Brad and Doug are back, talking about something Doug is passionate about, storytelling. We start off, with an old favorite, the hero cycle, and how it connects to perennial favorites, A Song of Ice and Fire, Star Wars, Hunger Games, and Harry Potter. We discuss some of the hate towards Ayn Rand and Nirvana, before Brad launches in on his love of short stories, and his lack of time for Thomas Pynchon. Some examples of authors who do a great job at brevity are Ray Bradbury, Mark Twain, George RR Martin (Dunk and Egg) and Robert Heinlein. There’s a brief discussion of Robert Heinlein and how he’s in the Tyson Zone (credit Bill Simmons) for crazy sexual situations. No discussion of bad storytelling would be complete without working our way into a segue about The Room, which leads into the entirely predictable extended discussion of The Phantom Menace and its failings. Doug can’t resist bringing up his hero, Nicolas Cage. After managing to freakishly combine the first two conversation, Doug brings up his frustration with teen-dystopia movies before Brad starts reading random things off of imdb. Eventually we bring it back to Doug’s passion for storytelling, where he talks about his love for Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice. Brad mentions his passion of District 9 as one of the best recent examples of what science fiction is all about.

This week Brad and Doug have gotten together in person to record the podcast. They decide to talk about someone very special, Jar-Jar Binks, the only character who grows over the course of The Phantom Menace. Going from a societal outcast to an emissary of his people and symbol of their entry into the realm of galactic politics, Jar-Jar finds his true calling over the course of the film. They discuss how George Lucas’ focus on special effects bled over into giving more consideration to Jar-Jar than any other character in the film. Doug of course, can’t resist a Game of Thrones reference (don’t worry its not a spoiler).  They also discuss the lack of emotional connections made in the prequels and how this fails to bring the audience on board to enjoy the film. We briefly discuss whether or not Obi-Wan is xenophobic for his “what’s this?” comment upon first meeting Jar-Jar, and Brad admits to owning Phantom Menace on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray. The discussion wraps up with the hosts lamenting the missed opportunity of the prequels, and Doug laments the amount of time he has spent on thinking about fictional universes that he could have spent learning a foreign language.

Download Episode 21 – Jar-Jar Binks

This week we take time out to talk about a great character who appears almost entirely in flashbacks. We start out talking about our experiences reading Watchmen, and its controversial author Alan Moore. Burrowing down into the Comedian, we talk about the role of superheroes in other famous graphic novels and how they relate to human society, and how Alan Moore uses this as a basis for Watchmen . As we discuss this dynamic looking at the other heroes, Doug expresses his love of Malin Ackerman and we somehow managed to bring it back to the Comedian through the relationship with his daughter, and we dive deeply into his character and his driving force for the story despite not playing an active role in the story. This focus is short-lived as Brad digresses to talk about his mocking of the mummy of Ramses II (in Greek, Ozymandias) but we bring it back to the ultimate futility of narcissism which the Comedian so readily understands and is made apparent throughout the work. We finally wrap it up by discussing the finale of  the story and the Comedian’s role in it.

Download Episode 20 – The Comedian

This week we delve into Tony Stark, specifically the Ironman films and The Avengers. We go through his motivations, his style, and his personal philosophy. We also discuss how Tony Stark sees the role of Ironman in the world and how this compares to other heroes. Over the course of the episode, we make direct comparisons to Howard Roark, Captain Kirk, Lando, Kid Anakin, Thor and Batman. Eventually this all leads to a discussion of our differing thoughts on The Avengers film. Lots of spoilers from the movie are included.

Download Episode 19 – Tony Stark

As Brad enjoys his post-getting a Master’s bliss, he managed to get up at 9:30 to join Doug for some podcasting. After some nasal-voiced introductions, Brad recounts a prank he and some friends pulled the last night. This somehow leads to a discussion of Snakes on a Plane. After that, Brad and Doug talk about why bad movies do so well overseas markets. Doug brings up a fun and interesting conversation from this week’s Game of Thrones (there’s not any spoilers in here besides that three particular characters are in a room together, and the interactions with two of them). Then we jump into talking about Tony Stark in the main podcast.

Download – Breakfast with Brad and Doug

Doug and I reminisce and discuss about the protagonist of the first “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” video game, and epic Bioware (of Mass Effect fame) RPG which was released in 2003. Hundreds of hours of enjoyment later, this is one of our all time favorite games, and the discussion of the player character makes for a very interesting podcast because it has to do with a character who presents the player with an interesting philosophical question of nature versus nuture and leaves it to the player to decide the result.

Download Episode 18 – Darth Revan

As we get ready to chat about Darth Revan (well we decide to talk about him near the end), we have a few quick discussions. First, we discuss Brad’s wrapping of of grad school and how Doug has finished Clash of Kings so we had some fun dissecting that. We touch on the general awesomeness of Iain Glen and his new fancy blue scarf. This leads to a discussion comparing Shakespeare’s Histories(8 plays total) to The Song of Ice and Fire series. We talk about our pending Avenger’s nerdgasm, and Brad’s new Netflix obsession, Burn Notice. This leads to Doug bringing up the Worf Effect he loves so much, and eventually we wind up discussing the ad’s in the New York Subway.

Download Pregaming 5/2/2012

In our longest podcast yet we discuss Dagny Taggert from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. We first deal with the prejudice many people have towards the book who haven’t read it, and move from there into a discussion of Dagny and how her journey and growth introduce us to the main philosophical themes of the book. We get into some talk about objectivism, and how it fits in to our understanding of the real world, and what lessons we can take away from it

Download Episode 17 – Dagny Taggert

This week we’re checking out Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones. We spoil up through the first 3 episodes of the 2nd season only, I went through with a fine toothed comb and took out anything that came close to a spoiler, so don’t worry. We are both very much into this series, both on television and the book series, so while we focus on Tyrion, we talk about whats going on in general. We mainly investigate Tyrion’s unique position in the world, and how he copes with that.

Download Episode 16 – Tyrion Lannister