From the Dungeons of Morningstar, my name is
Clint. And I'm Stretch, and this is Prevailing
Strange. This instalment of Prevailing Strange
is what we like to call rant and sundry, where
we round out the week by going over some of the
things that we've previously talked about and
follow wherever the tangents may take us. Just
give me one second, please, mate. If you like
what we're doing here, please like, comment,
subscribe, follow along, share us around to your
family and friends. You are a wanker. What's
wrong, buddy? Did I scare you? Well, yeah. We
weren't expecting it a second time. It's not
news, but I'm going to talk about it and you're
going to listen. Okay. We're going to talk about
it. Nathan Fillion has won the internet. What
is he doing? Yeah. What is going on? Is he going
to set us up for? I don't think it's going to
be a reunion thing because they've already done
one of those. Yep. Could it just be a one -off
movie? I don't know. Could it be a TV show? I
don't know. Could it just be everybody going
to be in the same episode of The Rookie? We don't
know. Or are they all going to be on Once Were
Spacemen? I don't know. So I don't know how well
Once Was Spaceman is doing, but it may have been
something that has drummed up enough success
to kind of elicit a reboot or a second season
to wrap the story up or who knows. Dude, I honestly
don't care. We need to bring Wash back into the
whole thing. For years, I don't know what we're
talking about. We're talking about Firefly and
the cast of Firefly are doing this thing at the
moment on the interwebs, on the socials, where
Nathan Fillion, who plays… Captain Malcolm Reynolds.
Yes, is visiting each and every one of the cast
and telling them it's time. Yeah, and they're
responding in such ways like Jewel, who plays
Kaylee. Jesus Christ. In character. Yeah, I'm
starting to get excited. Yeah, responded shiny
and I'm like, oh, get out of it. Yeah. And then
Simon Tam responded like speaking Chinese and
stuff. And River did the weird tattoo thing.
Yeah, dude. So I'm, come on. Come on. I was talking
to Nasty about it today and she's never seen
it. Nasty's one of our tattoo artists upstairs.
And she literally has never seen or heard of
Firefly. So I was explaining that 25 years ago
we had this one season show that was cancelled
halfway through. And so the last four episodes
were written knowing that there was never going
to be a second season. And it's one of them amazingly
beautiful shows that we're still, everybody's
still talking about 25 years later. To the point
where. Massive cult following. It's this huge
podcast that they've just started. And this,
you read the comments, man, and it's all just
don't give me hope. If this is a, I swear on
my pretty pink floral bonnet, I'll end you if
this is fake. The fact that this show has still
got this much of a strong following 25 years
later than it had. one season well i remember
when it was cancelled and there was like like
why it was well received enough like yeah um
i mean buffy didn't break any kind of um numbers
back in the day but they gave it nine seasons
or whatever it ended up having um and the fact
that a whole original show that was coming out
and the production was good and the story was
good and like There was absolutely nothing wrong
with it. I don't know what actually pulled that
linchpin and kind of gave him the reason to cancel
it. During its 12 -episode run, Buffy started
with 4 .59 million viewers and dipped down to
2 .47 by the finale. Now... Did Firefly come
out before or after Buffy? After. After? Yeah.
Holy Christ. Apparently it was cancelled due
to low ratings, high production costs, and poor
network management at Fox. I believe that. So
after the 11th episode, there was 14 planned
for the season. They didn't air the last three.
Yep. So it was cancelled after 11 episodes. And
their average, their viewership average was 4
.7 million viewers. Buffy's would have been like
3 .2. Yeah. So I'll never understand that. No.
I'll never understand. And the fact that the
viewers and the fans rallied and they made that
movie, you shouldn't have killed Wash. You shouldn't
have killed Walsh. Yeah. But, man, 25 years later,
people are still clamouring for the brown coats.
I'd love to see it. Yeah. I don't even need to
have Joss Whedon attached to it. Anybody that
watches that one season of Firefly we've got
understands. You will watch it and you'll understand
the exact whole reason why people love it so
much because it's brilliant. I do have hope.
