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On this episode of X-Ray Vision, Jason Concepcion, Rosie Knight, and Cody Ziglar enter Hyrule! In the Airlock (1:43), they dive deep (deeep) into video games, predominantly Breath of the Wild and the newly released follow-up Tears of the Kingdom, along with what other games they’ve been enjoying. Then, Jason and Zig discuss their experiences with the WGA Writers Strike so far. In the Hive Mind (1:05:34), Guardians of the Galaxy franchise co-star Sean Gunn joins to discuss the end of the trilogy, his working relationship with his brother James, Kraglin’s character development, and more.

 

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The Listener’s Guide to all things X-Ray Vision!

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Green Hell (2019)

 

The Wandering Village – developed by Stray Fawn Studio

 

Crusader Kings III (2020 on PC, 2022 on console)

 

Noita (2020)

 

Celeste (2018)

 

Ark (2015)

 

Dead Island 2 (2023)

 

Diablo IV (2023)

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

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Jason Concepcion Warning. This podcast contains spoilers for Breath of the Wild. Light, light, Light Not major at all. Very, very minor spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom and Spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol: 3. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion. Welcome to X-ray Vision, The Crooked Media Podcast. We dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Throughout this particular recording, this episode, which is gracing your ears right now, you may notice the absence of one magnificent human being named Rosie Knight. Unfortunately, she had some Internet issues. Her wi fi was not being amenable to us recording a podcast. So she is only able to join us partially throughout the run of this episode and for our interview with the very talented Sean Gunn. In this episode, in the Airlock, Cody Ziglar joins us to discuss video games in general, the newly released masterpiece The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, and more. Then Zig and I discuss the WGA writers strike issue surrounding their experiences on the picket line in the Hive Mind. Sean Gunn, a.k.a Kraglin, joins us to discuss Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and the series in general. Coming up next, The Airlock. We’re stepping out of The Airlock into Hyrule to discuss The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, and its incredible sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, along with lots of other video games that we’re playing right now. First, before our discussion of the Magnificent Legend of Zelda The Tears of the Kingdom, let’s recap. Breath of the Wild. Joining me now is our good friend, Cody Zig Ziglar. Cody, how are you?

 

Cody Ziglar I am fantastic. Always love to dive back into the world of Hyrule for one last ride. Sometimes on a horse, sometimes it’s on a mechanized aged in a bionic suit. But any time to today, back in, I’m happy to be there.

 

Jason Concepcion Rosie is currently sealed away in some sort of wi fi malfunction. We hope to get her back soon. But if you’re not hearing her voice, that’s because we’re experiencing technical difficulties. And speaking of technical difficulties, speaking of the complexities of technology, one of the important retcons additions to the lore of the Legend of Zelda series, introduced by the Breath of the Wild Video Game 2017 Game of the Year, the bestselling installment in The Legend of Zelda series was the technology of Hyrule. We learn over the course of Breath of the Wild that 10,000 years ago, thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago, highly in researchers had developed incredibly advanced technologies to defend Hyrule from the evil forces of Ganon, the main antagonist of the Legend of Zelda series. And these technological defenses and various advancements took many forms. Mainly, they came in the form of the Guardians, where she’s kind of like a tentacled robot sentries that fired laser beams and the divine beasts. These, like huge, massive Kaiju like machines that would each defend Gan from Ganon and are each piloted by by a specially chosen pilot who are known together as the Champions. And these these champions were selected from four of the kingdoms peoples, the Zora, the Aquatic, Zora, the Gorons, who are like made of rocks and dwell in volcanoes and dwell on the mountainsides, the desert dwelling Gerudo people and the revali who are like parrots, these wonderful avian median folks. So guess what? The technology worked. Ganon emerges. The Guardians and the Divine Beasts all swing into action with Princess Zelda and Link, and the foe is defeated. Zelda uses her power, which is, you know, contained within her to seal away the darkness, meaning Ganon and and the threat is ended. Fast forward 9900 years later, a century before the events of Breath of the Wild. And there are these burbling signs that Gannon is going to return, right? Monsters returning and getting stronger and stronger. But also in that time, Princess Zelda and Hyrule in general is like, forgotten all of their past technological advancements. And so Zelda is like, she is locked in this conflict. She’s trying to reawaken the power to banish darkness, but she can’t get it to to rekindle. So as kind of like a way to deal with this, she, like, throws herself into this. The research of the heroes, ancient technologies, the guardians, the divine Beasts, all that and her dad, King Rome, understanding the canon is going to return excavates the Divine beasts, which I guess it’s, you know, fallen to complete disrepair and starts like looking around for champions that can then fly the and pilot the divine beasts and finds them. Meanwhile, Zelda is like growing increasingly insecure over the fact that she can’t get her power to to to emerge. The Link that we need in this version of the story is just like a simple soldier who usually works his way up through the armed forces of Hyrule and then becomes like the chosen Knight of Princess Zelda. But she also feels like weirdly jealous of him because, like, he’s such a great fighter and good at fighting monsters and she can’t get her power to banish the darkness, to seal the darkness away to it’s like rekindle. And her dad is like, Hey, maybe you could get your your powers rekindle, if you like, playing with yourself. She’s like, always playing on her Sheikah Slate, which is like.

 

Rosie Knight Hyrule iPad.

 

Jason Concepcion  iPad. Which is called a Sheikah slate. And it does all the things that a smartphone could do. And Zelda is very, very taken with. And she’s also taken with like studying the Guardians. So Zelda tries, you know, many times to reawaken her powers. And then finally she’s like, okay, I’m going to go to the spring of Wisdom and hopefully there I can rekindle my powers. So she goes there with Link, and the champions are watching. And unfortunately, as she tries and fails to reawaken her powers at the spring of wisdom, there’s a huge earthquake and guess what can be done? And Ganon, I.

 

Cody Ziglar Hate to see it.

 

Jason Concepcion Always comes back. And this time he’s like, We’re calling him Calamity Ganon in Breath of the Wild because he is like this tragic, disastrous force of nature, a calamity that befalls everyone in this kingdom. And Ganon has spent the intervening 9000 plus years just doing oppo research. He’s ready for his.

 

Rosie Knight Scheming, scheming, scheming.

 

Jason Concepcion He is ready. He doesn’t just come in to get Mali warped by the guardians of the Divine Beasts in the Champions and Lincoln Prince Zelda know. He hooks the technology using like his malign force, which is embodied by this like, red cloud of of like, terrible looking smoke. And with this he hacks the guardians, takes control them. He hacks into the divine beast, kills the champions and just starts laying waste to Hyrule. It’s a fucking disaster. The champions are gone. Link is now like the only thing standing between Ganon and and complete victory. He and Zelda flee the castle, which has been taken over by the Rampaging Guardians, now under the control of Ganon. And, you know Link is fighting them off. He’s. He’s the last guy standing. It’s an incredible display. But finally, there’s just, like, way, way too many of these tentacled guardians. And as they’re about to take him down, Zelda reaches out and suddenly her power awakens. And all the guardians in the area just, like, fall lifeless, as this flash of light emanates from her. But unfortunately, Link is fucked up. Link is real fucked up folks. He is grievously wounded on the edge of death. And so the princess says, Hey, take Link to the shrine of Resurrection where he can heal. Take his weapon the legendary master sword, which you don’t really find out in this retelling how Link, who is just a normal soldier, comes into possession of the legendary massive sword. But she says, take the master sword and and will hide it in the Karak forest. And I, now, having regained my powers to hold Ganon at bay, will fight Ganon and keep him contained in Hyrule Castle while Link heals. And that takes a hundred fucking years.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. This is no Lazarus bit. This is not. You go into Lazarus’s pit for two days.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

 

Rosie Knight And you’re chillin and they’re like, This is 100 years of resurrection. This man should not have been alive. It took him a hundred years.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah. Hyrulian insurance is not as good as maybe other types of insurance. It took a while to run his testing in his lab stuff.

