Episode 23.5: Stormbreaker

It would be called Only Ewan.

Northerly Keebler

In the book, Sayle was a south Asian man who spoke with an accent, and was bullied for being a poor south Asian boy.

Andrew Dunn

I read the books when I was around 11-12 years old and in retrospect I can say the target audience for them was trans men. One of my first awakenings.

lj

Spying isn't necessarily hereditary, Alex Rider is just the fucking Kwisatz Haderach. He's been trained secretly from birth to do spy shit

Khris

I remember loving the Alex Rider. Books, then going back to try and reread them and realizing that every. villain. Was like "evil Minority Immigrant MURDERING good, pure, White British Children," and uuugh.

Ariane Signalis is the Elster Signalis Fan Club and challenges you to play SIGNALIS without pointing at any of the characters an

My memory of it was that they were anti-British Spy, but in a very Racist way. The original Stormbreaker, as I recall, was incredibly anti-Pakistani.

Ariane Signalis is the Elster Signalis Fan Club and challenges you to play SIGNALIS without pointing at any of the characters an

God, I loved the Alex Rider books as a kid and got this film for my 12th/13th birthday and hoo-boy, that was the day my childhood died. Nay, was *murdered*.

Buckeroo

Abi's thing about CHERUB reminded me of my dad asking me if I was gay when he noticed I had the books because he thought they were about fairies and magical girl shit. Unfortunately not, because that would have RULED.

Jet

just want to let you guys know I'm relistening to this episode and for the last three weeks I've fully been walking around under the impression that bill nye the science guy was a well-respected british actor and I somehow completely missed that

Vasundhara

The villains plan is in the same level of nonsense as Commander Red from Dragon Ball, but crucially lacks the second in command henchman shooting Darius in the head when they find out what an absurdly disproportionate motivation he has

Lay-Tex-Lips

Oh my god…..OH MY GOD

Factanonverba

Nighy, not Nye.

Daniel Chiverton

I just assume Devon was still reeling from Penguins, made it about 20 into this, then took out a gun and summarily executed the router

Noblesse Oblahaj

Please do DEBS at some point, it's terrible but it's also very gay

Charlotte Swasey

For Phoebe's new podcast I was going to recommend The Big Empty and then realised that was Sean Bean. Sorry, Sean.

Cate Kneale

I think you should do The Spy Who Dumped Me. It's fun and has Kate McKinnon upside down. Just saying.

Cate Kneale

god I was obsessed with this movie as a kid. only now do I realise quite how fucking catastrophically weird it is

Arthur Sexcrimes

A friend of mine has.... "helpfully" pointed out that Neil Breen's Double Down technically qualifies as a spy movie. Do with this what you will.

Violet

STOOOOOOrm breAAKERRRRRRR

DukeNukem64x

Yeah that caught me off guard too.

Elder Dog

i went to check out clips of bill nighy's performance after listening to this and holy shit, if anything you guys undersold how fucking bizarre it is, just, everythings off

Christine Pizan

That pause between Alice asking "are you saying they cast too hot of a child" and Phoebe's "no" cracks me the fuck up

Bryan

An episode on the CHERUB books would be amazing.

George Barker

Heck, the CHERUB books go way harder into being pro-MI6, because basically all the kids are like 'this is awesome we are doing Spy SHit' most of the time. I'm nearly certain that James ends up becoming a instructor after he's too old for British Intelligence Kids Division, and the books go far harder into terrorists and big crime bosses doing evil stuff.

Nalte

Huh, I always remembered the books as being very loudly anti-British-spy-shit. When he goes to the bad guys in book 5 they have to give him like, the slightest of reasons and he's off to go shoot the lady who ordered him around as MI6's leader. Every single book involves him being press-ganged into doing spy shit, and he's even hired out to the CIA in book 3 as a person to make their dumb spying look more correct.

Nalte

In order to truly appreciate Casino Royal (2006) I think you'd really need to first cover the the worst performing movie each of the 5 top billed actors did before they did Casino Royal.

Ctolm

I am so happy that you have already brought up the CHERUB series because although it is a book it is extremely main feed material and the second book in the series is all about sellINg dOPe. Crossing my fingers.

Ghis

Ok, this episode made up for the Casino Royale switcheroo. This was hilarious.

Manuel Kiguel

This episode drops and the USAF makes the GBU-53/B aka the "StormBreaker" operational.

obliteron

Fellow Americans who had to google what Bill Nye the Science Guy was doing in this movie raise your hand. Bonus points if you were in middle school in the past few decades and now have the song in your head like I do.

default_playername

Cool, I’m watching Franklin

Phil West Music

The "geared to 11 and 12-year-olds" theory is pretty spot-on, though I would say it went even younger than that. I remember this film being prominently advertised in the giant Scholastic catalogues that teachers and parents could order for their kids. One catalogue even included the script for a half-assed play adaptation that told the audience to go see the movie to find out how the story ended.

Dana Himrich

Not realizing for half the podcast that you weren't talking about Bill Nye was quite an experience

oh, not that Bill Nye

DootDootDotWav

Darius Sayle is a villain ass name, but in the book he was called fucking HEROD SAYLE

Myla

Can’t wait for 23.75, Zardoz.

Saw this movie at a discount theater as a teenager and the ONLY thing I remember about this film is that it introduced me to Damien Lewis. Reading this description has just reminded me that Mickey Rourke is here being unhinged—looking forward to hearing what else I’ve blocked from my memory. (Has anyone watched the TV series? How bad is it?)

Suzanne Schenewerk

I'm done

Justine

Okay, you’ve jerked us around long enough. Do you or do you not have any intention of actually doing an episode on the film If Looks Could Kill??

Jacob Inman