April Fools, Batman v Superman, and Film Critics

You're tuned in to Steve Megatron on altered

geek unlimited What is Hello and welcome to Altered

Geek Unlimited episode 88, I mean 132. Eh, almost

gave you an April Fools joke. Speaking of which,

you have two of the GCR and Fools here. I am

Steve Megatron Phillips and joining me is...

When this baby hits 88 miles per hour you're

gonna see some serious... That's what she said.

I thought that that would be funnier doing it

that way than trying to backdate to episode 88

since we actually missed episode 88 I didn't

think you were gonna backdate it. I thought you

were just gonna release it as like Release it

we had we had 131 last week instead of having

132 you just mark it as 88 and put it as The

current episode just to throw we should just

call it 88 132 with no rhyme or reason to it.

You know what you ought to do? You ought to do

some math where it equals out to 23 and we can

have a gingerberry reference. Alrighty then.

It's all 23. My birthday. 2 -3. Driver's license,

social security number, everything. I was born

at 11 -12 p .m. 11 plus 12. It's like it's imitating

my life. Yeah, so there you'll you'll have heard

a clip of Jim Carrey himself in the number 23

So While we were trying to come up with things

to talk about yes I was looking up something

and Then it dawned on me the date that's listed

on it And I was in and I've almost gotten Screwed

by this twice today When we're recording this

So have no fear, none of the episode is bullshit.

We're recording this on March 31st, 2016, folks,

which is basically... So it's safe. We're still

in the ides of March, pretty much. We haven't

become April fools yet. And honestly, seriously,

at this point, with how many times I've been

fooled, just in general, with some of the onion

stuff and everything else in the past, I avoid

any news items on the internet on April 1st.

every year, because it's just not worth getting

tricked for. Well, this is my thing. On April

Fool's Day every year, I skip the internet. I

literally do. I will do anything other than...

I will do graphic design. I will have conversations.

I will stay away from my computer. I will watch

television. I will not get on the internet. And

if I do, I'll have small conversations. I will

not engage in anything that's on any website

because primarily it's all clickbait garbage.

And while I understand the purpose of April Fool's

Day, I'm not a fool. And I think that April Fool's

Day and then playing with people as far as jokes

with articles and whatnot. is a waste of my time.

With the internet, it's almost a waste of time

for April Fool's Day anymore because there are

so many websites out there. Well, and they all

flood the market with them, so nothing can be

taken seriously. Right, but here's the problem,

though. April Fool's Day, April 1st of every

year, it's one of 365 days. It's the one day

a year that has pretty much become irrelevant

because the other 364 days a year, you have websites

constantly doing clickbait articles, no matter

what it is. Somebody will put up, this is on

Facebook, this is an image with B. the s and

i'm not i'm not getting into the film or talk

about that later but that there was an image

of bbs and it said on it the safe word is martha

i just don't even know what they'll but it's

it's stuff like that were websites and not all

websites do this not not every single website

here in the u .s. or around the world does the

clickbait stuff but the ones that do They basically

make April Fools irrelevant because you're still

going to that website and getting kind of fooled

by, you know. And you bring up an excellent point

here. And I'm not trying to bash in any of the

websites. I'm not even going to say any of them,

but there are a few. I'm going to mention one

by name, but I'll wait a minute for that. This

is kind of my question is, do clickbait articles

bother you? This is just to anybody. I'm just

genuinely curious. Does it bother you, or do

you think it's too saturated, or the fact that

they'll try and make an entire article out of

one little word or statement? I find it personally

annoying, but that's because I think it's dumb.

Especially, you get websites like moviepilot

.com. Anything from them is clickbait. It's garbage.

Or comicbook .com. Yeah, I found some stuff on

them to be relevant recently, too. Well, there's

generally one main website for my comic book

news that I go to that I know I can trust, which

is comicbookresources .com. I use them for almost

everything, comic book or comic book movie or

superhero movie kind of thing, as far as getting

news from them. A perfect example, I used to

use newsarama .com as well and they turned me

off by wording something wrong. I don't know

if it was worded wrong from their person posting

the article or if it was worded wrong from the

company that gave them the news. But this is

back last year when TMNT issue 50 was coming

out from IDW. And in the solicitation, which

Comes from IDW so it's probably IDW's fault I

don't know and I'm not sitting here gonna blame

them because I love IDW and You know, they've

got a whole bunch for me on the pullback and

everything else but anyway, so the solicitation

comes out and it says, you know This could be

the last issue or it says something about This

is the end kind of thing kind of you know, leaving

it up in the air Like oh my god is TMNT gonna

continue and I have had two interviews with the

editor bobby kernel for money that you've been

edits the the turtles book and he he said they're

well on their way they've already got plotted

up to issue hundred so i knew but the way that

news around dot com the way they were at the

article or the way they rewrote the solicitation

they made it sound like And this could just be

me reading into it. I'll fully admit that. But

the way I read what they wrote is that they were

saying TMNT issue 50 would be the last issue

of the comic book series, Teenage Mutant Ninja

Turtles from 90W. And I'm like, what the hell?

Like, seriously? And then I think this was like

right before. Joe and I did the second interview

with Bobby kernel from IDW so but it's stuff

like that. It's not even that It's not even a

website that just puts out a headline there like

like a shocking headline like Kim Kardashian

replaces Olivia Wilde as Psylocke not that's

ever going to friggin happen, but you know what

I mean? Websites will put out a headline, like

an eye -grabbing headline or an eye -catching

headline, and then you go to it. And then it's

just so they can get your click to go to their

site. And it's like, are you serious? Really?