 

Rosie Knight Bureaucracy is keeping Link in the pit.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion So for a century, Princess Zelda is fighting a continuous battle in the bowels of Hyrule Castle against Ganon. It’s an incredible feat of sheer power. And at the end of this hundred years, Link awakens, he hears a voice telling him, Linc, we need, we need you all this stuff. He finds Prince’s cell, the cell phone. It’s there for him next to his little backdoor tank, and the player starts the game. And over the course of the game, you travel to the four various regions of Hyrule where the divine beasts are kept. And one by one, you free them from the clutches of Ganon. And as you free them from the clutches of Ganon, you make an alliance with the respective champion that pilot, the ghost of the champion that piloted that beast, and those champions one after another, bestowed Link with a special ability. So from Mipha, of the Zora, Link acquires Grace, which is this power of resurrection. You die once and you’re able to immediately resurrect for health. You can’t do it for another 24 minutes, but it’s super, super, super oppy. From a Daruk of of the gorons on the Rocky Goran you get protection which is like this shield power from the bird like Rito people you get gale which is like this tornado updraft of wind that carries Link up into the sky and then you can like fly around. And from Urboza of the Gerudo link gets fury, which is like this lightning power that shocks his foes. So one by one Link cleanses Gannon’s influence from the from the Divine Beast. The Divine Beast, now piloted by the Ghosts of the Champions, fire these, like, massive laser beams at Hyrule Castle. Those knock Gannon for a loop. This allows Zelda to, you know, stop having to, you know, for get a rest. For the first time in 100 years, she gets selecting a break and Link then travels to Hyrule Castle. Some of the best music in the game as he travels through depths of Hyrule Castle. Right. You go down into the bowels of the castle, and there you face Ganon in his two monstrous forms. And he’s the first level and the second level. And each time you’re using these arrows of light to fire Ganon and then interchanging that with a hopefully perfectly timed block of Gannon’s laser beam. And if all goes right, you have defeated Ganon and you are now free to collect korok seeds or do whatever the hell you want to do. Cooking

 

Rosie Knight Riding a horse

 

Jason Concepcion Over the Wethen, then the within breath of of heart of beautiful Hyrule. That, folks, is the story of Breath of the Wild that leads us to Tears of the Kingdom. Rosie, Zig what are your thoughts on Breath of the Wild and playing it for the first time?

 

Cody Ziglar Breath. So I came in about a year and a half late into Breath of the Wild, so the discourse was already gone. So I came in pretty fresh. But I always tell the story of like, my experience was breath the Wild. So everything Jason told you is the truth. And the thing is that you can. You can go straight to fighting Ganon. Like, literally as soon as they open the credits or you can go around and like, rescue the the these divine beasts, you can spend as little or as much time as you want on this game. So I had spent 20 hours in this game and I you know, I was like, Oh, I’ve got a couple divine beasts. I’ve got some powers, like I have a pretty good staple of hearts and korok seeds. So I feel like I’ve seen everything I have even seen in the game. And then I’m just walking around the plateaus at the very beginning area and I hear this most intense orchestral violin music, and I look up and I see a full ass dragon descending from the clouds. And I remember I remember saying out loud to myself, pretty much control downs like they have Dragon. I remember just like being shocked that this game had dragons. And the thing is that happened two more times. Like I didn’t know there was more than one dragon in the entire game. So like, I spent all this time and you find all these nuances and all these things, you didn’t know what’s happening in the game. But also they have, you know, as Jason sort of mentioned, a big sort of theme of this game is like nature returning or taking over because it’s been like a sort of apocalyptic scenario and there’s some lot of, you know, references and inspiration from from a bunch of Japanese work, but particularly Miyazaki and Big Time, one of like my absolute favorite moments and set pieces of this game is like, there’s a specific mountain in this game and every, you know, there’s like a day and night cycle and maybe like once a week in game, you’ll just see a crazy blue light from this emanating from this mountain. And if you get there before the light goes down, you could come across this week old God, old forest spirit being worshiped by like little rabbit dudes. And like, you could hop on it and take it becomes your mountain steed. And like, it’s things that you would never know unless you just take a walk around the continent of Hyrule and discover the game. And like, I love that so much about it. Like, it’s a game where I probably put at this point 70 hours in it, but I’m still I still have so many large patches of gray on my map in my, my overworld that I can only imagine how much time I’m going to spend on tiers of the kingdom, which is the from what I’ve seen, the original map plus a whole sky world. And also you I guess Link got a engineering degree in his time off in between games because now he could just build anything that he wants to.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, one of my favorite things like that from Breath of the Wild was the monster masks, which you get from this merchant called Kilton, who only appears at certain times at this certain lake. It’s stuff like that. Just reward. It just rewards exploration. I remember the first, so I first started playing Breath of the Wild right around the time when the is a Prince Sidon of the of the Zora the Prince Sidon of the Zora is like fuckable discourse was happening. I don’t know if people remember this is 2017 now but there was a period of time on the Internet where everybody wanted to fuck this fish prince. People remember this.

 

Cody Ziglar This, this game walked so shape of water could.

 

Jason Concepcion Really.

 

Cody Ziglar You know.

 

Jason Concepcion And anyway, that So that was when I came into the game and. I have not. You know, I think Elden Ring is the only other game that made me feel.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Like, I just want to walk around. Even Red Dead two, which is a fantastic, like, exploration game, didn’t have the sense of like mystery and rule and the rewarding nature of gameplay. There’s something about I think I think part of it is the fact that Dark Souls Games and Breath of the Wild, Zelda games in general, there’s not a lot of like the tutorials are always very, very long, but there’s not a lot of explanation about like what you should be doing or how the puzzles work or how you can solve puzzles like. And so.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion There’s a lot of trial and error and there’s this amazing like feeling of, Oh my God, I figured it out. That can happen.

 

Cody Ziglar Yes.

 

Jason Concepcion Just by like trying stuff. And there’s also this kind of sense of. Community that rises up in these games because of the fact that you end up Googling and watching YouTube videos by various creators about like how to find this stuff. And if you haven’t played Breath of the Wild. The switch is nearing, certainly nearing the end of its life, but it is a console well worth having and you can probably find it pretty cheap, certainly at a discount right about now. Certainly if you went for a used switch lite or something like that. Breath of the Wild is what is just. It is a landmark achievement and it is well, well worth playing. And it is the direct antecedent to Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. A lot of the themes like this, the themes of like technology and the double edged nature of technology, you can use it for defense, but also can be used against you are there and increasingly, Zig, I think that the the titular tears are the tears of the people of Hyrule as Link, now a mad man at the at the controls of vast and powerful machinery wages what can like industrial level warfare on the monsters of Hyrule.

 

Cody Ziglar It really is. I am become death. You know that. That’s the eyes. I, so, Jason and I were picketing the other morning and we were just swapping tiktoks of like, people really just it’s like, really like, you know, Link went to engineering school to do good, and then he decided to work for Lockheed Martin. Like, there are people making bomber jets. There are people making tanks with like actual four way suspension. We saw multiple mech suits. Like it’s it’s crazy how.

 

Jason Concepcion Multiple, fully operational mech suits.

 

Cody Ziglar Like it’s just wild like, you know, this double edged sword of technology. Like there was one video which I think we may have watched where he built like a a flying jet that had multiple laser missiles and like, heat guided heat guided rockets. It was it’s insane being like, this is like. Like, like, like is a god now. Like he could fully, like, decimate these poor hog monsters running around. They’re running around the ground like. It’s been it’s been pretty fun to watch. But like, as you’re sort of mentioning earlier, like, I always come back to this, like, I think the gameplay loop for Breath of the Wild and certainly seems to be tiers of of the kingdom now is like you know that meme of like the little monkey that says neuron activated like this. It’s really like that is what this is like. You can feel and watch in real time new brain connections being made. I had a friend over the other day and we were playing and we were like you said, we were still in the tutorial area because the tutorial level are notoriously long for these games, but you were given this ability to like combine things and all you have is like context. So like we had a broken rail, we had a mine cart, we had a giant metal hook and we have like a turbine and we put these all things, all these things together and smash them. And we just created like a ski lift essentially, and it got us to where we needed to go. But like, I’m sure there were like 13 different ways to solve that problem. But because we were there and we were like sort of working together, we realized that we could do like make this thing and like, this is like the first hour in the game. Like, I can only have fathom when it gets to the point where, like, you get, like you said, suspension and you get like laser. I saw people I saw someone build a three stage rocket.

 

Jason Concepcion Like a fully operational three stage rocket where you trigger the stages by by shooting the arrows by shooting arrows at them. And this person flew like thousands of feet up to the top of firing.

 

Cody Ziglar I mean, truly, the first thing I did when I got to the actual touch ground on Hyrule, like, they just dump you next to a box of like building materials. And I just fully built a car. Like that’s I bought a little truck, I got a roof on it, I stuck two turbines and I just like was cruisin around Hyrule. It was great. And I went to art school. I don’t know shit about engineering. Like, it was great.

