Speaker 1: Oh he is bot.
Speaker 2: It's shoot time.
Speaker 3: People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 4: When they go out to a theater.
Speaker 5: They want cold sodas, pop popcorn, and no monsters in
Speaker 5: the protection booth.
Speaker 1: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 5: Don it off.
Speaker 1: Famous around the world. Please welcome the.
Speaker 6: Fantastic four, Mister, fantastic, Invisible woman, human torch.
Speaker 4: I love you Johnny and the thing.
Speaker 1: Hey, what time is it? Say today?
Speaker 3: That's not really something I say.
Speaker 7: It's coming time.
Speaker 3: That's just in the cartoon. Never late for Sunday dinner.
Speaker 3: Let's see. Hey, what time is it?
Speaker 4: It's dinner time. Get inside.
Speaker 1: I herald the beginning.
Speaker 2: I harold your end.
Speaker 6: I harald.
Speaker 5: Galactus.
Speaker 6: What is that?
Speaker 5: Get us out of here?
Speaker 7: Friend, always say, I don't know.
Speaker 1: The clock is ticking.
Speaker 3: We are going to find a solution. We are going
Speaker 3: to make it right. You don't want to just crush him,
Speaker 3: hide that. The four of us will face the danger.
Speaker 2: We will protect you.
Speaker 3: Family. It's about connecting to something bigger than yourself.
Speaker 4: Who face it together.
Speaker 3: As a family.
Speaker 5: What time is it bad?
Speaker 1: No? What time is it bad?
Speaker 5: No? Johnny, I don't want to die.
Speaker 3: Welcome to a special crossover episode between the Projection Booth,
Speaker 3: the Culture Cast, and Midnight Viewing. I'm your host. Mike
Speaker 3: White Jovini once again is the host of the Culture Cast.
Speaker 3: Mister Chris Stashue.
Speaker 1: To quote one of my favorite characters from Superhero Dumb
Speaker 1: in general, it's Babylon time.
Speaker 3: Also, all the way from Midnight Viewing is Father Malone.
Speaker 4: Gentlemen, I invite you to die with your own On.
Speaker 3: This episode, we are looking at the twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: film Fantastic four First Steps, which is actually the fifth
Speaker 3: ree tread in this franchise where we're looking at for
Speaker 3: superpowered beings who protect the Earth or Earth A two eight,
Speaker 3: this time from Galactus, who is not a big gas cloud.
Speaker 3: That's good. There's not a lot of origin story, but
Speaker 3: it's more of a look at the fourth year going
Speaker 3: into the fifth year of the team's existence. And we
Speaker 3: will be spoiling this discussion like crazy. So if you
Speaker 3: haven't seen Fantastic four First Steps, haven't watched the bootleg
Speaker 3: that floating around out there with the French subtitles, turn
Speaker 3: off the podcast, come back after you've gone to see
Speaker 3: the movie. I know it's not like that exists. Chris
Speaker 3: what's your history of Fantastic Four. I'm very curious about that.
Speaker 3: We've talked about that on the Superman episode, so a
Speaker 3: couple weeks later, what's your history with Fantastic Four?
Speaker 1: So The Thing is one of my favorite superhero characters period,
Speaker 1: just something about him, and like the portrayal in the
Speaker 1: comic books, I really enjoy the portrayal in the movies.
Speaker 1: I think has been more spot on in most of them,
Speaker 1: at least in those Yowen Grufford, Chris Evans, Jessica Alba
Speaker 1: Fantastic Four movies which I saw. I have seen every
Speaker 1: Fantastic Four movie that has been released in theaters, including
Speaker 1: Fan for Stick, which not many people saw that shit
Speaker 1: in theaters. There was a reason for that I saw
Speaker 1: in theaters. You're a masochist. That's the word I would use.
Speaker 1: And this is one other thing. And Father Malone I
Speaker 1: think mentioned this when we were recording Maybe or Off podcast.
Speaker 1: Not only is the Thing one of my favorite superhero characters,
Speaker 1: Read Richards as the Maker is my favorite comic book
Speaker 1: villain I think period. In terms of Marvel. It's literally
Speaker 1: what if Reid Richards was just like, I'm the universe
Speaker 1: of smartest man, and I could do whatever the fuck
Speaker 1: I want, And he's just like practicing genocide. And he
Speaker 1: becomes so smart and gets so much knowledge into his
Speaker 1: head that his brain and skull essentially become like an
Speaker 1: ancient alien skull. His head head becomes like conical, his
Speaker 1: brain grows so much.
Speaker 4: Let's not forget during Civil War whose side he was on.
Speaker 1: I think, if you're gonna do a Fantastic Four movie,
Speaker 1: this is the right place to start. However, and I'm
Speaker 1: saying that in terms of the setting, I think, in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, this is marvel going. Man, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it have been nice if we had done a period
Speaker 1: piece with the Fantastic Four in two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: or ten. I liked the setting. I liked the world
Speaker 1: that this movie took place in. However, this movie was
Speaker 1: an hour and fifty five minutes, and there are parts
Speaker 1: of this movie that drug and the plot of the
Speaker 1: movie and the way that the conflict resolves, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the Deus X teleporter bridges is just there's
Speaker 1: some stuff that doesn't seem as well integrated into the
Speaker 1: story as I was hoping they would be. And there
Speaker 1: are parts of this that I'm like, I'm glad that
Speaker 1: we're doing this version of the characters, and there are
Speaker 1: other things where I'm like, I'm a little disappointed that
Speaker 1: we're doing these versions of the characters. And by the
Speaker 1: end of the movie, once we see where they end
Speaker 1: up going with everything, I think I'm hopeful for where
Speaker 1: the second or third steps go. If that's in fact
Speaker 1: what the movies are beyond this one. Who knows if
Speaker 1: they keep the Spider Man naming conventions. And I know
Speaker 1: John Watts was originally going to direct these movies, so
Speaker 1: I wonder if there is going to be a little
Speaker 1: bit of the Spider Man naming conventions. But all that
Speaker 1: to say, I think for the most part it's one
Speaker 1: of the better Marvel movies we've had in a while.
Speaker 1: It shows a lot of reserve where other Marvel movies
Speaker 1: of its similar ilk have not, including something as recently
Speaker 1: as Thunderbolts. But I think at times it may plays
Speaker 1: it a tad too safe. Look, it's twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: We know where the MCU is effectively headed. In the
Speaker 1: next couple of years. We're almost at year twenty of this.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming by year twenty of this we will have
Speaker 1: a whole new thing with all new people, which is
Speaker 1: what they've talked about and they've alluded to. And now
Speaker 1: seeing that thing at the end of the movie is
Speaker 1: just like it sets in. Oh my god, we're like
Speaker 1: right back here in like twenty and eighteen nineteen again effectively.
Speaker 1: So I enjoyed it. But I think there's plenty for
Speaker 1: us to talk about in terms of the shortcomings of
Speaker 1: the movie. But I think overall, best Marvel movie in
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, best Marvel movie in the last five years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. There have been a lot
Speaker 1: of decent Marvel movies, if not great Marvel movies that
Speaker 1: have come out in the last five years. But in
Speaker 1: terms of this, to answer the initial question, Mike, in
Speaker 1: terms of doing a Fantastic four thing and my history
Speaker 1: with it, this is the best Fantastic four movie I've
Speaker 1: ever seen in theaters. So that's a distinction that it
Speaker 1: has over the other three times I've been in a
Speaker 1: theater watching these same characters do similar things.
Speaker 3: And Father malonew about yourself.
Speaker 4: Growing up in the seventies, I read a lot of
Speaker 4: Marvel as a kid up until about teenage of them
Speaker 4: when I decided that horror comics were the way to go,
Speaker 4: and I didn't have any fealty to any comic book
Speaker 4: company after that, but definitely Marvel as a young kid
Speaker 4: and Fantastic for us made for children almost and when
Speaker 4: I was reading comics in the seventies, I was effectively
Speaker 4: just reading the original run from the sixties, So it
Speaker 4: was all of this kind of material that ends up
Speaker 4: in this movie, which is bright and shiny and cosmic. Now,
Speaker 4: I never really had much use for the Fantastic Four.
Speaker 4: I always loved their peripheral characters. I think they have
Speaker 4: some of the best villains in Marvel. One of them
Speaker 4: is on display here for the first time Moleman On
Speaker 4: who I just I love as a character Harvey Elder.
Speaker 4: But more than that is Galactis. But more than Galactis
Speaker 4: is the character noorin Rad, the Silver Surfer, who is
Speaker 4: one of my maybe top five Marvel characters of all time.
Speaker 4: Just the existentialness of that character, the dilemma that he
Speaker 4: finds himself in, which is fully on display here, which
Speaker 4: I really appreciated. The first Fantastic Four movie I saw
Speaker 4: was in ninety seven, when I got a bootleg of
Speaker 4: the Corman produced flick, which we just reviewed over on
Speaker 4: my show just a few days ago. And then obviously
Speaker 4: Yowen Griffiths. That's how you pronounced that it's Welsh friend Griffiths.
Speaker 4: Those two movies, those were garbage. Even worse than that
Speaker 4: was the Josh Strank thing. Who on fucking planet are thinks?
Speaker 4: A dark and twisted version of the Fantastic for his
Speaker 4: Way to Go? It is literally the shiniest and brightest
Speaker 4: of the Marvel titles. I had no expectations for this movie.
Speaker 4: All the trailers I saw I did not respond to
Speaker 4: at all. I didn't quite understand the Paeder Pascal casting,
Speaker 4: and the rest of the cast seem good to me, nevertheless,
Speaker 4: so my expectations were zero. This to me was one
Speaker 4: of the best superhero movies I've ever seen, honestly, not
Speaker 4: only the best film from Marvel since Endgame, but one
Speaker 4: of the best overall. Whatever praise I heaped upon Superman
Speaker 4: for making a cinematic comic book, this one puts that
Speaker 4: to shame. This is a fully realized world, with all
Speaker 4: of the pieces fitting together very subtly. In some places.
Speaker 4: When we're talking about tell us some of the dark side,
Speaker 4: we alway talk about the economy of those scripts. You
Speaker 4: said it, Chris, this movie is two hours. This movie
Speaker 4: it moves so fast.
Speaker 1: One hour and fifty five minutes. Dude, it's wild. It's
Speaker 1: a less than two hour Marvel movie in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: This movie starts four years in, catches up fucking immediately
Speaker 4: to where we are, and gives us an incredible fucking
Speaker 4: dilemma and actually pulling off the fucking impossible in that
Speaker 4: it made Sue Storm one of the most powerful and
Speaker 4: interesting characters, whereas she has always been the most underwritten
Speaker 4: and boring Marvel characters. I loved the movie. I actually
Speaker 4: seen it twice. I saw it last night and this
Speaker 4: morning I went and saw it again.
Speaker 1: But did you buy the eighty dollars popcorn book?
Speaker 4: One for display, one for eating.
Speaker 1: Large, if not oversized, comical portions of cereal out of.
