A place for those who "Trust the Fungus"

Here is a thread where we can discuss the Sequelcast, my podcast devoted to reviewing movies in a franchise one film at a time. Check out our past episodes at http://www.sequelcast.com.

These are the franchises we've covered so far:
Beverly Hills Cop
Batman
Bill and Ted
Caddyshack
Chinatown
Ghostbusters
Hobbit/Lord of the Rings (Animated)
Indiana Jones
Karate Kid
Mad Max
Planet of the Apes
Rambo
Reanimator
Riddick
Smokey and the Bandit
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Sequelcast Special Episodes (1 Year Anniversary, ETC)

Feel free to discuss episodes of the show, ideas for future episodes, and so on. Thanks for redstar for suggesting this thread! Again the site is at http://www.sequelcast.com

I highly recommend this podcast for any fan of films and film franchises. One thing that I absolutely respect and enjoy more than anything else from the Sequelcast routine is the heavy focus on pre-development.

Since I've been known to heavily research a film both before and after viewing it (sometimes every time) I know just about everything there is to know about a particular movie. It can become incredibly annoying when listening to a podcast that's otherwise enjoyable except for the ignorance or outright dismissal of certain background facts. Nothing pulls me more out of the experience than having to stop 'listening' and start thinking of how I'm going to word my E-mail. I have yet to need to do that with Sequelcast since you guys know your films.

Following the One-Shot Non-Sequels that introduced me to you guys, I've since listened to the Riddick, Ghostbusters and most-recently Bill & Ted podcasts. All have had an incredible amount of depth to them. I think the one other thing that makes your routine stand out is the attention given to non-film continuity and media tie-ins. Comic books, animated films and cartoon shows are an extension of film franchises that I would love to get into, but just never haven't. You guys discussing them in detail is just an added bonus.

I'm next interested in listening to the TMNT podcasts, but since I've been trying to watch the trilogy for a few weeks now even before discovering Sequelcast I've decided to wait until after. While I would love to experience the Sequelcast routine applied to Super Mario Bros. (especially now that you have us and our site as a resource), I realize that it never became a true franchise so it's not a fair property for the theme.

So, I suppose my follow-up suggestion would be TRON and TRON: Legacy. Now that's a "franchise" with quite a lot of material to work with. The recent (28-year late) sequel only serves in providing further retrospective on the property as a whole.

Redstar, thanks for your kind words regarding Sequelcast.

When we do research for the show, we use Wikipedia as a starting point, then go to fan pages or fan wikis, and sometimes watch documentaries or commentaries if we have the time. Interviews with the directors or movie stars from books or news articles are a help too.

We do focus on media tie-ins a lot, yes. It is part of the experience with a franchise and for a lot of the hosts in particular, someone might have first encountered a franchise (say, Ghostbusters) through a cartoon or a coloring book before actually watching the movie that birthed the franchise/spin-offs to begin with.

The Tron/Tron Legacy idea is pretty good. There is also an animated series coming out for the Disney-XD station marketed as tweens with Elijah Wood in the lead role (not as Tron himself, but another program, presumably).

I also want to stress to listeners or potential listeners that sometimes the language gets offensive, but it's often in a jocular manner. Also, any episode before "Mad Max" (Episode 52) has lower audio quality because the show used to be recorded through Skype on the West and East coasts. Now the show is recorded in the professional Cascadia.FM studios in Portland, Oregon and has better sound quality and a different co-host, but the style of the show is largely the same.

Sequelcast wrote:When we do research for the show, we use Wikipedia as a starting point, then go to fan pages or fan wikis, and sometimes watch documentaries or commentaries if we have the time. Interviews with the directors or movie stars from books or news articles are a help too.

Research of any kind is heavily appreciated by me. It's astounding how often you hear people spout clearly untrue things about the movie they're looking into or assert that the evidence doesn't exist when a 5-second Google search pretty much reveals all the sources you need.

A lot of people don't even realize our own site exists despite it once being the top result for the movie. Sean Gandert's Super Mario bros.: An In-Depth Look in particular states that much of the information relating to the movie was "lost to the mists of time," while also using (without credit) our own videos. Some people just seem to think that these properties don't deserve anything more than a cursory summary and opinion. You guys don't do that and I really respect that.

