Episode 130 Transcript
Podcast: Our Opinions Are Correct
Episode: 130: What to Watch and Read This Summer!
Transcription by Keffy
Charlie Jane: [00:00:00] Annalee, are you excited to go to ReaderCon and WisCon this summer?
Annalee: [00:00:06] I actually am really excited. I feel like finally things are opening up enough that I can go to Sci-fi cons.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:15] Yes.
Annalee: [00:00:15] And feel pretty safe. Especially… a lot of them happen during the summer, which is good because you can do lots of stuff outside. WisCon is the longest running feminist science fiction convention in the United States.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:30] Yeah.
Annalee: [00:00:30] And they're taking a break next year so I'm really glad that I get to go this year and just hang out and shoot the breeze. And this will be my first time at ReaderCon. And you are coming with me to ReaderCon.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:43] I am.
Annalee: [00:00:43] So we’ll hopefully just eat a lot of yummy food and hang out with our nerdy friends in Boston.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:50] Yeah, I'm going to a bunch of sci-fi conventions this summer and I feel like that is my new thing from now on is like summer is gonna be when I go to conventions, because you can hang out outdoors, you can eat a lot of ice cream. I'm gonna basically just be mainlining ice cream and talking about books and other media with people and I'm just gonna soak up that hot, hot discourse. It's gonna be exciting.
Annalee: [00:01:13] I like “book and other media.” That sounded very academic.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:17] You know, ReaderCon…
Annalee: [00:01:18] I will be discussing other media as well.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:21] I'm sure that we will occasionally veer into talking about like Doctor Who or The Owl House, but there's gonna be a lot of like, oh my God, books.
Annalee: [00:01:28] Oh, fuck yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:29] That’s what I live for. I feel like, screw going to the beach. I want to go to like some weird hotel in the middle of nowhere and talk about books with other nerds. But you know, it is the start of kind of the summer entertainment season. And so, we thought we would kind of talk you through what your entertainment options are, currently. Because there are books and other media out there to consume. So, let's talk about what we're excited for this summer.
[00:01:55] You are listening to Our Opinions Are Correct, a podcast about science, science fiction, and the nature of reality. I'm Charlie Jane Anders. My latest book is Promises Stronger Than Darkness, and I'm also writing New Mutants: Lethal Legion for Marvel.
Annalee: [00:02:09] Annalee Newitz. I'm a science journalist who writes science fiction. My latest novel is The Terraformers.
Charlie Jane: [00:02:16] So in our mini episode next week, we're gonna be talking about whether superhero movies are finally starting to kind of run into trouble and be less of a sure thing than they used to be. And by the way, did you know that this podcast is completely independent and completely funded by you, our listeners, through Patreon?
[00:02:35] That's right. If we were superheroes, y'all would be our Alfred. Y'all would be our, you know, Jarvis, you would be like building our superhero costumes and keeping our superhero headquarters safe. And if you're a patron, you are making this podcast possible through your support. And you get mini episodes every other week.
Annalee: [00:02:57] Mini, mini, mini!
Charlie Jane: [00:02:57] Those are some of our best conversations that we save for you, our beloved friends, and you get access to our Discord channel where we just hang out constantly. Whatever you can spare, a few bucks a month and up. We really appreciate it. It really helps us to keep this podcast going and anything you give us goes right back into making our opinions even more correct. So, find us at patreon.com/ouropinionsarecorrect.
[00:03:25] All right, let's get hot.
[00:03:25] [OOAC theme plays. Science fictiony synth noises over an energetic, jazzy drum line.]
Annalee: [00:03:59] All right, Charlie Jane, I don't care about other media. I wanna know what's going on with movies this summer. Tell me everything.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:05] Yeah, so this is more of like a normal movie summer, compared to last year and the year before.
Annalee: [00:04:11] Mm-hmm.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:11] There are a lot of tent pole movies in theaters. I think it's the most since 2019.
[00:04:17] Last year you had Top Gun: Maverick and a couple of other big movies that came out, but this feels more regular. Like there's a ton.
Annalee: [00:04:26] So like what?
Charlie Jane: [00:04:29] You know, it's a summer of sequels, remakes, and IP being developed by big studios. By the time you're listening to this podcast, we've already had Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which has not come out yet at the time of recording, and we're about to have a 10th Fast and the Furious movie, a live action version of Disney's The Little Mermaid,
Annalee: [00:04:49] Did not want.
Charlie Jane: [00:04:49] A sequel to Into the Spider-Verse, another Transformers movie, which I think is like the eighth or ninth Transformers movie.
Annalee: [00:04:55] Wait, so this new Transformers movie, though, just to be clear, it has like the animal bots in it or something?
Charlie Jane: [00:05:01] Actually, I’m not sure. I’m actually not sure.
Annalee: [00:05:03] I was like, I tuned out after dino bots because dino bots, that’s the be-all and end-all for me.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:08] I mean, dino bots, you can't really get any better after dino bots.
Annalee: [00:05:09] No.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:10] And then there's like another Indiana Jones movie where now he's like, you know, he's Jonesing again. That's his new catch phrase, it’s like, I'm jonesing for adventure.
Annalee: [00:05:20] I still think he's being played by like Bard AI or something at this point.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:24] I mean, they are digitally youthening his face at this point. So, there’s scenes where it’s like the young Indiana Jones and it’s Harrison Ford, and they’re just kind of making him.
