Geekscape

Geekscape 402: Punishing The Guilty With Lon Strickland!

Daredevil Season 2 is almost upon us and that means a new iteration of The Punisher, one of the most mangled and misrepresented characters in Marvel cinematic history! To help us wade through Frank Castle's movie graveyard, Lon Strickland comes on the show to argue that Dolph Lundgren's 1989 version is the best so far! Beyond that, we talk about Spider-Man dropping in on the 'Captain America: Civil War' trailer, the state of animation in the USA and what it was like for Lon to work at Machinima during their heyday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 47m
Broadcast on:: 16 Mar 2016
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[MUSIC PLAYING] Money decisions don't have to be either or. With Bank of America, they can be yes and, like yes, to sunny vacations and rainy day funds. Can our digital tools and guidance help you create the future you want? Yes. And help you keep enjoying today, too. Do more with the bank that asks, what would you like the power to do? Explore our tips and more at bankofamerica.com/yesand. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Volvo XC60 plug-in hybrid is about performance, not just on the road, but in life, where the only speed that matters is how fast you can slow down. Performance, where it matters the most, visit VolvoCars.com/US. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Hey, what's up, Geekscapes? Well, there's a brand new Geekscape, yep. Brand new Geekscape, but old school format. We've been at this for nine years doing the Geekscapes show. And this is episode 402, 402 times, at least on-- I don't know, I think the numbering got a little sloppy somewhere in the middle years, where I was like, maybe I'll try this different format. I'm just giving you guys a little news blurbs. Wait, we already had episode 400? We had episode 400. It's where I don't remember it. Can you were there? It was live. Really? The Geekscape has loved it. Interesting. Some of the Geekscapes cried. And I'm still getting messages about Geekscape 400, my good co-host Kenny Craig. And some of them were very touching. People said it felt like a best-up show-- Oh, that's cool. --at the same time. I think Matthew Maguire from Toronto said that I think he left it on my Facebook wall. He said it felt like a roast in a best-of episode at the same time. It was very touching. And I think he cried. Matt, I don't know if he actually said you cried, but I'm going to say you cried. You were roasting yourself pretty much the whole time, though. Yeah. But that's pretty much what we do here anyway. That's what we do, so you know what? I'll take the hits, and the hits will keep coming. And that's just the way it is on Geekscape. If you're new to Geekscape, though, we talk movies, video games, comic books, pop culture, all that stuff. Basically, if you're one of those people who are like, man, I really would love to go to Comic-Con. Well, we can be your watered-down version of Comic-Con 52 days out of the year every single week, because that's the kind of stuff we talk about. And this week is no different. My good friend, Lon Strickland, is here. We met when Lon was working at Machinima. And I don't know what I was doing with Machinima. Machinima and I have about a 10-year history of, maybe we should work together and then us rarely working together. Really, they didn't tie you in for life? That's so weird. That's so odd. You and Bo, I remember, came on, and we're doing some Geekscape stuff. Yeah, we were doing a show called Nerd Rage, Bo and I. Yeah, Nerd Rage, that's right. And it was cool. I loved doing it. I liked-- it was fun. I just didn't know where it was going and how we-- I didn't know what-- in all honesty, I didn't know what we-- that what we were doing was any fucking different than what everyone else on the internet does. Yeah. Make sense? Yeah, I mean, listen, there's a million billion versions of the same concept out there. Well, the effing dude. What if we get a show where we talk about what other people are doing? And not do stuff our sounds. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Is this new for sure of foil cards? Is that the sound of a gun going in your mouth? Yeah, it is. I don't know. I think that what we do here on Geekscape hopefully has a little more substance. We like to be a little more invested in who you are as a person. We like to get down to the mini-gritty. Well, the infotainment is also something that not all shows seem to have-- Well, it's an element of you know, you're educating the audience about things that they may or may not be aware of. Is that like ginormous where they just created the word in the dictionary, just like because so many stupid people started using it? Wasn't that a series of machinima? Didn't they do the-- Infotainment? No, did they do the enormous kaiju series? Oh, it was enormous. Yeah, it was enormous. There was a pilot at least. Yeah. And I don't know. I feel like so much of this stuff, like you try it, you throw it against the wall, and the wall, it doesn't stick. You know what I mean? And sometimes even if it does, nothing seems to happen. At least that machinima. Well, it's hard for stuff to stick when there isn't a wall to begin with. You're throwing it out of invisible wall. No. I mean, did you enjoy working there? I did. It was a really cool experience. I mean, I was there from 2010. What was your opinion? I started off as a programming manager, and I ended as a development executive. It was a really cool experience. I mean, seeing a whole new iteration come through after the first senior staff kind of fizzled out, new people came in, everything changed. And it was a very different vibe. I mean, that's the one thing. Why have new people come in when you've got these people who know where all the skeletons are buried? Well, I mean, they've been there for six, seven, eight years. Some of those guys like John, and those guys were there at the-- they were like the first three hires. You know what I mean? Why not have them come up and be the stewards of this company and give them the new jobs and the promotions. There's a lot of-- There's a lot of politics involved. Once Chad Goodstein came on board, he brought a lot of his people-- Where did he come from? I don't know anything. He came from a company called Ovation TV. Yeah, but Ovation is like an art channel. Yeah, I wasn't familiar with it. Ovation wanted me to host some things for them a couple of years ago. And literally, it's like no offense to Ovation, but