 

Jason Concepcion I currently. The aid I’m able to build like only the most simple machines right now. Turbine powered, but I haven’t got the one battery. So my, my, my machinery lasts maybe 15 seconds, like on full blast. Yeah, but I’ve got the glider also, which is a machine that Link can unlock. And I can’t tell you how many gliders I have lost off the side of a fucking mountain by trying to launch a glider. Yeah, so you can attach. Let me try and explain how the mechanics work. You can attach various things to other things. So Link has access to machinery right now at this early stage of the game. And I don’t know where you are, Zig, but I’m in the. I’m heading towards Rito City. Rito village, and I have a like a flame shooter machine here. I have a glider. I have a little cooking pot that you can can cook whatever I need to. And and I have the turbines. And then everywhere around the world are building materials that you can build carts or, you know, like boats, little things with and death machines. And also any weapon that you come across, you can use one of your new powers called Fuze to combine the weapon with like the horn of a carbon, right. That you can then use it to make it stronger or like the the the teeth of some boss enemy you can like fuze a sword with that and all of a sudden like you’ve got a much more powerful weapon. I’m putting like rocks.

 

Cody Ziglar You can make little homing missiles. You can put like an eyeball on an arrow and make it into a hummingbird. So it’s insane what you can do. Oh, yes. You hear those little bat guys that drop the eyeballs and wing and you kill them. If you kill one and you take an eyeball and you fuze it to an arrow, it creates a heat seeking arrow that will automatically target target creatures. It’s yes, it’s it’s yes.

 

Cody Ziglar This is this is.

 

Jason Concepcion Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah. I mean, my.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, try it out. It’s a blast.

 

Jason Concepcion My big my big brain thing has been like, what if I put a rock on my shield? Let’s got a big rock on the surface of my shield, which has worked out well for me.

 

Cody Ziglar Mm hmm.

 

Jason Concepcion Included in this game are five new powers. So this ultra hand, which allows you basically to, like, manipulate objects at a distance. So let’s say you want to build, as you will if you play this game like a quarter mile long bridge out of logs, you cut down the trees and they used ultra hand to kind of like move the logs around. There is Fuze which just explained Ascend which allows Link to move through solid matter like jump up. If you’re in a cave, you can jump up into the rock, go through the rock and come out the other side. And you could do this with wood. You can do this platform, you can do it with anything. Essentially, it’s over Link’s head recall, which allows Link to rewind time, which. So my friend Heidi told me this Zig, you know, those rocks that are falling everywhere in Hyrule?

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion If you see one just fall and you go to it, you can use recall to ride it all the way back up until the sky.

 

Cody Ziglar Oh. Oh. You know, that makes sense. But also, it makes no sense that they give you no context. Like, you know.

 

Jason Concepcion Figure that shit out. And auto build, which is now you don’t have to assemble stuff like like you can build machines and then save the blueprint and then, like, take it out of your little magic bag and all the stuff pops into existence.

 

Cody Ziglar I cannot wait to get that.

 

Jason Concepcion So where are you in this game?

 

Cody Ziglar So I literally just landed and I just literally just set foot in Hyrule because you spend the first maybe hour or 2 hours, depending on how slow you are. The game basically doing the tutorial, which is like in this sort of new sky region of the game. So I literally touched down like last night and I came across the I’m assuming the first village you’re supposed to come across. I don’t know, because they just jump in the middle of a continent. But yeah, you know, I made my little Studebaker and drove over there and like, I got I talked to Pure, I believe, who created like you’re I think they may have updated the Shika fleet to the poor people they call it now. But I met them and I think I was giving my first quest. But then I immediately just ran around and started shooting the goblin guy. So I think the first the first point of order is getting your horse. I heard that you can get your horses back that you have from the first game. So I had the big thick boy from the first game with like the max getting run on standby. So I want to get that guy and build a cart for him and then just, like, wreak havoc across Hyrule.

 

Jason Concepcion One of the things that people have been doing in this game is torturing koroks. So koroks are these leaf like creatures who in who in Breath of the Wild, you would find them in various places, but often under rocks or on the top of mountains or the top of like large pillars. And they would lead you to these little side quests, these koroks. The side quests are that a korok has been separated from his friend who’s like across a chasm on the other side of a river, on top of a mountain somewhere. And again, no context clues given, but Link is tasked with, if he so chooses to reunite this korok with their friend. And you can do this by like, say, building a wagon and using ultra hand to put the Korok in the wagon and then driving him over there. But. People are being so fucking diabolical to these koroks. Zig I’ve seen them being waterboarded by like machines. I’m not kidding.

 

Cody Ziglar I’ve seen. I’ve seen two very, very funny ones. One where someone built a catapult nest like a bunch of koroks in there and launched them across the countryside. And the other is someone had built a truck and a crucifix stuck in the gutter, fixed when it’s just driving around.

 

Jason Concepcion I saw one where they had attached a korok to a fucking rocket sled. And just shot it out into the distance. Someone created a like a like an engine gear that rotates a spit on which they had attached for koroks roasting over a fire. It’s like this game is insane. It’s so nuts.

 

Cody Ziglar This is only like day four of the game being out.

 

Jason Concepcion That’s what I’m saying. Like, how the fuck? At the time of this recording, this game is not been out a week. This game came out last Friday. You’re going to be listening to it potentially at on the one week anniversary of the release of this game. And yet by Monday, people had built a fully fledged complex machinery with which to torture these poor fucking koroks in ways I can’t even count the number of corrupt crucifixions that I have now seen.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, that’s a popular one. I saw one this early on in the game. When you first land, there’s like, this, like gloom pit, like in. In that bottomless pit. Yeah. And I saw someone had built a plank and stuck a crack at the top of a tower. And then he was, they were firing fire arrows at the burned the bikes and send the korok to the bottom pit, bottomless pit. It was. Oh man. Some of that I mean, truly like when I say gameplay game of the year like I know I’m not being facetious like this is exactly what video games should be like. Capital V Video games like is so fun and so stupid.

 

Jason Concepcion And when we say like, full Gundam suits, legit, like people are building like 40 foot robots that Link controls with like a lot a big lever. One huge lever.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And these robots walk on two legs, number one, and two, fire auto lasers, like out of its eyes and hands. And it’s just like these goblins everywhere. These poor residents, like, running for their for their lives. It is incredible what people are doing. I saw like you mentioned it like a Jeep with independent suspension and four wheel drive someone built.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah. For four wheel drive. And again, I guess later on the game you get there’s like a piece of technology lets you actually steer the thing but like they were fully just driving it around like an actual car, taking the lever this way and that way. There is I think we may mention at the top of the show, but someone built a fully, fully functioning flying mech and they were they were like hunting, I guess, bird enemies that appeared later in the game and like attacking the flying dragons in the sky. It was crazy.

 

Jason Concepcion Rosie, where are you in Tears of the Kingdom?

 

Rosie Knight Surprising. Absolutely no one. I am relatively alien to The Kingdom because I have been walking around building things and looking angry.

 

Jason Concepcion What is your what is your number? What your favorite recipe at this point and what is the best thing you’ve built?

 

Rosie Knight Okay, so the best thing and most frustrating thing that I built early on in the game when, you know, you have to build a lot of like contraptions to slide down things. Yeah, I was helping a car find this friend because this is like the Link version of Animal Crossing where you always have to run an errand for somebody. So I was using my powers, my ultra hand powers, but I slid him too far past his friend. So then I decided that one thing to do is to build an extremely large ladder. And I built a ladder so big out of tree trunks that they actually wouldn’t let me add any more tree trunks to it. And it worked wonderful on the cliff. But when I was shaking, the little guy I like demolished the whole thing, dropped him many times. I’m sure he was really regretting asking for my help, but that was definitely my most impressive build so far. I’ve also been trying to fashion like interesting boats because there’s so many you know, there’s so many sales, and I have not gotten close enough to getting an engine or anything. Yeah, sadly. But yeah, I’ve been trying to see how long I the first time I came across a boat very early in the game, I was very excited. I added some wood to it and I tried to use it as a bridge and it fell horribly down like a giant cliff. And I was like, screaming into the night. I was like, No. No.

 

Cody Ziglar Another another staple of these Breath of the Wild games is like the funny unintentional deaths. Like

 

Rosie Knight Oh my God.

 

Cody Ziglar Have you guys had your first funny, silly, kind of humiliating death with with.

