Recent and Upcoming SciFi Shows

Ethan: 0:18

Well, hello there, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Father Son's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm your host, Ethan. And I'm your co host, Anthony. And today, we're going to be talking about the most recent news of science fiction.

Anthony: 0:31

That's

Ethan: 0:31

right. We're going

Anthony: 0:31

to do a little preview of What has recently been released in the world of science fiction that we're interested in at least obviously we can't cover everything in this podcast as well as some upcoming shows that we are potentially excited about maybe excited about I don't know we'll have to see when we get into it before we do that though we've been a little inconsistent with releasing our podcast episodes the last few weeks and we've you One of the reasons for that is that Ethan is involved in a musical production at his school. You want to tell us a little bit about that?

Ethan: 1:13

Yeah, so my high school is doing a production of Spongebob the Musical, so they did a Broadway one, I don't know, was it a couple years ago? I don't know, but Sometime recently they did that. So, yeah, our school's putting that on. It's actually this week, so that's pretty cool.

Anthony: 1:30

Yeah, and you play Old Man Jenkins. Just like my dad. So, in addition to being science fiction aficionados we also enjoy music. And this is your second musical that you've been in. I did Third. Fourth, fifth, and this year. Oh, that's right. I forgot. I forgot about the first one. So Yeah, so and I did a couple musicals in high school. So we've got got that background as well. But you're not listening to us for that. You're listening to this podcast because you enjoy science fiction and you want to hear what we have to say about it. So let's jump into the preview. The first show I had on my list that I have been really excited about is is X Men 97, and that's on Disney and they are now on episode 4?

Ethan: 2:29

4 or 5?

Anthony: 2:30

Yeah, I can't remember which episode we're on, but I believe it's a 10 episode series. And what's really cool about this one is that it picks up where the X Men cartoon from the 1990s left off. And it's pretty good so far. I've been pretty impressed. The animation. Looks very similar. I mean, it's, it's better than it was, but it's in the same kind of style as it was in the 1990s. Yeah. It's a

Ethan: 3:01

lot more dynamic than it was because how animation worked mostly back in the day. I don't know if that was the time when they switched to computer animation or not. Probably not. But they used to have a bunch of set background artists and character artists. And what they would actually do is line up the scenes on like, you know, a Sheets of like paper or whatever material it was and then actually like hand make it frame for frame And that's why a lot of like old cartoons had a lot of like repeat looking frames Because they would constantly reuse things in order to keep the efficiency of animation Right while also being able to tell otherwise they would have

Anthony: 3:42

never been able to get all the episodes done

Ethan: 3:44

Yeah, they might have gotten an episode if any

Anthony: 3:47

Yeah, and they, back in the day, I mean, that was 20 plus episodes a season.

Ethan: 3:53

Yeah.

Anthony: 3:54

So, that was a lot of animation to do. So, yeah, it's pretty good. What do you like about it so far?

Ethan: 4:01

I mostly, I'm just an animation nerd. So, I just love how it looks. It's storytelling, I think, is pretty good. They're doing a really interesting character arc with Magneto, I feel. Mhm. Like, now that, Because how the original show left off was with the death of Charles Xavier. And so I feel like they're kind of using Magneto as, not a replacement character, but to sort of take his place as leader of the X Men. Because, I don't know, I guess Charles Xavier thought it'd be a good idea to Put Magneto in the will as the leader of the x men.

Anthony: 4:40

Right, and left him the estate and everything. The entire mansion. Yeah, it seems like Magneto's kind of getting a redemption arc. I'm a little skeptical though, because I do wonder if there's gonna be a twist as we get further into the season where maybe he's not as Good as much of a good guy as he seemingly is right now, so. Magneto's he's always been a complicated character,

Ethan: 5:08

right? Yeah, I wouldn't really describe him right now as a good guy. Cause I think some of the methods he's shown is not really, like, hero material. Like, when they were When he was on trial at the United Nations, in order to prove his point, he took the whole seat, or like the board members chairs, or whatever that was. Right. Right. And lifted that thing up, almost to space, to prove his point.

