Mission: Impossible - The Reckoning of Cinema - Below the Line Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Be inspired to do things differently.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the show.
This is Below the Line podcast brought to you by the nobodies
of Hollywood. I'm Dylan.
And I'm Jesse. Well, in case you haven't
figured it out by now, or in case nobody saw our posts on
Blue Sky, the season finale is actually a 2 parter.

(00:35):
That's right, folks. This is Blowline Podcast episode
25, The Final Reckoning Part 2. Yes.
So if you didn't see episode 24 and you're listening to this
now, pause, go back, listen to episode 24, and then come back
here. In retrospect, you should have

(00:56):
known that it would be a 2 parter if you listen to episode
24, but as Tom Cruise would say,we'll burn that bridge when we
get to it. Exactly.
And if you're new here, hey, welcome to the show.
Well, it's kind of weird that you're finding us here on on our
season finale, but hey, we have 25 episodes for you to go

(01:17):
through. Yeah.
So welcome to the show. This is, you know, season
finale, but not the finale. We'll we will be back.
Yes, we will. And like Jesse said, we have 25
episodes for you to catch up on,so even if you are joining us on
episode 25, there's plenty of stuff for you to sift through.

(01:40):
Yup, like yeah, I get all the lore, like no all like the
behind the scene details and like the build up that's going
to be coming up towards season 2of Below Line podcast.
Yes. And before we really get into
it, I would just like to say to all of the listeners out there
of the show, I would like you, if you can, to send in your top

(02:04):
five moments of season 1. You can send them to me through
DMS on Instagram, TikTok or BlueSky.
Or if you are an absolutely blessed individual that has my
phone number, you can just text them to me.
But send me your top five moments of Season 1 because I

(02:30):
have a really cool idea that I want to put together.
Yeah, that'd be cool to see. Yeah, folks send them in like
let us know what are your, what are the top five moments of this
show? Cause for sure we've had some
highlights. I know for a fact we've had some
highlights on this show. Yes, we have.

(02:51):
All right, so to round out this episode, we're going to we're
going to get back into Mission Impossible and rather than like,
you know, rehash everything again, we're just going to very
briefly go over the films one more time just to like, you
know, it's been a week. You might have already forgotten
how each movie went. So we're just going to go by

(03:13):
them real quick, just to just refreshing your memory.
Here we go speed round Mission Impossible one spy, espionage
lone wolf Ethan Hunt. That's the main story or is that
the main the main gimmick of that of that that movie Mission
Impossible 2, the the only dud in Mission Impossible see the

(03:37):
only like not bad movie, but it's it's the only not good
movie. Yeah, it's because of the the
stylistic choice that they went.And interesting tidbit, Tom
Cruise was the one who actually sought out that director.
So it's not like the studios like planned for this movie to
go the way it did. Tom Cruise wanted that stylistic
choice. It just, you know, it didn't, it

(03:59):
didn't hit. Sorry, another interesting piece
of trivia about MI 2 is the original cut was 3 hours and 5
minutes long, but the studio demanded that they cut it down
to under 2. You know, I bet you the movie
would have been better if it was3 hours.
You know what if they cut off, they probably cut out all the
substance and that's why it was just die over substance in this

(04:21):
movie. Maybe.
Yeah, maybe. Because, you know, as we get
down like later movies. It's possible.
You can't. They they can and did make a
good three hour long Mission Impossible movie.
They did it twice. Yeah, they did.
So it is possible, but yes I guess they didn't.
The studios didn't trust the franchise to be what it would
become later. But anyways, Mission Impossible

(04:43):
3, one of the best movies, the stakes are personal for Ethan
Hunt. So this is where we finally
start to humanize the character that is Ethan Hunt.
He's not just a nameless spy, he's spy, but he's got feelings.
Mission Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol.

(05:03):
This is my favorite one, Dylan'sfavorite one.
This is where shit goes down thethe IMF is disbanded and we
really have to see how Ethan Hunt and his team actually
operate as a team to stop the global threat.
Mission Impossible 5 Rogue Nation, This is where we have
one of the smartest villains in that he he's able to predict and

(05:30):
make Ethan Hunt actually struggle in terms of like in
terms in terms of intelligence, because Ethan Hunt is a very
intelligent character and he's able to just think, think on the
fly of what solutions need to bedone.
But in Rogue Nation, this is where we finally have like a
villain who matches him and waitfor wit and is like more

(05:51):
calculated than him. Yes.
Then we got Mission Impossible 6Fallout again, this is this is
kind of like a direct continuation of Rogue Nation in
that whatever happened in Rogue Nation has direct consequences
in Fallout. So a lot of these movies, I can
kind of say, hey, if you've never seen a Mission Impossible
movie, just watch this one. I can't see that for Fallout,

(06:14):
you kind of have to watch Rogue Nation in order to understand
Fallout. And same thing for the final two
movies. You have to have watched Mission
Impossible 7, The Reckoning, before you see Mission
Impossible Eight, Final Reckoning.
But OK, let me talk about those two movies real quick.
Dead Reckoning, that's where we introduced the element of AI and
technological warfare, which is contained within that story and

(06:38):
followed up in Final Reckoning. So that's the quick breakdown of
all these movies. Again, if you want the full
explanation, just go to episode 24, or better yet, watch the
movies and then watch episode 24and then come back here.
Yeah, that's an even better idea, I would say.

(06:59):
Yeah, but don't be like me. Don't, don't binge them in a
week because once you binge likesomething like really, really
fucking awesome, it, it kind of sucks.
Once you're done with it, it does it.
Yeah. If I had, I think if I had taken
my time with these movies and watched them over the course of
a month or maybe like 6 months or whatever, I would have had

(07:20):
more time to stick with each film.
I think that would have been thebetter way to go.
But then to just like, binge them all for the first time.
Dude, even when I rewatched themearlier this summer, when I
finished them, I had this weird hollow feeling afterwards
because I just had so much fun watching these movies that

(07:45):
afterwards I just didn't know what to do with myself.
Yeah, I don't think I've watcheda movie at night since.
I've just been watching TV showsbecause it's like nothing is
going to give me that feeling again, right?
And I also, I could watch Transformers for like the fifth
time this summer, but I'm savingthat, yeah.

(08:09):
I wonder why? Intent foreshadowing, ladies and
gentlemen. Yes, just a little bit.
Okay, so last week we got into the summaries and we talked
about the villains. This time we're gonna get We're
going to give you guys a deeper dive.
This is what this is on YouTube,which will be This is what we

(08:30):
would call a video essay about Mission Impossible.
Yes, except there is no essay. This is just straight from the
Dome with minimal notes. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
And that's why it's called the Podcast Guys.
Exactly. All right, so I guess where I'm
going to start off 1st is let's,let's let's start with Ethan

(08:50):
Hunt because he's, he is the, here's the heart of this, this
franchise. And without Ethan Hunt, we can't
really talk about the others because everybody else is in
relation to Ethan Hunt, whether it's Luther, Benji, my BAE, Elsa
Faust, you know, as great as they are, they're all tied to

(09:10):
Ethan Hunt. So let's, let's dive into Ethan
Hunt for a bit. What do you think makes Ethan
Hunt, I guess what's the word I'm looking for transcendental
in the in the franchise in termsof all the movies are based
around him and yet none of them feel, you know, boring.

(09:34):
Yeah. It's almost as if like, there's
a lot of heart that goes into the character.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of heart with Ethan Hunt.
One of the most fascinating things about the Mission
Impossible franchise to me is, like I said in episode 24, is

(09:56):
it's sort of artistic, thematic and aesthetic evolution over the
course of its existence, over the course of nearly 3 decades.
But when it comes to Ethan Hunt specifically, I think they've
done something very interesting with him because he begins the

(10:20):
franchise as a sort of, as you said, a lone wolf spy.
He's very much, I think, acting on his own, and he's
inexperienced, especially in thefirst movie.
You can tell he's not even the one that receives the initial
mission, it's Jim Phelps. So we see Ethan Hunt for the

(10:45):
first time as a very capable field man, but he's not the the
person in charge of these IMF missions.
He's not the one leading these missions yet.
And as the franchise progresses,Ethan slowly becomes more and

(11:05):
more human because I think at the beginning of this franchise,
it's easy to chalk him up as anysort of stoic action hero,
especially in Mission Impossibletwo, he has a relationship with
Naya. But like I said, I just, I don't
buy it. I don't think there's any

(11:25):
genuine emotion or story to thatdynamic there.
I think it's clearly just a a femme fatale situation of mutual
attraction. But starting with Mission
Impossible Three, we start to see the turning point, and I
think this movie is actually what sets up the character arc

(11:49):
for Ethan over the rest of the franchise really, I would say.
And that is can Ethan Hunt live a normal life doing what he
does? Because it it obviously seems
like the clear answer is no, butit's still something that all of
these movies wrestle with in different ways by addressing

(12:11):
different aspects of his life, like his friends.
Because, and I think this is something that's explored the
best in Mission Impossible Fallout is Ethan really tries to
balance. And the last two films actually,
I think do this really well, is how does Ethan Hunt balance

(12:35):
valuing the lives of his team members and the people he cares
for, even though he can never truly love someone or be
completely connected to them? How does he balance caring and
saving the lives of the people he cares about with this

(12:59):
ultimate responsibility of always being the person to save
the world because he has the conviction to do what's
necessary when no one else does?I think that's his character arc
over the course of these 8 movies.
And it's interesting because I don't think that was the goal

(13:21):
when the first movie came out. I think it's something that they
just sort of were able to find. Like you said, once we reach
Mission Impossible 3, Ghost Protocol and then by Rogue
Nation, I think it becomes apparent that that is who Ethan
is. Right, No, I get that.

(13:43):
I think one of the OR yeah, one of the biggest imagine is it the
biggest bike one like the best things about Ethan Hunt is just
the way he's portrayed just as acharacter and a human being.
It's funny because it's not thathe's compassionate and like he
or I mean, he is compassionate, but he doesn't show it.

(14:03):
It's that he, he is someone who values human agency and human
life above all else and above his own life.
So he ends up being like the onewho, who, who can make that
ultimate self sacrifice because he, everything he does is for
like the betterment of the world.
Not, not, not, not necessarily abetterment for himself.

(14:25):
And we see we never meet. Yeah, like we we see that
throughout every film where I think by the like in the third
movie, he he he could have had like a happy life, like with
Julia, the way it ended, he could have, he was already a
semi retired. He could have fully retired, but
but he didn't because he's drawnback into this life because
that's just ultimately, ultimately what he believes in.

(14:48):
He believes in being someone whocan protect the world even when
even when everybody is against them.
And in these movies, everybody seems to be against them,
including his own. Like, not, not his, not his
personal team, but like even hisown agency, his own.
Government. Yeah, his own.
Government doesn't trust them, the CIA.
Yeah, after all of that, which is funny because after all, like

(15:10):
the years of service, that seemsto be like a constant theme that
even if you're a guy or someone who who who does provide for
your country and who does like, serve your country and protect
it, you're still viewed, you know, through like, the eyes of
distrust. And that seems to be like a
major theme in these movies is like distrust got like secrecy,

(15:32):
not being able to trust your owngovernment, not the government
not being able to trust its own agents.
Very. You know, it's almost like this
franchise is an espionage franchise or something.
I think there's a lot of real world implications for what you
just said about people who servetheir country and then are
almost there's almost an inclination by that same

(15:54):
government to discard them once they think that service has run
its course. Oh, no, I 100% agree.
I actually wrote that down my notes.
The Oh OK yeah, like the house like these movies.
There's there is like a parallelbetween like the how the
governments act in the in the movies and how our real life
government works in terms of yeah, like the distrust or them

(16:19):
saying one thing and then doing the other.
It's the government is usually is usually not portrayed in a in
a good light in these films, no whether it's.
Very rarely. Yeah, like the US government or
the Russian government or whatever, Like they're not.
Or even like the the British, like the UK government?
Yeah, like everyone. Kind of get the worst of it,
actually. Yeah, in Rogue Nation.

(16:40):
I bet they're taking shots because like, you know, they're,
they're taking shots at the, theJames Bond.
Yeah. I'm here for it, yeah.
But yeah, like in every, in every, like you can't trust the
government and get the government still the ones who
employ these agencies. So it's it's a very like
interesting dynamic that we see that it does it.

