$1,800 Xbox Rumors, Smart TV Vibe-Coding & Megatron Rising 2027

Sentinel Online, now loading the Geekcast radio

network of podcasts. Hello and welcome to Altered

Geek. I'm your host, Steve Megatron, and joining

me on this adventure into geekdom is TFG1Mike.

Hello. You said hello. No, I said hello. Oh,

I was going to say, if you said hello, I was

going to say, good night, mate. Good night, mate.

So, yeah, it's been a week. It's been a week.

It has been a week. So, yeah, we've got pretty

much catch up on not catch up, but catch up of

topics from some other times, plus some new stuff

that's kind of come up, like the Microsoft next

Xbox pricing, vibe coding, smart TVs, the. the

blockbuster conundrum and, uh, Megatron. So,

yeah, yes. Megatron. Um, why are you so ugly?

Uh, these nuts. Um, yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

They want to make him a combiner. Uh, that's

low hanging fruit. Uh, it's not fruit though.

Uh, anyways, they, so the rumor that's been going

around and normally we would cover this on all

things transformers and i'm sure there'll be

kind of a component related to that too there

will be when we get to that show yes is hold

on i gotta see what my dog's doing she's throwing

a fit so okay edit point oh yeah at least it's

a nice uh long cut there you go see so so yeah

looking at the images and the information that's

come out about this new Transmetal Megatron,

part of the thing that's been circulating is

they were going to make this new Megatron a retool

of Kingdom Megatron, which, of course, those

of us that are dying for Hasbro to actually do

justice to the Transmetal Megatron rather than

spending the time and effort on tooling this

properly. They're going to just have paint apps

and transmittal -ish components with a similar

head. And they're going to make Megatron a combinder

in this, which I'm not thrilled with, to be honest.

I mean, it's Megatron Rising, which boils out

of the awakening clip of Optimus Prime, where,

if you haven't seen it yet, spoiler, he gets

the Matrix. So I'm thinking he's going to combine,

you know, call different Megatrons from different

universes. It's, you know, to fight an evil Prime.

They're going to have a war for Cybertron or

G1 Megatron, essentially for the left arm. They

very carefully cover another character, which

looks like a minivan or a van or a car or something,

maybe a truck. And I think that's reminiscent

of the G2 Carbots. that they did at like the

very end of G2 where none of them really resembled

who they were. They were just cars. And I think

that'll be a Megatron for the left leg. The right

leg, they're pulling the stops with a Machine

Wars Megatron, which I'm super excited about

it. And it looks really good from the, you know,

the image that's here, if it's, you know, proven

to be correct. I know Hasbro. is using a lot

of AI and their development with their AutoCAD

stuff, too, to kind of visualize. So they're

going to make him the right leg. And even if

you don't buy him for the right leg, I'm excited

they're doing Machine Wars to begin with. So,

yay. And then they're doing Transmetal Megatron

for what looks like most of the torso and the

right arm. And then I think the the hidden Megatron

crowned head almost in a sense reminiscent of

when he was like optimal Megatron from these

machines. And then his chest is kind of like

an amalgamation of the the G1 Combiner Wars War

for Cybertron Megatron that kind of combines

with this, you know, dinosaur. Yeah, I'm not

sure what to think because I don't like. I'm

not excited for him being a combiner. This is

like, out of all of the figures they could have

done for Megatron here, like, yes, I'm glad they're

representing different generations. They've got

G2, G1, Machine Wars, and Beast Wars. Fine. The

only problem with this that I see is the fans

have collectively been trying to get their hands

on a legit Hasbro. Transmetal Megatron that does

not have gold plastic syndrome. Yeah. Which honestly

was not the gold plastic. It was the brown. It

was. And the gray that was brittle. Because if

you got the Takara version, they didn't have

that problem, which it cost $200 for a Takara

one. Yeah. Which originally was a $15 figure.

Yeah. And if you get the Hasbro one, it's utter

trash and it shatters the first time you try

and move parts. And so I'm a little disappointed

that. They put the effort into Kingdom Megatron.

They put the effort into Transmetal 2 Dragon

Megatron. But Transmetal Megatron, they felt,

meh, let's phone it in and reuse the other one

and then make him part of a combiner. Not a standalone,

not a true Transmetal 2. No, let's just bastardize

the original figure and do this weird amalgamation

of Transmetal Megatron with Kingdom Megatron.

and a combiner. And this is like the... If there

was any figure they could have made for the entire

Beast era and made the entire franchise or the

entire fandom of Transformers happy in one go,

it would be doing this figure correctly the first

time. Yeah, absolutely. But they screwed the

pooch. They literally screwed this. And it's

going to... I feel like it's going to blow back.

The fans that have seen these images and shared

it. are collectively not happy. No disrespect

to Machine Wars at all. The other two, I don't

care. But this is ugly as hell. The combiner,

specifically, is ugly as hell. I'm sure if you

amalgamated what I'm about to say into a combiner,

it would probably still, to some, be ugly as

hell. Because they're all variations of purple,

and there's a little bit of hot rod red with

gold in it. And yes, that is an Iron Man reference,

folks, for those that don't get it. Regular Beast

Megatron, Transmetal 2, or not Transmetal 2,

but Transmetal 1, Transmetal 2, Dragon, and then

here's a hot idea, or something somewhere in

there. How about you get a little Savage Noble

in there somewhere? Do something cool! This is

2026, 1996. You are in the 10th month of the

30th anniversary of Beast Wars, you bastards.

Get the Machine Wars out of here. I have respect

for Machine Wars. I know everybody wants it.

That's fine. Get the other two pieces of junk

out of there and actually pay homage to the piece

of the brand that saved your asses 30 years ago.