Speaker 4: No just for eating all of the popcorn on planet
Speaker 4: Earth in one sitting.
Speaker 3: I hunger.
Speaker 1: What about you, Mike White? What's your experience in history
Speaker 1: with the fan four sticks?
Speaker 3: Fantastic four might have been one of the first comics
Speaker 3: that I read. I remember specifically, my folks had a
Speaker 3: rental property and they were doing a lot of fixing
Speaker 3: it up before we could have renterists move in. I
Speaker 3: remember sitting around and reading an issue of The Fantastic Four,
Speaker 3: and I swear it was right around the time of
Speaker 3: the Iran hostage crisis, because I remember there was a
Speaker 3: parody song of Barbaran the Old Surfs Bomb Iran, Bomb Iran, Yes,
Speaker 3: and that was playing on Dick Purtin and I was
Speaker 3: listening to that and reading this comic book. So very
Speaker 3: strange memory of that, but yeah, they were some of
Speaker 3: the first folks that I read as far as comic superheroes,
Speaker 3: and like you said, fout them alone, they're perfect for kids.
Speaker 3: And it's just this kind of candy colored world that
Speaker 3: they lived in, at least back in the sixties. And
Speaker 3: I love this retrofuturism vibe that they have with this
Speaker 3: where things are analogue but they really shouldn't be. Things
Speaker 3: like Herbie with the tape deck in his head and
Speaker 3: how he's got different programs on tapes and everything. And
Speaker 3: when you see the Fantastic Car zooming through the city,
Speaker 3: you get to see like a robot dog walker or
Speaker 3: these little tiny cars that they have, and I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I love this world. I really like this Earth A
Speaker 3: two eight that they have, where it feels like because
Speaker 3: of the Fantastic Four coming to be, or maybe just
Speaker 3: because of the way that the world played out, things
Speaker 3: are running differently, and we don't have transistors, we don't
Speaker 3: have the smaller technology. We still are using blackboards and
Speaker 3: things that are very analogue, and I really like that.
Speaker 3: I like the look of this and that kind it
Speaker 3: is so different thinking about that Josh Trenk version where
Speaker 3: so much of it just took place in a fucking
Speaker 3: warehouse and it was just dark all the time, and
Speaker 3: this we're out in the daylight. Even the stuff with
Speaker 3: Harvey Mouleman is pretty bright once we get down into
Speaker 3: the subterranean world that he goes in. There's some light
Speaker 3: in there. It's not just dark the entire time. And
Speaker 3: then having Paul Walter, how oh, he is so great,
Speaker 3: so much, he is so good.
Speaker 4: Don't be mad at me, Johnny, I didn't dress you.
Speaker 3: It was so nice having more Sue Storm in here,
Speaker 3: because I really feel like, at least those Tim Story
Speaker 3: movies were so much about Johnny and the Thing, and
Speaker 3: we've got a pretty good amount of the thing, and
Speaker 3: here it's tough. You've got four very strong characters and
Speaker 3: you're trying to balance all of them, and I think
Speaker 3: they do a good job.
Speaker 1: I really.
Speaker 3: If anything, I think read Richards might be a little
Speaker 3: bit opaque as far as his motivations and things, but
Speaker 3: I think that works well with him. It's almost like
Speaker 3: he's on the spectrum or something, and I'm really okay
Speaker 3: with that. And I'll tell you I just before we
Speaker 3: started recording, just realized that Johnny Storm is Eddie from
Speaker 3: Stranger Things. I could not put my finger on where
Speaker 3: I knew him from. Really don't get a good beat
Speaker 3: on Johnny Storm in this one other than he's a
Speaker 3: pretty smart guy, but he hasn't given the credit that
Speaker 3: he's due, and that he actually figures out that whole
Speaker 3: alien language. I'm pretty happy about that. I thought that
Speaker 3: was pretty great.
Speaker 1: He is an eighty from Chris Johnny's the good one.
Speaker 1: That's perfectly fine, though, because again when people get bent
Speaker 1: out of shape about portrayals in the movies, my response
Speaker 1: tends to be, at this point in my life, if
Speaker 1: you've read comic books at any point, there's no one
Speaker 1: there are singular standard bearers of the characters. If we're
Speaker 1: talking about like the singular Earth of the comic books
Speaker 1: in the Marvel comics, because like in the Marvel movies,
Speaker 1: there is one more or less decided upon Earth that most,
Speaker 1: if not a lot, of the things take place on.
Speaker 1: But there's plenty of variations on this character. Joseph Quinn's
Speaker 1: character is very different in a I would say an
Speaker 1: updated way, because I'm not sure that kind of character
Speaker 1: would really fly. I think he'd be way too easy
Speaker 1: to write in a way that the audience wouldn't want
Speaker 1: anything to do with him, and they'd be put off
Speaker 1: by him.
Speaker 4: The Johnny Storm, the Chris Evans Johnny Storm was insufferable,
Speaker 4: but it was Chris Evans, so we put up with it.
Speaker 4: If you continued that character with anyone else, you would
Speaker 4: want to murder him basically.
Speaker 1: And look at what happened to his character in What
Speaker 1: Wolver in a Deadpool? I mean perfect if they traded
Speaker 1: in that. They made it a point to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy's kind of a fucking turd too, But again,
Speaker 1: like it works for that movie's benefit. Here it's this
Speaker 1: is a softer, more gentle Marvel for a gentler time.
Speaker 4: I like this portrayal of Johnny Storm because he's always
Speaker 4: portrayed as the hot head showboat of the four, but
Speaker 4: you know, ultimately what he represents is the sort of
Speaker 4: teenager of the family, and there are other aspects to him.
Speaker 4: I loved that he figures out the translation of the
Speaker 4: Zenla language in this. At the same time, he is
Speaker 4: really annoying, you know what I mean. It's played for
Speaker 4: laps and everything, but if you were living with that guy,
Speaker 4: you would want to punch him all the time.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm just glad that the thing isn't such a
Speaker 3: sad suck, like, oh my god, look at me, read
Speaker 3: look at me. I'm so ugly. Oh god. And the
Speaker 3: only person that thinks I'm cute is a blind lady.
Speaker 7: Oh god.
Speaker 1: There's no way a woman would find this man attractive.
Speaker 1: Fuck you, he would, she wouldn't. He's literally a superhero.
Speaker 1: Bozo's like, it's self explanatory. You're gonna tell me it's
Speaker 1: because Natasha Leone has a really deep voice. That's why
Speaker 1: it's actually the other way around, Ben Grimm When she
Speaker 1: opens her mouth.
Speaker 4: Because I don't want to hear that she's so cute.
Speaker 4: She rained in all her regular Natasha Leone here. It's
Speaker 4: not the sort of broad from Brooklyn. It's a different character,
Speaker 4: my god got.
Speaker 1: They got Natasha Leone to play less to type than
Speaker 1: she normally does, let's put it that way.
Speaker 3: And I love that he's like the one of the
Speaker 3: few that I know of Jewish superheroes, and that he's
Speaker 3: very proud of his heritage, the whole thing of growing
Speaker 3: up on Yancey Street. But it's not like they're overplaying
Speaker 3: that either. It's not like he's, oh, I remember when
Speaker 3: I was growing up. It's instead of yeah, I grew
Speaker 3: up over there. Nice small thing. And to give him
Speaker 3: the little taste of he's a really good cook and
Speaker 3: that's his science. I think can figure out the languages,
Speaker 3: and Red can do all of these calculations. But here's
Speaker 3: been in the kitchen cooking.
Speaker 4: With Herbie and he's a fucking hell of a pilot.
Speaker 4: What you're talking about, how he's always been portrayed before
Speaker 4: is the sad, sack lonely guy who's just loveluren. We
Speaker 4: get that in one scene. Speaking of the economy of
Speaker 4: the script, it's him watching himself on television and seeing
Speaker 4: what he used to look like. And they just cut
Speaker 4: to and what's amazing to me in this was it's
Speaker 4: a shot of a CGI face in a reflection of
Speaker 4: a window with a television on it, and you can
Speaker 4: see all the emotion. You see how sad he is
Speaker 4: about this, because that's when he looks over at Natasha
Speaker 4: Leona decides to walk away. I got all of that,
Speaker 4: didn't need him crying about it for scene after scene, I.
Speaker 1: Think, and this is again me just speaking broadly because
Speaker 1: in the cases of something like Fantastic Four or Superman
Speaker 1: or Spider Man or Batman, we have had so many
Speaker 1: retreads of this that we can go they did it better,
Speaker 1: and they didn't have to do it, and I don't
Speaker 1: feel obligated. Fantastic Four once again proves that the audience
Speaker 1: at this point, mind you, maybe not fifteen twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and I understand why they have now proved. I think
Speaker 1: once again the audience are not fucking stupid. The audience
Speaker 1: knows the audience can do a little legwork on their own.
Speaker 1: And even if we don't have forty five minutes of
Speaker 1: the movie for setup of the origin story, which it's
Speaker 1: there is like a fair amount of setup in this movie,
Speaker 1: but it's not origin story setup at least not of
Speaker 1: a certain kind. It's an orgin story of a different kind.
Speaker 4: Frankly, they give us that fucking like little documentary at
Speaker 4: the beginning. It's so fucking.
Speaker 1: Brilliant in this day and age, It's like, instead of
Speaker 1: showing us the whole damn thing, just give it the
Speaker 1: both points, give us the cliff Notes version for fuck's sake,
Speaker 1: and it works just as well, because once again, if
Speaker 1: you're able to do it economically, get away with it.
Speaker 1: Spider Man did it rather well. Superman did it rather well.
Speaker 1: This did it rather well. They aw trafficked in the
Speaker 1: same thing, like the backstories just peppered in throughout the movie,
Speaker 1: and so it works better and doesn't feel so stilted
Speaker 1: in terms of the flow.
Speaker 3: You know, I think did it the best and kind
Speaker 3: of started to off this idea of we don't have
Speaker 3: to show everything. Is that Edward Norton Hulk where it
Speaker 3: was just like the opening credits, We're going to show
Speaker 3: you the whole thing very quickly, and then we carry
Speaker 3: on with the movie. We don't have to do the
Speaker 3: origin story every frickin' time. How many times do we
Speaker 3: have to see Peter Parker get bit by a radio
Speaker 3: active spider. I'm glad that those home movies that they
Speaker 3: had just went away from all that stuff.
