Masters of the Universe Review

Intro Sketch

Rex (00:00:00 - 00:00:01): Let’s go!

Rex (00:00:01 - 00:00:07): The True North Nerds are about to start! I know! I’m trying to find the signal!

Rex (00:00:07 - 00:00:09): Thank you, Monster Nerd!

Rex (00:00:09 - 00:00:10): No, that’s the wrong one.

Rex (00:00:10 - 00:00:13): Move over! Let me do it!

Rex (00:00:13 - 00:00:16): If I don’t go to this nerd school, I’m gonna lose my mind!

Rex (00:00:16 - 00:00:19): Come on, come on!

Rex (00:00:19 - 00:00:21): We can’t go against that guy! We’re nerds!

Rex (00:00:21 - 00:00:24): We’re gonna miss it!

Rex (00:00:24 - 00:00:27): My fellow nerds and I will retire to the nerdery with our calculators.

Rex (00:00:27 - 00:00:28): Wait!

Rex (00:00:28 - 00:00:29): I got it!

Theme Song

Kirby Crackle (00:00:29 - 00:00:59): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]

Welcome and News

Brent (00:01:28 - 00:01:30): Welcome, loyal listeners, to another episode of True North Nerds.

Speaker B (00:01:30 - 00:01:30): Woo!

Brent (00:01:33 - 00:01:49): In this episode, we’re going to be talking about Masters of the Universe, the, the movie, the, the new movie, not the old movie or the Christmas special or, or any of that stuff. The, the brand spanking new movie, because we all saw it, or at least the three of us saw it.

Ryan (00:01:50 - 00:01:57): How many times during the movie did you like, oh, I want to see them remake the Christmas special now?

Brent (00:02:00 - 00:02:04): Well, they follow the Guardians template. They could.

Ryan (00:02:04 - 00:02:10): I kept waiting for, for Jared Leto’s Skeletor to be like, I don’t want to be good, I want to be evil.

Jen (00:02:11 - 00:02:16): And there was the perfect opportunity and then they didn’t do it. And I was like, ah, dang.

Brent (00:02:17 - 00:02:22): So, uh, we will get further into our review in just a minute, but first we have Ryan.

Ryan (00:02:23 - 00:02:24): Hey, hello.

Brent (00:02:24 - 00:02:27): And we have Jen. Hi, and with me, Brent.

Ryan (00:02:28 - 00:02:29): Hi, Brent.

Brent (00:02:29 - 00:02:39): And we may have Kevin, to be determined. He has the link, he might drop by, we shall see.

Ryan (00:02:40 - 00:02:42): Um, Ryan, that’s me.

Brent (00:02:42 - 00:02:45): Yes, how are you? Uh, what news do you have this week?

Ryan (00:02:45 - 00:02:57): Um, I got some news. Okay, here we go. We got our first look at, um, the new season for X-Men ‘97. Did you guys watch that trailer? I did.

Jen (00:02:57 - 00:03:00): Okay, good. I can’t remember if I did.

Ryan (00:03:00 - 00:03:24): Yeah, it was at the beginning of the last 2 weeks, I think. So, um, yeah, looks good. Looks like it’s a continuation, you know, just picking up right where we left off. Well, maybe not exactly where we left off, but, you know, the events of where we left off, uh, at the end of season 1 with, uh, our main X-Men team spread out through time. So there’ll be some time travel shenanigans and all that kind of fun.

Jen (00:03:25 - 00:03:32): I think I did see it, but I don’t remember. Yeah, that’s okay. I gotta rewatch season 1 now because I don’t remember what happened in season 1.

Ryan (00:03:32 - 00:03:39): Oh, you should start watching it then because season 2 starts, uh, the end of this month, beginning of next month.

Jen (00:03:39 - 00:03:42): Unless it’s season 1— if season 2 starts with a recap, I’m good.

Ryan (00:03:42 - 00:03:43): Oh, they usually do.

Jen (00:03:43 - 00:03:45): Yeah, then I’ll be fine.

Ryan (00:03:47 - 00:04:10): Um, Ghostbusters, that long-awaited Netflix cartoon, you know, the one we’ve been kept saying, oh, it’s coming, it’s coming, we’re working on it. Yep, it’s coming. I think it’s been like 2 years that we’ve been waiting for it now. Um, it has a— we’ve been told it’s supposed to come out next year, of course, but we have a title. It’s called Ghostbusters: Night Shift.

Brent (00:04:13 - 00:04:13): Cool.

Ryan (00:04:13 - 00:04:29): Yeah. Uh, looking forward to that. Ooh. So we have, we have some more news in the ongoing, uh, Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery merger that we used to love to talk about so much, uh, months ago.

Brent (00:04:29 - 00:04:30): Mm-hmm.

Ryan (00:04:30 - 00:04:40): So apparently, uh, California, New York, and several other states are preparing to file a lawsuit to block the $110 billion deal.

Jen (00:04:41 - 00:04:46): Just because they don’t want one company to own that many companies, probably.

Ryan (00:04:46 - 00:05:32): Yeah, the whole, you know, monopoly thing. Yep. That, um, the fact that 49.5% of the company will be foreign-owned. Oh yeah, which is a bit of a red flag because that pretty much means like things like CNN and a few other of those news channels that are all— would all end up being under that umbrella. Um, would now more or less be, you know, because I think the 49.5% is like one entity or one group of foreign investors as an entity versus the rest being kind of a little more spread out. Uh, so yeah, they could easily have controlling interest in, uh, what’s going on on American news. So, you know, it’s already propaganda anyway.

Jen (00:05:32 - 00:05:44): I was gonna say That could be good or bad. Yeah, I mean, it could be good that maybe Americans will now see what the rest of the world thinks of them, but it’ll also be bad for obvious reasons.

Ryan (00:05:44 - 00:06:24): Yeah. Uh, but the other interest— another interesting thing, um, so Paramount, they face a— it’s called— they’re calling it a ticking fee of 25 cents per share each quarter if the deal slips past September. Now you think, oh, 25 cents, that’s not a big deal. It works out to being about $650 million a quarter in a fee, in a fine, I guess, to the— that they would then— that they would have to pay to Warner Brothers whether the deal goes through or not. Another one, more money that they’re throwing away.

Jen (00:06:24 - 00:06:26): Wait, who has to pay that to Warner Brothers?

Ryan (00:06:27 - 00:06:30): Well, Paramount, because they’re the ones buying— they’re the ones trying to buy them, right?

Jen (00:06:30 - 00:06:34): Oh, so for any amount of time postponed?

Ryan (00:06:34 - 00:07:01): Yeah, if the— if they don’t have the deal done by September, then they have to start paying the shareholders this 25 cents a share fee. Ah, which in, in total, for the amount of shares that are out there, works out to being about $650 million. Um, Stargate. Were you guys ever big fans of Stargate? Did you watch Stargate?

Brent (00:07:02 - 00:07:06): No. Um, the movie, yes. The TV show, not really.

Jen (00:07:06 - 00:07:10): I think I’ve seen one episode of the TV show and I did not like it.

Ryan (00:07:10 - 00:07:11): Oh, really?

Jen (00:07:11 - 00:07:18): Oh, because it was basically just Americans going to other universes and being like, you’re living wrong, live the American way.

Ryan (00:07:18 - 00:07:20): Not other universes, with other planets.

Jen (00:07:21 - 00:07:25): Tomato, tomato. I still didn’t like it, but maybe that was just the one episode I saw.

