Speaker 1: This is Matthew, host of the Superhero Ethics podcast, and
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Speaker 1: to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today, myself, Matthew and
Speaker 1: my co host Riki are talking about the new Fantastic
Speaker 1: Four movie. If you've listened to our old stuff, you
Speaker 1: know this is a movie that Ricky was greatly anticipating.
Speaker 1: I was also anticipating, but from a very different perspective.
Speaker 1: Ricky is a huge Fantastic Four fan. I have had
Speaker 1: almost no contact with them, but have been curious about them.
Speaker 1: And now it's out, and as expected, there's some interesing
Speaker 1: ethical questions that it raises, and we're here to talk
Speaker 1: about them. And Riki let me kind of just start by.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into the questions especially, but let you
Speaker 1: kind of start the framework of as someone who is
Speaker 1: a big Fantastic Four fan, as someone who's been frustrated
Speaker 1: by earlier depictions of the four, what do you think
Speaker 1: of this movie overall?
Speaker 2: I would say that this is a very good movie.
Speaker 2: It's a very good MCU movie, and it could I'll
Speaker 2: border on great. I don't know. I would have to
Speaker 2: rewatch it, maybe a second time or a third time
Speaker 2: to really like hone in on how I feel about it.
Speaker 2: I was very happy with it, satisfied with the product,
Speaker 2: but it came at such an interesting time, meaning on
Speaker 2: the heels of the dc reboot with Superman m H.
Speaker 2: And because of that, like it's impossible not to compare them,
Speaker 2: right because both movie franchises, both comic book movie franchises,
Speaker 2: are going through kind of a difficult period right with
Speaker 2: their audiences and trying to refocus, and I feel like
Speaker 2: Superman did that. It set an amazing new direction for
Speaker 2: DCU under James Gunn, And in that respect, Fantastic Four
Speaker 2: First Steps was a little disappointing. It felt like just
Speaker 2: another Marvel movie, and that again is like as a
Speaker 2: comic book movie is okay, it's it was good. It
Speaker 2: was enjoyable, fun to watch, but in this moment, I
Speaker 2: needed it to be more than just another Marvel movie,
Speaker 2: and for me, it wasn't. So that was a little disappointing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it,
Speaker 1: I think, And this is a topic we're going to
Speaker 1: discussed further, possibly in a different episode. Is looking kind
Speaker 1: of where these where these franchises are, and how we
Speaker 1: feel about them, and what Superman did to me, this
Speaker 1: is better than I feel like we've been kind of
Speaker 1: in a low point of MCU products for a while,
Speaker 1: and this feels better to me. Yeah, like Thunderbolts, I
Speaker 1: think both of them were more solid entries than we've
Speaker 1: seen in quite a while. Absolutely, But I think for me,
Speaker 1: I think the best way to describe it is I
Speaker 1: left the movie feeling very excited about the characters of
Speaker 1: the Fantastic Four, feeling like I now had a clear
Speaker 1: understanding of these people who've been so interested, who have
Speaker 1: been so important to so many others, that I was
Speaker 1: invested in these characters, that I was really excited to
Speaker 1: see these characters and other Marvel properties. But I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm in a rush to watch this movie again.
Speaker 1: You know, because I feel like the movie itself, the
Speaker 1: main plot Galactus, left me very underwhelmed. As my partner
Speaker 1: in other podcasts, Pete Wright put it, this felt like
Speaker 1: a very good second movie when we didn't have the
Speaker 1: first movie, you know, and a lot of what I
Speaker 1: was kind of I didn't want the origin story. I
Speaker 1: was glad we didn't have that, but I wanted more.
Speaker 1: I would love to watch more of Moman. I would
Speaker 1: have wanted to watch more of what is the Final Four? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is the Fantastic for his relationship to the world
Speaker 1: that then having this, you know what it like for
Speaker 1: the for the world to turn against the Fantastic Four
Speaker 1: didn't mean very much to me when I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: the world more solidly on their side for a long time.
Speaker 1: Things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me let me also go back and answer
Speaker 2: your the full question you asked. So as a fan
Speaker 2: of the Fantastic Four more in general, this was great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was the best Fantastic for movie we've gotten,
Speaker 2: which is the lowest bar, just the lowest bar, but
Speaker 2: it cleared it, and it cleared it by a lot.
Speaker 2: I think it was a good movie, and it was
Speaker 2: a good depiction of the Fantastic Four and their dynamics
Speaker 2: as a family. You know, you've probably heard us talk
Speaker 2: about them. They are Marvel's first family. When they're introduced
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty one, they set the course for or
Speaker 2: what Marvel Comics became, and they were the centerpiece of
Speaker 2: the whole franchise, and the fact that they were a
Speaker 2: family became integral to them. It wasn't as important in
Speaker 2: the beginning, they were just a team, but they became
Speaker 2: a family, right, and that again set the tone for
Speaker 2: so many other Marvel products to be more focused on
Speaker 2: the human elements while they're still doing ridiculous comic book
Speaker 2: superhero things right.
Speaker 1: Like I remember when the MCU first started, one of
Speaker 1: the things that was talked about a lot was that
Speaker 1: part of why it was able to be successful was
Speaker 1: it was about characters who a lot of the public
Speaker 1: didn't have much of a knowledge of or investment of.
Speaker 1: And that's because like the ones people thought that they
Speaker 1: did were Spider Man and the Fantastic Four, that these
Speaker 1: were all people who had long histories, and of course
Speaker 1: there had been devotees of Iron Man and Captain America
Speaker 1: and the Avengers and all that, but they were nothing
Speaker 1: as popular as Spider Man or the Fantastic Four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's because of the way that the whole
Speaker 2: the rights to the characters have been divided up right,
Speaker 2: that Sony has the rights to Spider Man and so
Speaker 2: many of the characters from that part of Marvel Universe.
Speaker 2: What Fantastic Four was Fox along with the X Men.
Speaker 2: So when Marvel Studios first started, they had to make
Speaker 2: do with what were at the time considered B listers,
Speaker 2: right for many, even like comic book fans, right.
Speaker 1: And I will say, as someone who wasn't introduced to
Speaker 1: it but it heard you and Jessica and others talk
Speaker 1: about it, I felt like I came out this movie
Speaker 1: coming a very solid understanding of who all four of
Speaker 1: them were and a very an investment in wanting to
Speaker 1: see more of them. And I think part of that's
Speaker 1: because and here's a way in which I do think
Speaker 1: the movie was like Superman. It felt like this was
Speaker 1: a you know, we've been in the dark pathos of
Speaker 1: superheroes for a while, and I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that this wasn't that. And this had some moments of like,
Speaker 1: you know, oh my gosh, are we gonna lose? But
Speaker 1: it did feel like it was a much more fundamentally
Speaker 1: hopeful perspective than a lot of the MCU has banned
Speaker 1: than the Zach Snyder had been, And in that right regard,
Speaker 1: it felt like it was I think I agree with you,
Speaker 1: not quite on the level of Superman, but going in
Speaker 1: a similar direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people have started to talk about
Speaker 2: this month, the month of Superman and Fantastic Four is
Speaker 2: heralding the silver age of comic book movies. As I
Speaker 2: just mentioned that the Fantastic Four ushered in the Silver
Speaker 2: Age of comics like comic books, but this really feels
Speaker 2: like the industry changing direction. And of course, like two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight had Iron Man and the Dark Knight,
Speaker 2: and people now cite that as like the beginning of
Speaker 2: the golden age of comic book movie, comic book movie.