You're that desperate for attention? Yeah. My

thing is I have to play this game of watching

the filter. Basically, I have to I have to like

vet it with a bunch of other sites to make sure

that it's legit information Mm -hmm and While

I do get some of my stuff from comicbook .com

because they send me the newsletters I don't

I filter through that like I will take literally

I'll get because I do the daily emails So I get

any of the news stuff I literally will take maybe

five articles out of that throughout the entire

week and put it in this show the stuff that I've

gotten from him and then the rest of it I just

delete the email but yeah, I I don't do email

newsletters anymore. I haven't done them in years

because they constant This one thing I cannot

stand is getting too many emails From anything

and it's not even like you know, you know, you

and I talk all the time. So it's not unless we're

you know, sharing files or sharing ideas that

need more than 140 characters or need more than

an actual conversation. We very rarely email

each other unless it's something that was sent

to one of us and not the other or vice versa.

But it's one of those things where I just, I

almost don't even use email that much anymore

for actual conversations with people. Yeah, I

use it very rarely. It's usually when I'm dealing

with a company or a... or having to forward something

to somebody yeah I mean in this day and age of

Skype and Twitter and Facebook and you know if

you want to count Tumblr and and all the other

social media outlets that there are out there

it's like I don't know yeah um but yeah the clickbait

stuff because I'll be the first to admit I've

gotten caught by clickbait so many times and

that's what I can't stand is that I actually

even though I looked at the source and looked

at the website it's still like where I usually

get caught and this is not getting caught like

by the onion or something but like there was

a news story I think recently in the last few

months about some some celebrity passing away

and apparently this happened like a year and

a half ago But somebody on Facebook had reposted

it as if it was new today and I'm like And the

funny thing is but like you were saying I will

I'll kind of do what you do, but I I know you're

more Twitter than Facebook you you prefer Twitter

over Facebook so I just prefer it because I can

watch a bigger feed go through and I can ignore

more of it and I find that Facebook tends to

have More ads. Yeah and junk the ads don't even

really I'm so used to the Facebook layout currently

that the ads don't even really bother me I You

know, it's and most of it's all out of my sight

line For me what I love about Facebook now is

they have this option I Yeah They have this option

on friends, pages, and groups where you can say

instead of default timeline viewing, you can

say I want to see this page first or this person's

posts first. So you can actually customize your

newsfeed by the people you want to see stuff

from the most more than everybody else. But my

point in bringing the two social networking sites

up is that Know I know Twitter has to work trending

I've never gotten into Twitter trending but I

get into Facebook trending all the time and I

will Like what was there was one today? There

was something from the AP. Oh, this is perfect

Did you hear about Mattel? What? This can't be

an April Fool's joke because it was a news article

published today by the Associated Press. Mattel

lost three million to Chinese hackers or something

or other. This is a perfect example. What I want

to talk about is I'll click on something like

that that on the Facebook training that says

Mattel Loses three million dollars. I'll click

on it It'll then show me everyone that's posting

about it and I will then scroll through that

to see a legitimate website a legitimate, you

know website reporting the story not just someone

You know who's created a blog who lives in in

their basement? Yeah, you know me so it's that

kind of stuff, but it's just Just the way we

get can you believe it when we were kids we got

news from television and radio and now because

of the internet and All of the instant gratification

and all of the instant communication we get the

news from the internet. I don't even even if

I had cable right now The only time I ever really

watch a news program is I watch the local channel

32 news here at 11 o 'clock at night. I don't

even watch the five o 'clock or six o 'clock

news because I'm always online. I'm always and

we've talked about this offer. The two of us

are always on social media looking at crap, you

know. Yeah, I can't. I can't even tell you how

I would feel not being connected. Yeah. I. It's

almost like an unhealthy obsession, but That's

pretty much how I get all my news mm -hmm, and

I know about stuff in and this is what makes

it even funnier is people Like whether it's you

or my family or other people will Drop geek news

That they know I would be interested in yeah

my Facebook page I Will have read that article

a good six to eight hours before I get it from

them. Well, okay, in my defense, it's more so

when it shows up in my feed. So if something

from comic book resources about Civil War shows

up where it says, oh, they just posted this just

now, I am under the assumption that they just

posted that article on their website at that

moment. And this is why I hate Facebook's default

View for the newsfeed where it's top stories.

I hate the top stories viewing for newsfeed I

want most there's there's actually a way around

that well Yeah, you click most recent, but you

know I'm saying like you can bookmark it so that

it's the most recent link okay, and then It'll

it'll state of that pretty much But yeah, I mean

it's just That's like There are times where I

know I know I can't I'm gonna say this here because

I've always been honest when I'm podcasting for

the most part but there are times when someone

will like one of our fans will show me an article

or something and Like you just said I've seen

it like an hour beforehand or whatever um that's

normally why sometimes when i post stuff i will

put the in case you missed it tag on there because

i figure people have already seen it already

um but yeah i mean the way that we get our news

now and the way that the news is reported now

is just just crazy speaking of april fools day

my mom posts this Tomorrow's April Fool's Day.

Believe nothing and trust no one, just like any

other day. Yeah, I saw that. Oh, that's hilarious.

So yeah, going to move on. Welcome to the Wicked

Radio Network. interact with the show. at blogtalkradio

and alteredgeek .com. And now, back to the show.

Batman v Superman. Now, we're not going to go

at it the initial way that everyone seems to

be going at it, which is either attacking it

or gushing on it. We're gonna break it down.

We are gonna break it down, but I just wanna

preface this because we... As you've said before,

BVS was the launching point of Altered Geek and

it's kept the show running for two plus years

now. Three years. Yeah, almost three years, three

years this August. And it's... My initial reaction

to the film after I saw it was... We had three

years of BS marketing for that That was and it's

not about the performances. It's not a it's about

the plot and the writing in the story That's

what that reaction was for me But go ahead and

break it down. I how are you? You've given your

your brief overview My brief overview is well,

I did see some issues with it. I did enjoy the

film That being said Let's talk about the director

first. Now, what do you think about his visual

cues and styles? Based on what you've seen in

this movie compared to like any of his other

films. Okay, so the only other film of his that

I've seen is Man of Steel. I have not seen 300.