Ryan (00:07:25 - 00:08:10): Yeah. Um, I really enjoyed the show, uh, and the spin-offs. Uh, so I think we may have mentioned before, Amazon MGM was looking at rebooting or rebooting, bringing it back, having a new show. Um, apparently this week stories come out that they’ve put the kibosh to that. Mostly because— wasn’t because it was a bad— like, what they were— they thought what they were making was bad, but that the higher-ups in charge thought it was— oh, the show would appeal to Stargate fans but not a wider, a broader audience.

Brent (00:08:11 - 00:08:17): Yeah, which apparently the showrunner has now come out and said, “This is bullshit. That’s bullshit.

Jen (00:08:17 - 00:08:22): Why would I do that?” I need to get new Stargate fans.

Brent (00:08:22 - 00:08:23): Yeah, exactly.

Jen (00:08:23 - 00:08:25): Because how old is that show? Like, didn’t that come out in the ’90s?

Ryan (00:08:27 - 00:08:32): Uh, it started in the ’90s, I’m sure. Yeah, wouldn’t be surprised. Yeah, I think it went on for a long time.

Jen (00:08:33 - 00:08:42): So yeah, but it’s like rebooting it is— the idea is to get new fans to the franchise, not to just, you know, make the new— the older fans happy.

Ryan (00:08:42 - 00:09:25): No, no, but see, I don’t think It’s— it’s all the franchise and the story is open enough that you wouldn’t even need to do a full reboot. It could be like, like a rework. It’s just you put it that it’s been however many years since the show went off the air, so then you have all new people, it’s a whole new situation, and everybody that’s watching learns the status quo as you know, as the show progresses, right? But, uh, yeah, so it sounds like it’s, it’s been canceled, it’s been done, but it seems like a lame excuse, very similar to the Buffy excuse we got.

Jen (00:09:25 - 00:09:47): Yeah. Um, that’s how so many people just want to redo old stuff that was popular. Like, you can see in the amount of redo reboots and, yep, you know, sequels of movies and that are like from the ’90s, you think that they would at least give it a chance and see? But whatever, I don’t run a studio.

Ryan (00:09:47 - 00:10:24): Well, especially nowadays where it’s like, really, you make, you know, one of these streaming shows, it’s 10 episodes. Yeah, they’re not making 22, 24-episode seasons for most of this stuff anymore. Yeah, but yeah, well Who knows? Uh, but speaking of, you know, my little Buffy tie-in there, we did get some sad news this week, uh, that actor Anthony Stewart Head, uh, known for his role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then most recently also he was a villain on Ted Lasso, um, passed away at the age of 72 from complications of pneumonia.

Jen (00:10:24 - 00:10:32): That was very sad to hear. Yes, Giles has always been my favorite Buffy character. Has been since I first watched Buffy and remains so.

Ryan (00:10:33 - 00:10:38): Um, has nothing to do with the fact that you became a librarian for a while.

Jen (00:10:38 - 00:10:57): I don’t know, it might, but I was seeing a lot of like on Facebook and on TikTok, people were like, drop your favorite Giles quote as a celebration. So that put me down a rabbit hole of looking up Giles quotes, and I think my favorite is, Xander, don’t speak Latin in front of the books. Yeah.

Brent (00:11:00 - 00:11:42): Um, it also, uh, I saw this like happen once or twice, the, the use of AI to put together like a group photo and like kind of like gray out the people who have passed. Yeah, I saw that, which is like kind of annoying as is, but I saw at least two of them where, uh, Michelle Trachtenberg had been copied into the photo twice. Nice. Like, it was just like her at different ages. I think it was supposed— one of them was supposed to be, um, what’s her name, uh, the woman who played Cordelia, Charpenter.

Jen (00:11:42 - 00:11:42): Yeah.

Brent (00:11:42 - 00:11:53): And like, because in the position in the photo, it kind of looks like a standard Buffy, uh, press photo, but the AI just fucked up and put the same person in twice.

Jen (00:11:54 - 00:12:08): Yeah. Yep, I’ve seen other ones. They’ve done angel wings on, on, uh, the three characters who’ve passed. And I’m like, just, it’s, it’s, yeah, yeah, it’s a—

Brent (00:12:08 - 00:12:30): I, I hate it when people do it because, because, you know, not to get on a full AI rant here, but like, I— when Hulk Hogan passed away, who is not one of my favorite people, but when he passed away, there was all these AI videos of him like going to heaven and like having beers with all his old opponents. I don’t know I’m like, half of these fuckers didn’t like him.

Ryan (00:12:30 - 00:12:31): Yeah.

Jen (00:12:32 - 00:12:37): Also, is he going to heaven? Yeah.

Ryan (00:12:41 - 00:12:42): Who are we to judge?

Brent (00:12:42 - 00:12:43): Yep.

Jen (00:12:43 - 00:12:45): Yeah, we do not judge.

Ryan (00:12:47 - 00:13:03): Uh, I think one of the nicest little, uh, I guess messages I saw go out— I can’t— I don’t know if it was from Allison Hannigan or from Sarah Michelle Gellar, but it was like a message to his his children saying thank you for sharing your dad with us.

Jen (00:13:03 - 00:13:04): Yeah, I saw that one too.

Brent (00:13:05 - 00:13:56): The other story that’s been floating around, which is kind of awesome, is, um, a story about a transgender fan of his who had had like a bunch of photos and photo ops with him in their previous like, uh, sex and they had since transitioned, and I guess had met him at a show and like told the story and stuff like that. And he had this person to his house to re-sign all the photos under their new name, which is like— that is like, one, awesome and great on him for understanding that, but two, that’s going above and beyond. Yeah, it’s one thing to do it for free at a convention, but to have the person over at your house.

Jen (00:13:56 - 00:14:05): Like, damn, that’s sweet. Yeah, no, this one, uh, this one made me sad.

Ryan (00:14:06 - 00:14:34): Yeah. Um, and so my last little bit of news is come something, you know, completely different. Bring, you know, I guess there’s a, a bunch of different video game conferences going on, uh, right now. So there’s a bunch of cool new video games being announced and previewed. And Brent, we talked about it yesterday, but it’s alive again. There’s a TMNT: The Last Ronin video game officially announced.

Brent (00:14:36 - 00:14:42): Yes, and it looked like there was actual gameplay footage as well.

Ryan (00:14:42 - 00:14:44): Uh, I just saw like that little tease image.

Brent (00:14:45 - 00:14:49): Oh, I’ve seen a little bit since then. It might be— maybe I’m wrong though.

Ryan (00:14:50 - 00:15:11): But, uh, yep, looks— hey, it’ll be— if it’s anything that it’s been reported to be, it’ll be a single-player campaign where, you know, you’re playing the Last Ronin story in chunks. So I don’t— I like a single— a good single-player game. Everything doesn’t have to be massive multiplayer online games.

Brent (00:15:12 - 00:15:13): No, agreed.

Ryan (00:15:13 - 00:15:18): Just give me a good game with a good story that I can just jump in and out of.

Jen (00:15:18 - 00:15:20): Yeah, I never play games with real people.

Ryan (00:15:22 - 00:15:24): I play games with real people sometimes.

Jen (00:15:24 - 00:15:27): Yeah, but those real people are Brent and your brother.

Ryan (00:15:27 - 00:15:38): So I was gonna say, if you count Drew and Brent as real people, uh, but for me, that’s it for news. You guys got anything?

Brent (00:15:39 - 00:15:40): Uh, no, not really.

