The Point Radio: Battling Bots Take Over SyFy

It’s a little bit of sports, a little bit of science fiction and all action. SyFy is set to debut ROBOT COMBAT LEAGUE with man-controlled machines battling to survive. Series host (and WWE Superstar) Chris Jericho, explains why the new reality show is really a wave of the future. Plus Valiant offers a comic book bargain, and everyone on the net is asking Who Is Writing GREEN LANTERN? Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. Is it sports? Is it combat? Is it the wave of the future? It's all Robot Combat League, a new reality show coming to the Sci-Fi channel and we'll tell you just what you can expect. Plus, Valiant gives us a whole bunch of bargain comic books and the question is, who's going to write Greenland or is it? Let's get to The Point.

This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. Break the wall, break down the wall. You've seen it in some science fiction. You may have even seen it in the movies, but believe me, you've never seen it quite like this. It's Robot Combat League, a new reality series coming to Sci-Fi featuring eight foot tall humanoid robots controlled by human fighters

and engineers all in a battle to the death. Hosting the competition, WWE superstar Chris Jericho. The whole thing about this show is it's never been done before ever in any way, shape or form, especially with robots of this size and this technology. So each robot had some pros and cons to it as far as the way it was designed, the way that it looked. I mean,

all of the designs were the same, but as far as the actual skins that we put on them, some of them had different types of fists or different types of armor or whatever it may be. So as the competition moved forward, you saw how the teams were really starting to bond and meld with their specific robot and knowing what we can do with what we have that the other robots don't have and what we have to protect that might be a little

bit of a weakness. And that was something that we never really thought it was just interesting to see how the teams gelled with the robot as the competition moved forward. So what brought Chris into this? For me, it's like, you know, when things come across your desk, kind of on a daily basis with the basis, some of them are good, some of them are bad, some of them are kind of

generic, some of them are really CD4. And some of them are so unique and original and interesting that you just can't not be curious about it. When you hear, well, here's a show they want you to host that's about eats the total giant fighting robots. It's kind of something that you can't just like go like, oh, I pass like what, what is that? So actually hear the concept of it, which is really cool, but then actually go and see these robots

and see how they move, like how fast they move, how hard they punch, how much mobility you have, how much personality each robot has. It really blew my mind. It's not like the first day when I was there on set and they go into the arena and have a robot walk towards me. Had it not stopped, I would have turned and ran away. That's how intimidating it was, you know, and to see like the actual giant robots that can walk and fight, you

know, if you get hit by one of these robots, they have 2000 PSI's per per, you know, punching power, it can knock your head off. So we've actually, Mark has actually created a robot that can kill you. So in 10 or 15 years when these robots take over the entire human race, you know, they saw it on slide by first. We got them first, big. On Robot Combat League, it's all about the technology and that's in the hands of robotics expert, Mark Sattrakia.

The technology of the robots is such that the personalities of the contestants really comes through the robots themselves. We really started to recognize specific fighting styles that that the robots had that was really coming directly from the contestants. As a lot of reality on TV, but as the guys explain, not quite like this. I think just the fact that just just like I said, the tagline when you hear about a giant fighting robot, like

I think there's a lot of people that just go like there was a lot of people are just obsessed with robots to be honest with you. Which is very cool. Like anything robot involved, people be interested, but it's more than that. It's the fact of how technical, logically advanced they are. It's a fight show. It's a robot show. It's a reality show. It's a human interest show because as cool as the robots are, like I said, you have to see them

to believe how quickly they move and how mobile they are. But also like Mark said earlier, to see how the people react with the robots they have, what kind of personalities can they inject into these robots? What's their fighting style? How can you adapt to what's going on? So it's just very interesting basically because we've never seen anything like this before in the history of television. There's been robot things, but not to this level,

this size and this much advanced mechanics I guess you'd say. Yeah, and the thing, Chris really nailed it. The robots themselves, they're really cool, but without the contestants, they're really nothing. It's like a car without a driver. It's that synergy of the human contestants and the robot fighters that's really fascinating about the show. For me, one of the most compelling images is when you see a contestant and they're

up and they're on the tower, it's a sort of control tower that they operate the robots from and they're in the excess suit and you see them take a swing and you see that robot take a swing and you make that instant visual connection. It's like, wow, that person is making that thing move. And the robots do the fighting and the dying in the arena and the humans are really the brains behind that. They're basically transmitting their heart

and soul and their genes and it's really amazing to watch that. So for Chris, who spent more than a few years in the ring with the WWE, is this a transition to something else? It's more just branding. It's like the Chris Jericho brand at this point. I just do things that I find are interesting to me and I think that I'll always do that. I'll always come

back to wrestling for short periods of time as long as I can perform at the highest level that I've kind of set the standard of doing, but there's so much of the stuff that I've done from RCL to Dancing with the Stars to Downfall to McRoover to, you know, Touring the World of Foggies and all the stuff I've been doing with the band, you know? So that's why Robot Combat League was so interesting to me because I enjoyed, you know, people

say, what's your goals? Do you have any other goals? I never had the goal of like, you know, I want to do this, I want to do that. I want to host a giant fighting robot show and I want to do it. It's like, it just when it comes across your desk, if it's something interesting, I'm going to do it. And I'll continue to do that until the day I die because that's what I do. I'm an entertainer and I enjoy being in front of the camera. I enjoy

having new challenges and learning and I learned a lot from RCL about technology and about a lot of different things. So I guess you'd say, yeah, transitioning into whatever it is, quote unquote, Hollywood or just transitioning to another form of entertainment. But I've been doing this for, you know, 10, the last 10 years or so, different things. If it's interesting to me, I'll give it a try for sure.