I hope I am not disappointed. I don't. If it's
just a thing, you know, rummaging up viewers
for his podcast or just that they're all going
to be in the rookie, I'm so going to be upset.
Surely it wouldn't be such a cheap thing. I don't
think he'd do that to the fans, man. Nathan Fillion
loves his fans. Yep. So I honestly don't think
he would do this. Alan Tudyk as well. Yeah. He's
so great with his fans as well, so I don't think
they'd do this. But there's still a couple of
cast members that they haven't gone to. Yet.
Yeah, they haven't gone to Jane. I mean, the
announcement is, when is it, the 13th? So they've
given a date. The one with River Tam, they said
there will be an announcement. Nice. Yeah, dude,
I'm pumped. I cannot wait for it. Have you watched,
you've watched Badlands, haven't you? No. You
haven't watched it neither? Mm -mm. I haven't
watched it yet. I thought you said you watched
it and it was bad. No, why? Maybe somebody else
watched it. Oh, Badlands. No, I'm thinking of,
what was that one with Cate Blanchett? Oh, Borderlands.
Borderlands. That was terrible. Yeah, Badlands.
I haven't gone around watching that yet and I
don't know why. You're always at work. True.
It's a bit hard to watch things when you're always
at work and when you're not at work, you're watching
our two mugs on your laptop. Yeah. I think I've
got sunburned through my clothes. My back's so
itchy. You know it's possible, right? Clothes
are only like. You know what we should have named
the podcast? First World Problems with Clint
and Jeremy. First World Problems. I'm out there
sweating my ass off in the sun. My back's itchy.
Today I was doing a tattoo on an inner bicep.
In the air conditioning. Yeah, in the air conditioning.
It was so cool out there. It was like 21 degrees.
And me mate Dan Gould was over and his dad come
for a ride in and he's one of the OG tattooers
in the Hunter Valley. So he's come down and I've
gone out. I'm like, yeah, a bit starstruck. He's,
you know, one of the OGs, dude. So big deal.
And I've walked out and I opened the door and
I'm like, what is this? I said, dude, I'm going
back inside. This is terrible. It was about 31
degrees. It was, yeah. And that was enough. And
then it was like me cousin's like, oh, move up
to Queensland, man, move up to Queensland. I'm
like, no. Yeah. No, I moved to Tassie because
it's cold and I'm like. Bring on winter. Man,
I can't wait for winter. Hell, yeah. Let's just
move down to Melbourne or somewhere. We'll move
down to Tassie. That way it's cold all year round.
Would be nice. And then you and me could walk
around dressed up as Sasquatch and prank people.
And get shot at. Yeah. That'd be my luck. I'd
be my luck so hard. Which is then or earlier.
It just started to swell and every once in a
while I'll bite it again. So not fair. Rightio,
here we go. If superheroes actually existed in
the real world, would governments actually allow
them to operate or would they immediately try
to control them? There'd be control for sure.
The world's not about vigilantes. Not at all.
Vigilantes for sure. If Batman refuses to kill
a villain, Is he actually responsible for the
death caused when they inevitably escape? That's
a big thing, isn't it, about Batman? He constantly
putting him in Arkham and they're escaping and
they're killing a whole lot of people, which
is funny because that's the kind of thing they
kill these parents in the first place. Criminals
out on the streets doing bad things. Yeah. You
kind of have to look at Batman and sometimes
think that he has some kind of... Mental illness
that just wants him to be out there and beat
people up. Yeah, he wants to chase the bad guy.
Just wants to relive the hunt. Yeah. I think
so. I think so too. If the Infinity Stones existed,
which one would actually be the most dangerous
in the hands of an average Joe? Most dangerous?
Personally, the Reality Stone. Oh, man, like
it could just unravel. You could just destroy
people's lives just by walking up and saying
stuff. Yeah. Walking up and imagining stuff,
you destroy someone's life. See, it's funny.
