Planet 8 Podcast

Episode 94: Bingeing the Stream Part II

We're back with more talk about all the shows we've been watching. There are so many great shows out now- and so many platforms. It's hard to keep up with it all. But between the three of us, we manage to see quite a few genre shows. We'll share our thoughts on shows such as The Walking Dead, Raised by Wolves, Peacemaker, Star Trek Prodigy, Cowboy Bebop, Hellier, Servant, Tetsujin 28,  Superman and Lois,  and the conversation may wander into a few odd places as we go!We also talk about what shows we are most looking forward to, which of course includes the upcoming Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi series, Marvel's Moonknight show, the new Godzilla show on Apple TV,  and numerous films too.Our Sensor Sweep focuses on the famous Rondo Awards. Sadly, Planet 8 did not get nominated in the podcast category this year. But friends of the show Lord Blood-Rah and Mr. Lobo both got nominated for best horror host, so please consider supporting them. Chief Engineer Bob shares a few other ideas for picks. Remember to go vote before April17th. You can see all the categories here: https://rondoaward.com/rondoaward.com/blog/That's another episode in the can! Let us know what you've been watching! Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8PodcastThanks for listening!

Episode 93: Closing the Book of Boba Fett

 This episode, your Planet 8 crew is rejoined by our good friend Lord Blood-Rah to take a long, last look at The Book of Boba Fett. The second live action Star Wars series was rather uneven, but did provide some cool moments. We'll discuss how we felt about Boba Fett prior to the series, and then dive into the details of the show. While we varied in our interest in Boba prior to the start of The Book of Boba Fett, we all agreed that he's always been a cool looking character. Of course, he was originally designed as a new type of super stormtrooper, but budgetary concerns resulted in the solo bounty hunter we got in the original trilogy.In the new show, we get a reborn Boba Fett, who was both intriguing and a little confusing. The flashbacks, with Boba living with the Tusken Raiders, was one of our favorite parts. But his motivations were still somewhat fuzzy. A plethora of guest stars graced The Book of Boba Fett. Some we had seen before, others were new (at least to the screen). We talk about all of them, and how the show suddenly turned into the third season of The Mandalorian with episode 5. All this and talk on The Clone Wars, Rebels, Rise of Skywalker,  Jedi philosophy, and more! We hope you'll listen in and share your thoughts too!We also pay our respects to special effects legend Douglas Trumbull, who passed away on February 7th. A true innovator, Trumbull created new methods and new technology for special effects, with credits including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek the Motion Picture, Silent Running, Blade Runner, and many more. His influence on visual effects cannot be over-stated. He may be gone but his contributions, his work, will go on forever. For our Sensor Sweep, Recon Officer Karen shares a brand-new book, appropriate for this episode, The Art of The Mandalorian Season Two by Phil Szostak. This is a big, beautiful book chock full of preproduction illustrations and designs for the second season of Mandalorian. Not only do you get to see all the iterations of character and ship designs, but the texts give back story about how the creators developed their ideas. If you're a Mando fan, you'll love this big tome.Be sure to check out LordBloodRah.com to keep up with everything his Lordship is doing! You can find links to his Nerve-Wrackin' Theater for his TV schedule, as well as his Nerve Wrackin' Auditorium for his podcast featuring old time radio horror and science fiction. His site will also point you to his Patreon and his live appearances too! It's your one-stop shop for all things Lord Blood-Rah!As always, we appreciate your support! Let us know what you thought of The Book of Boba Fett, and what you thought of this episode. You know where to reach us:Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8PodcastThanks for listening!