And I know Savage Noble is Beast Machines, and

I understand that. That was just a joke on my

part. But again, it's part of Megatron's personality

because of what he went through at the end of

Beast Wars going into Beast Machines. And then

he had the whole spark splitting situation with

the whole thing. But the point is, you could

have, like, okay. Even though this photo that

we have, and hopefully you'll put this in the

show notes or whatever, even though it's clawed

up or marked up or whatever to mark out certain

sections of it, I still see a purple right arm,

I see a gray left arm, I see a blue right foot,

and I see a white and bluish, mostly white car

robot left foot with whatever ugly looking...

gray crown face thing the chest is oh the top

part of the chest is kind of okay would have

been better if the chest was all purple because

it would have figured in a little bit more but

since it goes with the gray head the gray part

of the chest that's fine but like that this combiner

is a mishmash of colors that are not aesthetically

pleasing because they don't blend well to get

oh my god like Look at any of the other, look

at Devastator. Why didn't they use Devastator

as a color palette or just Predaking, Predaking

or Devastator, two of the biggest Decepticons

in the world. Why didn't they use either of those

to say, hey, this is how we color matched 40

years ago. Why can't we color match characters

here? And we have all of these other Megatrons

outside of Red Dragon, because he kind of doesn't,

maybe, I don't know, whatever. But like, you

know what I mean? Like, you could have done so

much with this. And like you already said, you're

basically thumbing your nose up Transmetal One's

butt. to say oh we're not going to give you a

true Transmetal One Megatron because we feel

like we already did that with Kingdom or whatever

I don't know it just whatever price point this

thing is going to be at it ain't going to be

worth it no and this is the thing is like honestly

if I end up getting my hands on it I'm probably

going to wait for the knockoff and I hate saying

that like I really do want to support Hasbro

however I can't I can't throw my money away onto

random figures that I just don't love. The Transmetal

2 Megatron, I didn't love, but I was like, okay,

I got rid of my other one years ago, and I had

that other one that was ginormous, and I'm like,

I can repaint it, I can fix it, and replace the

face. It's not terrible. And so that one, I didn't

mind as much. The Kingdom Megatron, okay, it

worked for what it was. Transmetal Megatron is

by far my favorite Megatron. Like, it has both

hands. I have a Transart Megatron because I've

tried, I've owned four of the Hasbro Megatrons

over the years. Paid dirt for them, like, every

time. Like, first time I bought him for $15 a

piece when he was new. And then I bought another

one like years ago and then another one years

ago and they both shattered and I, you know,

glued parts back together and I'm like, it looks

like crap. Uh, but like I, it's, it's honestly

the one that I'm least excited about here. Like

I don't, when they had the, the war for Cybertron

stuff and they had like the million different

Megatron tanks, you know, the one, the minor

Megatron, the. The various G1s. I bought the

G2 Megatron mold strictly because I modded it

and I was like, I do want a G2 Megatron. Legitimately,

I used to own one. That was one I was looking

forward to. I hear rumors they're going to come

out with a new one that's actually good and transforms

properly, which is what it is. If they do, I

might get it. If not, I don't know. Pretty much

is I get new figures that replace ones that don't

match. I give the old ones to my kids. Yeah.

And then they're more than happy to take it off

my hands. Oh, yeah. I've given them, you know,

my thrilling 30 rat trap when the masterpiece

came out. I gave the the old nine, you know,

the 10th anniversary Cheetor to my other son.

I gave the, you know, a bunch of other figures

that they got rid of. I already had, but I handed

them down because I got better versions. So,

like, in this regard, like, Machine Wars Megatron,

I'm super excited for. I 100 % will pick it up.

I've seen, like, the Megatrons and the Primes

with the see -through Energon stuff at the store.

Not a huge fan of it. I've thought about picking

them up every time I see them, but I'm kind of

on the fence. I'm like, I don't care enough.

You're talking about the purple translucent and

the blue translucent? Yeah, the Energon versions.

The dark Energon and Energon. Yeah. So, I mean...

There's just another retool of the same mold

that they keep selling. And so in this, I get

it. They're all original molds. They're all brand

new outside of whatever they do with this Transmetal

Megatron. And I'll wait for better photos to

see what it's going to look like. I'm still not

excited about it. And for him to say that, folks,

you know there's something wrong with this. I

love the Machine Wars. I'm going to get it regardless.

I think it's great. The other two, more than

likely, I'm not buying this combiner. And if

I do, I'm going to get a knockoff because, honestly,

they'll fix whatever clanky crap is done with

it anyway. Plus, I could probably get it for

the price of one of them new from Hasbro. Yeah,

I'll wait and see what they do with this Transmetal

Megatron. I'm still not happy about it. And I

think that's why there's so many scribbles on

it is whoever leaked this and had the, you know,

real low quality pictures of these, like the

Dinosaur Megatron, you know, form looks like

horrendous crap. Yeah. You can tell they tried

to remold the head of the robot mode a little.

uh from what from the one picture but it's so

pixelated it's hard to tell um the tail looks

stupid it looks like a bone tail and then and

yeah i i think whoever leaked it did it intentionally

just to be a thorn in hasbro's side because they

removed their name from it because i think the

screenshots were there with their names over

the visuals and um like I don't mind the other

ones like the you know the wave one and I'm like

okay whatever like I don't have any intention

of ever picking those up anyway but this Megatron

combiner I can tell is a big deal yeah so I'm

I'm gonna withhold further judgment on it until

they actually have real photos but I don't foresee

me wanting to pony up like I've seen enough beast

Megatrons come out in the last like three years

that I'm like, oh, they did this, you know, a

knockoff company did this or another company

did this. And it's like, it doesn't quite pull

me. I did splurge on the non -transformable Megatron.