Speaker 2: So like, if you look at it, like in five
Speaker 2: to ten years, I do think like this will be
Speaker 2: seen as an important month, an important pair of movies
Speaker 2: in moving moving things in a different direction. And you're
Speaker 2: right like that it is. Both of these movies were brightly,
Speaker 2: brightly colored and lighted, and also had much more hopeful
Speaker 2: tones than a lot of the movies we've had.
Speaker 1: And this was something that we don't see very often
Speaker 1: in superhero movies. I don't say even especially Marvel movies.
Speaker 1: It was a movie about a superhero team where while
Speaker 1: there's conflict between them, there's never a danger of the
Speaker 1: team breaking up. You know, like think about how like
Speaker 1: almost every I think every Avengers movie hasn't sued to
Speaker 1: some degree involved people quitting the Avengers or saying that
Speaker 1: you know, they're dividing more than they literally have a
Speaker 1: civil war. But even in both Avengers one and two,
Speaker 1: they all go their separate ways and they come back together.
Speaker 1: In The Defenders, we never we we only really get
Speaker 1: all them together for the big fight. The Eternals is
Speaker 1: very much about like their you know, internal struggles with
Speaker 1: each other until they finally come back together. This one,
Speaker 1: they start as a team. They argue with each other some,
Speaker 1: but there's never a moment where it feels like any
Speaker 1: of them are going to leave the Final I want
Speaker 1: to keep on to the Final Four because I'm too
Speaker 1: much March Madness guy. The Fantastic Four and that alone
Speaker 1: felt like such a big deal and something I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it after being very frustrated that that movies. It
Speaker 1: felt really afraid to just let a team of heroes
Speaker 1: be a team of heroes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the marketing for this movie really highlighted that,
Speaker 2: like Sunday dinner, Yeah, was such a focus, and it
Speaker 2: opens with that. It opens with the family getting together
Speaker 2: for Sunday dinner after like the weird recap montage, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the concept of family itself is interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, the concept of found family, I think
Speaker 1: is often very big in a lot of superhero type things,
Speaker 1: and often that's an idea of people who have been
Speaker 1: kind of rejected by their own families, or their families
Speaker 1: are dead or something has happened and they have to
Speaker 1: turn to each other to find family. And found family
Speaker 1: is kind of in opposition to or a replacement for
Speaker 1: blood family, and this is both. Really it is a
Speaker 1: primarily a family of you know, people who are like
Speaker 1: directly related to each other, a wife, a husband, a
Speaker 1: brother in law, the brother of the wife, and then
Speaker 1: a found family and that you know is the best
Speaker 1: friend of the of the husband that in that connection,
Speaker 1: and so I like that it's a bit of a blend,
Speaker 1: but it is much more of just like this is
Speaker 1: just an actual family with of course them having a
Speaker 1: child becoming a huge part of the story as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say it's a it's a formed family,
Speaker 2: like for Found family. I think of The Guardians, right
Speaker 2: where they are literally forced into the situation through outside circumstances,
Speaker 2: and initially they don't want to be They don't like
Speaker 2: each other, et cetera, et cetera. Right, Like the least
Speaker 2: family member here is Ben Graham, the Thing, but he's
Speaker 2: been Read's best friend all his life, you know, depending
Speaker 2: on the story, like from a very young age. So
Speaker 2: as adults, they're they're just this is my best friend,
Speaker 2: and to them like that is that is an important
Speaker 2: bond and it has been there since the beginning of
Speaker 2: this movie since you know, even past the four year
Speaker 2: flashback right of their mission decades probably for them at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if anyone is kind of an outsider in the family,
Speaker 1: and again they it's never thought that they might leave,
Speaker 1: but they're kind of like the odd man out. It's
Speaker 1: Johnny Storm, the brother. He's more of an odd man
Speaker 1: out I think than the Thing is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, personality wise, sure, he's well has he left. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in the he is not a member of the four
Speaker 2: in the cartoon, but again that was for weird like
Speaker 2: legal reasons, like they thought they were gonna use him
Speaker 2: in a Spider Man cartoon, so they admitted him from
Speaker 2: the Fantastic Four and that's when Herbie the Robots was
Speaker 2: introduced as the fourth member. Okay, the Thing has left
Speaker 2: the group from time to time, sometimes because he's cured,
Speaker 2: sometimes I think because he wants to focus on his
Speaker 2: own personal life and family, And the she Hulk has
Speaker 2: joined the Fantastic Four during those periods.
Speaker 1: I mean, and certainly I think in a comic book
Speaker 1: run that spans decades and decades, yeah, of course it's
Speaker 1: not going to stay together. But I think that's very
Speaker 1: different than a movie where you know, Guardians, I think
Speaker 1: is the one. I don't think the Guardians never really
Speaker 1: had a full breakdown of the team. I guess they
Speaker 1: short of have, but they've been more together as a team,
Speaker 1: I think than most MCU teams. But yeah, in terms
Speaker 1: of the on screen stuff, well, so let's shift to
Speaker 1: some of the ethical questions that come up from this,
Speaker 1: and there's a few that I want to get into
Speaker 1: that I think are gonna be into the one you
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about. You've been kind of hinting at
Speaker 1: the idea that this shows that read Richards might mister
Speaker 1: Fantastic himself might well become a villain at some point.
Speaker 1: Talk about about that and kind of what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are on that, because I'm not quite sure I know
Speaker 1: what you meant by read Richards has some like potential
Speaker 1: for villainy in this in this one.
Speaker 2: So do you want me to talk about the movie
Speaker 2: first or his comic book history.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the movie first.
Speaker 2: Okay, So in this movie, to me, the critical scene
Speaker 2: was after their baby is born. He's talking to Franklin
Speaker 2: and he says something along the lines of I don't
Speaker 2: want you to be like me, because there's something wrong
Speaker 2: with me. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 2: Line? And I perked up when he said that, Like
Speaker 2: what the heck? Like, what do you mean? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Because I think as a new parent, you can probably
Speaker 2: relate to this is your child, Like you want your
Speaker 2: child to grow up like you obviously, like be better
Speaker 2: than you in a lot of ways. But part of
Speaker 2: parenting is imprinting and teaching. Yeah, and so like, why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you want your child to be like you? Like?
Speaker 2: What are you saying about yourself? Right? So that's what
Speaker 2: I was, like, what is he saying about himself? Like
Speaker 2: what is wrong with him?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And and a lot of the other elements of this
Speaker 2: movie kind of hint at this that what is fundamentally
Speaker 2: wrong with Reid is that he's too smart. M he is.
Speaker 2: He's usually cited as the smartest person on Earth or
Speaker 2: the Marvel Universe, or however you want to classify it,
Speaker 2: like he's he's number one with a bullet and like
Speaker 2: people you know, argue about the rest like Tony Stark
Speaker 2: number two, readre Williams is number three, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 2: Like downline, where does doctor Doom fit? He's he's usually
Speaker 2: number one, And that's that's one of those things that
Speaker 2: is often presented as a curse to read that he's
Speaker 2: too smart for his own good. He's too smart in
Speaker 2: like when when Doctor Strange in Infinity War does the
Speaker 2: timestone things and he's like, I've looked at fourteen million
Speaker 2: futures right right, or the leader in the New Captain
Speaker 2: American movies, like I've made all these calculated probability calculations.
Speaker 2: Those are both things that like very much are read
Speaker 2: Richard's like he thinks through all of the permutations of
Speaker 2: the scenarios and he's like, this is this is what
Speaker 2: has to happen, right, And it's very mathematical and logical.
