oranges into hot springs because it's good for their skin To take orange baths, just randomly.
Speaker 2:One of my co-workers has said recently that he's obsessed with capybaras, that he keeps trying to find capybara videos.
Speaker 1:That's a good habit. That's a good choice. Yeah, that's also what I would do after I was robbed on shotgun. Uh, sawn off shotgun, point. It's just dive into capybaras for comfort breaking it back.
Speaker 2:You know, I bet I'm pretty sure he was on delivery, uh, and the whole incident was done before he came back from his delivery.
Speaker 1:Oh man, well, it's like I was watching like a retrospective of dragon ball z abridged recently and they're talking about how like they tried to write emotional through lines, through their shows, but in their movies they didn't have to care as much and I'm just like man, me and you working emotional through lines through our podcast, like the idea of there being character arcs going on in the background of the story.
Speaker 1:Like, yeah, literally, if someone has listened to every one of our episodes all 86, they got Carl's first date, carl's new girlfriend, carl's traditions with that movie nights happening and engagement in the background of this podcast. Carl had a whole ass plot arc. He moved places, toured a lot of Canada, there's a whole thing and then Richard went to school and that's just been my through line this entire time. I'm basically our Vegeta.
Speaker 1:Actually no in this situation, you would definitely be Vegeta. You had a whole ass adventure between seasons and now just have a wife and kids.
Speaker 2:And that's where I'm going to end it.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye. Yeah, I really didn't mind using extra runtime, since the episode we have our full, like three hours content.