it's the kind of programming that you'd watch in a museum elevator. That sounds fantastic, yeah. It was like-- you've ever been in a Lemley theater? No. You know, like a Lemley movie theater and it's a little more high art. And you know, like the trailers they show before the trailers that are like somebody making like murals in like their studio apartment? You know what I mean? It's like here's a documentary on somebody making a mural with flower petals and they use part of their placenta to like paint on it. And I'm like, so they're going-- Really, you weren't gagging? It's like really art-- it's like really artsy stuff. That's what Ovation does. And no offense to Ovation, but like-- It's not the same beast. It's totally not the same beast. There's a bunch of kids who like to run around and halo calling each other racial epithets. Yeah. It's not the same audience, you know what I mean? Like, Ovation's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, hello. Can you pass the grape oop on? And then all of a sudden, this guy comes over and runs a machinima. Like, where's-- I don't react to him. And we picked it up pretty quickly. It was like-- But Ovation wasn't a success. Understand the audience. I mean, no offense to Ovation. I don't think they're a success, are they? I don't know. I never really dug into him. I don't think anyone did. He talked a good game, you know. Yeah. But you know, offense to the guy, no. I mean, listen, I have no ill feelings. It all kind of played out. We saw the writing on the wall. And often, this happens when a new team comes on, they out with the old and with the new. And sometimes it's very quick, but it should be, I think. But I understand that. I should have always been a gradual. I do understand that logic, though, because you can't have the earlier regime-- you can't have a success under their decisions, right? So you have, for instance, when you have-- here's an example. The new take over at Fox, back before the new Fantastic Four, whoever the team was. Remember they tried to make that movie with Christopher Columbus and all those people for a long time. And it was going to be Peyton Reed. Remember, Peyton Reed was going to do the Fantastic Four before Tim's story? And then there was a regime change at Fox. And they were like, you know what? The last regime hired Peyton Reed to do Fantastic Four. If he makes that movie and it ends up being a success, what were we hired for? So we need to clear the slate of those decisions and hire new people. Hence, hey, this guy who did barbershop did pretty well. And he's doing this movie Taxi for us. Maybe he'll do Fantastic Four. And well, we know how that ended. But, hey, it was still better than the Fantastic Four. We got this past summer. So you understand why regimes do that. You don't want to carry over success with a regime prior, because what the fuck did they hire you then? You know what I mean? Right, right. And that kind of sucks. No, for sure. And there's a lot of emotion involved and ego. And, you know, people are interesting creatures. You know, we all kind of-- I mean, it's all about connecting and trust. You know, and if you don't have trust with your team, I can understand why you would want to bring someone in under your own guise and your own sort of oversight. Do you still believe in the format? Do you still believe in things like the short form web content format that like Machinima was one of the pioneers on? Because I know friends like Luke and Jeremy went over to work for Buzzfeed. I know we're playing a little inside baseball here on Kiekski, but those guys obviously stayed in the space. Like, do you still believe in it? Is that what you want to do? Listen, I'm working on an animation startup right now. Oh, really? It's an animation network called Octopi. And we're basically focusing in on animators that we-- I have no idea. Yeah, it's something that we-- we haven't really announced it yet. Well, you just did. Yeah. Well, there you go. Octopi. I like Octopi. Octopi, Octopi. And so you work on this web startup, but it's short form. So yeah, we're seeking investment for the-- yeah, short form content. It's all digital based. It's a network of very talented animators that we establish relations with while we were at Machinima. And so we're in the game, too. And I fully believe that there's a future there and that that's the reality of the industry. I'm still pretty old school, though. I still see it as like a stepping stone to traditional in so many ways. Right. You see web as stepping stone, correct? Yeah. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. But I mean, if you can find an audience and you can sustain something within a budget and create a show, then more power to you. An animation seems like something that is starting to go through the same kind of content changes that places like Hulu and Netflix introduced five years ago, where the format is changing. And now you've got these shows like we did a show about-- what was it-- we had Brian Break in here. What was the name of his show? Oh, shit. It was a popular Disney show. What was the name of it? Gravity Falls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like shows like Gravity Falls. It's like a totally different format than what you used to get Saturday morning cartoons, because maybe it's just shorter episodes. Now you're starting to see 12-minute animation episodes. Now you're starting to see finite series of 30 episodes and then it's done, and everything's kind of in flux. And I think animation is one of those places that's going to start turning into a new world where our parents may start watching animation. Yeah. Well, animation was sort of hijacked by Disney in this country for many years. So it's been associated with a kid's format. Sure, but by whom? I mean, like what was it before? Well, in this country, I feel like it's kids, right? Right, right. But in Japan-- And that's what I mean, yeah. You think in Japan and Europe, it's a little bit more-- this is just a canvas that we can tell stories with. OK. Now with Web, I think we're breaking those walls down a little bit, because there is a wide range of content aimed at various different audience levels. Just had animation. Hand-eye, yeah. Let's just get right to it. Actually, in the last five minutes, I've just been hearing you say hand-eye, hand-eye, hand-eye. The entire time. There's a reason he's calling his company Octopi. No, I know. Actually, he's going to go straight for the 10 again. Why no? Why did you name it Octopi instead of Octopuses? What kind of content exactly are you going to make it? No logo, really. It shows a piece of a pie with a tentacle. A pie, a wedge shape, not unlike the-- The tentacle is going in the middle of it, in the pointed section, right? A wedge not unlike an opening in a woman's legs. Is that what you're doing? Can you explain this? Yes, I would really like to go deeper and deeper. Yes. How set in stone is this logo? A pie with a tentacle. We got everybody talking. What is this Octopi, man? A cherry-flavored pie? Listen. Hey, man, I'm subscribed to that channel. I'm just saying. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for starting a hand-eye channel. Just see us with the hand-eye channel. Listen. And we're now sitting five minutes later. We're just trying to do that. There's a reason he didn't announce it. He's like, well, it hasn't been announced yet. And his company just launched for a company just lasted five minutes. It's over. Thanks, guys. What partners are going to kill me? We're like that Mark Cuban show. What's the name of that Mark Cuban show? We're like a shark tank. We're like a shark table. We're like, oh, this is your idea. This is great. Actually, no, it's trash. We're not going to tell you whether or not the idea is successful. We're just going to make fun of it. Yeah. The animation. All right. We're going to give you-- Hey, we're going to give you your day in court, Lon. But first, we have to stop for a station identification. Guys, this is T-Radio V, our home here on GeekScape. And you're listening to GeekScape. We've got to take a little break. We'll be right back after this. Hang tight. All right, GeekScape is all right. Hey, enough of that theme song. Enough of that. Were you doing different numbers? Our engineer does me like a countdown from 5, 4, 3, 2. But he went 5, 4, 3, 4. Stand your toes, London. Stand your toes. You never know what I'm going to point that one. And then he just pointed at me. He's like, all right, OK. We're back. So we're really raking poor lawn strickling across-- I know. We're raking him across cold. He's like, it's hard. Animation thing. And then we're like, got to go to break? We're like the dick-headed shark thing. But you have this animation thing. And I love talking about animation, because I think it's-- I don't know, I think you're right. It has been discredited due to the hijacking that it's had most of our lives. And before our lives, everybody is like, oh, it's the kids' medium. That being said, I did go see Zootopia, and it's the best movie I've seen this year. And in December, may roll around. 2017 may start, and it will still be the best movie I'll have seen in 2016. And that might actually happen. Yeah. Depending on how good Kano is. Would you say better than Inside Out? I enjoyed Zootopia more than Inside Out, yeah. I really, really liked Inside Out. And I think what's the name of the character, Bing Bong, is like one of the best characters. I think he's the best character for the last 10 years. But Zootopia is a phenomenal movie. Cool. It's just incredible. Yeah, I mean, the trailer made me-- not many trailers make me just laugh out loud, but the entire sloth scene, and the DMV just made me-- I was just fucking laughing my ass off the entire time. That the employees of the DMV are all sloths. That's why it's so slow. I love-- you know what, watch the movie. The whole thing is incredibly clever. I'm completely blown away. It's about this-- the young rabbit, she grows up and she wants to be a police officer, but police-- but rabbits aren't predators. And it's really-- they've never really had a rabbit police officer before. But when she goes to Zootopia as the first graduate of the police academy to pursue her dream, it's a rough go of things. And she falls in with-- there's a larger mystery that there's a part of. And then she falls in with this "Lifox" character voiced by Jason Bateman. And they kind of fall in together. And for better or worse, they have to work together. And it's awesome. What's really impressive about the movie is I read an article that in December of 2014, they looked up. They looked up at having realized that the entire movie, they had decided to make the "Fox" the main character. Really? So up until December of 2014, Jason Bateman's "Fox" character was the lead character, was the protagonist of Zootopia. Holy shit. And they realized the movie isn't quite working. There's something not clicking. And they said, wait a minute. This rabbit who's trying to be a police officer is trying to be first in the class, is trying to be the first rabbit police officer to Zootopia. It has all these hurdles to overcome. She's our main character. Let's switch them, which in animation is such a crazy overhaul, especially when you do the-- when you hear about what they did with Zootopia, where every background character has its own arc, even like small stories. Really? Yeah, you see them experiencing their little lives in the background. Oh, that's what we go off. And then Zootopia is a multi-tiered ecosystem, to begin with, because it has all these-- it's got the beyond just having the rainforest and the arctic and all these different-- the desert behind these actual ecosystems. With any ecosystem is like, OK, they're small animals. There's large animals. There's middle animals. So the rodents have to have entrances to buildings separate from the other ones. So everything's kind of done. And then you have the fur. As far as the CGI level, it's amazing. Like that's a crazy undertaking. As far as the story level, it's a crazy undertaking. Actual technical animations-- everything about this movie is incredibly well done. And then you think about the fact that they-- It changed. Almost 100% overhauled their story-- And like for animation. Like, yeah. And for animation, especially. That's like insane, like how much they have to do. And they pulled it off. Yeah. And its family animation has evolved to an incredible level in America. We've got these things down, but you know, because I-- yeah, I'll go see Zootopia. And I'm sure I will be in tears. I'll be laughing. I'll come away feeling it as a perfect movie, because that's where we'd come with. Right. It's not even just kids' shit anymore. Well, where was the last time you saw like an awesome-- Oh, and it's got some jokes in there that are not kids doing it. Not that kids won't enjoy them. It's like rub rats, they didn't shit. It's kind of a wink-wink for us, OK? What was the last R-rated animation that was in American theaters? House theaters. That's