Speaker 4: How many times have we been to fucking crime Alley,
Speaker 4: for God's sake? And what I liked about this opening
Speaker 4: and that little documentary where they give us the origin
Speaker 4: without giving us the origin, is that at no point
Speaker 4: do we get to go out into space and see
Speaker 4: the cosmic rays hit them and watch this and that happit. Instead,
Speaker 4: we watched them take off and then we see a
Speaker 4: ship crash and then the Thing's hand punch its way
Speaker 4: out of the craft. That's all we needed for the
Speaker 4: origin there. The other thing I loved about the opening is,
Speaker 4: like you said, it's bullet points. We get like the
Speaker 4: greatest hits of what they've been doing for the past
Speaker 4: four years, like the inter missions where the Thing is
Speaker 4: hauling a burning tanker by its anchor chain into a harbor,
Speaker 4: and then Johnny Storm is putting out fire at an
Speaker 4: electrical plant, And all I could think was, like, any
Speaker 4: one of these sequences would be the giant sent piece
Speaker 4: on any of the other Fantastic Four movies up until here,
Speaker 4: and they're just like burning through of them. At the
Speaker 4: beginning The other thing I noticed in the power plant
Speaker 4: sequence when there's a crew on the ground who salute him,
Speaker 4: thanks Johnny Storm. The two guys in front, the one
Speaker 4: saluting him and the one standing next to him, that's
Speaker 4: Jay Underwood and the fellow who played the thing in
Speaker 4: the nineteen ninety four version, and then Alex Hyde White
Speaker 4: and I think Jessica Stop I think her name was.
Speaker 4: Those two are reporters later in the movie. So that
Speaker 4: was a cool thing that they didn't need to do,
Speaker 4: and they fucking did. It made me very happy. I
Speaker 4: just watched the other one the other day, so it
Speaker 4: was a little obvious to me.
Speaker 1: Michael Bailey Smith played Ben Grimm, and I only know
Speaker 1: that because he was the guy who played gigantic Freddy
Speaker 1: Krueger in Elm Street five, remember when it's roided out
Speaker 1: Freddy Krueger. So and look, I'm a little biased because
Speaker 1: I do like even Moss Backrack in other things. Obviously,
Speaker 1: to bear and the cooking thing with me was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like you're trafficking in a little bit of what he's
Speaker 1: really known for now. But he's really good as the thing.
Speaker 1: But I think to the point that's already been made
Speaker 1: I think Vanessa Kirby walks away with this movie and
Speaker 1: she's amazing. I like that again as someone who's a
Speaker 1: fan of the comic books and the more recent stuff,
Speaker 1: definitely like the character of Malice is something that is
Speaker 1: a big part of her character, especially in the comic books,
Speaker 1: and I know that she is has made it clear
Speaker 1: that that is something that she wanted to bring to
Speaker 1: the character. And as someone who again is a fan
Speaker 1: of that character in the comics, it's a pipe dream
Speaker 1: to think that we'll ever get that in the movies.
Speaker 1: But at least she acknowledges and understands that's an aspect
Speaker 1: of a character that isn't just its own separate thing.
Speaker 1: And she's trafficking that because she doesn't really take anybody
Speaker 1: shit in this movie, which I appreciate. She has a
Speaker 1: lot of agency every one. She is the founder of
Speaker 1: the Future Foundation, which is like so important in my mind.
Speaker 1: He negotiated the treaty with the moment exactly. She has
Speaker 1: given so much agents.
Speaker 4: I don't trust anyone up above ground except for Sue exactly.
Speaker 3: Everybody has to clear the room before he'll even have
Speaker 3: a conversation. I love it, and it's not one of
Speaker 3: those I think you're cute, Sue, so I'm going to
Speaker 3: talk with you, because we've seen that in other movies
Speaker 3: before too, where it's just the other guys. Is a
Speaker 3: horn dog for the hot superheroines. And they don't strip
Speaker 3: her down to her bra and underwear in this movie,
Speaker 3: either just to show us that she's sexy she or
Speaker 3: just fully naked, like oh no, yeah, covering the bits. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I like that.
Speaker 1: The movie opens with Sue storm and read Richard's having
Speaker 1: just like a genuine conversation and just the two of
Speaker 1: them talking about life, and there's this kind of pretext
Speaker 1: of the moment before she tells she's pregnant. But what
Speaker 1: a refreshing change from pretty much everything Marvel has been
Speaker 1: doing up until this point.
Speaker 4: For a fantastic for me. We finally have characters that
Speaker 4: are seem to genuinely like each other and feel like
Speaker 4: a relationships yeah, and feel like a family, And then
Speaker 4: I'm completely invested in. They seem to have skipped all
Speaker 4: of the origin story bullshit, and this actually does feel
Speaker 4: lived in, which is so important.
Speaker 3: Now they have to be a family, they have to
Speaker 3: be a unit because they're put into jeopardy with this
Speaker 3: whole thing of Galactus wanting that baby, and if they
Speaker 3: weren't a tight family unit, there'll be fricks among them.
Speaker 3: And as far as I saw in the movie, there's
Speaker 3: nobody casting doubt other than Reid Richards because, like I said,
Speaker 3: he's this fucking mad genius where it's just the needs
Speaker 3: of the many outweigh the needs of the view kind
Speaker 3: of thing. And I'm just like, Okay, Spock, Yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 3: But he's not going to give up his child either.
Speaker 3: They have to be that tight unit. If it was
Speaker 3: fucking hot head Chris Evans or Michael Chickliss or oh god,
Speaker 3: any of the Miles Teller like it, I wouldn't believe
Speaker 3: that they're Michael B. Jordan, Michael B.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. What a nice time that Michael B. Jordan
Speaker 1: has had getting far away from that, because man to
Speaker 1: be kill Monger to be brought back in that second
Speaker 1: Black Panther movie, because you were so good in the
Speaker 1: first one, they brought you back in the second one.
Speaker 3: Kill Manger is one of the best characters that they've had,
Speaker 3: one of the best villains that the Marvel Universes ever had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a shame that he dies.
Speaker 4: Well, this is the character that even Ben Backrack has
Speaker 4: played in Marvel that's been really good. He was micro
Speaker 4: on the Punisher series.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, Yeah, he as the thing plays the character.
Speaker 1: In my mind, it's really understated, but I think it
Speaker 1: needs to be because I almost feel like everybody gets
Speaker 1: out of the way of Vanessa Kirby. But I think
Speaker 1: that's important because it's so clear given that, again, it's
Speaker 1: the plot of the movie is not made apparent in
Speaker 1: the previews, but once the movie gets rolling, it really is.
Speaker 1: Galactus sees Franklin Richards the son of Sue and read
Speaker 1: as his replacement, which I mean in the comic books,
Speaker 1: he is a cosmic being. It is made very clear
Speaker 1: that in this MCU they're going in some direction similar
Speaker 1: to the way he's been portrayed before, but there's none
Speaker 1: of that in the trailers. And so when you find
Speaker 1: out that it's Galactus wanting the child and all of that,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think to both of your points,
Speaker 1: it had to almost be Sustorm's movie because it's so
Speaker 1: focused on the child and the fact that they're all family,
Speaker 1: and believable family is the reason this works. Like you said,
Speaker 1: father and Malone. They have to be a family unit
Speaker 1: of people otherwise this movie fails like two seconds out
Speaker 1: of the gate.
Speaker 4: This whole movie is but defending your children. It very
Speaker 4: much reminded me of if anyone watched the television series
Speaker 4: torch Wood, which is a spinoff series of Doctor Who.
Speaker 4: Their third season was a five episode arc called Children
Speaker 4: of Earth where an alien intelligence shows up and secretly
Speaker 4: amongst the government demands ten percent of the children of
Speaker 4: Earth they're going to use for whatever purposes they're going to.
Speaker 4: What they believe is they boil them down for recreational
Speaker 4: chemicals basically, or they destroy everyone on Earth. And it
Speaker 4: is harrowing and awful and left me dazed that series.
Speaker 4: So the fact that they kind of sneak it into
Speaker 4: this light entertainment here, this threat of we're going to
Speaker 4: destroy your world unless you give us that kid, and
Speaker 4: they deal with it because the people on Earth are
Speaker 4: fucking angry about it, like maybe you should give them
Speaker 4: their kids. We'd like to live. It's one child burst.
Speaker 4: It is the needs of the many versus the needs
Speaker 4: of the one, and is the.
Speaker 1: First time seemingly anyone on this planet has had an
Speaker 1: issue with the Fantastic Four.
Speaker 3: They all love them, and it's so important that we
Speaker 3: set up that montage at the beginning with everyone, thank
Speaker 3: you Fantastic for and those little dots creating the Big
Speaker 3: Four for that television special.
Speaker 4: Everyone has a little flag yeah, or that little that
Speaker 4: obnoxious guys sit in the line.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, this is nice. I like that there's
Speaker 3: a difference between cartoon Fantastic four and real life Fantastic four.
Speaker 3: And Ben's just no, that's not what I say.
Speaker 4: I mentioned my favorite character that appears in this thing.
Speaker 4: It's the Silver Surfer. And because this is Earth eight
Speaker 4: one eight, we're in a different universe. What we're given
Speaker 4: is Sheella Ball, who is a noorin Rad's wife on
Speaker 4: zen So in the original conception of the character, and
Speaker 4: we got a version of it in that Rise of
Speaker 4: the Silver Surfer movie with Doug Jones playing the character
Speaker 4: with Laurence Fishburne doing the voice well noorin Rad. The
Speaker 4: plot is that Galactus shows up to his planet says
Speaker 4: I'm going to eat your planet unless you become my herald,
Speaker 4: and he says, okay, I'll do it and leaves his
Speaker 4: wife and child and Zena's end up being safe. So
Speaker 4: they've just flopped that here and made his wife the
Speaker 4: character who is now the Herald of Galactus, and they
Speaker 4: eliminate noorin Rad from the plot here. So this is
Speaker 4: a fully different universe of the Silver Surfer. But I
Speaker 4: got to say, twenty minutes into this movie, the Silver
Speaker 4: Surfer shows up and if her opening shot, it was
Speaker 4: fucking breathtaking. The realization of this character, like compared to
Speaker 4: that earlier version of it, or any of the earlier
Speaker 4: tests of any sort of chrome character I've ever seen,
Speaker 4: just like this is breath taking, and not only just
Speaker 4: that sort of opening scene, but like we get cosmic
Speaker 4: surfing in this movie that I oh my god, thank god, man,
Speaker 4: I heard it. I left my body man when she
Speaker 4: was they're in that nebula and she's like surfing along.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, I.
Speaker 1: Never in a million years would have thought they would
Speaker 1: actually show that. Feels so weird in the MCU now
Speaker 1: to be seeing things that she's a Silver Surfer and
Speaker 1: she's not just called that she has a surfboard, not
Speaker 1: just for a reason like she does it because there
Speaker 1: are times where she has to do that, Like it's
Speaker 1: just it is a form of conveyance.
Speaker 4: But if she's on that board, you're fucked man.
Speaker 3: And I love the mirroring of the scene of her
Speaker 3: coming to Earth and warning us versus later on when
Speaker 3: they've got all of the voice recordings from her home planet.
Speaker 3: I love that both of those who are taking place
Speaker 3: in that Times Square area, which is where the whole
Speaker 3: end of the movie happens and everything. I thought that
Speaker 3: was really nice, just very smart filmmaking. And of course
Speaker 3: there are nods to other things that we've seen. I
Speaker 3: love the little thing with the Latveria plaque but nobody's there,
Speaker 3: like that country's missing from the Big Foundation, or that
Speaker 3: they called the Shifty Excelsior. I'm just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's great. That's how stan Lee used to sign off
Speaker 3: every like stand soapbox and everything.