It depends on whether we're talking in the comics
or whether we're talking in the MCU because whenever
he changed stuff, it changed back afterwards.
Like it wasn't a permanent thing or was that
him using the reality stone to turn it back?
You know what I mean? Like whenever he was not
around that returned back to normal reality,
you're saying? So there was the first time when
Gamora, when he tricks Gamora and Star -Lord
and they're in nowhere and nowhere looks normal
and then he takes off and then, or no, or is
it revealed beforehand where nowhere's burning
and everything's been destroyed? No, no, no,
it reveals itself when he speaks. Yeah, that's
right. Then he pops out of nowhere. So it's either
him controlling it to do that or whether it just
resets back to default reality. I don't know
how it works. If it was something like could
you imagine if the reality stone was something
where you could change reality and whatever change
was just implemented and then you just and then
if you like had to. like actively change it back.
Yep. Like what you could forget in changing it
back, what could be missing from the original,
it would never be the same again. Yeah. Like,
yeah, that would be, if that was the case, that
would be the most dangerous. I reckon. Why do
alien invasions always happen in New York? Iconic
skyline. I think that's what it is. Yeah. I think
it's just there's so much. I think they get more
bang for their buck when it comes to destruction
in small areas that's so kind of built up and
dense. Well, saying that, my question's just
been a bit of a kick in the butt because when
Mars attacks is one of my favourite invasion
movies that happens in Vegas. Yeah, well, they're
not all like that, but a lot of them are kind
of the bigs. Yeah, but you think like. In Vegas,
you can destroy the Eiffel Tower. You can destroy
Egypt. You can destroy, you know, all that stuff.
That was pretty funny. So I love that. I like
that for when Muzz attacks. At what point does
the cinematic universe become too large to follow
and do you think we're already there? I think
with the MCU, they probably should never have
gone to television. Preach, sir. That kind of
got. Too much and to the point where a lot of
people said it feels like homework. 100%, dude.
It's funny because I love world building and
I love the expansiveness of it, so it's not a
big thing for me, but for the average person,
you probably shouldn't go beyond a trilogy. Yeah,
I see that and I agree. To maintain. a fan base
to prevent that kind of not tiredness. What's
the word? Fatigue. Fatigue, yes. I think trilogies
are – there's something about the power of three.
Like three is a pretty powerful kind of number
and, yeah, I think trilogy is probably as far
as you should really go. The MCU is a completely
different monster though. Yeah, I agree. Because
some of these movies aren't just. Indiana Jones
movies are all Indiana Jones movies. The MCU,
you've got, let's go, we'll take the Captain
America franchise, for example. Captain America,
the first Avenger, was a Captain America movie.
Captain America Winter Soldier, that was a Bucky
Barnes movie, dude. That was a Bucky Barnes.
Captain America Civil War, that was an Avengers
light movie. That was an Avengers movie. So Captain
America's really only got one movie. Yeah, basically.
The rest of them are team -ups. But then it's
interesting because then you start thinking about
things like Star Trek. Okay. Seven different
shows across thousands of episodes. Not much
of it's good though. I never said it was good.
Did you say it had to be good? No, I didn't.
Yeah. See, I absolutely loved, and when I say
I absolutely loved, I mean it with everything
that I have, J .J. Abrams. He's reimagining Star
Trek now. Absolutely killed it. I loved it. I
loved how polished it was. The lens flare could
have dimmed down a little bit. But, dude, that
was just classic JJ. It was great storytelling.
The soundtrack was bangers and it was gorgeous.
Yeah. I didn't mind some of the old Star Trek,
especially when it was on Foxtel and I just put
it on in the background. Yep. A lot of it was
garbage though. Yeah, a lot of it was garbage.
Some of it posed some interesting questions.
You've got to sort through a lot to get to it.
It really showed how bad of an actor William
Shatner is. He's so bad. Yeah. He's so terrible.
100%. Apparently a terrible person. Terrible
singer too. That's one song. I forget what that
one song was. I have not listened to his music.
