State of the Nerd Union

State of the Nerd Union is back from the winter break! This month we discuss the glut of original productions Netflix continues to crank out and where it’s leading and the cultural impact of Black Panther. Also, we attempt to explore the nature of our toxic nerd culture so pervasive on Facebook and other social media surrounding nerdy phenomena like the said Black Panther. What causes the animosity and the tribalism? What is the state of our nerd union?

Zach and Trevor spoil everything related to the Last Jedi so if you haven’t seen it by now, you’ve been warned!!

Listen to the podcast after these links or stream from your favorite podcast service now!!

https://www.nerdunion.us/2017/12/06/knova-gaming-to-host-first-dragon-ball-fighterz-tournament-in-central-california-at-cencal-standoff-2018/

https://www.nerdunion.us/2017/11/23/best-games-to-purchase-for-the-nintendo-switch/

Kill The Unicorns: A Preview

This week we discuss the Lord of the Rings series on Amazon, the Galaxy Quest TV show, and the Gal Gadot v Brett Ratner story in the rundown. For our main event, the crew dissects the controversy ignited by Electronic Arts/DICE’s latest game, Star Wars: Battlefront II. Why has this game set the internet on fire, how did we get to this point, and how can gamers address it? Find out on State of the Nerd Union. 

We hinted at a fantastic surprise this week and though we’re a day later, it came in the form of returning co-host Oliver White and new co-host John Ludwig. They join Commander Shipp and Trevor Law to hopefully dissect the mess of news that got released minutes before the show started.

This week’s topics include:

* Impressions and thoughts on the Thor: Ragnarok

* CBS launching a Twilight Zone reboot with director Jordan Peele

* Star Wars kicking off a new trilogy with Last Jedi director Rian Johnson

* Disney tried to buy 20th Century Fox for errr…reasons

* Moviepass updated this their terms of service…likely to hike the price back up

If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to subscribe on your favorite service and check out more Nerd Union articles, podcasts, and reviews on our website.

 

On this week’s SOTNU, Commander Shipp and Trevor Law are joined by new Nerd Union movie reviewer and podcaster Daniel Chaniott to talk about a few news topics, like the DC Superman horror one-shot, Pet Sematary remake, along with recap of everything that happened with Stranger Things this season. Plus, it’s been a few weeks, but Daniel and Commander Shipp will chat their opinions on Blade Runner 2049.

 

This week on the SOTNU podcast, Trevor and Kenneth discuss Nintendo’s release of the SNES Mini console, setbacks with Marvel and Netflix’s Punisher release, initial impressions on The Good Place, along with tackling the season finale of Rick and Morty.

You can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/nerdunion.

 

This week on State of the Nerd Union, Commander Shipp and Trevor Law discuss whether J.J. Abrams coming back for Episode IX is a good thing, the latest episode of Rick and Morty will blow your mind, and then they get super heavy with the depressing elements of Bojack Horseman and the amazing IT reboot.

Love the show and our website? Support us on Patreon here: patreon.com/nerdunion

What happens when the podcast goes on a slight hiatus along with Trevor and Kenneth having the sniffles, and plenty upset at current events? It’s the recipe for some classic rants and ravings from your SOTNU team. Check our latest State of the Nerd Union podcast were we chat about…

* Batman: The Animated Series 25th Anniversary

* What Happened to the Defenders and Inhumans?

* Stargate Origins web series

* Colin Trevorrow stepping away from Star Wars Episode IX

* Streaming Services are going to fracture the market

* We also reviewed the Summer blockbusters. Which ones were great and which were absolutely abysmal?

* Plus, we took a few minutes to discuss the Fall and Winter slate of films. We are looking forward to few big ones and nervous about plenty others

You can listen to the podcast in the player below or subscribe through our iTunes channel or use your favorite podcast service. We’ll see you next week!!

**Editor’s Note: We mentioned the Criterion collection being available on Hulu. However, it is no longer there, they started their own service called Filmstruck (further providing evidence to our rant on the fractured streaming service market. Not to mention all the other services we didn’t have time to mention).

https://www.nerdunion.us/2017/09/06/wind-river-review/

https://www.nerdunion.us/2017/09/04/serkis-and-reeves-shine-war-for-the-planet-of-the-apes-review/

“Is Death Note That Bad?” Netflix’s Death Note Review

 

This week Kyle and Kenny break down the never ending saga of Marvel Comic’s troubles, and also dive into the new trailer for Star Trek Discovery (DSC). 