Speaker 4: Eggs ou Oh someday I'll find out what that means.
Speaker 3: I thought that was so nice that they weren't just
Speaker 3: like hammering us with stuff and just giving us enough
Speaker 3: of those little fan moments like that they have the
Speaker 3: mole Man, but they actually bring him back into the
Speaker 3: movie later on. I was like, Oh, wow, that's actually
Speaker 3: really smart, or just that little throwaway moment of the
Speaker 3: green creature that's coming up through the city. Read some
Speaker 3: Oh there's the cover of the first Fantastic Four. That's
Speaker 3: so nice. And I love that they do those little
Speaker 3: things without just I was definitely looking in the background
Speaker 3: and just taking in all of those moments, but it
Speaker 3: was just because the city was so cool looking and
Speaker 3: just so much fun to see, Like, how does this
Speaker 3: world work? I guess if you like Canada Dry, you
Speaker 3: are really in business, because they've got Canada Dry advertising
Speaker 3: all over the.
Speaker 4: Place and setting up the splash pages kind of thing
Speaker 4: that they keep doing in the movie. But anytime they
Speaker 4: slow action down to give us a tableau earlier in
Speaker 4: any Marvel film prior to something like Avengers, it's almost
Speaker 4: like in the middle of some big action moment and
Speaker 4: they basically do a freeze frame to let us know, hey,
Speaker 4: here's a comic book panel for you.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 4: It's anytime the movie slows down, so you get these
Speaker 4: sort of poetic moments with the Silver Surfer when Johnny
Speaker 4: grabs her surfboard for the first time and they're floating
Speaker 4: together and it's gorgeous. And then later when she's having
Speaker 4: her crisis of conscience, she floats up and it's just
Speaker 4: hanging in front of the moon. I was like, this
Speaker 4: is fucking beautiful. And it didn't feel like they stopped
Speaker 4: to do it. It felt like organic to the plot.
Speaker 4: I fucking love this movie.
Speaker 3: I love when she shows up for the first time
Speaker 3: and you get all of the people's reactions and you
Speaker 3: get those two guys in an office building and they
Speaker 3: do a reverse shot over their shoulder. You see her
Speaker 3: in the background, and it's Timely Comics and you can
Speaker 3: see pages out of comic books and stuff. I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's nice. Like we're not going for the obvious. We're
Speaker 3: not saying, oh, this is a Marvel Comics office. No,
Speaker 3: this is Timely Comics, which will eventually evolve. But this
Speaker 3: is so nice that we just get a little nod
Speaker 3: to these guys working overnight coloring their comic books and
Speaker 3: setting up for the next issue as we have the
Speaker 3: new Silver Surfer outside.
Speaker 1: I looked at the names of the people involved with
Speaker 1: the film in terms of the screen running, and so
Speaker 1: there are four names that are listed. There's Josh Friedman,
Speaker 1: Eric Pearson, Jeff kap and an Ian Springer.
Speaker 4: There's one more for story right, and yeah.
Speaker 1: There is one more for story Cat would so the
Speaker 1: two names I mentioned at the top, Josh Freeman and
Speaker 1: Eric Pearson. Eric Pearson worked on and co wrote Thunderbolts,
Speaker 1: and then Black Widow and Thor Ragnarok and Agent Carter,
Speaker 1: and there are a couple of uncredited rewrites on certain
Speaker 1: things like Spider Man Homecoming or Quantum Mania. And then
Speaker 1: Josh Friedman. This is his first like Marvel thing. He
Speaker 1: worked on something that I really hadn't enjoyed. He worked
Speaker 1: on Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Speaker 4: I love that series.
Speaker 1: Yes, the series is way better than had any write
Speaker 1: it to be. Has been unfortunately forgotten in all the
Speaker 1: other Terminator bad things as maybe one of the few
Speaker 1: good things the Terminator actually did after part two.
Speaker 4: I think it's the only worthy thing other than the
Speaker 4: video game.
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to agree with you, But all that to say,
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that Marvel is working with people that
Speaker 1: they have not worked with before in the things, but
Speaker 1: also still having people that they're continuing to work with
Speaker 1: in those rooms as well, because I think it's helping
Speaker 1: balance out the problems that we've been having with a
Speaker 1: lot of these Marvel movies, which is they just get
Speaker 1: stuck in these ruts of doing the same thing, not
Speaker 1: because it's easy, but because it's just the way Marvel
Speaker 1: does things. Maybe all would agree with me. This is
Speaker 1: almost a typical of a Marvel movie at this point
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. There's what three action scenes
Speaker 1: in this movie, maybe four, and they're pretty economical too
Speaker 1: for the most part, and they work rather well, and
Speaker 1: they're good additions to what's going on, but they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily the focus, because the focus is it's a character
Speaker 1: drama almost like really it's a family piece. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, like I've been preaching about this and bitching
Speaker 1: about this since Captain America came out, But if you
Speaker 1: know what the source material style you want to go
Speaker 1: for is lean into it. And they leaned really hard
Speaker 1: into it here and it worked like gangbusters, clearly. And
Speaker 1: I'm glad because maybe Marvel will continue to be creative
Speaker 1: and work themselves out of these ruts that they work
Speaker 1: themselves into, because yeah, this is a lot of this
Speaker 1: movie just feels atypical of what we've been seeing of
Speaker 1: Marvel recently.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's good that they're working with the
Speaker 4: same people in some cases here or promoting people from within.
Speaker 4: Because Mark Shackman shepherded all of WandaVision. He directed every
Speaker 4: single one of those and what created that show, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure was the showrunner overall, So he got to
Speaker 4: learn how to tell a story in ten episodes or
Speaker 4: twelve episodes. So he's the perfect guy to tell it
Speaker 4: in two hours because he can cut off all of
Speaker 4: the fat and get it all down to its essential components.
Speaker 4: And I'd also like to point out that if you
Speaker 4: read the comics at all, Franklin Reid, his first governess
Speaker 4: was Agatha Harkness.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If I had one complain about the movie, though,
Speaker 3: it would be that it feels rushed sometimes. I know
Speaker 3: that's very opposite of what you were saying, Chris, where
Speaker 3: you're like, I'm a little bored in parts. But for me,
Speaker 3: a lot of times it felt like the begin and
Speaker 3: endings are cut off a little bit of each scene
Speaker 3: just to move it along a little bit more. But
Speaker 3: I was like to see a little bit more. But
Speaker 3: I think that's just because I was enjoying the world
Speaker 3: so much and enjoying these characters, and if anything, I
Speaker 3: would have liked to have spent more time with these characters.
Speaker 3: I would have liked to have known them a little
Speaker 3: bit more.
Speaker 4: But it tells a.
Speaker 3: Story in less than two hours, which is pretty freaking remarkable,
Speaker 3: especially because when I booked the tickets for the theater,
Speaker 3: it was two and a half hours that they allotted
Speaker 3: for it, and I guess a lot of that was
Speaker 3: the pre show, So it.
Speaker 4: Took forty minutes trailers, baby, and then ten minutes of
Speaker 4: there they're fucking commercials.
Speaker 1: We had two trailers in front of our movie, and
Speaker 1: that was it. Oh really two wow, And they were
Speaker 1: both Disney things, Avatar and trying Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 3: I had both of those. Yeah, and then we had gosh,
Speaker 3: the new Aeronofsky the knew Paul Thomas Anderson and something else.
Speaker 3: But all three of those I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to see, which was surprising that I would say
Speaker 3: that about a Paul Thomas Anderson film. Leo wins me
Speaker 3: over sometimes.
Speaker 4: The action scenes in the movie, by the way, the
Speaker 4: initial one really is Galactus. It's when they jet off
Speaker 4: to Galactus for the first time, leading up to and
Speaker 4: including when Galactus finally fucking leans down and you get
Speaker 4: the sense of how fucking huge he is and how
Speaker 4: tiny we are is something I haven't experienced I don't
Speaker 4: think in any Marble film.
Speaker 1: Of all the things that this movie does right is
Speaker 1: they don't fuck up Galactus and Man talk about the MCU,
Speaker 1: going as far as to stop doing the big villain
Speaker 1: characters for some of their characters initially because they don't
Speaker 1: want to blow them like they did with Red Skull,
Speaker 1: and Red Skulls obviously, in my mind, like the worst one.
Speaker 4: That's because they fucking brought him back as some mystic
Speaker 4: celestial to kill everybody.
Speaker 1: He's transcended that though, And to be fair, now, you
Speaker 1: could just bring in Red Skull from Earth wherever, fucking whatever.
Speaker 1: For the fuck, Hey, don't look at me. I'm not
Speaker 1: the one who decided multiverses were an easy way to fix.
Speaker 4: The cacore can't come fucking fast enough, I know.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that this movie wasn't a like ret
Speaker 1: con horseshit machine, because that's what it would have been.
Speaker 1: If they had not figured out the multiverse scenario that
Speaker 1: we're in now, it would have been like the Fantastic
Speaker 1: Four existed and we didn't know anything about it, and
Speaker 1: why haven't they been mentioned? This movie would have just
Speaker 1: been the Eternals, because isn't that The problem the Eternals
Speaker 1: had was like, where the fuck were you guys this
Speaker 1: whole time? You can't do the Fantastic Four without the retrofuturism.
Speaker 1: But you could have done like they've done with the
Speaker 1: earlier versions of Shield. They have Hank Pim and they
Speaker 1: had the agent Carter and Top, so they could have said, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, the Fantastic Four went up and
Speaker 1: they got their powers, and they did a couple of
Speaker 1: secret missions Firth, and then they went up for some
Speaker 1: other missions and they disappeared. That's how they could just
Speaker 1: red con that. But having them be in their own
Speaker 1: univers is fucking perfect.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 4: I like them there. Here's the thing My fear going
Speaker 4: into this movie was this was in tragedy that Galactus
Speaker 4: was going to win and they were going to have
Speaker 4: to escape and they would be the only ones escaping
Speaker 4: from their universe into ours, and then I was just
Speaker 4: gonna feel bad for them for the rest of the
Speaker 4: fucking run of the Fantastic Four in the MCU, because
Speaker 4: they would be like Superman or fucking any of these people,
Speaker 4: like what for for Christ's sake.
Speaker 1: I get the distinct feeling that the way that this
Speaker 1: plays out is Franklin Richards puts them in the MCU
Speaker 1: universe unintentionally through some sort of because again, like that's
Speaker 1: the power level of that character, is he can bend
Speaker 1: like space and time and so Now, because again to
Speaker 1: your point, Father Blow, we talked about this at the
Speaker 1: end of the Thunderbolt episode. I was under the impression,
Speaker 1: I think we all were, that the Thunderbolts movie and
Speaker 1: the post credit scene implied that Galactus eight Earth both
Speaker 1: A to eight and you know what, good on them
Speaker 1: for practicing restraint and not doing that. However, I also
Speaker 1: feel like that's because of the other thing that happened
Speaker 1: last year about a year ago now, which is the
Speaker 1: casting of one Robert Downey Junior as Iron Man replacement
Speaker 1: doctor Doom, which I'm assuming is the case in this universe.