Jen (00:15:41 - 00:15:47): I forgot what day it was for most of today, so no. Yeah, same.

Masters of the Universe Review

Brent (00:15:47 - 00:16:21): So I guess we will go into the beef of this episode, or shall I say beefcake. Uh, we recently saw 2026’s version of Masters of the Universe based on the Mattel toy line, of which, uh, we are all fans in one shape or another. Um, Ryan and I grew up with He-Man figures as, uh, part of our, our toy experience as children. Uh, Jen, did you— was He-Man in your house at all? But like, She-Ra definitely was, right?

Jen (00:16:21 - 00:16:29): Not really He-Man. I feel like I always go back to saying my— I think my cousins had the toys because my cousins had all the toys.

Brent (00:16:29 - 00:16:30): All the toys.

Ryan (00:16:30 - 00:16:31): All the toys.

Jen (00:16:31 - 00:16:33): So my brother, I think, was too young for He-Man.

Brent (00:16:34 - 00:16:36): Because he’s 3 years younger.

Jen (00:16:36 - 00:16:53): But I was 100% into She-Ra. I had tons of the toys. I had playsets. Uh, I, we used— I remember playing She-Ra in the backyard with my friends. Um, like, yeah, I was all in for She-Ra. This is the start of my magical girl journey, was probably She-Ra.

Brent (00:16:54 - 00:17:54): Um, so, uh, this is starring a whack of people in including, uh, Jared Leto, who we will get to, and Nicholas, uh, Galatanzine, maybe. I’m not sure how to pronounce it. Um, and Alison Brie, James Purfoy, a ton of people. Uh, and Idris Elba. Yeah, I guess Idris Elba and Jared Leto are probably the biggest stars in this film. Yeah, um, uh, directed by Travis Knight, uh, written by Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, uh, Alex Litvak, and Michael Finch. Um, okay, you know what, Jen, let’s start with you because you like— you liked a property adjacent to He-Man growing up. Um, so you’re not— maybe you’re not as deeply connected as we are. What did you think of the movie?

Jen (00:17:55 - 00:18:11): So I had fairly low expectations going in based on the last time they tried to do a live-action He-Man. Um, I’ve seen all of the, the new He-Man cartoon, uh, He-Man Revelation, right?

Brent (00:18:11 - 00:18:12): Um, that was the latest.

Jen (00:18:12 - 00:18:23): Yeah, yeah, the latest one. So I was familiar with those characters. I’m sure I’ve seen— I mean, I’ve seen the, the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas movie. And I’m sure I’ve seen a few episodes of the actual—

Brent (00:18:23 - 00:18:26): You were in a version of that Christmas film.

Jen (00:18:27 - 00:22:50): Yeah, and I’m sure I’ve seen, um, at least a few episodes of the original ’80s cartoon, but I wasn’t like deep into the lore like you guys are. So I mean, I probably— a lot of the, the jokes and the cameos went over my head. But anyway, um, I actually really enjoyed it. It was far funnier than I thought it would be. They did not take themselves seriously or too seriously, which I think was awesome. Um, and they did a really good job of— like, they did a good job of making it, uh, more kind of relevant to the modern age, so it wasn’t like you’re re-watching a dated ’80s movie or cartoon show. Everything got updated. Um, the casting was phenomenal. I thought everybody was super well cast. Um, I loved that they had— I loved that the characters of Eternia were not known by the names that, uh, they’re known as in, in the ’80s, like, you know, Fisto and, and Ram-Man, uh, by the toy names. Yeah, by their toy names. I love— and this is probably my favorite part of the whole movie— I love that those were made up by 10-year-old Adam, based on his memories of them from when he was 10, he invented the names for them and they stuck in his brain. And then like Mekanek, and yeah, so then when he comes back to Eternia and he’s like, oh my God, Fisto! And Fisto’s like, what? That’s not my name. That was the best. I cracked me up because yeah, these names were designed to appeal to 10-year-olds. They were created for children, uh, and they’re supposed to be funny and gimmicky and hilarious like that. So I love that that’s how they incorporated it into it. Um, I think probably the highlight of the whole movie for me was— and I’ve seen articles where they were saying that, you know, He-Man’s biggest, uh, or fights toxic masculinity is like one of the main things. So I think the, the best thing I liked about this was that and even said it in the movie where He-Man was like, I do have the power and I can use it, but I choose not to. And I love that they reinforce that message through, uh, Adam trying to talk things out with the villains. I know it was also because he was terrified, but you know, the fact that his go-to isn’t smash and kill, his go-to was first let’s try to talk, let’s try to negotiate, let me offer you a way out, let’s try to find a peaceable solution. Um, and even the, the conversations that he was having with, with Duncan, with Man-at-Arms, was that the same thing. Like Duncan was saying, you know, you use your power to protect, you use your power to defend, you do not use your power to attack. Uh, and I, I just love that that was the message all the way through. So he’s this strongest, most powerful, uh, person in Eternia, defender of Grayskull, but his first go-to isn’t, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna hurt you. His first go-to is, let’s talk it out, let’s, let’s figure out a peaceable solution. And I’m not sure if that was also in the cartoon, um, because I didn’t watch the cartoon, but in this day and age where we have so much crap online and we have so much of this stuff going around. It’s very refreshing to see a movie where the message to hopefully any young children, hopefully any young boys who are watching this, girls too, is that, you know, violence isn’t the answer. This isn’t the first go-to. Like, you have so many other options, so many other ways that you can de-escalate and deal with conflict before you result to violence. And I love that that was kind of like the larger picture of this whole movie, and I really hope that other people picked up on this. Um, so that’s kind of my little preach for it. Uh, so yeah, I really like the movie. Um, yeah, we’ll move on. It needed more cringer. That’s my criticism, because I love cringer. I also needed more sorceress because I love the sorceress. But other than that, I really liked it. Uh, Ryan, you want to go next? Sure.

Ryan (00:22:52 - 00:23:23): Um, to your point about him, uh, you know, trying to talk through things and not necessarily going to fists first, even in the cartoon, like, He-Man would try to talk or try, but yeah, he would still use his fist and pick things up. And you know, if you look at that old cartoon, there’s a lot of him punching the screen, which would turn out to be like the bad guy’s face or something, or lifting up something heavy and throwing it at things. Um, he really didn’t use his sword a lot.

Jen (00:23:23 - 00:23:25): Well, I know that there was definitely—

Brent (00:23:25 - 00:23:28): didn’t use these pointy end of the sword.

Jen (00:23:28 - 00:23:44): I know there was also a big thing in She-Ra— I assume it was also for He-Man— where they’re not allowed to hurt living creatures. And I think that’s why the Horde in She-Ra was 99% robots, because she could rip robots apart no problem.

Ryan (00:23:44 - 00:23:45): Oh yeah.

Jen (00:23:45 - 00:24:05): But you can’t stab Hordak, right? So there was also those limits that the cartoon had. Um, but it’s nice to hear that that was also in the cartoon, that he was, you know, violence wasn’t his first option. Uh, because I mean, like I said, I hadn’t watched the cartoon, so I, I then in that case I’m really glad that that’s something they brought forward from the cartoon.

Ryan (00:24:06 - 00:24:23): Now I was surprised at how many times they did use the pointy end of the sword in this movie. Um, not to— not, not that it was bad. And the thought was, there was a few times we say, okay, well, I, I guess, I guess that villain’s dead now.