 

Rosie Knight Oh, I’ve had so many. I swear I’ve been playing this. I played Breath of the Wild so much and it did not stop me from just constantly dying. Like, especially when I first. Well, you know, I love the Sky Kingdom stuff and like, it’s really cool, like the Sky Islands. But the first couple of times when I didn’t realize you had to, like sometimes you have to press to like, properly dive. It will be like accelerate. And if you don’t, it’s like you just definitely died. Like it’s going horribly wrong. He wasn’t just jumping into nothing because you think a river is there.

 

Jason Concepcion I’ve done that.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine was, I was building, I was. I found a body of water. I was building like a raft. So I stuck like three or four tree trunks together and I, but I needed to get down to actually get to the, to the water. So like, I fell off a cliff, But I didn’t know that if you fall from a certain height, you just stop levitating the crack. So, like, I fell down, took off like half a heart, and then I was smushed myself with the raft that I was making it. And they played that did it in like this and then embarrassing.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s really similar to the food music. For some reason. It was really good very early on. You can cook pretty good stuff if you reach the Guardian who tells you how to cook like they have a one called a pepper steak and it looks so good. It’s like a sky, a fire plant, a piece of meat and an acorn and yeah, and when you look at that image, you want to eat it like they go even better with the illustration. So I got very quickly distracted after having to remember how you cook because I was like standing next to it and I was pressing my up button on the d-pad like, okay, I’m looking at the food. And it was like dry. And I was like, Oh, I’ve got to go to the inventory and do it that way. Like that, I think took me a little while to get back into it, but it is like so much fun and the Sky Islands is such a good way to make it immediately feel very different from Breath of the Wild.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, I my funniest death thus far, other than the various times that I’ve just run out of stamina, jumping off of something like with my paraglider now and I just I’m early in the game, so I have a wheel and it’s about an eighth of a wheel of stamina. And so I’ve died many, many times, just like falling from great heights. But I was early in the game in the Sky Islands, there is these like floating metal platforms that are thick, you know? Yeah. And so I was trying, I was using logs as bridges and moving them was ultra and attaching them. Right. So I get up on one. Yeah. And I didn’t realize that they react to weight so I, I climb onto it and I use ultra hand again to grab another log that I cut down that was still on solid ground and I pull it over to this floating platform that I and I and I just kind of put it down and the weight of it tips the entire platform so that I fall off The log hits me and I die.

 

Cody Ziglar I’m sure it’s too early in the game, but what kind of fits are we working with? Like, what’s your drip like? With your Link right now.

 

Jason Concepcion My drip is it’s rudimentary, but it’s getting a little better. I I’ve got the high end hood, which I got at Hyrule Castle. So when you don’t want to spoil it, but when you when you kind of first get into the main quest of the game. Yeah. The interaction takes place in front of Hyrule Castle where there’s a whole research and development project going on about, like, what’s the current state of Hyrule and how do we stop it? And there I was able to buy like a decent tunic and the hood and up in the Sky Islands, I had also managed to find like warm weather, cold weather pants, which was super important because you’re up there basically nude. And other than like the Hot Peppers, which you can make like warming foods out of, like, I was just freezing.

 

Cody Ziglar Mm hmm.

 

Jason Concepcion What do you got?

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah. I mean, that’s basically it. I’m rocking and I after I got to Hyrule, I just, you know, I had let the boys out, so I took the shirt off and now I’m just rocking the cold weather pants until I find something something more suitable. But like in the Breath of the Wild, I was. I always rocked the idea of a darkling.

 

Jason Concepcion Oh, yeah.

 

Cody Ziglar Fit or they’re like the I think they give you, like, rock climbing gear because I think that’s honestly the most important part is like being able to like, climb fast like I that was that to me was the only, the only, the only hint of like a bad note for that game was like, it takes so long to actually climb in the game unless you want to like waste all your stamina jumping up.

 

Jason Concepcion I always wore the Barbarian set, which was just kind of like that.

 

Cody Ziglar That the one with the horns?

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, with the horns and stuff. And you’re kind of shirtless and you got the thighs out. It’s kind of like a CONAN the Barbarian look, but it gives you, like, a boost to attack and stamina. Yeah, I would. I would wear that. And honestly, the the dark set also when I was just kind of running around. And then, of course, like, situationally, you know, like if you’re in a cold environment, I would wear something to protect against the cold, the rubber suit in case there were electrical storms going on. You know, the the Gerudo like veil and kind of gauzy outfit. And just in case you’re in that that intense heat.

 

Cody Ziglar Mm hmm.

 

Jason Concepcion But I’m hoping I’m really hoping, as with all my games, to really get my drip going right now, because it’s very, very rudimentary. You know.

 

Cody Ziglar That’s the most that’s that’s always like the endgame for me is like, what kind of drip can I get off? I this is just so I did the idea to preorder at Best Buy with a couple of friends and they purchased some amiibo along with it. Now, I’ve never been an amiibo, meaning the amiibo user, but. But do you have one? And like, have you ever used one with like, I mean, or Breath of the Wild?

 

Jason Concepcion I have not done it. I’m glad that you actually don’t need the amiibo for to get content for tiers of the kingdom. But I’ve not been an amiibo person. How do you use it? That’s the other thing is I’m unclear on how the amiibo works.

 

Cody Ziglar My old man brain also has a similar, very similar question. But I think I guess there’s some type of like Bluetooth type device where like, you just tap it to either I guess your game pro controller or the physical switch and then I guess you get items from that. But I again, old man egg, I do not know. I’ve haven’t actually physically used one before.

 

Jason Concepcion X ray vision will be back.

 

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Jason Concepcion And we’re back. What else are you playing right now? I have a much too robust video game life. And yes, I’m eager to share the various video games that I’m both waiting for have been playing well. What are you playing? What were you playing before this?

 

Cody Ziglar Well, I have a staple game. A it’s a you know, it’s a free to play gotcha game. So I got to get my hours in basically every day for that. That’s called Gundam Battle Operation two. I won’t get into it because it’s, you know, I just can’t open that can of worms. But besides that, I was a I was a huge Resident Evil Four fan for.

 

Jason Concepcion The remake.

 

Cody Ziglar The Gamecube. And the remake just came out. And I have gone I have regressed to full 16 year old just playing through games again, Like I beat it once, then I beat it on hardcore difficulty. And before Tears of Kingdom, Tears of the Kingdom came out, I was speedrunning my way through professional mode. If you beat it in under five and a half hours, you get like a special gun in the game and some special armor for for one of the characters. So like I was about 30 minutes into that, I think I had breezed my way somehow through like I think there were like 16 levels in the game. I had always I had already speedrun my way to like level four or five in like 30 minutes. So like I was on a clear path, I think, to take home the gold. But then Hyrule came calling back, so I had to add and run away. I was I was going to get Jedi Survivor, the sequel to that. But, you know, I had had to sort of flip a coin between this and Zelda and like, I feel like Zelda is just going to just I would not have time to play that game. Like that was going to take all my attention.

 

Jason Concepcion I have Jedi survivor waiting impatiently for me to get done with my Tears of the Kingdom fix, which probably won’t happen at least for a few days, but I’m eager to play it. Yeah, let’s see. I have been playing. I’m always playing Overwatch 2, just because it’s a game I can play for like a couple of minutes and get my the most toxic version of myself out. I mean, in competitive.

 

Cody Ziglar Is that game still running? Do they shut down the server?

 

Jason Concepcion No, no, no, it’s  ongoing. So in terms of like multiplayer games like because I’ve aged out of, you know, like Call of Duty and then I just don’t have the twitch like nervous system that any more. So I need to play like different characters who don’t just like when point and shoot. So Overwatch allows me to do different things, to play different kinds of characters with different kinds of abilities. It’s basically like a multiplayer version of like the X-Men, this game. I usually play Healer, so I’m a bronze level one, which is about as low as you can be in this game in competitive. But that’s because I’m on PC. I’ve been playing Let’s see, I was playing Dead Island too recently, which is the long awaited sequel to I think 2000 Eleven’s Dead Island on the Xbox 360 console super fun game set in L.A., which allows you to like craft different weapons and kill lots of lots of lots of lots of zombies. If you like Borderlands, you will like Dead Island. Let’s see, what else am I playing? I’m playing a lot of building games, Zig. This is like, This is why Jersey form is got its hooks in me. I love games where you can craft and build things. So Sons of the Forest, which I’ve mentioned before, is like you, can you fight cannibals like on this deserted island and you can build like a base and you can build like catapults and you can build different like fortifications. And I’ve been doing that big time. I’ve been playing Green Hell, which is a survive in the Amazon jungle game.

 

Cody Ziglar Okay.