Speaker 2: And the reason that that can go in a path
Speaker 2: of villainy is that it it might not be ethical,
Speaker 2: it might not be you know, human in a sense emotional,
Speaker 2: Like I think emotion can be a detriment, but it's
Speaker 2: important to humans and humanity because that fundamentally is who
Speaker 2: we are. And if you just do things by calculation,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like the trolley problem. M h. And
Speaker 2: I think I cited this to you in our discussion
Speaker 2: about this, that he ran the trolley problem. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: one of the ethical dilemma in this movie is to
Speaker 2: stop Galactus from eating the earth, do you give up
Speaker 2: your child?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And at one point he concluded yes, that that was
Speaker 2: that was the correct thing to do mathematically.
Speaker 1: M So, I have a number of levels in which
Speaker 1: I can respond to this, and it's kind of perfect
Speaker 1: because I do think that. So I do believe in
Speaker 1: trolley problems, not as a final way to decide things,
Speaker 1: but as a way to better understand questions and to
Speaker 1: avoid because I agree with you that, like pure logic
Speaker 1: is a problem, but I also think sentimentality is a problem.
Speaker 1: And I'm kind of really glad that this is the
Speaker 1: direction I thought you were going in, because this ties
Speaker 1: into the ethical question I really wanted to wrestle with,
Speaker 1: which is that trolley problem itself and the whole nature
Speaker 1: of it, because I think being overly just taking all
Speaker 1: emotion out of it is problematic. But I also think
Speaker 1: sentimentality and working on sentiment rather than cold hard facts
Speaker 1: can be really problematic. But before even I use that
Speaker 1: to set it up, because I will say, as a
Speaker 1: new parent, and again, I don't mean that my opinion
Speaker 1: Trump's yours in any way, shape or form. You brought
Speaker 1: that up to want to give that perspective. I incredibly
Speaker 1: identified with Read Richards when he said that, and to me,
Speaker 1: it didn't feel villainous at all. It felt like the
Speaker 1: statement of someone who wrestled with mental illness, because I
Speaker 1: think to me, at least part of what Read is
Speaker 1: going through. And I'm probably projecting like crazy here, but
Speaker 1: he he's someone who deals with a lot of anxiety,
Speaker 1: and one of the ways that or anxiety is kind
Speaker 1: of a clinical term. I don't mean to you in
Speaker 1: that way, but like there are some kind of brains
Speaker 1: where you look at a situation and you see the
Speaker 1: worst possible outcomes, You see what's what could go wrong here,
Speaker 1: and you start worrying about that, and that can get
Speaker 1: to a point where it's like not you know, it
Speaker 1: can be a point where it's like you have a
Speaker 1: really honed danger sense and it's a good thing, or
Speaker 1: it could be a point where it's like pathological paranoia
Speaker 1: and you're imagining threats all the time. And to me,
Speaker 1: I am a person who has a number of mental illnesses,
Speaker 1: anxiety depression being one, and some level of PTSD borderline
Speaker 1: is another, though obviously they're very linked, and a genetic
Speaker 1: predisposition to alcoholism and the borderline especially is also very genetic.
Speaker 1: Obviously was triggered by a lot of you know, trauma
Speaker 1: in my life, but I have a genetic predisposition to it,
Speaker 1: uh and there are numerous other people in my family
Speaker 1: you have that. And when Mary and I were thinking
Speaker 1: of having a child the first time a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, I actually started looking a lot at in
Speaker 1: virtual fertilization with someone else's sperm or some other way
Speaker 1: of removing my genetics from the proposition, because the last
Speaker 1: thing I would want is someone to have a brain
Speaker 1: like mine, and I want my child to be smart.
Speaker 1: I want my child to be you know, have a
Speaker 1: lot of the ethical thinking that I do. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of demons that I've had to wrestle with
Speaker 1: and often lost and hurt people and hurt myself, but
Speaker 1: especially hurt others because of that that I definitely hope
Speaker 1: my child doesn't have to do. And so for me,
Speaker 1: that's what I connected to. And Reid said that was
Speaker 1: wasn't a he thinks he's evil or bad, but just
Speaker 1: thinks he's wrestling with these demons. And I guess he
Speaker 1: does have a villainy asperking that he's ano that it
Speaker 1: could go in this very dark direction. So I'll pause
Speaker 1: there and then I'll get more into the trolley problem
Speaker 1: of it, but just to give you a different perspective
Speaker 1: on where he could be coming from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I think. Then the other part of it
Speaker 1: to me is and it's funny because this is the
Speaker 1: ethical question I wanted to wrestle with. If I'm hearing
Speaker 1: you right, you think that running thinking about things in
Speaker 1: terms of trolley problems, is itself wrong or problematic? Is
Speaker 1: is that accurate?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think so, Okay. I think my
Speaker 2: issue is that the trolley problem is is simplistic. It's simplistic,
Speaker 2: simplifies things just to numbers, right, right, And as humans,
Speaker 2: I think that we have to have emotion and things
Speaker 2: or like some we are guided by emotions, whether it's
Speaker 2: right or wrong, and that's what makes us human.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So it's like, you know, the classic trolley problem of
Speaker 2: like do you put it on the track where the
Speaker 2: trolley only harms one person or harms five people, But
Speaker 2: it doesn't posit whether you know any of these people, right, right,
Speaker 2: And I think the natural inclination of anyone is if
Speaker 2: you know the one person, if they are important to you,
Speaker 2: you will switch the trolley to the other five if
Speaker 2: you don't know them, if they're strangers, right, and that
Speaker 2: you know that. You may say that that is ethically wrong,
Speaker 2: but that's just what makes us human and I kind
Speaker 2: of have to accept that that a in an actual
Speaker 2: live situation, that's how I would act.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's because again, like it's simplified, and it's a
Speaker 2: known quantity in a real if there were some kind
Speaker 2: of real trolley situation, you don't know if you switch
Speaker 2: the like what it's gonna do, and like someone explaining
Speaker 2: to you, like, ah, but if you switch the track
Speaker 2: in this moment, five strangers to you will die. Like
Speaker 2: that's never like right in the heat of a moment,
Speaker 2: that's never happening, right. So I think the natural inclination
Speaker 2: of I'm going to save the person that is close
Speaker 2: to me is just how we act as humans. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of my issue with trolley problems is like
Speaker 2: it's a fun, uh thought experiment. It's a fun discussion
Speaker 2: to have, but I don't think that an oversimplified version
Speaker 2: of it serves us in making real decisions, right.
Speaker 1: I can see that, And I think that can actually
Speaker 1: be a different perspective for us, because I think for me,
Speaker 1: it's about getting to best to first principles and navigating
Speaker 1: from there. But I want to kind of focus on
Speaker 1: because I think this is an area of real disagreement
Speaker 1: for us, which isn't bad, I think, but on this
Speaker 1: idea of the individual versus you know that the people
Speaker 1: you care about are the like because and I'll just
Speaker 1: put this out there, I watched the movie from the
Speaker 1: perspective of read is the only one thinking properly of
Speaker 1: the group by being willing to even consider the idea
Speaker 1: of giving up Franklin. And when I've talked about this
Speaker 1: in other places, people have brought up the ideas of, oh,
Speaker 1: but wait, but Galactus might have just kept going stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And here I wanted to use the probably
Speaker 1: trauma logic of just to if we accept the premise
Speaker 1: as originally presented by Galactus that if he gets Franklin,
Speaker 1: he will stop, and he will retire and he will
Speaker 1: no longer want to eat planets, And we don't yet
Speaker 1: learn that Franklin himself will now become a new Galactus
Speaker 1: and go on to eat planets, which I'm not sure
Speaker 1: the movie actually tells us, but I think from comic
Speaker 1: books people have read into it, and that may be
Speaker 1: a very fair assumption. I think it is worthwhile to
Speaker 1: consider that as a possibility. And for me, here's the
Speaker 1: kind of response that I have to what you're saying,
Speaker 1: is that I think you're correct that there is a
Speaker 1: natural inclination within all of us to want to protect
Speaker 1: those that we are close to, those that we have
Speaker 1: an emotional bond with as opposed to strangers or even
Speaker 1: people we don't like. I don't think that's good though,
Speaker 1: and I say this as someone who just gives some context.