Yeah. But as far as like these, I don't, I don't

foresee it outside of Machine Wars. And I'm super

excited that they have Machine Wars Starscream

too. So I give more love for the Machine Wars

figures and characters. Probably going to see

a Prime come out of it too. What year did Machine

Wars release? 97. 97. Okay. So next year is its

30th anniversary. So that's why they're, yeah,

that's why they're leaving. Which is funny because

they never did a series. No comic, no series,

nothing. It was literally meant like it was a

way to resell G2 figures from Europe and from

the G2 realm and have them all kind of, relive

with a new paint job and new names here in the

US and they sold them as a KB Toys exclusive

and my brothers and I had all of them because

there weren't that many there was like four cyber

jets two Autobot two Decepticon they had a bunch

of flip transform guys on both sides there were

four jets one of which was Megatron then they

had Soundwave as a tank and Starscream as a big

jet and then You know, you had the Autobots with

Sandstorm and as their helicopter and then Prime,

which was Thunderclash. And so, yeah, I mean,

I was a huge fan of the toy line as a kid. They

were cheap. They were they were cool. So I'm

I'm a fan of this of this happening. So. Maybe

next year Hasbro will lean into the anniversary

of Machine Wars somehow, some way. I don't know.

I don't know what Hasbro's doing now. I don't

know. I don't think Hasbro knows what Hasbro's

doing. I'm saying that with love. I don't think

that they're fully cognizant of what's going

on, on what people actually will purchase. Because

I go into the store. and majority of the stuff

that's in there is repaints or overproduced crap

that no one wants. Cyberworld's all over the

place. There's Spark, whatever's left of it's

still there. Some of the movie crap that they

keep releasing. I'm sure there are people buying

some of this stuff, but the numbers are not high

enough. I've frequented probably 10 Walmarts

and six Targets around my area or within my working

area. and they're always the shell formers. Everything

is shell forming at this point. Nothing is selling.

They're coming out with these weird characters.

So none of your targets have the 40th anniversary

apology tour stuff anymore? No. Well, they did,

but they sold out of everything outside of the

damaged Optimus Prime and Megatron. They never

had Starscream. Oh, wow. I had to get that third

party just to get it. Yeah. So I wanted the official.

Well, yeah, I would have bought it because it

should have been 30 bucks. But I ended up spending

20 and getting a knockoff because I could actually

get one. Whereas, you know, BBTS was, you know,

almost 70 bucks to get it. So because Target

is terrible with their exclusives. Yeah. So like

I and they never restock like Target never restocks.

Once it's gone, it's gone. Like they don't they

don't care. Walmart will restock, but their toy

line of everything, like nothing seems to move.

They restock it. It doesn't go anywhere. I've

gone to enough stores to see this. Like the Power

Rangers line's not moving. You know, any of the

superhero lines are not moving. Marvel from Hasbro,

the Marvel Legends, they have the Endgame Captain

America literally everywhere that they cannot

sell. And I've seen very few of the Doomsday

figures, and what few I've seen sell out immediately

because they have one of each character. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's just ridiculous. Like, it's just

ridiculous. So, I think we should move on to

the next topic. Well, yeah. No, I know. Microsoft

projecting the next Xbox may cost between $1

,200 and $1 ,800, says report on, this is on,

I think it was on Forbes. um it was forbes but

yeah i've seen all over yeah it so it's gonna

cost the same amount as a as a new smartphone

it's just gonna cost just under what the base

model of the new iphone duo is gonna cost it's

gonna cost more actually okay well if you go

to 1800 it's gonna cost more it's it costs as

much as my pc cost Right, but that's my point.

The iPhone Duo, the base model of that, is $2

,000. This is going to cost the same amount as

an iPhone Duo, the folding phone that Apple just

came out with. That's crazy that a console in

2026 costs the same as a damn mobile phone, even

though it's a folding mobile phone. yeah i i

think that they're i think that this is intentional

i think they're trying to move people back to

the pc yeah so we'll see like i i think that

this is the direction it's going to go and this

is i think this is twofold i think i think it's

because of memory prices being so high yeah and

graphics card prices being so high yeah and then

storage prices being so high because like i personally

would like to get another internal hard drive

and minimum 32 gigs more of memory, but the pricing

is outrageous right now. And it says that it's

not slated to go down in price until at least

late 2027, early 2028. So you're dealing with

tariffs, you're dealing with whatever. I mean,

I think it's ridiculous to spend more than $400

on a console, and I think that's where Nintendo

is going to beat both of Sony and Xbox. is that

they're going to keep their prices low, have

the system as the loss leader, and make it back

on the games. So I think this is terrible. I'm

like, at this point, you might as well buy a

PC. Even one of the pre -builds at Walmart is

going to be better than this. Not only in price,

but in probably function. And it's also at poor

timing, too, when fans and... People collectively

online are using the same AI that everybody was

pushed to use to create ways to play these games

on a PC without the system in general. I feel

like this is really poor timing on both Sony's

part and Xbox. Like, oh, we're going to do it

with disks. And then they're like, oh, we're

going to jack the price up triple or quadruple

the price. Fans are just going to be like, you

know what? My old system's great. And then they're

going to be like, oh, I can buy used games or

I can rip them to my computer and play them with

a special AI hack and then reverse engineer it

and boom, I've got an executable and it runs

without having to pay anyone. And that's what's

going to happen. I mean, people are already doing

it with subscription services now in mass. It's

across the board. It's happening everywhere.

So I don't I don't foresee this working the way

that Microsoft thinks. Yeah, no, it's not going

to. Okay, so we're talking about, let's just

say it is, and I don't care about the Xbox Series

X, S, X, Superfly, for a white guy, whatever

model. The base model Xbox, whatever that sub

lettering is, whatever it is. Let's just same

thing with the iPhone duo, the base model, $2

,000. This is nine. This is, I keep wanting to

say it's in 1996. This is 2026. 34, 2026, 92,

34 something years ago, maybe 36 years ago. I

forget. $2 ,000 now for a console. In the Christmas

of 1992, going into New Year's 93, my mom spent

$200 on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

And I got probably... Well, if I still had that

specific system, I'd probably still be playing

that today. I would get 30 -something years of

playable stuff out of that system right now.