Oh yeah. And they're just kind of making him, which has now become like one of those things that Hollywood does all the time, which never doesn't look a little uncanny valley to me.
Annalee: [00:05:38] Mm-hmm.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:38] There's a movie of The Flash, the DC Superhero. There's a fifth Insidious movie, there's a seventh Mission Impossible movie. There's a Barbie movie, which I'm actually excited for. We're gonna talk about that. There's a movie of Disney's Haunted Mansion, theme park ride. There's a sequel to The Meg, which is that movie about the prehistoric giant shark.
Annalee: [00:05:58] Yep, loved it.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:59] There's another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, this one made by Seth Rogan, and there's a movie of the superhero Blue Beetle.
[00:06:07] Basically there's 14 movies this summer, which are big IP, sequel, remake, whatevers.
Annalee: [00:06:12] Holy crap. So, I guess my dream of fresh original concepts can just die here, right?
Charlie Jane: [00:06:18] You know, I think that, especially in movies now where it's really hard to get people to go to movie theaters post-pandemic, it's like, we want a sure thing.
[00:06:28] But you know, let's talk about one of those movies. Let's talk about Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to Into the Spider-Verse. Annalee, why are you excited about that?
Annalee: [00:06:37] I mean, first of all, like everyone, I loved the first film. I'm a fan of the Miles Morales comics, and you know me. I love an excuse to have some kind of allegory in my films.
Charlie Jane: [00:06:49] Mm-hmm.
Annalee: [00:06:50] And I love that. In Into the Spider-Verse stories, the idea of code switching is really centered and it's sort of used as a metaphor for what it means to be a superhero, where you're constantly switching between different identities and Miles Morales is often switching between, you know, having an identity where he's part of a black community. And then he goes to school and he's hanging out with all of these more upper crust-y white kids. And he's switching between English and Spanish, and so I just love that not only is it just a freaking fun time and a delightful dip into the multiverse with beautiful animation, it also lets us think about what it's like to be a kid who is switching between different modes all the time because of his ethnic background.
Charlie Jane: [00:07:40] I do love that they're adding Spider-Man 2099 this time. Who is the Spider-Man of the future.
Annalee: [00:07:44] Oh, are they? Ooh.
Charlie Jane: [00:07:47] I just, I love Spider-Man 2099. I think that's gonna be really interesting.
Annalee: [00:07:51] Does Spider-Man 2099 have any special futuristic gadgets or powers like titanium web, or something?
Charlie Jane: [00:07:57] I feel like he does, but I can't remember. I feel like he's just like—
Annalee: [00:07:59] We’ll find out!
Charlie Jane: [00:07:59] Yeah, I read all the Spider-Man 2099 comics back in the day, and I know there's more now, but I've fallen behind on 2099.
Annalee: [00:08:09] So, Charlie Jane, what's a movie that you're really excited about?
Charlie Jane: [00:08:11] So I mentioned that, you know, there are these kind of IP plays where toys and theme park rides are being turned into movies.
[00:08:20] And I got to admit, I'm super excited for two of those, the Barbie movie, which, when you think, oh, there's a Barbie movie, you think it's gonna be like The Emoji Movie or like the Angry Birds movie? But no, it looks ridiculous and self-aware. Margaret Robbie is playing Barbie and she's bringing that kind of same sweet snark that she's become famous for.
[00:08:41] And it's you know, it's directed by Greta Gerwig, who previously had done Lady Bird and Little Women, and now she's just going into campy toy movies. And I'm really excited to see what that's gonna look like. I think it could be incredible.
[00:08:50] And then there's The Haunted Mansion, which is directed by Justin Simeon, the creator of Dear White People, one of my favorite shows in the last 10 years. And it has a cast that includes people like LaKeith Stanfield and Tiffany Haddish and Dan Levy among others. And I feel like if we're going to get a movie based on a toy or a theme park ride, I would love for it to be dripping with irony and self-awareness and amazing actors who are just goofing it the hell up.
HM Clip: [00:09:20] This mansion is unhinged.
She needs all the help she can get.
You wanna be a hero?
Pass.
$10,000.
What's the address?
Annalee: [00:09:35] It's funny because there was a Haunted Mansion movie back in 2003 with Eddie Murphy and—
Charlie Jane: [00:09:42] Right.
Annalee: [00:09:42] I don't know whatever happened with that. I’d kind of gotten the impression that it didn't do very well and that they'd kind of abandoned the idea that they were gonna do all these theme park movies, but I guess not.
Charlie Jane: [00:09:55] I feel like maybe Guillermo del Toro was going to make a Haunted Mansion movie at one point, and maybe that's a dream I had, I don't know.
Annalee: [00:10:01] Yeah, and also, there's the Muppets Haunted Mansion movie for 2021, which came and went. Didn't hear anything about it. So, we keep trying to make it happen and, and good luck to you Justin Simien. You go.
Charlie Jane: [00:10:19] Yeah. And meanwhile Christopher Nolan is making a biopic of Oppenheimer, which, you know, could be really interesting. I grew up on like the miniseries about Oppenheimer where there's a lot of gravitas and a lot of intensity and it's just, it's… I love him as a character in kind of meta fiction.
[00:10:38] So I'm curious about that. I don't know if Cillian Murphy is who I would've chosen.