Okay. Now you have one song out there for a while
that was. A cover of an old song. I think it
was about some woman being a, I think she was
rich and she wants to be a normal person. I almost
had the name of the song on the top of my, the
edge of my, tip of my tongue. You don't need
to. Yeah, no. Have you seen what I have come
across on my Facebook? So these new. Jerseys
have popped up. God damn it, Domino. God damn
it, Domino. But there's more. There's like, this
is an outrage. That's cool. New achievement.
So there's, I want to get a couple. That's Dungeon
Crawl Carl, if you are familiar with it. Like
this one. Bongo is appalled. Have you seen footage
of the fellow recording that? No. He does all
the voices. No, I didn't. Oh, I'll have to send
you a bit later. Pretty cool. It's – I'm really
– I love – I'm getting that tabletop RPG when
it comes out. I'm going to crawl a car one. Dude,
it's so much fun, that book. It is, yeah. You
know, I was a bit, eh, this is shit at the start.
It was hard for me to get used to it. Now I'm
so – I've just bit my lip again. I'm so excited
for the new book to come out. Hell, yeah. But
I've just been too busy re -listening to the
last chapter of Project Hail Mary for the last
three or four days. When's that come out? 14th.
I get to go on the 14th. Yeah. Lucky son of a
gun. I'm so excited. The thing is when Rach and
I went to Sydney for Jack's 18th a couple of
weekends ago and then on the way down we were
listening to Project Hail Mary and she started
falling in love with it and then on the way back
and then it was almost finished the other day
when we were on our way back from Newcastle.
I said, we're about three chapters from the end.
Do you want to keep listening? Or do you want
me to turn it off? And she goes, no, no, no,
no, no, just turn it off, turn it off. I'm like,
righto, sweet. So she doesn't know the ending.
But I'm going to fuck. Oh, no, I'm going to fall
out of the dead set chair, bawling my eyes out,
rolling around on the floor. Yeah. It's a great
story. It's such a great story. And it's funny
because I had watched The Martian, read The Martian,
listened to The Martian. and enjoyed all three
installments of it. And it was like a very grander
type thing. And then Project Hail Mary started
off. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is very kind of
similar -esque. And then it goes full sci -fi.
I'm like, oh, I'd like this even more. Dude,
you've got to listen to Artemis. Artemis is great.
Because it's a bit more sci -fi. It's in the
future and it's on the space station. On the
space station, right. Like an actual city up
there where people have jobs and there's shops
and people have like there's black market trades
and shit. Nice. It's really good. Pretty funny
story. So Steph's in a book club, right? Is that
the one that she's in with my wife? No one. Okay.
Well, she's in the smutty one with my wife. So
it's funny because Steph isn't a very smutty
book reading person. She likes romanticies like.
more heavy on the romance than the smart, but
loves fantasy world building and stuff like that.
Anyway, so she kind of really worries about her
choice, and there's like 12 of them in this club,
so it's once a year it comes around that she
has a choice in what book that they read. And
the last one she suggested was book one in a
series of two. which is a book that I put her
onto that she really liked and they liked it
or half of them liked it. But the fact that it
was more than one book, a lot of them kind of
got bent out of shape. So this year she's trying
to figure out what to get them to read and I
suggested two books in particular and she misheard
one of them or whatever. It was another book
that I had talked about that I think she should
read at some point, but it wasn't one of the
ones I suggested for this book club, mainly because
I thought it would be geared towards what they
would like to read. So they like, they seem to
be reading a whole lot of Gone Girl, kind of
that kind of mystery, kind of, I don't know what
you'd call that. Speculative fiction. No, not
speculative fiction. Anyway, whatever it is.
Anyway, so there's one called The Sundown Motel.