Anthony: 5:35

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. He's He I think that's a fair assessment. He's not really a good guy, but he's on, at least right now, he's on the side of the good guys, which are the X Men. So, yeah, that's, that's an interesting one. I love that they brought back Morph because he was

Ethan: 5:54

He was an on and off character. Yeah, he was on and off. Sometimes a bad guy, sometimes a good guy. He had a really conflicting

Anthony: 6:00

story arc. Yeah, and he wasn't an original X Men. I don't think like it from the comics I think they added his character in the cartoon. He was originally from the show, I believe. Yeah So so yeah, so yeah X Men 97 so far so good. I'm enjoying watching it and We'll have to see where it goes. I don't know if this is like The final, final season, or if they're gonna do more X Men after this with the, the same, you know, characters from this storyline and this timeline. But we'll have to see. But if nothing else, I am happy that they did X Men 97, and that we get to enjoy it. So, the other show that we're watching right now is Bad Batch, and this is, is it Season 3? Whatever the most recent season is. Yeah,

Ethan: 6:55

I think this is the last season.

Anthony: 6:57

Yeah, this is the final season of Star Wars Bad Batch. For those who may not be familiar with Bad Batch, do you want to give a little synopsis? Alright, so

Ethan: 7:07

Bad Batch is about a force of defective clones known as Clone Force 99. And basically their story of what happens after the Clone Wars is over. And it begins with them being on the side of the newly formed Empire. But eventually turns to them, or changes to them, eventually leaving the Empire and, you know, doing their own thing. They're like bounty hunters and, and they go on all sorts of crazy adventures

Anthony: 7:35

now. Right. And they've got a young girl that they've taken into their care who was also a clone and she's really become kind of the central character of the show because the Emperor wants to use her for some sort of experiment, presumably to figure out how to clone himself. It seems like they're they're heading towards tying in. This story with the sequel trilogy where the emperor comes back from the dead and all that crazy stuff. Yeah, it looks

Ethan: 8:12

like they're attempting to take that dumpster fire from the sequel and try to give it some good setup at the very least.

Anthony: 8:20

Yeah, at least the backstory can be Well done. I'm not sure about the rest of the film. We are not big fans of the sequel trilogy here in our household, it's it was just terrible. So.

Ethan: 8:33

But almost any new Star Wars TV show or content that's come out recently. Other than that, I think has been pretty good. I think the sequel mostly failed due to poor writing. Yeah. And it was just fan service at that point.

Anthony: 8:48

Poor writing, poor planning, and trying to rush the movies being made. You know, cause they wanted to, Disney bought Lucasfilm for like four billion dollars or something and they had all this pressure to like release these new films. And, so they had to crank them out and it was just a mess. It's really unfortunate to, sometime we might do a review of the sequel trilogy and talk about all the terrible aspects of it, but. I think some of it, a little bit of it had it's moments in the first film. The Force Awakens, yeah, had It had some, some good moments, but even, and that's the best one of the three. And even that had its problems. Yeah, but anyway, we're not gonna talk about that today. Maybe we'll do that next week. We could do a review of the sequel trilogy of Star Wars, but in any event the Bad Batch is It's a really good show. It's a cartoon, and I'm excited to see how they conclude the storyline. I've been impressed with it. Alright, we also have coming up another Star Wars show called The Acolyte. And the trailer for this just dropped. A week or two ago. I can't remember exactly when. But recently. And you just watched the trailer before we started recording. What? Yeah, I

Ethan: 10:19

remember now. I've seen it. I saw it like a

Anthony: 10:21

few weeks ago. Oh, you did see it when it came out. What, what are your impressions of it?'cause I wanna hear your thoughts before I give mine.

Ethan: 10:28

To me it, it looks incredibly cheesy. like I. I mean, I'm, there's nothing saying whether it's good or bad or not from what I've seen in the trailer But to me it's coming off on a little bit more of the the cheesy end and like being like, oh the Jedi are these completely Good guys, and there's nothing that makes them bad. You know what I'm saying? No? Oh. Elaborate a little bit. Well, it, from what I've seen, it kind of, in the trailer, it kind of is trying to make the Jedi look perfect in a way, and that there's just this dark force that's gonna oppose them.

Anthony: 11:08

Like they're surprised that there's an evil force that's killing

Ethan: 11:16

them? Yeah, Jedi were all good people, like, Completely perfect. I don't think there would be much in the way of opposing them because they'd somehow be able to make everybody happy as keepers of peace. But, you know, they're supposed to be human and imperfect. And there's always supposed to be things that cause some kind of disturbance or evilness to occur. At least that's my opinion.