Speaker 1: And again my opinion doesn't trump and anyway, it's just
Speaker 1: another perspective. I watched the movie, as you said, as
Speaker 1: a new parent. Going to watch this movie was one
Speaker 1: of the first things i'd done out of the house
Speaker 1: away from my new child pen and I get the
Speaker 1: inclination of defend, protect. On the first day when my
Speaker 1: baby was born, there was some thought of infection, so
Speaker 1: they had to do a number of blood draws, and
Speaker 1: one of the nurses who was doing it wasn't doing
Speaker 1: a very good job, and he was crying, and they
Speaker 1: kept trying to stick him and kept hurting him, and
Speaker 1: he was crying more. I have not been so close
Speaker 1: to throwing a punch as I was in that moment
Speaker 1: since I was maybe twelve years old on a school playground.
Speaker 1: I didn't because I think it's good to restrain those things.
Speaker 1: But I very much get the human inclination of this
Speaker 1: is a child, this is my child. I love, I protect,
Speaker 1: I have to protect. People are hurting him, this has
Speaker 1: to stop. But I felt like I recognized, Yes, that
Speaker 1: is my feeling, and I don't think that's a good
Speaker 1: thing for me at least, Like yes, loving your own people,
Speaker 1: loving your child, loving your family, loving your tribe or
Speaker 1: clan or your group, whatever you want to describe it.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's a natural human inclination, and I think
Speaker 1: removing that entirely is wrong. But I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of the biggest problems we have in our society
Speaker 1: is when we go so far in that direction. Is
Speaker 1: when it's you know, the number of people who I
Speaker 1: know who make horrible economic decisions that hurt other people
Speaker 1: because they want to provide for their family or the
Speaker 1: you know, taking it larger, like, you know, I care
Speaker 1: about my neighborhood and so I don't want those people
Speaker 1: being helped. Or I care about my nation, you know,
Speaker 1: I want my nation to be great again, So fuck
Speaker 1: all those other people. To me. I really liked the
Speaker 1: that it was raising this idea of is there sometimes
Speaker 1: something valuable in saying our personal emotional connection to one
Speaker 1: person shouldn't necessarily trump the incredible bad thing that will
Speaker 1: happen to a much larger group of people.
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, let's talk about this I mean, you're
Speaker 2: if we go back to the idea of the trolley problem,
Speaker 2: m what this situation is is essentially one life versus
Speaker 2: I don't know, with the nineteen sixties for four billion,
Speaker 2: three billion.
Speaker 1: Something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, potentially, And yeah, that's that's kind of that's kind
Speaker 2: of the most extreme example, right right, Like maybe uh,
Speaker 2: maybe you just give up the one. But I think
Speaker 2: with this movie, like the heart of this portion that
Speaker 2: it's getting at is that as humans, as a family,
Speaker 2: like your imperative is to protect your family, right, And yes,
Speaker 2: there is a vision where you can say that humanity,
Speaker 2: like all of the humans of Earth, is one family.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. But mm hmm.
Speaker 2: But then like how do you how do you reckon
Speaker 2: with that that disparity? I guess that's the problem. It's
Speaker 2: it's a it's a weird situation because it's Galactus, because
Speaker 2: Galactus is so overwhelming and yes, he can just eat
Speaker 2: a planet, you can he can do destroy an entire planet.
Speaker 2: H I don't know. I don't know what the correct
Speaker 2: answer is. I think for a movie for heroes like this,
Speaker 2: and this is why I talk about reading a potential
Speaker 2: villain like this is his villain moment is that heroes
Speaker 2: in movies always have to protect as many people as possible,
Speaker 2: Like that is the directive, and that was like one
Speaker 2: of the things, to go back to the whole Superman.
Speaker 2: One of the things that made the Superman movie so
Speaker 2: delightful and uplifting was that the character of Superman just
Speaker 2: valued life right in general, right, like all lifely. He
Speaker 2: literally saved a squirrel in once, yeah, which was ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but I think it was ridiculous to make a point
Speaker 2: yeah about this character, and we we just immediately got it.
Speaker 2: Like I laughed and I was like, yep, okay, Like
Speaker 2: that's who this guy is, right, And in that same
Speaker 2: but opposite way, I think this moment is showing read
Speaker 2: like this is who Read Richards is.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He's ultimately convinced by Sue to fight Galactus and not
Speaker 2: give up their son. But the fact that he thinks
Speaker 2: about it, the fact that I don't know if he
Speaker 2: said it out loud or Sue like read him because
Speaker 2: she's she knows him so well, right, and she was like,
Speaker 2: you've you've thought about this, haven't you? You've considered it right, right,
Speaker 2: and and she's disgusted. Like that was such a powerful scene.
Speaker 2: She's disgusted because she knows him so well, and and
Speaker 2: like she reads his face and it's like, yes, he
Speaker 2: did think about this, but that's who he is, and
Speaker 2: that leads him to that leads him in other stories.
Speaker 2: And this is where I'll maybe expand the discussion where
Speaker 2: he makes decisions that you and I would consider bad,
Speaker 2: right evil, even because he them to be correct. He
Speaker 2: considers them to be the logical, correct, mathematical decision to
Speaker 2: navigate the situation with the least suffering the least loss
Speaker 2: of life overall. Right, he understands, like in this moment,
Speaker 2: like he's hurting people, he's violating human rights and such.
Speaker 2: Like one of the big things in the comic version
Speaker 2: of Civil War is read Richers was on the side
Speaker 2: of Tony Stark and registration, and he was locking people
Speaker 2: up who didn't superheroes who didn't register. I think it
Speaker 2: was villains at first, but then superheroes who didn't register.
Speaker 2: He's locking them up in the negative zone in a prison,
Speaker 2: violating their civil rights. And I think Sue Storm found
Speaker 2: out about this and basically left him at that point
Speaker 2: and joined Captain America side.
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, and this is so interesting to me, and
Speaker 1: I think show's a really interesting difference between us because
Speaker 1: in that scene where Sue is so disgusted that he
Speaker 1: would even consider it, to me, that's showing Sue's potential villainy,
Speaker 1: because I think it. To me, there's such an incredible
Speaker 1: selfishness of not even and such a danger of saying
Speaker 1: I value my family so much that to hell with
Speaker 1: everyone else, and I won't even consider this possibility that
Speaker 1: to me is the root of so much of what
Speaker 1: I see as evil. And to me, I feel like
Speaker 1: the story is at its best when there's tension there that.
Speaker 1: And again, I don't know if this is me and
Speaker 1: projecting what I want to see, but I feel like
Speaker 1: this idea of Read being the one who's a little
Speaker 1: too logical and and and too willing to just play
Speaker 1: the numbers game, and Sue being the one who's too
Speaker 1: emotional and only willing to look at like a protecting things,
Speaker 1: and that gets to some really bad gender stereotypes, which
Speaker 1: of course I don't want to avoid. But like, well, why.