Annalee: [00:10:43] Well, he could do, probably could do fine. I do feel like it's a very Christopher Nolan property. It's very on brand for him. Like it's about science, but it's also very portentous and it's all about the fate of the world.
[00:11:00] So I could actually see him doing a good job. I have to admit, I'm not excited about it because I know it's gonna be like really depressing and ponderous. But if it had like some car chases or I don't know, like holes in space that led us to a weird planet, ah, I'd tune in. I don't think that's gonna happen though.
[00:11:16] What do you think about the new Wes Anderson flick, Asteroid City? I feel like Wes Anderson is sometimes like the greatest ever, and sometimes his stuff is really uneven.
Charlie Jane: [00:11:29] I was literally just watching the trailer for Asteroid City last night and I was thinking this like's extremely like, even campier than other Wes Anderson films, which is saying something. Even more kind of twee and committed to the twee-ness.
[00:11:29] But in a way that, I mean, it's, it's a period piece and it's filmed in this very sort of Technicolor way. And it's got like, as usual, this incredible cast of actors being just quirky and weird and there's like, oh, there's aliens and this is a town of… And it’s Asteroid City and people are trapped in Asteroid City and there's like alien invaders and stuff.
Annalee: [00:12:02] Are they on another planet, or?
Charlie Jane: [00:12:05] No, it's like Earth in the 1950s or early ‘60s.
Annalee: [00:12:09] Oh, so it’s playing with that kind of mid-century imagery of the future and stuff like that.
Charlie Jane: [00:12:15] Yeah. And it's sort of very Roswell-inspired, I think, judging from the trailer. I think it's like, it's like the Space Age and it's Wes Anderson kind of commenting on the space age and on our space age fantasies.
Annalee: [00:12:28] That's cool.
Charlie Jane: [00:12:28] It looks very cute. I will definitely watch the heck out of it.
Annalee: [00:12:32] I have to say, his movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel was one of my all-time favorite movies.
Charlie Jane: [00:12:38] Oh my God, yes.
Annalee: [00:12:39] I love Moonrise Kingdom, which is kind of set I feel like in the ‘60s, so it is sort of maybe in the same time as Moonrise Kingdom. It could be ‘70s maybe. I think he just has a really great ability to conjure a world using style. He uses music, he uses set design to really do incredible world building. And when he's on, his characters are so lovable and weird and memorable. So, I hope that it's good.
[00:13:16] I definitely will go. I'm hoping it's more of a Life Aquatic experience than like, you know, I don't know The Isle of Dogs or Darjeeling Limited, which were not very good in my opinion.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:29] Yeah. We're all hoping for another Life Aquatic.
Annalee: [00:13:31] Or you know, whatever. You go, Wes. I'm excited.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:36] Yeah. And one superhero movie I am excited for this summer is Blue Beetle, which was actually made for HBO Max, and I guess now has been promoted to be a theatrical release. And it's about a Latino—
Annalee: [00:13:45] Charlie, it’s just Max. Okay? It’s Max.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:49] Just Max.
Annalee: [00:13:49] Sorry. Continue.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:49] It was made for Max. It was a Max movie, but now it's not a Max movie. It's now. It's been like boosted past the Max, like we went to the max and then beyond with this movie. It’s about a Latino superhero who, there had been other characters named Blue Beetle, but I remember when they rolled out this version of Blue Beetle who, his secret identity is Jaime Reyes. He’s a young Latino dude who lives with his family and his family all get involved in him being a superhero.
[00:14:21] The trailer looks really sweet. It looks like a really fun movie and I'm really hoping it actually breaks out and becomes like a huge success because I would love to see more Blue Beetle on the big screen.
Annalee: [00:14:31] Is Blue Beetle a comic book character?
Charlie Jane: [00:14:34] He is, and like I said, like about 10, 15 years ago, John Rogers, Keith Giffen and a bunch of other people reinvented him, has this Latino character and he has an alien, kind of scarab. It's like an alien kind of beetle thing that climbs onto his back and attaches to his spine, and then it activates and turns into armor that like is all around him and he has like little beetle legs and he can shoot lasers and he can do all this other stuff and he doesn't know how to control it. So, he's constantly smashing into things. It's a little bit Greatest American Hero, sometimes. And he's kind of cocky.
Annalee: [00:15:07] It’s a little bit like The Tick, at least the TV version of The Tick.
Charlie Jane: [00:15:10] Right, it is a lot like The Tick.
Annalee: [00:15:13] Which I love, like, I’m really excited.
Charlie Jane: [00:15:16] Oh my gosh.
Annalee: [00:15:16] I always like magical high tech suit characters. I don't know why. It’s a trope that I love, so I'm totally excited about that.
[00:15:25] Okay, so let's talk about some other media.
Charlie Jane: [00:15:28] Other media.
Annalee: [00:15:28] Such as… otter media. No, I don't know if there's gonna be any otter media this summer, but, television. I am so freaking psyched about season two of The Afterparty.
Charlie Jane: [00:15:41] Same.
Annalee: [00:15:41] Tell me all about it.
Charlie Jane: [00:15:43] Yeah, so The Afterparty is one of my favorite TV shows in the last few years. It is a murder mystery show where the entire season, the first season is solving one murder, and each episode is from a different character's point of view and each episode is a different genre, which is completely my jam.
Annalee: [00:16:01] It's so amazing.
Charlie Jane: [00:16:02] A thousand percent my jam. So, the detective is played by Tiffany Haddish, who is on top form.