Death Combat League debuts on February 26th on Sci-Fi. Get a sneak peek right now at Sci-Fi dot com. Check this out. It's the latest in pop culture. Netflix is expanding its original programming now aiming for kids or teaming up with DreamWorks Animation to launch an original series based on DreamWorks upcoming summer movie Turbo. Turbo, of course, has a great voice cast involved with it. Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Bill Hader, Maya

Rudolph and others. And the Netflix original series will pick right up where the film leaves off. It'll be available later on this year on Netflix, of course, more than likely several episodes at once, which seems to be the practice. And the movie Turbo opens in theaters in July. Stan Lee is back in business with Power Entertainment and is now relaunched to real Stan Lee dot com. The website's planned to be a hub of social media and digital content.

All surrounding Stan, give you a chance to interact with him as well as other Stan fans. There'll be artwork and other content as well on it. And of course, it'll all tie in to Stan's other project on the web, which involves both Pow and the Michael Eisner Group at Stan Lee's World of Heroes, which is available still as a YouTube channel. Add one more layer to plans for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. And that is 3D. The anniversary special set to air next fall

will be broadcast on the BBC and probably on BBC America in 3D, according to a recent announcement. Of course, right now, that special is set to air in England on November 23rd, the same day 50 years ago that fans were first introduced to the doctor in 1963. It's all about The Walking Dead again with the third season break premiere picking up two. It's all about The Walking Dead again with the third season restarting and picking up a record 12.3 million viewers, even up against the

Grammys on Sunday night. 7.7 million of those were the much coveted 18 to 49 group. But when you add the encores of the show together at 11 and 2 a.m., well, all together, just over 16 and a half million people watched Walking Dead. It's going to be a big month for them all the way around, too, with Toy Fair coming up and Todd McFarlane premiering a new series of Walking Dead figures. Krypto Zowek has a new Walking Dead board game that they're unveiling coming up sometime later

in the year. And in April, there'll be a card game based on the series designed by Wolfgang Kramer. Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage is joining the already huge cast of X-Men Days of Future Past, according to a tweet a couple of days ago by director Brian Singer. The cast, of course, already includes people like Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Sean Ashmore from the early movies, and then the original X-Men first class cast as well, including people like Jennifer Lawrence. No word

yet on exactly who Dinklage will portray, although some internet rumors are pointing toward a possible Alpha flight introduction, which would make him a perfect puck. But we'll see. Right now, X-Men Days of Future Past will cram into the theaters in July of 2014. In a move that seems to be more for the readers than, well, for eBay, Valiant is planning on celebrating their first anniversary back at the comic business by launching a series of reprints of their five sold out first issues

from last year. That includes X-O-Men award number one, Harbinger number one, Bloodshot, Archer and Armstrong, and Shadow Man number one. They'll be in comic stores on the first of May, and the good news is all the second printings will be one dollar each. One of the big comic book questions on the internet right now, who's taking over Green Lantern? Geoff Johns, Tony Baddard, Peter Milligan, and Peter Tomasi all have given up their respective jobs on the various GL

titles from DC. Now who will step into those? Lots of speculation about it. By the way, final issues for most of those creators will hit stores in May. Your pop culture channel. A lot of familiar titles and a couple of new ones all combine to have a great month for graphic novel sales in comic stores in January, especially when compared to January of last year, which by the way, wasn't that bad either. The increase? 37.89%. That's the jump over last year. Let's look

at the top 10 best selling graphic novels and stores and see if you can figure a pattern out here at number 10 Animal Man second volume trade paperback collection there from DC's New 52. At number nine Walking Dead volume 17, something to fear. At number eight Walking Dead number three safety behind bars. At number seven the trade paperback version of the collection of the first few issues of the Justice League from the New 52. At number six the second volume collection of that

title this time in hardcover, The Villains Journey from DC. Number five a new printing of Walking Dead volume two miles behind us. At number four the Silver Surfer book by Stan Lee and Mobius came in there. At number three Walking Dead volume one Days Gone By. At number two the saga trade paperback from Image first volume in that and the number one best selling graphic novel for the month The Fables trade paperback volume 18 in the series called Cubs in Toyland.

That does it for right now. Well you may have a three-day weekend but we're going to be hard at work all weekend long and beyond that with the latest in pop culture. If you check it out anytime listen free at getthepointradio.com or listen on your iPhone with our free app available in the app store right now to start gender pop culture and The Point. Got a droid or maybe even a blackberry well then you get the app tune in radio and you can listen to us free there as well. In the meantime

the podcast is put together twice every week by now to hit media. It's in the iTunes podcast directory where you can always subscribe or catch it anytime on great websites at ComicMix.com and michaelsdavisworld.com. Under social media stay in touch we're easy to find under the point radio of course see you back here in a few days. Get the point radio dot com