It's about a woman that comes to town and she
works at this motel on a night shift. And there
was a murder there so long ago. But then it gets
paranormal and it flashes backwards and forwards
between the story. It's really good. I enjoyed
it. And I thought it would be right up their
alley because it's that kind but has a paranormal
kind of. kicked to it. She misheard me and thought
it was another book called Babble. Babble was
okay, low fantasy kind of academic type thing.
I didn't really like it. I think Steph would
like it, but she thought I said that. And the
other book was another book, my favourite book
that I've probably ever read, and it's called
The Library at Mount Char. I've never heard of
it. You've never heard of it? It's a weird title.
It doesn't make sense right until the end of
the book. I don't want to describe anything about
it because it gives stuff away. But it's one
of the funnest things I've ever read and it's
completely weird and left field and it's good.
And I want Steph to read it and she kind of thought,
no, that's a bit much. So she suggested another
book that was written by this one person. I think
it's called, and it's about vampires and werewolves
and she looked it up and kind of said romantic
fantasy kind of enemies become lovers and all
that kind of shit. So there's a whole lot of
banging between werewolves and vampires in this
and the anatomy of a dog and she's like, she
read it in her night and she's like. mortified
that she suggested this book to this book group.
She's like, this is not what I read. What the
hell does this even mean? I'm like, why didn't
you suggest Sundown Motel like I said to you?
She's like, you said Babel. I said, no, I didn't.
Hot damn it. But, yeah, I'm waiting to hear back
about how that next meetup goes. So she's been
amped up for a year. Yeah. There's dog dicks
in it. Yeah, there's dog dicks in it. Talking
about getting dog locked and knots and stuff.
Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Tough crowd. Yeah, some
of these smut books are fucking messed up. Look,
Rachel's read me some excerpts from books that
the other book clubs done. Jesus. Yeah. What?
There's some stuff in there that shouldn't be.
And I'm weird. Yeah, apparently. Because there's
a guy with the best mate who's a spider and they're
saving the planet. Okay. These are not fucking.
Exactly. God damn. And he's up in there with
Rocky for like three, four months. Not once has
he mentioned that he's whacking her. Oh, you
know why? Rocky watches him sleep. He does, doesn't
he? I forgot about that. He watches her sleep.
Yeah, because. That's what they do. Oh, I don't
want to spoil it for anyone. Oh, Eric. Eric.
I'll put the brakes on that one for anybody that
hasn't seen it. You're in for a treat. Sellouts.
Dude, this movie better sell out. You know what?
I don't even care because it's one story. It's
a rounded story. It's got a start and it's got
an end. And I don't have to wait until next month
for a new episode. As long as they don't change
the ending. Oh, if they change the ending, I'm
going to poke myself in the eye with a hot poker.
They couldn't do it. Man, they do. They did it
with The Martian though? They fumble stuff. They
fumble stuff. They didn't with The Martian? No,
they just cut it short by a third of the book.
So much shorter. We missed out on the whole rover
rolling over and everything in the movie. That
would have been pretty tedious, I think, on film.
Well, you didn't see the drill shorting out either
when he lent it against the toolbox. It was actually
a lot cut out of that, wasn't it? It was, yeah.
But you're right if they do. Yeah, I try not.
This is why I prefer to read the book afterwards.
Okay. Yeah, because you can always be more excited
when you find out more stuff because when they
leave stuff out. But that was one of my favourite
bits. Yeah. Follow the Rings when I read it.
Who the fuck is Tom Bombadil? Tom Bombadil. It's
worse when you listen to the audiobook and you
got bloody, what's his name? Circus? Andy Circus.
Andy Circus. I'm Tom Bombadil. No, stop that.
Stop. Especially when I never looked it up on
the internet because I read this back in like
early 2000s or like when it first came out, 2000.
I read it after the movie came out, 2000. Oh,
right. Yeah. Not the book. Not the book. I was
going to say. Hang on. Pretty sure Toggle was.
Yeah. And then I get, I'm like, what is this
whole section of book? I'm like, I had no idea.
You couldn't tell by the thickness of the thing?