Jen (00:24:23 - 00:24:25): But yeah, he did a lot of murder.

Ryan (00:24:25 - 00:24:29): But are they? Because it’s a world with magic.

Jen (00:24:29 - 00:24:30): Yeah.

Ryan (00:24:30 - 00:24:37): Was there a healing spell done on them before they died? You know, really, in the end, no body, no death.

Jen (00:24:37 - 00:24:42): Also, he had a really hard time holding on to that sword. It was—

Ryan (00:24:42 - 00:24:44): it looked pretty heavy.

Jen (00:24:44 - 00:25:04): Yeah, but it, he like, it was always flying out of his hand. And I mean, I guess spoilers for the end of the movie, so stop now, this is your warning. Um, the sword was really unimportant as it is, like, so I mean, if he had lost the sword, it didn’t matter, but you don’t know that till the end.

Ryan (00:25:04 - 00:25:32): Um, To your point of the, the code of their names, I, I was wondering how they were going to address it if they were going to be just, you know, yeah, it’s Ram Man and Fisto and that’s what they’ve called and that’s their names. But when they— the more the surprise when you say, that’s not my— who’s what? Yeah, I love it. You could see Teela like looking at him like, you don’t like— kind of like the doing the old like, you know, don’t, don’t, don’t call him that. What are you talking about? Those were our kids’ name. That’s not their real names.

Jen (00:25:33 - 00:25:34): That’s not their names.

Ryan (00:25:35 - 00:25:41): Which— but then we never do hear what their real names are, so it’s like, do they have names?

Jen (00:25:42 - 00:25:51): They must have names. We never do hear their actual names. Um, I think they just kind of were like, yeah, Fisto, I like that name, now I’m Fisto.

Ryan (00:25:51 - 00:26:19): And so, and you know, the fisting jokes were funny. There might have been a couple times, you know, maybe one or two times the too many fisting jokes. I like a good double entendre in a movie. The one where Skeletor is talking about his big swinging sword between his legs, I was like, yeah, that might have been a step too far for me.

Jen (00:26:20 - 00:26:23): I didn’t even talk about Skeletor because I figured we were going to talk about him after.

Ryan (00:26:24 - 00:26:50): No. Um, But yeah, like, the story on its, on its own was a solid story. Like, yeah, um, we didn’t spend too much time on Earth. Yeah, there were some interesting Easter eggs all over the place, but, you know, especially in that— so did you guys pick up on the Queen’s, uh, astronaut helmet?

Brent (00:26:50 - 00:26:52): No, in his, uh, bedroom.

Ryan (00:26:52 - 00:26:58): No, I didn’t see that. Was it his bedroom or was it in— no, no, not in— no, in, um, in Eternia.

Brent (00:26:58 - 00:27:02): Yeah, like, but isn’t that— wasn’t that his bedroom or his chambers or something?

Jen (00:27:02 - 00:27:04): I thought that was her, the Queen’s chambers.

Brent (00:27:04 - 00:27:09): Oh, either way. Yeah, I did see it in the palace. Yes. Yeah.

Jen (00:27:09 - 00:27:13): Oh, I didn’t see that. Cool. I need— yeah, there was a lot of Easter eggs. I might need to watch it again.

Ryan (00:27:14 - 00:27:44): Oh, like I said to Brent, this is very much a movie you need to sit down at home and watch it I think for a second or third time, so you can pause it and be like, oh, I see that, and oh, I get that reference. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no, uh, I thought it was a fun movie. If you enjoyed the Filmation He-Man cartoon, even really if you enjoyed any version of He-Man, chances are you’ll like this movie and you’ll have fun.

Jen (00:27:45 - 00:28:07): I’m wondering how much it’ll appeal to people who know nothing about He-Man. Although Karina doesn’t know anything about— so Karina came with us, she doesn’t really know anything about He-Man and she really enjoyed it as well. So I guess like you don’t need to have that background. It’s nice for the Easter eggs, but, um, if you have never seen He-Man and know nothing about it, it’s still a perfectly followable movie.

Ryan (00:28:07 - 00:28:08): Oh, for sure.

Brent (00:28:08 - 00:28:33): Yeah. So according to Instagram, our friend Julian, who is also a listener of the show, and he will hear this in, what, like probably 3 years from now. Um, I believe Julian’s review of it via Instagram was he liked it, he enjoyed it, but he felt that it would resonate more if you knew the property more. So, which he did not. So it, maybe it’s a mix.

Jen (00:28:33 - 00:28:56): I feel like that’s fair. Yeah, I mean, but that’s, that’s true of anything where they’ve remade a property from somebody’s childhood, is that you know, like you said, all the Easter eggs and hidden things. Yeah, Karina and Julian wouldn’t have picked that up because they’re not familiar with the property. And I mean, obviously everybody else too, and I missed a ton of them too because I’m only vaguely affiliated with the— or aware of the, um, the property.

Ryan (00:28:56 - 00:29:09): So, um, thought it was interesting that they just, you know, the, the fact of, you know, the He-Man being a secret identity to Prince Adam just was not a thing.

Jen (00:29:09 - 00:29:11): I love that.

Ryan (00:29:11 - 00:29:14): Yeah, I think the way they treated it at the end was hilarious.

Brent (00:29:14 - 00:29:40): Yeah, I kind of— that was the one part that I sort of didn’t like. Like, uh, like he, he, like, he’s not a dummy. Like, not— and I felt that that sort of made him out to be kind of stupid. I mean, like, why would he keep the He-Man identity secret? Because like they’ve all known about it for like the last like couple hours.

Ryan (00:29:40 - 00:30:06): Well, they just said 6 months at that point. Yeah, they make that joke. I had my feeling on it was more of a, you know, maybe he’s— because he’s still— he’s Adam still. He’s self-conscious about pulling out the sword, saying this for the phrase, and changing in front of people. It’s not so much that it’s a, oh, I want to keep this a secret from all of you. It’s just like, I don’t feel comfortable doing this in front of people.

Jen (00:30:06 - 00:30:46): Mm, see, I kind of interpreted it as, um, he didn’t know that the other people knew. So like, we know that, that Teela and Duncan know because he’s transformed in front of them, obviously. But I interpreted it as he doesn’t know that Ram-Man and Fisto know, so he’s trying to have a secret identity by leaving because they don’t say he knows we know about this, right? Until after he’s long gone. So yeah, I suppose it’s kind of like, you know, it’s a secret but it’s not a secret, but nobody really talks about it. That, that’s how I interpreted it. I don’t know if that’s correct.

Ryan (00:30:46 - 00:31:05): It’s probably just— well, like the laughing in a circle, um, hands on hips, big— oh yeah, laugh. I think it was just them trying to like shove one more cartoon reference because there was— oh, I you know, Adam always had to think of— find an excuse to, to disappear, and then He-Man would show up.

Jen (00:31:06 - 00:31:08): So yeah, why did he have to have a secret identity?

Brent (00:31:09 - 00:31:32): Um, I believe it’s the same idea behind— like, I think it says in like the opening of the cartoon that he keeps it secret because if the bad guys knew he was He-Man, then they would come after his family and stuff like that, which in cartoon logic makes sense, but in real life logic, like They’re already coming after your family. I was gonna say, yeah.

Jen (00:31:32 - 00:31:54): Um, but, uh, yeah, I kind of feel like Adam, once he’s back in Eternia— and I know it had been, it’s, it’s like 6 months later at the end— but maybe he’s still kind of not— he’s still kind of like little boy excited about being back because, yeah, and he just hasn’t gotten used to it yet. I don’t know.