(17:03):
It's not something that I see a lot of people talking about
actually. Granted that we didn't talk
about that in last episode, but I'm bringing it up now because
we are different guys. Yes.
And this is the more in depth episode, yes, like we said.
So I think that's that's a good thing to bring up because it is

(17:24):
a recurring theme. And I do think you briefly
mentioned this in episode 24, but pretty much in every movie,
Ethan goes rogue or goes againstprotocol in order to get the job
done because there is always some bureaucratic obstacle in
his way. And even though he is portrayed

(17:48):
as continuously breaking the rules, it is ultimately in
service of human life to save people that not only that he
does know, but a lot of people that he doesn't know.
And that's, you know, they really focus on that refrain and

(18:08):
the final reckoning. Yes, I think while Ethan Hunt
and like the whole IMF like it is American based, I don't think
even Ethan Hunt sees himself as American in terms of that.
He values all life. He's not beholden to the
American government. Yes, I think that's even more
evident in the final movie wherelike the US government is trying

(18:31):
to control the entity is trying to be the one in in power,
whereas Ethan Hunt is just like no, like.
Nobody destroyed this. Nobody should have all that
power and I'm going to like justdestroy the entity.
And even the US government is like, why?
Why would you do that? We can totally control this
thing. It's just like it shows that the

(18:51):
levels of like distrust he has towards the government and the
level of. The hubris of the United States,
that. And just the I love, I'm going
to say love, for lack of a better word, the, the love that
Ethan Hunt has for like, humanity, not just one country,
like everybody. Yes.
Which I don't know, could you would you say that's kind of

(19:14):
like a Mary Sue in that like he's just like this ultimate
good guy in terms of like because even when his morals are
brought up or like his his his morals are questioned or
whatever, He he never really seems to have like crossed that
line. He never seems like break bad.
He he almost did with Gabriel. Yeah, that was like the only
villain where it was like, oh, if he kills Gabriel, like

(19:36):
personally, like that's it. Like he crossed the line.
I'm not gonna. Lie, I kind of wish he did.
I, you know, I'm glad that he didn't.
It would have been cathartic if he did, but I'm kind of glad he
didn't because like, I think ultimately, like that's who
Ethan Hunt is, as much as he might hate it, hate the dude.
And he really hated Gabriel. Like, come on, he killed BAE and
he killed Luther. Like he had a he had a perfectly

(19:59):
good reason for killing Gabriel,but he doesn't Gabe.
Gabriel's done under by his own hubris.
Yeah, to answer your question, Idon't think it's a it's a
characterization of being a MarySue.
I think to me, it reads very differently.
I don't want to put the cart before the horse here because

(20:21):
you said something that I think is very relevant to what I want
to say when we get to the themesof this franchise.
But I'll try to respond without fully getting into it because I
think I have a good point to make later on in this episode.
We'll see what everybody else thinks.

(20:42):
But I think Ethan Hunt is, I don't think he's a Mary Sue.
I don't think he's a superhero or superhuman.
I mean. Don't get me wrong, some of the.
Things he does are superhuman, yeah, but like plane walking.
I think the way that I would characterize Ethan Hunt is that

(21:05):
he is somebody who believes in not just humanity, like you
said, but I think he believes that it is worth fighting for,
which I I don't think you can say the same for anyone else in
this franchise, even someone like Elsa Faust, who becomes a

(21:28):
very strong ally of Ethan. She is ultimately driven by her
own motivations. Yeah, I think her own self.
Preservation. Yeah, she will help people as
long as that's in service of herown goal.
Whereas Ethan is someone who just believes that every single

(21:50):
person has the right to this. You know what?
This is going to sound kind of corny, but Ethan is someone who
believes everybody has the rightto pursue the life that they
want, even if that means that hecan't have the life that he

(22:12):
wants. Yeah, I guess in that sense,
Ethan might be like and like thetruest American and that he
wants, he wants agency for all he wants.
Like, like you're saying like hewants people to have to have
that choice to do whatever they want with their life.
And that's perfectly evident in the like more than evident in

(22:33):
the last two movies. But I think you can find like
glimpses of that in in every movie where ultimately, like he
wants you want, he wants everybody to have this kind of
tongue in cheek, but the choice.No, that's a good way of
phrasing it. I think too.
There is an interesting dilemma presented with Ethan's character

(22:57):
in Mission Impossible Fallout. But I I would say the beginnings
of this. I don't want to say it's a moral
dilemma, but this question starts with Mission Impossible 3
because we see Ethan with Julia.It's the first time he's
humanized in the franchise. Like you said, we get some more

(23:19):
personal stakes where everythinghe does is because he's trying
to save Julia. And technically they have that
wedding at the hospital. We see Ethan Hunt try to live
this this normal life. That includes trying to build a
life with a woman that he loves.But then in Mission Impossible

(23:45):
Rogue Nation, Ilsa is the first one to really call into
question. Do you really think that you can
do that, given what you do? Because throughout Rogue Nation,
there's this dialogue between Benji Luther and Ilsa about

(24:06):
Ethan having previously been married.
And Ilsa, you know, when she finally has this conversation
about it with Ethan, she really poses the question, do you
really think that's possible? And then that through line is
kind of carried over in Fallout.And this is where I think the

(24:27):
biggest missed opportunity in the franchise is, was to have a
genuine romantic subplot betweenEthan and Ilsa.
I mean, obviously it's teased like crazy here and there, but
they never fully enter into a relationship, right?

(24:48):
But I think the whole question of whether or not it is possible
for Ethan to live a normal life doing what he does is best
exemplified and best explored inFallout.
Not just because of his evolvingrelationship with Ilsa, but

(25:09):
because in the final 40 minutes or so, we are reintroduced to
Julia. And something that I noticed is
you can see the jealousy on Ilsa's face when Julia shows up
for the first time and Ethan hasto face her and talk to her
after everything that's happened.

(25:30):
And there is this kind of understanding, even from Julia,
that the only reason Ethan wouldever be in the same place as her
is because he absolutely has to be, because something is going
wrong and he has to stop it. But I I just think that there is

(25:52):
this clear mutual understanding between Ilsa and Ethan that
neither can truly love or be with another person because of
what they do. But I would argue that because
both Ilsa and Ethan are in the same field, they have the same

(26:12):
profession. I do think that was Ethan's best
chance for that kind of life, even though Ilsa is someone who
is kind of without country as well, as we see in the events of
Rogue Nation, she's just trying to return home.
But for those reasons, I think she is best equipped to be with

(26:39):
someone like Ethan because she knows what that lifestyle is
like. She knows what that job entails.
And I just think it was a a big missed opportunity to to not
have those two try and explore the very obvious connection that

(26:59):
they had. Yeah, I think I think they're
the biggest what if in the little franchise.
Yeah. I think like you said, like
there there was like some sexualchemistry or like, you know,
some there was, there was like avibe between the two.
And I think there was there was like the the franchise could

(27:20):
have like could have taken it there because like, like you're
saying, they they're in the samefield.
They the life, the life that they live.
And they they, they say too in the movie, this is like if you
if you want like a life, if you want this life without life to
be your life, something like that where?
Like, you know, I know what you're trying to.
Yeah, I know what you're referencing.
Yeah. So they they would have been in

(27:42):
that same life. So it would have been, you know,
it would have been honestly better, but she would have been
a more compatible match than a civilian like Julia.
Yes. And I think that this whole
discussion is just augmented further by the fact that you
said Ethan is really not a man that is beholden to his

(28:05):
government. He is acting in service of the
world basically. So because of that, I don't
think that it really would have been an issue that Ethan is
acting under the IMF while Elsa was working for MI 6.
I mean, we even see this in in Rogue Nation that Ethan goes out

(28:29):
of his way to protect her even when he learns the truth about
what's going on with her. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the
thing about Ethan, he's a total SAP for women in terms of like
he never fight. I mean, maybe that's just
because he's a gentleman, but with every character, every if
he if he's fighting a female character.
Oh, the gloves are on. Yeah, even even in Dead

(28:50):
Reckoning when he was finding the the her name was Paris.
Oh. Palm Clementi's character, yeah.
In the the narrow alley like Ethan Hunt was going ham against
the dude with the girl. And what's interesting is he
even holding back? He subdued her and had the
chance to kill her, yeah, but hedidn't.

(29:13):
Nope, Because what? What does Ethan Hunt do besides
saving the world? Bagging bitches?
Because what did he do? He saves her and then later on
she. Joins the team.
Yeah, she joins the team becausethere she feels like a level of
being in debt to him and like, just for saving her life.
So since we're here, I did want to like to shift the focus to

(29:36):
the women in Yeah, Mission Impossible.
Because this this thought came to me when I was watching this.
I don't want to call it a good show if I don't want to call it
a terrible show yet, because I'mnot done with it.
But it's a show that a lot of rednecks with love.
It's called Land Man, produced by the same dude that made

(29:59):
Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan. You know, very, very macho.
Like, if you're if you're a rough and tough guy, you watch
the show, you'll be like, hell yeah, brother, But why?
Why? That show reminded me of Mission
Impossible. Or like, the point I'm going to
make or ask is the women portrayed in that show, they're

(30:23):
presented as just like airheadedbimbos, always drinking, always
partnering. They only care about sex and
like comparing contrast, like the men who are all rugged, you
know, hard working blue collaredmen working hard to provide for
their families and whatever. Like the women are portrayed in
such in such a shallow light. And you know, I bring that sub.

(30:46):
Bring the sub because the women portrayed in Mission Impossible,
it's the complete opposite of that.
Every woman character they, they're presented, you know, as
an actual character from, you know, Grace to Ilya to Paris to
Julia. Like they're not just they, they

(31:07):
don't just have different names,they all have different
personalities and they're all captured.
Like every actress captures thatcharacter in whatever movie
they're in. Contrasted to the show I'm
talking about where like, no, they're just shallow 2
dimensional characters here. Women, women are, are bosses

(31:28):
here. Like I was gonna say, I was
gonna say girl boss, but it sounds kind of corny, but I'm
just gonna, I'm just like they're they're.
I also think girl boss is sort of AI.
Don't want to say it's an insult, but it's associated
with, I think, a shallow yeah archetype.
And then, then these women are not shallow.
What's that's for? Disney.
Yeah, oh bro imagine Disney bought the mission possible

(31:52):
franchise. We everything we've been saying.
I would cry I. Would cry too, but yeah, the
women in Mission Impossible, starting from even the who's
who's one of the first movie, Claire.
Claire. Yeah.
She was played by Emmanuel Bayar.
Yeah. Like even someone like her where

(32:13):
she only had like you know, 1 appearance like she was only in
that one movie she had more depth than any character or any
woman being portrayed in the show the the land man.
Show Yeah. Well, OK, I should say I haven't
seen Land Man, but I'm glad you brought Claire up because as you
sort of shift the conversation here to how women are

(32:36):
represented in the Mission Impossible franchise.
I think even if you go all the way back to that first Mission
Impossible, this movie was released in 1996 and there is a
surprising amount of female characters in the movie.
I mean, sure, most of them get killed off, but that's because
most of the team gets killed off.

(32:58):
But even like you said, Claire, she's not just eye candy.
She has her own motivations. And sure, she ends up trying to
ultimately deceive Ethan becauseshe is with Jim Phelps, but she
still has her own internal character motivation that is
driving her to be a part of thiswhole thing.

(33:22):
Like she she serves a purpose inthe story.
And I think, again, it's not as overt like something with Elsa,
but I do think that after everything goes sideways during
that initial mission in the first film, you can make the
argument that there is some slight sort of flirtation,

(33:43):
sexual chemistry with Ethan and Claire.
Because I think that's obviouslythat's part of the plan is she
wants to lull him into feeling like he can trust her.
So yeah, I I'm glad you brought that up because if you look at
the first movie, there are quitea bit of female characters in

(34:03):
there. Right.
No. Yeah, even.
And it continues on, really. In the second movie, again, a
dud. But even then, Nadia is not a
shadow character. Like within the first within her
introduction, you kind of get her whole back door in terms of
why she's a thief and or not notwatch the thief, but like what

(34:24):
she does, how good she is at it,the the history that she's like,
how long has she been doing it? Her history with Sean Ambrose.
And you know, they give her like, you know, actual
character, which a lot of moviesdon't know how to like portray
women. And I know that sounds like a
mansplaining, but like what I'm really trying to say is a lot of
movies they when they write a female character, they either

(34:47):
write her as an archetype or they write her as like a shallow
2 dimensional caricature of, youknow, an archetype.
Like I said, like either like the girl boss, the gamer girl,
like the bad bitch, whatever. They're all just caricatures and
just shallow. Whereas in here in these movies,
they're all characters. Especially my Bay, Elia Faust.

(35:09):
Yes, I will say, even though I'mnot the biggest fan of Naya, I
will say too there is depth to her character because as we
mentioned in episode 24, there is this sexual undercurrent
running through Mission Impossible 2 with Sean, Nya and

(35:30):
Ethan. A lot of like sexual envy going
on here in just the general lustwith Ambrose.
But part of Nya's character is that she really is not standing
for that. Even when she agrees to Ethan's
plan, she does not sort of immediately give in to the the I

(35:58):
don't know what you want to callit, but the possibility that she
might have to sleep with Ambrosein order to make this a reality
in terms of acquiring the antidote to Chimera or just
Chimera itself. Right.
There's clear resistance from her, and I think a big part of

(36:19):
Nya's character arc in Mission Impossible 2 is seeking
liberation from Ambrose, who youcould argue is her abuser.
In a sense, yeah. Yeah, you, I mean, yeah, I can
see that. That's just me soapboxing.
Right. I can see how you make that

(36:40):
argument because, you know, it did seem that while we didn't
know what the relationship was between, you know, Sean Ambrose
and Anaya. I mean, the fact is that they
broke up so clearly, like there,there were there were problems
within the breakup and just the way that Ambrose is portrayed, I
wouldn't be surprised if he was like an abusive piece of shit.

(37:01):
Oh. He's clearly a piece of shit.
Yeah, so I can see that. And we get like once we get like
once we get the introduction of Julia, then it's like, Oh my
God, like how much? Like when, when did you when
they introduced Julia, It's like, oh, this is like the best
female character ever until we get to Ilia Foss.

(37:22):
But yeah, like I said, like all these women, they all have their
own character, character and, you know, ambitions.
Even Julia, Like once, once Ethan is no longer with Julia
because, you know, he had to fake her death in order for her
to like, get like, live her own life without him.
Once we see her again and fall out, fall out or do I recognize

(37:44):
fall out once we see her again? Like she, she is living her own
life now and like towards the end of the film, like she wants
to help, but she's she's the onethat helps Luther deal with the
bomb. So even someone like Julia, who
is introduced as just as Ethan'slove interest, she gets
character development and she grows too.