Sequelcast wrote:We do focus on media tie-ins a lot, yes. It is part of the experience with a franchise and for a lot of the hosts in particular, someone might have first encountered a franchise (say, Ghostbusters) through a cartoon or a coloring book before actually watching the movie that birthed the franchise/spin-offs to begin with.

The Tron/Tron Legacy idea is pretty good. There is also an animated series coming out for the Disney-XD station marketed as tweens with Elijah Wood in the lead role (not as Tron himself, but another program, presumably).

The animated series is only another reason to look into the franchise, though I'm very curious about the various games released over the years. TRON 2.0 and its current status as non-canon in particular would make for an interesting discussion since it's probably the first major continuation of the property.

Redstar wrote:Research of any kind is heavily appreciated by me. It's astounding how often you hear people spout clearly untrue things about the movie they're looking into or assert that the evidence doesn't exist when a 5-second Google search pretty much reveals all the sources you need.

Google is definitely a help. I sometimes go to a library too on the off chance a biography exists of one of the movie stars or directors, etc.

Redstar wrote:The animated series is only another reason to look into the franchise, though I'm very curious about the various games released over the years. TRON 2.0 and its current status as non-canon in particular would make for an interesting discussion since it's probably the first major continuation of the property.

I forgot about the Tron 2.0 PC game. It is so hard to get old PC games running on modern machines unless you purchase them through a web site like GOG (Good Old Games) that optimizes classic games to run on modern operating systems. Ground Kontrol, an arcade here in Portland, Oregon, has arcade machines for Tron and Discs of Tron that are a kick to play through sometimes.

Sequelcast wrote:I forgot about the Tron 2.0 PC game. It is so hard to get old PC games running on modern machines unless you purchase them through a web site like GOG (Good Old Games) that optimizes classic games to run on modern operating systems. Ground Kontrol, an arcade here in Portland, Oregon, has arcade machines for Tron and Discs of Tron that are a kick to play through sometimes.

I know exactly how that is. It's a struggle running my old floppy DOS games, but they're well worth it. Hopefully you can find some way to familiarize yourself with the Tron game(s) in time for doing a podcast on it.

Sequelcast recently did a special episode focusing on video game movies and Super Mario Bros. gets a nod again, as does this site.

http://sequelcast.libsyn.com/sequelcast-special-3-video-game-movies

Listened to both Sequelcasts. Thanks for the shout out on that recent special!

I enjoyed how much you talked about the SMB movie on the other episode despite it not having a "true" sequel per se.

How about doing an episode on Dungeons & Dragons/ Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God?


Also, here's another fun idea for a show you might not have thought of--Jim Carrey franchises:

The Mask/Son of the Mask/The Mask Animated Series

Dumb and Dumber/Dumb and Dumberer/Dumb and Dumber Animated Series

Ace Ventura/Ace Ventura 2/Ace Ventura Jr./Ace Ventura Animated Series

Thanks for the suggestions, sorry I'm getting back to them practically a year later. Been very busy with real world stuff.

We've talked about doing the Dungeons and Dragons movies for quite some time. I really like the Jim Carrey ideas.

We're doing Men in Black right now. The Men in Black 1 episode is already up and we're recording the one for the second movie tonight. I don't think we'll do a separate episode for MIB: The Animated Series, but we'll talk about it in the MIB 3 episode.

We also have 2 spin-off shows: Sequelcast Specials (where we discuss more broad topics not necessarily related to sequels) and SequelCommentary (audio commentaries for movies). A Sequelcast Special episode on the Super Mario Bros. movie is a distinct possibility.

Huge fan of the MIB films, even the second, so I'll be sure to check the pdocasts out as soon as I can. You guys always seem to be a lot more forgiving, or at least understanding, of less than well-received films, so I'm sure it'll be an enjoyed listen.

Sequelcast wrote:We also have 2 spin-off shows: Sequelcast Specials (where we discuss more broad topics not necessarily related to sequels) and SequelCommentary (audio commentaries for movies). A Sequelcast Special episode on the Super Mario Bros. movie is a distinct possibility.

That would be very cool. Keep in touch in case you ever do work on such an episode as I'm sure we'd have a lot to share. We're working on numerous side projects that are proof of the film's lasting legacy.