Annalee: [00:16:09] Yeah, she's always great.
Charlie Jane: [00:16:11] I’ve always loved her, but I feel like this is one of my favorite things she's done because she's just having so much fun being a detective, and it's a very anti-copaganda show. Like it critiques the police as part of its story.
Annalee: [00:16:21] Mm-hmm.
Charlie Jane: [00:16:21] That's part of the stakes of it, is that if Tiffany Haddish doesn't solve the crime in the first season, this terrible white guy detective will come in and just arrest the first Black man that he sees, which is Aniq played by Sam Richardson. And Sam Richardson is back in season two as Aniq.
Annalee: [00:16:40] Yay! Oh my God, I love his character so much.
Charlie Jane: [00:16:42] But they're joined by a whole new cast other than that, including John Cho. And this season it takes place at a wedding where the groom is murdered. And I just, oh my God, I cannot wait. This is, I'm gonna get Apple TV as soon as this is available.
Annalee: [00:16:57] Yeah. One of my favorite things in The Afterparty was they went through a bunch, like you said, they went through different genres. So, they had a sitcom, they had a suspense episode, they had a musical episode, which was amazing. But then the final episode is from the point of view of a little kid.
Charlie Jane: [00:17:12] Oh, yeah.
Annalee: [00:17:12] And it's a, it's a Muppet Show episode. And as the kid walks through the party, the kid sees about half the party guests as Muppets. And I was like, mm-hmm. Yes, this is very realistic to how it is to be a kid. Like half the shit you see is just like weird, magical crap. And you're just like, oh yeah, there's an elephant in the corner. Sure. I understand.
Charlie Jane: [00:17:34] Why not?
Annalee: [00:17:34] There's an elephant in the corner. Why not? So that was a particularly inspired moment.
[00:17:42] I am really excited about season two of Heartstopper.
Charlie Jane: [00:17:47] Yes!
Annalee: [00:17:47] Which is a super, incredibly sweet, wholesome British sitcom romance about two high school boys who fall in love and there's no bad stuff. Like there's a tiny bit of bad stuff.
Charlie Jane: [00:18:02] There's little bit of homophobia, there's a little bit of like…
Annalee: [00:18:06] I would call it very light homophobia that is immediately stamped out and you know, designated as Unacceptable.
Charlie Jane: [00:18:13] There’s like, one self-hating gay character who is the worst.
Annalee: [00:18:16] Right. And actually, and that's interesting because the one character who's homophobic is a self-hating gay character, and so it's treated as like, this guy just needs therapy, you know?
Charlie Jane: [00:18:25] Mm-hmm.
Annalee: [00:18:25] Like it's not treated as like everyone hates these characters. It's like, no, they have a best friend who's a trans woman and there's like all of this, and they have two gay women friends. And like, it's just this incredibly sweet imagining of what if a romance between two boys was pretty much like a heterosexual romance, where like the issues are really like, can they get in touch with their feelings? Like, who's gonna go to the prom? Like it's all very gentle and sweet, and it's based on a, a series of graphic novels, and the show incorporates a certain amount of animation to give you the flavor of the graphic novels.
[00:19:08] So like, when the main character sees the boy he's in love with like little flowers and leaves kind of like flowed across the screen. It's so great. And so yeah, season two I'm sure they're gonna be dealing with like, Issues. But mostly I'm just in it for like the smokey looks and kissing.
Charlie Jane: [00:19:25] Yeah. Supposedly in season two we get Nick's brother who apparently is biphobic. That's what I've read.
Annalee: [00:19:30] Oh.
Charlie Jane: [00:19:31] So there might be some more issues and like, I do think it's a show that's sort of very lightly a fantasy because it feels… like, the feel of it is very comic book-y and very kind of magical, which I adore.
Annalee: [00:19:42] Yeah. I mean, there's no actual magic, but it's very heightened and yeah. All right, so tell me, we were just discussing Muppets, so tell me about The Muppets Mayhem featuring the Electric Mayhem band.
Charlie Jane: [00:19:56] Yeah, so I mean, I've always, one of my favorite aspects of The Muppet Show was this band, the Electric Mayhem band with like Dr. Teeth, I think.
Annalee: [00:20:05] And Animal on drums.
Charlie Jane: [00:20:05] And Animal on drums, Animal the drummer.
Annalee: [00:20:08] I'm deeply Animal identified in case anyone is wondering what Muppet is me, that's me. I have a gigantic mouth and I just go around going like, RAAAAH, that's. That's my whole personality.
Charlie Jane: [00:20:18] I'm probably Gonzo or I don't even know.
Annalee: [00:20:21] No.
Charlie Jane: [00:20:20] I'm one of the Muppets that's really kinda like, [makes weird Muppety rruu ruuprupruuu noises]
[00:20:26] I don’t know. I'm one of the Muppets who barely even like, I don't know, I'm just one of the weird Muppets. But yeah, I mean, I love that band and they're making a TV show about that band and basically like the premise of the show is that they've been a band for 30 years, but they've never made an album before. So now they're gonna record their first album and this is their process of their struggle to make a record album.
[00:20:47] And you know, the gift stars include folks like Weird Al Yankovic and Lil Nas X. The trailer looks super fun. I'm just like, yes, I want Lil Nas X hanging out with Muppets. I want Weird Al Yankovic being Weird Al Yankovic. I think everything about this is just delighting me.
