Our trilogy of The Lord of the Rings retrospectives comes to a close this week, as we dive deep with The Return of the King, the final installment in Peter Jackson’s legendary adaptation. Sixteen years later, does the film hold up as well as its predecessors, and what do we see in it now, older and in the context of a very different cinematic and cultural landscape, that we could not glimpse then? It’s a long conversation befitting this absolute behemoth of a film, but we also make time to talk about Criterion’s announcement of their Godzilla: The Showa Era Films box set for Spine #1000, Sean tells us about falling in love with the wonderful world of Dragon Quest Builders 2, and Jonathan gives first impressions on Fire Emblem: Three Houses after one weekend and 13 hours of play.

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Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:03:45

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

A packed week called for two podcasts, so we’re back for a second time this week to talk all the news out of Comic-Con, from trailers for Star Trek: Picard and HBO’s Watchmen to Marvel unveiling their entire Phase 4 slate, which was not only full of surprises, but some of the best superhero movie titles (and, in the case of Thor: Love & Thunder, title treatments) we’ve ever seen. We also have the abject terror of the Cats trailer to deal with, Jonathan reviews Disney’s new, very boring The Lion King remake and the new, very exciting Hong Kong crime drama The White Storm 2, and we cap it all off with reviews of Judgment on PS4 and Dragon Quest Builders 2 on Switch.

Time Chart:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:04:00

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Last week, we offered the first half of one of the coolest podcast topics we’ve ever done, counting down our 10 Favorite Video Game Soundtracks! This week, we’re back with Part 2, diving deep with our top 4 choices and sampling nearly 100 different wonderful pieces of video game music along the way. Touching on several of our most beloved gaming franchises, along with some surprise deep cuts, and listing a bunch of honorable mentions, this episode is another fun celebration of the music we love most in video games.

Enjoy, and come back Wednesday for an additional podcast, where we’ll be talking all the news out of Comic-Con, including Marvel unveiling their Phase 4 plans, along with Sean and Jonathan’s respective reviews of Judgment and Dragon Quest Builders 2.

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

The end is near for Mobile Suit Gundam, as this set of episodes – #26-38 – finds the crew of the White Base becoming fully integrated into the Federation’s forces, visiting the military’s biggest base of operations, and returning to space for an assault on the Zeon stronghold of Solomon and, finally, a duel…in Texas! It’s another sterling set of episodes, this bunch more action-packed than ever, but also dense with revelations and major plot developments, culminating in a series of major reveals that reshape the stakes of the conflict and where our major characters stand, with just five episodes left to go. We’ll get to those next time, but for now, this is an incredibly juicy, wildly entertaining, and as always shockingly sobering set of episodes worth diving deep with.

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Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

There’s little we love more than a good video game soundtrack – the music that connects us with our most treasured gaming experiences, drawing us in with emotion, grandeur, thrills, and wonder. There are so many great ones, we’ve wanted to count down our favorites for a while, and this week, we’re doing just that – it’s our Top 10 Favorite Video Game Soundtracks! Sean and Jonathan have each compiled their own Top 10 lists, Jonathan’ brother (and actual musician) Thomas has sent in his own, and with a bunch of listener contributions, we’re discussing over 20 amazing soundtracks in this episode alone, with over 75 pieces of video game music sampled to give you a sense of the musical worlds we’re talking about. And this is just Part 1! The discussion was simply too big to fit in one episode, so while we count down #10 - #5 on our lists this week, we’ll be back next week with #4 - #1, Honorable Mentions, and much more! This is one of our favorite episodes we’ve ever put together, and we hope you have as much fun listening as we had making it.

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Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

The golden age of Spider-Man continues, with Far From Home, the latest MCU movie, arriving on the heels of Into the Spider-Verse, Insomniac’s Spider-Man video game, and Spidey’s recent appearances in the Avengers films – and the hits just keep on coming, because Far From Home is an absolute blast. It’s a wildly entertaining, wonderfully funny film with a good heart and a lot of creativity, one that manages to both take Spider-Man to places he’s never been before (geographically and thematically) while also doing an unexpectedly fantastic job with one of his most wonderfully bizarre villains, Mysterio. The film is a lot of fun to talk about, but before that, Sean gives first impressions on Judgment for PS4, Jonathan shares some thoughts on Persona Q2 for 3DS from his brother Thomas, and we go over the sadly hilarious saga of WB tripping on rakes trying to make a Flash movie for the better part of this decade.

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

As we hit the middle stretch of Mobile Suit Gundam and discuss episodes 14 through 25, the show gets increasingly dark, with the challenges faced by the crew of the White Base growing ever more perilous. We’re introduced to new foes like M’quve and Kycilia Zabi, alongside the inimitable Ramba Ral and his companion Hamon, enemies who present Amuro and Bright their fiercest opponents yet, but are also perhaps the most honorable and upstanding characters on the series to date. As the lines between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ grow ever blurrier, the body count starts piling up, and series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino more than earns his nickname, “Kill ‘Em All Tomino.” It’s another terrific, if frequently depressing, set of episodes, as we round the halfway point of the series and head into the back half full steam ahead.

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Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

You’ve wanted it. You’ve asked for it. You’ve waited for it. And now, it’s here – the Game of Thrones episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcasts. Both hosts have seen the entire series, and now we’re here to digest the entire thing, and the unmitigated creative disaster that was the final two seasons in particular. What happened to the writing, what the heck was up with that ‘capture a wight beyond the wall’ plan, why is Euron Greyjoy the worst character in the history of television, and what happens when you do an anime-only fan service ending, but with 90-minute episodes and a seemingly bottomless budget? All this and more will be answered over the course of our very punchy conversation, and before that, we talk Super Mario Maker 2 and Outer Wilds, chat about the slump in the 2019 summer box office, and Jonathan relates the best joke he’s ever heard in a movie theatre.

Time Chart:

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

Back on Episode 277, we started our latest movie retrospective series, looking back at Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy with The Fellowship of the Ring. A few months and many delays later, we’re finally back to talk The Two Towers, the second film in the trilogy and another masterful entry in this all-time great work of cinematic storytelling and craftsmanship. With the Fellowship scattered and the action moving East towards Rohan, The Two Towers expands the world of Middle Earth and deepens the conflict, but this is no mere middle chapter setting the stage for bigger things to come. It’s just as fascinating and enjoyable to talk about as Fellowship, and we break it all down to the level of extreme detail this great movie deserves.

Time Chart:

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

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Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

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Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman

After giving an overview of the Mecha genre and talking about the first two episodes last time, we dive deep into the meat of Mobile Suit Gundam on this week’s episode, discussing Episodes three through thirteen, a stretch which sees Amuro struggling with the surmounting stress of piloting the Gundam, Bright navigating his unexpected leadership, and Char deliciously manipulating supposed friend Garma Zabi to mysterious ends. It’s a terrific set of episodes that establishes the show’s episode structure and major themes, culminating in a brutally dark episode that makes it clear this is no lighthearted space opera – and why this show deserves the thorough look-back we’re giving it on this podcast.

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Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com

Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://japanimationstation.com

Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews in Paperback or on Kindle – https://a.co/d/bLx53vK

Subscribe to our YouTube channels! 

Japanimation Station: https://www.youtube.com/c/japanimationstation  

Purely Academic: https://www.youtube.com/@purelyacademicpodcast

Support the show at Ko-fi ☕️ https://ko-fi.com/weeklystuff

Original Music by Thomas Lack https://www.thomaslack.com/

©2012 - Present Jonathan R. Lack & Sean Chapman