Anthony: 11:44

I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't know how to chew on that a little bit. But because, because I think, you know, even, even if the Jedi are doing their job, and, and this, we should clarify, so this takes place, I think, about a hundred years before the Phantom Menace, so before the, the Jedi really, you know, start to, start to fall due to Palpatine. So Palpatine's Not even born yet in the Acolyte, but it seems to be from the trailer, it seems like they're doing kind of an origin story with the Sith. At least that's what it looks like it's gonna be. And, and how, the rise of the Sith and how they you know, started killing the Jedi and stuff like that. Thanks for watching! But I don't know for sure. There's not a lot of details from the trailer. But, I don't know. I, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think even if the Jedi are doing their job, there's always going to be evil forces, right? But maybe they become less powerful, or maybe they've become corrupted. I mean, we saw that a little bit in the prequel trilogy, right? A

Ethan: 13:00

little bit is an understatement.

Anthony: 13:01

Yeah, I mean, by the end, certainly. But you know, they were the guardians of the galaxy. You know, in the Star Wars sense, of course, not the Marvel sense, but yet they couldn't figure out who the Sith Lord was that was orchestrating all this stuff behind the scenes. They didn't know that the the, the war, the Clone Wars was manipulated, you know, so they weren't They didn't

Ethan: 13:26

see Chancellor Palpatine. Yeah,

Anthony: 13:30

yeah, so, so maybe, maybe the Acolyte is kind of the beginning of their downfall, is what I'm wondering. What one line in the trailer that kind of bothered me was somebody says something like, it's not about good or evil, it's about power. And I didn't like that because I, to me, Star Wars is about good and evil, right? It's, it's light overcoming darkness. It's you know the force the light side versus the dark side of the force doing what's right to save the galaxy. You know, a hero's journey, sacrificing oneself for the better, good, you know, those kinds of qualities that we think of as good. And so, I, I'm a little worried that it's going to be too much of a post modern Star Wars take, but Yeah,

Ethan: 14:21

but you know, Star Wars has had its share of unlimited power.

Anthony: 14:24

Yeah, that's right. Emperor Palpatine.

Ethan: 14:30

Unlimited power!

Anthony: 14:33

We'll cut that.

Ethan: 14:33

Scene's great, because two seconds before he's like, I'm too weak! Help me, Anakin!

Anthony: 14:45

So yeah, so that's Star Wars There's probably other projects in the pipeline. I know, oh, they do have the new Rey movie that's supposed, they're supposed to be working on, but I am not the least bit interested in that just because I hate the sequel trilogy so much but.

Ethan: 15:03

Like, hey, oh look, it's the character that can magically do everything.

Anthony: 15:06

Right. Yeah. The the classic Mary Sue character. But, anyway, again, we're getting off on a tangent. We're not here to doggone the sequel trilogy. We'll save that for a later episode. Well, I'm always here for that. Alright, so let's turn to Star Trek and talk about what's coming out here. So Star Trek Discovery Season 5 just started. And at least, I think the first episode, maybe the first two episodes are out. We've not watched those yet. Like, they just came out, like, in the last week or so. I'm cautiously optimistic. Because I've read that they are, they've tried to make season 5 more like the first season of Star Trek Discovery. In terms of, you know, things that make Good storytelling and good character development and stuff, but we've, we've talked a little bit about Star Trek Discovery before, just kind of the lack of character development and how it just kind of took a weird turn and It became a soap opera. Yeah, yeah, it felt, it feels very soap opera y, lots of, lots of drama, and not in the, not drama in the sense of exciting storytelling, like drama like People getting overly emotional and

Ethan: 16:22

Yeah.

Anthony: 16:22

And they didn't develop the characters enough

Ethan: 16:24

to where I could care less about them. Right, exactly. For season five, we might have to get the cringe counter back out.

Anthony: 16:30

We might, yeah. We did keep track of every cringe moment in the first four seasons. No,

Ethan: 16:37

just,

Anthony: 16:37

it was just season four. Oh, was it just season four that we did that?