I have not seen... Did he do Sin City? I don't

even remember. No, that was Tarantino. He did...

uh... sucker -punch okay i've not seen the watchman

yeah and i still have not seen the watchman i

know everybody's got every single comment saying

oh tf2 and mike you need to go see the watchman

i have little to no interest in getting to know

those those characters so zack snider until man

of steel was pretty much a new director for me

so man of steel is the only thing that i can

really judge him on Because this movie picks

up 18 months after that movie Although some events

do take place mmm, and I'm not talking story

-wise Just visually like the how things kind

of showed up and the colors and I mean, his style,

his filmmaking style, his directing style, his

visual choices, the movie looks great. The backgrounds,

the characters, the designs, the Batmobile was

frigging fantastic. All that stuff looks great.

But for me, it has to have a very well -written

story, a very well -written plot to go along

with it. We'll touch on the story in a minute.

My introduction to Snyder was Sucker Punch. It's

interesting. It's not quite my favorite movie

and it is a bit confusing at points because you

have one of Snyder's, well, many of Snyder's...

Kind of key elements much like JJ Abrams and

his lens flares and shiny stuff. Okay And rebooting

the same stuff. We'll talk about Abrams later.

I have something else on that But I was gonna

say since you brought him up. Yeah, okay. I'll

wait. I'll wait Cuz there's there's a good conversation

to go with that. Yeah, I had this one in class

yesterday. So it's great And I'm pretty sure

you're gonna touch in the same thing. I'm thinking

of so the the thing with with Snyder is he has

the dark muted colors. He has intense violence

in the action He has a lot of like sex ish type

scenes Although it was very muted in this film

you do get the the the fact that Bruce Wayne

slept with someone and Superman was banging Lois

Lane, so that's You get those two elements out

of it, but you don't really see anything, which

is kind of refreshing compared to some of the

other kind of scantily clad type things he does

in his other films. Okay, well let's compare

Snyder to the explosion director here, because

that's really all I can compare him to when it

comes to the sex. Michael Bay. Okay, so here's

the thing. In BBS, you have a scene where Lois

is in the bathtub. There have been plenty of

other films Plenty of other television shows

on paid cable or even basic cable that show women

in a bathtub So and basically Clark comes in

and they have yeah You look at one of the times

in the tunnel right basically you look at one

of our favorite films One of our favorite film

series Lethal Weapon. There's a scene in Lethal

Weapon where a fully clothed Mrs. Murtaugh Roger

pulls a naked Danny Glover. We don't actually

see him naked, but he's in the bathtub and it's

his birthday or whatever else He actually pulls

her into the tub with so I've seen stuff like

that before I have no problem with that whatsoever

so ever but Like that I thought was tastefully

done whereas half the stuff Michael Bay does

you know looking up Megan Fox's skirt? That's

that's overly sexualized to me. I think But the

stuff in this wasn't, okay, Bruce Wayne slept

with somebody. He's a Playboy millionaire. But

how is that any different than Tony Stark? There's

a lot of comparisons between this and some of

the Marvel stuff. It's just because it's so dark

and muted, people are going to give it crap.

I guess we should go into the characterizations

and the acting okay for the next step so Like

for me I I enjoyed I think Batman was probably

the best part of this whole film between and

mostly the the time I really enjoyed him is when

he interacted with Wonder Woman mm -hmm and Alfred

mm -hmm absolutely because those gave those fleshed

him out a little bit more and then I found a

lot of the Daily Planet to be a waste. There

was a lot of MacGuffins of using of like plot

device using and I guess I should preface this

with spoilers at this point because I'm going

to drop a few here. There is a scene where Lex

Luthor takes both. Superman's women in his life

his mother and his girlfriend okay let me comment

really quickly on Snyder's style of how the film

is is laid out I kept getting confused because

I had I I've seen Man of Steel once in the three

years since it came out I have I don't own it

on DVD or iTunes or any of that stuff I wasn't

gonna get sucked into the hole oh This store

has this exclusive, whatever. So I have not,

I completely forgot it was Diane Lane as Martha

Kent. And I'm sitting here looking at Holly Hunter

and I'm flashing to Smallville when, oh God,

Annette O'Toole was Martha and she was a senator.

So for half of this movie, I thought Holly Hunter

was his mother. I'm like, wait a minute, what's

going on here? There's something wrong with this

picture. And then I realized obviously later

that it's actually a very old looking Diane Lane.

But yeah, I found them to be kind of a waste

because they were using it as a plot device.

Lex Luthor was, I don't know if he caught it,

he's Lex Luthor Jr. He's not Lex. So that leaves

it open. There is hope. Even though they shaved

his head to try and make him more diabolical.

You know the funny thing is, and I've said this

on social media, I've said this online. I did

not like Jesse. I like Jesse Eisenberg as an

actor. I've seen him in the social network. Yeah,

and I like him in Now You See Me. Yep, that's

what I was just going to say. I've seen him in

Now You See Me, and we're going to see him again

in Now You See Me 2. So I like him as an actor.

I don't like him for any version of a Lex Luthor

role, because until he shaved his head, I did

not believe him to be a Lex Luthor character

of any type at all. There's a scene where he's

on the podium and he's trying to make that speech

and he kind of loses his place or forgets and

he starts mumbling to himself. I'm like, Jesus

Christ, it's the Joker. What the hell? Well,

funny thing you should say that. Originally,

the Joker was supposed to be in the film. And

so what they did is I think they kind of mixed

the personalities a little bit and kind of give

him that manic kind of personality, which I honestly

wish they would not have only because One I'm

not fond of the choice of Joker, but I'm going

to give that that's a whole other that's an entire

other topic, but the The thing that I had a problem

with Lex Luthor was not necessarily the fact

that It was Eisenberg it was the fact of how

they made him portray Lex Luthor and Originally

they were looking at Cranston, which is the funny

thing because we were all kind of on board with

that Because he you know playing Walter White

he can play a badass Lex Luthor, so It would

be great if they brought him back as the dad

because they never did explain whether he died

or if he's just Missing or in jail so that would

be great, but anyways I Found his character to

be kind of lacking I found Wonder Woman could

have used more in this film. I wish they would

not have called the film Batman V Superman Dawn

of Justice. They could have even called it World's

Finest because it was essentially them being

pitted against each other and then having to

come together to fight. I understand where you're

going with that, but I am sorry. The way that

this film lays out and the way that it leads

up to the fight, which the fight wasn't even...