(38:05):
And we I, you can't say that forlike a lot of movies in terms of
how they treat their female characters.
And so I think like as as like as testosterone heavy as the
Mission Impossible franchise is,I do like how women are
portrayed in the in this franchise.

(38:28):
Yeah, and I think it's obviouslyall anchored by the best female
character in the franchise, which is Elsa Faust, which I
said in episode 24. But I mean, she is.
I think she's just the most nuanced and three-dimensional
woman in the franchise. She's given so much personality,

(38:50):
so much depth. She she's sexy, she's smart,
she's witty. She's clearly very good at what
she does. Able to one up Ethan Hunt from
time to time in Rogue Nation, right.
So she has written, I think witha certain level of respect to

(39:13):
where you can just tell that thescreenwriters and everyone
involved with Mission Impossible, Rogue Nation,
Fallout and Dead Reckoning clearly respect this character.
And it's obviously really strengthened by the performance
of Rebecca Ferguson, who is an extremely gifted actress.

(39:36):
But Ilsa Faust, I kind of talkedabout this when I was talking
about Ethan Hunt and the sort ofquestion that he has to wrestle
with, about whether or not he can truly be with somebody doing
what he does. But that also applies to Ilsa

(39:57):
Faust. And and she the strength of her
character is what allows that conflict.
With Ethan to emerge, like I don't think that aspect of Ethan
Hunt's character would have beencalled into question if Ilsa
Faust was not such a well written and portrayed character.

(40:22):
Yeah, no, I agree. And then we get Grace.
Who? While I'm checking out on this
one. I mean, no, I, I mean I, I like
Grace, don't like don't, don't. The only reason why I have, I'm
not going to call it hate, but just like a little bit of a
like, damn it, it should have been great.
It's not. It was a it's because they

(40:44):
killed Elsa Faust in dead reckoning.
Whereas, I mean, I understand why they did it.
There had to be some sacrifice, some loss, and Elsa was someone
we knew longer than Grace. I think if they introduced Grace
in the movie and then killed heroff, the the death wouldn't have
hit us hard. So yeah, I guess it makes sense
from a story perspective that they had to kill Issa Faust.

(41:06):
But like I saw on episode 24, I wasn't happy with it.
I'm still not happy with it. But Grace, even her, she, she is
a character who is given death and nuance.
And what I like about her is, I mean, this is just my reading of
it, but she's kind of written ina way where like you kind of
don't like her because just for my introduction, she she's like

(41:30):
getting in the way of Ethan Hunt, Ethan Hunt's mission
because she's got the key or the, yeah, she's got the key.
And Ethan Hunt tries to get it from her and she escapes from
him and she gets him in trouble.And like she, she does all these
little things to like, you know,impede Ethan's mission.
So it's kind of like she's portrayed in a way where you
kind of like start like you dislike her on first impression

(41:52):
because she's someone who's likegetting in the way of, you know,
our boy Ethan Hunt the the heartof this franchise.
But you know, like this franchise does with this female
characters. It gives her it gives her depth,
it gives her a reason like why she's the way she is.
And ultimately, when she's presented with the choice of,

(42:13):
you know, the choice, she ultimately chooses to, you know,
to be a a good person. Like she is not a bad person
even though she does a lot of bad things, ultimately she is a
good person at heart. So even she has some some depth
and nuance, even if you know, it's still still upset that
she's the reason why I was so phosphide.

(42:35):
I don't disagree with anything you said, but I think that's
part of the reason that I don't particularly care for Grace is
because when she's first introduced to the audience, she
is an obstacle to Ethan. She's getting in his way.
She's preventing him from obtaining the key at the Abu

(42:56):
Dhabi airport. So yeah, I mean, look, it's it's
really petty for me to say I don't like Grace because they
used her as a way to just kind of shoehorn in a new faux
romance with Ethan at the cost of Ilsa's life.

(43:16):
But yeah, I mean, she does has have some depth.
And I also think too that something that that I kind of
caught upon re watching these movies is that Grace in some
ways, like spiritually, it's kind of a successor to Naya
because she's also a pickpocket.She's also a thief.

(43:39):
I think she's a more nuanced andcomplicated version of Naya from
Mission Impossible to. A-100.
Percent without the baggage of having been previously involved
with Ambrose. I think that was almost like, I
don't want to say it's a retcon because it's not, but I think it
was them trying to take a a second crack at that kind of

(44:01):
character who maybe had an imperfect past.
The Catwoman. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Perfect example.
Someone who had an imperfect pass and is trying to find
redemption through this heroic male figure.
And I do think too, part of Grace's development is how much

(44:25):
she learns to trust in Ethan despite everything that she's
gone through, despite all of thethings she considered doing
herself throughout Dead Reckoning.
And she ultimately is the one toreally tell Ethan, you were the
only person that you can do this.
And then Ethan is able to reciprocate by saying there's no

(44:49):
one I would trust more to grab this USB drive once the entity
is trapped in it then you. Yeah, well said.
All right, now let's get back tothe boys.
How do we feel about Benji and our boy Luther?
RIP. Luther is my favorite supporting

(45:11):
character in the franchise. I think he's such a steady,
steady presence, you know? I think he he definitely adds A
moral compass to Ethan's character because even what was
it it? No, it wasn't like the final
movies. Where or was it with Solomon
Hunt? Fuck nothing.
I think it was a Gabriel. It was a Gabriel.

(45:33):
Yeah. Like Luther is the one to tell.
He's the one telling Ethan. Like, hey, I know you're upset,
but like, you know, don't kill Gabriel because we need him
alive. We need, we need to be able to
bring him in. And he, he does act as Ethan's
moral compass. Not that Ethan needed one to
begin with, because ultimately Ithink he is as as as as strong

(45:58):
and tough as Ethan is. I think ultimately, like he is a
good person at heart, but he does have I think he does have
the capacity to like break bad if presents is like like the
opportunity, like my easiest, easiest example would be like
Mission Impossible three if Julia had really died, if that
really was Julia. Oh, I think and and they kept

(46:22):
the franchise like they kept making movies.
I think the direction that EthanHunt would have gone on would
have been like a much darker path.
I think he would have been more readily willing.
He would have been more willing to just stop hurt people for the
sake of hurting people. I also think Owen Davian would
have been toast. Oh yeah.
But part of the reason I like Luther so much is just the

(46:44):
performance of Ving Rhames. I think he just brings a lot of
he he he does, he does bring gravitas to the movies, but I
think he's just such a groundingpresence in all of these films.
Like whenever things start to feel helpless, you can always
count on Luther to reel us back in, whether it's the audience or

(47:05):
Ethan. Like it's Luther who is telling
Ethan that he is going to pull off the fulcrum jump in Mission
Impossible three. You will come back, you will
save Julia. Like you said, it's not so much
that he acts as the the moral compass for Ethan, but he does

(47:27):
serve as this steady presence throughout all of the movies
because he is the one member of the team that is in every single
movie until his unfortunate death in the final reckoning.
But from Mission Impossible all the way to the final reckoning,
Luther is not only the brains ofthe operation, but like you

(47:51):
said, he does center Ethan. And he he is also someone who
obviously believes in him. But I think Luther is
instrumental to so much of what they do in these movies in terms
of how they end up stopping all of these global threats.

(48:12):
Luther is such a huge part of that.
And I think he just, I think there's a debate to be had, but
I'm going to say it. I think he's just the best
friend to Ethan. And I think that's what makes it
such a strong role for me regarding Luther.

(48:33):
Because if you look at somethinglike the beginning of Mission
Impossible Fallout, that sets usup for this whole moral dilemma
of Ethan with trying to balance preserving the life of his
friends and his obligation to save the world and do what he
does, just do his job. He is unwilling to sacrifice

(48:56):
Luther's life in order to acquire the plutonium at the
beginning of Fallout, even when Luther tells.
Him. Yeah, yeah.
To do it. And he refuses to.
And that's the first time the audience really has to confront
this question. Like, is Ethan inadvertently

(49:17):
contributing to all of this disaster, all of this chaos,
because he is unwilling to make these kind of hard decisions,
these sacrifices? Yeah, I'm, I'm actually glad
that you brought up like some earlier we said that Luther is
Ethan's best friend because that, that that's the point I

(49:39):
did want to bring up that I think Luther is the only
character that I could say with 100% confidence that he is not
just a Co worker. He is Ethan's friends.
Like he, he is someone that Ethan does confide in.
Like he is he, he, he is a friend.
Like an actual friend. Yes.
Compared to, I mean, as much as I like Benji Grace, everybody

(50:01):
else ultimately, like, especially like Ilsa, like she
felt like, you know, that Co worker you flirt out with at
work. Like I thought that's what it
felt like because, like their relationship doesn't get any
deeper because, I mean, it's kind of like on on the fault of
Ilsa in that she holds herself back because she's afraid to,
you know, getting attached or getting close to someone.

(50:22):
But where, yeah, like you said, I'm like Luther.
He does feel like he is Ethan's best friend.
I think that's, that is something that you know, that
this friendship does really welland it's something really
nuanced because you know, you don't, you don't hear them say
like, hey, you're my best friend, blah, blah, blah.
It's shown like through the actions of Luther, through his

(50:44):
faith in Ethan, no matter, no matter the stakes or whatever
has to be done, whether it's thefulcrum jump, the fulcrum jump
or, you know, capturing the entity on this, on this flash
drive or like injecting the poison pill, He always believes
in Ethan no matter what. I think that makes him such

(51:05):
like, like you're saying, such agood supporting character for
Ethan Hunt. Yeah, I think their their
friendship is communicated through what's not said.
Yeah, they don't need to say hey, you're my best friend
because it said in the sort of silence between all the other

(51:28):
sentences that are sort of uttered during these life
threatening scenarios. Yeah.
And just like the amount of trust that they have in each
other, because this is a franchise where distrust is very
it's it's it's in every movie. And sometimes, like, you know,
it could, it could be your own like your own people who you

(51:50):
can't trust. Whether it's Jim Phelps in the
first movie or August Walker in Fallout, there there is always.
Like even else, even nation. Yeah, like there's always like
this level of distrust. Whereas like with Luther, Ethan,
it always felt like there was like 100% trust.
I'm like just belief in each other.

(52:11):
I agree with that, yeah. We even see that, I think it's
in Fallout too, when Jeremy Renner's character is trying to
look for Ethan and Luther is like, I'm not willing to be
like, Nah, I trust Ethan, I don't trust you.
And like, when Jeremy Renner is able to convince Luther, like,
no, come on, help me find Ethan.Luther's like, all right, but if
I find you doing any, like, fuckshit, I'm going to kill you.

(52:33):
Yeah. Like, no hesitations.
So it's like that just shows thethe level of care and just the
how valuable they view like the friendship.
Yeah, that's really well said and I'm glad you brought that up
because that's something that I had forgotten about.
But that is a good that's a great example of their

(52:56):
friendship. And then we got Benji, who I
think I, I, I, I like the character evolution of Benji,
where I think he's kind of starts out, he starts off as a
Comic Relief character. And while he's still like, he
kind of still remains in that role and brought like the whole
franchise, He does get like, youknow, some level of depth to him

(53:17):
in terms of just he is a character who he started off in
like not in the field, just working in the back, starts
working in the field. And he is someone who he's
always nervous about anything that he has to do because he he
doesn't have like that confidence or like that suave
that Ethan Hunt has in executinghis missions.

(53:38):
Like no, Benji is, he's very paranoid, scared.
He's always doubting himself, but he still does it.
I think he slowly gains confidence over the course of
the movies the more and more he's in the field.
I mean, by the time we get to the final reckoning, we see
Benji is even engaging in hand to hand combat.

(54:01):
He's not just taking a more active role in forming the plan
of how they stopped the entity, but he is out there actually
joining Ethan. But you're right, I think the
best thing about Benji is his evolution as an active
participant of the IMF. Because, yeah, I mean, I think

(54:22):
with Simon Pegg in the role, thethe impulse to make him the
comedic character for the entirety of the franchise is
probably the most obvious one given his history in other
films. And he does have good comedic
timing. They take advantage of that,
like I said previously. But I I agree that the best

(54:44):
thing about Benji is his character evolution as we see
him slowly start to build that confidence and that willingness
to do these things even though he knows that there is a very
good chance that he might lose his life.
Yeah, it's it's funny because like I think it's also gonna

(55:06):
fall out where everyone is mistrusting Ethan and Benji.
You know, he he the the IMF is disbanded from ghost protocol
and well, no, I think no. And rogue nation.
Oh fuck. I already forgot.
But point being, what? A subplot where the CIA is
looking for Ethan. Yes, Alec Baldwin.

(55:27):
That's Rogue Nation. OK, then rogue nation yes, where
like they're the like where likeEthan Hunt goes rogue, CIA can't
find them. So like they disband the IMF and
take in, take in like, you know,the assets, IE Benji and all the
other characters in the, in the IMF.
And you see Benji every week he's brought in for questioning

(55:49):
where they put like the, the polygraph on him asking
questions like 'cause smartly, like the CIA knows that Benji is
in contact with Ethan. They just can't prove it.
And like, so like, they're rightto distrust them.
But even then, like you see, when when Ethan Hunt does reach
out to Benji, Benji, actually, no, I never mind.