Speaker 2: Sagan, I s I was saying, why avoid it?
Speaker 1: Why I avoid which part.
Speaker 2: The gender stereotypes? Oh? I mean, I think this is
Speaker 2: very much this is very much set up to playoff
Speaker 2: of that. I guess two Storm is literally the mother
Speaker 2: of Franklin, but also is considered the mother to this group, right,
Speaker 2: And I think that is one of the that is
Speaker 2: an important character dynamic.
Speaker 1: I think that's very true. I guess I'm I think
Speaker 1: the idea of having two parents, one of whom is
Speaker 1: more logical, one of whom is more emotional, and both
Speaker 1: to a potentially problematic degree, is a great story. I
Speaker 1: think there's been a societal idea of men are always
Speaker 1: more logical and intelligent and women are always more emotional.
Speaker 1: That is very problematic and very based on misogyny. And
Speaker 1: I just wouldn't want to see the story. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I would want a little bit of care that the
Speaker 1: story isn't seen as re upholding that narrative is all
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: Okay, but I guess I disagree. I don't know, Like
Speaker 2: I I see that all that dynamic play out and
Speaker 2: again like this is this is like this is where
Speaker 2: we disagree on this, Like I see reads intelligence as
Speaker 2: a negative in this moment. So yeah, I think it's
Speaker 2: okay for it to play out that way. And we
Speaker 2: have differing views on it.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm sorry, though I think we're having two
Speaker 1: different conversations at the same time. I'm always saying that
Speaker 1: the only part that I want to avoid is the
Speaker 1: idea that Read thinks that way because he's a man
Speaker 1: and Sue thinks that way because she's a woman. That's
Speaker 1: all I mean. I think read being, I think Read
Speaker 1: being to a degree of intelligence and Sue being to
Speaker 1: agree of emotion. And yeah, you and I can disagree
Speaker 1: on which one of those is more problematic, although I
Speaker 1: think I'm saying both can be problematic. All of that
Speaker 1: I don't want to avoid. I want to wrestle with
Speaker 1: that more and I think the movie does, and I'll
Speaker 1: get to that in a second. The only thing I
Speaker 1: was saying to avoid was just the the gender stereotype
Speaker 1: idea of it. That's all I meant.
Speaker 2: Okay, I guess I'm just a little confused because I
Speaker 2: think it is strongly playing off the gender staeotype. But
Speaker 2: you're like earlier, you said like that Red is the man,
Speaker 2: and he's logical and intelligent, and that's always that's that's better,
Speaker 2: Like that's what society considers better versus emotionality. And I
Speaker 2: think what this movie, to me, was saying is like,
Speaker 2: that's terrible, right, what he's doing, what he's considering, is terrible,
Speaker 2: and we should side with Sue.
Speaker 1: I think it is, but I think but I think
Speaker 1: the so I think for me, the pivotal scene is
Speaker 1: where Sue then goes before the public and says, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna consider giving up my baby, no matter
Speaker 1: what you guys put on me. But also I'm not
Speaker 1: going to sacrifice you either, And to me, that's her
Speaker 1: making a step towards where Reid is with him also
Speaker 1: because I think, like to me, I think I think
Speaker 1: the movie is more on sue side, and I'm disagreeing
Speaker 1: with that, but no, I'm definitely not saying I think
Speaker 1: Reid is better in that regard. I think in that
Speaker 1: one scene, I don't think there's something villainous about Reed.
Speaker 1: I guess I think there's nothing villainous about considering an option.
Speaker 1: Like to me, Reid is willing to look in an
Speaker 1: option that see Sue is not willing to even consider,
Speaker 1: and I feel like by the time she talks to
Speaker 1: the public, she is more willing to consider that. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a change. And I think Reid is
Speaker 1: also more willing to understand why him even phrasing this
Speaker 1: as a potential option in purely logical terms hurts Sue,
Speaker 1: Like it feels to me like both of them take
Speaker 1: a step towards each other rather than one being right
Speaker 1: or the other being wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's correct. I think that's an important
Speaker 2: part of their dynamic, right in general and in this movie,
Speaker 2: is that they are very different people, and they come
Speaker 2: at situations like this from different directions, and it is
Speaker 2: their ability to discuss it and potentially compromise or at
Speaker 2: least like listen to the other perspective, and then reach
Speaker 2: a solution together, right, whether they whether they both agree
Speaker 2: with it or not. And again, like the times I
Speaker 2: think that Reid gets himself into trouble with situations like
Speaker 2: this in the comics is when he just does things
Speaker 2: on his own and doesn't talk to Sue, and then
Speaker 2: Sue finds out what he's been doings like what are
Speaker 2: you doing? Like why didn't you talk to me?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And sometimes his reasoning is like I was too buried
Speaker 2: in my experiments. Sometimes it's like I knew you wouldn't
Speaker 2: you wouldn't consider it all right, Like so it's like
Speaker 2: the times when he ignores her or like doesn't bring
Speaker 2: her into the discussion, that he really gets himself in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let's now go back to There are two
Speaker 1: things you said that I wanted to harp on. The first,
Speaker 1: I'll just mention this. You talked about Superman rescuing the
Speaker 1: squirrel and how essential that is. There's a scene in
Speaker 1: Superman and Lois, last of the CW shows about Superman
Speaker 1: that I keep raving about. And forgive me this will
Speaker 1: be a small spoiler, but there's a moment early in
Speaker 1: one of the seasons where you know, he has this
Speaker 1: kind of official working relationship with the American government, and
Speaker 1: because the Americans have this, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: the Walker plotline, although she's not involved, but the sort
Speaker 1: of like, you know, using Superman to fight extraterrestrial threats.
Speaker 2: But sorry, what do you mean by Walker plotline?
Speaker 1: I mean, sorry, not Walker Waller, Amanda Waller. Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: And at one point he hears people in a submarine
Speaker 1: screaming in terror because the submarine has had a breach
Speaker 1: and the submarine's going to sink and everyone's going to die,
Speaker 1: and without a second thought, he flies off and he
Speaker 1: rescues the submarine, and he then gets back and is
Speaker 1: with the people at the American government American military again,
Speaker 1: talking about how they're going to work together, and they say,
Speaker 1: we're kind of pissed at you because that was a
Speaker 1: North Korean submarine. And he is so clearly baffled at
Speaker 1: this idea that like the flag on the sub should
Speaker 1: have changed whether or not he saved people. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that, because you're right, it's his. To me,
Speaker 1: it's another sign of like reshing the squirrel, of like
Speaker 1: he doesn't want people to die, and he's not going
Speaker 1: to care about who those people are or what flag
Speaker 1: they're under or what it is. It's if they're you know.
