Extended Cut

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

- How Top Gun made an impression on an impressionable youth

- The incredible soundtrack (minus “Take My Breathe Away”)

- How Top Gun is a High School Sports Movie

- Why Top Gun is a love story (and not in the way you think)

- This is the sweatiest movie of all-time

- Maverick’s problematic elements

- The Tom Cruise of it

- Favorite call signs

- How Top Gun treats masculinity

Link City:

All the ‘Top Gun’ Call Signs, Ranked From Worst to Best of the Best

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

- Our Star Wars origin stories

- Better movie: A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back

- The opening crawl

- Why is it so difficult for Hollywood to create good sci-fi and fantasy?

- Why Tatooine is the best Star Wars planet

- The Western elements of Star Wars

- The Special Edition and Han Solo

- Celebrating Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin

- Why the trench run is the greatest ending of any Star Wars movie

- Reconsidering the Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi of A New Hope with everything we learn about them in later films

- Is Star Wars better because it focused completely on the Skywalkers?

- Wondering WTF The Rise of Skywalker was doing

- Our top 5 Star Wars films

- Comparing notes on various Star Wars TV shows: Rebels, Resistance, The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Ahsoka.

Link City:

Credits and Canon

Krista on Medium

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

- The relationship between storytelling and lore

- The tension between story and gameplay

- Storytelling via gameplay

- Emergent gameplay

- The surprising absence of narrative in classic games

- Roleplaying games and player agency

- Adaptations: What separates good ones from bad ones

Games Discussed In This Episode:

- Final Fantasy I, VI, and VII

- The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time

- Red Dead Redemption

- Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

- Animal Well

- Thomas Was Alone

- Unpacking

- Baldur’s Gate I and III

- Disco Elysium

- Mass Effect

- The Last of Us

- Elden Ring / Dark Souls

- Skyrim

- The Sims

Link City:

Is ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ a Big Flop?

How ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ Obliterated 30 Years of Zelda Lore

What’s Next for The Legend of Zelda?

Why the ‘The Last of Us’ Season Finale Sucked

I thoroughly enjoyed replaying this masterpiece (yeah I said it) for the original Nintendo. The gameplay is simple yet addictive, the music and sound design is iconic, and the dungeons are varied and fun.

As for the story? Funny thing, that. There isn’t really a story to speak of. A creepy old man lures you into his dank cave to give you a flimsy sword and sends you out into the world with the equivalent of “lol, good luck, bro.”

I didn’t miss the lack of an overarching narrative at all. In fact, I found it refreshing. No cutscenes, no exposition, no real dialogue. Just exploration and gameplay.

This game is the definition of retro cool. Modern games could learn a thing or two from it.

In This Episode:

- Is Hacks the best show about comedians?

- Why Deborah Vance (Jean Smart, straight fire) is one of the most complicated characters ever created.

- Exploring the relationship/mentorship at the heart of the show.

- How Hacks celebrates the act of creativity, lays bare the cost of the creative life, and uses its two protagonists to depict the journey.

- The most painful scenes to watch.

- Deborah as a capitalist maven and how that identity aligns with her Las Vegas persona.

- How Hacks depicts the realities of misogyny in the entertainment industry but is also hopeful.

- Looking ahead to Season 4.

Link City:

The League of Extraordinarily Funny Women: 50 Trailblazers of Comedy (Sheila’s Book)

Stay Curious (Sheila’s Newsletter)

In This Episode:

Flavors of Tecmo Bowl

Why Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES is the ultimate edition

Idiosyncrasies of Tecmo Bowl

Playing Tecmo Super Bowl in 2024

Memories of playing in the 90s

Best teams and players

Is Tecmo Super Bowl the greatest sports video game ever?

Is Tecmo Super Bowl the best game on the NES?

In This Episode

Breaking down the crawl

This galaxy is resting on the shoulder of only two Jedi

The majesty of the opening sequence

Favorite battles from the live action Clone Wars

Anakin is a disaster, Padme is plot furniture

Palpatine living his best life

The Republic was a surveillance state?

Everybody was Jedi fighting!

A brief postmortem on the Prequels

Link City

The Mando-Verse Has Given New Life to Species Long Gone Stale (paywalled; only $3 a month!)

Why Baylan Skoll is One of the Most Interesting Star Wars Characters (paywalled; only $3 a month!)

The Most Tragic Star Wars Character is Not the One You Think (free read!)

25 Years Later, The Phantom Menace Remains an Uneven Yet Thrilling Nostalgia Trip (free read!)

What Star Wars Means to Me (free read!)

In This Episode

Putting the war in Star Wars

How Rogue One stitches into the existing narrative

Thoughts on returning characters

How Disney-era Star Wars delivered on the promise of classic characters

Why tragedy works in Rogue One and fails in the Prequels

Rogue One, Andor, and gray heroes

Favorite moments

A postmortem on the short-lived anthology series

The tension between personal storytelling and fan expectations

Link City

Justin’s website

Write Now: How To Pursue Your Dream And Start Writing Today!

Star Wars articles

In This Episode

Where does Temple of Doom rate in the Indiana Jones franchise?

How this movie led to the establishment of the PG-13 / UK 12 rating system

Is Temple of Doom a divorce movie?

Opinions on the opening song & dance

Mola Ram and cultural landmines

Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott

Which Indy film has the best Harrison Ford performance?

Favorite sequences from the film

Link City

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Racist, Sexist, Too Violent?

Simon’s website

Simon’s newsletter

Simon’s books

In this episode

My hopes and dreams of the Clone Wars vs the actuality of them

Breaking down the opening crawl

What are the galactic politics, exactly?

The blind arrogance of the Jedi

The troubling relationships at the heart of Episode II

The assassination subplot

Moments I dig

Why this is the worst George Lucas Star Wars movie