 

Jason Concepcion And it’s a little too hardcore for me, but it’s still pretty fun. It’s like art, you start it’s like.

 

Cody Ziglar In what way?

 

Jason Concepcion You start with like, okay, stick in a rock. And like, somehow from that you build like, machinery and they like, you know, and like a house out of mud.

 

Cody Ziglar And I think we may have talked about this on the picket line, but like I had friends that are really into arc, but it seemed the buy in seemed such a long time to get to where I needed to get in that game that I just could not fathom running around with a stick being eaten by sabertooth tigers. But I have seen like I have seen like endgame videos where you can so you can capture animals in the game and use them as mounts. But someone had captured like a giant pterosaurs and had built fully built a base on the back of the pterosaurs and put a minigun into like they were fully just had built a flying fortress. And we’re just like they did build basically bullet helicarrier and they were just like flying around gunning down monsters, I guess, to get whatever they needed to get. Like that seems fun. Like I like to get to that point, but like the in between that and like 30 hours I’d have to put in I get to that point is always pretty daunting.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. ARC is a game where I had to check out because I kept getting eaten by like Tyrannosaurus rex and I literally had like a spear with a like some straw, like wrapping around the handle. Like the I didn’t have anything. I was playing The Wandering Village, which is an indie game, probably available on all consoles, the conceit is. Imagine, like the building mechanic from like age of empires where you, like, build different types of buildings and unlock different things for your society. And you’re building this on the on the huge shell of this giant walking four legged like turtle like beast. And.

 

Cody Ziglar Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that. Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And as it walks around, it goes through different regions of this world with different weather patterns and different levels of like pollution. And so you have to establish a bond with this animal. You can either choose to, like, exploited and use its blood and use its bodily fluid for stuff which can harm it or you can choose to like, which comes with some. Boosts like there are reasons for doing that. But then you can do other things that like build your trust with the creature. And if you can build your trust with the creature, you can like tell it to go certain ways so it doesn’t like walk into like desert where it’s all hot. Now I’ve seen enough water. That game is really fun. And let’s see, what else am I playing? I’m getting ready to play Diablo 4. Are you a  Diablo person?

 

Cody Ziglar No, but I was going to while you were talking, I was thinking about a game. I’ve been replaying a game that I really was a big fan of years ago, XCOM, the XCOM series, but I’ve been replaying XCOM two. Would you would you. Did you ever get into the game where ex-convict style games?

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah. Come in. How would you describe it as like a third person turn based strategy action game in which the player is fighting off an alien invasion.

 

Cody Ziglar Yes, with like elements like very light elements of like resource management. Like. Like you’re like running a bureaucracy. Like government bureaucracy. So it’s like you need to go to Libya to negotiate to get enough iron to give to England, which is like can be a little boring and frustrating. But the actual like moment to moment gameplay where you’re doing the strategy is very addicting because you build, you build basically you build individual soldiers and you become bizarrely attached to them. And if they die, they die. And so like, you know, you end sometimes if you’re like me, like you’re fully restart campaigns because you had lost your favorite French soldier that have been with me since mission to, you know.

 

Jason Concepcion Do you have any recs of of recent games or games you’ve played in recent years that you’ve you’ve quite enjoyed? I know our friend Andrew has been playing a lot.

 

Cody Ziglar I mean.

 

Jason Concepcion of Marvel Snap, which is basically Hearthstone with a marvel skin on it. That is really, really addicting.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard that game is addicting. I mean, I’ve heard all of those sort of card based games are addicting. That’s why I’ve never really dumped into them, because I just know I have that that in me. I’ll look at some greatest hits like Hades. If, if you’re going to get a switch, I highly recommend Hades, one of the best video games ever made. Fantastic story, fantastic voice, acting event, X Factor, Art direction. It’s all you can ask for. It’s a fantastic game. It’s one of the few games that I look. I feel sad when I booted up because I see the triple digits I’ve put into it hour wise, but that’s a great game. I think a little bit more modern. Resident Evil four remake again, Capital V Video Game. It’s a game that does not take itself seriously, but also does take itself very seriously as moments. It’s a really, really fun ride. I highly recommend that. And you know, for fighting games, I highly recommend Dragonball Fighterz, which came out maybe four years ago at this point. But if you’re a fan of like Momo versus Capcom Style Arcade, fast paced action and a fan of the anime Dragon Ball Z, I highly recommend that fantastic art. They use a system that that sort of replicates animation style. So it looks like you’re playing an episode of the anime or the manga issue of the morning. It’s really, really cool. Those are probably like my three or four go to titles to play. And of course, you know, Twilight, Tears of the Kingdom. Just because it’s going to be the only thing anyone’s ever talking about for the next month.

 

Jason Concepcion Absolutely. Let’s see, four for the folks who are going to game. I’m always I’m always recommending Stardew Valley. It’s available in the game, available on any platform. Just one of the deepest, most positive, most addicting games ever. It’s ostensibly like a farm resource management simulator, but it goes much deeper than that. Explores themes of like corporatism versus naturalism, community versus isolation, capitalism versus, you know, shared responsibilities and benefits. And it is just like delightful to look at. Crusader Kings. Three Crusader Kings three is. One. So fucking hard and hard to get your arms around. I hate to watch. No joke. Like 6 hours of tutorials to, like, really kind of understand the crusader kings, like mechanics. But once you kind of get it and the tutorial is pretty good at giving it to you, it can be really fun. I usually play as a like as a skullduggery focused ruler, which means like I’m spreading rumors about my rivals. I’m like sending spies to like, enemy enemy castles to find out like, who’s fucking who and like, what were the secrets I can use to get leverage on people and, like, how can I lure this person to my kingdom so that I could fucking imprison them and kill them, you know. And what’s really cool about Crusader Kings 3, is much like Crusader Kings two There is a Westeros mod, so it’s just been released I think, a month ago. You can basically play as a ruler in on the continent of Westeros. You can either be a stark, can be a Lannister, you can be a Brazilian, and then I think you can be a greyjoy and through that you can try and unify Westeros under your control. And it’s the same mechanics as the Crusader Kings three game, but they’ve skinned it for me for a Song of Ice and Fire with like biographical material from the, from the games, from the, from the books. Excuse me. And it’s super fun. Let’s see. I’m playing.

 

Cody Ziglar What’s your go to house that you, that you go with?.

 

Jason Concepcion I go with the Starks because it’s honestly the easiest it’s the easiest difficulty. And because you just start out with like massive bonuses to, like war fighting. So, yeah, very easy to get gold by just like sending armies to raid. It’s like whoever, like when you start the game, Robert’s rebellion is like, ongoing. So the thing I like to do is send my armies to fight the Lannisters and King aerys his forces, but instead of like fighting his armies, I like, go to different areas. And just like while Robert Baratheon’s armies are like, doing the heavy lifting, I’ll just like raid villages and like, take asymmetric warfare. I am if you want to play like something that’s like very like 16 bit throwback, that’s like an always changing a dungeon color experience, kind of. It’s like Haiti’s only like, like with that kind of 16 bit throwback style. Noida is really fun. It’s basically you play as a kind of wizard that explores all these different kind of caverns where you find all kinds of different monsters in there. And let’s see, what else am I playing? Oh, here’s one more. One last suggestion is Celeste. Have you played Celeste?

 

Cody Ziglar Oh, yes. No, but I’ve heard nothing more.

 

Jason Concepcion Fantastic things about Celeste is probably the best video game about mental health that I’ve ever played. It’s a 2D platformer that is really, really hard. But the hardness of the mechanic. Underlines the theme of like processing trauma and trying and trying again to, like, overcome certain things in your life. And it’s all about this character, Celeste, who’s climbing this mountains like huge mountain and trying to find herself and come to peace with herself. And she faces all these different challenges along the way. And it is super, super addicting, really, really hard, but really, really fun. Again, it’s available on basically whatever platform you have. And then if you really want to get toxic and you’re not good at shooting things anymore, you want to play a multiplayer game. That is the closest I’ve ever felt to like this must be what it feels like to be in the NBA. Overwatch two It’s people are going to hate it, but it’s still fun when I play competitive zig in the competitive mode. Yeah, and all the for all the marbles, all the chips are on the table. People are sniping at each other in the chat like, why are you picking that character? What the fuck are you doing in the doorway? Do I like it is the closest I think I’ve ever I’ll ever come to feeling like I’m a professional athlete like competing in something that matters.