Brent (00:31:54 - 00:31:55): Then he brings his roommate there.

Ryan (00:31:56 - 00:32:02): Yeah, that was crazy. Thanks for bringing me here.

Jen (00:32:02 - 00:32:04): Uh, his roommate— did his roommate have a name?

Brent (00:32:05 - 00:32:08): I’m sure he did. I didn’t catch it.

Ryan (00:32:08 - 00:32:12): Yeah, no, I half expected his roommate to turn out to be Orko in disguise.

Jen (00:32:12 - 00:32:14): That would have been funny.

Brent (00:32:16 - 00:32:21): Yeah, speaking of Orko, Um, well, I guess I should review the movie.

Ryan (00:32:22 - 00:32:23): Yeah, what are your thoughts on the movie, Brent?

Brent (00:32:23 - 00:32:32): Uh, pretty much the same as you guys. Uh, like, I liked it. I liked it a lot. I will watch this. I may even buy this, to be honest.

Jen (00:32:33 - 00:32:36): Um, I would support that purchase because it—

Brent (00:32:36 - 00:32:50): they definitely— the, the thing for me is as well, this is the first one, right? They have a chance to like with the next one, if there is a next one. And I think that might be a very big if, unfortunately.

Ryan (00:32:50 - 00:33:01): Now I’m gonna wait for you to be finished, but I have— I, I saw some stuff today that I want to— that I’m going to add for the comments for that. But so we’re gonna come back to this first, please.

Brent (00:33:01 - 00:34:11): But I, I feel they could improve on it, right? Much like Ryan, I thought, like, I liked the humor in it. I thought a couple times they went a little too far. To be honest. I feel that they— that the tone does shift a little bit here and there in terms of the humor and a couple other things. It’s almost like they like, okay, so we’re gonna make it for like 20-year-olds, and then it’s like, well, no, we should make it for the people who like know who He-Man is, and then also like we should make it for everybody. Like they were trying to kind of please everyone. Yeah, and when you do that, sometimes you lose some things. Now, that being said, yeah, some of the jokes I didn’t like. And given other people who like love He-Man— and like, make no mistake, this was my toy line as a kid. This is the one that I had all the figures of. This is the one that I like just absolutely loved. I had both castles. I had a lot of the vehicles. I am sad that I sold them at garage sales still and I’m slowly getting them back.

Jen (00:34:11 - 00:34:16): I’m sad that like 15-year-old me thought I was too cool for it and sold everything off.

Brent (00:34:16 - 00:36:20): Yeah, but I like really liked the property. Now that being said, as an adult watching the cartoon from when I was a child, it doesn’t really hold up very well. I’m sorry. I’m sure there’s a ton of people who are like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, no, it’s, it’s good for its time. But given what we’ve seen, like even kids cartoons, yeah, like storytelling abilities and what— how they now are, I, I feel it was good for its time. Now it’s very like— and it did take some cues from the 2000X, what they called He-Man 2000X, that, uh, cartoon from the 2000s. That’s really good. That one holds up a lot better, and I feel that’s the better yardstick to kind of measure this to. And then in that case, I, I feel they did a pretty solid job. I like the— where the humor may have lost me at times, uh, the, um, bits of fan service that they threw in it was really good. And I think the cast was really well done. They, like, from, you know, standpoint of me putting together a movie in my head, they got really good people who probably fit budgetary constraints really well. Like, like we said, Jared Leto is probably one of the biggest stars in this movie, and like him and Idris Elba. Alison Brie would probably be the third, but I don’t imagine her fee is absolutely huge. So, you know, they got this done on a good budget with a bunch of unknowns who did really good jobs. So that is something to be said. And the thing that I guess I will segue into us all talking about it now— Jared Leto, uh, really good. I, I like— I thought he was a pretty good Skeletor.

Jen (00:36:21 - 00:36:23): I have thoughts.

Brent (00:36:23 - 00:36:26): Oh, okay.

Jen (00:36:26 - 00:37:09): So I didn’t think he was a bad Skeletor, don’t get me wrong. I think the acting part of it was fine. I could not understand him. He sounded like he was affecting a British accent, but somebody who was also drunk and had something shoved all the way up their nose and was also mispronouncing things like Catherine O’Hara’s character in Schitt’s Creek. So he was talking like this, and I was— I can’t do the accent, but I was having a really hard— it sounded like he had like a really bad sinus infection. And I know that Skeletor has no nose, and maybe that’s what he was trying to convey in his Jared Leto way, but I, I found it very difficult to understand him at times.

Brent (00:37:09 - 00:37:12): So not to be a jerk, I didn’t find that at all.

Jen (00:37:12 - 00:37:25): No, that’s fine. Everybody I, I thought the rest of it, like, his acting was great. Um, I don’t think that he was a bad Skeletor. I just couldn’t— his— the voice was not good for me.

Ryan (00:37:25 - 00:37:48): Um, I liked the way they portrayed the character. Like, it starts off, like, when you first see him, like, in these— the first, like, more or less the first monologue he’s doing, where it’s like, oh, it’s like, oh wait, this is like gonna be like super serious evil Skeletor. It’s like, okay. And then he like finishes this thing and say, okay, now this is when you clap.

Jen (00:37:49 - 00:37:50): This is the—

Ryan (00:37:50 - 00:37:54): yeah. And you say, oh, okay, so it’s serious until he gets a little goofy.

Jen (00:37:54 - 00:38:00): Okay. I like that all his insults were like from the cartoon, like, you boobs.

Ryan (00:38:00 - 00:38:02): Yes. Yeah.

Brent (00:38:02 - 00:38:16): I, I would also say that like they, they towed that line, and again, it, it felt much more the 2000X version of Skeletor than the one I watched as a kid.

Ryan (00:38:16 - 00:38:17): Oh yeah, yep.

Brent (00:38:17 - 00:38:19): Which is— I, I feel works.

Jen (00:38:20 - 00:38:59): Yeah. The other thing I had, speaking of bad guys still, is like, I just— I don’t think I’m a fan of Alison Brie. Um, and I usually am the one who’s like supporting the female characters. But maybe I just have a different version of Evil-Lyn in my head. I did like— she, she was— I don’t even know how to explain it. She felt like an SNL character to me, uh, Evil-Lyn. And I don’t know if I can see that. Yeah. And I don’t know if that’s what they were going for or not, but that’s not how I have Evil-Lyn in my mind.

Ryan (00:38:59 - 00:39:06): I think the problem here is like in the original cartoon, they didn’t give Evil-Lyn much to do.

Brent (00:39:06 - 00:39:07): That too.

Jen (00:39:07 - 00:39:12): Yeah. Although I did like it when at the end where she was like, what, will we just leave and let them figure it out?

Ryan (00:39:12 - 00:39:15): Let’s just towel in this.

Jen (00:39:15 - 00:39:17): I was like, that’s good.

Brent (00:39:17 - 00:39:37): I, I think it also too, like, in terms of— we’ve had some like pretty solid He-Man stuff the last couple years, like that She-Ra cartoon, which we all loved a lot. And even the, the 2 seasons of the Kevin Smith cartoon. Yeah, there’s 2 or 3.

Ryan (00:39:37 - 00:39:38): 2. 2.

Brent (00:39:38 - 00:39:52): It was, uh, which, like, I, I had some issues with as well, but overall I really liked. Yeah. But the one thing about that is both Evil-Lyn and, like, all the female characters had a lot more to do in Revelations than they, they did in this.