Ethan: 16:40

I believe the counter reached 52. Oh, only 52 might have gone above that. I don't remember. I thought it was, I think we, we threw away the. The note after we watched it. Yeah,

Anthony: 16:51

but, yeah. But we'll see, we'll see. You know, we'll watch it. And we'll let you know what we think. If it's good, we'll we'll give it credit. If it sucks, well, we'll talk about that too. So Star Trek Discovery Season 5 on Paramount Yep. Section 31, 31. is supposed to be coming out, and I don't know that they've given a release date for that, but I'm kind of excited about Section 31, and it's going to be a movie, not a TV show, so it'll be like a feature length film. And it's the main character in that is Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek Discovery, and she, it's her mirror universe character that comes to the, the main Star Trek universe. And is, she, her mirror universe character was evil, but then she kind of, she starts to have kind of a redemption arc when she comes into the other side. And she's kind of an anti hero you know, and, and she's, she's my favorite character on Star Trek Discovery. I, I think she's the one that they've probably done the best job of developing and making interesting. And she's had some good storylines. I

Ethan: 18:14

think it was a good idea that they kind of threw her character back in time. Because then, that, you know gives the character more of a spotlight. Right. And potentially a show with better writing, or a movie with better writing. Right, right. And it's also just the push back into that era of Star Trek for me is better because I don't like the future that Discovery is in. I feel like it doesn't feel Star Trek y enough.

Anthony: 18:41

Yeah.

Ethan: 18:43

It, it's just odd. It

Anthony: 18:44

feels Yeah, it's too much in the future.

Ethan: 18:47

It feels like a fever dream.

Anthony: 18:49

Yeah, it's, it's, it's got an odd vibe to it. It really does.

Ethan: 18:52

Like, you notice the engines on their ships aren't even touching them? Yeah. Like, they're kind of just floating off to the side and it looks kind of dumb. Yeah, it does.

Anthony: 19:01

I

Ethan: 19:01

agree, it does look kind

Anthony: 19:02

of dumb. But section 31, they go back in time and it's supposed to have, from what I've read, The Enterprise C, which, if you recall, the Enterprise A was the second Enterprise that Kirk, was Kirk's ship, and then Enterprise B was the one in Star Trek Generations, the movie, where Kirk died. Supposedly died if he ended up going into the what do they call that? The Nexus, I think is what they called it. The

Ethan: 19:35

ship that lasted for about 15 minutes. Yeah.

Anthony: 19:38

And then the Enterprise C is the one before Picard's Enterprise, Enterprise D. And that was featured in an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where the Enterprise C and the captain of that ship end up in a kind of time travel storyline, and she ends up, they end up sacrificing themselves to, you know, save the, whatever, say fight the bad, kill the bad guys, save the timeline, whatever it was. I can't remember the the details of the storyline, but it was a good episode. And so that, character the captain of the Enterprise C is supposed to be in section 31 from what I understand. So that'll be kind of cool to Get a little more storyline from that era of the enterprise and yeah. So, and section 31 is just kind of cool. That's the the Star Trek or star fleet's intelligence agency. And they have to do some morally questionable things at times, but they serve a. They work under the paperwork. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, so we'll see. I'm excited about section 31. And then, the other show that's supposed to be coming out, I don't know I don't know how far along in production this is, or if they've even started production. But it's been announced, and I've read a little bit about it, but that's Starfleet Academy. And I'm not sure what time frame it takes place in. But I think it has the potential to be a good show. And so basically what the premise of the show is that it focuses on a group of cadets and they're kind of the central characters of the show going through Starfleet Academy. And so I think that could be an interesting interesting side of Star Trek that hasn't been fully explored yet in the, the storytelling. So here's

Ethan: 21:50

what I think would be cool for this show. So I remember when we were watching DS9, there was this whole episode that was in Starfleet Academy. And I remember this specific scene where Nog asks Captain Sisko for like a letter of recommendation for a specific squadron. So I think it would be cool, it's kind of just like a nod to, The actor who played Nog, who I believe passed away not too long ago, right?

Anthony: 22:20

Yeah yeah, Aaron Eisenberg. It was a couple years ago. Oh, a couple years

Ethan: 22:23

ago? Okay. Well, either way, I think it'd be cool to do a nod to his character. And do a show based around Nog.