Speaker 1: In this universe, there's not an iron Man, there's a
Speaker 1: fucking Victor von Doom, who's essentially gonna just be dark
Speaker 1: iron Man, which I mean, again, you have Tony Stark,
Speaker 1: the actor who played him in that role. So it
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense in my mind. Anyways, and clearly, if
Speaker 1: they had destroyed Earth. Then it would have been where
Speaker 1: is this Doctor Doom coming from? But now it's like
Speaker 1: he's this universe is doctor Doom?
Speaker 4: They could have just pulled him from some other universe.
Speaker 4: And by the way, more than ever, I'm unhappy with
Speaker 4: the Robert Downa junior casting as Victor von Doom given
Speaker 4: what we got in this movie. The level of imagination
Speaker 4: and the perfect spot on casting is like across the board.
Speaker 4: Who these people could have cast for Doctor Doom given
Speaker 4: a wide open net, Like maybe it'll be good. I
Speaker 4: don't know. I just think it's a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: And I think is the biggest issue I have with
Speaker 1: this movie because the lat veria like random mentions and stuff.
Speaker 4: Do you feel a little No, I'm fine with it.
Speaker 4: This is a Galactus story.
Speaker 1: That's my point. Like, I'd rather just focus on that
Speaker 1: because Doctor Duma is such a big threat. Don't hint
Speaker 1: at it because it reminds me, like you said, Father Malone,
Speaker 1: of the Robert Downey Junior thing, which I agree with
Speaker 1: you wholeheartedly. A year ago I was maybe like just
Speaker 1: more shocked than anything else, and now it subsumed everything
Speaker 1: as the thing that is all anyone is focusing on It's.
Speaker 3: Like when the Hulk lands at Doctor Stranger's place and
Speaker 3: he's like Thanos is coming. Now we're all sitting around here, going,
Speaker 3: Robert Downey Junior is coming.
Speaker 1: Back, right and we know it. Imagine if we hadn't
Speaker 1: known it and they had revealed it at the end
Speaker 1: of this movie.
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, if he had just turned his head
Speaker 3: just a little bet, we would have all collectively lost
Speaker 3: our Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, And you know what, I don't understand why they
Speaker 1: passed up that opportunity, because, you know what, it's great
Speaker 1: to do it at the Hall in fucking San Diego
Speaker 1: right now, it's Comic CON's going on? Was in this
Speaker 1: past week type thing? You're telling me that you would
Speaker 1: rather have that one video of people reacting to Robert
Speaker 1: Downey Jr. Than it being played over and over in
Speaker 1: movie theaters from here until Eternity as the one of
Speaker 1: the greatest twists in cinema just to see. Could you
Speaker 1: imagine how many people would have just gone ape shit
Speaker 1: if today had seen that on screen, because that's what
Speaker 1: could have happened. I don't know why the answer wasn't
Speaker 1: just will reveal who doctor Doom is in Fantastic Four.
Speaker 1: You will see who he is at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie, Like, why spoil it, because, like you said,
Speaker 1: Father Milone, Like even if it hadn't been Robert Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: Whoever it would have been, would have just been like
Speaker 1: amazingly insane because we know that's the villain of the
Speaker 1: next two movie.
Speaker 4: They needn't reveal anything here. They could have just done
Speaker 4: what they did and have her walk back into the
Speaker 4: room and see this green cloaked figure and you'd be like,
Speaker 4: oh fuck, and then that's the end of the movie.
Speaker 4: By the way, speaking of the end of the movie,
Speaker 4: it's a happy ending. They pushed Galactus into this black
Speaker 4: hole and send him into another universe, did the fantastic
Speaker 4: for it by any chance doom us here on Earth?
Speaker 4: Because that's how it feels.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I was gonna say. They didn't push
Speaker 1: him into another universe. They pushed him to the other
Speaker 1: side of their universe without his spaceship like the Delta
Speaker 1: quatering or thing. Yeah, so it'll take him millions of
Speaker 1: years to get to us, which I mean, Look, there's
Speaker 1: a couple narrative conceits in this movie that I feel
Speaker 1: like hokey, Like the we're gonna all save our energy together. Okay, movie,
Speaker 1: we're gonna turn off the world power grid.
Speaker 4: Hey did you did see the world that they live in?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 4: They're all under one banner and the only country not
Speaker 4: participating in Slatvaria.
Speaker 1: I get it. I was gonna say, like, the movie
Speaker 1: gets around, it's narrative conceited. That's fine. It's a happy
Speaker 1: ending movie, which I was not expecting, not when Galactus
Speaker 1: is involved.
Speaker 3: I honestly thought when the power grids started to go down,
Speaker 3: when they were trying to do the whole we're gonna
Speaker 3: move Earth out of the way thing instead of move
Speaker 3: Galactus out of the way, when those grids started going down,
Speaker 3: I was thinking, oh shit, was that Latviaria refusing to
Speaker 3: be part of this and turning off their grid? And
Speaker 3: I thought we were going to go in a whole
Speaker 3: other direction.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I thought the same thing. I
Speaker 1: was like, because they kept showing the map and I
Speaker 1: was like, it starts in eastern Europe and I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, is that no? It wasn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Then I was like, oh, okay, no, it's just the
Speaker 3: silver Surfer having incredible powers, which is so nice. To
Speaker 3: see just how powerful she is, because that's what the
Speaker 3: silver Surfer can do. It's none of this bullshit just oh,
Speaker 3: I can be so easily defeated. It takes a fucking
Speaker 3: lot to defeat this person. And she ultimately in conjunction
Speaker 3: with Sue and they get everybody else on board and stuff,
Speaker 3: but ultimately it is her. It is a silver Surfer
Speaker 3: that defeats Galactus, which is just absolutely appropriate that she
Speaker 3: gets her revenge for her own planet.
Speaker 4: It's the two mothers who defeat Galactus.
Speaker 1: And how great is Ralph inison?
Speaker 4: Is Galactus fantastic?
Speaker 1: And then it was a practical effect, like they built
Speaker 1: a suit for this man and he was like in
Speaker 1: a Galactus suit on them for doing that, even because
Speaker 1: it yields dividends. Really, I love the way he looks
Speaker 1: in this movie, like he's to Mike's point earlier about
Speaker 1: the fucking floating cloud, which they because they couldn't commit
Speaker 1: to just the giant dude floating through space in a
Speaker 1: big he could be inside of a spaceship. Again, who
Speaker 1: cares they think that audiences used to want to go
Speaker 1: watch comic book movies that made comic books boring, And
Speaker 1: it's like we read comic books because they're exciting and
Speaker 1: fun and over the top and bombastic, but then also
Speaker 1: they can be all kinds of other things, but don't
Speaker 1: try to take what makes comic books out of them
Speaker 1: and shut them in the real world. And it has
Speaker 1: to be real and reality like why And it was
Speaker 1: so refreshing to watch the MCU just go yeah, like
Speaker 1: at some point we are going to stop trying to
Speaker 1: make everything in real life and just accept that this
Speaker 1: guy's just building a suit of armor and he can
Speaker 1: fly around in it, and we have a god. All
Speaker 1: of those things can interact side like the can go
Speaker 1: in the comics, and that's not a problem for the audience.
Speaker 1: And this movie really is like one of the better
Speaker 1: examples of like the audience is on board from the
Speaker 1: first moment we're watching the movie. By minute fifty, when
Speaker 1: a guy in a giant space chair jumps down and
Speaker 1: starts antagonizing our heroes, everybody's like this, cool, we're on board. Okay,
Speaker 1: you already got me through the door, and I'm on
Speaker 1: board with you. And that's again tell us in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight about this movie being like this, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I think our brains would have collectively melted.
Speaker 4: I mentioned the sense of scale when they're on his ship,
Speaker 4: but the whole sequence at the end when he's chomping
Speaker 4: around the city is so incredible. Man, just watching him
Speaker 4: turn in a building behind him, you can see all
Speaker 4: the glass shatter on a skyscraper, or him balancing himself
Speaker 4: on buildings. Speaking of buildings, in the opening scene, not
Speaker 4: to keep jumping around, but in the opening when we
Speaker 4: get the Moleman's first exploits where he takes the pan
Speaker 4: Am building and drops it into the ground again, another
Speaker 4: sequence that would have been big payoff of any other
Speaker 4: action movie like that was fucking fantastic and felt fun
Speaker 4: and not horribly destructive, whereas here at the end where
Speaker 4: Galactus is going crazy, just the sense of destruction was
Speaker 4: unlike anything we've seen in some time, and felt more
Speaker 4: personal than we've seen in some times. I always say
Speaker 4: about superhero movies since day one, we don't need them
Speaker 4: to save the world. It can be a personal story,
Speaker 4: like it can just be a couple of characters versus
Speaker 4: a couple of other characters, and we'll fucking go with it.
Speaker 4: But in this case, if you're gonna have them save
Speaker 4: the world. Here's the way to fucking do it. Have
Speaker 4: a fucking giant celestial character chomping around and you're flailing
Speaker 4: trying to stop him.
Speaker 3: Thinking about even their handler, who's played by Sarah Niles,
Speaker 3: I think she's a great character. I wish I would
Speaker 3: have seen a little bit more of her, but her
Speaker 3: with her blue coat that she always wears like she's
Speaker 3: part of the team, and then even in their big
Speaker 3: un type building, like all the chairs are blue, and
Speaker 3: I just love that the blue carries through with everything,
Speaker 3: just to We've seen their uniforms in the past movies
Speaker 3: and they've never been this bright as shade of blue before.
Speaker 3: We've never had a bright and shiny world in which
Speaker 3: they live. And with this retro futurism, it just gives
Speaker 3: everything this kind of candy colored sheen to it, and
Speaker 3: I love it. It's a feast for the eyes, which
Speaker 3: a lot of these movies think about talking about you, Quantumniam,
Speaker 3: talking about you thor Love and Thunder. A lot of
Speaker 3: these just look like shit, and this one looked really good.
Speaker 1: The sense of style that they allow Matt Shackman to
Speaker 1: have is shocking. It really is. Imagine if they had
Speaker 1: been letting everybody do this from the get go. I
Speaker 1: know why they didn't. We all get it, but just
Speaker 1: imagine in a lot of ways, like Father Blone already
Speaker 1: mentioned it, but I think it bears a little bit
Speaker 1: of talking about now, Like imagine now knowing what you've seen,
Speaker 1: is James Gunn, what you can do in response to
Speaker 1: the MCU with the DCU, and that the audiences are
Speaker 1: now more receptive to just doing whatever the fuck you
Speaker 1: want because we're just gonna tell the stories that people
Speaker 1: want to see. And if it Robert Pattinson's Batman is
Speaker 1: not ever with the Nicholas Holtz lex Luthor, So what
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean we don't get Robert Pattinson's Batman.