 

Cody Ziglar That that’s one of those games where I’m so bad at it. But like, when you do have a good day or a good match, you’re like, Count the rings. Like, that’s very much the feeling when you’re like, Oh, you’re picking Hanzo, that’s trash. Like, Count the rings, baby.

 

Jason Concepcion Well, Zig, let’s talk about the writers strike since since you mentioned it, we do go and picket at five in the morning. Most recently, we were we were together with her friend Andrew and Pawn SAC and Zee at five in the morning at Rally Studios, trying to shut down a production over there. What is your experience been like over the course of this two week long, three week long strike?

 

Cody Ziglar I was in sort of a unique position because the last show I was on wrapped in February, so I really didn’t have much going on outside of, you know, occasional podcasting and writing comic books. So I definitely had the free time and like was used to having pretty open days, like I do nothing besides wake up, do a little bit of writing, work out, and then like, fuck off for the rest of the day. So like, this has been a perfect, perfect excuse for me to like, dedicate some of that like energy I’ve had. But I’ve been, I’ve never picketed anything before. Like, I’m so tested, but I’ve never been part of like a union action. So like, it has been very sort of inspiring to see something this well-organized be mobilized. I’ve been hitting predominantly Disney Studios because that’s the company I’ve worked for the most. And also parking is easier in the valley. But it’s been interesting seeing how each each picketing site has its own little ecosystem. Like is like different is like different tables and like the high school lunchroom, you know, like, oh, this is the cool table. This is like the weird table. This is the table where like the burn out and freaks hang out. Like, it’s been very, very fun. Also, it’s just been nice too. Like for me anyway, I think maybe the same for you. Like most of my writing experience has been through Zoom, so like, yeah, seeing other people in person for the first time has been very interesting. Particular people that you only know from online or you only know from a little box in the zooms. Like I was telling Jason earlier, before we started recording that we had a Futurama meet up last week at Paramount. And I, if I know I had been with these people for more than a year, but so the first time they’re meeting like half the cast in person. So like I’m finally meeting like Billy West and Dave Herman and Marissa March and all these people that are has been have been in my computer screen for, for basically a year and even more so in my brain for for, for watching the show. But like it’s been nice in that regard and also it’s been nice watching the greater community of Los Angeles come together. You know, it is an industry town. Yeah, a lot of a lot of solidarity from businesses. I’ve had, you know, businesses reach out to me like ask how to can contact, like donate food or any time and stuff. It’s been really great. And a lot of businesses have been offering discounts. And for for WGA members, which has been nice. It’s the only time I’ve worn like a WGA shirt and have people give me nods and like solidarity fist while walking down the street. It has been very interesting. Like it’s been a really fun experience, very unique experience. But what is your, what is your experience been like?

 

Jason Concepcion You know, I’ve learned I’ve been learning so much and I think the thing that. Has really stood out to me, as you know, as the union tries to grapple with the issues facing it is. Like you said, like I’m a person who’s, like, writing for TV is not all that I do. And I and it suddenly struck me how basically almost everyone I know. That is a member of the WGA does other things like if if their income was just writing for TV, they probably would not be able to live in L.A., certainly, or like survive because, you know, the way the industry is, is you get on show, maybe you work for ten weeks or 12 weeks or whatever. Pay during that time is great. Like, you know, really, you know, great union wages, union bargained wages, so great. But then the show’s over. There’s a hold on you because if it gets picked up or if it comes back at a certain time, they have like the right to to have you basically book you first. You have to clear out like part of your calendar. And so end also it’s hard to get other gigs so you might not work again for two, three, four months, eight months. And it has nothing to do with how talented you are, how brilliant of a writer you are. That’s just the way the landscape of this is now. And you mentioned the Zoom issue, I think. You know, the fact that writers don’t go to set anymore is really one of the huge issues that we’re dealing with, because that is the path to forward advancement. You know, like. Yes, you’re seeing now. A lot of this kind of like discourse about, well, well, you know, like a lot of that. Yes, the CEOs make a lot of money, but a lot of the highest earning writers make multi, multi multi-millions of dollars. And they’re very, very successful. And some of them, Mike White, you know, Matt Weiner, they don’t they they have very small like writers rooms and they just work on their own. So like, what are these issues we’re dealing with? Well, first of all, those people like Matt Weiner, I think his like first gig was like, what was Andy Richter’s? What was that Andy Richter show from the early 2000, like the.

 

Cody Ziglar Andy Roddick Controls universe?

 

Jason Concepcion Andy Richter controls the universe. Yeah. And like, that was his first foray as a working writer where I’m sure he garnered the benefits in the end, you know, the health benefits and the and the retirement benefits that are that you get when you’re a member of the union, the way people get their to those two to if they are fortunate enough to become like this massive force in the industry is by working their way up the ladder and basically that ladder is being like pulled up ahead of yeah, so many people like and it’s really concerning. You know, I think the issue is one that. And the minimum minimum staff writer number is is two issues that I, I kind of didn’t understand. You know like so one of our proposals is to set a number of minimum a minimum number of writers for each room for each kind of show.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And why are we doing this? The reason is because increasingly shows in many rooms are being produced by like one head writer and like a handful of other writers, they’re trying to whittle it down. And with the entrance of AI into the into the field, you know, you could see a world in which the studios would just want like a AI generating ideas and then a couple, maybe one writer or two, making it palatable for human concerns usable.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion And in that case, you’d have, you know, like 100 shows and 200 writers, and the WGA ceases to exist as a body at that point. There’s no health insurance, there’s none of that stuff. So it really is when people say it’s existential, it kind of is. It really is.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah. Well, also, in all the stuff that you mentioned before about, you know, these many rooms and being together and your show coming out and all that stuff. Also, there’s a really way your show just doesn’t come out like you spent all this time working on something, but then you don’t have the calling card too. But yes, I worked on this. I have something to show you. It can just not be made or it can be made and then it can be pulled off of the platform. It was on to be sold off for like, you know, point 5% off for the end of the year. Taxes. So, like I’ve been lucky to work for. I mean, I did work for sure. That’s been pulled off like my first show created. Craig of the Creek. Like you can’t find it on HBO Max anymore. Like it it’s gone. Like it’s a show that was also an intimate show that was canceled, you know, halfway through its fifth season with the spinoff that was canceled. You know, I’ve been lucky in that most of the other shows I’ve worked for have been bigger shows like, you know, it’s kind of it would be very hard for Marvel to break. You know, we’re just going to not show She-Hulk anymore and we’re we’re done with that. You know, it’s kind of hard to be like for for who to back. Yeah, we’re not we’re going to cancel this reboot for Futurama because it has the staying power, whatever. So like, I’ve been very lucky in that regard, but I know for a fact that that most of the writers don’t have that. Like it’s, it’s very like I worked on Futurama for 56 weeks and that is a very rare thing for people to do in this industry at this level and be able to earn like an actual living. But even with it, like I was still doing this podcast occasionally, I was also still writing comic books because you know that well is going to dry up and you can go, like you said, two, four, six, eight, sometimes a year, year and a half between between jobs.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, I have no idea how long this is going to go. I hope it ends to the benefit of all in a rapid manner, but it may not. Considering how far apart the sides are. But it’s been a delight. It’s been really great to be, as you said, like shoulder to shoulder with so many talented people. I think one of the coolest parts of this is meeting generations of writers who, because they struck in actions years ago, we are now able to enjoy stuff like being we go to the doctor, you know, and go see a dentist, you know, and the fact that those people are doing it again, it feels good. You know, it feels like right now I’ve got a show coming out. I can’t promote it because we’re on strike. But it feels good. But it also feels like good to be part of this thing that hopefully can solidify this as a career for all the people out there who who dream of writing for a living and hopefully get into this field. Like for this to exist in years to come, we have to be victorious now. And I hope we are.

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, exactly.

 

Jason Concepcion Thanks for joining us, Zig. Do you have anything to plug?

 

Cody Ziglar Yeah, of course. Always a pleasure to come back. Actually, as of this recording, you know, Miles Morales, Spider-Man number six has just come out. Check it out. It’s a really fun book. I’ve been very lucky that the reviews have been great and the sales have been great. So I just found out the other week that, you know, I was originally contracted for 12 issues and now it’s up to 24. So he’s got me for two years of life was really fun. It’s been a fun, fun ride. Like, I love that I get to play with this character, so check it out. It’s literally, literally one of my dreams come true is writing, writing Miles Morales.

 

Jason Concepcion It’s great to hang out.  I’ll see you on the picket line.

 

Cody Ziglar Of course.