(56:12):
I take that back because he doesn't reach out to him.
He I mean, he can't, he, he Ethan sends Benji, you know,
fake tickets. So Benji, Benji really did think
that he won two free tickets foran opera.
But when it turns out, I mean, he did get those tickets, but it
was actually a covert mission with Ethan Hunt.
He still commits to it that that's what I want to get at
where like once he arrives, he'slike, yeah, I'm just going to go

(56:33):
to this, see this, this play or whatever.
Oh, shit, you what? This is a mission.
Like he because he is very adamant in telling Ethan Hunt,
like, yeah, I'm already getting in trouble with you, but I can't
be doing this shit, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But he still does it. I think that that that speaks to
like your point where like you see him gaining like that
confidence in himself, like, youknow, to actually be an agent

(56:54):
out in the field doing shit versus being the guy in the in
the van, you know, controlling the magnet, Jeremy Renner's
character to infiltrate a big ass vending area.
Yeah. But I think that's the that's
basic that covers all the all the essential characters in
Mission Impossible because everybody else is either a

(57:16):
villain or a one off character. We don't see again, I like as
much as I like Henry Cavill's August Walker.
He was only in for one movie. Yeah, yeah.
And I think we we talked about Walker in the previous episode.
Yeah, as a villain. Yeah, as a villain.
But, you know, there are some, Ithink unsung heroes in the

(57:42):
Mission Impossible franchise where it's it's just easy for
them to kind of get lost in the shuffle because these movies are
so good. Like Alec Baldwin.
I think, yeah, Alec Baldwin is great in these, in the two
movies he's in. He is fantastic.
But also I just really like the team in Mission Impossible 3,

(58:08):
even though we never see them again, right?
They're not the most fully developed characters, but
Jonathan Reiss Meyers as Declan,Keri Russell as Lindsay, Maggie
Q as Zen. I mean, they make an impression
on you when you watch the movie,even if they don't carry over.

(58:29):
I mean, like you said, we're notgetting the serialization of the
series yet. But I mean, it's just, there's
so much to like about the supporting characters as you're
watching them. I mean, people, do people even
remember that Laurence Fishburneand Billy Crudup are in Mission

(58:49):
Impossible 3? Because throughout the entire
movie, we're led to believe thatLaurence Fishburne is maybe the
IMF boss that's compromised and in in cahoots with Owen Davian.
But then we learn it's actually Billy Crudup.

(59:10):
You know, when we get that twist, who I think Billy Crudup
is fantastic in that movie, but I mean, nobody really talks
about it because he's he's only in one.
But I mean, these movies are so well cast that you could say
this about any of the supportingcharacters.
Like you said, Alec Baldwin is amazing in these movies and he's

(59:31):
only in two. Yeah, and very minor, like very
minorly in both. Jeremy Renner had more screen
time, but I would argue that Alec Baldwin had more of an
impression. And Jeremy Renner is great in
these movies, too. I think this is some of Jeremy
Renner's best work. Yeah.
I mean, like, yeah. I mean, he's done good movies
like Wind River and The Hurt Locker, but I really like Jeremy

(59:58):
Renner in these movies in terms of, like, blockbuster fare.
Give me Jeremy Renner in these over.
Yeah, I think Jeremy Renner can carry his own movie and I think
he he he is someone who he can play like the action hero very
well. If like if there was like if he
I feel like Jeremy Renner could have his own Mission Impossible
franchise, not Mission Impossible specifically, but an

(01:00:21):
action oriented franchise and hecould be the lead star because,
you know, he does have like thatstar power and like level of
like badassness. Yeah, like you need to him.
Yeah. And then two, in Mission
Impossible Ghost Protocol, we got Paula Patton that was part
of the team. I thought she was great when she
had to flirt with that. I don't know what race or

(01:00:46):
ethnicity he was at the big party in the.
Final act. But the Indian, I think he was
Indian. Indian guy OK?
The one with like, let me show you my art collection, yeah.
Yeah, she she's great in in Ghost Protocol and that's the
only movie she's in. And Ghost Protocol opens with
this cold open that has Josh Holloway from Lost.

(01:01:10):
Like, you know, he's barely in the movie.
But like I said this in episode 24, these movies are so well
cast. Like all these people make an
impression. Like Leah Sidhu, she's the
assassin who kills Josh Holloway.
Like she's she's an actress witha very high pedigree, but people
just forget she's in this movie because.

(01:01:33):
With. Yeah, there's just, there's so
many good actors in these thingsthat it's hard to remember,
right. I mean, but I do think like,
yeah, even in Ghost Protocol that's, you know, that with
Ethan, Jane, Benji and and Brandt.
I mean, that's that's like whereyou start to figure it out.

(01:01:55):
And and I mean, gosh, people don't even you know, we we
didn't even touch on the last episode about like Henry Cherney
coming back as Kittridge and dead reckoning and the final
reckoning, right? Carrie, Elvis and Dead
reckoning, Angela Bassett as thepresident.
Like I'm beating a dead horse. But these these really are

(01:02:19):
really well cast movies. Yeah, and that's why Chad, like
I like I said, I don't recommendbinging these in a week.
You should like, you know, bingethem over the course of a month
or six months and like really take in like all the, you know,
all the all the actors and characters are in are in these
movies. Yeah, yeah, they make an
impression. They really do.
I mean, I, I do think it's a good idea to watch these movies

(01:02:42):
and then just sit with it. Because I will say I wish Alec
Baldwin had stuck around. Yeah.
As as Hunley. Cuz I did like his characters.
He does. I think he fits this franchise
very well, but so did Jeremy Renner.
But he did not want to come backbecause apparently he was the
one that was supposed to die at the beginning of Fallout.

(01:03:03):
Oh, really? Yeah.
So that was the original script,and that's why he didn't want to
come back. It wasn't that he had scheduling
conflicts with The Avengers or anything.
He just didn't want to come backto just be removed from the
franchise. So we figured I might as well
just stop doing them. Right.
OK. You know what?
That makes sense. I think that's fair if like, you

(01:03:24):
know, yeah, like how you want your character to be portrayed.
Like I think the way his character was portrayed, I think
if that's how he wants to like, send it off, that's fine.
Yeah, and then I mean, obviouslyin Dead Reckoning we get Gabriel
Esai Morales, who was the legendary Bob in La Bamba
biopic. And like you mentioned, Palm

(01:03:47):
Clementifas Paris, who plays a very different character than
she usually does in other movies.
That's the same actress who plays Mantis in Guardians of the
Galaxy, so she is showing some range.
Damn, I didn't even know that was her shit.
Yes, that's her. OK, but I know like this, this

(01:04:08):
franchise, like the character's fucking amazing.
Like, how do you even how do youeven like compare this to like
other like franchises? Because I thought about this on
like last week when we were recording the episode.
Like what would be a good franchise to compare this to in
terms of just the way it started?

(01:04:28):
And my immediate thought was Fast and Furious in terms of
like, you know, humble beginnings, just like, because
like the way it started, I kind of felt like Mission Impossible
could have been just like a one and done espionage movie.
Same thing with Fast and Furious.
But then, you know, they blew upand they're like, shit, let's
make another movie and another and another.
Something here. Yeah.

(01:04:50):
And like Mission Impossible, I think, I think Fast and Furious
is a great example because like Harry Potter, that books were
already written, so, you know, it had something planned out.
But Fast and Furious, it's like,no, this, this is an original
IP. But when we compare the two,
it's like you can tell there wasmore thought put into the the

(01:05:10):
Mission Impossible franchise then there was in the Fast and
Furious franchise because characterization, music,
storytelling, showcasing, you know, brilliant stunt work is
done phenomenal in Mission Impossible.
Whereas in Fast and Furious likeyou there, there is kind of like
a different quality and it is musical.

(01:05:33):
Yes, yeah, yeah. But I thought it was like a good
franchise to compare it to because, you know, humble
beginnings and still like, you know, just where the franchise
went. Yeah, I think that's a, that's a
fair comparison. I don't want to get too much
into that because I don't think I'm qualified to speak on it.
I checked out after the Paul Walker 1 SO.

(01:05:57):
Fair enough. Yeah, I haven't kept up with
Fast and the Furious like that. The only reason I kept making
the Harry Potter comparison in the last episode is because
they're both 8 film franchises. They both had different
directors for every movie until the 5th and then they just
decided to stick with the one. Yeah, and I think that's both

(01:06:17):
franchises really found their aesthetic and tone with that
director. I'm glad you brought that up.
That's why I kept making that comparison.
Yeah, very good person. But I'm also glad you brought
that up. Let's talk about, like, what
didn't each director add? And I feel like this is where I
handed off to you, Mr. Film SnobBecause I And if you say I'm
learning from you, you know, like you said, the first movie

(01:06:39):
was directed by Palm Door. Brian De Palma.
Palma See, I can't even say it, but you know, like, what do you
think that he added? And like you did mention this in
episode 24 in terms of like whatstylistic choices he made and
how like a lot of a lot of the success of Mission Impossible
was his direction. Yes, Yeah.
Well, I think what Brian De Palma brought to Mission

(01:07:02):
Impossible is just his his sensibilities as a director,
which primarily entails just theunbelievable direction and
framing of this movie. I think the composition of some
of these shots in the first Mission Impossible is quite

(01:07:25):
frankly unparalleled, as good assome of the later films get.
I think if we're talking about just the direction, the first
movie is the best because the way some of these shots are
blocked, there is information communicated to the audience
through just what is happening on screen.

(01:07:45):
There's no need for dialogue. You don't need to read into
everything. Just looking at the shots, you
can infer what's happening and you can kind of piece together,
I don't want to call it the mystery, but you can piece
together the conspiracy just by watching the movie.
You don't necessarily need the exposition and for everything to

(01:08:09):
actually unfold. But also, I just think Brian De
Palma brings his eye to the franchise with things like I
mentioned it in Episode 24, the overhead shot of the Langley
vault, that whole the floor of that, that vault.

(01:08:29):
It's just, it's so interesting. It kind of messes with you
because it just looks like it this almost like this, this
drop, like it's something that never ends, right?
It just creates this this interesting depth to the frame
that that I don't think we see in the other Mission Impossible

(01:08:49):
movies. And then like I said, he just he
Brian De Palma knows how to direct.
He knows how to communicate things in one or two shots that
would take other directors 10 shots right to get across.
Like I said too, he actually uses Dutch angles correctly.

(01:09:10):
Like he uses them with the purpose instead of just using
them every 10 seconds like the first Thor movie, right?
Or coincidentally the second Harry Potter movie.
Chamber of Secrets has a lot of Dutch angles and it really
bothers me because there's no nopoint to it.
The second movie. Oh boy.

(01:09:32):
With John John Woo. What he brought to Mission
Impossible, I will just say, is he?
Brought before you answer that, would you say?
Would you say that it's because it because we both like, we both
didn't like this film, but wouldyou say like what he brought?
Is it because like, he's just like not a good director or is

(01:09:53):
it just his style of directing does not work within this
franchise? I think his style just does not
coalesce with the Mission Impossible franchise at all.
I think it's completely at odds with what the franchise wants to
be and represents. John Woo.
Look, he, he brought some interesting things to the

(01:10:16):
franchise. And what I will say is that
namely what he brought is the action sequences, particularly
the last act with the motorcyclechase, the fight on the beach.
I think all of that is entertaining in and of itself.
I particularly love love the final shot where Tom Cruise

(01:10:39):
kicks the gun up from the sand, catches it, turns around and
shoots Ambrose. Like stylistically that's
pretty, that's cool. That's pretty cool.
But I also think too John Woo and maybe this was a script
decision. I don't know, but I think it
definitely comes across in the direction as well.

(01:11:01):
But John Woo brought the the sort of sensuality to Mission
Impossible to because I don't think any other movie in the
franchise is nearly as overtly sexual, yeah, as Mission
Impossible to. You know what?
I I I understand what you're saying.
Yeah. Like, I mean, I I think that is

(01:11:23):
directorial influence. Right.
Yeah, there's like a sexual undertone.
Yeah. Or overtone.
Overtone might say. Yeah, one might say.
Yeah, yeah. So I think that's something he
brought to the franchise. He brought flair.
Yeah, well, that's what I was gonna say.
He he brought like the slow motion and I think too, he tried

(01:11:43):
to make it romantic. Not romantic in in the sense of
like the relationship, but he hetried to make it like you said,
everything has a flourish in this Mission Impossible too.
He tried to make it like visual poetry, like he wanted things to
flow. Did it work for me?
No, no, but I think that was hiscontribution and ultimately,

(01:12:06):
whether it was Tom Cruise, whether it was the studio, they
just decided this is not what wewant for these movies.
So they pressed forward with JJ Abrams.
And I think this is where they they started to figure it,
figure it out. Or this is where the the seeds
were planted because I touched on this briefly in the last

(01:12:29):
episode. But JJ Abrams, you can argue
about his shooting style all youwant.
And I I did concede that there was 1 moment in the movie where
I thought it was a little overwhelming when he's chasing
the rabbit's foot around in the streets and the cars are just
going by. That's the one part where I'm
like, OK, this is a little much,but I think what JJ Abrams

(01:12:53):
really brought to the franchise is humanizing Ethan Hunt.
Yeah, bringing in the personal stakes.
There's a level of intimacy in. This film exactly.
And all the other ones, yeah. I think that's something JJ
Abrams does very well, whether you want to look at something
like Super 8 or even, and some people might crucify me for

(01:13:17):
this, but Star Wars, The Force Awakens, again, I don't give a
shit about Star Wars. So I'm able to look at those
movies in isolation. And I think The Force Awakens,
the first one, JJ Abrams directed the first Star Wars
movie. Yeah, I honestly think JJ Abrams

(01:13:38):
did a good job with Rey in termsof bringing that emotionality to
her. That's the kind of stuff that JJ
Abrams does well. Look at his work on Lost, like
the way he brings these characters to life.
Like Jack, I personally think isone of the best TV characters

(01:14:01):
ever in terms of how he's written.
Jack is a very complicated character.
I don't know if you finished Lost.
No. OK.
But if you look at what JJ Abrams does, he excels in the
character work. And I think that shows in
Mission Impossible Three, yes. So while I do think JJ Abrams

(01:14:24):
brought some good directorial flair to Mission Impossible with
things like the way that he gavehis images so much depth, I
think the color grading and Mission Impossible is great.
He uses shadows in a really interesting way.
He brings the sauce, in my opinion.
But I think his best contribution is by far the

(01:14:46):
emotionality and the personal stakes.
I agree. And then we get to Brad Bird,
director of the incredible of Yes, the best Fantastic Four
movie of all time, which happensto be The Incredibles.
But oh shit, that was good. What Brad Bird did for Mission

(01:15:10):
Impossible Ghost Protocol, I don't think it's talked about
enough all. Right, let's talk about it.
Brad Bird is the first director in the franchise to, I think,
really understand that a spy movie of this scale needs to
have the team element. Something like this cannot
happen without the collaborationof highly skilled individuals

(01:15:35):
working together, striving towards a common goal.
Oh. Shit, did he just do Fantastic
Four again? You know how many?
Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. How many IMF agents are you
right? Because it's Ethan.
I already forgot her name. Paulette No.