Well, I just thought he would explain the trees
a lot more than he did. I mean, he was pretty
explicit about kind of everything, the scenery
and that and that in the beginning of the book.
Did you read The Silmarillion before you read
Lord of the Rings or was that after after? I
haven't read The Silmarillion. Haven't you? Read
The Silmarillion. Then you'll know why there's
so much dog shit in Lord of the Rings. And Peter
Jackson went through and like just nitpicked
all his favourite little bits out of it because
the book is trash. The movie's no. Better, but
still. The book's great. No. The movie's pretty.
Some parts of the movie are absolutely stunning,
but there's so many holes in it. Like what? The
eagles, Jeremy. I told you about the eagles.
That don't make sense. What do you mean it doesn't
make sense? There's a whole other side to the
mountain. The mountain is a three -dimensional
shape. He could have gone around the other side
where the eye would not have seen the eagles.
Yeah. He could have gone, let's say he is Mount
Doom. He is the Eye of Sauron, right? If he was
walking up here to the mountain, right, if the
eagles just went half a day, no one dies. Yeah,
but then you wouldn't have a story. Then don't
put them in at the end. Just leave them out.
You just had to leave them out. That's it. But
it's a miracle. Not a miracle. It is. It isn't.
It was a task that was completed by a group of
people. A fellowship, as it were. Do you know
the whole reason why he wrote Lord of the Rings?
Because he was bored? No. And he needed money?
No. He was delusional? No, listen. He had a fetish
for hairy -footed kids? As we all know. Whoa.
Whoa. Hey, whoa. You put the kids in there like,
hang on, what? You're like. No, so he was always
kind of fascinated by ancient Greek and ancient
Roman kind of mythos. Well, he failed them both.
So when the Saxons came to England, like way
back, whoever was settled there, I forget what
they're called. they destroyed a whole lot of
culture that was already here or in England.
So England no longer had their ancient history
the same way that Greece did, the same way that.
Is that why they went and stole everybody else's?
Yeah. So he wanted to write the story of what
like Zeus and all that, but what was for their
part of the world. And that's what the Lord of
the Rings are, is their ancient history. His
made -up version of their ancient history. Has
he ever had magic mushrooms? I mean, he's probably
smoked a bit of Gillyweed, but. Oh, wow. Now
you're crossing over to Harry Potter's territory,
mate. Isn't that what they call it? No. Oh, okay.
What do they call it in the Lord of the Rings?
I was going to ask Matt then, but I turned it
off already. It's something weed. I forget what
they call it. What weed do hobbits smoke? It's
a very frequently asked question. It's called
pipe weed. Pipe weed. Okay. Tolkien explicitly
describes it as a variety probably of nicotiana.
A plant genus that includes tobacco. Right, okay.
They don't even smoke in good weed. Anyway, so,
yeah. That was what he set out to do was create
this kind of mythology for England that they
had lost when the Saxons sacked. Yeah, they didn't
like it, did they? Who? The Brits. They didn't
like getting sacked, did they? It just went and
did everywhere else. Well, it was well before
Britain or anything was set out. Doesn't matter.
Hang on, wasn't he 1887 or something? When he,
yeah, okay. Come on, mate. God, come on, man.
You're going to make up stories. You're going
to make up stories. At least make them realistic.
Yeah, okay. Chuck in like, I don't know, someone
being a great director or something. Anyway,
guys, thanks for joining us. You're really going
to just bounce off the moon talking, aren't you?
Man, I can't talk about the moon right now. I
can't deal with that shit. He's a bit tired.
He's been building a 21 by 27 metre shed all
week. He's a little bit tasseled, aren't you,
Seller? Cooked. He'll be right, mate. Yeah. I'll
be good next week. Go and get a wife to give
you a good deep massage. Yeah. Put your knees
between your... Jesus Christ. On that note, we're
going to go now. Put your knees between your
kneecaps. Long, legs, flat tongue. Just say bye,
Heidi. Thanks for joining us, guys. See you next
time. Love, peace, chicken grease. Bye.