The fight was just not long. The fight should

have been half of this film and I'll talk about

the time length of the film later in some other

Okay, they could have called a Batman Superman

doomsday. Yeah, they could do that and had it

and then it because it could mean anything with

that Yeah, but See and I didn't have a problem

with the the jumping. Mm -hmm The dream sequence

even though it was an inception dream sequence

because it was a dream within a dream. Yeah It

wasn't a bit abrupt, but I understood all of

what this film was trying to portray. Yeah, and

I Understood it I didn't care for well like the

dream sequence was to Articulate what is going

to happen when doomsday shows or not doomsday

dark side shows up, right? And it's showing like

in the future. Yeah, and The thing with you know

Batman fighting Superman Then you get to see

flash come through the portal. Yeah, which by

the way go t flash. No things I'll talk about

flash in a bit. Yeah That was that was even okay

to some extent although it was a bit gratuitous

They could have left out they could have left

out the dream sequence. They could have left

out the flash easily the The thing with that

was is they had the dream sequence then Bruce

Wayne wakes up and then flash is all of a sudden

in his face and then he wakes up again. Yeah.

And the Flash thing is saying, you know, Lois

is the key. While it was interesting, he was

saying that he's not wrong about Superman, which

tells me that he's got to have that at the ready

in case he needs to do away with him. Once again,

I'm going to compare Snyder to Bay. Remember,

almost 10 years ago, oh my God, it's been nine

years since the original Transformers movie.

2007 or well 2006 leading into 2007 I read all

these stories about How Michael Bay didn't give

a crap about what any of the fans thought he

was gonna write his own movie He didn't care

about homaging any part of the Transformers lore.

He was gonna do whatever the hell he wanted to

do okay as the movies progress he then Ends up

putting in very like you take it. You take a

look at revenge of the fallen the pyramid thing

at the end there. That to me, that to me personally,

my personal opinion is an homage to Megatron's

plan with the space needle in G1. The solar sundial

where he needed Gears chip or whatever it was

in season one of G1. So he eventually put in

homages to various Transformers lore. Here's

the thing with Snyder in this film. Don't know

if this is Warner Brothers if it was DC if it

was Snyder if it was the writers whoever it was

They tried to cram so many variations of Batman

so many storyline variations of Batman and Superman

fighting each other like the whole thing where

you said about Lois being the key and Will and

Lois dying or whatever it is that happened to

be very first issue of injure of not in not injustice

Crap yes, and Justice got him. Yes. Yes. Yeah,

cuz the joke. Yeah killed her or something or

other so Yeah, I well no not the Joker didn't

kill her he killed her He huh Joker gave Batman

gave Superman some fear time. Oh, that's right

and made him think that he was fighting him state

So he took him out of the atmosphere. That's

right. It it's been a while since I've written

but but but you see my point They're cramming

in too many comic story line this there was there

was Think they counted like Seven or eight different

story elements that were from other things, but

the Dark Knight Rises did the same thing But

it was all Batman stuff so My the way that they

introduced the Justice League was interesting

by having them have files yeah, and then the

interaction between Wonder Woman saying Batman

says, I think you have something of mine. And

she's like, didn't you hear? It's nice to share.

She says, besides it's encrypted with high level

encryption, it's in your glove box. And so Batman

decodes it and then sends her an email with the

decrypted files, which was great. Yeah, his line

to her was after he did that. He says, boys can

share too. Well yeah, but his little line to

her was. This isn't a picture you wanted this

is a picture of you Because she says something

that there's a picture on the drive or something

before when it went when she goes to steal it

from and then once he Decrypts it he says it's

not that you wanted a picture off the drive because

the picture is of you and it's got her in the

suit and whatever I I don't mind the way that

they are leading to Justice League Because as

we all know half the time it's Batman assembling

the team. It's you know Yeah, and some people

were having problems with it because it was Batman

assembling the team and I said it actually makes

perfect sense because he's the one that Is gonna

be the one that tracks them all down and puts

them together mm -hmm Yeah, I mean and Because

he's the one that's going to eventually sign

no one of these Justice League movies Whatever

whatever one is it may not be the first one may

not be this one of these damn movies is gonna

be doomed Because it's going to be him his plans

of taking out the Justice League and keeping

them in check So it made sense to I my main complaint

about the story and the plot and all that is

There's too much of it. There's too many things

going on. There's too many different storylines

You've seen Inside Out, right? Yeah. There's

a line in there where the fear emotion says,

stick to one plot line already. And that's really

like, if this is going to supposedly start, if

Man of Steel started the universe and Dawn of

Justice is supposed to further the DC cinematic

universe, it should have been just either the

fight and the assembly of or or the the planning

of the assembly of the league or it shouldn't

have been all this in if we wanted inception

upon inception upon inception it should have

been it shouldn't have been Snyder doing this

directing it should have been Nolan doing it

because no I know but I mean you made the comment

that it's a dream within a dream just like inception

So, that's what I'm saying. I think Nolan would

have done it better and I wouldn't have such

a big pro... Like, I got confused as all hell

with the dream sequences. I did not know what

the... I understood that it's a future that...

What it was, it was a foreshadowing of a possible

future. Yeah. If Lois did not stop Batman from,

you know, fighting Superman, essentially. Or

if Lois had died at the hands of Lex. Then probably

all hell would have broke loose just like that

But No, I mean, I think the movie was was was

pretty good overall There were there a lot of

plot holes and in issues. Yes, the characterizations

weren't that great to be honest like this as

far as They didn't have a lot of time to grow

None of them. Yeah. No, they didn't the only

one that seemed to get it them It was because

he got the most time on screen was Batman and

because they They they kind of got all of his

his Darkness out there and showing why he had

a problem with Superman and then you know Superman

kind of having a grudge against Batman a little

bit and You know every time Alfred showed up

was pure like gold Yeah. Okay, now I love Jeremy

Irons and almost everything he does. I think

he played a really good Alfred, having him have

a more active role and then being snarky. He

almost reminded me of the animated series Alfred.