Episode 92: Planet 8 goes Beneath the Planet of the Apes

 This episode we are going back to one of our favorite places, a little world known as the Planet of the Apes! But this time, we're going to explore...Beneath the Planet of the Apes!Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) was the second film in the original Apes franchise, and it went down quite a different path than the first. The Planet Ape -I mean, 8 - crew, along with our special guest, Lord Blood-Rah, will discuss all the myriad details behind how the film came to be made, as well as walk through the storyline. There were a number of ideas thrown around in the initial stages of the film, which involved bringing back Rod Serling and author Pierre Boule, but none of these really stuck. It was only when British poet and screenwriter Paul Dehn was brought in that the plot solidified.Making a sequel back then was unusual and seen as a shoddy money-grab, and Apes star Charlton Heston really didn't want to do it. He was ultimately convinced to do a cameo appearance, so a new lead had to be found, and James Franciscus, who had primarily appeared on television, filled the bill. Much of the cast of the first film returned, including Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius, Kim Hunter as Zira, and Linda Harrison as Nova. Roddy McDowall was not available so actor David Watson stepped in. James Gregory gives a notable performance as gorilla General Ursus, a role originally offered to the legendary Orson Welles!The story builds to a confrontation between the ape military and the human mutants who live underground in the Forbidden Zone. The mutants are disturbing not only visually but for their bizarre worship of their doomsday bomb. With this film, we get a whole second culture to explore on the planet, one that in many ways is more threatening than the apes. The mutants are horrifically scarred but possess powerful mental abilities of telepathy, mind control and the ability to cast illusions. The moment when the mutants are shown praying to their god provides a massive shock moment.The film ends with (SPOILER) Heston's Taylor pushing the final button to set off the Alpha-Omega bomb, thus igniting the atmosphere and destroying the Earth. Famously Heston and producer Dick Zanuck thought that this would prevent any more sequels from being made -a fair conclusion - but this was not the case. But that's a tale for another episode!For our Sensor Sweep, our good friend Lord Blood-Rah updates us on his latest and greatest goings ons: check out his podcast, Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Auditorium, which can be found on most podcast aps or Anchor.fm/Lord Blood-Rah to hear old time radio horror. His weekly series, Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theater is still going with new episodes every week to be found on LordBloodRah.com. His Patreon series (Patreon.com/lordbloodrah) hosts classic TV sci fi every Friday. The big news though is that Creatures Con is coming back on August 7th in Concord, California! The show will feature horror expert David J. Skal among other guests. Check out CreaturesCon.com for more info. That's all for now, listeners. Until next time, remember, ape shall never kill ape!  But the only good human, is a dead human!Thanks for listening!Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8Podcast

Episode 91: Planet 8’s Top 10 Spaceships!

 One of the staples of many science fiction movies and TV shows is the spaceship. Not merely a vehicle, the spaceship seems to take on a personality of its own through a combination of unique design and the way it is perceived by the characters around it. It can be home for some, or a fighting machine, but a character's spaceship often defines them. Your intrepid crew had so many ships to choose from, over the many decades of sci fi films and TV shows, we each made our own top ten lists, and then through arcane methods, pulled together a combined list from our many picks to create quite a varied group of ships. Who made the list? What ship is our number one pick? You're going to have to listen to find out!!But - we will say that our oldest ship is from the 1950s, a number of ships are from non-American productions, and only one pick on our list was on all three of our individual lists! So give it a listen and let us know your thoughts. We will also go over our individual lists too.Our Sensor Sweep focuses on a Bay Area legend, John Stanley, who took up hosting Creature Features from Bob Wilkins in 1979 and continued until 1984. During his tenure on the show, Stanley interviewed tons of celebrities, and he shares those interviews in his new book, The Career that Dripped with Horror. Stanley reminisces about his times hosting Creature Features and later appearances at conventions and other shows, and has transcripts of his interviews with folks like Carrie Fisher, Mark Hammill, Christopher Reeve, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Adam West, and tons more. Whether you're a fan of Creature Features, or never heard of it, the interviews alone are worth picking this one up!All right cadets, that's it for this go round. Make sure you keep your engines energized and your defensive shields charged. Thanks for listening!Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8Podcast

Episode 90: Spider-Man: No Way Home Swings us into 2022!