really cool. I mean, are you know-- They are wolf, maybe. Are don't our friends have fun animation? Like, fun animation, like, I loved Beowulf. I said that twice. I did too. That's an interesting direction to pushing animation. Beowulf was pretty impressive, but I think the fun animation kids, they always ring over the Japanese stuff, and those get limited theatrical releases. The one that I'm excited for-- I read this news right before we started the show. You know DC's been doing these animated shows. They've been doing animated versions, like the New Year's Story arcs. They have a killing joke coming out. So Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy are doing the voice of the Joker and Batman. Oh, that's awesome. So Alan Moore's classic "The Killing Joke" story, finally animated for those of you guys who just don't want to damn read it. And obviously, it's always by the best Batman, the best Joker of all time. So I'm pretty stoked for that one. That's like top of the list. I mean, I'm OK with being inundated with superheroes for the rest of my life. I was hanging out with a friend of ours, a former guest, Adi Shankar, who he does all the bootleg films. And we were talking about superheroes. He's got this superhero series thing that he's working on. And I was like, you know what? 37, my age, in his age, what is it with superheroes? And people ask me, what do you love about superheroes? I think they're such an amazing mirror for us as human beings and as cultures. And they say so much about our different places in-- you know, just a little distance. Like, you look at Superman, and you're like, OK, that was exactly 1938, America, and the immigrant culture. And that was a byproduct of all that, you know? And Batman was a perfect statement on social justice and what we're going to do. And then you go into the '60s and Fantastic Four and the breakdown of the nuclear family after the '50s and rebel without a cause. And like, you see all this stuff, Daredevil. And then the Punisher's born in the '70s, and we're having all that gritty stuff. And it's almost a reaction in the same way film was a reaction at the times. And you go and you go and spawn, it's like, OK, yeah, the '90s was kind of full of hot air, right? But you still got these kind of hot air characters that are more styled and substance-like spawn in Deadpool. Even though I saw Deadpool again this weekend, I fucking loved it. I love that movie. But really, if somebody asks you, what is the Deadpool story? You know, like, the Death of Gwen Stacy and all this stuff is like Spider-Man's story. You're like, OK, what's Deadpool's? And it's really hard to call one, because he's just kind of a-- He's like an X-men that didn't quite work out. And he doesn't really have that story. You know, like, you can tell me Superman's origin. You can tell me Spider-Man's origin. You can tell me Batman's origin. You can tell me, you know, Captain America. You can tell me all these iconic stories for these characters. But all right, what's Deadpool's? I'm really creative writer. Maybe you want to talk about what the hell's on stage. But I'm sorry, I'm dying. Maybe my favorite Marvel character, definitely my favorite Marvel production, is returning this weekend in Daredevil, season two on Netflix. Clear the schedule. I know what I'm doing this weekend. I'm watching Daredevil. No, I can't wait. And then I'm rewinding, and I'm watching it again. You're going to rewind? You're going to be kind to rewind that Netflix. That's my job. Dude, Lon, you recently caught up on all the Daredevil. Oh, yeah, I did. Is it not the best thing Marvel has created or in cinematic form? It is a standalone universe, at least I think. You never know what might happen. What do you mean? Are they implying-- The Netflix universe and the cinematic universe are one and the same. Really? Yeah, because it's news to me. Well, no, because you see, in the name of the news reporter, that was in it, we're not going to say-- Oh, so they linked it. Oh, yeah, the back of his entire office, I'm totally blanking on him, and he's a major character. Augie? No, not I, not foggy, but he's a news reporter, healthy. He's mainly in Peter Parker, but you got to get it. He worked at the Daily Bugle in the Peter Parker universe. Oh, OK. You guys got it. You're streaming at me? But anyway, you see the background, and it's destruction in Harlem, and that's the Hulk movie that Larry of Terrier did. That's the first Hulk movie where he fights the abomination. OK. That's the destruction in Harlem. You hear about the only reason he can afford the office in Hell's Kitchen, because Hell's Kitchen's recently been damaged by the Chitauri attack at the end of the Avengers. Oh, I see. Because it's not Hell's Kitchen today. It's Clinton. Everybody knows, in the real world, Hell's Kitchen was pretty nice in 2016, 2015. But they needed Hell's Kitchen to kind of be Daredevil Frank Miller Hell's Kitchen, and that needed to be a little rundown. Well, thank god the Avengers in the Chitauri fought and destroyed half the city. And now it's-- I missed all that. They mentioned it. OK, that's cool. So it is one universe. It is all one universe. And not only that, the TV actors are contracted to be pulled into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the movies, whenever they call on them. So like-- Wow. So John Bernthal is now the Punisher. John Bernthal is the Punisher. I'm like a Flash. Yeah, no, no, it's not like the DC stuff. The Marvel stuff is all connected. And that's cool. The head of Marvel TV has said that many times. Because on Agents of Shield, they're always dealing with that. The Peggy Carter, obviously, is part of the cinematic universe. It's all connected. So you have these iterations, right? Like Hulk was done a couple times. Spider-Man was done a couple times. And the Punisher was done actually two times before-- or three times, right? So he had Dolph Longred from 1989, Thomas Jane, 2004. And then you have-- The shitty one. No, no, no. The Warzone. I don't think he was bad. Ray-- I'm at the movie. I'm at the shitty movie. No, Ray Stevenson. Yeah. Ray Stevenson, who's also-- There's Thor. There's moments in Thor. There's moments in Warzone that are like, oh, wait. This is cool. And then it's like, oh, why'd you do that? Why did they, yeah. I couldn't even understand Ray Stevenson in that movie. I thought he was the closest thing to like Garth Ennis' Punisher. You think so? Yeah, because he didn't have Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of weirdos. And I thought