Yeah, a little bit. Don't know if I can put him

above Michael Cain though because Michael Cain

did a damn good job in those three films He did

good with what he had but he was still the butler.

Yeah, he wasn't the snarky hands -on. Yeah true

You know Alfred that we're used to from the animated

series and to me this was like the perfect Perfect

combo because he's also helping Bruce with the

detective work Yeah, he's helping him. He piloted

the Batwing. He was helping him put together

the battle suit. Oh, the Batwing. I was not expecting

that. Again, I'm going to go back to my generalizations.

As I've said over the last three years, I personally

believe we did not start getting good trailers

for this movie until this year's Super Bowl.

Oh, no, I agree. I think all those previous trailers

were garbage. And I think that they should have

saved on Doomsday, too. Yeah, it's a whole other

thing, but at least they got them out of the

way now. So now they can work on some other villain

or some other big, like you said, Darkseid or

Brick. There's a lot of - I want Brainiac. Yeah,

there's a lot of rumors around the internet.

You know what would be really cool? Lex, Brainiac,

Darkseid. Basically take a book out of Justice

League, the end of Justice League Unlimited,

where - uh... brady a dark side comes back and

he's basically destroyed braniac and he's be

because he took over braniac stack he's part

braniac now and lex is out in the middle of nowhere

like you took brady and away from that that would

be kind of cool but i don't think we'll ever

do that uh... they may eventually with uh...

wasn't yet without it was great and i know some

people out there are not thrilled with that flack

I found it to be, he's a good Bruce Wayne. He

had great chemistry with Diana. You know, I thought

that was great. At first, I thought they brought

the vocoder in when he got in the super giant

metal suit, but that's not the case. He had the

vocoder the entire time, even when he was in

the regular bat suit. I honestly don't mind having

the vocoder. Well, yeah, because he wasn't changing

his own voice. He just... Because, okay, so we

all know what Ben Affleck sounds like now, okay?

You go back to 1998 and watch Good Will Hunting.

You watch a young Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting.

Yeah, we're gonna go to the Harvard Yard. The

Harvard Yard and, you know... You like apples?

Well, how do you like that? You know what I mean?

So, Ben really does - Ben has his voice that

he has now, but just like me, when I want to

break into it, I can still break into my Boston

accent. Ben really doesn't have - and this is

just me, my personal opinion of the guy from

what I've seen him do over the years. He doesn't

have a lot of vocal range. He can't, you know,

chew up a bunch of gravel and spit it out like

this, like Bale did. you know yeah Ben can't

do that so I I honestly did not mind the Volcoder

I thought it made it better because it gave us

a Batman voice that is also Ben Affleck and I

thought that was really cool like I already said

the Batmobile oh my god the Batmobile and then

the Batwing because the trailers I don't think

the trailers ever showed the Batwing so I was

super surprised when that came I was not expecting

that But I think that the film while It has its

issues. I think it still is It got unfair Hmm

rankings prior to the release there was a screenshot

God from Rotten Tomatoes when it first came out

That's another subject. I know I know I know

but I'm just saying you've seen the screenshot,

right? Where they had is a screenshot of Rotten

Tomatoes where they have Daredevil as the highest

Two other movies and then Batman V Superman at

the bottom. Yeah And honestly, it's like and

I know a lot of people point this out to me and

they and I've looked at this before You know

Rotten Tomatoes calm or dot org or whatever.

I think it's a calm I don't know. I don't I don't

go to Rotten Tomatoes. I don't I don't ever I

don't I never use Rotten Tomatoes and the funny

thing is somebody posted earlier this week, give

me two seconds to find it, alright here it is,

there was a guy called Jay Elequanza, I don't

know, on Twitter, he says the fact that Rotten

Tomatoes had the Daredevil movie rated higher

than BBS is all I needed to know about their

ratings system. And then In Session Film replies

to that and says, Metacritic is a more accurate

representation. And Rotten Tomatoes has never

gauged a film that... I watch. I don't judge,

I don't use them at all. Well see here's the

thing with Rotten Tomatoes and this, I think

it was movie role Dan or somebody, it might have

been Optimus Solo, I don't remember, one of our

other hosts, one of our other friends pointed

this out to me. You have the Rotten Tomatoes

rating, so the 37 % or the 35 % or whatever it

is that Rotten Tomatoes has and then over on

the right you have the actual user rating and

the user rating at the time when I saw the 37

% Rotten Tomato rating for BBS. I looked over

to the right and the user rating for the movie

was like at 96%. So I missed the days and obviously

we can't go back because they're both up in heaven

arguing over films now but I really do miss the

days where you could actually turn on a television

and watch Siskel and Ebert and get somewhat of

an honest opinion of whatever film it was. I

would watch them with an open mind. And then

I would disagree with them off screen. But now

I can do that at my own luxury, yes. But yeah,

I didn't much agree with them on a lot of things.

But the point is, yeah, you still had legitimate

critics. Whereas now, I don't know. There's not

really any of them out there that are like even

that Richard Malton or whatever He's not even

doing one or Leonard. Yeah, so I mean they're

like those big three like you don't hear anything

from anybody else besides Where everybody's a

critic where everybody's a critic and oh God,

did you ever see the Yelp South Park episode?