Jen (00:39:52 - 00:40:23): And I— that might be going back to if they were trying to get it from the cartoon. Yeah, in the cartoon there were like, what, 4 female characters? The Queen, Teela, the Sorceress, and Evil-Lyn, and that was about it, pretty much. So they had to invent basically 2 more female characters for this movie, so they turned Roboto, uh, into a female character, which I loved her, she was great. Um, and then there was the, the other female character who has a name and it’s like Dolores or something like that. I don’t know, honestly.

Brent (00:40:23 - 00:40:43): While I don’t argue with the fact that like they probably brought her in to sort of balance out the gender gap a little bit more, yeah, she is apparently an actual Masters of the Universe character. She comes from, uh, the world of the mini comics by the sounds of it. Oh, okay. Now I don’t think she’s in a lot of them.

Ryan (00:40:43 - 00:40:54): Yeah, as you’re saying, and those mini comics were so unconnected to everything else else Yeah, but at least like there’s some of that.

Brent (00:40:54 - 00:41:24): And to be honest, that would be a little bit of the fear for the next one in some ways, is, you know, we’re, we’re headed towards She-Ra Horde territory perhaps. And while there’s more female characters with She-Ra and her band of married people, I guess— yeah, like Princesses of Power, Rebels, the Rebels— the, the Horde doesn’t have much in a way of female characters either. In fact, the balance is probably exactly the same. It’s—

Ryan (00:41:24 - 00:41:25): what, Shadow Weaver?

Jen (00:41:25 - 00:41:28): 3? Shadow Weaver, Scorpia.

Brent (00:41:28 - 00:41:36): Oh yeah, Scorpia. Okay, so it’s probably outweighing Skeletor’s crew then. Okay, so that’s better.

Jen (00:41:36 - 00:42:27): So the thing for the She-Ra movie that concerns me is that— so, and I hate to say it because this shouldn’t concern me in this day and age, but the fact that so many of the female— of the characters of the good guys are female except for like Bo, that I don’t know if it’s gonna get a fair— it’s gonna be like Captain Marvel all over again where, you know, although the, the boys are gonna be like, I don’t want to see a girl movie, girls can’t be superheroes, um, and it’s not going to get a fair like view. And that, that bums me out because She-Ra is amazing, but Uh, it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re gonna do. I don’t want— this is just like a hopefully irrational fear, but, um, I hope that they do it. Oh, we forgot about Catra. Catra is also in there.

Ryan (00:42:27 - 00:42:28): No, we said Catra.

Jen (00:42:28 - 00:42:30): Yeah, yeah, I thought you said Entrapta.

Ryan (00:42:31 - 00:42:32): No.

Brent (00:42:32 - 00:42:33): Oh, there’s her too, I guess, right?

Ryan (00:42:33 - 00:42:36): I didn’t say that because I don’t remember who that is.

Jen (00:42:36 - 00:42:53): So, oh yeah, yeah, Scorpia, uh, Shadow Weaver, Catra, and and Entrapta are like the main female villains that I can think of off the top of my head. I may be wrong, but like pretty much everybody in the Rebellion side of it is, is a female character. Yeah.

Brent (00:42:54 - 00:43:01): Um, well, we’ll see if it gets that far. You read a couple things.

Ryan (00:43:01 - 00:43:08): Yeah. Well, so no, I saw some clips with the, uh, I guess it’s the director or whatever on, um, on Instagram today.

Brent (00:43:08 - 00:43:08): Yeah.

Ryan (00:43:08 - 00:43:34): One of them was so that the little tease, the, the She-Ra bonus scene, um, was done like one of the last things they shot. It’s like they did it with like— they had like, like no money. They were scrambling to put a costume together and, and to find a set to, to shoot it on. Uh, they didn’t attach it to any of their preview showings. The first time anyone saw it was at the premiere.

Brent (00:43:34 - 00:43:35): Yeah.

Ryan (00:43:36 - 00:44:00): And then, um, the, the one thing I did read though that was interesting was that I guess the people that— the heads, the studio heads— because, um, if you’re reading into the nerd or any of the movie theaters or movie websites that say, oh, you know, it’s a flop, but only making like $31 million this weekend or something. Yeah. Um, now I have seen one already claiming that it did finish first.

Brent (00:44:01 - 00:44:17): Box Office Mojo, which tends to be all right in these cases, has it at $29.3 million for the weekend so far. Um, it is trailing behind The Latest Scary Movie, which is at $55.

Jen (00:44:17 - 00:44:19): Okay, oh, that makes me sad.

Brent (00:44:20 - 00:44:28): And just above, uh, Backrooms at $25.9 and Obsession: The Little Horror Movie That Could at $25.6.

Ryan (00:44:29 - 00:44:50): So with that low number in mind, the one thing that the, the studio people were saying was that they are very happy with the, I guess, the word of mouth, the talk behind the movie, the, the buzz, and that their metrics for it being a success aren’t necessarily just what it makes at the theater.

Jen (00:44:50 - 00:44:51): Oh, good.

Brent (00:44:51 - 00:44:59): Well, it is an Amazon-produced movie, so it’s going to be hitting prime at some point too, right?

Ryan (00:44:59 - 00:45:10): So that’s their thought is the, I guess, you know, this the weekend box office, but then they’re also, they’re thinking more the long term of, yeah, the streaming numbers and, you know, the toy sales.

Brent (00:45:11 - 00:45:37): The sad part is, is honestly, I feel this is a movie that has legs if they would not cut them out from underneath it. Yeah, like if they just let this run for as long as possible like within reason, I feel it would gain a really good following. And then when you do 2, it, depending on what it’s up against that weekend, would do incredibly well.

Jen (00:45:37 - 00:46:00): Yeah. And I guess going back to the— because now I’m thinking about it more— going back to the— if they— the sequel is She-Ra, I mean, He-Man’s gonna be in it. So I mean, they could also bring over a bunch of the male characters from the He-Man world into She-Ra’s world too. To kind of balance it out. Yeah, again, I don’t want them to and I don’t think they need to, but I’m very curious at what the deal worked out was.

Brent (00:46:00 - 00:46:09): Because the thing is, is we have mentioned this on the show before numerous times, is She-Ra is not actually owned by Mattel anymore.

Ryan (00:46:09 - 00:46:29): So in the video, that was part of why it was such a last-minute thing to do this, is that they, they all along they knew they wanted to have a thing. They wanted to eventually bring her in, and I guess it was in the last minutes where they’ve secured the rights to She-Ra so that they could do this. And who owns She-Ra?

Brent (00:46:29 - 00:46:33): Oh, somebody else. Uh, DreamWorks Universal.

Jen (00:46:33 - 00:46:35): That makes sense. That’s the cartoon with DreamWorks.

Brent (00:46:36 - 00:47:16): Yeah, yeah, it’s one of those weird things. And even the— like, I saw a thing a long time ago that says that like even Mattel’s ownership over He-Man is kind of tenuous. So, um, we, we shall see. But yeah, they were— they did manage to work out a deal, but what does that deal entail? Yeah, you know, is it just She-Ra? Is it She-Ra and the gang? Is it She-Ra and Hordak? Yeah, you know, like, they’re like, what did they get as part of it and what’s the trade-off? But we’ll see. It has to get a second one to begin with, which I hope it does. Yeah. Um, the director of this, Travis Knight, did a great job.

Ryan (00:47:16 - 00:47:17): Oh, he did a great job.