the Thomas-- I thought the 2004 Punisher was such a watered-down lame character that I was like-- Yes, I agree. I was like, it was kind of-- it was just weird. And he was like speaking Russian at the beginning. And I was like, there's even a score in that one that feels like, no, like, it's like almost like-- It could work if it was a Captain America movie. I remember it being very heroic. And Punisher is way too dark to take that. And I thought Warzone, like, let's see how Stromo was like, OK, she's going to go violent. She did. She's going to go kind of more militarized. She did. But the plot was ridiculous. I brought a little-- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. We've got to take another spot break. And he gave us-- we're going to take a spot break. We're going to cut a commercial here on 2.0.0. You guys can open it up to the break. We're going to talk all the nitty gritty of the Punisher. We're going to decide once and for all, which is the best as we're about to see John Bernthal's iteration, all right? Dance. And then you're going to get a present. We'll be back. [MUSIC PLAYING] I have no idea what this music is. Did you guys just get bored of my theme song? You hate it now? Oh, shit, I was grooving at that. You're all nodding. You're like, yeah, I think these fuckers are high. I think our engineers are just like, yo-- Yo. They're in. Engineers, you know-- would you think I was sober when I was engineering a gig from the last station the entire time? No. I'll tell you the truth. Fucked up the whole time. I'll tell you the truth. I hope everyone's in a gigscape is on something. So it's actually better. Yeah, yeah. I mean-- That's why I was like, sure I'll be your cause. It's hilarious that I got sober and I was like, fuck that. I don't want to be here. Why would you? You've got to be under some kind of influence to be enjoying this. No, I'm kidding. We're talking about some very important topics. Like, who is the best cinematic Punisher? I mean, this is shit that people need to know. Yeah. And I want to tell you real quick that-- talking about the cinematic universe over there and then the Netflix Marvel corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Luke Cage got announced as a starting date. You know how they-- Not a starting-- I mean, they filmed the damn thing, but it's premiering September 30th. Oh, OK. So you're getting a-- I was like, they got announced and they still have to film it and I was like, god damn it, thanks. It's all filmed, baby, because you are getting-- so right now, in a few days, you guys are all going to be watching Daredevil Season 2 and then less than what, six months later? Less than six months later, you guys are getting Luke Cage on September 30th. And then, do we get Iron Fist first or Jessica Jones Season 2? Jessica Jones. Who knows? That's my guess. Who knows? They cast Iron Fist. We'll see. Start shooting, baby. Hey, it's a good time to be geek. Look both ways before crossing the street. Make sure you don't die. You've got to-- I need you to live. Geeks, you need to live. We live in a gold era. You must live long enough to see it all. All right? That being said, let's talk Punisher. Lon, you brought something. Yes, I brought a present for you guys. OK, this is going back to 1989. Holy shit. We've got a couple of copies of the Punisher here. Holy shit. On Blu-ray. Transfer it over so that it plays on NTSC. OK. Oh, my gosh, oh, yeah. I was like on Blu-ray. I was like, tier? Yeah. That's only available. Lewis, guys, in junior. Listen, it's the only Punisher with an Academy Award winning actor. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a really-- I think it's really underrated. Did you see him at the Oscars? He was really featured. Most of the junior came out on the Oscars. He was straight up pimping. I was like, dude, that dude's a drag from enemy mine. I was so excited. And I had talked about doing this right before that happened. And when I saw him feature there, I was like, oh, that's good. Dude, so this is like a British import-- That's the thing about this movie. It has been so difficult to come by in America that-- listen, New World Pictures owns the rights to the Punisher. His lawn just literally brought us Blu-ray burns of the Punisher 1989. If you know what I haven't seen. So guys, he supports piracy when this octopile launches. Don't ever pay for Cartesian. Oh, yeah. Because you can't get the damn thing in America on Blu-ray. Listen, when octopile launches, you guys, hey, just hit that VLC and just start recording, maybe. And then share and share like that. I only break the law for good nerds like you. Dude, this is fucking awesome, dude. Well, I'm glad you appreciate it. Holy shit. I always thought it was a really underrated movie. The music in this one, the score is particularly strong. It's back when themes were really a thing. It sounded like the entire thing was made on a guitar. It's actually really competent. It's a score. That's cool. I always say it's because 80s. Well, and that's what's cool about a Punisher film made in the 80s is that it kind of deserved the 80s treatment. I agree with you 100%. And it got it. And maybe it wasn't the perfect movie. And there could have been things here and there that would have been better. But one of the things that people always called out was the fact that he didn't have the skull on his chest. And you know in this burn-thaw version, he's not going to have the skull on his chest, at least for a good portion of the movie. But there is images come out and footage come out that he has the skull. Yeah, I've seen it. But the skull is like-- It's faded. Yeah, the skull is faded. It's untasteful. It's probably going to be exactly how all the images were with like Daredevil, where it's like, oh, look, he's in costume. It's costume. He's in costume end credits last episode done. When I was a kid, I saw this punnet, this Lundgren version. And there's a scene-- he's got this relationship with this like homeless Thespian throughout the film. The homeless Thespian. Homeless Thespian. And there's a scene at the end where he had a perfect opportunity to take chalk or something and just paint it on him for theatrics or whatever. Yeah, put like a skull on his chest. Yeah, but what they do is they make it real subtle. It's sort of in the makeup. He's kind of crazy in the '89 version. He's like underground in the sewer, like talking to God naked. It's really dark. I got it, dude. The fifth Ninja Turtle. Yeah, exactly. Lund's my favorite guest because he literally just