Aaron and Brash discuss the emotional complexities and character growth seen in “Venom: The Last Dance,” exploring themes of sacrifice, symbiosis, and growth in relationships. From first encounters to in-depth analyses, we uncover what makes this trilogy's conclusion resonate with audiences.
As we dissect the storytelling elements of the Venom trilogy, we engage in a lively debate about character dynamics, most notably the complex relationship between Venom and Eddie Brock. While we acknowledge the films' flaws, we can't help but appreciate Tom Hardy’s outstanding performance and the eye-catching CGI. From the transition of Area 51 to the fictional Area 55 to potential new character arcs, our discussion touches on everything from plot critiques to future possibilities involving Flash Thompson and Dylan Brock.
• Exploration of Venom's character journey and portrayal
• Critique of editing and pacing within the film
• In-depth analysis of acting performances and character dynamics
• Most valuable takeaways tied to growth and humanity
• Ranking the film for the Fandom Portals Honor Board
Contact Us:
Website: https://www.fandomportalspodcast.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FandomPortals
Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
hello, I am aaron from the phantom portals podcast
and I'm sitting here with brash.
How you going today, brash?
So pretty good yourself, yeah,not too bad.
Not too bad, uh.
Today we are here to talk abouta fantastic trilogy of movies
produced by a really wonderfulstudio known as Sony.
We're here to talk about Venom,the Last Dance.
But before we get into that, asper usual, we're going to give
(00:37):
our growths and gratitude.
So I'll go first gratefulbecause the delivery man
delivered a nice new double bedfor my son to sleep in, because
he's uh, transitioning to a bigperson bed, and we built that
together.
So I'm grateful.
Um, um.
What about yourself, brash?
Any gratitude for the week?
Um?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I am grateful for the new year and starting it off in
a relaxed, relaxing way byhaving a day off today, even
though I was meant to go to work.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Definitely understanding of that.
All right.
So for growth, I do have agrowth.
I am, uh, I I don't really liketo make resolutions because I
know that I'm going to breakthem.
I just like to try andunderstand that I'm going to
form new habits, and the formingof new habits that I wanted to
try and do was to actuallyinitiate a bedtime.
I'm really fucking horrible atbedtimes.
So, um, yeah, sometimes I'llstay up until like one or two
(01:31):
other times I'll go to bed at 10.
Other times I'll go to bed at 830 depending on how absolutely
crashed and tied around.
But, um, yeah, first day of thenew year I was like I'm doing
it, this is it.
Awesome job.
Went to bed at nine o'clock,felt amazing.
The day after that I went tobed at like 1 30, so I
immediately broke it.
So my growth is still to try andget to bed between nine and ten
(01:52):
o'clock.
So if you are um following uson social medias and you see me
posting after nine or ten pmaustralian eastern standard time
, then pull me up on it you know, tell me to go to bed.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, tell me to go to bed.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I me about Fenn and Porter's community.
Do my thing for me.
What about yourself?
Any growths, brash?
This year I want to be moreresponsible with my money that
is such a good one.
Yeah, and when you're talkingresponsible with your money,
you're not like a closet gamblerno, no, I don't gamble at all,
really no, it's more so.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I tend to.
If I have any sort of money inmy account, I will spend it.
So say, if I go out to dinnerwith friends, I will pay for
everyone's meals.
That is don't change that.
I mean like it's good, but inthe long run I get towards like
the end of the month and ortowards my next payday and I end
up with no money.
Oh yeah, but yeah no.
(02:43):
I need to try and save somemoney because I want to go to
japan this year as well, oh yeah, japan's a great place to go.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I went when I was in my early 20s.
It is a great place to go ifyou're just looking to go
overseas for the first time,because it was my first time
there and I'd even take myfamily there now because it was
just, it was everything wasclean, it was good for tourists,
it was great, it was before allthe pandemic stuff and
everything like that, but sureit's still the same.
What do you want to see inJapan the most?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So there are a few sites from some anime that
actually like.
So some anime shows they'vedrawn in actual places in Japan,
yep.
So I want to go around, I'mstarting to compile a list.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
We're going to start off with our first segment, as
we talked about today.
We are going to be talkingabout venom, the last dance.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, that's going to like this no, I can absolutely
guarantee you, I'm my own hasfound us.
Who sent that thing?
My creator, of course.
The symbiotes didn't come hereby accident.
They were running from what.
(03:55):
What's his name then?
No?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
okay.
So the first take segment iswhere my co-host brash and I
discuss how we first discoveredthe movie of venom the last
dance.
It can be about venom the lastdance.
It can be about any of thevenom movies how you first heard
about him.
It can be about the venomcharacter, how you first were
introduced to that character.
Um, we are also joined heretoday by our third unofficial
co-host, ace.
(04:25):
He's sitting here on Brash'slap, so he's also excited to
join in on the fun.
The old papadoodle, do you wantto go first, or me I'll go
first.
When did you first meet Venomslash Eddie Brock On an
aeroplane?
Oh really.
So when I was about six.
Was he hanging off the sidelike he was?
Was I wish?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
no, when I was six back in the day, I used to have
to travel up between Victoriaand Queensland a lot to visit
family and there used to be thisthing that ums get unattended
minors on planes and they usedto get these little care
packages sort of thing, andinside were always comics yep,
(05:07):
and there were always Spider-Mancomics.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That's so good so yeah, so what airline was that?
Qantas?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
yeah of course Qantas yeah, so they used to give out
these little care packages andthey used to always have
Spider-Man comics.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, that was always fun yeah, because venom
was really big in the comicbooks in the early, uh well, the
late 80s, early 90s and goingthrough that run there it's
really when his characterstarted to change, um, from
being a hero to an anti-hero.
But that's, that's so awesomethat you first experienced him
from the comics, because mystory is very different.
I, you, you, remember the, thespider-man cartoon, yep, yeah,
(05:42):
not the, the one with the reallycorny but very memorable
opening theme song, ah, but theone that sort of came out in the
90s.
I first saw Venom then, andit's also the first time I
encountered Carnage, and Iremember being pretty afraid of
both of them, not in like a Idon't want to see them ever
again, but more like I'mintrigued by this character,
kind of way because you know the, of way, because you know, the
(06:08):
goblin seemed very, uh,outlandish.
The, the scorpion and all ofthe other sort of villains that
are hallmarks for spider-man allseem to be pretty novel, but
this one actually seemed to havesome forgive the pun, but teeth
to.
It actually had like a bit of adeadly agenda.
And then from there, myobsession with spider-man kind
of grew.
Uh, I then started to read someof the ultimate comic books
where he featured a little bit.
And then there was a video gamethat came out on the original
Xbox.
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and youactually got to play as
(06:29):
Spider-Man and as Venom in bothof those, and that was the first
time I really sunk my teethinto who Venom was as a
character.
You know how?
He's a symbiote.
He actually has to feed,because that was a mechanic in
the game.
He had to eat people as part ofthe symbiote to keep your
stamina up.
And so, yeah, mine was amixture of visual media in terms
of Xbox and also cartoon media,and from then, obviously, we
(06:51):
were introduced to him by thethat 70s Show actor, topher
Grace, who played him inSpider-Man 3.
Very comic, accurate in theportrayal of how Spider-Man had
the symbiote, then passed it onto Eddie Brock, and how he
actually got rid of the symbiotewith the church bells.
That's actually pretty comicbook accurate from what I've
read since.
But, yeah, what do you think ofthat performance in Spider-Man
(07:13):
3 in terms of Venom?
You've seen Spider-Man 3, right?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I thought not to jump into what we're going to
talk about later, but Iactually kind of thought the
Venom was more Venom than Venom.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I know what you mean.
So the one in Spider-Man 3 wasmore comic, accurate and more
true to the character than whatthis trilogy of Hardy's.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Venom Joking around, it was a bit more like always
serious, always had that deepvoice I mean as much as I do
like Tobey Maguire he's notEddie Brock.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I don't think.
Yeah, and he was actually pretty.
He was a bit of a dick in thecomics and not very good at
taking responsibility for hisactions, because part of his
main shtick was that he he wastracing down this lead for for a
serial killer known as the SinEater, and when he did that he
got this confession.
(08:06):
But he got it from somebody whowas a serial confession person,
like a serial confessional, andit was actually a fake
confession and Spider-Man caughtthe real villain and that's
what initiated Eddie Brock'shatred towards Spider-Man
because as a result of his storythat was absolute bogus from
the fake confessional, he wasfired.
He lost his wife, who is Annefrom the fake confessional he,
he was fired.
He lost his wife, who is annfrom the the tom hardy trilogy.
(08:28):
Uh, they were actually married,but now ex-wife and um, and
yeah, they basically just rootedhis character from there where
he hated spider-man and that'swhat surged venom's hatred for
spider-man as well, because heruined his life and he blamed
spider-man for that mistake,even though you know you can
take some accountabilityyourself, but he never did.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And they also in the actual movie.
In the Venom movies they touchon his time in New York.
Yes, and also a time that hewas disgraced and sort of
marched out of New York.
So I think it was a subtle hintto that storyline in the comics
, even though realistically itwouldn't have been exactly the
same because there was no Venominvolved and probably no.
(09:10):
Well, there might've been,there would've been no
Spider-Man involved because hedidn't know who Spider-Man was
until he went to Marvel.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, yeah, I think with with that connection,
that's very close to the, the1988 Lethal Protector comic book
series that featured Venompretty heavily.
It was the first time hechanged from being a hero to an
anti-hero.
And it starts off with hischange of location a sea change,
if you will to San Francisco,which is very similar to the
Venom movie, the first Venommovie released in 2018.
(09:37):
And it does mention the factthat he was disgraced.
He was a reporter for a New uhcompany and then obviously found
his way into being a blogger ora video uh editor, as he did in
the tom hardy universe.
But, yeah, I liked the factthat they did draw from
different sorts of comic bookinfluences in the venom trilogy.
(09:58):
But, yeah, I think, I think interms of first takes, we both
sort of come across thischaracter in very different
mediums.
Have you seen all three of themovies, brash?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The Venom ones.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yes, Venom 2, let there Be Carnage.
And Venom 3, the Last Dance Yep, very good, yes, so this is a
warning to anybody.
I think we already have spoileda little bit, maybe, of Venom
the Last Dance, but this is isspoiler warning for you guys.
Anything from here on furtherfor venom the last dance or any
of the movies of the venomfranchise, uh trilogy is on the
cards to be discussed.
(10:30):
If you haven't seen them, thenmake sure you go over and watch
those and then come back andlisten to the podcast afterwards
, if you are a person whodislikes spoilers.
But we're going to move into ournext Fandom Face Off, a Fandom
Fact Face Off.
Okay.
(10:52):
So the Fandom Fact Face Off isa weekly segment where Brasher
and I give each other a set oftrivia questions, we keep score
and the person who is winning bythe end of the month treats the
other to a theater date, allexpenses paid.
It's going to go very well withBrasash's goal of saving money
this year.
Hopefully I can win and keepyou in the spending spree.
Would you like to go first,brash, or would you like me to?
(11:13):
I'll go first, okay go for it.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
We'll start with an easy one, okay?
So the bartender is played by anow pretty famous actor.
What's his name?
Is played by a now prettyfamous actor what's his name?
And, for a little bit of help,he also plays Danny Rojas in the
Ted Lasso suit.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I have no idea.
I'm not even going to guess.
I don't know who that actor is.
So what is it?
Brash?
His name is Cristo Fernandez,cristo Fernandez.
I could have quickly IMDb'd it,but I thought I'd be honest
with this one.
Okay, my turn.
So it is 1-0 your way.
So far, all right.
So this movie was directed byTom Hardy's best friend.