$200 in 1992 versus starting fresh in 2026 or

2020, whenever, you know what I mean, whenever

they release this thing. But $2 ,000 is my point.

Oh, my God, video game system. Crazy. Meanwhile,

in the TV landscape, oh my god. So this is coming

from the developers .com. People are now vibe

-coding their smart TVs to strip them of ads

and unwanted features. The first thing I'll say

about this is, that's great. Can you do that

to strip all the ads out of my subscription services

that I'm supposed to be paying for that are ad

free that still have ads in them? Because the

subscription services now want to put in ads

even though I pay for ad free. But anyway, really

quickly on this with the TV specific vibe coding.

Honestly. I have a Roku TV that I've mentioned

this before on the show. My 55 -inch Roku TV

by the brand Sharp that I bought in 2018 or that

technically Karen bought for me for Christmas

that year. The ads that play on it are not intrusive

because I'm basically clicking on one thing.

Like, let's say, for example, the Roku channel.

I'm going to the one show I watch on the Roku

channel, and then I'm playing that show. So we

can continue on with this, but I'll let you take

care of this since you found this one. So I saw

this article, and I thought it was rather interesting,

honestly, because I hate all of the garbage on

my TV, and I have a smart TV. I also would like

a way that I can curate it easier. And I get

that this isn't a full hack. This isn't like,

I'm reprogramming my whole TV. You're literally

creating an aspect that you can modify the launcher

itself. So it's still the same base. It's still

the same Android device. What it essentially

does is remove a lot of the bloat, a lot of the

crap that runs, a lot of the adware, telemetry.

Screenshotting, you know, the auto play videos,

the crap that just kind of pops up and you're

like, I'm not interested in this. Why is this

coming up? Why are they feeding all of this garbage

to me? And honestly, it's essentially people

taking back control from these devices that these

companies are just bundling crap so they can

track us or try and fish more stuff in front

of us. And it's like, look, dude. A majority

of us, over half of us, grew up without smart

TVs. Yep. We'll live just fine without one. Like,

I don't need every device in my house being a

ping -back -to -home device. Like, I uber -hack

all of my systems. I hack my Windows. I hack,

like, everything because I don't like any of

this stuff running constantly. I do it with my

phone. I do it with every device in my house.

My router kills everything that has, like, ads.

So, like, I'm very intentional about all this.

And it's funny because these companies are giving

people products with features they don't want,

which, again, is essentially what's happening

with the Adobe wave, with the Artcraft stuff

and Microsoft. Bundling AI in everything. It's

like, I don't want my OS running on an AI agent.

If I choose to install it, I want it offline.

I don't want you controlling it. I don't want,

you know, Microsoft controlling it. I want to

control it. And then, so like this is essentially

giving the people the power to change their own

products, how they see fit. And then these companies

are, you know, acting a surprise when it works

out in the customer's favor. Some people are

worried about like, oh, well, what if a firmware

update stops it? Or what if a firmware update?

It's like, well, one, if you've ever had an Android

device, they just stop updating at some point.

Yeah. Like they just they're like, oh, you have

Android 11. That sucks. Get a new device. Yeah.

Like they don't care. So I don't foresee them

going the route of, you know, trying to stop

you from. from doing this. I think new TVs, they

will. But that's the thing is people are just

plugging these TVs into or their Android device

into their computer or into other devices and

reverse engineering the software, plugging in

a new flash drive because all of these have flash

drives. And if you think you can't transfer data

through an HDMI cord, I mean, you're crazy too.

But people are going to figure out ways around

stuff. It's the universal constant. I mean, look

at Napster. That was the first grand scale thing

that happened. And then you got Pirate Bay. And

then from there, it snowballed like everything

is doing it. And so we're getting to this point

now where these companies have done the done

the controlling. And this is what you want. And

it's like, no, this isn't what we want. This

is what you fed us. Like, this is garbage. Yeah,

it's it's the same reason. Like, I'm excited

about the art craft. Adobe knockoffs because

they run and we talked about this off air before

the show Adobe installs like there's 15 to 20

processes running at any given point even when

you're not running the software because Creative

Cloud needs to run and then they've got all of

their AI agent crap running in the background

and telemetry and everything else and Microsoft

does the same and so you can have a perfectly

great brand new system and it runs like crap

because it's so bloated with junk that nobody

asked for. Whereas like these new software that

people are developing using the AI that these

companies have been telling us, oh, you need

to get hooked on AI. You got to use this AI,

blah, blah, blah. Like, so people are getting

very savvy with the AI and they're figuring out

we don't need the developers. Like we don't need

these people that are bloating, you know, the

hardware and the software anymore. It's like.

I don't like it. I'll make my own. And so now

there's GitHub projects, which I find this funny

because GitHub is owned by Microsoft. Like they

bought it years ago. So I find it funny that

all of this stuff is the repositories is all

in Microsoft. Now, granted, what's even funnier

is they have Copilot integrated with this. Like

if you haven't used GitHub, like I'm learning

how to use it right now because I'm developing

my own. open source multi -track audio editor

but the the funny thing is is i'm i'm fairly

certain copilot is just oh this is wonderful

code and they're skimming ideas from it and teaching

their ai from it which whatever i don't care

like none of this crap's proprietary anymore

but i think it's funny i think they're using

it as a repository for what they're going to

do in the future and they're like oh this is

a great idea So people developing their own stuff,

I'm 100 % behind. I'm with them. I agree with

it. I think this is great. In fact, once I have

the time, I'm going to do this clean your TV

thing or dumb TV thing just to see what happens.