Speaker 1: And and we talked about this quite a lot in
Speaker 1: our Superman episode, which people can hear an episode or
Speaker 1: two back. You know, his perspective is, sure, there's all
Speaker 1: this complicated politics, but if people are gonna die, I'm
Speaker 1: going to stop them from dying. The other thing that
Speaker 1: you talked about, and I think this is an essential
Speaker 1: part of the Final four Trolley problem really, and part
Speaker 1: of where I wish I'd understood it better is the
Speaker 1: degree to which as official heroes, and it does seem
Speaker 1: in final four, they're kind of like officially recognized and
Speaker 1: given some legal sanction to do what they do. Do
Speaker 1: you have a higher responsibility towards the greater good and
Speaker 1: versus your own personal interests? And let me pose to
Speaker 1: you is I will admit a trolley problem, but at
Speaker 1: least I think closer to the realm of possibility. And
Speaker 1: I know there have been situations like this that have happened,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure exactly what the training is. But
Speaker 1: a fighter, a firefighter, an EMT is in a situation
Speaker 1: where in one room is a person they have, you know,
Speaker 1: their wife, their child, their parents, someone like that, and
Speaker 1: another room is a group of five strangers and they
Speaker 1: really have time to kind of like rescue the one
Speaker 1: or rescue the group. I think if it's a normal person,
Speaker 1: I think you're right, you're gonna go rescue the person
Speaker 1: you know and try to be a good person to
Speaker 1: the others. But if you don't, it's understandable. Do you
Speaker 1: think that a person who is basically hired by the
Speaker 1: government to save people is opposed to forego their personal
Speaker 1: allegiance to the person they love and know to save
Speaker 1: the greater number.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, give an answer. I think like that's probably
Speaker 2: part of training, but it is also part of I
Speaker 2: would assume it's part of like not putting yourself in situations, right.
Speaker 1: It's one most firefighters don't work in the neighborhood that
Speaker 1: their family lives avoid exactly that situation. And that's why
Speaker 1: you often say police officers should recuse themselves from cases
Speaker 1: that involved exactly which never happens, unfortunately. But and so
Speaker 1: I guess to me, that's the other reason why I
Speaker 1: want them to at least I have sympathy at least
Speaker 1: for the people of the world when they get angry
Speaker 1: at them, because it feels to me like in this
Speaker 1: unlike maybe say Captain America, once he's gone rogue, they
Speaker 1: have officially given the final the Fantastic four, that permission
Speaker 1: and assignment of You are hired by us to be
Speaker 1: these people, and therefore there's a higher responsibility to put
Speaker 1: aside their personal connection to Franklin to save the greater good.
Speaker 1: Is that an accurate reading you think of? Well, actually
Speaker 1: gonna say, is that to you? That does that, to
Speaker 1: your mind change the moral calculus at work here?
Speaker 2: I don't know if it changes the moral calculus I
Speaker 2: agree with the idea that they should not be the
Speaker 2: decision makers in this situation because they are. They are
Speaker 2: compromised by their relationship with their son, and you like
Speaker 2: this is one of those Star Wars the Force Awakens issues,
Speaker 2: by which I mean this movie presents a new world,
Speaker 2: a new situation and just like Sprinkles some things, but
Speaker 2: doesn't explain enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, So when we get in the Force Awakens, we
Speaker 2: don't really understand the relationship between the First Order and
Speaker 2: the Resistance, and like the official New Republic government and
Speaker 2: the movies themselves never fully flesh that out, which is
Speaker 2: a huge issue. And here in this movie Fantastic Four,
Speaker 2: it's the same thing. Like they tell us that sous
Speaker 2: Storm has established the Future Foundation, which is very different
Speaker 2: from what it is in the comics, and it appears
Speaker 2: to be some kind of United Nations. And they mentioned
Speaker 2: that they got everyone question Mark to agree to disarmament
Speaker 2: except for that area I guess.
Speaker 1: But which is Doctor Doom's nation.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, yeah, but it if you think too much
Speaker 2: about it, like it doesn't make sense or not enough
Speaker 2: is explained. Because this is the nineteen sixties, we know
Speaker 2: what was going on in the sixties in the real world,
Speaker 2: and it's like, how much did the existence how much
Speaker 2: could the existence of the Fantastic Four change? You know,
Speaker 2: the Cold War? Right, because the USSR exists on one
Speaker 2: of those maps where they're tracking all of the gates
Speaker 2: for the teleportation device, the USSR exists. East and West
Speaker 2: Berlin are listed as separate cities, so like Germany is divided,
Speaker 2: So the Cold War or like the situation the politics
Speaker 2: of that does exist in this world. And yet the
Speaker 2: Future Foundation has gotten everyone to agree to disarm, right,
Speaker 2: and it's it's not explained enough, and that leads to
Speaker 2: this problem of how and why does everyone in the
Speaker 2: world agree to this plan and just like have put
Speaker 2: their faith in the Fantastic War. I think, like big picture,
Speaker 2: that's the biggest problem I have with this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that did feel that did feel really out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, that there's so much public buy into them,
Speaker 1: and and yeah, that the raises the interesting questions as
Speaker 1: well about is the kind of North Korea issue that
Speaker 1: I talked about Superman, Like, I can imagine a situation
Speaker 1: with the Final Four, why do I keep calling them that?
Speaker 1: I can imagine a situation with a Fantastic four, you know,
Speaker 1: like go to Chernobyl to stop the meltdown, you know,
Speaker 1: and like how do does the American government get mad
Speaker 1: about that or something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I I really thought going into the final act,
Speaker 2: when they start activating the portals, that the issue was
Speaker 2: going to be that some one singular nation, whether it's
Speaker 2: like the US, the Soviet Union, or in this case
Speaker 2: probably lat very like one nation is just like, you
Speaker 2: know what, we're gonna We're not going to activate our portal.
Speaker 2: We're gonna peace out because we've decided, like we don't
Speaker 2: buy into this plan. And that didn't happen. They went
Speaker 2: with something else. But that's what I felt was missing.
Speaker 2: I guess is just Sue makes one speech. As you said,
Speaker 2: it was a good speech, it was well delivered, well written.
Speaker 2: But she makes a speech to a mob outside the
Speaker 2: Baxter building. There's like maybe one hundred people there, and
Speaker 2: I guess it was also recorded and televised. But that
Speaker 2: convinces everyone, right, I wanted more and I think there
Speaker 2: was probably something. So here I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: what was missing, literally missing in the movie, which is
Speaker 2: the Red Ghost, which is John Malcovich's character, which was
Speaker 2: filmed He was in the very first trailer, So that's
Speaker 2: why we're like, what happened to the Red Ghost? He
Speaker 2: was a Soviet scientist who had super apes and also
Speaker 2: like went up in a rocket ship and got bombarded
Speaker 2: with cosmic rays and became a super villain, and he's
Speaker 2: supposed to be in this movie. And that's why I thought, like, oh, like,
Speaker 2: they probably have something with the Soviet Union where they
Speaker 2: have a disagreement and they have to like convince him
Speaker 2: right in the same way that they talked to the
Speaker 2: mole Man, which was great, And I think that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of a component where I wish there had been more,
Speaker 2: is like talking to someone who in our world is
Speaker 2: like politically opposed right and convincing them of this plan.
Speaker 1: I could see. That has been really interesting, and especially
Speaker 1: kind of framing that against like, you know, who, where
Speaker 1: is this public buy in, because it felt like in
Speaker 1: terms of the Fantastic Four and who they're buying is
Speaker 1: and who you know. Obviously this movie is made in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, but it felt like it was very
Speaker 1: inspired by, or at least very like kind of coded
Speaker 1: by influencer culture of today, because it felt like there
Speaker 1: wasn't quite the like we as a United Nations have
Speaker 1: officially voted to make you our representatives, but kind of
Speaker 1: like we give you all this like adelation and attention
Speaker 1: and because we are looking to you as that. And
Speaker 1: I talked about this also on the Next Real podcast,
Speaker 1: which is more of just a film review podcast, but
Speaker 1: one of the other people in there Kyle, I think
Speaker 1: it was Kyle, who was a huge mcu buff. He
Speaker 1: made the point that a lot of the time that
Speaker 1: the Fantastic Four, they don't want to be heroes, they
Speaker 1: want to be scientists, they want to be explorers. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of time it's not that they're like
Speaker 1: they're not the EMTs of the world. It's just that
Speaker 1: because they have these powers, everyone expects them to go
Speaker 1: rescue people and go fight the big bad and so
Speaker 1: they're kind of like, Okay, fine, we'll do it, but
Speaker 1: then please can you leave us alone and let us
Speaker 1: go explore you know, whatever pocket dimension or thing we
Speaker 1: want to do next.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Johnny very much. That's his character. Part
Speaker 2: of his character is that he wants to be back
Speaker 2: in space. He wants to be an astronaut again for sure.