(11:58):
She's also credited withwriting all three of the movies,
but she got her directorialdebut on this movie, venom, the
Last Dance.
What is her name?
Brasher Kelly?
It starts with M, yes, kelly, m.
I should give you half a pointfor this, shouldn't?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Marcel yes Kelly.
Marcel, well done.
She's responsible for writingthe screenplay.
She has a writing credit on allthree of the Venom movies,
along with Tom Hardy, who, forwriting the screenplay.
She has a writing credit on allthree of the Venom movies,
along with Tom Hardy, who has awriting credit for Venom 2 and
Venom 3.
And she directed this movie.
It's the first one that she hasactually directed as a solo
director.
So she's moved through thespaces of being a producer and
(12:36):
then a writer and a screenplayperson, and then now a.
So well done Brash 1.0.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
To me your second question.
So we saw a number of symbiotesin this movie.
Can you name all of them?
No, wow, can you name the bigfour?
Big four, so that's Venom.
Besides Venom, so Sadie's,teddy's Security Guard, jim, yep
.
And then this one's a bit of atrick one, okay, mulligans.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Okay, so Mulligans was Toxin, or it was Toxin, and
then it was a symbiote that wasreleased for the movie that was
Snake, like yes, yeah, that'sgood.
So that one actually wasn't.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So yeah, it wasn't named, it was just a teal
symbiote wasn't.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So yeah, it wasn't named, it was just a teal
symbiote.
Yeah, he was.
He did have toxin, but toxinleft it.
Yes, uh, mulligan, obviouslybeing the, the police officer
from carnage, I let there becarnage and venom the last dance
.
Uh, so teddy's, uh, teddy pain,who was the, the female blonde
doctor in the movie.
Uh, venom the last dance shehad it was acted by a juno
temple.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, one of my biggest crushes, juno.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Temple yeah, she had agony, I believe.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yes, so these are not really confirmed, but hers does
have the pretty much exactstriking resemblance of agony.
The only thing they've changedis that they gave her super
speed.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Super speed, yeah, and that was explained because
she was struck by lightning inthe beginning of the movie.
The other one you wanted wassecurity guard Jim.
Is that right?
Yep?
That one, I believe, takes aresemblance to Phage Yep, who is
just like the bulky brown.
Yeah big bulky guy, bulky brownvenom.
You see, he did like he wasmeant to be, like what was the
last one?
Sadie's Christmas, yeah, oh, Iwant to say Lasher or Thrasher
(14:25):
or both.
Scyther, that's Pokemon, it'sjust Lasher, oh, Lasher.
There you go See, I was prettyclose.
Yes, lasher was Sadie Christmas, I believe.
But the funny thing about allof those Venoms, they are
actually the one, they areoffspring of Venom.
Yep, all those symbiotes,rather, they're offspring of
(14:47):
Venom and they all derive fromthe Lethal Protector story arc
that was released in 1988.
And they were created by theLife Foundation, which features
in Venom 1.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, there's been a few symbiotes out over the time
because the different sort ofstory arcs that have happened,
two of the big ones obviouslybeing the King in Black and the
Venom Wars, basically saw anexplosion of symbiotes come
through to the Marvel Universe,but I do like how they did have
more original ones and therewere ones that like they all
(15:17):
have similarities to some that'dbe made, but like there was,
like the one I don't believe isthe case because Anti-Venom was
created by Norman Osborn.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
All right'd like to bring in budget questions for
you.
So this movie, although it was,it's been knocked a lot by a
few different critics, but ithad a budget of $120 million
estimated US dollars.
Do you think this movie madeover or under $400 million Over
(15:47):
it did?
Do you know the exact amount?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I did see the exact amount before.
I don't remember.
It was like 400, was it like478 or 400?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
If we round it up, it would probably be about 477.
So that was close, yeah, so itactually was a bit of a success
because it came out over one ofthe Thanksgiving holidays, I
believe.
Yeah, it was in the cinemas forfor that, and you know
everybody likes to go and enjoytheir holiday time.
So they went to the cinema, sawVenom, the last dance, and that
gave it a really big bump up.
So it also begs the question tome you know a lot of people are
(16:19):
going to watch these movies inthe box office.
$477 million at the box officeis nothing to shake your head at
.
Across the span of this seriesof movies Venom 1, 2, and 3,
they have actually made over abillion dollars, like the
franchise itself has made over abillion dollars.
And that, coupled with the factthat everybody's saying that
you know these Sony Venom moviesaren't too good, that's a
(16:39):
little bit of a question markfor me, brasher.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, it actually made more than I thought it
would, but um, in saying that,like always to every movie,
there's good stuff, okay, so sofar score update.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
It is two nil your way, uh, with your last question
coming all right.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So this one is a pretty simple, I think, okay.
So in the scene after the planeyep.
After he's Tom cruising yep.
And then before he meets thefamily yep.
How many animals does Venomturn into and what are they?
Okay?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
so I think there's three.
There's a horse, oh wait, isthere a bug?
Might be a bug, but I'm missing.
There's a horse, there's a fishand there's a frog.
Is there any more than three?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I'll give that to you .
Okay, there's technically four,because he turns into two
fishes.
He turns into a small fish andthen turns into a bigger fish.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
that eats the smaller fish, yep, yeah, 100%.
And then if you watch past theend credits scene and you see a
cockroach Potentially acockroach there as well.
Funnily enough, watching thismovie, I watched it with my
partner, kalia, and we watchedall the way to the null end
credits scene where it'sobviously setting up something a
little bit more for the SonySpider-Man universe, and then we
(17:49):
flicked it off and I didn'tfind out that there was another
post-credits scene until later.
So Carly is actually reallymorose with the ending of this
movie, you might say, becauseshe now sees Eddie Brock going
to Lady Liberty without Venom,thinking that he's never going
to come back, and she didn't seethat post credit scene and she
gets really connected to movieslike these and so she was really
sad.
So it was really nice for herto hear that.
(18:09):
You know, potentially he mightbe coming back, but in what
universe, we don't know.
Is it the Sony one?
Is it the Marvel one?
Let's do our next question fromme, score being 2-1.
Uh, can you clean?
Sweep it, brash, we, we'll see.
Okay, the overarching villainin this film, venom the Last
Dance, is Null.
We know him as well from acomic book series called the
(18:30):
King in Black.
Who voices that character?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Oh, it's voiced by Andy Serkis, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yes, it's voiced by Andy Serkis.
Andy Serkis, who also directedVenom 2, let there Be Carnage.
He lent his voice talentsabsolute master of motion
capture to the character of Null.
So that is the end of ourfandom face-off brash for this
week.
You are three, I am one, whichbrings us to a total for the
month of January, with youhaving four points and me having
(18:58):
three.
You've sworn into the lead, somaybe that New Year's resolution
is coming to fruition after all.
We'll have to see how we go,all right.
So, um, we're shaking things upthis week, guys.
We're actually going to bedoing our real deal segment
first, so this next segment isgoing to be the real deal.
All right, so the real dealsegment is where we get our
overlord chat gb2 to generatesome technical aspects of the
(19:21):
movie, where we can start totalk about uh movie that we are
discussing, which is Venom, theLast Dance.
Before we get into that, I willgive a bit of a brief plot
overview for those of you thatdon't know what the movie is
about.
So this movie features EddieBrock, who's played by Tom Hardy
, and Venom, and they must makea devastating decision as they
are pursued by a mysteriousmilitary man, an alien monster
(19:43):
from Venom's homeworld, andbasically it's a goodbye for the
trilogy.
It's a culminating of the threemovie saga.
It is potentially the last timethat Tom Hardy will be playing
Eddie Brock slash Venom, andit's a it's a bit of a, a bit of
a tear jerk, you might say, atthe end of it.
So, just so everybody knowswhere we're sitting with this
and usually we do this earlier.
(20:03):
But, brash, what are yourthoughts on the movie?
We usually do this in the firsttakes, but what are your
thoughts on the movie from anhonest perspective?
You can be honest.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
It's okay, you won't hurt my feelings, uh yeah, no,
um, look, there were some reallygood aspects to it, but for me
a lot of it was ruined.
Most of it was ruined.
I think the most fun I had wasthe best parts I had were any of
the time they were at Area 55,which is the new area that they
(20:35):
moved into from Area 51 yeah,and what happened to the other,
the other Area 52, 3 and 4 ohyeah, just bypassed it all and
straight to 5.
So yeah, all the like I likethat with like all the Juno
Temple and them doing all theresearch and talking to Mulligan
and stuff like that and findingout more about Null, all that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I love.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Law Shit.
So that's all great.
For me Just setting up thatworld building stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, I had a lot of fun with this trilogy.
I think it was a movie that Ithoroughly enjoyed.
I loved the dynamic betweenEddie and Venom and I loved
seeing the growth throughout,and I loved seeing the growth of
Venom across Venom 1, 2, and 3.
The growth of Eddie, I'm nottoo sure was as significant but,
as people on Phantom Portalsknow, I love seeing a character
grow throughout a story.
(21:20):
But I do agree there were somedefinite things wrong with this,
this movie, in terms of, youknow, pacing, plot, all that
kind of stuff, the way that somecharacters are represented,
some some dead ends in story, um.
So I'm not blind to the factthat, yes, this is a um, a
flawed movie, but in terms ofits purpose, I feel like these
movies were intended to delivera version of a character that we
(21:41):
are can take or leave, beentertained by, and I feel like
it hit its purpose.
So I actually we actually postfrom the fandom portals, we post
reviews on our of a characterthat we can take or leave, be
entertained by, and I feel likeit hit its purpose.
So we actually post from thefandom portals, we post reviews
on our threads and they areshouting out some threads
posters here.
They also have kind of mixedopinions on it as well.
Some people I gave it three outof five stars and one person
said that's very generous.
(22:01):
I probably agree with thatperson.
That was CJ Mellonon shout out,cj mellon.
He said, um, he's happy thatsomebody liked it and um, you
know I'm being mighty generousin that sort of aspect as well.
I agree with him.
Yep, um, uh, killer popsorrowful said that they should
have just stuck to the lethalprotector series for the film.
It would have been a lot betterand you know, it seems like um
(22:23):
if it wasn't he says if itwasn't for Tom Hardy, then he
probably just missed these filmsaltogether, which is definitely
something I can agree with.
Tom Hardy does carry especiallythrough number two, venom, let
there Be Carnage.
He carries that movie throughand then in the movie I also
mentioned how, or in the reviewon our threads I also said how
much I was impressed with theCGI, especially in terms of the
(22:43):
xenophages.
I really liked how they wereand the design and how different
they were.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
They're pretty much comic accurate of how they look
like they don't like in thecomics.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
They don't spray mist at the back, but I thought that
was cool.
I liked how they looked like agarbage disposal or a thing you
put trees into.
Yeah, the mulcher.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Love that.
Yeah, woodchipper, I thoughtthat was freaking awesome.
Yeah, and like for a beingthat's sole purpose is to pretty
much destroy symbiotes what agood way to just shred the
absolute crap out of them.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yep, shred the absolute crap out of them.
I liked all that CGI, but wehad someone called Gumsmith96
that said you think the CGI wasstunning.
Well, okay, so shout out to youguys Thank you for commenting
on our threads.
There's a few more on there aswell, but we do like to read and
get back to you guys on thoseones.
And if we're talking about theInstagram, I usually post like a
(23:35):
slide bar to see how peoplelike this movie and if you go
all the way to the right-handside, then you loved it.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
But if you slide it all the way to the, to the left,
you don't.
And it's sitting exactly in themiddle.
I was gonna say did you see?
Oh, it doesn't, it doesn'tthere's a choice of specific
people.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, it does, because you'll see, mine was
below yours.