Because I have a Sony Bravia TV. And while it's

not like uber terrible to deal with. it is annoying

with some of the stuff that just pops up and

it's like, I don't want this. I don't want live

TV. I don't want, you know, I don't want an ad

for, you know, a bunch of horror movies and,

you know, when I turn it on. And so I've turned

off a lot of the stuff, but the stuff, I mean,

you can't get rid of it. It still comes back.

So, so I'm looking forward to trying this out

just to see what happens. But I think, I think

it's a great time to be a consumer in, in terms

of the products. whereas the last time it was

a great time to be a consumer was like 90s, early

2000s, where you actually had control of your

item because it didn't think for itself. Now

it all does. What always gets me is this is more

to do with Xfinity than anything else, but I

have a set time for my Xfinity Zumo. I love that

they updated the name to Zumo, X -U -M -O. They're

boxes. The box, for the box to update, I have

it at 4 a .m. because I know I'll still be asleep

at 4 a .m. every morning. Usually by 4 a .m.

my TV's off because usually I fall asleep to

my audiobook. And yet at some point between 6

a .m. and 1 p .m. when I actually want to watch

TV, oh, we missed your update at 4 a .m. Here

it is now. What the hell? If the TV is constantly

connected to the internet and my internet is

through Xfinity, like everything else in the

house as far as the internet goes, because I

only have internet services. Because the TV service

is through the internet. I don't have a separate

cable package through them. It's just they offer

you the box after you pay for whatever tier internet

package. Anyway, but it's like, oh. Why did you

miss the thing at the time I specified? Oh, well,

the modem was down then. And I'm like, why was

the... Oh, it was thunderstorming at 4 a .m.

here in northern Indiana. Right, every time in

this damn town I've lived in in the last four

years, a thunderstorm will knock out my modem

every single time. It's neither here nor there

compared to this conversation, but that's the

frustration I have sometimes with my TV, where

it's like... Sometimes in the middle of the day,

the cable box will be like, oh, we need to update.

And I'm like, I'm in the middle of watching something

here. What do you mean you need to update? You

should have done that at 4 a .m. when you were

supposed to. It's the problem of being constantly

connected. Something always goes wrong. That

is true. Yep. All right, folks, that's all the

news we got. Now we get into the topics. We got

two topics tonight. We got a topic we've been

meaning to talk about for God knows how long.

I think since the release of Spider -Man, actually.

Spider -Man Brand New Day released July 31st,

2026. So yeah, we've been sitting on this for

a while. Yeah, this is the one. Is this the film

re -releases with new footage? Yes, yes, yes.

And you put this used to be DVD features. It

did! Oh, I know. I believe you. I remember. Pepperidge

Farms remembers. Yes, yes, yes. So they put out

Spider -Man Brand New Day back in theaters. No,

they put Endgame back in theaters. That's what

it was. That's what went back into theaters.

They put Endgame back into theaters with the

new ending in order to prepare everybody for

Doomsday. And they added all these scenes at

the end of Endgame to prepare everybody for Doomsday.

And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, look,

I love Avengers. endgame like the next person

for anyone who actually likes the movie there

are a lot of i've seen a lot of takes lately

where endgame is not everyone's favorite avengers

movie like they prefer infinity war over endgame

which is fine that's look i'm not begrudging

anyone their opinion but like i don't know i

liked it i like them both but it is what it is

but the point here is is that they released endgame

encore with these encore scenes. And my thing

is I saw those scenes and I'm like 25 to 30 years

ago, 1996 on a DVD or a VHS or whatever. Well,

let's just fast forward to 2004. Okay. Let's

go back to do fast forward from 1996 to 2004.

Rewind from whatever. Whatever time travel you

want to use. The year was 2004. I'm sure by now

Spider -Man 1 and 2 were both out on DVD. Spider

-Man 1 and 2, I believe, both got... No, Spider

-Man 2. Let's focus on Spider -Man 2. Spider

-Man 2 released in... 2004 probably came out

in DVD, 2005. Spider -Man 2 got a 2 .1 version

of it where they changed and added a few little

scenes to the movie itself, and they flipped

the little things around and whatever else, and

they added a little few extra things, but they

also added other deleted scenes and other movies

that are not the Marvel movies. have had deleted

scenes put in them from stuff that the filmmakers

took out of the final project. Take Transformers

the movie from 40 years ago. There are probably

a couple of deleted scenes or something that

they didn't put on any of the discs or whatever

from any of the versions of the DVD that was

released over the last 40 years. My point is,

is that the Endgame encore to me outside of the

fact that I have not gone to a movie theater

since the year 2018, all of those scenes would

have been deleted scenes on a DVD disc 20 to

25 years ago. I would not have had to have gone

back to the theater to see that movie again.

Not that I wouldn't have wanted to go back to

the theater and seen the movie again. I like

Endgame. It's a great movie. It's a great movie

to see on a big screen. I just don't think that

I should have had to have gone back to see that

film to see these additional scenes. What they

should have done was, hey kids, here's Avengers

Endgame in 4K with new scenes to help you lead

into Doomsday. Thoughts? I'm not a fan of, I'm

honestly not a fan of, of the re -release crap.

And then they're like, Oh, Avengers Endgame is

the first movie to hit $3 billion or something.

And it's like, well, it really didn't. It was

a bait and switch. Like it was technically the

encore. It wasn't even the original movie. Yeah.

So it wasn't, you know, I don't know. I hate

this whole thing of like, let's re -release something

just to re -release it. Like they did it with,

with a brand new day. Yeah. Like there was no

reason for that. No. Yeah. There was absolutely.

And the scene wasn't even necessary. It was,

it was just, it was unrelated. Like they should

have put technically the scene with the Hulk

getting abducted by doom in brand new day at

the credits. Yeah. That would have made the most

sense since Hulk was actually in that movie.