Anthony: 22:30

Yeah, that would be cool. Although, it would be hard to see somebody else play Nog.

Ethan: 22:36

Yeah, but if they do it right, I think it would be, like, a really cool tribute to the actor.

Anthony: 22:41

Yeah, yeah I agree. If they, they'd have to do it the right way. It, it, it'd have to be done well. It'd have to be a great story. And you know, they, they can't just pick, you know, You know, any old actor to come play Nog, like he, he's so iconic in the, in the franchise. But yeah, that's, that's sad that he's not with us anymore, but yeah, I, I agree. That would be really cool. This is what the StarTrek. com website says about Starfleet Academy. It says, The series will follow the adventures of a new class of Starfleet cadets as they come of age in one of the most legendary places in the galaxy. Now, it doesn't say what that legendary place is, but it has a hyperlink. And that does not Show me anything. So, I'm not sure what the hyperlink was for. Let's see. The series will begin production in 2024. Star Trek Starfleet Academy will introduce us to a young group of cadets who come together to pursue a common dream of hope and optimism. Under the watchful and demanding eyes of their instructors, they will discover what it takes to become Starfleet officers as they navigate blossoming friendships. Explosive rivalries, first loves, and a new enemy that threatens both the academy and the federation itself.

Ethan: 24:08

Which sounds pretty good. One thing the writers will need to be careful of, and just my opinion, is like making it less about the adventures and more about like the characters themselves and getting into like just dramatic situations and not, you know, like Cool space adventures, like, training simulations gone wrong, and, like other things that could possibly be, like, some kind of misadventure in Starfleet Academy. Like, if they center it too much around the characters and their relationships with each other, it might get boring.

Anthony: 24:47

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, like anything. Yeah, that's true. Hopefully they do a good job of putting together the story and developing the characters and including those elements of Star Trek that we love. You know, space exploration and science fiction and, you know, evil villains and all that stuff that make Star Trek great, right? Yeah. But Yeah, I'm, I'm excited about it. I think it, it sounds like it will be a fun show. And, they, even though there certainly have been episodes of the various Star Trek series where they've, you know, had, episodes that have taken place at the academy or whatever. They've never really explored what the life of a cadet is like at the academy.

Ethan: 25:48

Yeah, I think the most we've heard is Dr. Bashir talking about how he's he like almost aced the medical exam at Starfleet Academy. Right, right.

Anthony: 25:59

And in the The J. J. Abrams, the Kelvin Timeline movies, they were in like, the academy for like five minutes, and then all of a sudden Kirk was captain of the Enterprise. It was kind of ridiculous. Well no, it wasn't that he was

Ethan: 26:12

captain. What happened is since he cheated the Kobayashi Maru, he had to sneak aboard

Anthony: 26:17

the Enterprise. I know, but, so he was made first officer, and then Captain Pike got captured or something, right? Well, because

Ethan: 26:26

Captain Pike saw he was the main character and knew he had to do something.

Anthony: 26:30

Yeah, but then in the second one, he was still captain of the Enterprise. I don't know. It was just silly. Like they, you know, they wanted to have this backstory of him going to the Academy and then they just, I don't know. I'm not a big fan of those movies either. I don't hate them as much as I hate the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but They're they've

Ethan: 26:53

got their cool moments. Like I believe it's the second one with the Enterprise crashing to earth. That looked awesome

Anthony: 26:59

There were some visually. Yeah, visually amazing. Yeah, they did moment. There's definitely some good. Good aesthetics in those shows, but you would expect that right? Yeah, because they're Modern movies right there 21st century films, so they they should have good visual effects But I don't know and they're supposedly working on a fourth one a fourth and final one with that crew, but that one's been stuck in development for several years, and so we'll see if they actually end up releasing a fourth one yeah. So anyway, some interesting science fiction shows coming out soon, and some that are already out that we're excited about. So hopefully you've found this episode useful and We are getting excited about these shows as well, and we'll continue to touch on all things science fiction as we are your guides to the galaxy. Father and son's guide to the galaxy. See what you did there. Yeah. So yeah, so thanks again for listening. Follow us on social media. That's all in the show notes if you want to check it out. And in the meantime, we hope you have a great week. See ya. Transcribed

28:21

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