 It seemed to take forever to get here, but Spider-Man: No Way Home arrived right before Christmas, and it was one of the best presents any of us got this year! The Planet 8 crew loved this latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in this episode, we talk all about the movie and all the things we enjoyed. This is a spoiler-filled review, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, what are you waiting for? Go see it, and hurry on back to the podcast!From the many interesting villains of the film, with Willem Dafoe's Goblin and Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus foremost, to the death of Aunt May, to the appearances of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as other versions of Peter/Spidey, this movie was just packed with amazing moments and surprises. We'll do some deep dives and discuss all of this and more.Of course, Dr. Strange is also in the film and we have to talk about his role in things and what his status is in the MCU -as well as Wong, the new Sorcerer Supreme! There're also all the implications of the multiverse rifts -where will this go in the future?Aunt May utters the famous line, "With great power must also come great responsibility," giving Peter his guiding light, right before she passes away. Losing her gives Peter the sense of loss the other two Spider-Men have that drove them and her last words give him that moral compass he needs so much.MJ and Ned provide Peter with support that no other Spider-Man has had. Moving forward, how will he cope without their help? And was it fair of him to not tell them who he was? At the end of the film, Peter/Spider-Man is reset to a place much more like the classic Spider-Man in the comics: poor, struggling, very much a street-level hero, not the galaxy-spanning hero we'd seen in Endgame. No more help from Tony Stark, from now on, he has to stand on his own two feet. No Way Home feels very much like an origin story. We're excited to see where Spidey goes next!This episode's Sensor Sweep, we want to chat a bit about our YouTube channel. Listeners we invite you to check out our podcasts on YouTube. Bob does a nice job of adding graphics to the audio. It's another way of catching the show. We also have a few special video episodes that are not part of the regular podcast, where we've discussed things like AIP films or bad Facebook purchases! If we hit 1,000 subscribers, we can do live video, which we would really like to do. Currently we are over 300 subscribers. So please consider subscribing to the YouTube channel, which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Planet8PodcastThat's a wrap! Please let us know your thoughts on Spider-Man No Way Home, our episode, or anything else you want to talk about!Thanks for listening True Believers!Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8Podcast

Episode 89: Christmas with Vincent

 Happy holidays listeners! When we were planning this episode of Planet 8, we thought, "What says happy holidays better than Vincent Price?" This episode we celebrate the career and life of a true Renaissance Man, Vincent Price, with our special guest, Lord Blood-Rah.Price is a legend as a horror film actor, and we will discuss some of his many films, including The Tingler, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Fly, House of Wax, and more. Price played a variety of roles, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes malevolent. But regardless of the role, he had a charm that won audiences over.For many monster kids, our first encounter with Price was on television, perhaps through his role as Egghead on Batman, or even in his many appearances on shows like The Brady Bunch, Love Boat and The Muppet Show. He also displayed his wit and wisdom on game shows like The Hollywood Squares, and frequented talk shows, where his culinary skills might be on display! Price even authored cookbooks (with his second wife, Mary), aimed at the average American family. Cooking Price-wise and A Treasury of Great Recipes were very popular cookbooks in their time, and Treasury was republished in 2015 for a special 50th anniversary edition. He loved cooking and making recipes more accessible for people.He was also an art collector. He had a Masters degree in fine arts and had a lifelong appreciation of art, and a desire to preserve art and bring art to the public - again, making art more accessible to the average person. Today much of his personal collection resides in the Vincent Price Art museum in Los Angeles College in Monterrey Park, California.Price also had quite a career as a voice actor. His wonderful voice allowed him to play the lead role as The Saint on radio in the late 40s. More modern listeners would recognize Price as the narrator from Michael Jackson's Thriller. Price comes across as a fascinating, kind, and charming gentleman that we would love to sit down with, perhaps over a dinner from a recipe in one of his cookbooks, and just have a long conversation. For this episode's Sensor Sweep, Lord Blood-Rah shares with us all his latest happenings. First up, he has a podcast, Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Auditorium, in which he hosts old time radio horror and science fiction shows, like Inner Sanctum, Lights Out and more. You can find it on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple, and more. The website is Anchor.FM/lordbloodrah. In the Bay Area, every third Saturday night of the month, he's hosting Chiller Theater at the Orinda Theater, showing classic horror and Sci fi. His regular TV series, Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theater is going into season 12! Go to the website, Lordbloodrah.com to check out new episodes and everything else going on! He also has a Patreon, where you can support what he is doing, Patreon.com/Lordbloodrah. There you can get his exclusive weekly show, Lord Blood-Rah's Cathode Zone, where he presents classic TV shows. Big news: he may have a comic book available soon!We want to wish you all happy holidays - and best wishes for 2022!Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8Podcast