And then, honestly, they should have just put

all of them at the end. Especially with Spidey

disappearing at the end. It would have made more

sense. But instead, they went a totally different

direction with it. And re -released the original

movie, which I get. There's going to be things

that they're going to throw in there or you're

going to miss. I don't think it's necessary at

all. I really don't. Even Transformers the movie

did it with The Awakening. Oh, don't even get

me started. It really did. Yeah, but that goes

nowhere. It does. It's a nothing burger. It's

not even that it's a nothing. Yeah, you're right.

But it's not even that. It goes nowhere because,

number one, I think Hasbro had a plan of what

they wanted to do with it. And then sadly, Peter

Cullen passed away. And they did not know how

to pivot out of the plan that they had. Whatever

that plan may have been, we don't know. I don't

know if we'll ever know, because I don't know

if they'll ever come out and say whatever the

plan was supposed to be. And it just... Because

you can't shoehorn awakening. Like, Transformers

the movie ends. Galvatron gets kicked out of

Unicron's butt. He goes off into the lava bath

of whatever planet Thoreau or Thoreau or whatever

planet he's on. Unicron's head floats across

and orbits Cybertron. Rodimus Prime is the new

best leader ever. We now march forward to a new

age of peace and happiness. Optimus Prime Awakening

does not fit into that at all because we then

go through with Season 3 and we start with...

Five Faces of Darkness Part 1, we find out what

happened to Galvatron, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, Rodimus Prime, Grimlock, Five Faces of

Darkness, we learn who the Quintessons are, blah,

blah, blah. It just doesn't fit anywhere. It

just doesn't. And no matter how many times any

Transformers fans attempt to logically or illogically...

Try to force feed it into the generation one

cartoon continuity. It's never going to fit because

it was never supposed to fit. No, it it just

wasn't. It just boggles my mind. So, I mean,

I'm I'm kind of done with the whole, you know,

re re -release in theater thing. I'm OK if it's

an anniversary thing. Yeah, anniversaries are

fine, but the point of this now was the Avengers

encore thing to help people get set up for doomsday.

And my thinking is, aren't you just going to

promote all of the things on Disney Plus? Before

Doomsday, aren't you just going to tell everyone

to go subscribe to Disney Plus and watch all

of the Avengers? Oh, that's the other thing.

Somebody pointed out to me on... Well, I watched

somebody point out, like, you have to go to...

You have to go under several different layers

of topics and sections in Disney Plus to find

Age of Ultron now. It's not next to the Avengers

anymore. It's not in line with the other Avengers

movies for some odd reason. It's so weird what

these companies do with their stuff. I agree.

So weird. And the last thing we had for this

evening was, I saw this a couple of months ago.

This is from the Mixtapes and Memories account

on Instagram. This is all about blockbusters.

Blockbuster. Can't talk tonight, folks. I just

can't talk tonight. I don't know what's wrong

with me. Blockbuster. That is blockbusters. That's

right. Busting blocks. Leave my block out of

this, you blockhead. I knew you were going to

go there. Why do millennials care about Blockbuster

so much? It goes beyond the logo. It goes beyond

the store, the building. It's what it represents.

Blockbuster represents... Okay, it means something

to millennial kids because here's the thing.

It was a social community. It was a social gathering

of people on Friday or Saturday night. If you

went to a blockbuster, you don't know who you

were going to see. You might see your teacher.

You might see your neighbor. Your parents might

see their work friends there. You might see people

from church. It didn't matter. There was this

community, and then add in the idea of there

was bright lights in there, music, or clips of

TV or movies or whatever. The smell of plastic,

the AC always felt like it was blasting, of course,

because it was. It was always cold. If I tell

a millennial, describe to me Blockbuster, that's

probably what's going to happen. But they're

going to explain how it was so important. So

this is what they said in their clip. So that's

a quote from that account on Instagram. I disagree

with them completely. So I'm going to flash back

to 1989 when I was nine years old. At that point,

you were three years old, so you probably have

no memory of this, but you'll come in with your

memories during the 90s portion of this part.

1989, I was nine years old. My cousin Heather

was 17 years old at this time. She's eight years

older than I am. She used to babysit me all the

time. My mom going in there, I would go look

for whatever He -Man or Thundercats or Voltron

or Transformers cassettes I could find. Whatever

kids movie I could find that she would let me

watch. Whatever was on video. She would find

the movies that she would want to watch, whatever.

We would go, we would, you know, say hi to the

cashier or whatever. We would be cordial and

polite and whatever. we'd check out we'd get

in our car we'd go home we watch our movies sometimes

we'd forget and have late fees next time we'd

go in that's what i remember about blockbuster

now you fast forward maybe two or three years

later like 92 93 so i was 12 or 13 kind of the

same thing except i had a little bit more agency

of the movies i picked outside of like the kids

movie type stuff But it was the same thing. Like,

we weren't hanging out at Blockbuster on a Friday.

Now, granted, I'm talking about when I was a

kid. But my parents, like, I don't know what

my dad did because I lived with my mom and my

parents were divorced. But my dad, I can say

for certain, was not hanging out on a Friday

or Saturday night at Blockbuster. He was probably

sleeping Friday night. or Saturday night because

he worked all week because he worked like 70,

80 hours as a mechanic, and he was probably dead

-ass tired. That's all my dad did when I was

a kid was work, and I'm not saying that as a

complaint. I'm saying that as a straight fact.

The man, even now at 70 -something years old,

he still works all the time. He's one of the

hardest -working people I know, and I love him

for it. But my point is... When my mom and I

would go to Blockbuster, we go in, we get our

shit, and we get out. There was no social hub

at Blockbuster that I can remember. What do you

remember, Steve? So as far as Blockbuster, I

remember my parents would try not to go because

they were expensive. So we would go to like Michigan

Video, Hollywood Video, Family Video. Family

Video was a big one. That was kind of our main

go -to. We had Jumbo Video, too, which was originally

Grand Video. We had a lot of video stores around

us. There really wasn't much to do, so the video

stores were cool. So we went to Grand Video,

became Jumbo Video, and then did that for a long

time because I could ride my bike there. And

then that closed down. Then we had to drive to

other places. And then before leaving Michigan...