(01:15:55):
Oh, my gosh, this is gonna piss me off.
OK, I'm. I'm gonna pull up her name, but
in the meantime, Benji. Ethan Brandt.
And then, of course, we have theunforgettable Jane.
Paula Patton. That's what you were thinking
of. You were thinking of the actress

(01:16:16):
name Jane. That's four people.
Yep. Shit, Bradford did it again.
Oh my gosh. I think what Brad Bird really
understood about Mission Impossible and spy films as a
whole, like I said, it's not just that they need to work
together, but Brad Bird is the one who brings in that element

(01:16:39):
of found family. He starts to introduce that
these people are so important toEthan, that's why he's not
willing to sacrifice them. I don't think you can have that
moment in Mission Impossible Fallout if Brad Bird doesn't do
what he did in Ghost Protocol. But also, I think Brad Bird, he
is the one that brought the blockbuster scale to these

(01:17:00):
movies as action-packed and fun as Mission Impossible 3 is, as
smart and well directed as the first Mission Impossible is.
None of them feel like big blockbuster films, you know, not
in the way that we think of blockbuster franchises now.

(01:17:21):
Yeah, But with Brad Bird, once the Burj Khalifa sequence
happened and it was shot in IMAX, that's that changed the
game for Mission Impossible as afranchise.
And I think really from there, because Christopher Mcquarrie

(01:17:42):
did rewrites on Ghost Protocol, who would later become the
director of every other movie. I think it was that synergy of
Brad Bird's style and direction and the Mcquarrie doctoring the
script. That's why Ghost Protocol feels
like the turning point. And then basically because

(01:18:03):
McCrory did work on that film bythe time we get to Rogue Nation,
that's why every other movie after that is just awesome.
Because McCrory, weirdly, I would say he contributed the
least to this franchise. Because I think really what he
did is he figured out the tone. He figured out the spectacle

(01:18:26):
with the stunts, doubling down on the stunts.
He he really did nail the tone though, in terms of, like we
said, Rogue Nation is kind of the definitive Mission
Impossible movie. Even if it's not the best, even
if it's not your favorite, it's kind of the one you go to
because it has all of those spy tropes, but they're not tropes

(01:18:49):
in the sense that, oh, I saw that coming.
Like it's not cliche. It unfolds in a very thrilling
manner. I think Christopher McCrory, out
of all the people we've talked about, he has the most
utilitarian style of directing in the sense that it's very
straightforward, like he directsin a way that just communicates

(01:19:09):
what he needs to to the audience.
Yeah, no Dutch angles. Here, yeah, there's nothing
special about it, but it gets the job done because everything
around it I think is just has been.
Perfected, right? Specifically the tone really, if
we're if we're talking about thecontribution to the franchise,

(01:19:32):
Macquarie, what he really brought is the tone.
He figured out what these moviesneed to be in terms of the way
that they present themselves to the audience, the way that they
behave. I think that's when Ethan Hunt
really starts to become this more complicated and flawed

(01:19:54):
individual. And of course, that's when we
introduce Elsa Faust. So that's again, that's that's
the character in the tone, whichI think is Mccrory's greatest
contribution. And obviously doubling down on
the insane stunts, because to myknowledge, McCrory was largely
supportive of everything Tom Cruise wanted to do.

(01:20:18):
I mean, he was, he definitely had his concerns, right?
But he was, I think he understood the importance of
doing this for the sake of the franchise and the identity that
they managed to create. Right.
That is interesting that you said that Macquarie, he
contributed the least and I understand what you're saying

(01:20:40):
because yeah, once, once they got like the formula down, yeah,
kind of like they they stick to it.
You don't need much from there. Yeah, and like, and I think
that's fine because, you know, it worked so well in terms of
like what they what they ended up doing.
But then it is Macquarie. I think, I think it's, it's

(01:21:01):
great that like every director, they added something different
and it really like, you know, helped shaped the the
franchise's identity even when the franchise didn't know what
it wanted to be yet. Yeah.
I'm not trying to diminish Mccrory's contributions because
it is huge, yes, but I think you've said it better than I
could have, which is that because McCrory took over

(01:21:24):
directing duties, by the time they had figured it out with
Ghost Protocol, all he really had to do was refine the
character, refine the tone, and go from there because you don't
need much else. Like like you said, after Ghost
Protocol you looked forward to watching every single one.
So I think Macquarie had the least work to do.

(01:21:45):
It's not that his skill is lesser or anything.
I, like I said, I praise the themotorcycle chase in Rogue Nation
in episode 24. Like, even though I think his
directing style is very simple, man, does it, does it get the
job done. Like I said, you know, you put
the camera behind the windscreen, put it on the

(01:22:08):
passenger foot peg, you know, put it on Tom Cruise's hip.
Like, you know, just edit that chase scene the way he did.
I I loved it. Right.
But it's just that Mcquarrie hadthe lease to figure out.
Yeah. So by the time he showed up,
it's like he's got it now. He just has to execute, yeah.

(01:22:31):
Also, we also want to downplay his contribution because I think
he also kind of had a difficult job in terms of the last movie
in The Final Reckoning in terms of tying everything all
together. Like you said, we said the
previous episode, the first hourin the final Reckoning, it's
just him setting up in the the first hour of the final

(01:22:52):
reckoning is him, you know, giving like the direction that
it goes. It's giving you a quick summary
of what happened in the last movie, bringing you up to speed
of what they're going to do now,and then just tying in
everything like, no, the legacy of the entire franchise.
You're right. I'm glad you brought that up
because I don't think I would have said that otherwise.
And, and it's worth noting because I think Macquarie and

(01:23:17):
Cruz delivered the goods with The Final Reckoning.
I really think they did. And the truth is, I don't think
any of that stuff feels shoehorned in.
It doesn't feel like fan service.
I mean, like I said in the previous episode, Donlo was
there as a direct consequence ofwhat happened in the impossible.

(01:23:41):
The rabbit's foot. Yes, that's a Recon.
Because I think it's it's prettyheavily implied that it was like
a chemical weapon. Yeah, in Mission Impossible 3.
Especially we had the fucking like the biohazard.
Yeah, biohazard symbol on it. So that probably was a retcon,
but still like bringing all thatstuff in and then, like you

(01:24:02):
said, weaving in that element ofJim Phelps son into that while
still allowing him to be his owncharacter and have his own.
Motivations. Motivations in Dead Reckoning
and then we sort of get the reveal in the final reckoning.
That's not an easy thing to do. I mean, I made this comparison,

(01:24:25):
but I mean, The Final Reckoning is kind of the the end game of
Mission Impossible, except it's actually good because it
actually has storytelling and filmmaking, right?
Yeah, no, I agree. No, Yeah, I think what each

(01:24:46):
director contributed, like even John Woo, I think it was all
necessary and just stopped like in from like the beginning and
like finding like the franchise finding itself and then what
once it found itself is like just delivering like consistent
consistently on that tone because, yeah, like they might
have figured out the formula, but, you know, so did Marvel and

(01:25:07):
they figure out the formula and like, what are they doing?
Like they, you know, there's a reason why we call it, you know,
it's like Marvel humor. Like there's a certain formula
to it, but not every not everybody that has a formula can
execute such a formula. Some people put in the wrong,
put in like the wrong numbers inthe formula and fuck it up
because they don't they don't understand it.

(01:25:29):
And I think you know Mcquarrie, he understood it.
Yes, I agree. Yeah, so like let's get into
like the themes now. Like this is where we're going
to get into like the real nitty gritty we talked about, we
talked about the directors and and like what they brought into
like, you know, each. This is where I'm going to bring
it home. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going
to ask you to trust me one last time.

(01:25:54):
This is, we're going to, this iswhere we dive in the themes
like, I mean, where do you want to start?
Like from the beginning or like how do you want to approach this
topic? This, you know, that's a good
question because I think there'sone, there's different ways to
come at it. Like you could look at the the
broad scale themes of the entirefranchise, or you could look at

(01:26:18):
it movie by movie. Let's go move it by movie and
let's get specific. Then let's go broad and then,
like, you know, try to contextualize it all together.
OK, well my my whole notes were predicated on going broad so.
Did I say each individual? Movie we can, we can go each

(01:26:41):
individual movie. See what?
Well, we'll see what happens. All right, Hey, Chad, just watch
we're. Only an hour and 28 in.
Yeah. Hey, Chad, I need you to trust
me one last time. All right, So the first movie,
you know, obviously with Jim, with Jim Phelps being the
villain, like it has like the theme of, you know, not being

(01:27:04):
able like not everything is as it seems.
Even someone who has been like agood like a good agent, like has
been in service of the country even like they can go bad.
So there's like this level of like distrust and not being able
to trust your own, like your ownmentors.
It's like, yes, distrust is heavily like it's a heavy theme

(01:27:25):
throughout all these movies. It's a fucking spy espionage
franchise. You're going to have levels of
distrust. But where the first one brings
it home is that like it's reallylike your own people.
And it's like, it's someone like, it's not like some
nebulous bad guy. It's like it's someone like
intimate to you, like your own mentor.
It's like finding out. It's like finding out like your
dad or your mom is like an evil archetypal villain.

(01:27:48):
And it's like that betrayal, like that twist.
It's going to get to you. And I think like that was like
the theme of like the first movie was just like betrayed by
like someone who you thought youcould trust.
And also like, just like it's already introducing like the,
the, the concept of like corruption, whether it's the
corruption of man or the corruption of like institutions.

(01:28:10):
Because, you know, we we talked about this in the first or the
last episode in terms of like what, what, what were Jim Phelps
motivations? Like he wanted more money.
Yeah, yeah, sure. Like he was like there was an
element of greed 60. 3000 a yearwasn't cutting it.
Yeah, Like, yeah. So there were like a level of
greed, like to his motivation, but there was also like, just
like him, him just being disillusioned with the IMF

(01:28:32):
itself. So and honestly.
That's a human thing to be, you know, unhappy with your
compensation. Very, yeah.
But yeah. So it's like there's corruption
and it's it's like that's that, that's that.
I think that is like the theme of like the first movies, just
corruption, not being not being able to trust like your own
government or like your own people.

(01:28:53):
And also just like being betrayed by someone who you
thought was a mentor. The only thing I will add to
this is I think there's a theme of paranoia in the first Mission
Impossible. More than all the other ones.
Because, yeah, there is this sense of Ethan being very
isolated. And even though he keeps Claire

(01:29:13):
close, when we get to the end ofthe movie, we we learned that
the only reason Ethan went alongwith it is because he kind of
thought it was suspicious from the very beginning that she was
the only person that managed to survive.
And, you know, when he pieces together the Drake Hotel in the
Bible, that clue. So yeah, I think there's this

(01:29:37):
element of paranoia in the firstMission Impossible that's just
not really quite there in the other movies, except for maybe
Rogue Nation because of Solomon Lane and the Syndicate.
Yeah, but I. Think that that that's also like
another one where like, yeah, paranoia is like a strong theme
in that one. But speaking to the the theme of
distrust and just feeling betrayed by your mentors, I

(01:30:00):
think there's also an element ofidentity, questioning who you
are, who people you're close to are.
Maybe they're not who you thought they were.
Yeah. So I think there's there's some
undertones of identity as well. But yeah, I mean the first one.
Quintessential espionage movie. Yes, and now I'm chat.

(01:30:23):
I'm gonna try real hard for the second one like I.
All right, here we go. Here's Here's my contribution to
the themes of MI 2 Sex All. Right, I love it.
All right, I'm going to give a little bit more nuance than
that. I think the the theme here is

(01:30:45):
like when I really like like when you really think about it,
it is like a like, I think this is like the first because like
there is going to be in other movies.
There are going to be like the other venoms who are like a
mirror to Ethan Hunt. I think in this, this movie, The
second one is where they first attempt to do it with Ambrose
and that because they're they'resimilar ages.

(01:31:08):
So it's, it's kind of like the, the theme of just like the
reflection of your, of like the reflection in a mirror, just
like looking like at what Ethan Hunt could have been if he, if
he was corrupted early on, because that's kind of what
Ambrose is. He is an agent Also like Ethan,
he is also skilled like Ethan good at manipulation.