brought me a shit. And the 1989 version of the-- No, you get tons of guest bring stuff. No, he brought me a Blu-ray of The Punisher from 1989. The Lewis Gossett, Dolph Lundgren version. This is awesome, man. Well, I'm glad you guys are fans because there's a lot of negativity around this movie. And I've been fighting it. Those people can go fucking jump in the creek. All right, go jump in the lake, pal, because the Thomas J.1 didn't work. No. All right, the Ray Stevenson one, as much as I wanted it to work, just didn't work. I mean, the bad guys literally go to where he lives, kidnap Julie Benz, who I love, and then take her in the hopes that The Punisher will then come and get her, and they can lay a trap. One of the fuckers, you went to where he lived, lay the trap there. It pacing-wise. It just didn't come together for me. No, it was like the Thomas J.1. When what's his name? Who's the bad guy in it? Dontravolta. And he's like, a million dollars to the man who can find me The Punisher. He's like, you've been to his movie. He plays three times in this movie. Just raise your hand and be like, I can give you his address right now. Can I have a million dollars? Because let me tell you, look at my most recent locations on my GP, on my carbon. We've been there three times during the course of this movie. And I don't want to hear it. It was irritating watching him drown all his troubles in a model of whiskey. You know, whereas in this one, he's fucking in the sewer, talking to God naked. Yeah, he's got real crackers. Something wrong with him, you know. He's broken. Yeah. He's broken. You know, you can tell that the death of his family, the murder of his family, he really turned him into it. What? His family of words. Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Yeah, damn it. Guys, I am so, I am so, you know, everybody wanted to see, I think after Daredevil season one, everybody wanted to see Bullseye. They wanted to see Elektra and Bullseye. And it is a testament to these guys over at Marvel that they said, you know what? We know that Bullseye is the rooftop Mano Mano Guy when it comes to Daredevil. That's a traditional choice. But the fact that they went Punisher is so smart because their ideologies are so opposed, they obviously want the same goal. We want crime eradicated, but the way they go about it is literally the perfect opposition. It's a perfect yinging yinging. And the fact that they chose the Punisher at season two at Daredevil is so awesome. Because then you can add Bullseye and Bullseye is just nothing more than like an amazing, you know, gun for hire, but the smart choice, the choice where you're really trying to make this thing about something and then build off of it as the Punisher. Well, the trailers have been phenomenal, the stuff they've released around it. It's got me so pumped to be the new season. Burned off, perfect. And then the Elektra stuff looks great. See, I'm still worried about Burnthaw. I have no reason either. I just want you to, in the back of your mind, when you're watching it this weekend, just think to yourself, does he suck? No, you can't say no already. No, you can't say no. Listen, can't, Burnthaw, when you have Martin Scorsese like hiring this guy to be in a movie, when you have, did you see the, oh, what was the name? You know, looking for a hero that was the miniseries from the guy who did the wire? Sure. He did that miniseries looking for a hero that had, what was the name of the actor? Oh my God, from Force Awakens and from Ex Machina. I'm really blanking now. Huge guy, huge actor right now. He was on a miniseries for HBO called looking for a hero and Don Berthold in it. And he plays the lawyer and he's perfect and he's great. This guy has range. He's been in so many things for media things dramatically. Walking dead, I would say. He brought a level of, you know, what's the word? Intensity? Yeah. Every time he was on screen, it was just like. Once he got a murder someone. And then Frank Darabont went and made that mini series about the mob. Afterwards, in Hollywood, that just didn't get extended, but it was Frank Darabont's thing after the Walking Dead where he did like, it was like a mafia type thing and it was like Hollywood in the 30s and 40s. And he played the main character in that. It was awesome. Yeah. As a retort to that, I will say. Koopa Gooding Jr. won an Oscar as well. I love Snow Dogs. (laughing) I love Snow Dogs and Radio. Radio is, you should've won it for radio again. The he won, all the arguments for what you're giving John Berthold are all the arguments like right after radio. You're like, no, Koopa Gooding Jr. He did all this amazing thing. - Everybody's got a better track record at this point. - Yeah, I would say John Berthold's making some good choices. - Yeah, but there was that point where all of a sudden, Koopa's all of this shit started going straight to DVD overnight. - Yeah, well, you know what, you're not gonna take away from the fact that Lon Strickland's still my favorite geese keep guess. (laughing) You brought me a blue ray of the Punisher of 1989. - Just keep in mind, you just John Berthold suck. - Just keep that in mind. - Don't do this for me. - Just keep, yeah. - All right. - Does he suck? - I could love him or hate him, I think, 'cause I actually really enjoyed him in the, what was the movie with Perry? - No, no. - The boxing movie was Stallone and. - Oh, he was good in Creed. - Creed? - No, it was the other one. - Oh, oh, oh, oh. I never saw it. - That the old guy's fighting. - Where the old guy's fighting. - Oh, yeah, that's the old match. - Everybody made fun of it. - That's a final match or something. - Yeah, it's something like, I didn't see it, man. I wasn't gonna watch that. - Grudge match. - Grudge match. - Grudge match. He was really good at it. - He was really good at it. - He was really good at it. 