 

Jason Concepcion At four in the morning soon. Up next, Hivemind with Sean Gunn to discuss Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

 

Cody Ziglar <AD>

 

Jason Concepcion Welcome to the Hive Mind, where we discuss a topic in detail with an expert guest in this episode. Who could be more of an expert than Sean Gunn, who costars as Kraglin in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, and the franchise in general. Sean Gunn, welcome to X-ray Vision. Thanks so much for joining us.

 

Sean Gunn Thank you for having me.

 

Jason Concepcion Congrats on a rousing conclusion to the Guardians trilogy.

 

Sean Gunn Rousing, I like that.

 

Jason Concepcion It was, I mean, it was, Raccoon made me cry, which was.

 

Rosie Knight Many times.

 

Jason Concepcion Unexpected.

 

Rosie Knight Many, many times.

 

Sean Gunn That’s good. That’s our job.

 

Jason Concepcion Any any thoughts now looking back on this trilogy like fun moments highlights?

 

Sean Gunn Oh, my gosh, how much time do you have?

 

Rosie Knight As much as you’ve got.

 

Sean Gunn It’s like it really has been an amazing. It will always be a touchstone for my entire career. These movies, I mean, you know, I went to to London to shoot the first one around ten years ago, and and now it’s three movies later. And, you know, it’s such a it’s you know, ten years is 20% of my life. So it’s like it’s it’s a big it’s a big part of me. The people that I met and that I’ve worked with along the way, working with my brother. But really the most important thing is just making movies that I’m proud of and that I think are really, you know, strong stories to tell.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And you mentioned that, you know, that ten year journey in that time. We’ve also seen comic book movies go from being something that was still kind of seen as niche. And, you know, when Guardians came out, people like, nobody knows who these characters are. If you want like in like digging in the back bins of a comic book shop to becoming the biggest thing in the world. What’s that journey been like, kind of being a part of that, especially as one of the most ragtag, unexpected, but beloved kind of teams?

 

Sean Gunn Yeah, I certainly feel very fortunate to be a part not only of the MCU, but definitely this franchise in general. But you’re right, It’s like it’s a good it was a good time to sort of get in in the door right when right when comic book movies are the biggest things in the world, though, I don’t think. I’m not somebody who thinks that, okay, well, the hate is going to be over. And then that said, they’re going to go away. You know, comic books themselves didn’t go away. You know.

 

Rosie Knight We’re 100 years strong.

 

Sean Gunn We. Exactly. It’s like they’re they’re a great template for telling great stories. So we’re going to keep having them. I don’t know if they’ll be as if they’ll always be the the biggest movies of the year. But so what they’re they’re going to be they’re going to always be around and we’re going to keep telling great stories with them.

 

Jason Concepcion How do you view Kraglin, when you embody this character who is Kraglin?

 

Sean Gunn It’s a good question. You know, I the funny thing is, is that I didn’t know exactly who Kraglin was really until I saw the first movie. You know, it was like week because we experimented on set a lot. By we, I mean my brother James and I on who this guy was. And I knew that he was kind of, you know, Yondu’s sort of sidekick. He was listed as the first mate, but we weren’t sure what was going to make him most effective. And we played with him being a little more menacing or a little bit, you know, dopey or more bored or more whatever. And he just kind of landed where he landed. And then I saw it and then I sort of understood who he was. You get this glimpse at the end of the first movie where we know that that Kraglin was there when Yondu picks up Peter Quill from Earth. Kraglin was already there on the ship. And and he’s not that much older than Peter, so they’ve grown up together. Then in the second movie, what we kind of learn is that. Is that this is the prodigal son. It’s the parable of the prodigal son story, right. Where Quill is this is the son who leaves and Kraglin’s the one who stays. And for whatever reason, Yondu seems so happy and, well, welcoming and and open to Peter. And Kraglin’s a little bit like, What about me? I’ve been here the whole time. That’s been his journey to figure that out. And then into the third movie, still wanting to do right? Still wanting to, like, be a good to produce, to help the team, to be a good soldier, which is really a driving thing for Craig then. But trying to put it in the place of But who am I here? Where am I? On the on the outside or am I part of it? And, you know, we get to we get a fun glimpse into how that all goes for him in the third memory.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And then what about your kind of other performance? Because you are in quite a rare situation where you get to play someone in live action and craft this character of Franklin, but you’re also essentially a creature performer bringing Rocket to life in mocap when you’re on the set. So what’s it like to see Rocket go on this journey that obviously in the third movie, this is Rocket Movie. Yes, the story of him.

 

Sean Gunn It really is. It really is. Rocket’s movie. You know, I’m I’ve been again, I’ve been in the right place at the right time here and there in my career. And I also have fortunately, I have certain weird skills. And one of those skills is I’m super limber. And in the first movie, when we needed, we needed somebody to, you know, play Rocket with the other actors. My brother James knew he wanted someone he had trusted and worked with. And in the first rehearsal I just kind of got down on all fours and started doing it. And so I’ve contributed in the process of creating Rocket. I mean, of course, Rocket has an entire team of people that make him he’s got, you know, the my brother, the writer quarterbacking everything. And then of course, I do my part on set. The visual effects team takes it from there. And then Bradley Cooper really is just amazing and kind of makes the whole character complete when he puts all the pieces together. From my point of view, I just try to do what I do for any character, which is I try to to understand where they are in time and space. When we see when we see them in their doing their scenes and I try to do right by them. So I yeah, it’s a it’s a lot of it takes a lot of focus and energy. But, but I’m really happy to have been able to do it.

 

Jason Concepcion Tell us about about working with Sylvester Stallone. He makes his first appearance in the second movie and we see him here in the third movie. He has, you know, I quote the lines all the time, of him about “the horns of freedom, the goals of Gourd.” And how they will not flash over Yondu’s.

 

Rosie Knight Not happenning.

 

Jason Concepcion Because of the various crimes he has committed. What is it? What was it like working with a legend like that?

 

Sean Gunn Well, what can you say about a legend? Well, I was absolutely great. He was. How do I put it? He’s what you’d expect.

 

Rosie Knight Hmm.

 

Sean Gunn Does that make sense?

 

Jason Concepcion Yes.

 

Sean Gunn I love it. I love having him there. But he’s a little larger than life for me. I say hello and shakes my hand and he’s like, Hey, son, good to see. But I don’t. I don’t do too much. I get a little bit awestruck by somebody like him, you know? Which is funny because I work with everybody now. I work, you know, like I did all the Avengers movies. I was on set every day with with all The Avengers and. And then you add in Suicide Squad. And I think my my resume for the biggest actors that I’ve worked with is is is pretty, pretty substantial now if I start listing all people that I’ve worked with. But Sly is in his own category. He’s not like that. He’s not like everyone else. He’s not just a star. He’s a he’s an icon, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I can say that he was he was certainly very, very nice to me. And I enjoyed every second I got to spend with him on set.

 

Rosie Knight Okay. And another important performance question about a costar. So obviously Cosmo.

 

Sean Gunn Oh, yeah.

 

Rosie Knight They’re my MVP love her. How hard was it to tell Cosmo she was bad dog?

 

Sean Gunn Because I’m an animal lover and I would never.

 

Rosie Knight You would never say that.

 

Sean Gunn You got to understand, though, Krugman’s really his feelings are really hurt here. Yeah. You know, he’s been trying for so long, like, you know, we see that he can’t get the arrow right. He’s hit tracks at the end of the second movie. He doesn’t even try to use it in the Christmas special. It’s so big and like, taking a break. I don’t have the hang of it. I’m not like. And then at the beginning of this movie, it’s like he’s putting his all into it. And Cosmo kind of laughs at him and just flip flops. And, you know, his feelings are hurt. So he he maybe says something that’s a little bit I know you shouldn’t call your dog a bad dog, but it was it was hard. It was particularly hard because Maria is amazing. So.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah.

 

Sean Gunn So Maria Bakalova, who who you know, who plays Cosmo was right there for everything. And she’s one of the most gifted and giving performers I’ve ever worked with. She’s just, like, up for anything. And she’s right there, and it’s like there’s. There’s. That’s Cosmo. She’s. There’s no. There’s no question about it. And and her feelings were hurt. So that what hurts  bad was that Maria was like, Why can you tell me I’m a good dog?

 

Jason Concepcion Your collaboration with your brother James goes back to Tromeo and Juliet. Way, way, way.

 

Sean Gunn Oh, it goes back farther than that, my friend. Go on.

 

Jason Concepcion Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is that like? And how did it start for you? How did how did this this life, this career in acting and entertainment start for you?