(01:31:29):
He's like, also, I mean, the only, I guess the only caveat
and difference is, you know, he's a fucking sex fiend.
But like, there is like a level of like, you know, this is like
a mirror putting a mirror towards Ethan Hunt.
And I think that's like, I thinklike that's supported by like,
you know, putting Naya in the middle of it where like, you
know, she could be like a love interest to Ambrose.

(01:31:50):
She can be a love interest to Ethan Hunt.
Even though, you know, it wasn'tlike the most believable
romance, it's still there. And that's why I think like
that's like the theme. The theme is like a mere
reflection of Ethan Hunt, like aparallel universe of like if he
went bad early on or if he went bad in Mission Impossible One,
this is he. This is who he would have

(01:32:10):
become. I really like that analysis.
I think that's extremely thoughtful.
Thank you. I tried because.
It's something that I don't think I would have thought about
unless I really sat down and looked at this movie in
isolation because it's just, it's, it's a tough one for me to
revisit. I'm going to give you a lot of

(01:32:33):
credit for that. Yeah, because I, I think after
this Mission Impossible 2 is probably like, no, I'm not going
to say I'm never going to rewatch it there.
I probably will rewatch it one last time.
Oh, I'll rewatch it. You know, maybe I'll.
Maybe I'll. Rush to.
Yeah, like I think maybe I'll like it more on the rewatch if I
already know what I'm getting myself into.

(01:32:53):
But then we get Mission Impossible Three and oh, man,
this one, this one I like just because, you know, I think I
said this on the the mental health episode.
What was it Then? I said, like, when I when I'm
depressed, I'm a nihilist. When I'm happy, I'm an I'm an

(01:33:14):
absurdist. Yeah.
And this movie, you know, and Mission Impossible 3, nihilism
is something that is a thing that carries over without the
whole movie because Davian, he is just cruel just because he
can be. He has no ideology.
He he's not fighting for like a like, you know, doing the shit

(01:33:35):
that he's doing for a bigger cause or whatever.
He's an arms dealer. He'll sell like he'll if he can
sell like the nuclear launch codes to Star World War three,
he would because he's ultimatelyhe's just a nihilist.
He doesn't care about anything and that that's that's proven
more by the fact that like just when he captures Ethan and he's

(01:33:58):
asking him questions, just just tell me where the rabbit's foot
is. Like he doesn't care more about
Ethan's excuses. Ethan, Ethan as good as he is
that, you know, like, you know, talking himself out of a
situation, like Davian doesn't care.
Just like just tell me where therabbit's foot is. 12910 Bam
shoots, you know, no hesitation shoots Julie in the head.

(01:34:21):
And I think just like that. This is probably like the
darkest film in terms of just the villain in in that he has no
there is no line that Damien won't cross.
Like whereas I think Gabriel like there.
I think, I think if Damien wouldhave been fleshed out more or

(01:34:43):
have shown up in a later movie, you know, I think he would have
been a more compelling villain because he had he truly has
nothing to lose. Yeah, I'm going to state the
obvious here and say that a veryimportant theme of Mission
Impossible 3 is love. Oh yeah, that's.

(01:35:03):
The the human drive to really push yourself and and sort of
ask yourself how far will you gofor love and or to protect the
ones you love. I think it brings out some very
primal instincts in in Ethan Hunt.

(01:35:27):
Yeah, no, I agree. I think we mentioned earlier,
you mentioned earlier how like the second wave was more
romantic. Not romantic in the sense of,
you know, like a romance flick or whatever, but just like the
like, the flourish that it had. Whereas like the third movie,
it's like it's deliberately depressing, but also, you know,

(01:35:47):
hopeful because you know, it's in this nihilistic world can
love, you know, like persevere through it.
And thankfully it does because, oh, man, this if if because like
later on obviously is a reveal that what it was that Julia
wasn't actually killed. She's still alive.
But, you know, if that did, if that did happen, like, man, that

(01:36:10):
would have been such as like, nihilistic and depressing movie,
you know, Ethan Hunt doing all this shit for love only for it
to, like, not matter in the end.Yeah, Thank God.
This movie didn't have like, youknow, a happy ending, but it
could have went there. It could have.
Thankfully, it didn't. Yeah.
Mission Impossible 3 is an interesting outlier in terms of

(01:36:31):
its themes, which I think PhilipSeymour Hoffman is a big reason
the movie feels that way. So yeah, yeah, that's what I
would say. And then we get your ghost
protocol, where I think this onealso do I had to do something
like reflections, right? Like I didn't rewatch the movie

(01:36:53):
like I said I would, but I did like rewatch clips of like, you
know, my favorite scenes. And I think I had said last
episode where, you know, I thinklike this villain was kind of
forgettable in terms of that. And like he he kind of was and
that he wasn't that much. I mean, yes, he was a villain,
but I think in this movie he wasn't like that wasn't like the

(01:37:14):
main thing like in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, the
villain was less of a person andmore of an ideology because like
I have to like I wrote this downlike the villain was some guy
named Kurt Hendricks or whatever.
And he's very, he's got very little screen time.
But I think what, what he represents is like the this,

(01:37:34):
this ideology. And I think like that, that that
contributes like the theme. And I think the theme is, you
know, this movie is kind of likea, it's like a Cold War but
remade in modern times. Because like there's like a,
there's a like a level of like misinformation being spread out
and like not being able to trustothers.

(01:37:55):
Kind of feels like there's like a lot of propaganda on both
sides where like, oh, is, is like, you know, the Kremlin,
like starting the war is Ethan Hunt starting like what's going
on? There's a lot of like level of
like I it, it gives me like, youknow, like the Cold War vibes
again. I mean, granted, we weren't born
during that, but just like the like the stakes of like the, the

(01:38:17):
stakes between like the tension of the between the US and
Russia. It's kind of like brought on
full display in this movie. So it's kind of like the villain
takes the backseat to that, liketo the ideology that, you know,
humanity is fucked. Let's just nuke and start all
over. That's a good observation
because honestly, what I was going to come with is that I

(01:38:38):
think the obvious themes in Ghost Protocol are the elements
of found family, because this isa Brad Bird movie where we start
to drill down the importance of the team.
And I think loyalty is the themehere because obviously we see
with the IMF being disbanded by the government, we still see the

(01:39:00):
secretary make the choice to trust Ethan moments before he's
killed and Brandt ultimately deciding to join the IMF having
previously been antagonistic towards Ethan.
But, you know, it's because he thought he failed to protect
Julia. So I do think the the themes

(01:39:21):
that I kind of think of when I watch Ghost Protocol is the
element of found family and the idea of loyalty, you know, just
working together in the face of trying to combat this ideology.
And when you honestly, when you frame it like that, I'm kind of

(01:39:42):
OK with the villain being forgettable because I am
honestly, I am pretty OK with the villain not being the
strongest if the movie has a strong philosophical.
Yeah, I think like looking back and like in retrospective, I
think the villain, it's kind of like the in the third movie,

(01:40:05):
like the rabbit's foot didn't really matter what it was.
It just matter what it represented in terms of like the
story and how important it was. I think also the same for Ghost
Protocol where I was like, I think it had a weak villain.
It wasn't like the movie wasn't really about the villain, but
what he represented like his ideology.
Because in his like if he succeeded, he would he would
have killed himself too. Like he would have been like,

(01:40:26):
you know, nuclear Armageddon. And everywhere because his whole
thing was he just wanted to juststart over, like reset the human
race essentially. And I think when it's when
framed through that like context, then it's kind of like
it's understandable where like, you know, the villain doesn't
matter if what matters is like the ideology they want to pass
down. But then we get to Rogue Nation.

(01:40:52):
This is where OK, so in the second when I talk about Mission
Impossible 2 in terms of like there, that was like the start
of where we say come mirror reflection to Ethan Hunt.
I feel the same way about rogue nation where Solomon Lane is
like that mirror reflection of Ethan Hunt, but he broke.
He didn't break bad in like as as a as a youngin, like Ambrose,

(01:41:15):
He broke back. He broke bad later when he
became like disillusioned with his own government and his own
like you know, MI think he was MI 6 so his own, you know,
government team. Government agency.
Yeah, that. So I think the theme is like
again, like a mere reflection ofEthan Hunt, just like the lens
of like with with the more cynical like viewpoint and also

(01:41:38):
like, you know, paranoia, not being able to trust who you
think you can trust. We get that a lot in in Rogue
Nation. Yeah, I think a lot of the
themes in Rogue Nation are actually pretty similar to both
the first Mission Impossible, because there is this sense of
paranoia, especially as it relates to the greater subplot

(01:42:02):
with the CIA not believing that the Syndicate is real, that
Ethan has just kind of lost it. He's making this up as an excuse
to continue to operate outside of the protocol of the IMF.
And then also, yeah, there is this this running theme of the

(01:42:24):
ideology similar to Ghost Protocol.
So I think in a lot of ways, it kind of proves my point about
how McCrory, you know, rewritingthe script for Ghost Protocol
LED directly into how he approached these last four

(01:42:44):
movies. Because I think you a lot of the
things that you said about the ideology for Ghost Protocol
could apply to Rogue Nation as well.
Right, I think I think also likewithin like some from rogue
nation to fall out. I think the themes carry over in
terms of like the villain is still the same.

(01:43:06):
Like, yes, we introduced Henry Cavill's character August
Walker, but it's at The thing isthere's like an element of like
power of trying, you know, trying to be the one, like the
one with all the power. And that that becomes way more
relevant in the final two movies.
But I think it's it's that that starts that that theme.
That theme is introduced in Fallout, where they're trying to

(01:43:28):
like, August Walker wants like, the plutonium he wants, like the
power to, you know, do whatever the fuck he wants.
And like, the level of paranoia carries over, like the level of
distrust because, you know, you can't trust anybody.
And then you get, you get like that betrayal, right, That
revealed that August Walking wasthe bad guy this whole time.

(01:43:49):
But in terms of themes for Fallout, I think it's very
similar to Rogue Nation because like, I think this is, yeah,
like we've been saying, this is where they get the formula down.
So then like the themes start tobecome like, you know, like
press, like the themes start to carry over throughout each movie
because like very like little, very little is added after that.

(01:44:09):
Yeah, I think too in Fallout, this is kind of where we
introduce that idea of there's got to be a better way to
shorten this for the sake of trying to talk about the themes.
But I think Fallout is the firstmovie to sort of introduce this
idea that the ends don't justifythe means.

(01:44:29):
It's not worth a moral compromise, even temporarily, in
order to make some sort of greater sacrifice, especially
when you were bound by this sortof heavy duty that Ethan Hunt
is. Yeah, integrity is like brought

(01:44:50):
into question here. Like the theme of integrity is
like sticking to like your moralcode even, like under dire
circumstances because yeah, yeah.
He has to infiltrate the bad guys to pretend to be a bad guy
and the bad guys test them. Like, hey, like, are you like,
are you really this bad mofo andEthan Hunt playing?
Who's he pretend to be? Jake Longer.

(01:45:12):
John Lark. John.
John Lark, he's pretending to bethis dude and he's like, Hey,
I'm John Lark. I killed women and children, you
know, with the disease or whatever.
Like he has to portray this character.
But then when actually comes to actually like doing it or like,
you know, doing something bad intentionally, he he can't bring
himself to do it. He he'd rather, he'd rather

(01:45:33):
like, expose himself as like, you know, not John Lark and
like, you know, he'd rather like, blow up his blow, blow his
cover than to compromise his integrity.
So yeah, I think like that's also like a strong theme in this
movie. And like I said earlier too,
Fallout is where we kind of introduce this idea of the value
of the individual that no one life is worth sacrificing in

(01:45:58):
service of, you know, these greater implications.
Yeah, and I think like that carries over and it's expanded
upon in, I'm just gonna say the final two movies because, you
know, it's part. One, they're heavily connected,
yeah. And I think that the theme is
like they they crossover like they're in both movies.
And I think in like the final like the the theme of of this

(01:46:20):
whole franchise, but especially it's like in the last two has
always been like it's always have like that spy espionage
element to it. And paranoia is big in the last
movies, specifically tech paranoia, the advancements of
AI. Technology Anxiety.
Yeah, where this franchise goes from the first movie being being

(01:46:43):
like the bad guy, being like someone, you know, someone
intimate a human being or whatever, to where it goes like
down the lane of like the last few movies where now like
technology is a threat, which iswhich is very real.
Like these are very real threats, ladies and gentlemen.
And then the last movie, like the last two movies, like the
themes of, you know, like you said, like not sacrificing the

(01:47:08):
few for the many, you know, likehave an essential of like free
will. Free will is a is a, is a big
theme in the last two movies. Like whereas Ethan Hunt wants
agency for everybody, the the entity and Gabriel, they just
want control and power. I also think there is obviously
the theme of trust, but it's executed in a much different way

(01:47:32):
than the previous Mission Impossible films.
Because I think here the theme of trust has to do more with how
it relates to how these characters perceive reality.
You know, because the the primary antagonist is an AI
figure in the entity, they are constantly having to ask what is

(01:47:54):
real, what is not real, what canI trust, what can I not trust?
It's it brings in these very relevant and kind of real world
current issues of like misinformation and, you know,
just kind of living in the reality that not everything that

(01:48:18):
you interact with is trustworthy.
And you know, I think it it, it does this pretty well in my
opinion. Yeah, like with the whole yeah,
like the AI or the then the impersonating Benji, like
showing you that. That is a genuinely freaky
moment. Yeah, I thought so.
Because it can't happen. We yeah, we already have the

(01:48:39):
technology now. Like fucking Drake did a whole
AI voice modulator with Snoop Dogg and Tupac.
Like the technology is already here, folks.
So like, the fact that it like Dennis T was able to use that
against Ethan Hunt, like impersonally, like it makes it
so like you can't trust, you can't even trust technology.
Like you have to go back old school.