'Cause what it was was he was really likable, and I hated him in Walking Dead. You know, he was so creepy. - But in Grudge match, you actually, like, you really kind of sympathize with it. - Well, I hope I love hate him in Punisher. - That's what you would hope for as a Punisher, right? - This would be awesome. And then obviously there's that rumor of Netflix spinning it off into its own thing. Geekscapers, we have a lot left to talk about. We have to pause for one more station identification here on T-Radio V. Can we just skip them and I'll just say T-Radio V, listen to T-Radio V, and then we just keep talking about it. There are rules. All right, there are rules to this. Oh, nice little music. We'll be right back here. - There's some Apple stock music. - Geek. - Wow. All right, Geekscapers, we're back here on Geekscapers. We're gonna finish this one up. All right, we've had. Oh, he's like, we're gonna finish you. We're gonna cut your butt up. We're gonna finish this one up. We've been talking about very serious things. All right, the Punisher. This stuff, this stuff that's important to us, this is why he started a podcast in the first place. I was like, are you gonna be talking about these passionate, these passionate subjects that I think mean something? Anyway, why not do them with an audience, foreign audience, and Geekscapers? It's an exciting time to be in the Geekscape 'cause we're working on all sorts of stuff behind the scenes that I think hopefully one day you'll see and you'll be like, wow, I've been a part of this since the beginning or two weeks ago. - What was that? (laughing) - You know, I'm just saying, whenever you guys, if you guys are Geekscapers who maybe only check the website, listen to the podcast, maybe you just hang out on the Facebook and see our posts, you're gonna get, my dream is to give you guys more, all right? Maybe, remember we put out a movie out two years ago? Maybe we put you guys out another movie. Maybe you give you guys something else, who knows? But we're always working for you guys 'cause Geekscape is something that I built to be our little thing and you're building it with me by being a part of that. - Just let me just say, I'm really proud to be on Episode 402. - Yeah, because four and two together is 42, which is the perfect number. - Oh, I thought it was the main universe. - You're here on, and you're doing it on Pi Day. - Yeah. - Just go to Pi Day. - Yeah, 3.141592654. - Keeps Octopi. - Yeah, oh shit, Octopi Day. - It all comes together. - It's raining hentai, so. - That's not rain, Jonathan. - Speaking of multi-armed things with Webb, Spider-Man was in that Civil War trailer. - Damn right he was. - He was, oh yeah, that Captain America Civil War trailer. Did we just spoil it for you Kenny? - Oh yeah, was he? - No, Spider-Man was in it. - You just don't know where you missed that. - Yeah, there's no way. The internet literally fucking had a fit about this thing. And I looked up, and so at the end of the Civil War trailer, you see what you've seen basically. I like the book, but there's more Black Panther. There's a bit more plot. You realize like why Tony and Steve are fighting, why there is a Civil War between these eight characters. That was a slide against the level. Come on, in the comics there were like a million characters, and this one they're like, what are these three people have a fight? That being said, the cool thing was at the end of the trailer, there's a standoff, Tony looking at Steve, smart quip, smart quip, followed by another smart quip. And then finally, Tony goes, all right under us, and you see Captain America with his shield, it gets torn out of his grip by a web. Clean, cut the Spider-Man, he catches the shield, and he goes, hey everyone. And we're like, oh shit. - You're friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. - Spider-Man just took Cap's shield and webbed his hands, and there was literally an hour plus on the release day when all the internet talked about was Peter getting all his goo all over Steve's hands on the internet, and I was like, yes. - They did an amazing job of keeping that a secret too, but no one knew that was coming up. - You knew Spider-Man was in the movie. 'Cause that Sony stuff was pretty public, and you knew that the whole deal was Sony and Marvel kind of sharing the character. Sony's doing a movie, and maybe Tony and Steve were in the Spider-Man movie over at Sony. - Well, I thought it would be the Avengers 3 that he would actually show. I didn't realize it was gonna be the Civil War. - No, well, things started falling apart when, well, the secret started opening up when you started seeing like the whole casting choices, and then when Tom Holland got cast, there was, I think, a slip where somebody took a photo of Tom on set of Civil War, and we were like, hey, he's probably gonna be in Civil War, and it's gonna be awesome, 'cause then once you get to the Infinity War one and two, Spider-Man's just gonna be a part of it, and we'll see what they do to bridge that with the Sony Spider-Man standalone movie, which they just cast Zendaya in as Michelle, which is a character from, Michelle's a character from the Spider-Man standalone, not amazing Spider-Man comic book, but Spider-Man, the one with Miles Morales. Michelle is like a potential love interest in the Miles Morales Spider-Man, so is she a love interest for Peter, even though she's Miles' character? Does that make sense? - It's going to be a yes. - But maybe she's the introduction, who's like, hey, you wanna hang out with my friend, Mary Jane Parr? You know, Watson, and then who knows how we're gonna do it? - Similar to Hulk, this is the third casting change for the character, right? So now we're a fresh start. - Now it's a fresh, well, fresh start on casting, but the second Hulk casting with Ed Norton, that's MCU Cannon. - Okay. - The Hulk, the Ed Norton Hulk is MCU Cannon. And again, you saw that in Daredevil, it was on the front page of a newspaper in the background of a thing. It said, you know, destruction in Harlem, and there was absolutely. And then not only that, but Thunderbolt Ross, the same actor who was in that Hulk movie with Ed Norton, who played Thunderbolt Ross, is Thunderbolt Ross in Captain America Civil War. - Oh shit. Oh, and did I see Ant-Man in Civil War? - Hell, yeah, you did, and in that trailer, he was doing the iconic, I'm gonna jump on one of Hawkeye's arrows. - Yeah, yeah. - It's like one of the most famous Avengers covers, or Avengers West Coast covers, is Ant-Man hanging onto the front of one of Hawkeye's arrows, getting shot out, and it's like, yeah, that's like they're equivalent of like, you know, the fastball's special when Colossus throws Wolverine, it's like they're equivalent. It's like Hawkeye and Ant-Man team up, and Ant-Man rides the arrow. - Still Paul Rudd? - Yep, and still Paul Rudd, yeah. You know, and the cool thing is, again, like I said, it's been said, and publicly, that the TV actors for Marvel are contracted to do the movies, if need be. So yes, the Punisher, Daredevil, all these characters could've shown up into the war, but maybe they will an Infinity War. - I think that's good that they do that. - Yeah, I think if Infinity War literally is