Cartman and a bunch of other people in South

Park all became Yelp reviewers and it was this

whole thing about Yelp's anyway It's one of those

things where, and I think, and this could just

be me, listeners, if this is just me, let me

know in the comments. When I was a kid, from

the time I was seven until the time I was 15

or 16, I would always watch Entertainment Tonight

or... access hollywood or whatever they had at

the time to get the entertainment news because

it's all we had back in the eighties was was

like something like entertainment tonight you

know and now you have the news and you have vh1

and tv news and but my question for the listeners

is do you guys actually still watch Entertainment

magazines on TV like entertainment tonight or

e -news or something like that to get your entertainment

news or would you rather just go sit at your

computer and Do what we do find news articles

on on your own because here's the thing Half

of the movie critics that we grew up with Siskel

and Ebert Leonard Malton all these other all

these other people They would do film reviews

on camera for these news magazines And you don't

really see that a lot these days, you know, you

you look at something like Good Morning America

or What's the other one? Today something like

that. They'll have an actor come on and do an

interview and talk about the film But they don't

actually have an outside reviewer or something.

I just think it's a dying media platform at this

point to actually have a film critic be on a

television show telling you that they saw the

film or they thought of the film. I mean, most

of the stuff these days for film reviews, it's

podcasts or it's YouTube videos or whatever.

And like you already said, Because we now have

the internet, everybody and their brother and

mother and cousins, dogs, paper, sack has an

opinion. And not everybody's going to agree,

and that's not a bad thing. Oh God, I just made

a Justin Timberlake song reference, Jesus Christ.

Oh, holy crap. You know, there are plenty of

movies out there that I absolutely love watching.

that i will give a favorable review to i will

also still look at them critically okay uh...

you know i will still look at them with a critical

eye i mean we've we've been doing in wire for

walls on the networks around for seven years

or so now and there are plenty of movies that

we watched that week going back didn't find certain

parts of the majority or whatever else but it's

just one of those things that were The landscape

of the way films are reviewed these days is so

vastly different than what it was 20, 30 years

ago. Yep. Yep. So, with that, we'll be back with

a quick break. Are you a fan of gaming? Well,

then the geek cast radio network has you covered

What might you be asking is this entire? idea

surrounding well You may be remembering that

we did a show called off the cuff or XRG Extreme

retro gaming back in the day. Well, there is

a re -envisioning coming for this however There

is going to be a new countdown And this is a

totally different countdown than the top 100.

And we just got done in the fall, late fall,

with a Keycast Radio Network top 100 television

series countdown. So now I figured that, and

I kind of wanted to do this for about a year

or so, but the logistics weren't quite right.

This is kind of what we've we've come down to

We are going to do the top 50 Video game franchises,

and you might be asking why video game franchises

in top 50 well if we did a top 100 of it It seems

to be kind of a daunting task for some people

especially with the vast amount of video games

out there and their sequels and so on and so

forth or various consoles that they might be

on So instead of gauging them based on what console

that they debuted on or like for instance if

you've played like Arkham City on Xbox or PlayStation

you might have a different experience with it

or even on the PC so it kind of it allows us

to lump them all together. So if you're going

to choose for instance let's say like You love

Halo 3, you love Halo 4, you love, you know,

Halo 5, whatever. If you put them all together,

you know, you group them as a franchise and we

vote on based on that. So like you'd have like

the Arkham series, Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield.

You would vote based on the merit of the entire

franchise rather than if they had a crappy game

here or if they had three great games and a bad

game. It would allow much more diversity to show

up in the the list rather than having five halos

show up three Batman's of Arkham you know four

battlefields and it would just get muddied down

by having the same franchise show up over and

over and over and over so in doing this it's

one hit boom done move on so There is a submission

form on the website and what this is for is I've

been kind of wanting to get a new way of doing

it so that in the same vein of the GCRN wars

we could have Where you the listeners and our

friends and fans out there could vote on The

next countdown because the top 100 is kind of

an all -inclusive like We have various geek networks

that join up with us. We have ourselves. It's

it's Not just the geek cast radio networks list

per se but it is a lot of your your fellow podcasters

out there and fellow fans voting on this stuff,

so I figured with this We could break the mold

and kind of test this out with the top 50s And

kind of keeping the top 100s true to what they

are and keep the top 50s is something entirely

different to where It's a fan vote And in much

like the the top 100s and in the GCR and wars

It will be you know several podcast episodes

However the first episode is going to be the

first 25 countdowns And we'll be talking about

those the second episode so the first episode

would be 50 through 26 and the second episode

would be 25 through 1 and then We may or may

not do the wrap -up in that episode depending

on how long it takes I would Like to have quite

a few lists. I've already had a few submitted

So with doing the top 50 With with these multiple

episodes it'll be much like the regular top 100

and the the top or in the GCR and wars So it'll

be fan vote completely this this will be Everybody's

it's open to everyone everyone will be able to

vote including our staff and all the people we've

collaborated with in the past This is a very

much Experiment of sorts Not quite sure how this

is going to turn out, but it should it should

be fine I would think but it definitely allows

for everyone to Submit and give their name and

you know Whether they're affiliated with a place

or if they'd like, you know, they'd be put on

kind of a mailing list for information There's

also a spot where you can submit a Excel document.

So if you don't feel like filling out this 50

page or not 50 page 50 Little type in box form

that's on the website. You can also submit by

email your submission and it will allow me to

Easily incorporate it with the other lists so

there are two methods to doing this it will be

Quite interesting To say the least so yeah, definitely

go to the website. It's at the top of the website

check it out It's the top 50 video game franchise

countdown So, yeah, until the next clip. See

you in a minute. Hi, this is Pat Fraley, purveyor

of Doc, Doug, and Dylan Voices, and you're watching

Altered Geek. So I think to wrap up the episode,

we will do the Transformers. Oh. Oh, okay, okay.

I'm like, wait. What are we doing with the Transformers?

Then again, I don't want to really know that

question. It sounds like a personal question

now. Yeah, you do what you want with the Transformers.

I don't want to learn that. No, no, no. Although

Masterpiece Optimus Primal is out. That's good.

Or coming out in October, I mean. So I made a

joke in this week's pullback in the middle clip.