[00:21:04] Annalee, what's another show that you are like fiending for?
Annalee: [00:21:09] I am super excited about a show called I'm a Virgo, which is from Boots Riley who did Sorry to Bother You, which is one of my all-time favorite science fiction films in general. And he has an incredible twisted sense of humor and also just a really keen eye for turning dark social problems into absurd scenarios.
[00:21:29] So, like all of his work, this is set in Oakland, California. And it's about a teenage boy who's Black, who's also nine feet tall. And his parents have been hiding him away for his whole life because they're scared about what's gonna happen to this incredibly gigantic kid.
[00:21:48] And the premise is that he finally, as a teenager, gets out of the house and now he's learning about life. And the trailer for it dropped a few weeks ago. You can check it out online. A few episodes were aired at Sundance, I believe. And people are going nuts for it. It just sounds like all the critics are basically, A+++. So, I cannot freaking wait to see this bizarro-pants tale from Boots Riley.
Charlie Jane: [00:22:21] I am dying to see that. So, let's just do a quick television lightning round and like one sentence each about shows that we're excited for.
[00:22:26] I'm excited about Strange New Worlds, mostly because of like Stefan from Vampire Diaries playing Captain Kirk and like Lower Decks, the characters from Lower Decks showing up in live action.
Annalee: [00:22:38] I am excited about The Witcher season three. This is the final season with Henry Cavill, and we're gonna see what's happening with his magical ward and the outcome of what's going on with Yennefer the Witch. Bring it on.
Charlie Jane: [00:22:50] I'm pretty stoked for Secret Invasion, the latest Marvel TV show because it's like Nick Fury fighting shapeshift aliens who have infiltrated our world. I'm like, yeah, that sounds fun.
Annalee: [00:23:00] I wanna see Ahsoka, which is the next Star Wars TV show. Yeah, love seeing her show up in The Mandalorian briefly. And supposedly that's coming in August, so I'm really, really happy to dive into that.
Charlie Jane: [00:23:15] And then there's an animated version of Frog and Toad.
Annalee: [00:23:19] I’m so excited about that. Frog and Toad are my favorite gay uncles.
Charlie Jane: [00:23:23] I cannot wait to see that. It's on Apple tv.
[00:23:26] Okay, let's talk about books.
Annalee: [00:23:30] Charlie Jane, lay it on me. What's a book that you're super pumped for this summer?
Charlie Jane: [00:23:34] So there's a book that I've already read because sometimes I get to read books ahead of time that comes out in May, called To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. I hope I'm pronouncing her name correctly. That book rocked my world and I love it so much and I can't wait for you all to read it. It's about an indigenous girl named Anequs who has a dragon's egg that hatches, and she's the first person among her people to have a dragon in generations. But then she has to go to a boarding school where the colonizers will teach her to handle her dragon properly.
Annalee: [00:24:06] OH!
Charlie Jane: [00:24:07] And it's kind of an alternate version of North American colonization where it's like the 1840s, but North America has been colonized by this group called the Anglish, who are like the English, but they're more Nordic and more Germanic, and they worship like the Norse gods. So, there's no Christianity.
[00:24:24] But they're still operating like colonizers. They're still trying to turn her into a proper young lady. And like half of her training is about how to deal with controlling a dragon and using the dragon's breath to like reshape elements through alchemy. But the other half of her training is just prep being a proper young lady, which means being assimilated into Anglish culture.
[00:24:47] And she has to kind of resist assimilation. But if she doesn't perform well in school, quote unquote, her dragon will be put to death. And it's about the ins and outs of going to school and making friends and stuff. But there's this undercurrent of suspense and dread because you know that her adorable baby dragon is in danger every moment, and it’s a really nuanced look at colonization and assimilation and everything.
[00:25:09] Annalee, what's a book that you're excited about?
Annalee: [00:25:09] Wow. Well, I have to say I am very excited about To Shape a Dragon's Breath. That's literally like every single button in my brain is punched by what's happening in that book starting with dragons and all the way down to reimagining colonization.
[00:25:26] But another book I'm super excited about that I read in advance is called Counterweight. It is the first English translation of an insanely popular Korean novel by an anonymous author who goes by the name Djuna. That's D-J-U-N-A and it's a kind of mystery in the vein of Philip K. Dick, because it’s set in a near future on an island that's been basically bought by a corporation in order to put a space elevator at the equator, which is actually technically where you would need to have like base of your space elevator. It really needs to be in an equatorial area.
[00:26:11] And so this guy who's the main character is kind of a fixer, in a sense, for this corporation seeking out people who might be selling data from the corporation or engaging in terrorism against it because there's certain indigenous folks on the island who are kind of pissed off that this corporation came in and bought it. So, there's a lot of complexity around. Modern day colonization basically, the ways in which corporations can act as de facto colonizers in areas where they're developing industry.
[00:26:42] But on the other hand, it has this incredible subplot about people getting brain implants that take their memories, give them new memories, allow them to occupy different personalities, and that's the Philip K. Dick part where the main character is trying to solve this mystery. But at the same time, he's not sure if someone is messing with his mind or if someone's messing with the mind of his adversary and like who really is who they say they are?