(01:49:01):
And like that, that is like a the thing that Luther brings up
that, you know, in the final, inthe final moments of dead
reckoning, he's like, yeah. Analogue.
Yeah, I got to go off grid, you know, to like really analyze
like the entity and see like, you know, how we're going to
take it down. But in order for me to do that,
I got to go off grid because, you know, the entity will find
me and like infiltrate like my technology.

(01:49:24):
So yeah, I think like, yeah, tech paranoia also like this,
this, this, this theme of legacyversus mortality.
Because you know, at this point it's it's it's a weathered Ethan
Hunt. He he's not a younger anymore
and his mortality still. Wing walks still.

(01:49:45):
Wing walking like a badass, but like, yeah, you said this, this
level of like mortality to it. Because if Ethan Hunt fails,
we're fucked. Because there is no other agent
who is like him in terms of likewilling to sacrifice himself for
the greater good. Other other characters will be
willing to sacrifice others for the greater good.

(01:50:07):
Like, such as, like when the president is like, faced with
the choice of, you know, launching a few nukes, you know,
like, preemptively in order to like save, like, you know,
killing 100 thousands of people in order to save millions, like
that, that is a realistic choicethat the president is presented
with. Whereas like, Ethan is like the
only one who will not compromiseon that.

(01:50:29):
Like, it's, it's either we save everybody or we all die
together. Yeah.
But Ethan, in Ethan's mind, like, there is no, like, there
is no option for failure. Like, he has to, like, succeed.
And, yeah. So this is where I pass it back
to you. Like, let's bring it home and
tie it all together. Here we go.
All right, ladies and gentlemen,Are you ready for this?

(01:50:50):
Oh, man. I think Mission Impossible.
This is a franchise that people sort of associate with spectacle
and entertainment, and rightly so.
These are entertaining movies. I think for as long as this
franchise has been running, every time one of these movies
comes out, people stop and go towatch the latest Mission

(01:51:13):
Impossible movie because they know they're in for a good time.
But these aren't just action movies.
I think at the heart, in the broad scale, what Mission
Impossible is really about is the pursuit of idealism in the

(01:51:38):
face of impossible odds. But how do we do that?
How do we do that? We do that in our main
character, Ethan Hunt. Like you said towards the
beginning of this episode, it's not that Ethan Hunt feels like

(01:52:00):
this sort of cookie cutter generic character.
Even from the beginning, when hewas kind of OneNote, there was
something about him. It just kind of draws the
audience to him. There was a heart there even
before Julian was introduced. And I think the reason for that
is because if this movie is about the pursuit of idealism in

(01:52:25):
the face of impossible odds, it shows us that the way we do that
is through mastery and risk taking.
And that is communicated to us through the Langley Vault Wire
drop, through the Fulcrum jump, through climbing the Burj

(01:52:46):
Khalifa, through holding your breath for 6 minutes, through
the Halo jump, helicopter, the motorcycle base jump, and wing
walking. Are we going to do these things
in our lifetime? Probably not.
But what I think ultimately Mission Impossible is trying to

(01:53:06):
tell us, the audience, is that human beings are capable of
overcoming impossible odds. If you just push yourself, you
have to take the risk and believe that you can pursue
something better. Yeah, and of course for all of
us that doesn't mean wing walking.

(01:53:28):
But that's why it always feels like there's more to these
movies than the kick ass action.It is because it is trying to
say the reason we feel connectedto Ethan Hunt, even though he is
elevated to this God like mythicstatus in the Final Reckoning,
is because he is the ultimate embodiment of the fact that

(01:53:51):
human beings are capable of overcoming insurmountable odds.
And I think at the end of the day, even though people go to
the movies because they want to feel like they have an escape,
they ultimately want to feel like they can overcome.
And this is nowhere. Nowhere is it exemplified better

(01:54:18):
than Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible franchise.
That's why these movies strike an emotional chord with people,
despite the fact that it's easy to get lost in the fuck yeah
action of watching Tom Cruise jump off a Cliff on a motorcycle

(01:54:39):
and lace jump. Right.
Damn. Well said.
Very, very well said. Hold on.
That's. Like I said, my notes were so
predicated on the big picture that I was ready for that.
Yeah. No, I think that that ties into
everything that we said because like, yeah, like we went through
each individual film. But at the end of the day, like

(01:54:59):
throughout, throughout all thesemovies, like at the core of it,
the heart is Ethan Hunt overcoming like all these
adverse situations, even when like the odds are stacked
against them in which like, theytend to be a lot of these
movies. Yeah.
I mean, Ethan Hunt's daring feats of athleticism and death

(01:55:22):
defying action, what they're really about is they demonstrate
the human capacity for willingness to take on risk and
demonstrate a pursuit of masteryin the face of overwhelming
odds, in the face of pain. And that can look different for

(01:55:44):
everybody because everybody's life is different.
I mean, you could even apply this to running like people are
in pursuit of mastery of that craft in the face of
overwhelming odds because a sub three hour marathon feels
overwhelming. That's really what this is all
about. That's what Mission Impossible
is trying to tell us. That was that was very well said

(01:56:10):
and like to like and like to to to that.
I, I wanted to ask you, but thenlike, like, given what you just
said, is there is there a mission possible franchise
without Ethan Hunt? And what I mean by that is not
Ethan like, I'm not saying like Tom Cruise being in like the

(01:56:30):
franchise. I'm just talking about Ethan
Hunt like the character like what is like they went like the
the James Bond route where you know Ethan Hunt is this ageless
character where like you know, they replace some very few years
re revamped the story or whatever or is like this
franchise only work because Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt.

(01:56:51):
I think it only works because Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt.
Like there's no Mission Impossible 9 without without Tom
Cruise, Ethan Hunt. No, in the last episode, I said,
I'm not saying actors need to put their life on the line for
our entertainment. And then you kind of joked I
disagree. But as we were preparing for

(01:57:14):
this episode and I was writing these notes about the sort of
overarching theme of this franchise, that's when it really
dawned on me. I don't think this franchise
can't exist without Tom Cruise because no one is going to be
willing to do these things, right That he does.
And it's not, again, it's not even about like actually doing

(01:57:39):
the stunts practically. It's about what they represent.
I mean, I just don't know if youcan have the same franchise,
even if it is Ethan Hunt, who has this sacred duty of saving
the world without these key traits of of mastery and risk

(01:58:01):
taking, right? I mean, I just don't know that
it's possible. That's why I said too in episode
24. I'm kind of scared to live in a
world where the Mission Impossible franchise is no more.
That's true. I mean, no, that that that

(01:58:22):
that's true. And I think if they make, if
they remake this franchise, which they will in like 20
years, it it won't compare to like the legacy that this
franchise left on got that. I think at this point, like this
like the Mission Impossible franchise, like what it is now,
like the the movie franchise, atthis point, it has already
overshadowed like the original TV series.

(01:58:43):
Like, like when people think Mission Impossible, they don't
think about like, you know, no, no, the thing about this, the
thing about Tom Cruise, you know, fucking like walking on
planes, climbing the Burj Khalifa.
That's what they think of when they think about Mission
Impossible. They don't think associated with
like the origins and where it came from.
And you can't say that about youcan't say that about a lot of

(01:59:04):
franchises because I mean, I don't know the James, the James
Bond franchise like that. But I bet like fans will be able
to tell you like, Oh yeah, we like, you know, we got the the
original James Bond. Like, you know, we have this era
James Bond. Then we got the one with Daniel
Craig. Like that era of like.
No, that is how they think. Yeah, but I don't think they at

(01:59:24):
this point, like, you know, so like in that in that sense, like
the James Bond like is just one like none of them like overtake
the other or over shadow the other.
Like they're all like categorized and people can like,
you know, go back like, oh, you know, Daniel Craig isn't my
isn't my James Bond. My James Bond is the one before
him or whatever. Can't really do that here.

(01:59:45):
Like at this point, like Ethan Hunt, Ethan Hunt, and by
extension, like Tom Cruise is the Mission Impossible
franchise. And it kind of like, you know, I
was going to ask you, but I think kind of already answered
the wrong question. Is like Mission Impossible, like
lives and dies like this franchise.
It lives and dies with Tom Cruise.
If if there is a Mission Impossible 9, it's only be it's

(02:00:06):
only going to be because like, you know, Ethan Hunt comes back
and maybe he dies in that film And like that's where like, you
know, it ends no more. Yeah, I mean, I think it'd be
very difficult to continue this franchise without Ethan Hunt
because, you know, I think just at the core of this this

(02:00:28):
franchise is, is the belief thatan impossible mission can be
achieved. And again, you can scale that
down to real world scenarios like the impossible can be
achieved. That's why these movies appeal
to so many people, even though we're not going to do the things

(02:00:50):
we see. It's the feeling that it
generates when you see Tom Cruise wing walk and and and
just maneuver his way on this biplane.
You are imbued with this sense of belief that yes, yes, like I

(02:01:14):
can, even though you're not going to, but it's possible,
like you feel like it is. Yeah, like the French.
Is this called Mission Impossible?
But nothing is impossible. Yeah.
The words I'm possible isn't impossible.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. There you go.

(02:01:36):
And honestly, too, I just don't think it works because too, I
think to a lesser degree, that there's a theme of
responsibility and how that extends to leadership.
Yeah. And Ethan is the one to teach
all the members of his team, like Benji.
Yeah. These valuable lessons about
pressure and you know, people first and just the understanding

(02:02:02):
that you can't succeed in these kind of endeavors alone.
I just don't know if any of thisworks with Tom Cruise.
Like Ethan Hunt is defined by this duty to the world in the
sense that the world counts on him to prevent disaster.

(02:02:25):
I don't. I don't think Mission Impossible
exists without Tom Cruise. I agree, yeah, after watching
this entire franchise and like talking about it last week and
then reflecting upon it this week, I agree there.
There is no Mission Impossible with without Tom Cruise and
Ethan Hunt. And if they try to like
replicate this formula again, even even if they reuse like the

(02:02:49):
formula that that they got down after Rogue and then goes
protocol, you know, even if theyfollow that formula.
Even if they bring back Christopher Mcquarrie, Yeah.
It's gonna you know, it's like the MCU where it's like it
doesn't it doesn't hit the same where like like yeah, do you
have the formula? The Marvel has the formula done
or down but. They don't know where that's

(02:03:10):
gotten them. Yeah, the execution has been
like horrendous lately. Yeah.
And I think like these characters like they're.
Filming movies without screenplays.
Yes and like at least with this like this franchise, like there
was a lot of heart and care put into each and every single movie
and like, you know, a lot of movies, they just don't have

(02:03:31):
like that level of care and intimacy that the Mission
Impossible franchise has, which is interesting to say.
Like now that I'm saying that just because you will look at
these movies like as an outsiderlooking in and just be like, oh,
these are just like, you know, these are action flicks.
It's got Tom Cruise. It's probably going to be like,
you know, explosions don't work,cool shit like that.
But there is like some depth to these films.

(02:03:51):
And like you said, like when youtalked about the overall theme,
just that's. My point?
That's why people like these movies, because they make you
think that you human beings can overcome the impossible.
Yeah. And I think that's very well
said. And just like a great way of
describing like what this franchise and like what these
movies convey. Yeah.

(02:04:16):
But yeah, like, man, what a great fucking franchise.
Like I'm I'm I'm I'm glad we decided to do this and I'm glad
we really did split this into A2parter or us or I was like the
original episode would have beenlike 5 hours.
I was just talking. My voice would have been done by
the end. Yeah, yeah, No, I this franchise
like, wow, there are not a lot of franchises where, you know,

(02:04:41):
seven out of eight movies like just, you know, pure fire.
Like don't yeah, straight hits don't miss.
Like, like I said, like I compared it to Fast and Furious
and like, look where that fell off, where it became.
It were like the franchise lost itself.
Mission Impossible never lost itself.
No, yeah. And my go to franchise for
comparison is Harry Potter. Despite the massive differences,

(02:05:03):
I think there's just like I said, I I think there's a lot of
like interesting, like a real world comparison with the
directors and just like how the turning point for both
franchises is the 4th movie. But even though I think the
Harry Potter franchise is remarkably consistent, it's much
better than things like Star Wars.

(02:05:27):
Yeah, give me Mission Impossibleover Harry Potter.
I mean, we're talking about 7 out of eight movies, like you
said, Whereas, you know, I don'tthink there's a bad Harry Potter
movie, but there's definitely Harry Potter movies that when I
do my annual fall rewatch, I'm like, not this one.

(02:05:51):
Fair enough. All right.
How do you want to round out this mission?
Possible discussion? How are we going to end on high
note before we get into? Yeah, season, I feel like we've
got to go out with the bang because I just got to say maybe
I'm giving us too much props, but I feel like we nailed that
theme part. Bro fucking nailed it.