We, myself, Amy, Nicole, and Heather. uh... review

the idw transformers deviations and the store

that's it's a one shot the story is what if optimus

prime didn't die uh... in the episode i say that

i say that heather because heather's a huge megatron

fangirl we were talking about no matter how you

change the story optimus megatron normally don't

really have a good day either way because they

both end up dying You know, Megatron turns into

Galvatron and all that stuff or anything else.

I'm like, well, you know, I said something about

Heather riding Megatron like a bucking bronco

and it just, it just cracked her up and apparently

they thought I said the, they, they thought I

dropped an F -brom and I'm like, no, bucking

with a B, not an F. So that was funny, but yeah,

Transformers BotCon, April 7th to the 10th, 2016,

here in Louisville, Kentucky at the Galt House

Hotel. It's gonna be crazy. It's just gonna be

crazy. I don't currently have the funds to attend,

not even as a general admission. I just, I don't

know. And I'm just kind of not really there.

I'm just not into what they're doing for this

quote -unquote last bot con under fun pub or

Brian Savage or whatever the guy's name is I

don't even know it's fun. Yeah, so The only thing

I was super excited expensive pub. Yeah, the

only thing I was super excited about was something

that was announced I think this morning or last

night or something or other I noticed Stan Bush

on Twitter Retweeted tformers .com So I looked

at it and I'm like, okay, Stan Bush and Vince

DiCola are going to be doing a live concert at

4th Street Live here in Louisville, Kentucky.

I think it's Saturday night at 8 .30 PM. It is

open to the entire public and it is a free concert.

So you don't even have to be, to my knowledge,

you don't even have to be a BotCon attendee.

You can just come down and show up. have to explain

all this so 4th Street live is Louisville's downtown

kind of not club thing but Entertainment kind

of district thing it actually used to be the

Louisville Galleria if you've ever seen a strip

think Think of like a greenhouse Okay, so it's

all glass. It used to be an all glass enclosure

and it was basically a mall for downtown Louisville.

So they turn this into 4th Street Live. There's

a bowling alley down there. There's like a EB

games or Babbage's or a GameStop, whatever it's

called now. There's a whole bunch of other stuff

down there, but they have this stage called 4th

Street Live where they put on concerts and stuff

and it's going to be pretty awesome. I'm hoping

I get to go to that. Because that would be really

cool seeing Stan and Vince in concert. Oh, yeah.

But yeah, BotCon, celebrating 20th anniversary

of Beast Wars. I don't know. You're going to

meet David Kay. Right. I'm not attending the

convention, though. I mean, if David shows up

to the concert, sure, great. The only reason,

because I've said this before on the show, the

only reason why I would even want to attend at

this point to be able to go to BotCon, I want

the Judd Nelson Golden ticket pass. Oh my God.

Yeah, that was Frank Welker last year. Yeah.

And it's an ungodly price. i don't know there's

no reason why she costs that much i know i know

but it's it's work on it's it's for i'm sorry

but i i don't know if i'm i didn't find a seven

hundred dollars for that is read dick you listen

we see something here that's a house payment

that's a that's a red payment for some people

to for an apartment uh... I don't know. It could

be because I'm poor and I'm cheap. I'm going

to read this revatum from the BotCon website

just so I get it right. We are thrilled to offer

the BotCon 2016 Judd Nelson VIP Pass. This package

upgrade allows you access to our very special

BotCon 2016 guest, Judd Nelson. This is the first

ever appearance for Judd Nelson at a Transformers

convention. The VIP Pass is $129 and is in addition

to the cost of your Primus Golden Ticket, Primus

Minicon or Protoform package. The Judd Nelson

VIP Pass includes One autograph signed in person

by Judd Nelson, Friday afternoon. One professional

5x7 photograph with Judd Nelson, Saturday afternoon.

Exclusive Hot Rod art print. Exclusive Hot Rod...

Closium? Pin? Oh, it's a pin. And first seating

at the Judd Nelson panel. Please note that there

will be no photography permitted during the autograph

session. Yeah, because they make you pay for

that. Okay, so they have two options here. You

have the VIP pass that's included with the other

Primus packages, or the general admission ticket

for $189. It's essentially the same stuff as

what I just read. Light registration, yeah, golf.

Speaking of conventions, I'm going to be going

to Midwest Media Expo. Yes, you are. And that's

a couple weeks. Yes, it is. And the kind of awesome

part about this whole endeavor is their guest

list. These are the people not mind you they

don't charge you for It's included in the in

the price of the yeah of admission. Yes. Yes

So they have Jeffrey Combs ratchet from Transformers

Prime Among other things shows. He's also in

TMNT. Yep They have Greg Weisman. Mm -hmm Which

is gargoyles and young justice Jason Marsden

Yeah gear Billy West ran and Stimpy And fry and

fry and and bashful in the 70 but yeah We also

have John st. John which is Duke nukem mm -hmm

Kyle a bear mm -hmm is Gohan I think Isn't he

Goku? No, he's not Goku. That's Sean Schiml.

Oh, that's Sean Schiml. Yeah, he's Gohan. And

then he's the announcer for Dragon Ball Z, I

think. Yeah, Steve Downs, voice of Master Chief.

And then there's like a ton of other people going

that are guests. They got Richard Horowitz, who

is Zim on Invader Zim. Among other things, but

yeah, I mean just the just the list of people

that are that are going alone are enticing And

I I was like well All of these people are very

interesting I want to meet some of them. I want

autographs. I want pictures They will be very

accessible want to get their contact details

for interviews later Hey, it's virtually a business

meeting, all right? Yeah, I mean... But no, I'm

going to be going and I should be getting all

their autographs anyhow because of something

that I entered into prior. Cool. Which I'm not

going to divulge any information on, but yeah,

I'm pretty geeked about going. It's my first

like... local general geek convention that I'm

going to So and I was debating this one or Motor

City actually, but I really wanted to go to this

because it was different and Sometimes you get

different media people that show up Just depending

they get they get more of the modern media people

instead of the people that have been around for

like 50 years not saying anything against them,

but Like you go to Motor City Comic -Con, your

cheapest autograph or picture is $60. And the

most expensive is like $200. So, and they're,

don't get me wrong, I wanted to go to that too.