And I don't know if the store is still there.

I don't even know if it's open. Wouldn't be surprised

if it's not. But there was a family video. Again,

if you rode your bike, it would take like 10

minutes to get there close to my house. And we

would go in there and we'd go pick up movies.

And it was fun because you could go up and down

the aisles and we could send the kids to their

department and us go looking. And we would game

the system because we would never get new movies.

We would get used because there was like 50 cents

a movie or a buck. And you could get those for

longer for because they were old. And so we would

do those. And then, you know, so back in the

day, like, I think I had more fun experiences

with family video than I did Blockbuster. Now,

that being said, my wife worked at Blockbuster.

Right. Uh, when I worked at little Caesars, uh,

she worked at blockbuster and I used to go in

there after work and visit her. And, uh, she

used to get the movies like three weeks before

they would come out for the general public. And

we would watch, you know, the movies and of course

we saw everything and it was, it was cool. And,

uh, but like as a, as a just general movie goer,

like I didn't. I don't think that there's the

love necessarily of blockbuster itself. I think

it's the memory of a video store. I think it's

the memory of going up and down the aisles, looking

at the movie, seeing the new releases, seeing

the candy, seeing the, you know, the, the random

stuff in there, the video game section, blockbuster

had a nice video game section. Uh, and depending

on the store, uh, family video did too. And they

actually had theirs walled off, which, you know,

was kind of cool because then you had like you're

like, this is the gaming section. Yeah. But I

don't know, like Blockbuster did it right as

far as like their colors, their branding, like

everything where they screwed up is they never

they didn't buy Netflix. Yeah, true. That's a

whole other topic. That's a whole other topic.

But but again, like I don't I think that the

love of the physically going. Yeah. And seeing

all the titles, flipping them back, you know,

looking at them, being able to read the cards

on the back of the boxes and go, yeah, this looks

interesting. I'm going to rent this or I'm going

to try this. And it was even though there was

a lot of movies in there, you kind of went to

your section. It was easy to find things. They

were alphabetical. Like it was super like it

wasn't an algorithm you were fighting. It wasn't

any of that. Like you literally, you know, somebody

would come up, you know. Can I help you find

something? Can I help you find a movie? And you're

like, yeah, I'm kind of looking for this. Oh,

we have this recommendation or they had like

a recommended wall from the staff of new and

old movies. And they would obviously be playing

movies on the TVs in there. And this, you know,

family video did the same thing. But I really,

I really loved that they did all this because

it made it. I don't know. Like, I feel like I

get decision fatigue when I'm on streaming. Yeah.

And I get more annoyed because I have to try

and find what I'm looking for. And it's like,

maybe I just want to easily find it. I don't

want to type in anything. I don't want to go

to a search bar. I don't want to have to go to

the category. I don't want to have to like and

then they've got their curated whatever they

want you to watch at the beginning. And it's

like, I don't care about 90 % of what's sitting

here. what you know and it's like if the algorithms

that good it should know what I'm going to watch

like or what I'm not going to watch in that train

like push something I'm not going to pay any

attention to but it doesn't and so I find streaming

to be more work aside from the fact that you

don't own it but I do feel like the video thing

does is an experience like we go to our little

local library here and we'll rent movies that

we don't have yeah and you know we'll ride our

bikes to the library as a family and then we

we go pick out a movie and then we bring it back

and then we watch it together and so it still

creates that same dynamic but we don't have a

video store and the only place you can buy a

dvd in store anymore is walmart yeah yeah i think

part of their video here part of their That's

the word I'm looking for. Part of their plot

synopsis that they're talking about in their

video here is the social commentary of being

in there with people. And my pushback on that

is I didn't talk to anybody other than my mom.

Hey, Mom, can we get this movie? Like... Like,

I don't remember my mom talking to other unless

we did somehow run into one of my mom's friends

or one of our like one of my aunts or one of

my uncles or something, which is very rare. The

times that we did go to Blockbuster, very rarely

did we run into any of my family members. And

that's part of their their description here in

the video that the part of their. point here

in their video is that they think that why do

millennials care about blockbuster so much is

that it was a social community event and i say

it wasn't because we weren't there to hang out

we really weren't like There weren't chairs in

Blockbuster where we went in, sat down, had a

coffee, watched one of the movies on the screen.

Like, it wasn't Blockbuster X Starbucks or Blockbuster

X Dunkin' Donuts or Tim Hortons over here. It

wasn't that. It really wasn't. I mean, I liked

the video. I thought it was very well thought

out and put together. I just don't agree with

what they said. Yeah. it was a lot more trends.

Cause again, it was a store where you went in

and you either rented or didn't rent a movie.

It was a transaction. It would be just like me

going into Walmart right now, buying a copy of

whatever movie, like that's a transaction. That's

not me going in for a social community gathering

place. Yeah, I mean, I don't see it as a social

gathering, community place, hangout or anything.

Not like when I was a teen, I used to go with

friends and we'd go to McDonald's after youth

group or something and hang out there and get

a meal and just goof around and chit chat for

a couple hours or go somewhere else. It wasn't

like that. You didn't really meet up with your

friends at the video store. I mean, maybe they

did in the 80s and I'm unaware of it. I don't

know. Uh, but I know in the nineties, like that

really wasn't a thing. It's just, there was a

lot of people that were piling through. I mean,

there were a couple of times where my cousins

and I would do like a sleepover either at their

house or my house or whatever. And we would all

go like, that would be that. But part of their,

part of their premise here is if you went to

blockbuster, you don't know who you'll see. You

might see your teacher. You might see your neighbor.