Speaker 4: Keep them fucking separate. I don't want that Pattinson Batman
Speaker 4: running into Mix your Mister Mix Opickel.
Speaker 1: Or Batman or any of that. Yeah, And James Gunn's
Speaker 1: stuff allows for that, And that's the thing that is
Speaker 1: the bummer here, And I think it's the transition point
Speaker 1: in my mind of what does this look like when
Speaker 1: they interact with the characters from the NCU.
Speaker 4: Can't wait. Actually, it's gonna be fucking awesome.
Speaker 1: Because half of it is just gonna be like, why
Speaker 1: do you look like this? What is with your outfits
Speaker 1: like and your uniforms and your sense of style? And
Speaker 1: because again that's the thing. At the end of the
Speaker 1: Thunderbolts we saw them reacting to the ship, not to
Speaker 1: the ship itself, but the fact that there was a
Speaker 1: ship in their orbit, but like part of it would
Speaker 1: be like, what the fuck does why does the ship
Speaker 1: look like that? Cause again it looks so markedly different
Speaker 1: than anything we've seen in any of the MCU, even
Speaker 1: the most Again to point out something that I think
Speaker 1: this movie does better than Black Panther, to speak to
Speaker 1: the retrofuturism that they actually do in this Unlike Black
Speaker 1: Panther here it works really well. But yeah, you have
Speaker 1: to essentially create an entire new universe around this, because
Speaker 1: there's no way right now with the MCU the way
Speaker 1: it is to do it any other way. To your
Speaker 1: point bottom alone, like, I can't wait to see where
Speaker 1: they go with it, but they have to address it
Speaker 1: because there's no way that they don't. Like it's so
Speaker 1: stark a contrast between Earth eight two eight and Earth
Speaker 1: six to six.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sure it'll be a source of comedy in
Speaker 4: future movies. And what I liked here is that it
Speaker 4: seems like since studios started taking superhero movies seriously, there
Speaker 4: has been a push to get as far from comic
Speaker 4: book accurate costumes as possible, starting with the X Men.
Speaker 4: Let's put them all in black leather. Okay, sure that
Speaker 4: makes it somehow more relatable to the real world, so
Speaker 4: to have them leans so fucking heavy into the original
Speaker 4: look of the Fantastic Four. But what I discovered here
Speaker 4: is because I watched the ninety four version, and they
Speaker 4: replicate the costumes of comic book almost exactly in that
Speaker 4: as well different one. The difference is, of course, that
Speaker 4: these are heavily stitched and designed, and there's an eye
Speaker 4: towards a real world version of those costumes. You can
Speaker 4: do anything, and we'll fucking go with it. Now, after
Speaker 4: fucking Deadpool and Wolverine, where we've got a comic accurate
Speaker 4: Remy LeBeau, these days you can pretty much get away
Speaker 4: with anything.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you mentioned the good old Channing Tatum and
Speaker 1: not that Wolverine.
Speaker 4: Like screen accurate or the comic book act which one
Speaker 4: the tiny one in the bar, You know that one.
Speaker 1: Also they're just think the tiny one's the best one.
Speaker 1: The yellow one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tiny one's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, the yellow one. We finally get the wolverine
Speaker 1: with the with the.
Speaker 3: White eyes and the yeah two batman facing each other.
Speaker 4: That's true. And when he put that fucking mask on,
Speaker 4: like everyone in the fucking theater cheered, and it's such
Speaker 4: a one hundred and eighty degrees from before, Like, get,
Speaker 4: we cannot ever show him in this. This is the
Speaker 4: No one will ever accept this, it's too ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Well, they were making jokes about it in the first one.
Speaker 3: What do you expect?
Speaker 1: Yellow spandex I like that the thing has an eyebrow
Speaker 1: ridge in this. This is the best version of the
Speaker 1: thing that's ever been put to film. Like, I like
Speaker 1: Michael Chickliss as an actor. I think he was doing
Speaker 1: exactly what he was asked for, and that's not a
Speaker 1: bad thing for him as an actor. But those movies
Speaker 1: Father Malone already Ranferencill like he's just a sad sack
Speaker 1: of shit.
Speaker 3: Those whole movies.
Speaker 1: It's one note. But Michael Chickliss plays that know really
Speaker 1: well though, Like to his.
Speaker 4: Credit, the pasthetic work in that is really good, except
Speaker 4: they needed to have done something like Peter Jackson photographically
Speaker 4: sizing him in some way to make it more like
Speaker 4: he looks like a human being underneath all of that rock.
Speaker 4: This looks like a rock man.
Speaker 1: It's surprising how well the thing works, because it's the
Speaker 1: one thing that I feel like they haven't been able
Speaker 1: to get right.
Speaker 4: Well. I do want to give the ninety four version
Speaker 4: it to do because Steve Johnson's suit in that for
Speaker 4: they had a million dollar budget in that movie, which
Speaker 4: means he maybe got fifty sixty thousand dollars and he
Speaker 4: made that one suit. It's fucking incredible. If he had
Speaker 4: been given a couple of million dollars, we would have
Speaker 4: had a practical suit in ninety four that would talk
Speaker 4: and fucking move and fucking clobber and time all day.
Speaker 1: Hey man, Those turtle suits in the nineties are a
Speaker 1: good example that you could have done it if you
Speaker 1: actually had the wherewithal to do it. Those turtle suits
Speaker 1: I think are still in my mind like the best
Speaker 1: animatronics ever made, because those they carry those movies, say
Speaker 1: which will about those movies, but those are four people
Speaker 1: in fucking full last puppet suits like given it, they're
Speaker 1: all and yeah, I think that is the bummer. Is
Speaker 1: the thing about that original Korman movie is just it's
Speaker 1: a big what if. Look the Captain America from the
Speaker 1: nineties similarly like Luigi.
Speaker 4: Wuf Hey Captain America, Come on over here came out
Speaker 4: and it's bad.
Speaker 1: Fantastic four movie at least would have had some charm.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, Like the thing that the Fan
Speaker 1: four Stick movie didn't have that those first two had
Speaker 1: were they were at least like mildly charming, Chris Evans charming,
Speaker 1: Michael Chicklis charming, like they're all charming like that Fan
Speaker 1: for Stick just is like let's be serious, ugh, and
Speaker 1: they take all the fun and the charm out of it.
Speaker 1: We've talked about him a little bit, but I think
Speaker 1: speaking of charm, I think for me, like Pedro Pascal,
Speaker 1: this is I'm good now, Like I don't need you
Speaker 1: to be in everything anymore. And this is like the
Speaker 1: thing where I'm like.
Speaker 4: I really liked him, honestly, I know, I like it.
Speaker 1: That's the thing, Like he's really good and this is
Speaker 1: like I'm saying, like peak Pedro Pascal, But dude, what
Speaker 1: else can you be in at this point because you've
Speaker 1: now been like in everything in a degree that no
Speaker 1: one else can even replicate.
Speaker 2: People.
Speaker 1: He's like a singular Star Wars character for them too,
Speaker 1: Like more important than fucking Luke and Han Solo Mandalorian is.
Speaker 1: Some people's like the Star Wars they only care about,
Speaker 1: which it's that's fucking Pedro Pascal.
Speaker 4: Like He's been around for quite a while now, and
Speaker 4: I've seen him in tons and tons of things, but
Speaker 4: I've only recently warmed Pedro Pascal. So this is the
Speaker 4: perfect movie for me to finally embrace him because I
Speaker 4: loved his Read Richards. We got the actual perfect Read
Speaker 4: Richards in that doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness.
Speaker 4: No one could portray the smug, fucking assholary that is
Speaker 4: Reid Richards like John Krasinski.
Speaker 1: Thank God, I do not like John Krasinsky at all.
Speaker 1: He's such a smug guy right like, he plays it
Speaker 1: so well.
Speaker 4: I despise him.
Speaker 3: I was so glad that they kept the stretching to
Speaker 3: a minimum and that they didn't do just stretch for
Speaker 3: stretch sake, like I like when he used his arm
Speaker 3: to go up on the blackboard.
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, that works, And I liked that
Speaker 4: the blackboard was also it looked mid century modern that
Speaker 4: it came up in peaks, but it also made sense
Speaker 4: because he could stretch up that far in the big.
Speaker 3: Action scene at the end when he's going around and
Speaker 3: he's stretching all over the place like that looks all right.
Speaker 3: But keep that shit to a minimum. We don't really
Speaker 3: need to see it because no matter what, no matter
Speaker 3: how they do it, it's always going to be uncanny
Speaker 3: because we just don't move that way, so it's always
Speaker 3: going to be weird. So I think they do is
Speaker 3: best of a job as a can by keeping it
Speaker 3: to a small percentage of it. And I liked when
Speaker 3: Galaxis was stretching him out. Oh my god, the pain
Speaker 3: on his face. I thought that was really great. I
Speaker 3: think the one missed moment for this is when Sue
Speaker 3: is laying on the street, possibly dead. She should have
Speaker 3: woken up and said, I really want to try some shwarma.
Speaker 1: All I could think was, man read Richards is not
Speaker 1: putting his back into that CPR. He's find out her.
Speaker 1: Come on, dude, dude, that's your wife. Brother, But dau
Speaker 1: Sex Franklin, Richard's baby.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's when that baby looks awful. A few
Speaker 3: times in there. There's a few times, especially like when
Speaker 3: he's trying to get to his mother, I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 3: CG baby all it's CG. But baby head nor that
Speaker 3: baby has the power cosmic, all right.
Speaker 1: It does have the power cosmic. It can bring people
Speaker 1: back to life.
Speaker 4: In the comics, Schallibal one time appeared as a silver
Speaker 4: Surfer because Galactus in the form of Franklin Richards made her.
Speaker 1: Do you some, Michelle Obama, shallabala shallabaal shalla bala gamala.
Speaker 1: That was the other thing that was nice because this
Speaker 1: movie is set in like retrofuturism. Like I went into
Speaker 1: this movie is like I forgot that there was a
Speaker 1: real world outside. And that is again I think Father
Speaker 1: Malone you would agree clearly having seen it twice now,
Speaker 1: like there's something to be said for that given that,
Speaker 1: like we literally two weekends ago talked about Superman not
Speaker 1: doing that Superman literally just being like, let's steer into
Speaker 1: this shit with the rage baiting troll of Lex luthoran
Speaker 1: there's none of that here and again, and you we've
Speaker 1: already talked about a little bit in this universe. It
Speaker 1: is a much better world, clearly than our own. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine what twenty twenty five would look like if
Speaker 1: this was the universe that we lived in. Just again,
Speaker 1: the world coming together to turn all of our electricity off?
Speaker 1: Other than these one group of assholes in Latvaria, what
Speaker 1: would that look like?
Speaker 3: And they've even started galactus cults. I was like, oh
Speaker 3: fuck that, plus.
Speaker 1: The death cults they're coming.
