Episode 26: It’s Time For Sci-Fi News

July 31, 2011

Featuring Matt Anderson and Ben De Bono

After a two week break The Sci-Fi Christian returns! With Comic-Con just past, there’s tons of news to talk about. So much in fact that we’re bringing you our first ever all news show! Tune in to find out what we think about all developments such as Man of Steel’s script troubles, the end of Ron Howard’s Dark Tower project, Frank Darabont leaving The Walking Dead, a potential Captain Planet movie and much more!

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5 comments on “Episode 26: It’s Time For Sci-Fi News

  1. First of all, I’m bummed that “Captain Smirk” didn’t win the mascot naming contest, but it didn’t even get mentioned, honorably or otherwise. What gives?

    Secondly, I found The Sci-Fi Christian through HBO’s links to the Game of Thrones reviews, and I appreciate Matt’s commitment not to read too far ahead, since I was really curious to see if the show would appeal to people who hadn’t read the books.

    So keep up the great work, but please change your mascot more often so I can earn an honorable mention…sometime in the future…eventually……

    • I can’t believe we forgot to mention Captain Smirk! That was definitely one of the better entries

  2. Mike Poteet Aug 3, 2011

    Hey, guys! Enjoyed the podcast — first-time listener, first-time commenter!

    I do have to stick up for “The Clone Wars” animated film, though. I admit: I was very disappointed when I took my son (then age 7) to see it in the theater. Taken on its own, yes, it’s slight. But it does take on additional emotional heft when viewed in the context of the ongoing cartoon (some of the best family-friendly programming on TV today). Now that I’m used to “The Clone Wars” characters, settings, and approach, I’ve enjoyed the movie more and more. Especially knowing how close Anakin and Ahsoka have become, I think it’s fun to see the beginning of that relationship (no matter how complicated it makes any consistent continuity in the “Star Wars” universe). If you haven’t given the movie another look since it was in the theaters, you should do so now and see what you think.

    As for the delay in Abrams’ “Star Trek 2”: As you both said, if the delay means the movie will be of an extra high quality, I’m all for it. (Likewise for “The Man of Steel” – I’ve gotta have hope!)

    In the meantime, are you on board for IDW’s new ongoing monthly comic series? It will revisit classic episodes in the new Trek continuity. I’ll get at least the first issue, which tackles “Where No Man Has Gone Before” – but it will have to meet or exceed expectations to stay on my pull list (times are tough, after all!).

    Speaking of Grant Morrison – have either of you read “Supergods” yet? It’s pretty interesting. It’s far less comic book history and analysis than it is autobiography, which was unexpected but not surprising, I suppose; and it’s a little self-indulgent at times (but, then again, it’s his book, so…); but worth reading for some compelling reflections on the power of stories: superhero stories in particular, but all stories in general. I haven’t finished processing it all yet, but there are some potential implications for how we as Christians treat and share our story, The Story, in there.

    “Singing Sting” must’ve been flush from his triumphant turn in David Lynch’s “Dune” when he was voicing characters on “Captain Planet”….!

    “Superman vs. the Elite” is based on Action Comics 775, which contained a very famous story (famous among Superman fans at least) called “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” It shows Superman going up against a gang of “punk” super “heroes” who think it’s okay to kill the bad guys, and is an exploration of Superman’s moral code as being what makes him “super,” not the powers themselves. A very celebrated story, and deservedly so.

    I am less excited to hear that “The Killing Joke” is on its way to DVD, especially now that Barbara will be out of her wheelchair in the new DCU. Barbara just can’t win, can she?

    Anyway, thanks again for a fun show. I look forward to being a regular listener. (Oh, and good luck and blessings in your ongoing Greek studies… but letting it get in the way of geek reading? As the apostle Paul would say, “Me genoito!”)

    • Thanks for the comments, Mike! It took me a minute but I was able to figure out and parse your transliteration at the end of your comment:)

      Is your objection to Killing Joke that it messes up continuity or do you just not like the story? Personally, I think it’d be a great candidate for the next animated movie once they’re done with Dark Knight Returns

  3. Mike Poteet Aug 3, 2011

    Sorry I couldn’t put the Greek characters in my last comment, there!

    By saying “Barbara just can’t win,” I mean this: for years, she has been the only hero who was not allowed to recover from a traumatic, crippling injury (whereas Superman got to come back after Doomsday, Batman got to come back after having his back broken, Hal Jordan is back post-Parallax…) — and now that she *is* being given back mobility (maybe — if the new DCU takes place “earlier,” as several people have said, and if “Killing Joke” is still “canon,” as others have said, then I guess her fate is sealed in the end), we’re going to have an animated DVD, that presumably will reach a larger audience than the comics-reading audience alone, where we get to see that violence done to her all over again.

    And, since it’s an animated film, I presume we’ll *see* it happen in a way that is more brutal than the panel to panel, “you fill in the action between the gutters” nature of reading sequential art. How much of the humiliation and the shooting of Barbara Gordon will the DVD actually show?

    I am not a “Killing Joke” hater — the paralyzing shooting of Barbara isn’t a deal-breaker for my appreciation of the story — and, yes, she is a stronger character as Oracle than as Batgirl. Still, it’s a really ugly moment in DC history, and I don’t know that DC needs to fetishize it any further (e.g., the image on the latest edition of the TPB of the story is the Joker snapping pictures [of Barbara]; the DC Direct maquette of the tropical-shirt wearing, camera-snapping Joker — it’s the male gaze all gone really, really wrong… which I suppose could have been part of Moore’s point, but, still…. yuck.) (And these arguments aren’t original with me, but I do think they carry much weight.)

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