Yeah, yep, so it goes all theway to the to the middle on this
one.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
So I went like a quarter of the way, maybe a bit
over a quarter of the way, andthen like stopped it there and
then I saw like the main, likeone was like sort of a bit
further along.
I'm like people like it morethan I do.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, no, I.
So I think there is varyingdifferent takes on this.
So, with our real deal uhsegment, getting back to that,
uh, this is where we let chatgpt generate a topic for us to
talk about in terms of the film,uh, if we've already discussed
it, we'll skip over it and then,at the end, if there's any that
we want to talk about, we mightmention them in our MVT section
that is coming up a little bitlater.
So, first off, we are going tobe talking about the villain.
(24:29):
Okay, so the villain orantagonist.
So this is where we talk abouthow compelling and effective a
villain or antagonist is in thestory.
A strong antagonist tends toadd tension.
It challenges the protagonistmeaningfully With the antagonist
and the villain.
For this one, there was thatlooming villain we saw in Null,
which we've kind of alreadyspoken about.
How did you feel about NullBrash?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I love Null as a character.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
He's fairly new to the comic book scene.
He is, and he's got a big fanfollowing.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, well see, even technically the sword that.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
He's holding.
It's literally there on thescreen.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Not even that there's the sword.
That's from Thor.
Thor, love and Thunder.
Yeah, gorr the God Butcher has.
Yeah, so it is a creation fromno, the sword, yep.
That's why I was like, ooh,symbiotic, yeah.
And tying to the MCU the sword,yep.
That's why I was like, ooh,symbiote ties.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, and tying to the MCU as well.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, I like Null.
I was a little bit disappointedthat he never showed his face.
Yeah, well, he didn't show up.
Like, if you're going to end aVenom movie, why not end it with
a?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
big bad.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that, andI feel like they might have
done that because they'reshifting away from the one and
done villains.
Everybody was kind of getting abit angry with that.
How they'd establish a reallygood villain and then they'd die
in one movie and they would beseen again.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So I felt like the way that they sort of set Null
as a villain outside gave me alot of Thanos vibes from the
original sort of Avengers face,where you'd see him far away and
you'd see him in you know postor pre-credit scenes where you
know he'd put on the glove andhe'd say I'll do it myself.
It was that kind of vibe for mewith Null and it felt like Sony
was kind of trying to setsomething up in their new Sony
(26:19):
Spider universe set of movies.
I'm not sure how far it will goum us, with the hindsight of
knowing how well craven the hunt.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
yeah, seeing how that sony spider-man universe is
going to be set up, not too sureand that's probably going to be
the biggest issue is the factthat sony doesn't have that much
intellectual property now yep,yep, and the ones that they sort
of the main one that they haveis spider-man, and the thing
with spider-Man is Sony areproducing good Spider-Man
stories.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So if we're talking about the original trilogy, like
the three trilogies with TomHolland, the original trilogies
with Tobey Maguire uh, somepeople love Andrew Garfield's
two movies I know I do, and wediscussed before off off camera
that you also like those.
And then there's the twoSpider-Man games that come out
on PlayStation, all all createdby Sony.
So they know what to do withthis character.
They know what to do withSpider-Man.
(27:07):
It just seems like anythingoutside of Spider-Man, oh, and
into the Spider-Verse as well,yeah, anything outside of
Spider-Man.
They just seem to stuff up,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Full, flat.
Yeah, just seems anythingoutside of sort of Marvel Disney
, outside of sort of MarvelDisney.
I hate to say it, but anythingoutside of Marvel Disney seems
all flat.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yep, yep or anything without that kind of influence.
And you know it does get backto the point of people that are
enjoying the MCU or did enjoythe MCU when these movies
started to come out.
There's an aging audience.
Are they trying to do somethingfor the newer audiences or are
they trying to appease the olderaudience?
And that's a difficult space tobe in.
And that's where you start tothink about when reboots start
to occur, um, when everybody'ssort of sick of the the old and
(27:48):
it's not really hitting with theold target audience.
So you think, okay, let'sreboot for a fresher audience.
And that's what you can see dcdoing with james gunn now, with
the snyder verse not reallyhitting where it was and him
starting his new supermanjourney for a brand new sort of
audience now.
Um, but back on to the topic ofNull as a villain.
I think the overarching sort ofnature of him was quite good
because it did seem to setsomething up and it gave it
(28:10):
increased the stakes for me,because if it was just about the
military looking for Eddie andVenom or if it was just about
those xenophages coming andlooking for Eddie or Venom, I
don't think I would have been asinvested, as if I was knowing
that you know the real world isgoing to literally implode if
they get, you know, if they getaway with it, so to speak.
So for me, null was pretty good, and for this as well our good
(28:35):
and bad ratings, as we do hereon the Real Deal segment.
If it's good, we're going tocall it Brock's Crocs.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
We want to promote Brock's Cro crocs.
That's what it's all about, andthat superheroes you know what
I mean can wear crocs and andand they are very comfortable
shoe yeah, like his shoes, likehis footwears for the start of
the movie, and if it's bad,we're going to call it sad
sandals.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Listen, I just want you to have this please.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh my god, thank you quality support, cushioning.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Plus, they come with an antimicrobial footbed.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
No, reject them, bastard crocs.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Thank you, those sandals were absolutely
atrocious.
He got them from Risa Phan'scharacter and he was immediately
pissed on.
Yeah, so good is Brox Crocs,bad is sad sandals.
So for you, for Null, asrepresented in Venom, the last,
last dance, what do you give it?
Uh, brox Crox.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Brox Crox I.
I.
I wish I could have seen moreof him, but what I did see of
him, and especially like thesome of the lines he delivers-
very on point for Noel.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, and they, um, it's like villain monologue kind
of lines.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like that's the, Even the lines that Mulligan says
through, which is basically likehe's saying memories like the
void has teeth, which is a linefrom the King of Black comics
that Null says no, for me Ithink it was a Brox as well,
just for that overarchinglooming sort of villain vibe
that he gave out through themovie and for the first time as
well.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
I wish that Carnage was done better for Venom 2,
because he is definitely theprimary antagonist for Venom.
But I feel like Null being madethat looming figure also teases
a little bit and it raises thestakes.
And if a villain is defeated inone movie, you're kind of like,
okay, he's portrayed as thisgod of darkness, but you kill
him in one go in a 110 minutemovie.
(30:32):
So I like that.
He is sort of still trapped onKlyntar.
I hope that Sony or even theMCU can use him in something
else, whether it be a TomHolland Spider-Man movie, an MCU
movie or an additional Sonymovie.
I just want to see him somemore.
So, brock or an additional Sonymovie, I just want to see him
some more.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
So Brock's Crocs for me.
So good start for Venom, theLast Dance, and as long as they
don't do the same thing they didwith Gore.
Gore the God Butcher yes.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Because they underutilized Absolutely,
especially with Christian Baleas the actor.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
for that, he just wasted it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
There's nothing with the character Wasted it?
Yeah, absolutely All,absolutely, all right, let's get
our next one.
Okay, so this is where we'regoing to be talking about
editing and transition.
So editing can refer to how thescenes are pieced together, how
smoothly the story flows, howit moves from one moment to the
next.
For me I'll start with this oneI feel like the editing for me
during the action sequences wereextremely choppy, to the point
(31:24):
where you were like, when thesymbiotes were fighting and the
action sequences were theretowards the end, the scenes
would change very, very quicklyand I feel like that was to
prevent focus on.
Yeah, I feel like that was toprevent people from focusing on
anything for too long.
Yeah, I really loved the waythat the symbios were designed
and the symbiote sort of movedinto different sort of hosts and
(31:47):
helped in that last fight, butI feel like the editing for me
was a little bit too choppy forme, so I'm probably going to
give this a sad sandals.
What about yourself?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, I have to agree , Sad sandals, more so for me.
I found, look, they'retraveling to New York from
Mexico.
Somehow ended over at Las Vegas.
Yeah, how, how, how?
You were, like, did they attachthemselves to the wrong plane
and fly in the oppositedirection of where they wanted
(32:17):
to actually go?
Because, like, let's go downhere.
If you want to go to New York,you go up the East Coast?
Yep, and then they ended up atLas Vegas, which is on the West
Coast, which is on the WestCoast.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Maybe some Americans know a little bit more about it
than we do, but here inAustralia, usually when you take
a direct flight, it directlygoes there, but maybe there's
something there.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I don't know how they ended up where they ended up,
and I feel like that's how theyforced them to be in the area of
where Area 51 is.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
It definitely did feel like some pigeonholing was
occurring here.
Yeah, um, it definitely didfeel like some pigeonholing was
occurring here.
I think we can also, in thisediting and transitions thing,
we can talk about how the storyflows as well.
So, talking about how I'llbring up a scene at the start
about the mcu, did you havesomething you want to mention
before we uh?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
kicked off just um, and also the with this getting
them to las ve.
As great as the actor Reese ishis family again, like Red One,
the family did nothing for me.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, I would say that the family sort of
humanized Venom and Eddie andmade him think about what he
could have had with Anne,because there was that moment in
the car where he's like, oh,you make a good dad, yeah.
But that kind of was like ahollow comment to me, wasn't it?
Because, you know, and how muchstake would you put in that
comment, coming from a symbiotethat literally bites people's
head off, you'd be a good dad.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Okay, says a head-biting symbiote who's never
been a father.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yep, the start of the movie for me was the most
jarring part, I think, as soonas it got to the point where
where Eddie was back in his ownSony universe, you might say,
and he was trying to go from LasVegas to New York.
Then it became a road tripmovie for me, then it was
self-contained, then it was amovie that I can sit back and
have fun with and enjoy.
Before that there was just aforced MCU plug, you might say.
(34:03):
And then the offhanded commentof you know, I'm sick of this
multiverse shit.
And it's almost like Sony wastrying to, or the writers were
trying to, say yeah, we know aswell, we know that you as the
audience are sick of this stuff.
So are we.
But then at the same time, inthe same breath, they're also
trying to set up a villain likeNull that could expand across
the multiverse and perhaps beused in the MCU.
(34:24):
And it just seems a little bithypocritical for me.
But for the that mcu transition, I'm like why you could have
just not um, but I know that inthe bumpers and in the in the
end credit scenes, uh, eddie wasbouncing back and forth between
the two different universes,the mcu and the sony universe.
But coming in as a person who'snot fully fleshed out in those
spaces and this being like afour to five year old story now,
(34:46):
with with no way home and thoseblending of the universes and
then the expunging of them, it'slike yeah, no, I, I just don't
know what they were trying to dowith that mcu and even him
going in and like I'm glad herescued the dogs, don't get me
wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yep, but why so?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
so if you're looking at a like a writing perspective
and you're looking at thecharacter, it's a way that the
characters are presented to theaudience in a manner that says,
hey, look, how well eddie andvenom are working together now.
So in previous fight scenesyou'd seen in venom 2 where they
were just arguing with eachother.
There was the famous fight inthe apartment where he's
(35:26):
literally at odds with oneanother, and I'll get into this
a little bit more when I talkabout my MVTs.
But that first fight scene withthe dogs you could hear Venom
and Eddie sort of talking to oneanother and then working
together and Venom was waitingfor Eddie to relinquish control
and he was like, say when?
And then when he said whenVenom took over, huh, I guess.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I'm giving you a chance, sweetie, I really am
giving you a chance.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
You should probably take it, see, see, okay, say
when, when, so there's that sortof moment for the character
where the audience can sit thereand think, okay, their
relationship isn't a strugglefor control, who's the boss,
(36:16):
it's actually symbiotic now.
So that's what it was for me,even though, yes, you can see,
and even the part before that,when he's walking down the
street out of the bar and venomsays I'm hungry, I need to eat
before we go on this big massivetrip.