Episode 88: Captivating Creatures

 This episode, the Planet 8 crew talks about some of our favorite creature designs. Over the history of cinema, there have been many amazing fantasy, horror and science fiction creatures designed and put on film, and we will each cover one of our favorites. Each of these has significance as paving the way for future films, developing new techniques and pioneering new styles. We begin with the original Planet of the Apes, and the daunting task of developing realistic makeup for the talking chimps, gorillas and orangutans. If the makeup wasn't convincing, if it didn't allow the actors to act and emote, there was no way the film could be made. But talented artist John Chambers was able to develop amazing prosthetics that were flexible enough and convincing enough to meet the challenge. Chambers had a fascinating background that enabled him to make advancements in facial prosthetics. His work certainly was a huge influence on future monster makers.Next we cross the ocean and look at a big star, King Ghidorah! Created by Akira Watanabe for the 1964 movie Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster, it was based on many other multi-headed dragons. The design was always three heads and two tails, but early production photos show different coloring. The suit was operated by an actor in the suit and puppeteers working the heads, wings and tails. This made for a kind of frenetic movement style, which was pretty cool when you saw it as a kid! Ghidorah was active til 1972, then brought back in a new suit in the 90s, but he lost his crazy frenetic motion. In the new Legendary series, there are three motion capture actors playing each head. The actors have to coordinate their movements, but this method allows each head to have its own personality.Our last headliner is the one and only Eighth Wonder of the World, King Kong! Kong is a fascinating case, having been portrayed now by stop-motion, men in suits, and now CGI. We look at the original film, the Toho Kong, the 1976 Kong including both Rick Baker's Kong and the ludicrous robot Kong, moving into Peter Jackson's Kong, and the latest Legendary films Kong. And who could forget the King Kong at the Universal Studios tour? Yes, we discuss him too!There are many other classic monster or creature designs, and so we have some honorable mentions we'll reveal towards the end of the episode. Can you guess what they might be?For our Sensor Sweep, to get into the holiday spirit, Commander Larry shares a boffo new item, the Hallmark 2021 To The Batcave! Batman classic TV series ornament. Really, it's a bit ridiculous to call this an ornament. It's more of a display piece. On the top of the ornament, we see Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in Wayne Manor, on the bat poles. Press the button and the batphone lights and beeps, the door closes up top, and a door opens in the batcave below, showing Batman and Robin descending on the batpoles. This spectacular item runs about $60 but may be hard to find. Good luck!We hope you enjoyed this episode. What are some of your favorite creature designs? Let us know!Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8PodcastWe dig monsters!

Episode 87: Thankful for the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

 Welcome all, and to our fellow Americans, Happy Thanksgiving! It's become a tradition here at Planet 8 for us to celebrate and be thankful for some genre-related franchise, and in the past, we've been thankful for Star Trek, Star Wars, and James Bond. This year, we are expressing our love and gratitude for the magnificent Marvel Cinematic Universe -the MCU! Now with 26 films and climbing, not to mention the MCU TV series, we've been blessed with a bountiful collection of films that created a rich, complex, and deeply rewarding experience for the viewers. We'll have a conversation about our early experience with the MCU, when we first started hearing about Marvel making an Iron Man film, what we thought of it and how Marvel blew us away with that and the succeeding films. Casting has been a big key to making the films successful, and we'll talk about our favorite castings and the ones we thought might have been crazy, but actually worked out really well. Of course, no discussion of the MCU would be complete without going around and talking about which Marvel movies are our favorites! With so many to choose from now, it's getting harder to pick, but we do come up with a few. Amazingly, there are few MCU films that we don't like. There may be a few that we like less...but somehow they have kept a high level of quality through the series.The crew also talks a bit about the latest MCU film, The Eternals, so if you haven't seen that film yet, be warned! And we can't neglect all the activity on Disney Plus - four series so far, and as this episode goes live, the Hawkeye series will be hitting the airwaves in a couple of days! Where else will the Marvel Cinematic Universe go? We can't wait to see.For the Sensor Sweep, Bob shares information about a book by his friend Norman England, Behind the Kaiju Curtain: A Journey onto Japan's Biggest Film Sets. This book is a personal record of Norman's experiences while he wrote for Fangoria and was able to visit the sets of a number of kaiju films in a professional capacity. He met many of the actors and crew on the films and the book gives you an intimate look at what went on in the Japanese film industry in the 90s. If you like kaiju films, this is a must-read! Ask for it at your local bookseller, or get it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. That's all for us this time. Listeners, we are also thankful for you! We appreciate you listening to us, commenting, subscribing, contacting us on Twitter and Facebook. It's great to feel a sense of community forming around Planet 8. We hope that you and yours are safe and well.Twitter: https://twitter.com/Planet8CastFacebook: www.Facebook.com/Planet8PodcastAvengers Assemble!!