* Venom Hardy

Earlier this week, Sony announced that Tom Hardy would be playing Venom in the solo movie that was scrapped after the failure of Amazing Spider-Man 2. Fans were excited to hear it returned to Sony’s slate of films for 2018 and with Zombieland director Ruben Flesicher on board, the project has definitely gained legs over the past few months. However, the facepunch that will immediately dampen that news is finding out the world post-Spiderman Homecoming may have a lot less MCU and a lot more…uhhh…SMU (Sony’s Marvel Universe, that’s just terrible). We already knew that the Marvel / Sony partnership could be a limited deal. Sony’s previous president Amy Pascal seemed to suggest months ago that Sony was not planning on letting their characters exist in the MCU and would rather return to their expanded Spider-man universe. If you’ll remember back when Amazing Spider-man was still a thing, Sony was all jazzed to make a separate comic universe for your favorite webslinger complete with a Venom and Sinister Six solo movie. Again, it was weird for Pascal to say this and honestly it doesn’t make a ton of sense for Sony to do this either. The collaboration seems to be working well for the most part and after renegotiated, there’s no telling what kind of character sharing could happen after.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/tom-hardy-will-play-venom-for-the-director-of-zombielan-1795378406

* Resident Evil Reboot

So apparently Hollywood is not content rebooting a single movie or franchise that was good. They have decided to venture into rebooting absolute crap. Announced earlier last week, Resident Evil is getting a six-movie reboot to maybe make up for the crap that we’ve endured the past decade? Seriously? I can’t hide my contempt about this in the slightest. The entire franchise was complete garbage and they are patting themselves on the back to regurgitating garbage.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/report-resident-evil-is-getting-a-six-movie-reboot-1795413684

* Nintendo Virtual Console

After you get done playing Zelda and get comfortable with Mario Kart 8, there’s not a ton of games out for the Switch right now, which begs the question: where is the virtual console? The next marquee titles won’t reach the system until the fall and that leaves a large gap of time where Nintendo will be losing momentum. I shouldn’t be surprised given how inept Nintendo has proven themselves the past year with their handling of both the Switch launch and Nintendo Classic console.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2017/05/21/nintendo-cannot-delay-the-release-of-its-virtual-console-service-on-the-switch-any-longer/#3124c268171d

* Zack Snyder Steps Away From Justice League

I’m going to happily set aside our usual bashing of Zack Snyder’s film pedigree to discuss a terrible tragedy that we found out minutes before shooting this podcast. Snyder lost his daughter, Autumn, in March after she committed suicide. While they were initially keeping it under wraps, Snyder took a two week break to deal with the tragedy. However, in order to support his family and take care of himself fully, he will not be handling the post-production of Justice League. Joss Whedon will be taking over in his stead as he recently joined the DCEU to film Batgirl. Zack Snyder’s wife Deborah,

This week Kenny and Kyle break down the latest news of the week, as well as talk about Marvel’s cancellation of Black Panther and The Crew and how that bodes for Marvel’s flailing efforts to rebrand itself in the 21st Century.

Show Notes:

* Ridley Scott Is Slipping

Last week, Alien Covenant director Ridley Scott discussed the backlash over Prometheus saying it “influenced” decisions made in the sequel and to that I say “no shit”. One primary complaint he took away was that fans really wanted to see the xenomorph and were disappointed to get the odd looking neomorph in it’s place and to that I say “no shit”. Now, to be fair in all my ranting and raving, they didn’t use Lindelof to create the script this go around. And I was hoping Scott at least realized Prometheus was a narrative mess, but early reports are not looking good for Covenant so far. So lessons were not learned!

http://io9.gizmodo.com/ridley-scott-admits-fan-backlash-over-prometheus-influe-1795126523

* Show Cancellations/Renewals

This past week was the dreaded time of year where people who happen to like shows not called The Walking Dead figure out whether or not their favorites get another outing. A number of genre shows got the axe this week, like; Frequency, Grimm, Powerless, and finally Sleepy Hollow. Shows that almost got cancelled, like Agents of Shield, get at least one more season. We also will get to see the mostly dead corpse of The X Files brought back for another last ride down nostalgia street with ten episodes.

All of the canceled and renewed TV shows from the 2016-’17 season – Vox

https://apple.news/AovCYb8vdSl-uFy7H0AwMIg

* Deadpool TV Show

Donald Glover is on a hot streak right now and he’s continuing to roll the dice. This time, he’ll be producing a 10 episode, animated Deadpool series on FXX. If you’ve watched even a single episode of his hit series Atlanta, you know this man can write and his humor and wit could fit well within this series. No word yet on who would be voicing Deadpool or who else could pop up in the series, but we do know this is definitely going to be rated TV-MA, so no late night viewing for the kiddos.

‘Deadpool’ TV series coming from Donald Glover – Entertainment Weekly

https://apple.news/AdcMu33B1S9qC-dUYNrAj8Q

* Hellboy Reboot

Fans of the long awaited to sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden turd, were sorely disappointed this week when Hellboy creator Mike Mignola announced the series would be rebooted sans Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman. This, apparently set ole George Bluth, Sr himself, who had a secondary role in the first two movies. Jeffrey Tambor called out Mignola on twitter basically laying out the truth that no one would have cared about Hellboy if not for del Toro and Perlman. Some of us, still don’t care.

https://moviepilot.com/p/jeffrey-tambor-hellboy-creator-lacks-loyalty-to-guillermo-ron/4266216?utm_source=fb-stream-post&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=jeffrey-tambor-hellboy-creator-lacks-loyalty-to-guillermo-ron

* Black and White Films Are Not Gimmicks

If you are one of the lucky few to have a Alamo Drafthouse near you, you are in for a special treat tomorrow night. Hugh Jackman’s Logan will be getting the black and white treatment and it looks amazing. There are few films that I would give my nod to get a version like this and Logan definitely mak...