And eddie was just like, okay,that's fair, there's somebody
that needs trouble over here,and he walked over that way.
So that's another point wherethey were kind of working
together and the writers weretrying to show the audience okay
(36:38):
, these two are friends.
Now, that's what it was for me.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
No, he's looking at me, I mean I get like, well,
that will make sense.
I mean especially the fact thathe was hungry.
They need to feed him.
But even later on they're stillnot in sync when they say we
are Venom.
Yes, that's right.
In the slot machine, venom justgoes nuts, yep, and he's just
like what the fuck is going on?
What are you doing, man?
We're fucking trying to get toNew York City.
You're sitting here messingaround.
(37:02):
Gave all the money that we have.
Look for your lady tonight.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
No Snazzy jacket.
Let's beat him and steal it.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I know Lady Luck is on our side tonight.
No, I would say that Lady Luckis definitely not on your side
tonight.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I would even go so far to say that Lady Luck is
definitely not on your sidetonight.
I would even go so far to saythat Lady Luck hates you, buddy.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I can't stop now, of course you can't stop what?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
is this feeling?
It's like all of my problemshave gone away.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I do this all the time.
It's inconsistent of themworking together and not working
together.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, you could say in that moment, you know they're
working on it and theirrelationship is perfect.
But Kalia actually commented onthat because she said why is he
walking so funny?
I was like Venom's trying totake him to different places,
Like there's two people in hisbody trying to control it, and
she's just like it just looksweird.
Well, okay, that's a point ofview, but no for you.
What do you think of theediting and the story
transitions and things like that?
(38:10):
Is it sad sandals, or is itbrocks brocks?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Sad sandals.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, sad sandals.
Unfortunately, this isn't astory that you watch for its
editing or its story transitionsSad sandals.
So one apiece.
Let's get our next one,Probably our last one before we
move on.
All right, so the actingperformances and the cast.
You can start with this one.
Brash, what would you like tosay about the acting
performances and the cast?
Thinking again is it Brox Broxor is it Sad Sandals?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I like the fact that all of the American characters
in this role play are by Englishpeople.
Yeah, that's true.
But on a more serious note,Juno Temple.
I loved her character.
People have said that hercharacter might be loosely based
off of Thaddeus Payne.
Yep, I loved Juno Temple inthis.
I thought she was amazing and Ido hope that if they are going
(38:58):
to go forward more than inmovies, that they do one where
she might be the main symbiote.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yep, well, her and Sadie Sadie Christmas, played by
Clark Backo, they actually gotaway in the end.
That gives me Thelma and Louisevibes and even though Sadie
lost her, her symbiote Lasheryeah, I'll find another one.
Yeah, you'll find another one,but you know the thing for me,
hitting back on the storycontinuation thing, the in the
(39:28):
first movie they were talkingabout how hard it was for a
symbiote and a human to maintaina symbiotic relationship, but
in this one you just seesymbiotes jumping through people
left, right and center, yeah,almost like they didn't care
about any of the continuity thatthey'd done before.
There's no consequences.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
But also too, they might have just been like you
know, being struck by lightning.
Having the like she would halfthink that she killed her
(40:02):
brother because they wereholding hands.
Lighting went through her,killed the brother she has
herself is like agonizing forher and she wakes up with after
nightmares and realisticallythis is an agony and so agony is
probably a perfect cbo for her.
But um, I I liked all of thecast.
(40:22):
Reese's family was againprobably again for me like they
were there for reasons, but thereasons for me weren't good
enough.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I can't wait until we find a movie that we review on
this podcast, where you're likethe family was required.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
I think I'd watch Fast and Furious and be like
this family is bullshit.
That's fair, no, but I've seenrumours or heard rumours, and
even he's in the credits, buthe's not actually in the movie.
Yep, so there's that secretsort of room with all the
screens, dr Dan.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Dr Dan.
He's in the first two moviesand he plays Anne's husband
slash partner.
Yeah, the one who takes Anneoff of Eddie Seems like a very
convenient way to get close tothe person who's part of the
symbiote.
Yes, there are some rumors thatsays that he is the man looking
at the screens.
I've seen that played by ReedScott as well.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, and he was in the movies, but he's in the
credits.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
But the funny thing about that going back to that
transitions thing we talkedabout again and why it's sad,
sandals that went nowhere, oh, Iknow, like we saw him and then
it was nothing.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
There was, no, there was no, like uh, agent Colson
reveal like in Iron man andstuff like anything like that.
Like it was um, yeah and yeah.
Like well, um, attached aroundoff black widow reveal, yeah,
and like that it was just likeoh, yeah, there, this other
soldier dude, what to do?
Speaker 1 (41:46):
he's pulling the strings behind the Imperium um
the Imperium military foundation.
What did you think ofStrickland?
Yeah, strickland.
Let me see if I can say hisname.
Oh, tough one, chiwetel Ejiofor.
What did you think of him?
Um, he's a good actor.
Yeah, baron Mordo well, inDoctor Strange yeah, yeah, baron
(42:07):
Mordo.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
I wanted to see him as a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Yeah, because in the comicshe's a Tyrannosaurus Rex Really,
like he changes into one, likeRex is Tyrannosaurus, oh, he
turns into like a symbiote,tyrannosaurus Rex.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
That would have been cool.
That would have been cool, yeah, but then you know.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
But then when?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
everybody's sort of sitting there, going into
territory of this is alreadyalmost slapstick.
And people like you look at theeddie venom relationship and
you're like, okay, this isgetting a little bit funny now,
caricature almost.
I thought that that I'm goingto in the mvt again, but I
thought that that relationshipwas less caricature in this
movie, the last dance than itwas in.
I'll, let there be carnage, butall right, so we do also have
(42:47):
peggy lu who plays m Mrs Chenfan favorite, that dance scene.
That was my halfway through themovie.
I saw that and I was like whatthe fuck?
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I was the same.
I was like what is happeningright now I get the name of the
movie is Last Dance, but we didreally have to have a last dance
.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, and you know I saw an interview with the
director and she said that youknow, kelly Marcell said Peggy,
peggy Lewis is a fan favoritecharacter and we wanted to give
her a send off that she deservedfor the trilogy.
And why shouldn't she?
And I was like I'll tell youwhy she shouldn't Because when
Venom transformed into his fullsymbiote form, he literally drew
the xenophage to his position.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
After specifically saying we don't, we saying we
shouldn't do this becausethey'll know where we are.
There was absolutely no needfor it.
And he's like you know what I'mgoing to do, I'm going to fully
transform and everyone's likecool let's do it, yep.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And I feel like even that part the dance and the
xenophage tracking them, both ofthose elements completely
unnecessary for the scene toachieve the purpose they wanted,
because the military werealready after Brock and they'd
seen him on camera footage, knewwhere he was, knew where he was
, they were coming, they couldget him to Area 55.
That story element had beenticked off.
You did not need the xenophagecoming in, you did not need to
(43:56):
have that dance.
It was completely useless andit was absolutely shit.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
And how fast the xenophages are when he
transformed in the base axenophage could be in there
instant anyway.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, the first thing about the Xenophages that made
me raise my eyebrow was when itwas just standing on a building
and then you see it just jumpthrough the clouds and hit the
plane and I was like, oh okay,yeah, right, he's got that Hulk
jump.
Yeah, we can move prettyquickly.
But yeah, in terms of Peggy Wu,I just feel like that character
was pretty unnecessary and youhad played a very sort of cranky
shopkeeping lady for the wholeseries and then in this one,
(44:32):
suddenly she's just like alittle bit drunk and she's just
playing that stereotype of thegambling person at the casino.
Yeah, wanted some money.
He's in a penthouse.
Yep, just very convenient.
So let's talk about the man ofthe moment Tom Hardy as Eddie
Brock and Venom.
Okay, this might be a hot take.
I moment Tom Hardy as EddieBrock and Venom okay, this might
be a hot take.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I love Tom Hardy, yeah, like.
Have you watched Legend?
Oh, it is an amazing movie.
I love that he and him playingthose two like twins, oh, so
good.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
They used similar techniques in this to play the
duality of the character,because he had that earpiece in
where he'd hear Venom lines thathe previously recorded, and
then he would act out as Eddiebased on what he heard, and he
did the same thing in Legend.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, and him and Taboo and stuff like that.
Tom Hardy is just amazing, or?
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Bane?
Yeah, absolutely, Anything hedoes with Chris Nolan Dunkirk he
was great in Dunkirk.
Yes, so good.
But yeah, here we go, herecomes the hot take.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
His Eddie just looked like he was constantly tweaking
and looking to score.
Yeah, that was just him actinglike he was always like twitchy
and fidgety.
I'm like I mean, yeah,initially, like when he first
gets to the scene he's stillgetting like, he's sort of like
that'd be fair.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
but after three movies a year long and he's
still just tweaking, I'm like,come on come on, I um, when he
was walking, as I was sayingbefore with with Kalia, as he
was walking, I was like this guywalks and looks like the
villain from Men in Black.
Oh yeah, I was like man.
He's just walking like thatdude.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
And like I understand he's trying to like, he's
trying to show that like there'smore, it's not just him.
It's someone else also in hisbody, but like is Venom always
making you move weird, or likeit just seemed like too much.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Yeah, yeah, I get that, and physical performances
for me can be hit or miss.
I think that the work that theydid in terms of the stunts and
the cgi were pretty good,because you know, the stuff that
he has to do with venom isobviously a lot of cgi and him
acting out that cgi sort ofstuff.
So physically I feel like he hedid maybe do a little bit too
much, uh, in terms of the waythat he can mentally respond to
(46:52):
a recording which I saw aninterview of, and he also gets
directorial advice and commentsthrough that earpiece as well.
So he's hearing Venom'srecorded lines and the lines
being fed to him from the firstunit or second unit.
Director.
All the sound guys is sort ofasking him to do something
different and apparently he canjust act and react to those
different sorts of lines anddeliver something uh that is
(47:14):
required for the scene or ifthey need something nuanced or
different, they can do it rightthere before they need to post
or or create something in anediting way.
Um, I think that takes sometremendous talent.
In terms of his eddie brockperformance, I kind of agree
with you.
Um, there wasn't much growthfor eddie throughout and for him
as a character.
Yeah, he just did seem to betweaking the whole time.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I remember even the first movie, when he dunked
himself in the fish tank andshit.
I was like I get it, it's yourfirst time.
That for me was fine, because Iwas like yeah you just combine
with the same thing for thefirst time.
It's going to be weird Over.
You just combine with thesymbiote for the first time,
it's going to be weirdoverheating.
It's going to be weird, yeah,but like after a year you're
still tweaking, yeah, and likeVenom's meant to be one of those
(47:56):
symbiotes who, instead of likefeeding off their host, is meant
to symbiotically bond and likesto protect the host, yeah.
Yeah, for him to still betweaking out after a year
doesn't make me feel likeVenom's looking after him that
well.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
So if we're talking about the cast here, it's
actually pretty star-studded,Like you've got Juno Temple,
you've got Tom Hardy, ReeceYffans, you've got Stephen
Graham playing DetectiveMulligan, you've got Chiwetel
Ejiofor playing Strickland.
It's pretty star-studded and,to me, pretty underutilized.
I'm going to give it a sadsandals.
What do you reckon I'm actuallygoing to give?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
it a rocks, rocks.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Okay, after all that crap you just gave Tom.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Hardy.
Well, no See, that's Tom Hardy,and that was my look.
He was amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
It was just his Physical Mr Bean, yeah, like his
John Cleese from Polly Towerslapstick yeah, his.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
What do you call like your when people have like two
little quirks, quirks it?
was like his little quirks.