[00:27:10] So, it's kind of like, space cyber punk-ish and there's tons of twists and turns. If you ever watch like corporate K-Dramas, which I freaking love, it has a lot of that, like it has a lot of, like the rich guy who owns the company that owns the space elevator has like really weird relationships with his family and that kind of trickles down.
[00:27:33] So, there's weird family stuff. Weird space elevator stuff. A lot of strange new technology that's delightful and it's really suspenseful, like it's a really fun, fast read. I would say Perfect beach read.
Charlie Jane: [00:27:46] Nice.
Annalee: [00:27:46] And the twist ending, which obviously I will not give away. Truly is twisty. Like when I got there, I was like, this is twisted and twisty. And I did not see it coming, even though once it happened, it was like, oh yeah, the seeds were laid. So, it's really delightful. So that's called Counterweight.
Charlie Jane: [00:28:03] That’s amazing.
Annalee: [00:28:04] What else are you excited about? So, I am really, really stoked for He Who Drowned the World by Shelly Parker-Chan, which is the sequel to She Who Became the Sun, which was a huge blockbuster book a couple years ago.
[00:28:18] And basically, He Who Drowned the World, it's the second book in the duology, I think. It's about a monk named Zhu who is like… I don't know. I mean, Zhu was assigned female at birth, but has disguised himself as a male monk and is now kind of identifying as a dude and has kind of risen to become this great military leader and is trying to win the throne and become emperor. And in order to achieve this goal, Zhu is gonna have to team up with Ouyang, who is a Mongol who kind of betrayed his best friend in the first book. Sorry, that's a bit of a spoiler if you haven't read the first book, but Ouyang is a eunuch who wanted revenge against the killer of his father. And he's now kind of gotten revenge, but now he's gonna have to team up with Zhu to take over the throne. And they've been enemies in the first book, so I'm really excited to see where that goes.
Annalee: [00:29:17] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:29:17] The first book was so thrilling and a little upsetting, but in a good way. And I'm really, I cannot wait to read the second book. I think it's gonna be just like astounding and I cannot wait. It comes out in August.
[00:29:29] Annalee, tell me about another book that you're excited for.
Annalee: [00:29:32] So also coming out in August is Karen Lord's novel, The Blue Beautiful World, which is the third in a series that starts with The Best of All Possible Worlds.
Charlie Jane: [00:29:44] Oh my God.
Annalee: [00:29:44] And it kind of, I mean, and then the second book is The Galaxy Game. And I had not read the other two books in a really, really, long time. I'd kind of forgotten a lot of it. And so, I can tell you that if you read The Blue Beautiful World without having read the other ones, you'll probably be okay. There's some references that you might miss, but like it's still a pretty fun action-packed story even without reading the other two books, which I would recommend that you do just because they're great.
Charlie Jane: [00:30:11] They're amazing.
Annalee: [00:30:11] They really are amazing, and Karen has such an incredible imagination when it comes to the future because she doesn't just think about new technologies like virtual reality, which is a big part of this book, but also diplomatic relationships. And Karen has a background in diplomacy. She worked in diplomacy for many years, and so she has this very realistic future global bureaucracy that's kind of like the UN but with one piece that's different, which is that secretly aliens have infiltrated the UN and they're trying to prepare humanity for meeting all of these other alien civilizations that have politics that are as complicated as earth politics.
[00:30:57] And so the main characters in The Blue Beautiful World are a group of young people who've been chosen to work as ambassadors to help out with this transition as Earth kind of comes into this galactic UN. And they're having to memorize all these facts about these other worlds. And it really reminded me of like, Model UN in high school where you're like trying to memorize all these facts about different nations and you're like, wait, what's the regime change happening in Uganda? What’s going on in this country?
[00:31:29] But they're doing it with other planets, which of course have had civil wars and have different factions and like, it's never simple. It's not like, oh, we're gonna go meet the Cardassians. Every Cardassian has the same political perspective pretty much.
Charlie Jane: [00:31:42] Right.
Annalee: [00:31:42] It's instead it's like, oh, are you meeting this faction or that faction from this world? And so, it's really politically crunchy and fun. And it's also just a romp, like there's a whole assassination plot and there's a lot of teaching people how to use like hyper virtual reality to do all kinds of stuff, and also just bizarre alien minds that maybe transcend death. We don't know. I don't wanna give too much away about that, but there’s a sense of wonder at the core of this book.
[00:32:17] So, if you like first encounter stories about aliens, if you like stories about the diplomatic core in the galaxy, you're really gonna love this book. And also, a lot of it is about music, too. A lot of the virtual reality tech has to do with music.
Charlie Jane: [00:32:32] Oh my God, I can't wait.
Annalee: [00:32:34] It's so good. I really recommend it, especially if you need something optimistic in your world and you're tired of dystopia. So, yeah. The Blue Beautiful World by Karen Lord.
Charlie Jane: [00:32:46] The first book in that series, The Best of All Possible Worlds is one of my favorite space opera books of all time. I think about it constantly. I think that series is incredible. So, let's just do a quick lightning round for books like we did for television.
Annalee: [00:32:57] Sure. Mm-hmm.
Charlie Jane: [00:32:59] And so, you know, I'm just gonna start off, I'm really excited for Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno Garcia, which is, you know, she's been on a roll lately, and this one's got like Nazi filmmakers who put magic into like film stock and a woman sound editor who's trying to like, break into the male-dominated Mexico City film industry in the 1990s. It sounds really like intense and weird, and I'm super pumped for it.