But Motor City Comic -Con, their media guests,

and I'm just doing media, I'm not even looking

at the comic because comic would take ages to

list. They got Adam Westbert Ward. Four horsemen

from WWF They have and these are just names that

that I Vaguely know from some property. Mm -hmm

Like you have William Davis, Jameson David Frank.

They get some cosplayers in there. They got Some

people like they got Allison Mack who was in

smallville. They got Elden Henson who's on daredevil

Cool guess to get They got some people from Doctor

Who. They got, this one just makes me laugh,

Tara Reid. She's like in Sharknado 4 or something

now. Christopher Savitt who plays Vegeta and

Piccolo on Dragon Ball Z. Robin Lord Taylor who's

Penguin on Gotham which would be kind of cool.

Since you brought up Penguin and Gotham really

quickly, have you seen... Yes, I've watched all

of it. Pee Wee's Christmas thing or holiday,

whatever that... His new movie? Yeah. I started

watching it when it came out and then I haven't

been back to it because of reasons. My girlfriend

Jen says she watched it and we were talking about

it. It's great that Paul Rubins has an acting

career outside of... The mainstay role that most

of us know him as is Pee Wee Herman. He's too

old for that character now. I just can't... He's

too old for it. He was in the blacklist, I think,

in season two or season three. I don't know.

He was in the blacklist as a character. He returned

to the Batman roots because he was the dad of

Penguin in Batman Returns, and he's now the dad

of Penguin in Gotham, which I think is going

to be kind of cool, but... I just I'm not too

sure on and I and I I haven't seen the new PV

movie so I My general opinion has nothing to

do with the content of the film. I just think

he's too old for the character now Yeah, I'll

I still have yet to watch it to actually make

any kind of judgment call but uh but yeah, I'm

I Don't know I I like it but Yeah, going back

to the convention thing, I'm looking forward

to that. I'm planning on doing some video and

images and uploading them. I did, and nobody

will probably notice this, but I did create a

GCRN Instagram page. Don't quite know why, but

everybody uses it. So I was like, you know, if

I go to a convention, I'll just upload those

pictures from the convention there. So, it'll

work. Have you guys ever thought of taking the

boys... I know Nolan's too young, but Ian's not

too young at this point. Here in Louisville,

we have the Carl Casper's Custom Auto Show. Have

you ever thought of taking the kids to a local

show like that? They don't have any really...

They used to have a lot of that stuff when I

was a kid. But they just don't have as much of

that around anymore. I know they're trying to

revitalize some of Flint, but obviously with...

The water issue. No, with the state wanting to

poison everyone. That too. So, I'll leave that

alone. But no, they're gonna have a Flint comic

expo. Thing which is at the Flint farmers market,

which they is pretty new building At the end

of April So we may end up taking taking the boys

and going to that there's not gonna be any like

high -profile guests or anything It's just gonna

be you know Small comic -con be interesting.

I mean You can do a state fair or no They do

it's in like Midland, okay, but I've never been

to that one our county has one every year in

August. But we haven't been to that recently

because it's a waste of money to take the kid

on it at this point. Because Kentucky, we have

the Kentucky State Fair and that's usually like

a week in August at some point and they have

a whole bunch of free concerts, they have a whole

bunch of stuff at the fairgrounds and everything

else and obviously we have the giant... Two minute

horse race event with the derby and all that

but there's a lot of stuff here that That they

constantly put on like I've never seen like,

you know, you think of New York and LA and Boston

and Lesser extent Dallas Texas or you know, you

think you think of all these, you know Like I

said Los Angeles Hollywood San Diego San Francisco

all is a place to have all this part in performance

stuff and it will was got a lot of stuff we've

got a kentucky center for the arts we've got

actors theater we've got a whole bunch of cool

stuff we uh... uh... i don't think it's i don't

think it's the ringling brothers but i think

almost every february they have a circus here

at some point or another uh... there's just a

lot of events and i just figured that maybe where

you guys are that they have a lot of events like

that kind of stuff you could use you know the

gcr and thing is like hey we're out and about

with the family and and we're you know we're

at these events you can take pictures that kind

of stuff i guess i don't know yeah i mean we're

gonna try and hit up some conventions i mean

but mostly gonna be local since uh we're gonna

have to buy a new roof for our house oh boy Yeah,

it's leaking. While we're on personal issues,

I just pulled a muscle in my leg. Ow, that hurt.

And yeah, so the hillbillies that installed our

roof before we moved in didn't do it right. So

yeah, we got to spend some hellacious amount

of money on it. I was going to bring up something

else about like pertaining to money, but I'm

going to save that for next week because that

will fit well with some other things that I'm

hoping we can actually get to. I'm going to try

and reach out to some people. That's what BMW

stands for, big money waste or beats my wife.

No, thank you. I would rather go to the words

money pit. How about BMW backwards wanted Mercedes

Benz? Never had that inclination. No, I know.

No, I miss it. I miss al april. That's a guy

is al april He's an airline comic and he does

these auto nims Auto nims yeah auto nims so like

ford found on road dead fifth on race day first

on you take you know, so Whatever But yeah, no,

it's April fools and all that and the weather

is getting nicer and Conventions are happening.

Yes. So, anything you want to pimp out real quick

before we go? Yep. Starting June 20th, podcast

organization with a lot of cool acronym, our

Phineas and Ferb review shows starts 104 days

for 104 podcasts. Oh Lord, help me please. Oh.

So far we've got the first four episodes recorded

Only a hundred more to go The math on this is

not working out very well and everyone knows

math is not my strong suit So, yeah, how can

the people get a hold of you on Twitter it's

at TF you and Mike And I am scp21, so until next

time, get Altergeeky with the Altergeeks.