Jen (00:47:17 - 00:47:17): Yeah.

Brent (00:47:17 - 00:47:34): And this is the second movie he’s made on animated franchise that I really enjoyed. So, because he also was the director of Bumblebee, which, uh, I have gone on record as one of the few of the Michael Bay-verse era Transformer movies that I really like.

Ryan (00:47:34 - 00:47:59): So, um, my one last thought on the movie was, um, I liked when, when we’re— that Teela and Adam don’t become a thing. Right away in this, in this movie at all. There’s a point where they say, oh, okay, here they’re, they’re talking and they’re gonna kiss, and then she’s like, oh, you’re a great friend, and you’re a friend, you look like my brother.

Brent (00:47:59 - 00:48:03): It’s like, ah, I really like that.

Jen (00:48:03 - 00:48:15): Another thing, so I don’t think we talked too much about Teela, but I also liked that she wasn’t wearing— and I mean, this is kind of hypocritical based on what He-Man was wearing, but I like that she wasn’t wearing the miniskirt outfit.

Speaker E (00:48:15 - 00:48:19): No, but it very much looked like costume.

Brent (00:48:19 - 00:48:23): Yes, they updated it really well.

Jen (00:48:23 - 00:48:30): My one complaint for this though, nothing to do with the movie, they released a bar— uh, Teela and He-Man Barbies.

Brent (00:48:30 - 00:48:33): Oh, they are not good.

Jen (00:48:33 - 00:48:55): Yeah, so He-Man, it just looks like Ken in a loincloth. It’s not great. The Teela, they did her in her, her battle outfit, like her— the costume she wears for most of the movie. And I would argue that they should have put her in the miniskirt outfit for the fashion doll because she’s a fashion doll. She’s not like—

Ryan (00:48:55 - 00:49:01): it wasn’t a miniskirt, it was more like a bathing suit. It was like just a bathing suit cut.

Jen (00:49:02 - 00:49:03): Yeah, but she also has a skirt on.

Ryan (00:49:04 - 00:49:05): Not in the original cartoons.

Jen (00:49:06 - 00:49:10): Oh no, I was talking about what she was wearing at the end of the movie. Wasn’t— didn’t she have more of like a little miniskirt?

Ryan (00:49:11 - 00:49:15): Oh, I don’t remember. I wasn’t paying that much attention to what she was wearing.

Brent (00:49:15 - 00:49:24): Um, sorry. No, I don’t, I don’t know. I thought, I thought it was kind of like a one-piece jumpsuit was what she was wearing for trying to—

Jen (00:49:24 - 00:49:39): yeah, so most of the movie she was wearing this one-piece jumpsuit, but then at the end of the movie, uh, when they’re all doing that terrible hand-on-hip backwards laughing, she was wearing something that was closer to, um what her cartoon outfit was.

Brent (00:49:39 - 00:49:40): Oh, okay.

Jen (00:49:40 - 00:49:48): And it looked like it was, uh, now I’m doubting myself. I’m trying to find a picture of it, but it’s hard to—

Brent (00:49:48 - 00:49:53): you won’t right now because there’s no press photos of that out yet.

Jen (00:49:53 - 00:50:10): Well, that video that Ryan sent around, she’s wearing it in that. Um, it’s more of like a, like a— maybe I’m misremembering, but it’s more of like a little miniskirt dress. Um, so I personally would have preferred a Barbie doll in that outfit just because it’s more fashion.

Ryan (00:50:10 - 00:50:11): Yeah.

Jen (00:50:11 - 00:50:21): Um, also, for the love of God, why don’t they ever make a doll of the Sorceress? She’s my favorite character, always has been. I got nothing.

Brent (00:50:22 - 00:50:25): She’s— to be fair, she’s not in this movie a heck of a lot.

Jen (00:50:25 - 00:50:35): I know, but her costume is beautiful. It’s a gorgeous costume. Um, and I’m like, oh, that’s what I want a doll of. I want the Sorceress.

Brent (00:50:35 - 00:50:51): Uh, before we go into, uh, everything else to end off the show, hey Ryan? Yes? Over-under on us getting action figures based on like the inside He-Man’s brain sequence with Skeletor?

Ryan (00:50:51 - 00:50:56): Oh, with the, uh, Skeletor at the gym and Skeletor at the office.

Brent (00:50:57 - 00:51:05): I, I, I really want to do Skeletor at the office, uh, for Halloween this year if I’m working at the store.

Jen (00:51:05 - 00:51:07): Did you notice I had little bones on it?

Ryan (00:51:08 - 00:51:14): Yes. Uh, that one, or the, uh, I like the, the Skeletor in a suit.

Brent (00:51:16 - 00:51:22): The only reason why I want to do the office one more is I feel that’s more attainable than the purple suit.

Jen (00:51:22 - 00:51:26): Oh yeah, we would have to paint your arms blue because he’s wearing a short shirt.

Brent (00:51:26 - 00:51:28): For a day I’d do it.

Ryan (00:51:28 - 00:51:33): Other than just get a long sleeve blue, like one of those long sleeve blue t-shirt, long sleeve t-shirt.

Jen (00:51:33 - 00:51:35): I want to paint them blue.

Brent (00:51:35 - 00:51:45): Well, from a practicality level though, Jen, it like— I don’t want to get blue makeup on everything in the store, including customers’ books and stuff.

Ryan (00:51:47 - 00:52:08): I do want one of those Skeletor Help the voice-changing masks though. I have told Ed when he’s out and about south of the border, when those things start to get clearance, to keep an eye out for one for me. Have to paint it up, make the skeleton, the skull, a little more yellow, but be fun to wear.

Patreon and Community

Brent (00:52:10 - 00:53:07): Yeah. Alrighty, well, um That’s it for this episode. Uh, unfortunately, um, you know, Kevin didn’t make it back in time, but that’s okay. He’s having fun with friends. So, um, yeah, um, but before we go, patreon.com/truenorthnerds, uh, help us keep this show alive. $3 a month really helps us out with, uh, paying for various things, possibly a new audio system for for the show. Um, we’re using one now that we have time limits on, but if this one seems to be going well, so we, we shall see, um, how it goes. But, uh, beyond that, it gets you some exclusive contact— like content like Kung Fu Island Season 1 and episodes of Listen to This, a music nerd show, uh, from myself and Alex.

Jen (00:53:07 - 00:53:15): Maybe I should do I should do— sorry, I should do myself, uh, watching Troy that I keep telling about, but make it a Patreon exclusive.

Brent (00:53:15 - 00:54:17): We should do that. Do it a double bill with our Odyssey review. We’ll do Troy first because maybe they’ll make the Odyssey feel not as bad if we watch Troy first and then you go see the Odyssey. Hey, it comes out my birthday weekend. Um, the final thing you get is a shout out from us. Uh, so thanks go out to Drew, Karina, Alex, Team Woods, who has set up an awesome, uh, website for us at, uh, truenorthnerds.com, Mike from Maple Printing, who’s doing lots of cool 3D stuff over there, and our good friend Rex who, uh, might be listening to this on vacation. Uh, on vacation? He is on vacation next week because he sent a message to, uh, Alex and I because we had an upcoming episode that he’s going to edit. But we’re like, it’ll time out okay.

Jen (00:54:17 - 00:54:19): Well, have fun, Rex.

Brent (00:54:19 - 00:54:31): Yeah. Uh, and whoever else might be in the car with you on the way to North Bay listening to this. Uh, geek picks, who’s got one?