For me it was just a bit overthe top, but other than that I
reckon everyone did an amazingjob.
Like, yeah, I loved Juno'sGakutete yep Strickland, he was
amazing too.
Like, for a while I thought, oh, he's going to be like.
I thought maybe at the startthat he'd get a hold of a
(49:12):
symbiote and go rogue and go badas well, but he ended up just
like he was.
He was a person I loved to hateuntil I liked him.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I um, before we move on from this segment and going
to our MVTs, final comment onthis one um, I just love how
Sony put this movie in the sameum universe as Andrew Garfield's
Spider-Man movie and justexpected us not to notice that.
Final comment on this one Ijust love how Sony put this
movie in the same universe asAndrew Garfield's Spider-Man
movie and just expected us notto notice that Reece Yifans is
playing Martin in this movie,but also played Dr Connors the
lizard in that movie.
So yeah, we'll just look pastthat it's fine.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well, I was saying that too, detective Mulligan,
played by Stephen Graham.
Stephen Graham he I see how wewere talking about Red One when
what's his name's character getstaken over by, yeah, nick Kroll
, nick Kroll, he did a great onehe did a great job of like
being taken over and I was goingin and talking like this.
(50:05):
He did a.
That's what you need to do.
That's what you need to dosubtle but impactful yep,
exactly right.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
He got the message, knew the assignment and he
nailed it.
I agree.
So for me just to be clear, I'mgiving it a sad sandals because
I feel like the cast that theyhad was underutilized.
Not because they did a bad job,I feel like they did a bad job.
I just feel like theyunderutilized them in terms of
story, in terms of somecharacters being there and not
being necessary, like Rizifan'scharacter and his family like
okay, he's here and that wouldhave freed up so much more
(50:33):
screen time to flesh it out toother people.
Yeah, I agree.
Alright, we'll move on to ournext segment, which is our MVT,
our most valuable takeawaysalright?
So this is the segment of theshow where we discuss the one or
two things that we absolutelytook from this movie.
It could be something that welearned.
It could be something that wegrew from.
(50:54):
It could be something relatingto the characters or their arc.
It could be somethingeducational that we learned.
I'll go first Brash for this one, specifically the character of
Venom, the symbiote character ofVenom, his arc from the Venom
one made in 2018, all the way tothis movie, venom the Last
(51:16):
Dance, and, in particular, Iliked how it represented the
transition and the growth from acodependent relationship to an
independent relationship andthen an interdependent
relationship, and by that I meanin the first movie.
You can see Eddie and Venombattling for control, and Venom
is very impulsive and I've seenTom Hardy actually say you know,
it's almost like channelingwhat a wild animal would do if
(51:38):
they had the cognizance to reactto things in the human world,
and I feel like he does thatvery well.
But he also takes a lot ofcontrol away from Eddie and
they're battling with each otherin terms of who gets that
control.
There's that domineering effect, there's no boundaries that are
set, which is definitely sortof there on a codependent side
of a relationship and theyactually do need each other for
survival.
In terms of the second movie,let there Be Carnage.
(52:01):
You're in that sort ofbickering phase of the
codependent relationship andEddie and Venom are both trying
to express their needs and theneventually they separate, as you
would in a you know, a romanticrelationship, if you would, and
then the growth comes from thatseparation.
They come back in the end andthen in this movie, as we
discussed previously, they arepresented to us as a unified
(52:24):
pair of people.
So that sort of growth.
And then coming to that endingsequence where venom was a
parasite.
He was described as a parasitewhere he absolutely takes from
his host and there's nothingthat he considers in terms of an
emotional tie to eddie.
He's there for food, he's therefor sustenance, he's there for
survival and then at the veryend, for him to then sacrifice
(52:46):
himself and potentially dieafter basically slugging his way
toward the acid sort offacility in Area 55 and
gathering all the xenophages.
And you can't look at me in theeyes, brash, and tell me that
you didn't shed a tear when heplaced ever so gently that door
down on Tom Hardy, on EddieBrock, and you know that sort of
that is not what a parasitedoes.
(53:08):
For me that is definitely arelationship that has
experienced some growth.
In terms of Venom, where he was, he literally says to him in
the first movie he's like I'm incontrol, you need me, I'm going
to do what I want with you, andthen now he's literally laying
down his life for this guy.
So for me the character arc ofVenom is good and was something
that I was there for and that Ienjoyed in this movie.
(53:29):
That's the most valuabletakeaway for me that growth can
happen even if you're ablood-sucking, head-chewing
alien symbiote monster thatneeds somebody else to survive.
Everybody can do the work andbe better.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, that's powerful .
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Thanks, brash.
Powerful, deep, deep.
Well, you know I like to lookinto movies a little bit more
than I probably should.
That's what I took from it.
So that last scene, how'd youfeel about it?
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yeah, I liked that whole entire last scene.
The one thing that did sort ofget me a little bit was the fact
that all these symbiotes tryingto hack and slash these
xenophages, and then Bems islike hold my beer and just
attaches to all of them, sucksthem into himself and walks them
to the acid Like damn man, whycouldn't you do that at the
(54:15):
start?
Yeah, yep, I mean well, notlike so much do that at the
start, but why couldn't youcorral them or like that at the
start?
Yeah, and just everyone justhack pieces off from under, like
there's other ways.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, the fact that those just kept coming back
together.
I liked the way that they cameback together too by the way, it
was almost like a flinky dollyeah, that was good.
But yeah, carly and I, watchingit, looked at each other and
just said how are they going tokill these guys?
Yeah, that's what I'm like.
And then more are coming.
(54:44):
You're like they're fucked.
Yeah, that's what I gave itthree stars, do you see?
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Yeah, but like um, I suppose in a way they are, they
were pretty much nearlyunkillable, but the big fatal
flaw was they couldn't seeanything.
But, yes, the um, the codex,the codex.
And the only time that they didhurt anyone else is when, like,
they were getting hurt by them,so like, if you just, like you,
just walked past one, itprobably wouldn't do anything.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Yep, yep, I can see that.
I think, in terms of the endscene and in terms of the growth
that I was just talking about,I really liked seeing how in
this instance we were talkingabout how jarring Tom Hardy and
Venom's movements werethroughout the trilogy.
In this ending scene, the waythat he was riding that bike, he
literally using venom'sabilities, blades helicopter
(55:31):
blades.
That was smooth transition.
That was complete symbiosis.
That was the ending of the arcfor those two, where they
achieved exactly what theywanted to do.
They're in a healthyrelationship now.
We're both exhibiting andrelinquishing control wherever
they need to, respecting eachother's boundaries, helping each
other achieve mutual goals.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Oh, and as sad as Venom and Eddie's departure was.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I like that they went there.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
That's what I like.
I felt I think I was sadder forSadie and Lasher.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Yeah, Sadie and Teddy Payne.
No, no, no Like the symbioteLasher.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Oh yeah, sadie and Lasher Actually.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
I actually explained no when that happened.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
This is sort of my thing we'll touch on, but like
the fact that Sadie throughoutthe whole movie and even Teddy
both like care for the symbiotesin a way of like not so much
like all for them, but just likewell, they're here now, they
sort of guess.
(56:33):
We'll try and look after themas best we can.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Yeah, try and get the best out of a bad situation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
And pretty much Sadie , the whole time has a sort of
infatuation about it, it seems.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
Or curiosity.
At least you can see it, andshe plays that really well.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Well, yeah, and then when she, when the assimilates
and her join, and instantly theyjust like, as lasher, just
absolutely smash it, yep.
And then poor lasher getsstripped off from from me and
just made him into me.
And then you said he's thereand along with lash, and I'm
like, oh, that's sad.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
Yeah, I felt so bad for say like, so sorry for sadie
, like oh, absolutely I yeah,and, as I said, that was a
moment in the movie where I waslike no like, and I thought that
she might be one of the onesthat like escaped, survived, and
I kind of like how movies getyou unpredictably like that.
It's almost like games ofthrones-esque and I'm not
comparing venom the last danceto game of thrones, no way don't
(57:22):
quote me on that.
But you know how the ones youdon't expect to die die.
Yeah, it gives you that sort ofgravity.
It did that for me when thesymbiote died, like when Venom
the symbiote died, I was like,okay, they went there, they did
this, but then again the samething and she was only on screen
for I don't know 10, 15 minutesand it already created that
experience.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
I was like those two are perfect for each other and
I'm like they would be perfect.
And then I'm like I'll ask thewhole thing.
I'm like, oh yeah, all the restof them are probably going to
get messed up, but I'm like Ireckon, um, so I reckon, uh,
teddy should have with agony,yep, should have rescued sadie
and lasher and lasher, yeah.
(58:03):
But I, I'm like it did.
It did give that bit of extraemotional sort of hit which, in
terms of a movie, is good yeah,would you watch a, a Teddy Payne
, a Sadie Christmas, agony andLash a movie?
Speaker 1 (58:17):
100%, yeah, 100%, yeah.
I think there's a market for it, oh, 100%.
I think there is even if it isjust like a Thelma and Louise
being chased by whatevermilitary, whether it's Imperium
hardcore yeah like agony isamazing.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, like she also technically is meant to be able
to spit acid.
Yeah, I, I, I found that to bea very touching, sad moment.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yeah is that your mvt with those two?
Speaker 2 (58:46):
no, so my mvt is sort of aligned.
Yeah, um, my mvt is, um, bothsadie and teddy, how they, even
though they are governmentemployees who are there to
pretty much experiment and testand research the symbiotes, um,
have that humanity to be like,well, no, these are creatures as
(59:09):
well.
Yeah, and have that compassionto not want to just do terrible
things to them.
And, yeah, like, have, thenhave that compassion.
I think that, like, justshowing compassion to others,
even though how they may be verydifferent to you, is something
that we all probably should do abit more yeah, I like that as
well.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
and in terms of like tropes in in films, there is
always the scientist that wantsto chop up the alien, like there
was even a um, an et joke inthis one, and that's very
prevalent in et, et.
They want to take the alien anddissect them and see what they
can learn from them and there isdefinitely some scientists that
are doing that.
But these two are intrigued andcurious and they want to see
what's going on and they want tohelp.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
And it generally seems like you don't really get
to see any other scientists, butit all seems like they all sort
of seem like that.
It was more Strickland generalmilitary will like no, we have
to kill all these things.
Yeah, um, uh.
When he took and takes over theoperation, he's like oh, this
is my operation now and I'mpretty much going to just burn
the whole place down.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Yep.
Um, we should put a compilationtogether of all the movies
where a military person saysthis by operation oh yeah, jesus
.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
I have so many times they pretty much put themselves
at risk and their careers andeverything at risk to protect
these symbiote creatures thatthey're not fully aware of what
their agenda is.
And like, uh, how the um snake,like tendril um symbiote that
(01:00:34):
um was attached to Mulligan umwas saying how they were running
away cause they were scaredtheir creator was going to try
and kill them.
They imprisoned them and nowthey're trying to get away and
they're like, oh shit, they'renot here to take over, they're
here to escape from a terriblelife they had.
And Strickland's like, oh no,they're here to invade.
Yeah, like every alien sort ofmovie, they're coming here.
(01:00:59):
Him and take over.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yeah, the first two movies set that up, though,
because you know Venom one,there was riot, which is the
symbiote in there, who wasliterally trying to use the
rocket to implement his evilalien plan, and then, in carnage
I'll let there be carnage heattached to him the serial
killer Cletus Kasady, and wasjust literally performing
carnage all over the place, andthat was a slasher movie.
(01:01:20):
So they had those badexperiences with the symbiotes.
But even still, you know, thesescientists were looking at them
in that different sort of light, saying what's their purpose?
They're looking that little bitdeeper and they did discover
just from asking questions, like, instead of just assuming, they
went and they asked thequestions and they found out.