Speaker 1: All Right, so we've gone off on a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of tangents and stuff. But let's get back to
Speaker 1: the main question that you'd kind of brought up, could
Speaker 1: read could Read become a villain? So my understanding of
Speaker 1: it is that in the comics it's this kind of
Speaker 1: like the hyper intelligence and the hyper awareness of every threat.
Speaker 1: Is it kind of like an Iron Man Ultron thing
Speaker 1: where it's sort of like he he wants to do
Speaker 1: more and more to prevent threats, but by doing so,
Speaker 1: he's restricting people more and more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but worse. Okay, So oh, let's let's see how
Speaker 2: quickly I can can get through this. And this is
Speaker 2: important for like mcu lower as well, because the next
Speaker 2: Avengers movie, which is only two movies away, is Doomsday,
Speaker 2: which will lead into Secret Wars, and the read Richards
Speaker 2: like plays a huge part in Secret Wars in the comics,
Speaker 2: and we'll have to see like how much they adapt this.
Speaker 2: But you're familiar with the Ultimate Universe right now, Okay,
Speaker 2: So there's a multiverse, right and in that multiverse, the
Speaker 2: primary Earth that most of Marvel stuff takes place in
Speaker 2: is called Earth six one six. That's just the number
Speaker 2: that was given. And then this movie Fantastic four calls
Speaker 2: the Fantastic four Earth eight to eight, right, so that
Speaker 2: they're using that nomenclature. M. The Ultimate Universe, I believe
Speaker 2: is sixteen ten, and it was first published I think
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands. Is like a full reset,
Speaker 2: like here are familiar characters, here are the Avengers, but
Speaker 2: they're different, they were edgier. It was very two thousands.
Speaker 2: In the very first issue, I remember, the Incredible Hulk
Speaker 2: is rampaging through the city because his former, his ex
Speaker 2: girlfriend Betty Ross is on a date with Freddy Prince Junior.
Speaker 2: That's the flavor that the Ultimate Universe opened with. And
Speaker 2: every character is just like a little bit edgier, a
Speaker 2: little darker, like so two thousands and read Richards in
Speaker 2: this universe is the very saying like his backstory is
Speaker 2: very similar to the twenty fifteen fant for Stick movie
Speaker 2: in that he is abused unfortunately as child by his
Speaker 2: father and this leads him like down a darker path overall,
Speaker 2: and what ends up happening with him is that he
Speaker 2: becomes a villain and and because of his abuse, because
Speaker 2: of and because of decisions he makes, Like I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to say like that's the only reason but it
Speaker 2: definitely sets him on this darker path. And then he
Speaker 2: continues to make bad decisions, which ultimately leads to Sue
Speaker 2: Storm rejecting his marriage proposal, and in a very like
Speaker 2: in self fashion, like he keeps coming back to this
Speaker 2: and and and blaming her for what he's become. But
Speaker 2: also like when the multiverse opens up and he visits
Speaker 2: other earths and sees the read richers in those earth
Speaker 2: married to Sue Storm with two kids, like a happy
Speaker 2: family man, like that also triggers him right, like that
Speaker 2: that's what he could have.
Speaker 1: Had, right, and of course it must be her fault
Speaker 1: that you didn't have it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well very much. It's not like he he continued,
Speaker 2: like he chooses villainy at each of the inflection points,
Speaker 2: and he ends up becoming he changes his name to
Speaker 2: the Maker.
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
Speaker 2: He sets up what's it called. It's not the Future Foundation,
Speaker 2: it's the Children of Tomorrow. He sets up like he
Speaker 2: sets up the city and creates like a time bubble
Speaker 2: in this structure, and basically like lives for ten thousand
Speaker 2: years I think within the bubble because his that's how
Speaker 2: his body was affected by the cosmic rays. His head
Speaker 2: expands kind of like Leader esque because he uses his
Speaker 2: stretchy powers to like expand his head in his brain
Speaker 2: and so he like makes his brain bigger with his powers.
Speaker 2: He becomes the Maker, and in like those ten thousand
Speaker 2: years he he goes like full eugenics and creates the
Speaker 2: children of Tomorrow who are like super smart, but also
Speaker 2: just continues like to imprint and be devoid of humanity,
Speaker 2: I would say, right, and he becomes this villain and
Speaker 2: in the Secret Wars, like he continues to do villainous
Speaker 2: things like very important, like doctor Doom is gonna be important,
Speaker 2: Like that's what they're setting up obviously the next movies
Speaker 2: called Doomsday. But I think, like post like leading into
Speaker 2: Secret Wars and then post Secret Wars, that this if
Speaker 2: they defeat Doom, there that the Maker could be like
Speaker 2: a setup for a villain for the next major Avengers arc.
Speaker 2: And I really like Pedro Pascal. People talk about how like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's in everything, but he's in everything because he's good, right,
Speaker 2: Let's not forget that. And I think it would be
Speaker 2: absolutely fascinating to see him lay this character as a
Speaker 2: hero for the next three or four movies and then
Speaker 2: but see the cracks see like that Anakin turn, and
Speaker 2: that's why I love that that scene where he tells
Speaker 2: Franklin there's something wrong with me, Like if that's the
Speaker 2: first hint of future makerdom and I'm like, oh, that
Speaker 2: could be really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have complicated feelings on this. I we're
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Like I said to me, there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with me, felt more my brain like. It felt
Speaker 1: more like acknowledging problems and acknowledging like something like bad
Speaker 1: or evil or villainous. But it certainly could go in
Speaker 1: that direction. I could see that, and I think at
Speaker 1: some point we are gonna do an episode about mental
Speaker 1: illness as a cause for villainy and that. But I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that plot lets me about the direction. I
Speaker 1: think I would be all four something like that, because
Speaker 1: I definitely think the I am constantly looking at threats
Speaker 1: and there were thinking that I need to fix this.
Speaker 1: My only thought is I do think that that's been
Speaker 1: done to some extent with Tony Stark, and so I'd
Speaker 1: want to make sure it feels fundamentally different than the
Speaker 1: Ultron kind of storyline. And it does. From what you're describing,
Speaker 1: it does sound like it's fairly different here, if.
Speaker 2: I may, like, here's the difference. Tony Stark was reflexive,
Speaker 2: as heroes often are, and he did like frame it
Speaker 2: as a like a what was it a armor or shield?
Speaker 1: I want to around the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's it's still creating. That suit of armor
Speaker 2: is proactive, but armor itself is defensive, right right. The
Speaker 2: issue that arises with Read Richards as the Maker is
Speaker 2: that he starts what is it he like time travels
Speaker 2: and changes history, so he very much goes down that
Speaker 2: that pre crime type deal to the point where he
Speaker 2: is like proactively altering characters, biographies, and history to suit
Speaker 2: his needs and what he believes to be the needs
Speaker 2: of the world, right, which increasingly grows more and more selfish.