Speaker 4: I wept many times during this movie. I know I'm
Speaker 4: a sentimental old man and everything, but there were moments
Speaker 4: of actual, fucking pure emotion. This movie features a birth
Speaker 4: in space. I've never seen that in a movie, and
Speaker 4: it is emotional and appropriate, and it comes in the
Speaker 4: middle like of an action sequence. I don't know, gentlemen, this.
Speaker 1: Movie has made for Father Malone. Yeah, it really was.
Speaker 4: And here's the thing, Like I said, I'm not the
Speaker 4: biggest Fantastic fore fan. I can take or leave. The
Speaker 4: fact that they were going to have Silver Surfer in
Speaker 4: this had my money, and the fact that we were
Speaker 4: getting screen accurate Galactus and everyone involved. Obviously, I was
Speaker 4: gonna go see this movie, but I had no expectation whatsoever,
Speaker 4: and it really won me over It really reinvigorated my
Speaker 4: interest in the Marvel sort of universe. I can't wait
Speaker 4: to fucking finish this goddamn saga, the multiverse saga. We
Speaker 4: got three more, is it?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 4: We've got Spider Man and the two Avengers movies, and
Speaker 4: then we're done, and then we can fucking move on
Speaker 4: to our next frontier. And it can't come soon enough
Speaker 4: because if this is where we're going, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: Does that mean that Marvel is now just gonna do
Speaker 1: this is its own thing like that The Fantastic Four
Speaker 1: are just gonna have two sequels or as many as
Speaker 1: this time allows, and it'll just be in their universe.
Speaker 1: That's my hope.
Speaker 4: We could be so lucky.
Speaker 1: If you go to other multiversal things that have been done,
Speaker 1: one of them, speaking of DC, is Injustice the video game.
Speaker 1: In the video game, in the first one, it's like
Speaker 1: a multiversal crossover that causes the issues, but the second
Speaker 1: game has nothing to do with that, and it's just
Speaker 1: taking place in that universe that was dealing with multiversal
Speaker 1: stuff in the first game, but now it's just dealing
Speaker 1: with things in that universe. They're different than the universe
Speaker 1: you're used to but we don't go and have alternate
Speaker 1: universe Batman brought in. We don't have any of that. Again,
Speaker 1: It's just that's whatever is taking place in this universe
Speaker 1: is that is that version of the game, and that's
Speaker 1: what I would like to see what the MCU after this.
Speaker 1: It's like I would like if these movies stay in
Speaker 1: their own lane moving forward and don't get bogged down
Speaker 1: in the MCU of it all, because I think the
Speaker 1: MCU could do like the DCEU is going to do
Speaker 1: and allow things to just be their own things. And
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that, because I don't think Father Malone,
Speaker 1: your favorite Superheroes Captain America Sam Wilson would not work
Speaker 1: on Earth eight to eight the end. It just wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to see it, and I would
Speaker 1: prefer to just have this be its own thing moving
Speaker 1: forward after whatever they decide to do with Doomsday and
Speaker 1: everything else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. If they go back to
Speaker 3: Earth A two eight and they just chill because they are,
Speaker 3: as far as I can see, the Earth's only real protectors.
Speaker 3: Keep them with that Earth, let them stay there, let
Speaker 3: them have their thing, Let the move against other villains.
Speaker 3: If they need to. I'm excited to see the deleted
Speaker 3: scenes with John Malkovich. I think that would be pretty
Speaker 3: cool singing it to him. And from the just the
Speaker 3: tiniest images that I've seen, I don't know if he's
Speaker 3: in jail during it or what's going on. We get
Speaker 3: the red apes. I'm not familiar with that character, so
Speaker 3: it seems so cheesy to have these red apes going around.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, yeah, that's the fantastic four I love it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, man, Red Ghost is fantastic. He's got his
Speaker 4: army of apes. Yeah, they're really fun. And the fact
Speaker 4: that it was going to be Malkovich, I feel like
Speaker 4: we got robbed of a few movies of just the
Speaker 4: sort of wacky adventures that's fantastic for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was on the poster, not his face, but
Speaker 3: his name. So I was just like, oh, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: for a while because I was trying to stay away
Speaker 3: from this stuff as much as possible. I was like,
Speaker 3: I wonder if he's voice in Galactis. That would be interesting,
Speaker 3: this this big cloud with John Malcov's voice coming out of.
Speaker 2: It, just like a young man coming in for a QUVICKI.
Speaker 7: She'll so unseatisfied, and there's a little bit of moment
Speaker 7: of comedy in here right at the end to lighten
Speaker 7: it up with them trying to put the baby seat in,
Speaker 7: and I was like, that actually works for me.
Speaker 3: Had that been at the beginning of the movie, I
Speaker 3: don't know if I would have taken it. But by
Speaker 3: the end I have such good will for these characters
Speaker 3: that I just like, Yeah, this is it and that
Speaker 3: they need to use fucking teamwork to make it work.
Speaker 1: This movie makes the unthinkable real and it gives Ben
Speaker 1: Grimm facial hair that doesn't look ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it was awesome. That was great.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, that's so cool.
Speaker 3: He walks into that temple with the hat and everything.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, man, he looks like a rabbi.
Speaker 3: He's great.
Speaker 1: I will say I wish that they had given the
Speaker 1: it's clobbering time moment a little bit more of a pause,
Speaker 1: or maybe my movie theater just wasn't loud enough, like
Speaker 1: the mixing wasn't loud enough. But it got lost in
Speaker 1: the explosion punching galactus in the side of the face
Speaker 1: of it all.
Speaker 4: And it's also in the moment where Galactus is stretching
Speaker 4: Reid Richards, which is very harrowing, and then they cut
Speaker 4: away to this sort of raw moment and it's it
Speaker 4: is lost in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's jarring because, like I did see in one
Speaker 1: of the final trailers for the movie, they showed the
Speaker 1: lead up to that scene, but they don't show that
Speaker 1: it's clobbering time payoff, and I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see what it's like in the movie.
Speaker 1: And then when I saw the movie, was like, man,
Speaker 1: I almost wish they had just done that fucking Captain
Speaker 1: America thing where it's like Avengers dot dot dot, Like
Speaker 1: I wish they had just done that, like given it
Speaker 1: for a moment and maybe Avengers dooms there or something
Speaker 1: where we actually have him say it, because if this
Speaker 1: was going to be it, I don't know. You didn't
Speaker 1: give the moment enough time to breathe, which is a
Speaker 1: weird thing to say for a rockman screaming at a
Speaker 1: giant space god.
Speaker 4: And the next time he says it, I want him
Speaker 4: to say it very quietly and mean right, like it's
Speaker 4: clovering time.
Speaker 1: And then just whack this shit out of Doctor Doom
Speaker 1: like Uppercut him. Yeah, the Thing is a character that
Speaker 1: you could give them his own thing, like you could
Speaker 1: give any of these characters or own things. That's maybe
Speaker 1: another direction to go to is split that split them
Speaker 1: off and do their own thing as well.
Speaker 3: I used to read that The Thing had at least
Speaker 3: one spinoff series that I read all of that, and
Speaker 3: it was almost a little not quite Planet Hulk esque,
Speaker 3: but it was him on another planet kind of doing
Speaker 3: his own thing because he just felt like such an outsider.
Speaker 3: And I was like, Okay, yeah, this works. I love
Speaker 3: that series.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, and please, I know we're getting a neuron
Speaker 4: rad silver Surfer from what I hear they're doing in
Speaker 4: as like they did the Werewolf by Night. They're going
Speaker 4: to do it as like a special And please, for
Speaker 4: the love of God, because we can do any kind
Speaker 4: of story we want, give us existential neurin Rad. Give please,
Speaker 4: just half an hour of him just surfing the fucking
Speaker 4: universe is fine. Whatever plan they had to knock Galactus
Speaker 4: to the other side of their universe, they opened a
Speaker 4: black hole. They'd have no fucking idea where you went.
Speaker 1: Maybe they did just send him to Earth sixty six
Speaker 1: by accident.
Speaker 4: Because look, all the action takes place on our Earth,
Speaker 4: in the Marvel universe, so they can have their fun
Speaker 4: over there, but all the shit's gonna end up here eventually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, any of the serious stuff anyway, anythings where the
Speaker 1: stakes need to be resolved, I feel like are going
Speaker 1: to have to take place on Earth.
Speaker 3: So, as far as I can tell, the next Marvel
Speaker 3: movie that TV show. But the next Marvel movie is
Speaker 3: that Spider Man movie, which is set to come out
Speaker 3: July thirty first, twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Six, just fucking wild.
Speaker 3: And then it's six months later Avengers Doomsday, and then
Speaker 3: a year later Secret Wars.
Speaker 1: We've gone into the feast and famine times. We're in
Speaker 1: the famine times with Marvel.
Speaker 4: Hey man, if we got to wait and we had
Speaker 4: movies like this, fucking take a year, take two years.
Speaker 1: As a video gamer, this is a thing that we
Speaker 1: deal with, like a lot of oversaturation of things. I
Speaker 1: think Marvel and Disney and Star Wars reach an oversaturation
Speaker 1: point during probably would we all say, early pandemic years
Speaker 1: twenty one twenty two, Like I think everybody was getting
Speaker 1: burned out in that general.
Speaker 4: Once that fucking Boba Fete thing was up. The tails
Speaker 4: from Boba fet By then I think it was like
Speaker 4: that was all over all of the fucking sequels, oh suh.
Speaker 1: And for me with Marvel, it was like stuff like Moonnight.
Speaker 1: I like Moonnight a lot, actually do too, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't have any stakes with anything. It doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: it's ever gonna matter.
Speaker 4: Those were all over long may all should have been
Speaker 4: two hour movies. All of those series were nothing but
Speaker 4: diluting everything that was going on with Marble.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing, like you just said, with the
Speaker 1: Werewolf by Night, they I didn't need a full fucking
Speaker 1: series that was exactly enough, perfect enough.
Speaker 4: Can I, by the way, recommend you know they have
Speaker 4: that in color. If you can watch that in color,
Speaker 4: watch it in color. It's a thousand times better.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, speaking of Michael Giacchino, Wow, talk
Speaker 1: about doing some heavy lifting in this movie and Fantastic
Speaker 1: Four theme that lead motif. I wouldn't say modern day
Speaker 1: John Williams, but definitely someone who has that level of
Speaker 1: grandeur when it comes to working in the film landscape,
Speaker 1: because it gives this movie like a sense of scale
Speaker 1: that it needed. And again, like we've already mentioned, the
Speaker 1: Fantastic Four is only Earth's defender. There needs to be
Speaker 1: some real weight given to these characters and what they're
Speaker 1: dealing with, because it's the four of them between destruction.
Speaker 4: Wells, it's got a lot of frolicsome early sixties lounge
Speaker 4: music kind of themes going on.