Oh wait, these went and theyasked the questions and they
found out oh wait, these guysare actually escaping their
planet or they're trying toensure that a really dark and
(01:01:42):
evil force is not going to killeverybody.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
And you may be aware, but Thor was actually the
reason why they could escapefrom Null.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Clinta, oh yeah, from their planet Clinta, no, no, so
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Null created all the symbiotes, started wiping out
planets.
Thor killed one of thesymbiotes and that broke the
connection between Null and thesymbiotes.
The symbiotes basically becameself-aware and had some sort of
conscience and was like no, wecan't do this.
And then that's how theytrapped Null on Imprisoned demon
, yeah, and that's how they sortof got their own individuality.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Yep, wow, they got their sentience from there, do
you know?
I don't know if you know or not, but do the symbiotes, do they,
actively seek hosts, or arethey happily existing on their
own little mucky, gloopy, blueyselves?
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
It's been up and down , yeah, but primarily they do
need generally need hosts tosurvive because they need
sustenance.
Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Yeah, well, at least on our planet they explain that
in Venom 1, where on this planetthey need a host to survive.
And then the guy that, what washis name?
Drake?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he playsRiot.
Yeah, he said you know, if theycan survive here with a host,
we can survive there with a hostwith them as well.
So that was the kind of tiethere.
Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Yeah, and I think it's more so that if a planet
had an abundance of the foodsource, which is the chemical
that we have in our brains Yepand chocolate and chocolate, If
they just had that as like aplant or something on a planet,
they probably could just liveoff as their gooey selves and
just eat like the plants to giveoff the same sustenance they
need.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
So I think it's like to bring our segment to a close.
I think it's really interestingthat even like a crappy I'll
say crappy, but you know, in amovie like Venom, the Last Dance
, where it's literally just likea fun sit at home, enjoy your
popcorn flick, end of a trilogyEven in those sorts of movies
you can still find a messagethat can help you throughout.
So I really like that aspect ofour podcast that we're kind of
(01:03:48):
doing with RMBT.
Final question, just before wejump into our very last and
final segment Do you think thiswas a good ending for the
trilogy?
Do you think it was somethingthat rounded out well?
Do you think it serves theVenom character in a neat little
package that can be used lateron, or not?
How do you feel like it'sclosed in closure terms for fans
?
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
I, honestly, would have preferred.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Brock sacrifice himself.
Me too, that would have beengrowth, honestly, because at the
start as well, he literallythrows his fiancee under the bus
for a story lead and then atthe end of this movie, somebody
else sacrifices themselves so hecan stay alive again.
And that's what I meant when Isaid Brock didn't really grow.
Even though he learned to livewith Venom, he didn't really
grow.
Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
And because one of them needs to die for the codex
to be done.
If Brock had sacrificed himself, they would have got rid of the
Codex, venom could havesurvived and then well, he might
still be alive.
But then that brings up thething again if Venom's still
alive and Brock's still alive,then technically the Codex is
still alive.
Yeah, but if Venom, if Brockhad died, they would have got
(01:04:52):
rid of the Codex.
So they would have had to findanother way to escape, which
could have been a whole other.
But then they could have had.
They took Venom and Venom couldhave gone to Flash like,
attached himself to FlashThompson, and become Agent Venom
.
I was hoping you'd bring thatup and that could have been a
next thing and that could leadon to Secret Wars like that TV
show Secret Wars they had.
Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Well in this regard.
Flash gets the symbiote.
From what I've briefly read,flash gets the symbiote.
From what I've briefly read.
Flash gets the symbiote afterhe's done a tour in Iraq and he
returns and he's actually losthis legs.
So when he comes and he takeson the symbiote, he becomes
Agent Venom and it's almost likethat coupling and that's when
he does actually become like ananti-hero in that regard talking
back before about the 1988.
(01:05:33):
Lethal Protector.
Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
He actually gives Venom to other superheroes to
help them fight their big badsand stuff like that, and that's
when he gets recruited into thesecret.
Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Avengers Yep, exactly , and I think that taking this
character of the symbiote into aFlash Thompson sort of arc if
that was the way that it wasgoing to go I'd like to see that
sort of element being broughtback.
Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
I mean technically.
There was that one soldier whogot his legs chopped off.
Well, yeah, he got half.
Maybe that's Flash Thompson,Maybe that's.
Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Well, we can only hope, but I would very much
enjoy a Flash Thompson AgentVenom, and even if Tom Hardy
comes back to voice the Venom, Iwouldn't mind that.
I think that would be a goodway to continue the character if
they wanted to.
Or, you know, in the comic bookapparently they've got Dylan
Brock, who is Eddie's biologicalson, as the current host.
(01:06:27):
All right, so this is the finalsegment.
This is where Brash and I areconducting a Fandom Portals
Honor Board and that means thatevery movie that we or tv show
that we look at for the fandomportals podcast, we're going to
be conducting and compiling alist, uh, that ranks these
movies from one to however manyepisodes and movies that we do.
(01:06:50):
Obviously, we have done onemovie together so far, being red
one, so that is the only movieand that is the first place and
has been for an entire week onour honor board so far Scary, I
know, and this week as well, andforever.
You can find this list on ourFandom Portals letterbox.
It will be linked in the shownotes below.
So, basically, every week, themovie that we do, we will decide
(01:07:13):
whether it is better or worsethan the movie that we did
previously and we'll see howhigh or how low we can sort of
rank it.
So at the moment this job ispretty easy.
So for you, brash, do you thinkVenom the Last Dance should be
ranked first and be our newchampion on the leaderboard of
the honor board for PhantomPortals, or do you think it
should sit below Red Onestarring Dwayne the Rock Johnson
?
What's your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Okay, I don't was thinking about it and I'm having
trouble determining which oneis better than the other,
because both of them had veryaverage parts in it, but then
also had some good parts in it.
Yes, absolutely, I'm going tohave to say better, yeah, more
so, because, like I love LucyLiu, jk Simmons, absolutely
(01:07:56):
amazing.
The Rock, even though he playsthe same character in every
movie, still good, um, uh, buddyChris Evans, love Chris Evans.
Uh, scott Pilgrim versus theworld, one of my favorite, like
he played like and the same withnot another teen movie, he, uh,
anyway, um, I've always likedChris Evans as an actor, with
Venom, the nostalgia, the um,the nerdiness to it and the
(01:08:23):
amazing actor that is Tom Hardy.
I just feel it's just a bitmore my kind of movie.
Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
I rated both of these three stars, but for me I just
feel like this rounded out thetrilogy kind of well.
It was a big pickup from uh,venom to let there be cringe.
I feel like that arc and growthfrom venom really carried me
through.
They have made over a billiondollars at the box office, we'll
say as well.
This movie made way more thanred one did, at least four, four
(01:08:53):
times more.
But not just for that reasonbut for the facts, similar to
what you were saying, for thatnostalgia, for that connection
with the character of Venom, I'mrating it above Red One as well
.
So we have a new champion forthe honor board, at least for a
week, yeah, until we look at ournext movie in our next episode
of the Fandom Portals podcast.
But Venom the Last Dance sitsat the top of the honor board
(01:09:14):
streak of a week from Red 1.
We'll see how it goes.
We'll see, hopefully see how itgoes.
Prash, do you want to telleverybody where they can find us
?
Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
it's at Venom Portals , on everything.
So it'll be Instagram, twitter,not Twitter.
We don't Instagram and Threads.
Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Instagram and Threads oh yeah, and Letterboxd,
letterboxd very good, alright.
So, with that being said, guys,make sure you share this
podcast with somebody who isyour symbiotic brother and you
know share some good movie chats.
We definitely love it whenpeople chat to us on those
(01:09:49):
medias, whether it be Instagramthreads or even Letterboxd.
If you have a Letterboxdaccount, definitely come and
follow us, and we have somechallenges on our Letterboxd
right now as well.
We've got a January challenge.
Four of the movies on the listare my picks, four are Brash's
picks, and that was a way thatwe could be given a little bit
of criteria for you guys to pick, and we are looking for
community suggestions to putinto those challenges as well.
(01:10:11):
And some of the movies we watchwill end up being topics for
our podcast chats, so this wasone of my picks.
Venom the Last Dance was one ofmy picks picks for our podcast
cats so this was one of my picks.
The venom the last dance wasone of my picks.
We both agreed on it together,but I put it on as one of my
picks.
Next week, we're going to bedoing another one from the
challenge, so if you want tojump on board with it,
definitely go on and look atthat list and watch those movies
yourselves, give them a ratingand see how you go.
(01:10:33):
So that is at phantom portals.
All right, this is Aaronsigning out.
This is Brash signing out andwe'll see you next week.
Bye, everybody, see ya, bye,bye.
hello, I am aaron from the phantom portals podcast
and I'm sitting here with brash.
How you going today, brash?
So pretty good yourself, yeah,not too bad.
Not too bad, uh.
Today we are here to talk abouta fantastic trilogy of movies
produced by a really wonderfulstudio known as Sony.
We're here to talk about Venom,the Last Dance.
But before we get into that, asper usual, we're going to give
(00:37):
our growths and gratitude.
So I'll go first gratefulbecause the delivery man
delivered a nice new double bedfor my son to sleep in, because
he's uh, transitioning to a bigperson bed, and we built that
together.
So I'm grateful.
Um, um.
What about yourself, brash?
Any gratitude for the week?
Um?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I am grateful for the new year and starting it off in
a relaxed, relaxing way byhaving a day off today, even
though I was meant to go to work.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Definitely understanding of that.
All right.
So for growth, I do have agrowth.
I am, uh, I I don't really liketo make resolutions because I
know that I'm going to breakthem.
I just like to try andunderstand that I'm going to
form new habits, and the formingof new habits that I wanted to
try and do was to actuallyinitiate a bedtime.
I'm really fucking horrible atbedtimes.
So, um, yeah, sometimes I'llstay up until like one or two
(01:31):
other times I'll go to bed at 10.
Other times I'll go to bed at 830 depending on how absolutely
crashed and tied around.
But, um, yeah, first day of thenew year I was like I'm doing
it, this is it.
Awesome job.
Went to bed at nine o'clock,felt amazing.
The day after that I went tobed at like 1 30, so I
immediately broke it.
So my growth is still to try andget to bed between nine and ten
(01:52):
o'clock.
So if you are um following uson social medias and you see me
posting after nine or ten pmaustralian eastern standard time
, then pull me up on it you know, tell me to go to bed.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, tell me to go to bed.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I me about Fenn and Porter's community.
Do my thing for me.
What about yourself?
Any growths, brash?
This year I want to be moreresponsible with my money that
is such a good one.
Yeah, and when you're talkingresponsible with your money,
you're not like a closet gamblerno, no, I don't gamble at all,
really no, it's more so.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I tend to.
If I have any sort of money inmy account, I will spend it.
So say, if I go out to dinnerwith friends, I will pay for
everyone's meals.
That is don't change that.
I mean like it's good, but inthe long run I get towards like
the end of the month and ortowards my next payday and I end
up with no money.
Oh yeah, but yeah no.
(02:43):
I need to try and save somemoney because I want to go to
japan this year as well, oh yeah, japan's a great place to go.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I went when I was in my early 20s.
It is a great place to go ifyou're just looking to go
overseas for the first time,because it was my first time
there and I'd even take myfamily there now because it was
just, it was everything wasclean, it was good for tourists,
it was great, it was before allthe pandemic stuff and
everything like that, but sureit's still the same.
What do you want to see inJapan the most?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So there are a few sites from some anime that
actually like.
So some anime shows they'vedrawn in actual places in Japan,
yep.
So I want to go around, I'mstarting to compile a list.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
We're going to start off with our first segment, as
we talked about today.