Your parents might see their work friends there.

My mom was a housekeeper. She's not going to

see the lady that she cleans the houses for when

she goes to the local blockbuster. Because the

lady she cleans the houses for lives three towns

over. So it's not going to happen. Yeah. That's,

yeah. I don't know. But I mean, I do agree with

part of their thing of Blockbuster even looking

back on it. It was a really cool time. It was

a really cool place. It was a really cool thing

to be able to be in there. That was a very cool

time. Video stores were awesome back then. So

I do agree with that part. Yep. Yep. So, yeah,

I... I don't have anything else really for this

episode. Uh, however, that was what we were going

to close out with. So yeah, I mean, outside of

the fact that EA shut down Bioware. Yeah, I was

going to see if you wanted to bring that up,

but out of all the games that buy, and again,

no disrespect to Bioware, but out of all the

games that they produced, I'm like, I've never

played or had any interest in any of these like

Mass Effect. all that stuff. I'm like, it's horrible

that people are losing their jobs. Completely

horrible. I mean, I've heard of all of these.

I've heard of all these games. I have played

the first three Mass Effects. Very cool. And

I did enjoy them, and they were great games,

and they made a follow -up that had nothing to

do with the previous trilogy, which seemed to

kind of bomb, but because the studio is no longer

among us, dying at 31, we'll never get another

Mass Effect. Now, what you're going to probably

see in the future is vibe coders creating their

own. I sincerely think that the day of these

big conglomerate developers are totally hosed.

I think that, yes, they'll still be around. I

think we're going to see a lot more smaller groups.

pop up you're gonna see more more uh individual

indie artists coming up with stuff i mean my

own brother's coming up with a video game and

uh yes he is yep so i'm i'm looking forward to

seeing what how that turns out and checking it

out uh probably gonna be doing some voiceover

for it as well when it gets closer um but but

yeah i mean like i mean i'm developing i've developed

how many plugins for the geekcast radio site

god Probably 12 to 15, and they're all running

the back end. Everything's automated. I don't

have to deal with it at this point. I'm going

to go back and revisit some of them and polish

them for either giveaway or sale purposes. But

again, I've coded them. But I knew what I wanted,

and I knew just being OCD about the user experience

and about the... the back end experience as well

I knew what I was looking for and it didn't exist

so same thing with you know with certain people

that are developing things now the art craft

thing that's totally different like it started

out in spite and now people have discovered that

oh it's not so hard to develop software with

AI like I mean I'm doing it And people are doing

it with their TVs. It's a matter of time before

a lot of this stuff gets to the point where individuals

are going to have all of the things at their

fingertips and don't need these corporate entities

that have access to our data everywhere. I came

up with an ingenious idea earlier that I'm not

going to spoil because I think it's going to

be funny when I have time to deal with it. I'll

tell you off air, but, uh, but it's just amazing.

The thing is that these companies have essentially,

uh, they've, they've done this to themselves

and it's, it's kind of interesting to see how

this is going to play out at this point. Um,

so yeah. One last thing before we go, uh, it's

going to be really interesting. Since 2025, we

have had... 2025, we had four Marvel movies.

No, we had three Marvel movies. 2026, we had

two, or we will have two once Doomsday comes

out. 2027, we're only having one, at least for

now, with Secret Wars. And then, again, for now,

according to this. Untitled X -Men, Ghost Rider,

and then Black Panther 3 is all 2028. They apparently

have secured dates in 2029 for movies for Marvel

Cinematic Universe, but Phase 7 starts in 2028.

Jesus. But it's just going to be weird going

from the end of this year with Doomsday to all

the way to the end of next year with Secret Wars.

A whole damn year without a Marvel movie somewhere

in the summer. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't

know what to think as far as Marvel's concerned.

I mean, DC sucks right now anyway, but I don't

know what to think on Marvel. I've heard good

things about Clayface. I haven't seen it. I'm

not trying to keep the show going here, but I'm

just saying. I'm not into the whole horror thing,

but I have no interest. And from the people that

I trust the opinions of online, they've all said

it's a dumpster fire. And I've heard other people

say that it's good. But it's not a movie that's

going to appeal to me anyway. I feel like James

Gunn is going for like... I know his whole thing

was the monsters, like gods and monsters, and

I feel like his whole run at DC has been utter

crap. Like, we've been getting the focus on,

I mean, even before that, we had the focus on

a bunch of villains. It's like, can we not, can

we focus on the characters that are actually

going to, you know, bring box office numbers

and make money and, you know, do them right?

I mean, for crying out loud, the DC animated

universe has the blueprint. for what they should

be doing in live action for adaptation. And then,

yeah, you know, modify it, you know, for live

action, but it's, it's literally the blueprint.

Like you don't have to think very hard, but because

they want to, they want to alter and put their

own twist on everything. And, and I get it like

the DCA, you did that too. Yeah. I'll have to

send you the guy's Instagram. I don't know what

the person's name is off the top of my head,

but I, was doom scrolling a couple nights ago,

maybe a week ago or so, and I found this person

on Instagram. He's got some pretty good takes,

and I started watching a bunch of his Clayface

videos, and in one of them he said, it is being

misclassified as what type of movie it is. It's

not really a horror movie, it's not really a

this movie, it's not really a that movie, but

it's a... this certain type of movie so i'll

send you that once i get back to my phone sounds

good so with all of that involved uh i hope you

guys found some interest in some of the topics

in this episode this week and as always you can

comment on the website thegcrn .com you send

us an email feedback at geekcastradio .com And

of course, you can find us on the social medias,

myself at SCP21 or Mike at TFG1Mike. And until

next time, get altered, get geeky with the Altered

Geeks.