(02:06:15):
I feel like we really. Yeah, no, if, if people are
wondering, like, you know, how are they going to talk about
Mission Impossible again when they already talked about it for
three hours? This is how, ladies and
gentlemen, we went the extra mile.
We went, we dug deep and we really went there.
Yeah. We save, we save the thematic
value for last because, you know, that's ultimately,

(02:06:37):
ultimately, like, you know, where we want to like or where
we want to like send off this franchise.
Just like leaving you with that impression that anything is
possible. Like, you know, it's in the name
itself. Mission Impossible.
Doing these impossible missions is succeeding.
Exactly. And you're right.
Now we fucking nailed it. I think we did not to stroke.

(02:07:01):
Not to stroke our own ego. But you know, but like Jesse
said, I can, I can imagine some people were looking at the
length of the last episode and thinking, how could there
possibly be more? This is how yes, like we, we
really get into it. I've said this before, but.
This. Is in the trenches here at Below

(02:07:24):
the Line, the nobodies of Hollywood.
We're trying to give you everything that we're capable of
giving you. We are trying to do the
impossible. Yeah, we're trying to do the
impossible and deliver a season finale that if you were
listening to the 1st 4 episodes,you probably thought there's no

(02:07:45):
way this show's going to last. Yeah, look where we are now.
Yes, if anything, like actually that's a great fucking point.
Like let this be like a reflection of like, you know,
this is like how this podcast started, like the journey that
it took to get here. Granted, I came in like, you
know, episode 4 or 5 or whatever, but just the, the

(02:08:05):
humble beginnings that this partlike this podcast started as
like a seed of an idea and wherewe're currently at right now.
Because we, we, if, if I just say like where we're at right
now, we're, we're kind of like, you know, at the end of Mission
Impossible one of, of the story arc of below the line podcast.
We haven't yet. We, we, we're hopefully we're
going to skip over Mission Impossible two, yes, please.

(02:08:28):
Or maybe this is Mission Impossible 2 and then we're
going to try to end on a high note.
But you know, just the evolutionthat this podcast has gone
through and where, where, where,where we're where we're trying
to head and like the the ambitions and goals that we
have. I think it's, you know, we can
reflect that upon like, you know, Mission Impossible of like
doing the impossible because, you know, not a lot of podcasts

(02:08:51):
make it past 10 episodes. I don't know if you know this
chat. Exactly.
I honestly think that was a great meta narrative to set us
up to end this because I, as youwere saying that, I figured out
how I think we should end this. OK, we'll do something fun
because people love lists. Give me your top five Mission

(02:09:14):
Impossible stunts. Oh man, all right, all right, I
already know #1 So let me, let me try out.
The and then because we've talked about each movie so in
depth, we'll just rank them realquick.
OK. Yeah, OK.
People love lists, so let's justgive them what they want at the
end. This is for you guys.
This is for you guys. All right, chat, here we go.

(02:09:35):
My favorite top five stuns. All right #1 Burj Khalifa #2 the
plane walking. Yeah, that was fucking
incredible #3 the Fulcrum jump number, I should know, I take
that back #3 motorcycle riding, motorcycle off a Cliff, BASE
jumping into the train. That's number three.

(02:09:57):
Number four is the one I said previously, the Fulcrum jump and
#5 fuck what I want to give it to.
You know what I'm, I'm, I'm going to choose the classic,
the, the Langley scene first movie, you know.
I'm. Going to give it that one.
It's Gab. It's Gab in the top five.
We have strangely similar lists.I'm gonna go honorable mention

(02:10:21):
the Langley vault. OK #5 the Fulcrum jump.
OK #4 the Halo jump. Fuck, that's a good one too.
Yeah. There's a lot of good stunts,
guys. #3 the motorcycle base jump #2 as much as I loved it,
as much as I think it's pure magic, it's gonna be the wing

(02:10:43):
walking and #1 is the Burj Khalifa.
Because there is just no. There is no topping the fact
that that man willingly got on the tallest building in the
world and climbed it. Yep, and.
Like actually climbed it. Not like.

(02:11:04):
Not like Will Smith, propped by a plane, climbed it like, No,
actually. Yeah.
Like, come on. Yeah.
That's fucking awesome. Yeah.
All right. In terms of like, top five
Mission Impossible movies? All right, I think this one I
can do backwards #5 fallout #4 Rogue Nation, Yeah, before Rogue

(02:11:27):
nation #3 Mission Impossible three Number two, Final
reckoning #1 Ghost Protocol. OK, I'm going to go.
I'm going to do all 8 because I have my letterbox list pulled up
so it's easy for me to just look#8 Mission Impossible 2 number.

(02:11:48):
7. #7 Dead Reckoning Number six The Final reckoning #5 Mission
Impossible 3 #4 Mission Impossible 3 Mission Impossible
Rogue Nation 2 Mission Impossible Fallout 1 Mission

(02:12:09):
Impossible Ghost Protocol I'm going to be honest, everything
after 8 pained me to rank because because they're all just
so good. Yeah, no, it's hard because like
I do want to include dead reckoning, but it's like final
reckoning is kind of better. Even as I read those movies, I
was like, oh, Fallout's too high.

(02:12:30):
Like. That's just what I had on
Letterbox, so that's what I read.
But like everything after Mission Impossible two, I was
like, I feel like a pain in my chest, right?
That's why not. Yeah.
Now that that that that was a that was a great idea.
That was a great way to end, youknow, got top five stunts, my

(02:12:51):
top five mission, possible movies.
If we had a coin, I had one lastidea.
But I don't carry change with me.
All right. Is there like a coin app?
You bottle cap. All right, we have.
One with you know the tip. 1 without.
We call this heads, this Tails. Which way's heads?

(02:13:12):
We'll call this this part Heads.Yeah, OK.
Call that Heads. I'm gonna call Tails as it is as
it is. So you're up first.
There's 8 movies on here. OK.
We're gonna do a draft, so you're first, you pick one, I'm
second. I'm gonna take until the board
is gone. We're gonna put up each of our

(02:13:35):
boards on a Spotify poll. Let the audience decide who won.
Oh, shit. All right, so, so we're having
fun. It's the season finale.
We're gonna have like 4 basically, right?
Yeah, 4 each. All right, I got the first one.
Yeah, man, this is tough. Do I pick my favorite one or do
I pick the best 1? You know what, I'll pick both.

(02:13:59):
Ghost Protocol. Pick ghost protocol.
I'm gonna take Ghost Protocol, OK?
I'm going to take Fallout. Rogue Nation.
Fuck Mission Impossible one. 3. The final reckoning.

(02:14:23):
Fuck, does that mean with two? You're at MI 2 and dead
reckoning. You know what?
I'll take MI 2. I'll take that, OK?
I'll take that sacrifice. Really.
I will be the Ethan Hunt of thispodcast.
Then I have dead reckoning. So just for reference Jesse has

(02:14:44):
ghost protocol, rogue nation, rogue nation, Mission Impossible
3 and Mission Impossible 2. I have Fallout, Mission
Impossible One, The Final Reckoning, and Dead Reckoning.
We're going to put this up on a poll and I want the audience to

(02:15:05):
decide who has the stronger draft.
Yes. Chat, let us know in the polls,
please, please, please do vote. And please vote yes.
Because I do want to see like I do want to see me win.
So come on. Yeah.
And as you can see, we're tryingto pull out all the stops to end
this on a fun note. Yes.
So I hope you guys vote. Come on.

(02:15:25):
Yeah, that was fun. Yeah.
And with that being said, folks like, first of all, like, thank,
thank you, Dylan, for like, you know, we did a season finale.
The podcast is not. Over but.
No, you know, this is a good like, you know, 25 fucking

(02:15:45):
episodes. Every episode is at least 90
minutes long, if not longer. Usually longer.
Like when it's all said and done, what the IT?
Just happens guys. We we're not doing it on
purpose. Yes, but when it's all said and
done, it's just like the the content that we've produced both
like, you know, serendipitously when it's like, oh, let's just

(02:16:09):
like, you know, pod randomly or just like how it just keeps on
going in the early in the in theearly beginning, I remember
where we were still like drafting, like what are we going
to talk about? Like what should we talk about
in each episode? This blah, blah, blah.
We we start like, you know, we're not we're not a we're not
a ghost protocol yet. We haven't found like nailed the

(02:16:31):
formula down. But, you know, it's gotten so
much like easier to just, you know, pod.
Yeah, there's always like, there's always like something
the. Rapport is there, yeah.
There's always something to talkabout.
There's there's always movies coming out, whether, you know,
we visit the past present or just talk about like, you know,
news, gossip of like what's going on with Marvel, yeah

(02:16:54):
Maccabe and like Marvel with like their yeah shooting like
shooting a movie with an unfinished script.
What's going on there? You know, just that's the kind
of shit you can find here on Below the Line podcast.
Yeah. And that's like, you know, we
want to end this season on a super high note.
I think we did. Yes, and now time for some
shameless plugs. Yeah, time for some shameless

(02:17:16):
plugs. If you enjoy the podcast, you
know this is where Dylan usuallysays it.
But you know, if you enjoy the podcast, the best way to support
us is by listening to us on Spotify or checking us out,
checking us out on YouTube, adding the the podcast to
whatever, whatever podcast streaming platform you use.
We have many. Dylan will list them all right

(02:17:38):
now. Yeah.
So yeah, obviously the primary way to support us is to follow
us on Spotify, but you can also find us on Amazon Music,
Audible, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Good Casts.
You can find us directly on the newsletter at Substack.

(02:17:59):
You can find them on the YouTubechannel, which is also where you
get some supplemental stuff to the show.
Hopefully by the time season 2 rolls around, I have resolved
the Apple ID issue and it will be available absolutely
everywhere for you. Yes, because nothing is
impossible in Below Line podcast.

(02:18:19):
Exactly. And more shameless plugging
Follow us on blue sky so you canlike check us out what we're
doing off the scenes. Follow Dylan at name brand Dylan
dot BS sky dot social. It's a long, you know, blue sky
names are long. I'm working on getting a domain.
Follow me at Sanjaroo dot space,But you know, this is where you

(02:18:42):
can just find like, you know, usjust tweeting shit related to
movies related to like just in general behind the scenes stuff.
Again, we we've worked hard to like really like end this end
this season with the bang. And I hope like those of you
have who have like, you know, stuck by the journey of this

(02:19:04):
podcast from like, you know, thevery grassroots beginning to
what we are now and to what where we want to take it.
I hope you're having as much funas we are on this ride together.
Yes. I agree with that 100% and I
it's been such a fun journey. Just to reiterate, this is not

(02:19:25):
the end, ladies and gentlemen. We just want to come back
better, stronger, higher quality, leaner maybe.
But you know, that's the plan iswe're trying to improve the show
for you. And to the now 46 dedicated
listeners, thank you for for sticking by us.

(02:19:50):
And, you know, just just joiningus along this journey because it
has been an interesting one and I've had a lot of fun and I'm
really glad that we're going to continue doing this.
But since this is the season finale, I just got to say.
Personal thank you to Jesse for saving the show, stepping in,

(02:20:12):
and really giving us the opportunity to build something
here. So thank you.
I'm a little shy now, I didn't expect that.
Thank you, I appreciate it a lot.
You're welcome, Like you're. Welcome.
Yeah, no, when I first joined, Ijust joined as a guest and then
we were like, hey, let's just keep on recording.
But like this has been like justreal fun.
Just like kick it and just like,you know, talk shop and talk

(02:20:35):
about movies and shit. It's it's been fucking great.
It's been fun. Yeah.
Chat if you're still craving more content, don't worry, my
boy Dylan has a YouTube channel you can subscribe to because I'm
not done with the shameless plugs.
You can find Dylan over at Nightfall Films, you know,

(02:20:56):
subscribe to their YouTube channel because wow, this
podcast is going on a break temporarily.
It's not about long break, guys.It's really not.
We'll be back before you know it.
We'll be back before the year's done.
But if you still want more content from, you know, the
people that bring you below online podcast, Dylan's got

(02:21:17):
YouTube channel and you know, they just got a lot of movies or
not movies. Sorry, got a lot of videos that
you should check out especially like if you enjoyed this episode
and how deep we got with the level of nuance, check out his
nuanced videos. Obvious like, you know,
shameless pledge to the Transformers video, but he's
also got like a a Disney reflective movie on the on yeah,

(02:21:40):
on the the goofy movie that I think a lot of fans would
probably enjoy that movie just like or that video in terms of
just like what he addresses in that.
But yeah, that's enough shameless plugging for me.
Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that.
Yeah. Well, I think that about wraps

(02:22:03):
it up. Yep, everybody.
Chad, thanks for sitting down listening to us like talk about
Mission Impossible for over 5 hours combined.
You know, it really does feel like you were in a Mission
Impossible movie. It really.
Does. Yeah, the last two.
Episodes The Reckoning experience, Yeah.
Yes. So thanks for listening, thanks

(02:22:24):
for joining us on The Final Reckoning and we will see you
soon. Yes, thank you for listening
everybody. And I forgot to do this in the
last episode. So for the last time of the
first season, thank you to Levi for composing the intro music.
Thank you to Jesse for the artwork.

(02:22:45):
Thank you to our producer Maya, who on boarded about episode 16.
Other than that, that's going todo it for today and that's going
to do it for Season 1. But don't worry everybody, we
will see you very soon with somenew features to the show.
I mean, Jesse already said it. There's guests.

(02:23:07):
There's gonna be guests. So it's not spoiling, yeah.
We'll see you soon, everybody. We hope you had fun.
Yeah, because I I honestly love this episode.
Yeah. So thank you, peace Plants.
Nothing.

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Mission: Impossible - The Reckoning of Cinema

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mission: Impossible - The Reckoning of Cinema