We are going to be talkingabout venom, the last dance.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, that's going to like this no, I can absolutely
guarantee you, I'm my own hasfound us.
Who sent that thing?
My creator, of course.
The symbiotes didn't come hereby accident.
They were running from what.
(03:55):
What's his name then?
No?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
okay.
So the first take segment iswhere my co-host brash and I
discuss how we first discoveredthe movie of venom the last
dance.
It can be about venom the lastdance.
It can be about any of thevenom movies how you first heard
about him.
It can be about the venomcharacter, how you first were
introduced to that character.
Um, we are also joined heretoday by our third unofficial
co-host, ace.
(04:25):
He's sitting here on Brash'slap, so he's also excited to
join in on the fun.
The old papadoodle, do you wantto go first, or me I'll go
first.
When did you first meet Venomslash Eddie Brock On an
aeroplane?
Oh really.
So when I was about six.
Was he hanging off the sidelike he was?
Was I wish?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
no, when I was six back in the day, I used to have
to travel up between Victoriaand Queensland a lot to visit
family and there used to be thisthing that ums get unattended
minors on planes and they usedto get these little care
packages sort of thing, andinside were always comics yep,
(05:07):
and there were always Spider-Mancomics.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
That's so good so yeah, so what airline was that?
Qantas?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
yeah of course Qantas yeah, so they used to give out
these little care packages andthey used to always have
Spider-Man comics.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, that was always fun yeah, because venom
was really big in the comicbooks in the early, uh well, the
late 80s, early 90s and goingthrough that run there it's
really when his characterstarted to change, um, from
being a hero to an anti-hero.
But that's, that's so awesomethat you first experienced him
from the comics, because mystory is very different.
I, you, you, remember the, thespider-man cartoon, yep, yeah,
(05:42):
not the, the one with the reallycorny but very memorable
opening theme song, ah, but theone that sort of came out in the
90s.
I first saw Venom then, andit's also the first time I
encountered Carnage, and Iremember being pretty afraid of
both of them, not in like a Idon't want to see them ever
again, but more like I'mintrigued by this character,
kind of way because you know the, of way, because you know, the
(06:08):
goblin seemed very, uh,outlandish.
The, the scorpion and all ofthe other sort of villains that
are hallmarks for spider-man allseem to be pretty novel, but
this one actually seemed to havesome forgive the pun, but teeth
to.
It actually had like a bit of adeadly agenda.
And then from there, myobsession with spider-man kind
of grew.
Uh, I then started to read someof the ultimate comic books
where he featured a little bit.
And then there was a video gamethat came out on the original
Xbox.
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and youactually got to play as
(06:29):
Spider-Man and as Venom in bothof those, and that was the first
time I really sunk my teethinto who Venom was as a
character.
You know how?
He's a symbiote.
He actually has to feed,because that was a mechanic in
the game.
He had to eat people as part ofthe symbiote to keep your
stamina up.
And so, yeah, mine was amixture of visual media in terms
of Xbox and also cartoon media,and from then, obviously, we
(06:51):
were introduced to him by thethat 70s Show actor, topher
Grace, who played him inSpider-Man 3.
Very comic, accurate in theportrayal of how Spider-Man had
the symbiote, then passed it onto Eddie Brock, and how he
actually got rid of the symbiotewith the church bells.
That's actually pretty comicbook accurate from what I've
read since.
But, yeah, what do you think ofthat performance in Spider-Man
(07:13):
3 in terms of Venom?
You've seen Spider-Man 3, right?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I thought not to jump into what we're going to
talk about later, but Iactually kind of thought the
Venom was more Venom than Venom.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I know what you mean.
So the one in Spider-Man 3 wasmore comic, accurate and more
true to the character than whatthis trilogy of Hardy's.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Venom Joking around, it was a bit more like always
serious, always had that deepvoice I mean as much as I do
like Tobey Maguire he's notEddie Brock.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I don't think.
Yeah, and he was actually pretty.
He was a bit of a dick in thecomics and not very good at
taking responsibility for hisactions, because part of his
main shtick was that he he wastracing down this lead for for a
serial killer known as the SinEater, and when he did that he
got this confession.
(08:06):
But he got it from somebody whowas a serial confession person,
like a serial confessional, andit was actually a fake
confession and Spider-Man caughtthe real villain and that's
what initiated Eddie Brock'shatred towards Spider-Man
because as a result of his storythat was absolute bogus from
the fake confessional, he wasfired.
He lost his wife, who is Annefrom the fake confessional he,
he was fired.
He lost his wife, who is annfrom the the tom hardy trilogy.
(08:28):
Uh, they were actually married,but now ex-wife and um, and
yeah, they basically just rootedhis character from there where
he hated spider-man and that'swhat surged venom's hatred for
spider-man as well, because heruined his life and he blamed
spider-man for that mistake,even though you know you can
take some accountabilityyourself, but he never did.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And they also in the actual movie.
In the Venom movies they touchon his time in New York.
Yes, and also a time that hewas disgraced and sort of
marched out of New York.
So I think it was a subtle hintto that storyline in the comics
, even though realistically itwouldn't have been exactly the
same because there was no Venominvolved and probably no.
(09:10):
Well, there might've been,there would've been no
Spider-Man involved because hedidn't know who Spider-Man was
until he went to Marvel.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, yeah, I think with with that connection,
that's very close to the, the1988 Lethal Protector comic book
series that featured Venompretty heavily.
It was the first time hechanged from being a hero to an
anti-hero.
And it starts off with hischange of location a sea change,
if you will to San Francisco,which is very similar to the
Venom movie, the first Venommovie released in 2018.
(09:37):
And it does mention the factthat he was disgraced.
He was a reporter for a New uhcompany and then obviously found
his way into being a blogger ora video uh editor, as he did in
the tom hardy universe.
But, yeah, I liked the factthat they did draw from
different sorts of comic bookinfluences in the venom trilogy.
(09:58):
But, yeah, I think, I think interms of first takes, we both
sort of come across thischaracter in very different
mediums.
Have you seen all three of themovies, brash?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
The Venom ones.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yes, Venom 2, let there Be Carnage.
And Venom 3, the Last Dance Yep, very good, yes, so this is a
warning to anybody.
I think we already have spoileda little bit, maybe, of Venom
the Last Dance, but this is isspoiler warning for you guys.
Anything from here on furtherfor venom the last dance or any
of the movies of the venomfranchise, uh trilogy is on the
cards to be discussed.
(10:30):
If you haven't seen them, thenmake sure you go over and watch
those and then come back andlisten to the podcast afterwards
, if you are a person whodislikes spoilers.
But we're going to move into ournext Fandom Face Off, a Fandom
Fact Face Off.
Okay.
(10:52):
So the Fandom Fact Face Off isa weekly segment where Brasher
and I give each other a set oftrivia questions, we keep score
and the person who is winning bythe end of the month treats the
other to a theater date, allexpenses paid.
It's going to go very well withBrasash's goal of saving money
this year.
Hopefully I can win and keepyou in the spending spree.
Would you like to go first,brash, or would you like me to?
(11:13):
I'll go first, okay go for it.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
We'll start with an easy one, okay?
So the bartender is played by anow pretty famous actor.
What's his name?
Is played by a now prettyfamous actor what's his name?
And, for a little bit of help,he also plays Danny Rojas in the
Ted Lasso suit.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I have no idea.
I'm not even going to guess.
I don't know who that actor is.
So what is it?
Brash?
His name is Cristo Fernandez,cristo Fernandez.
I could have quickly IMDb'd it,but I thought I'd be honest
with this one.
Okay, my turn.
So it is 1-0 your way.
So far, all right.
So this movie was directed byTom Hardy's best friend.
(11:58):
She's also credited withwriting all three of the movies,
but she got her directorialdebut on this movie, venom, the
Last Dance.
What is her name?
Brasher Kelly?
It starts with M, yes, kelly, m.
I should give you half a pointfor this, shouldn't?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Marcel yes Kelly.
Marcel, well done.
She's responsible for writingthe screenplay.
She has a writing credit on allthree of the Venom movies,
along with Tom Hardy, who, forwriting the screenplay.
She has a writing credit on allthree of the Venom movies,
along with Tom Hardy, who has awriting credit for Venom 2 and
Venom 3.
And she directed this movie.
It's the first one that she hasactually directed as a solo
director.
So she's moved through thespaces of being a producer and
(12:36):
then a writer and a screenplayperson, and then now a.
So well done Brash 1.0.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
To me your second question.
So we saw a number of symbiotesin this movie.
Can you name all of them?
No, wow, can you name the bigfour?
Big four, so that's Venom.
Besides Venom, so Sadie's,teddy's Security Guard, jim, yep
.
And then this one's a bit of atrick one, okay, mulligans.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Okay, so Mulligans was Toxin, or it was Toxin, and
then it was a symbiote that wasreleased for the movie that was
Snake, like yes, yeah, that'sgood.
So that one actually wasn't.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So yeah, it wasn't named, it was just a teal
symbiote wasn't.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So yeah, it wasn't named, it was just a teal
symbiote.
Yeah, he was.
He did have toxin, but toxinleft it.
Yes, uh, mulligan, obviouslybeing the, the police officer
from carnage, I let there becarnage and venom the last dance
.
Uh, so teddy's, uh, teddy pain,who was the, the female blonde
doctor in the movie.
Uh, venom the last dance shehad it was acted by a juno
temple.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, one of my biggest crushes, juno.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Temple yeah, she had agony, I believe.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yes, so these are not really confirmed, but hers does
have the pretty much exactstriking resemblance of agony.
The only thing they've changedis that they gave her super
speed.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Super speed, yeah, and that was explained because
she was struck by lightning inthe beginning of the movie.
The other one you wanted wassecurity guard Jim.
Is that right?
Yep?
That one, I believe, takes aresemblance to Phage Yep, who is
just like the bulky brown.
Yeah big bulky guy, bulky brownvenom.
You see, he did like he wasmeant to be, like what was the
last one?
Sadie's Christmas, yeah, oh, Iwant to say Lasher or Thrasher
(14:25):
or both.
Scyther, that's Pokemon, it'sjust Lasher, oh, Lasher.
There you go See, I was prettyclose.
Yes, lasher was Sadie Christmas, I believe.
But the funny thing about allof those Venoms, they are
actually the one, they areoffspring of Venom.
Yep, all those symbiotes,rather, they're offspring of
(14:47):
Venom and they all derive fromthe Lethal Protector story arc
that was released in 1988.
And they were created by theLife Foundation, which features
in Venom 1.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, there's been a few symbiotes out over the time
because the different sort ofstory arcs that have happened,
two of the big ones obviouslybeing the King in Black and the
Venom Wars, basically saw anexplosion of symbiotes come
through to the Marvel Universe,but I do like how they did have
more original ones and therewere ones that like they all
(15:17):
have similarities to some that'dbe made, but like there was,
like the one I don't believe isthe case because Anti-Venom was
created by Norman Osborn.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
All right'd like to bring in budget questions for
you.
So this movie, although it was,it's been knocked a lot by a
few different critics, but ithad a budget of $120 million
estimated US dollars.
Do you think this movie madeover or under $400 million Over
(15:47):
it did?
Do you know the exact amount?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I did see the exact amount before.
I don't remember.
It was like 400, was it like478 or 400?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
If we round it up, it would probably be about 477.
So that was close, yeah, so itactually was a bit of a success
because it came out over one ofthe Thanksgiving holidays, I
believe.
Yeah, it was in the cinemas forfor that, and you know
everybody likes to go and enjoytheir holiday time.
So they went to the cinema, sawVenom, the last dance, and that
gave it a really big bump up.