[00:33:24] Annalee, tell me about a book.
Annalee: [00:33:26] I am excited that Ann Leckie is returning to the Imperial Radch world that she introduced us to in Ancillary Justice, which was a huge award-winning, best-selling book. The new book is called Translation State, so bring it on. I'm really happy to go back to that world.
Charlie Jane: [00:33:44] One book I just read is Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs, which is about sisters and enchanted books written in human blood and it's full of dark secrets and the future of magic. It's just a really sweet, beautiful book that ends up, like, I just really fell in love with it.
Annalee: [00:34:03] I am totally flipping my lid over The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon. It's coming in July. It's got mechas, which I love. It's got AI gods, which I wanna overthrow. It has a gay immortal, which, duh, everybody needs that.
Charlie Jane: [00:34:18] Mm-hmm.
Annalee: [00:34:18] And people are just really excited about, I've been just hearing about it non-stop. So that sounds really good to me. What's another one from you?
Charlie Jane: [00:34:26] Yeah, one more from me. The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang.
Annalee: [00:34:30] Yes!
Charlie Jane: [00:34:30] Who's a friend of the pod and it's a queer retelling of the Chinese classic, The Water Margin, and I just, I can't wait for it.
Annalee: [00:34:37] Yeah, me too. I'm really excited. All right, so after the break, we're gonna talk about summer offerings in general and like the changing world of summer entertainment.
[00:34:37] OOAC session break music, a quick little synth bwoop bwoo.
Annalee: [00:34:55] So, you mentioned that there's a lot of big IP movies this summer, meaning sequels and franchises, and that's kind of the same, but has anything changed within this kind of endless cycle of having the fifth episode and the ninth episode of a particular franchise?
Charlie Jane: [00:35:15] Yeah, and I think that there has been a bit of a sea change. I was looking back, we didn't do a summer entertainment preview episode for some reason in 2022, so the last one we did was in 2021 and going back and looking at what we talked about in 2021 versus now, it's very different. And some of that is things returning to “normal.”
Annalee: [00:35:32] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:35:33] There is that trend that was happening for the last, like, I don't know, 15 years of like movie theaters being more and more dominated by big franchise entertainment. Once we started getting multiple Marvel movies every year, for a while there, we were getting a Star Wars movie every year, you know? You have these big franchises that are just dominating at the Cineplex or whatever. “The Cineplex.” Whatever.
Annalee: [00:36:00] It's 1980. We have a Cineplex.
Charlie Jane: [00:36:01] At the cine-mah, anyway. And yeah, I feel like that trend, like I said earlier, the pandemic really boosted that trend because now it's like, yeah, am I gonna leave my house to see this small indie movie that probably would look fine on my big screen TV at home or am I gonna really only leave my house and go be among a bunch of people for like, the next Star Wars movie or the next, like, you know, Guardians of the Galaxy movie. And I feel like…
Annalee: [00:36:27] The thing that will shake you in your seat.
Charlie Jane: [00:36:29] The thing where the VFX are so awesome that you really have to see it in IMAX or something.
Annalee: [00:36:34] Sure.
Charlie Jane: [00:36:34] And so I feel like that's happened. But the other thing that's happened since 2021 is, we talked a lot in our 2021 summer entertainment episode about how there's so many Marvel TV shows now it's hard to keep track of them and there's just so many… there was like 20 Star Trek shows. There was like three Star Wars shows in 2021.
Annalee: [00:36:55] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:36:55] That's now kind of over. I feel like the flood has slowed down to like more of a reasonable flow. So, we're not getting 20 Marvel TV shows this year anymore. A bunch that were supposed to come out this year have been pushed back to next year or the year after. Same with Star Wars, same with Star Trek. Things are just kind of slowing down a little bit and it feels like TV is kind of returning to normal in a, in a weird way as well.
Annalee: [00:37:22] Yeah. I mean the other thing about summer season is that there's been this ongoing shift where big tent pole movies that used to be considered summer movies are kind of coming out all year round. Like we're getting action movies coming out kind of at the winter break time in December, and it used to be that summer was supposed to be when everybody was out of school, and so you would get these kind of family friendly, exciting movies that were basically the movie equivalent of beach reads, you know?
Charlie Jane: [00:37:56] Right.
Annalee: [00:37:56] And you could bring the kids, you could bring the grandparents. It wasn't gonna be some like brooding cyber future full of darkness. Or it wasn’t gonna be an emotional melodrama. It was just gonna be popcorn and I feel like the summer now is just whatever, like, whatever you want it to be. There's gonna be some Superman movie type thing, but not necessarily.
Charlie Jane: [00:38:24] It's now year-round and, and meanwhile the notion of TV having seasons is kind of over thanks to streaming and cable. Like it used to be the TV season started in September and went through like May with a mid-season break over the winter and you didn't get a lot of television shows in the summer. And so, it was like this really stark demarcation between the time of year when we watch a lot of TV and the time of the year when we watch a lot of movies and like so many other things that's now gone and that's just over.
[00:38:53] But meanwhile, peak TV in general is officially coming to an end. And by the time you listen to this, there may or may not be a writer strike. We're recording this in late April, so we're waiting to find out. But whether there's a writer strike or not, it feels as though everybody agrees that peak TV is now over and there's like massive layoffs at all the big entertainment companies.