Speaker 3: Well, it was nice too that, as far as I
Speaker 3: could tell, the songs weren't Earth songs, that they were
Speaker 3: like Earth songs but a little bit different because it's
Speaker 3: a whole different Earth. And I was like, like fringe
Speaker 3: when they would go to the alternate universe and they
Speaker 3: would see like different cars, like different It was the
Speaker 3: Eric Stoltz version of Back to the Future. Those differences
Speaker 3: were there, which I liked. And it wasn't like punching
Speaker 3: you in the face with things. So it wasn't like
Speaker 3: we had to have a music video where it was
Speaker 3: kind of like the Beatles but not quite them. It's okay, please.
Speaker 3: Like even though this universe, this world, this eight too,
Speaker 3: eight could have lent itself to really gimmicky garbage type stuff,
Speaker 3: they stayed away from it. They didn't even focus on
Speaker 3: the cartoon that much. Is a couple of moments during
Speaker 3: the movie and then having the cartoon intro at the
Speaker 3: end I thought was really a smart thing and also
Speaker 3: harkened back to the end of the One Spider Man
Speaker 3: movie where they're no way helme. I think, where they're
Speaker 3: all pointing at each other, and I think one of
Speaker 3: the Sony animation.
Speaker 1: Ones where it's the animated one does that is.
Speaker 3: The twenty ninety nine version of Spider Man coming in. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was nice and I thought that was a very
Speaker 3: nice way to end it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that this movie didn't dip, like it's toe
Speaker 1: too much into comedy. I would say it's about as
Speaker 1: comedic as any Marvel film is, but I would say
Speaker 1: it's less so in my mind, like there are moments
Speaker 1: of comedy, but we're thankfully getting away from those Josh
Speaker 1: Weedon moments that MCU was plagued by for a decade
Speaker 1: after Avengers ice crackery. But it was also like serious beat,
Speaker 1: serious beat joke to undercut the two serious beats because
Speaker 1: we could never be serious. This movie doesn't do that.
Speaker 1: Thunderbolts doesn't really do that either. I went and rewatched
Speaker 1: Thunderbolts as well to see.
Speaker 4: I did too. By the way, my estimation has grown,
Speaker 4: my criticisms remain. I think it's clunky and really poorly paced,
Speaker 4: but yeah, the ending is like fucking riotously good to.
Speaker 1: Your point, Like, I think it's way better than it
Speaker 1: had any right to be. And I have really enjoyed
Speaker 1: rewatching it like two or three times.
Speaker 4: Even that's a good team. Really enjoy them.
Speaker 1: And same here. Like as much as maybe Pedro Pscal
Speaker 1: for me doesn't do all the heavy lifting, he's almost
Speaker 1: the Leonardo of the group. There always has to be
Speaker 1: one character that can stand to be underwritten a little
Speaker 1: bit but doesn't always have to be. But Pedro Bescal
Speaker 1: is great. But for me, I think all of this
Speaker 1: movie really does benefit from the four leads just being
Speaker 1: so great together in a way that the Thunderbolts were.
Speaker 1: And I'm hopeful that with more team based fucker.
Speaker 4: Let's do that. Yeah, yeah, keep giving us teams for Christik,
Speaker 4: give us the fucking Midnight Sun, right they're sitting right there,
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: And I'm hopeful for the X Men, like I'm hopeful
Speaker 1: for whatever we get of the X Men, but I'm
Speaker 1: hopeful that it's great because they've been nailing it with
Speaker 1: these big hero teams recently, and the chemistry is really
Speaker 1: where this kind of comes down to, and they the
Speaker 1: actors right now, they must just be champion at the
Speaker 1: bit to work with Marvel. If you're in a team setting,
Speaker 1: because you get to work with these great actors and
Speaker 1: feed off of one another, it must be great.
Speaker 3: So you're saying that Pedro Pescal is good, but he
Speaker 3: can be better.
Speaker 1: Maybe the movie that made Pedro Pescal never want to
Speaker 1: shave his face again, apparently, is what he has said.
Speaker 1: I hated the way I looked about facial hair.
Speaker 4: You just said it. Chris Hopeful for the future of
Speaker 4: superhero movies, I thought it was all over, And finally
Speaker 4: it seems people are figuring out that you got to
Speaker 4: give us a good story and take your time and
Speaker 4: make the characters enjoyable and make everything pay off and
Speaker 4: maybe in still a sense of awe and wonder that
Speaker 4: we all go to the fucking movies for in the
Speaker 4: first place.
Speaker 1: As much as Deadpool Wolverine last year didn't nail it,
Speaker 1: the thing that movie nailed was that fucking team up
Speaker 1: at the end. That was the best part of that
Speaker 1: whole movie. That's the best team up I think in
Speaker 1: any of those Deadpool movies, because they're like Okay, there's
Speaker 1: a sense of those characters, there's a sense of how
Speaker 1: Deadpool interacts with them, there's a sense of how they
Speaker 1: interact with Deadpool. They're all different, but they are all
Speaker 1: on a similar wavelength and that works really well. And
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder how much of that positive
Speaker 1: energy and chemistry of those teams work their ways into
Speaker 1: the other scripts and the things that were being worked
Speaker 1: on around the same time being filmed and going into
Speaker 1: production like this movie was and Thunderbolts really and I
Speaker 1: just that Deadpool Wolverine movie just everything, but the team
Speaker 1: up at the end is eh. But you know what,
Speaker 1: if that sets the tone for some of these things
Speaker 1: moving forward. Great, because there's about to be a really
Speaker 1: big team up thing, and I hope it's half as
Speaker 1: good as that original Avengers big ass team up was
Speaker 1: with Endgame because our Infinity War, because that's a pretty
Speaker 1: high barred across at this point. But these are some
Speaker 1: good team up, teamed team films, so I can only
Speaker 1: hope that beyond this it'll be better. Hopeful.
Speaker 4: There's nothing but potential from everything that's come up until now.
Speaker 4: All of the films have been they've been all disappointing
Speaker 4: in one way or another. But now we know who
Speaker 4: those characters are, we're established with them. If we can
Speaker 4: get them into a situation that is half as good
Speaker 4: as Infinity War, I think we're golden.
Speaker 1: For the first time in a long time, there's a
Speaker 1: good Marvel and a good DC movie in the movie
Speaker 1: theaters that you could go watch on a Saturday, back
Speaker 1: to back and not have a bad time with either.
Speaker 4: And by the way, it was never one versus the other.
Speaker 4: As comic book fans, we love both of them like
Speaker 4: we want them both to succeed.
Speaker 1: And if you don't feel that way, then get the
Speaker 1: fuck out of here, because that's only good for us
Speaker 1: that they're both successful. I mean it's good for them too,
Speaker 1: obviously financially, but as consumers them being good at the
Speaker 1: same time actually makes both of them better in the
Speaker 1: long run, because if you're just resting on your laurels,
Speaker 1: one of the other ones can be complacent. Marvel saw
Speaker 1: DC and went, well, we're just going to elevate ourselves
Speaker 1: further than them. They looked at him and went, these
Speaker 1: guys just keep shooting themselves in the foot over and
Speaker 1: over again. It's like racing a one legged man. You're
Speaker 1: ahead of the whole time, and Marvel got so complacent
Speaker 1: that they're having to redo everything. But I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to see what that is at this point because the
Speaker 1: way they treat the audiences is so markedly different from
Speaker 1: ten years ago, let alone two thousand and eight. So yeah,
Speaker 1: hopeful for the first time with Marvel is wild. This
Speaker 1: Marvel is one thing, but DC is another. So collectively,
Speaker 1: this is a first I think in our lifetimes with
Speaker 1: these kinds of things.
Speaker 3: Really, it was very strange when I went to the theater.
Speaker 3: I pulled right into a very convenient spot. There were
Speaker 3: very few people in the lobby. There are very few
Speaker 3: people in my theater. I know it did very well
Speaker 3: this weekend, but it was pretty empty when I was
Speaker 3: sitting there, which was a big surprise for me because
Speaker 3: I was expecting packed everything. I was like, Oh, this
Speaker 3: is the Fantastic four, this is going to be huge.
Speaker 3: The theater was overflowing for Endgame, of course, but not here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think they've built up the good will yet.
Speaker 4: Like Thunderbolts was a good first step, Honestly, that before
Speaker 4: first steps, this has.
Speaker 1: Taken a lot of momentum to get to this point,
Speaker 1: and this is a good thing that this will keep
Speaker 1: it building and not stifle it. But to your point, Mike,
Speaker 1: like I went saw it in my theater was almost full,
Speaker 1: and I saw it today one in the afternoon on
Speaker 1: a Sunday. The post church crowd in the Midwest show
Speaker 1: up for this movie. So I'm thankful for that because
Speaker 1: they're kind of the hardest ones to get through the
Speaker 1: door sometimes, especially on the weekends, because there's so much
Speaker 1: other stuff to do. But there were plenty of people there,
Speaker 1: and it was a pretty mixed crowd too, a lot
Speaker 1: of adults, but there were also some families with kids.
Speaker 3: There was one couple in the theater with a baby,
Speaker 3: and so whenever Franklin would get upset, the baby would
Speaker 3: get upset. So now it was almost like stereo.
Speaker 1: It was don't be at most feel everything.
Speaker 3: Chris, when you're not talking about the Fantastic Four? What
Speaker 3: are you up to these days?
Speaker 1: Just doing audio stuff with you over at weirdingwaymedia dot com.
Speaker 1: You and Father Alone. We do a little show with
Speaker 1: Father Malone every other week. We're on his show midnight viewing.
Speaker 1: And then I've taken a little bit of a break
Speaker 1: from my show to retoul it. But the Culture Cast
Speaker 1: still has six hundred and ninety one episodes, So if
Speaker 1: you want to go listen to that show, it's on
Speaker 1: weirding Way Media too, But that's where you can go
Speaker 1: for everything that.
Speaker 3: I work on.
Speaker 1: What about you fodd him alone?
Speaker 4: You just mentioned my show Midnight Viewing, where we look
Speaker 4: at horror anthologies and horror things in general. You gentlemen,
Speaker 4: and I every other week look at tails from the
Speaker 4: dark Side. Currently, those other weeks aren't filled with a
Speaker 4: bunch of fests. Right now, mister Walters and I are
Speaker 4: currently going through the works of John Fusco and our
Speaker 4: Fusco Fest. We've also begun our Yaucha Fest, which is
Speaker 4: the actual name of the race in the Predator movies.
Speaker 4: We're starting with Predator this Friday. It's a great series.
Speaker 4: We're having a lot of fun doing it. That's what
Speaker 4: we're up to.
Speaker 1: You get two thumbs up for me Predator Rius What
Speaker 1: is this Marl logo?
Speaker 4: Hey, exactly why we're calling it Yaucha Fest?
Speaker 1: Youcha Yaucha Fest. That's got a nice ring to it.
Speaker 2: I like on that one.
Speaker 3: And as for me, you can find everything that I
Speaker 3: do also at wordingwaymedia dot com, including the projection booth
Speaker 3: which you are currently listening to. You might be listening
Speaker 3: to this under the Culture cast or under Midnight Viewing,
Speaker 3: but yes, all of those Wordingwaymedia dot Com. Come on over,
Speaker 3: give us a listen. I think you'll be very pleased.
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