the whole Marvel universe versus Thanos? - Yeah. - Let's do it, baby. - Wow. - Let's do it. Let's have Iron Fist fight 'em. You know, like let's have all these bastards. - Yeah. - Let's have the agents of SHIELD try to figure it out. - I don't know. - You know what, baby, remember just the sleep. - Unlimited, you know, we're just-- - You know what's gonna happen, man. - Sure, maybe can we limit it just a little bit? - It's like a lot of stuff going on. - No, no. - There's also, we talked about the release date being announced for Luke Cage, September 30th. We're really looking forward to that. There's also a release date over on the AMC TV side of things with Creature, which is like one of the best graphic novel comic book series of all time. Garth Dennis is Steve Dylan's preacher that we all loved. Do you ever read Preacher? - No. - Preacher's the shit. And Seth Rogen and Adam Goldberg, his producing partner, have created that series for AMC. - Oh yeah, yeah, I saw the trailer for that. - It's premiering May 22nd after the finale of "Fear the Walking Dead." - Oh, cool. - So finally, something good after "Fear the Walking Dead." - How dare you? - It's that show is horrible. - Please, no. - The only good episode of the entire show was the last 15 minutes of the last episode of the first season. - When they go to the beach? - Yeah, there's actually shit that happens. The rest of it's like, all right, I get that I've already saw a lot of zombies, but I'm not watching this to never look at any. - No, Kenny, I'm gonna disagree with you on that. It's not that nothing was happening on "Fear the Walking Dead," 'cause I think a lot was happening. It was, the characters weren't making logical choices, and I understand that we're watching characters that are pushed to their limits, and we're not all gonna be on our A-game when there's some life-threatening virus or monster trying to kill us. But I would like to think that you would like closed doors in things and like, I don't know, maybe not empty the Great Western Forum and flood LA with zombies, just try and rescue three people? That was a plot line that I was like, oh, congratulations, you just became the biggest asshole in the history of any zombie show ever. You literally had the Great Western Forum full of zombies, and you emptied it to try and rescue two people. You, a-ho. - I'll give you that. They were making bad choices, but they were doing nothing. - Very bad choices. - In between the time they were just making bad choices. - Kenny, you know what, like at 3 a.m., 'cause I mean, it's hard to judge people for bad choices, 'cause at 3 a.m. when you're like, I'm gonna masturbate or drink, or both, when you make that choice really. - My hand looks really, it looks much prettier if I drink before-- - I don't judge you. I don't judge you, you know? And I definitely say you aren't doing nothing. - I'm not judging you, I'm judging the stupid fucking TV show. - You know what I'd like to see is Romero make a new living dead movie, you know? At least one more-- - I thought Land of the Dead was okay. - It's okay. - I feel like he could come out of the gate with something-- - I'm not gonna complain about George Romero ever telling the story, because you know what, we have to thank him for all of this. - Yeah, it all feels very-- - We're not playing any of this stuff without Romero, and they're very clear about their love of Romero. Greg and Nick and Tarot, especially, so it's like, you know, everything. - I know it was there from, you know, I think Day of the Dead. - Yes. - Yeah, he worked on Day of the Dead. Interviewed in the film, the documentary, Doc of the Dead, co-produced by Geekscape. - Nice. - Yes. - So, if you guys have Netflix, watch Doc of the Dead, and I performed the Greg and Nick and Tarot interview myself. That was fun, but-- - That was a great job. - So when you're like, hey, when you can see the light in his glass reflection-- - That is so nice. - Let's just keep in mind, hey, I didn't have a monitor, and yeah, you know what, I was in the DP, so yes, you can see the reflection of one of Romero's-- - I'm the kind of all your watch out, but I like seeing you show up and do these interviews, people versus George Lucas was a big moment for me as well, seeing you in the-- - Oh, yeah, yeah, that one. Yeah, I like it, I wonder what Alexander Philippe's doing, we should call him, but no, Geekscape is like I said earlier. If you're just listening to the Geekscape episodes, just know that you should tap into the Geekscape website or at least the Geekscape Facebook and Twitter, 'cause we are working to make more Geekscape, and not only that, but here at T-Radio V, this may be our last episode on T-Radio V, because they've rebranded or at least moved us to a different thing called Z-Hollywood, which is Mike Zana, who owns T-Radio V. He has this new, I think he wants it to be more premium. - No, you have to pay for it. - Nothing, yeah. - Nothing, you have to pay for it, not that you have to pay for it, but it's free. - It's premium. - But he's moving us to a new branded thing called Z-Hollywood, so Geekscape has been invited to join the ranks of Z-Hollywood, along with Mr. Eric Roberts and that crew. So I think it's more of like his Hollywood celebrity. - Yes, yes. - Yeah, if he's making different rosters, I think Z-Hollywood is like-- - It's like A-Team or B-Team. - I think we've got upgraded to the A-Team. I think we got moved from the D-League back to the NBA, which we're only like the 76ers. - Yeah, or which A-Team? Is it Quentin, Rampage Jackson, or Mr. T? - I don't know, I enjoyed the Quentin, I enjoyed the Rampage Jackson one. - Me too, I had to put on subtitles, but I really did enjoy his camera. - No, not good. So that is like a little announcement for the end of the show, but this is our last show, I think on T-Radio V, and from now on, we're gonna be doing the show officially on Z-Hollywood, which is kind of cool. Lon, where can we find more stuff about you and about Octopi? - Well, you check out Octopi Network on Facebook and like us on there, we have a webpage, we just launched it. But yeah, find me on Facebook, find me on Twitter, it's just my name, Lon Strickland, and yeah, putting out weird stuff all the time. - Dude, and this, the Punisher Blue Ray. - I know, I'm Jonathan London, this is Kenny Craig for GeekScape, you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and of course, at GeekScape.net. We love you, and we'll see you guys again next week on Z-Hollywood and here on GeekScape. Peace everybody! [BLANK_AUDIO]