Geek Picks

Ryan (00:54:31 - 00:56:25): I do. All right, so I was watching, uh, so it’s like, this is— how do you really— it’s a series, it’s a TV series, but it’s like each— there’s multiple seasons and each season is a different subject matter. Uh, the show’s called Icons. And I mentioned watching the Transformers one before where they talk about the toys and the cartoon and then the live-action movies. Uh, today I started watching this one about Marvel, and so like the first episode and a half are very much talking about the, you know, the, the, the beginnings of the comic company, its horrible, uh, financial woes, and how they started selling off all their properties for nothing. And then, and like, it’s like partway through episode 2 is when they really start getting into the building of like Marvel Studios and, uh, and how I, you know, they started off with Iron Man and how it was— they had 4 movies. I guess they’d gotten their money from one of these big banks, uh, and with the, the— they got to make 4 movies and they had to do well. If they didn’t do well, then pretty much they— what, this investment firm was gonna take over Marvel. And well, as we know, those movies did perfectly fine, and Marvel is got bought by Disney, and it’s all, you know, money, money, money. But, uh, so far so good. It’s very interesting watching, you know, hearing the story, and I’d seen the, you know, Marvel got bought by this— these people, then by these people And then connected to this and how like Toy Biz, like how deeply connected they were with Toy Biz. I didn’t realize that they were like more or less like 40% ownership, I think, of Marvel.

Brent (00:56:25 - 00:56:28): Yeah, that’s where, uh, Avi Arad came from.

Ryan (00:56:28 - 00:57:13): Yes. So there’s a bunch of those wonderful characters in there. And, uh, so there’s multiple seasons. So like there’s a Star Wars one, there’s a Batman one, um, there’s a Harrison Ford one. He gets his own season. Um, yeah, uh, but there’s a whole bunch of them right now. I know for sure you can watch them on Crave because that’s where I’m watching it. Uh, it does air on, I think, what’s— what is left of Much on cable. Uh, that’s where I came across the Harrison Ford one the other day, and I say, oh yeah, that makes sense. I’ll have to watch that one later. I’ll have to add that to my list. But, uh, yeah, so Icons, give it a watch if you’re looking for something, uh, you know, different to watch.

Brent (00:57:14 - 00:57:16): Cool. Next, Jen.

Jen (00:57:16 - 00:58:14): I got one. So Karina came to visit me this weekend and we watched all of Heated Rivalry, the whole 6 episodes, because she told me I would really— each episode was an hour. We did this in one sitting. Um, because she told me I would really like it, and she was right. I did really like it. Uh, the basic premise is if you are homophobic, stay far, far away, um, and hockey players be horny. Um, but it was probably not designed to binge all 6 episodes all at once, and maybe you should have had some time in between to reflect. But, um, it was— for anybody who doesn’t know, the story is about, uh, two young hockey players. I know nothing about hockey, um, and they are rivals, uh, they’re— when they’re rookies, they get signed to teams that are big rivals against each other. It’s all made up, it’s not the NHL, it’s the—

Brent (00:58:14 - 00:58:17): so there’s no way the NHL was going to give their rights to this.

Jen (00:58:17 - 01:00:45): So it’s all fake, it’s set in like modern world, but it’s all fake hockey teams. I’m— yeah, um, so they’re like rival teams, they’re the captains of the rival teams, but they have a, uh, not really a love affair, but they have like a secret romance because they can’t come out in, uh, the hockey world, um, for their careers and, you know, whatever. So it’s their romance basically from like how it builds from basically being, um friends with benefit— well, I guess enemies with benefits, um, to like just the— I don’t want to spoil it, but like to the evolution of their whole relationship and where it ends up. And then there’s also a second kind of subplot of another, uh, hockey player for a different team who knows them. They’ve obviously— because all the teams play against each other, and he’s an older, uh, guy, and he has been very deeply closeted for a long time. And his relationship with a gentleman who has been, uh, who’s been openly gay for a long time, and how their dynamic goes off. Um, and it’s very sweet, it’s very, uh, emotional. Uh, you don’t need to know anything about hockey to like it because I know nothing about hockey and I quite enjoyed it. Uh, so if you’re into that kind of a thing— I know it’s not everybody’s cup of tea But if that’s something that sounds interesting to you, uh, please check it out. It’s on— it’s on Crave, um, if you have that. Also, it is based on a series of books. It’s important to note that Heated Rivalry is not the first book, so you have to look up what the season— the book series, because I don’t know what the name of the first book is, but it’s not Heated Rivalry because a friend of mine decided to read the series and started on that book and she’s like, I don’t know what’s going on. So figure out which is the first book, start there. I think it’s 5 books, um, and, uh, yeah, if you prefer to read the books, there you go. They’re great books, I’ve heard. Um, but I have seen the show and I think I’m okay. I don’t think I need to read the books at this point. I might. Um, so if it’s something that, uh, that, that sounds appealing to you, I say go for it. Don’t need to be a hockey fan. But definitely, uh, not homophobic. All right, Brent.

Brent (01:00:46 - 01:01:23): Uh, I am going with an action figure for my pick because I’m not on Tales of the Collectorverse until next December or January. Uh, I picked up the McFarlane Toys Hellboy action figure and it is awesome. It is everything I have wanted in a Hellboy action figure for quite some time, and it just— it’s so sweet. Um, yeah, so if you like Hellboy and would like one in plastic form, it is available now if you can find one.

Jen (01:01:23 - 01:01:27): I, I think your honorable mention should be the Count figure that we got.

Ryan (01:01:27 - 01:01:28): That’s the figure I thought he was going to go with.

Brent (01:01:28 - 01:01:34): Yeah, the Count figure. I, I’m trying not to mention it because it might drag me further down a Sesame Street hole.

Ryan (01:01:34 - 01:01:34): No, we have set up rules.

Brent (01:01:36 - 01:01:43): That we are going to follow, especially now that NECA is doing that Christmas set.

Jen (01:01:43 - 01:01:52): That, that the rules don’t apply to that. We’re getting all of that. Muppets Christmas Carol is hands down the best movie ever created, and we’re buying all of the figures.

Closing

Brent (01:01:52 - 01:02:39): Yeah, it’s, um, it is not even July yet, and I’ve got 3 of my potential list for next year’s end of year Collectorverse episode ready to go. So that’s saying something. And well, too, if we don’t have Joe’s on it, like, I guess if we’re doing Joe’s separately. Yeah, again this year it’ll be a little different. Uh, so that’s it for this episode. Uh, join us back in 2 weeks where, uh, we’ll be talking about something. Um, what that something is, tune in to find out. But thank you all for listening and bearing with the last episode’s technical difficulties. And until next time, abomasday.

Ryan (01:02:39 - 01:02:40): Bye!

Jen (01:02:40 - 01:00:43): Bye!

Outro

Kirby Crackle (01:00:43 - 01:02:43): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]

Rex (01:02:43 - 01:03:12): Thank you for listening to the True North Nerds. You can find us at truenorthnerds.com, on Facebook, X, and Instagram at True North Nerds. To contact one or any of the nerds, email them at truenorthnerds@gmail.com. Theme music provided by Kirby Crackle. You can find more of their music at kirbycracklemusic.com. If you’d like to support the show, please consider becoming a Patreon at patreon.com/TrueNorthNerds, or go to your podcast app of choice and rate and review us.

Kirby Crackle (01:03:12 - 01:03:45): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]