Monday, May 21, 2007

If these be geeks, I be friggin' Einstein

With the new movie coming out, many podcasts are full of Transformers discussion. It sounds like a perfect match-Transformers is a geeky subject and there's a certain breed of podcasters that just love showing off the size of their geek cocks as evidenced by all the podcasts with 'geek' in their names. There are lots of normal podcasters out there with Transformers discussion that I enjoy hearing, but when a podcast labels itself "Geek" then I have higher expectations. I love hearing TF related talk, especially from people with more than a superficial knowledge of the old toyline, so I keep an ear open for geek podcasters talking about Transformers. I'm more than happy to hear what well thought out ideas self proclaimed geeks have to share about Transformers.

I look for podcasts with Transformers content by doing a Podscope search. Yesterday I found what looked to be a Transformers geek podcast episode extravaganza that met all of my TF criteria. It's episode 50 of a podcast that calls itself GeekiNtertainment. It's their summer blockbuster movie overview and from the Podscope search it looked like they mentioned Transformers over a dozen times. Awesome! The episode description at their site further describes the show as a special celebration episode where "new listeners will enjoy the in-depth discussion that takes place". Kick ass!

Then I start listening to the show and the host kicks it off by introducing the guests as "the largest assembled geek group in geek entertainment history". Holy crap! I'm in for the Transformers discussion event of the millennium! I was so psyched!

Then I hit the 44:38 mark. Here's what it ended up being:

Geek #1 "what is Megatron turning into in this?"

Geek #2 "Uhhh..I wanna say a...no, someone else is a tank. I forget. No, I don't know. But anyway..."

Geek #3 "I don't know."

That's pretty representative of the level of knowledge these assembled geek titans had. Later on the host accuses the movie of being a dumbed down version of the old cartoon because the Transformers' motives for coming to earth are different in the movie. The difference he states being that instead of looking for energon, now they're looking for something called "The Energon Cube". What? First off, who gives a shit what the motivations are as long as they're feasible in the context of the story and second, WTF? "The Energon Cube"? Come on, guys, this late in the game you should know it's being called "The Allspark".

I came into this podcast expecting erection inducing Transformers discussion by a bunch of hardcore robot geeks who at least read the prequel novel or prequel comics by now and knew something about the upcoming movie toys. Instead I got a bunch of casual fans discussing half baked opinions based on faulty recollections of old internet rumors. Really, is this what passes for "in-depth" geek discussion nowadays?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Podcasts suck.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

People who listen to podcasts suck more.

Anonymous said...

Pleople who blog and know what the Allspark is suck the most.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

You had me at "Pleople".

Weasel said...

Can these "geeks" rattle off one-third of the vocal cast to the original Transformers cartoon? (Peter Cullen and Frank Welker do not count.) Do they know the different origins of Goldbug? Can they recite the Universal Greeting? No? Then these are not "geeks". They are posers. And posers suck.

Evil King Macrocranios said...

Before we cut off their nards I must admit I can't really do any of those things either. My point was more along the lines of they were false advertising by calling themselves geeks. True, I meant to question their geek cred, but without these guys and the millions of others like them, the TF movie doesn't stand a chance. The Transfomers franchise (and especially Michael Bay) needs these sucky posers!

Weasel said...

My point was more along the lines of they were false advertising by calling themselves geeks.

Yeah! We should sue! On behalf of real geeks everywhere! (Note to self: cut down on caffeine.)

The Transfomers franchise (and especially Michael Bay) needs these sucky posers!

I can't tell if that's really deep or really depressing. Maybe both.

Anonymous said...

Weasel, I can name a bunch of the original voice actors, I know one origin of Goldbug, and I can recite the universal greeting.

Apocd and Evil King, I'm a podcaster *and* I listen to podcasts.

I usually don't enjoy listening to "geeks" discuss the Transformers because they either don't take it as seriously as I'd like them to or they don't know as much as I'd like them to. I have high standards.

 

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Evil King Macrocranios was voted king by the evil peoples of the Kingdom of Macrocrania. They listen to Iron Maiden all day and try to take pictures of ghosts with their webcams.