Annalee: [00:39:13] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:39:13] And a bunch of projects have been shot and are just never gonna be seen by a human being. And a bunch of other projects are just being canceled. And so, you know, Slate wrote recently about like what they call the rise of trough tv, which is what replaces peak TV and their conclusion, we'll link to it in the show notes, is just that we'll see fewer quirky, weird little shows, fewer, odd experiments.
[00:39:38] When we did our Summer Entertainment Guide in 2021, we were talking a lot about shows like Pose and Tuca & Bertie and those shows… pouring one out. Like, Pose at least got to kind of tell a complete story. Tuca & Bertie just could have run forever. And I'm really sad that it didn't.
Annalee: [00:39:54] Yeah, it was basically ripped out of our hearts without any warning, without any closure. I'm like still mad about it. I feel like The Owl House is another example of the show that was ripped away from us.
Charlie Jane: [00:40:08] The Owl House could have gone for another five seasons, no problem.
Annalee: [00:40:14] Oh yeah. And, and it was clear that that was what had been planned. And I think, I used to feel like several years ago, like truly delighted when I would read about new offerings, especially from streamers, but also from networks. And you would see shows that had leads who were trans or who were people of color, and that were coming from all different cultural perspectives, all different class perspectives. You saw shows about immigrants. You saw shows about weird random cults that were funny somehow. I mean, I'm not really subtweeting anything in particular there, but it just felt like this was a moment when finally, television in the United States was reflecting the actual people who live in the United States.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:02] Yeah.
Annalee: [00:41:01] It doesn't feel like that anymore. It feels like, oh, now when we make a Star Trek show, we've gotta make sure that the main captain guy is like a square jawed white man and like, no shade on Strange New Worlds, but it was like, wow, we're right back in 1984 or whatever. You know? It doesn't feel very contemporary.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:23] I love Anson Mount as Christopher Pike. I think he's doing a fantastic job. But the contrast between that and like Star Trek Discovery is really noticeable. And Star Trek Discovery is coming to an end.
Annalee: [00:41:34] Or Lower Decks.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:33] Yeah. Or Lower Decks, which obviously is animated and probably a lot cheaper to produce. But yeah, it's interesting and this is the thing that worries me both as someone who loves to consume television and movies and someone who, you know, wants to write for various media. Other media besides books.
[00:41:53] There was actually an article in the Hollywood Reporter recently that talked about Amazon specifically, where it said they're relying more on testing data that skews towards a preference for content that features straight white male leads. And they quoted a current or former company insider who was not named worried about an over-reliance on shows about quote, “white guys with guns.” And you know, full disclosure, Amazon has been developing a TV show based on my book, Victories Greater Than Death.
[00:42:22] And I don't think that this is just an Amazon thing. I've seen similar stuff written in the trades about other streamers and cable channels and broadcasters. And it worries me. I feel like there is, I can see it now in the new shows that are coming along. There are more white guys with guns and less everything else.
Annalee: [00:42:37] Yeah, it feels very much like we're going back to like an NCIS vibe or a, how can we have the latest Tom Clancy vibe brought to us by Netflix, or whatever, and it's like, you know, that's fine. Like 24 was a show that happened and a lot of people seem to like it.
[00:43:00] It's not like we don't want those shows anymore. It's just that we would also like other kinds of heroes in our shows who are not white men with guns. And there's room for both. Even at in trough tv, there's still room for both. And I hope that we see a shift back again toward having just more diverse lead characters in general.
Charlie Jane: [00:43:23] Yeah, and I feel like, I mean, it seems weird to kind of tie the notion of inclusion in pop culture to the notion of things being quirky or experimental. I think that those are two related things. Like you have a show like Tuca & Bertie, which, the two leads are women of color, but also, it's also a show that's very weird and quirky. And those two things don't have to go together, I wanna emphasize that. But those are two separate but related things that I worry about us losing, which is why I really wanna urge everybody listening to this to support shows like I'm a Virgo and Heartstopper.
Annalee: [00:43:58] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:43:59] And to support books and movies and everything that are kind of foregrounding diverse identities or they might be taken away from us.
Annalee: [00:44:10] Yeah, I mean, we all love Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. We like Guardians of the Galaxy, but we need to also give love and support to weirder projects and indie projects. It isn’t just about, you know, diverse identities, it's also about diverse productions, you know? Productions that are coming from smaller studios or that are being produced entirely independently, and that's what's gonna make our summers exciting now and for years to come.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:39] That seems like a great place to leave it.
[00:44:42] You've been listening to Our Opinions are Correct. If you just stumbled upon us somehow you can get us wherever you get your podcasts. If you like us, please leave a review. It helps a lot. And you can also find us on all the socials we're on Mastodon as @ouropinions. We're on Instagram and TikTok as @ouropinionsarecorrect. And we're on Patreon at patreon.com/ouropinionsarecorrect.
[00:45:04] And I wanna send a thank you to our brilliant, valiant audio producer, Veronica Simonetti, and to the incredibly talented Chris Palmer for providing our music.
Annalee: [00:45:16] Thanks, Chris.
Charlie Jane: [00:45:19] And once again, thanks to you for listening. And you know, if you're on Patreon, we'll see you in our Discord right after this and we'll have a mini episode next week. For everybody else, we'll be back in two weeks.
Together: [00:45:29] Bye.
[00:45:30] [OOAC theme plays. Science fictiony synth noises over an energetic, jazzy drum line.]