 

Sean Gunn Well, you know, the interesting thing, so James and I are there’s six kids in our family and so we have four siblings in between. He’s the oldest and I’m the youngest. We have for him. Between the two of us, we’re all very tight in age. So we’re like and and we’re very close. We grew up together. We love music and movies and pop culture. And in a weird way, our our, our paths, you know, they were together when we’re kids and we’re like, working on stuff together and, and, and playing with our Star Wars figures in the basement. And then they diverge. We go off and do our separate things. And James went to writing school and I went to acting school. I was always on on the path to be an actor. And then for us, fortunately, they came back together again and we our jobs fit very nicely. I actually think if, you know, if, if the job was right, we’d probably work with all of our siblings. And you know, these are writers and creatives and and things like that. But yeah, James was making Tromeo in 94 in New York, and I happened to be in acting school in in Chicago, and it was summertime and I had access to some, some decent actors. So like, like some of the, the people that are, you know, Valentine Millie who’s in and plays Mary and Tromeo was just like my classmate brought him out and like, whatever. But it’s always like that with me and James. It’s like, we’re going to try to we’ll help each other as much as we can, and we work together when we can, you know?

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. And you mentioned kind of these, you know, playing with Star Wars toys in the basement, loving pop culture, all of you having these shared interest. Do you remember reading comics together when you were kids? Were that comics that kind of you bonded over, or was that something that came later with Guardians?

 

Sean Gunn Well, I have to be. The full disclosure here is that James was always the comic book guy, and he was really dug, dug deep into comics, and I was more of the type to gamble on sports. But that’s a different.

 

Rosie Knight Both sides are needed.

 

Sean Gunn That’s a conversation for another day. Yeah. And and so yeah I always I like comics but I was never the you know James is obviously everyone knows this now but like James is a maniac for he he’s like so into it it’s really his it’s you know, alongside music and movies and stuff. It’s really such an intense, intense passion for him. Whereas I was always very appreciative. But I wasn’t I don’t know from different, you know, types of like, I know I know who the characters are, and I try to know a little something about what’s going on. But but yeah, no, I can’t keep up the way he does.

 

Jason Concepcion How looped in are you with James? Of course, I wrote and directed Guardians three. How looped in are you? You know, ahead of time on, you know, what James is thinking about which way the story is going to go or are you do you just prefer to show up on the day and here’s the script and.

 

Sean Gunn No, he can. James loops me in real early.

 

Rosie Knight Mm hmm.

 

Sean Gunn But part of it is just because I think he likes having, you know, I stay out of it when he’s writing, when he’s like. And the creation part. I don’t have any say there. I wouldn’t want any sag, and it’s not part of my thing. He gets he goes into his James cocoon and does this thing. But usually when he’s done with the script, particularly for these Guardians movies, he’ll he’ll sit down and we’ll have a conversation and and he’ll go over it with me and kind of tell me everything that happens. So these movies, I mean, I knew. You know, I knew when we were making the first movie, I knew what Rocket’s entire backstory was that we end up seeing Wow in the third movie. I knew a lot of that. And then, you know, just kind of along the way after the the first movie came out and it was and it was successful, we knew we were making a second one. He sat me down and told me everything that happened in the second movie, and I knew a lot of that stuff. I knew who Quill’s father was in the first movie, too, so it’s like it’s like he he sort of like, keeps me. He lets me know what’s what’s going on and I’m a fortress. I don’t I won’t spill to anyone ever, but partially because I’m a good and loyal brother, but also because, as I said before, I’m I’m a little less interested in the and and so I forget things. He’ll tell me he’ll tell me like these big huge secrets and and and people say, you know what that secret is? I’m like, I know he told me, but I forgot.

 

Rosie Knight I am not sure. You go Who?

 

Sean Gunn Yeah, but you know, he he keeps me in on it. Although I don’t know much about what I know. He’s busy as hell right now. We’re working, you know, he’s. We got one project we’re working on together, but for the most part, he’s. He’s knee deep and Superman and, like, doing all that stuff.

 

Jason Concepcion Ooh.

 

Sean Gunn I know very little about it. He told me how casting was going. And, you know, before you get all excited that I’m going to saying anything.

 

Rosie Knight The fortress. Come on, we would never ask. We’d never ask.

 

Sean Gunn I know that it’s going pretty well. That’s always that’s good to hear. Yeah.

 

Rosie Knight Good to hear you. You kind of talked about you talked a little bit about that project you guys are working on. The Suicide squad was like, is one of my favorite superhero movies. I loved Weasel. So happy to see him survive. Oh, yeah. When you played that character, as you said, you know, James kind of let you in on this stuff. But obviously the trajectory of DC films has changed. Did you imagine you would get to bring Weasel back as a kind of recurring character in something like Creature Commandos?

 

Sean Gunn Did I fear that I would be forced to bring Weasel back?

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. Had you considered you would make a career so terrifying? I had to bring it back.

 

Sean Gunn I knew we you know, I knew we shot that. That closing credits sequence where Weasel is alive. So, yeah, he’s alive. I knew he was alive. And I know it’s like, in some ways, I think Weasel is the cross I have to bear as an actor. I do stuff like that. It’s. It’s. I don’t know what it is about me, but I’m for whatever reason, I’m good at it. Characters that are just like total freaks, which is what weasel is. I think we can all agree without offending anyone. That weasel is a freak.

 

Rosie Knight Oh no. I love Weasel for his freaky now.

 

Sean Gunn Oh, yeah, that’s right.

 

Rosie Knight That’s why we love him.

 

Sean Gunn But I’m happy. You know what’s cool is that in creature commandos, we’re going to get to learn a little more about Weasel. Mm hmm. So I’m. I’m excited for people to to see that.

 

Jason Concepcion It was revealed in in deleted scenes that Kraglin was present at the big battle at the Avengers compound at the end of Endgame. In your mind, what was Kraglin left up to? How did how do you do in there?

 

Sean Gunn Well, you know, you know, the concern was that Kraglin did not survive the blip. So he was he did he did disappear for those five years. And then he came back and he would have still been with the ravagers at that at that time. So he was ready to go. I mean. You know, like, Kraglin’s a great pilot and he is tremendously loyal and just like. What is it you need from me? I’m. I’m ready to go. It’s I think I think he seems a little he can seem a little clumsy sometimes. I actually think he’s pretty fearless.

 

Rosie Knight Yeah. You think in that moment he was ready to take down Thanos. It was time. Yeah.

 

Sean Gunn I really do. Yeah, I think that that’s not. I don’t think Kraglin, Kraglin’s fear is disappointing people. It’s not. It’s not dying.

 

Rosie Knight Giant space aliens.

 

Sean Gunn The dying thing that’s just going to like you may be a die that’s out so let’s our soldiers go out. But his fear is disappointing people. And so I think he was pretty ready to go.

 

Jason Concepcion Finally. And thank you for your time, Sean. It’s in your mind when Kraglin does pass many, many, many, many years from now via the horns of freedom, the colors of your gold, will they flash above his grave?

 

Sean Gunn Oh, from your mouth to God’s ear. I, I would like to think so. I mean, you know, if not, what are we doing this for right?

 

Rosie Knight What was it all for?

 

Sean Gunn Yeah. Yeah.

 

Jason Concepcion Sean, thanks so much.

 

Sean Gunn Thank you so much.

 

Rosie Knight Thank you.

 

Sean Gunn Appreciate it.

 

Jason Concepcion That’s it for us. Thank you for joining us and thank you for putting up with our technological issues. Catch the next episode. Wednesday, May 24th. For more Market Moves and Yellowjackets. Folks, it’s incredible times in both shows. So hope you’re watching. Don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube where you can watch full episodes of the show and check out their Discord to meet and hang out with tons of amazing fans and listeners. Plus, Rosie and I, we are active on there. Five star ratings. Five star reviews. We need them. You got to give them to us. We got to have them. Here’s one from SinisterJHK: Great fun engaging podcast. I really love the X-ray Vision podcast. Thank you. I was a big fan of Jason’s from The Ringer. Thank you very much. And also a fan of Rosie’s from the old Orbital Comics podcast Break Shop. R.i.p Jason and Rosie bring so much enthusiasm to their topics and it’s just what I am looking for. Thank you so much, SinisterJHK. X-ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin and executive produced by me, Jason Concepcion. And our editing and sound design is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and Rachel Gaewski, Social Media by Ewa Okulate and Caroline Dunphy. Thank you to Brian Vasquez for our theme music. See next time.

 

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