Speaker 2: Yeah right. I think like a lot of characters we
Speaker 2: see like this begin very altruistically, like in Justice Superman
Speaker 2: of like I'm going to do this to like stop war,
Speaker 2: to stop crime, to save lives. But then as it continues,
Speaker 2: it is revealed or becomes more so that it's just selfish,
Speaker 2: selfish motivation like lashing out or just making things better
Speaker 2: for themselves, like in one of one of the stories
Speaker 2: Read or the Maker, like Read Richards as the Maker
Speaker 2: tortures another read Richard's, and convinces him that he's doctor Doom.
Speaker 2: He takes, he takes like a fundamentally good person, like
Speaker 2: in this universe, like he's a good read Richards. And
Speaker 2: he tortures him, he keeps calling him Doom like, disfigures him,
Speaker 2: puts him in the mask, like your name is Doom,
Speaker 2: you are Doom. You're bad and soil like it. Just
Speaker 2: like he sinks in, he becomes Doom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that can be really interesting to watch.
Speaker 1: I think I don't see that. Like when you said, oh,
Speaker 1: this movie kind of might be setting up Read as
Speaker 1: a villain, I was deeply confused. And I think it
Speaker 1: comes down to that I don't see anything villainous in
Speaker 1: either what he says to Franklin or the fact that
Speaker 1: he considers the option, and so I hope that they
Speaker 1: don't base it off of that. I do think though,
Speaker 1: and this is a whole other question that we haven't
Speaker 1: really gotten into because the movie doesn't even touch it.
Speaker 1: But I think another additional question that I hope the
Speaker 1: movies cann explore later is, you know, they kind of
Speaker 1: just send Galactus off somewhere else, and yes, that does
Speaker 1: mean that eventually it's like to the far end of
Speaker 1: the universe. So it's gonna be an awful long time
Speaker 1: before he gets back to Earth. But he's presumably gonna
Speaker 1: find some other planets they put him in the past.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some other group of people who are
Speaker 1: now in danger because they're far enough away from Earth
Speaker 1: there where now Galactus is now and maybe we can
Speaker 1: take Glacus a while to get there, but he's gonna
Speaker 1: get there. And at first I did think that it
Speaker 1: was gonna be something where like they send him to
Speaker 1: the six one six, and that's why they have to,
Speaker 1: that's why they kind of wind up meeting up with
Speaker 1: our heroes from the rest of the MCUs because they're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we sent you Galactus. Oops, let's go deal with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I thought that's something like that was.
Speaker 1: Going to happen, right, or that if they used all
Speaker 1: of those, if their original plan had worked, they were
Speaker 1: gonna send their Earth to the six one six. Whatever
Speaker 1: it was gonna be. Yeah, but I could see something
Speaker 1: where he is in some way there are consequences and
Speaker 1: other people you suffer and die, and maybe another planet
Speaker 1: is eaten because of the decisions they made to protect
Speaker 1: not only Franklin but their own planet. And it's that
Speaker 1: where he's like, oh my gosh, we should have dealt
Speaker 1: with these consequences. You know, look what happened when I
Speaker 1: listened to Sue's emotions and the emotions of the world,
Speaker 1: and that's what takes him into this kind of maybe
Speaker 1: I should be the one making the decisions and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't trust anyone else, because I do think that that's
Speaker 1: the Like I said, I am afraid of both over
Speaker 1: intellectualism and sentimentality, and I think there's and as much
Speaker 1: as I sort of in that moment am more on
Speaker 1: Reid's side, I do definitely see the possibility of him
Speaker 1: becoming that like pure logic utilitarianism says that we should
Speaker 1: do it this way, and no one else agrees with me,
Speaker 1: but I know that I'm right, So I'm just going
Speaker 1: to take over. And you know, to me, that's we
Speaker 1: said on this podcast a lot that like the best
Speaker 1: villains are off at least I feel like this, the
Speaker 1: best villains are the ones who believe they're the good guys.
Speaker 1: And then I think that's true of most of the
Speaker 1: most villainous people in history, not all by any means,
Speaker 1: but certainly an awful lot. You know, Hitler generally believed
Speaker 1: he was doing good things for Germany and for the world.
Speaker 1: He was completely wrong obviously. So yeah, so I think
Speaker 1: that could be a very incient direction for read to go.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily see anything in this movie setting it up,
Speaker 1: but I just don't have the background you do. So
Speaker 1: I'm very interest to see if we do go in
Speaker 1: that direction. I certain wouldn't be opposed to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I don't think this was a setup. Yep,
Speaker 2: by any means to me, I wasn't even a hint
Speaker 2: of this, but it was something that being familiar with
Speaker 2: his comic book history and that the movie people are aware.
Speaker 2: Like I said, the twenty to fifteen Fanta for Stick
Speaker 2: very much leaned into his origin in the Ultimate Universe, right,
Speaker 2: And I don't know that they were setting him up
Speaker 2: in that way because I think that movie came out
Speaker 2: the same year the Secret Wars came out in comics,
Speaker 2: so the full history of the Maker wasn't even really
Speaker 2: written written out yet. Yeah, but they were kind of
Speaker 2: going obviously that movie was going in a darker direction
Speaker 2: with these people and I'm glad that this new one
Speaker 2: first steps goes in a brighter, optimistic direction. But again,
Speaker 2: like it's it's like the Star Wars prequels, like if
Speaker 2: we like watching that, we know that Anakin Skywalker is
Speaker 2: going to become Darth Vader. So maybe it's like it's
Speaker 2: a little two on the nose when they do those
Speaker 2: things and they have the light motif of the the
Speaker 2: Imperial March, and you know, Palpatine is like, we will
Speaker 2: be watching your career with great interest. It's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: because he's gonna be Darth Vader, we get right. But
Speaker 2: if they if they set it up in the same
Speaker 2: way but without us actually knowing if he's getting enough
Speaker 2: to make her and just like kind of creep it
Speaker 2: forward like inch by inch, I think we could get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. And so in my Star Wars Generations podcast,
Speaker 1: one of the things we often talk about is how
Speaker 1: differently people of our generation who grew up watching Vader
Speaker 1: view the prequels compared to people who grew up with
Speaker 1: the prequels and may have known on some level that
Speaker 1: he's going to become Vader, but also like at six
Speaker 1: years old, eight years old, how much you're thinking about
Speaker 1: those things, and in that regard, I think I'll be
Speaker 1: really interested to see more of this story as someone
Speaker 1: who hasn't read those comic books, like I don't have
Speaker 1: any knowledge of him becoming the Maker beyond this conversation
Speaker 1: you and I have just had, so that'll be like
Speaker 1: I've never seen the Maker on screen the way i'd
Speaker 1: seen Vader on screen before watching Anakin. So yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot to discuss. This has been great, Reeky, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for bringing this topic up. Listeners has always
Speaker 1: let us know what you think we'll want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. Please check out all the other podcasts that
Speaker 1: I do on the True STORYFM Family podcasts. Riky was
Speaker 1: both Riki and Sarah Hayashi, Rieky's partner, were on the
Speaker 1: Star Wars podcasts for quite a while, hopefully getting back
Speaker 1: both as guests some point soon. I'm also on Marvel
Speaker 1: Movie Minute at the moment, discussing the second Thor movie
Speaker 1: and desperately trying to find things to like in that movie.
Speaker 1: And every now and then I do find one or two,
Speaker 1: and we'll say, I try to be funny, but the
Speaker 1: things you don't like. But yeah, please check all those out.
Speaker 1: Please send us your email, Please sign up for hear
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Speaker 1: and most importantly, may the force few with you.
Speaker 2: It's collaborate time.