So it also begs the question tome you know a lot of people are
(16:19):
going to watch these movies inthe box office.
$477 million at the box officeis nothing to shake your head at
.
Across the span of this seriesof movies Venom 1, 2, and 3,
they have actually made over abillion dollars, like the
franchise itself has made over abillion dollars.
And that, coupled with the factthat everybody's saying that
you know these Sony Venom moviesaren't too good, that's a
(16:39):
little bit of a question markfor me, brasher.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, it actually made more than I thought it
would, but um, in saying that,like always to every movie,
there's good stuff, okay, so sofar score update.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
It is two nil your way, uh, with your last question
coming all right.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So this one is a pretty simple, I think, okay.
So in the scene after the planeyep.
After he's Tom cruising yep.
And then before he meets thefamily yep.
How many animals does Venomturn into and what are they?
Okay?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
so I think there's three.
There's a horse, oh wait, isthere a bug?
Might be a bug, but I'm missing.
There's a horse, there's a fishand there's a frog.
Is there any more than three?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I'll give that to you .
Okay, there's technically four,because he turns into two
fishes.
He turns into a small fish andthen turns into a bigger fish.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
that eats the smaller fish, yep, yeah, 100%.
And then if you watch past theend credits scene and you see a
cockroach Potentially acockroach there as well.
Funnily enough, watching thismovie, I watched it with my
partner, kalia, and we watchedall the way to the null end
credits scene where it'sobviously setting up something a
little bit more for the SonySpider-Man universe, and then we
(17:49):
flicked it off and I didn'tfind out that there was another
post-credits scene until later.
So Carly is actually reallymorose with the ending of this
movie, you might say, becauseshe now sees Eddie Brock going
to Lady Liberty without Venom,thinking that he's never going
to come back, and she didn't seethat post credit scene and she
gets really connected to movieslike these and so she was really
sad.
So it was really nice for herto hear that.
(18:09):
You know, potentially he mightbe coming back, but in what
universe, we don't know.
Is it the Sony one?
Is it the Marvel one?
Let's do our next question fromme, score being 2-1.
Uh, can you clean?
Sweep it, brash, we, we'll see.
Okay, the overarching villainin this film, venom the Last
Dance, is Null.
We know him as well from acomic book series called the
(18:30):
King in Black.
Who voices that character?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Oh, it's voiced by Andy Serkis, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yes, it's voiced by Andy Serkis.
Andy Serkis, who also directedVenom 2, let there Be Carnage.
He lent his voice talentsabsolute master of motion
capture to the character of Null.
So that is the end of ourfandom face-off brash for this
week.
You are three, I am one, whichbrings us to a total for the
month of January, with youhaving four points and me having
(18:58):
three.
You've sworn into the lead, somaybe that New Year's resolution
is coming to fruition after all.
We'll have to see how we go,all right.
So, um, we're shaking things upthis week, guys.
We're actually going to bedoing our real deal segment
first, so this next segment isgoing to be the real deal.
All right, so the real dealsegment is where we get our
overlord chat gb2 to generatesome technical aspects of the
(19:21):
movie, where we can start totalk about uh movie that we are
discussing, which is Venom, theLast Dance.
Before we get into that, I willgive a bit of a brief plot
overview for those of you thatdon't know what the movie is
about.
So this movie features EddieBrock, who's played by Tom Hardy
, and Venom, and they must makea devastating decision as they
are pursued by a mysteriousmilitary man, an alien monster
(19:43):
from Venom's homeworld, andbasically it's a goodbye for the
trilogy.
It's a culminating of the threemovie saga.
It is potentially the last timethat Tom Hardy will be playing
Eddie Brock slash Venom, andit's a it's a bit of a, a bit of
a tear jerk, you might say, atthe end of it.
So, just so everybody knowswhere we're sitting with this
and usually we do this earlier.
(20:03):
But, brash, what are yourthoughts on the movie?
We usually do this in the firsttakes, but what are your
thoughts on the movie from anhonest perspective?
You can be honest.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
It's okay, you won't hurt my feelings, uh yeah, no,
um, look, there were some reallygood aspects to it, but for me
a lot of it was ruined.
Most of it was ruined.
I think the most fun I had wasthe best parts I had were any of
the time they were at Area 55,which is the new area that they
(20:35):
moved into from Area 51 yeah,and what happened to the other,
the other Area 52, 3 and 4 ohyeah, just bypassed it all and
straight to 5.
So yeah, all the like I likethat with like all the Juno
Temple and them doing all theresearch and talking to Mulligan
and stuff like that and findingout more about Null, all that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I love.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Law Shit.
So that's all great.
For me Just setting up thatworld building stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, I had a lot of fun with this trilogy.
I think it was a movie that Ithoroughly enjoyed.
I loved the dynamic betweenEddie and Venom and I loved
seeing the growth throughout,and I loved seeing the growth of
Venom across Venom 1, 2, and 3.
The growth of Eddie, I'm nottoo sure was as significant but,
as people on Phantom Portalsknow, I love seeing a character
grow throughout a story.
(21:20):
But I do agree there were somedefinite things wrong with this,
this movie, in terms of, youknow, pacing, plot, all that
kind of stuff, the way that somecharacters are represented,
some some dead ends in story, um.
So I'm not blind to the factthat, yes, this is a um, a
flawed movie, but in terms ofits purpose, I feel like these
movies were intended to delivera version of a character that we
(21:41):
are can take or leave, beentertained by, and I feel like
it hit its purpose.
So I actually we actually postfrom the fandom portals, we post
reviews on our of a characterthat we can take or leave, be
entertained by, and I feel likeit hit its purpose.
So we actually post from thefandom portals, we post reviews
on our threads and they areshouting out some threads
posters here.
They also have kind of mixedopinions on it as well.
Some people I gave it three outof five stars and one person
said that's very generous.
(22:01):
I probably agree with thatperson.
That was CJ Mellonon shout out,cj mellon.
He said, um, he's happy thatsomebody liked it and um, you
know I'm being mighty generousin that sort of aspect as well.
I agree with him.
Yep, um, uh, killer popsorrowful said that they should
have just stuck to the lethalprotector series for the film.
It would have been a lot betterand you know, it seems like um
(22:23):
if it wasn't he says if itwasn't for Tom Hardy, then he
probably just missed these filmsaltogether, which is definitely
something I can agree with.
Tom Hardy does carry especiallythrough number two, venom, let
there Be Carnage.
He carries that movie throughand then in the movie I also
mentioned how, or in the reviewon our threads I also said how
much I was impressed with theCGI, especially in terms of the
(22:43):
xenophages.
I really liked how they wereand the design and how different
they were.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
They're pretty much comic accurate of how they look
like they don't like in thecomics.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
They don't spray mist at the back, but I thought that
was cool.
I liked how they looked like agarbage disposal or a thing you
put trees into.
Yeah, the mulcher.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Love that.
Yeah, woodchipper, I thoughtthat was freaking awesome.
Yeah, and like for a beingthat's sole purpose is to pretty
much destroy symbiotes what agood way to just shred the
absolute crap out of them.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yep, shred the absolute crap out of them.
I liked all that CGI, but wehad someone called Gumsmith96
that said you think the CGI wasstunning.
Well, okay, so shout out to youguys Thank you for commenting
on our threads.
There's a few more on there aswell, but we do like to read and
get back to you guys on thoseones.
And if we're talking about theInstagram, I usually post like a
(23:35):
slide bar to see how peoplelike this movie and if you go
all the way to the right-handside, then you loved it.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
But if you slide it all the way to the, to the left,
you don't.
And it's sitting exactly in themiddle.
I was gonna say did you see?
Oh, it doesn't, it doesn'tthere's a choice of specific
people.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, it does, because you'll see, mine was
below yours.
Yeah, yep, so it goes all theway to the to the middle on this
one.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
So I went like a quarter of the way, maybe a bit
over a quarter of the way, andthen like stopped it there and
then I saw like the main, likeone was like sort of a bit
further along.
I'm like people like it morethan I do.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, no, I.
So I think there is varyingdifferent takes on this.
So, with our real deal uhsegment, getting back to that,
uh, this is where we let chatgpt generate a topic for us to
talk about in terms of the film,uh, if we've already discussed
it, we'll skip over it and then,at the end, if there's any that
we want to talk about, we mightmention them in our MVT section
that is coming up a little bitlater.
So, first off, we are going tobe talking about the villain.
(24:29):
Okay, so the villain orantagonist.
So this is where we talk abouthow compelling and effective a
villain or antagonist is in thestory.
A strong antagonist tends toadd tension.
It challenges the protagonistmeaningfully With the antagonist
and the villain.
For this one, there was thatlooming villain we saw in Null,
which we've kind of alreadyspoken about.
How did you feel about NullBrash?
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I love Null as a character.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
He's fairly new to the comic book scene.
He is, and he's got a big fanfollowing.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, well see, even technically the sword that.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
He's holding.
It's literally there on thescreen.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Not even that there's the sword.
That's from Thor.
Thor, love and Thunder.
Yeah, gorr the God Butcher has.
Yeah, so it is a creation fromno, the sword, yep.
That's why I was like, ooh,symbiotic, yeah.
And tying to the MCU the sword,yep.
That's why I was like, ooh,symbiote ties.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah, and tying to the MCU as well.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, I like Null.
I was a little bit disappointedthat he never showed his face.
Yeah, well, he didn't show up.
Like, if you're going to end aVenom movie, why not end it with
a?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
big bad.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that, andI feel like they might have
done that because they'reshifting away from the one and
done villains.
Everybody was kind of getting abit angry with that.
How they'd establish a reallygood villain and then they'd die
in one movie and they would beseen again.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So I felt like the way that they sort of set Null
as a villain outside gave me alot of Thanos vibes from the
original sort of Avengers face,where you'd see him far away and
you'd see him in you know postor pre-credit scenes where you
know he'd put on the glove andhe'd say I'll do it myself.
It was that kind of vibe for mewith Null and it felt like Sony
was kind of trying to setsomething up in their new Sony
(26:19):
Spider universe set of movies.
I'm not sure how far it will goum us, with the hindsight of
knowing how well craven the hunt.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
yeah, seeing how that sony spider-man universe is
going to be set up, not too sureand that's probably going to be
the biggest issue is the factthat sony doesn't have that much
intellectual property now yep,yep, and the ones that they sort
of the main one that they haveis spider-man, and the thing
with spider-Man is Sony areproducing good Spider-Man
stories.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So if we're talking about the original trilogy, like
the three trilogies with TomHolland, the original trilogies
with Tobey Maguire uh, somepeople love Andrew Garfield's
two movies I know I do, and wediscussed before off off camera
that you also like those.
And then there's the twoSpider-Man games that come out
on PlayStation, all all createdby Sony.
So they know what to do withthis character.
They know what to do withSpider-Man.
(27:07):
It just seems like anythingoutside of Spider-Man, oh, and
into the Spider-Verse as well,yeah, anything outside of
Spider-Man.
They just seem to stuff up,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Full, flat.
Yeah, just seems anythingoutside of sort of Marvel Disney
, outside of sort of MarvelDisney.
I hate to say it, but anythingoutside of Marvel Disney seems
all flat.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yep, yep or anything without that kind of influence.
And you know it does get backto the point of people that are
enjoying the MCU or did enjoythe MCU when these movies
started to come out.
There's an aging audience.
Are they trying to do somethingfor the newer audiences or are
they trying to appease the olderaudience?
And that's a difficult space tobe in.
And that's where you start tothink about when reboots start
to occur, um, when everybody'ssort of sick of the the old and
(27:48):
it's not really hitting with theold target audience.
So you think, okay, let'sreboot for a fresher audience.
And that's what you can see dcdoing with james gunn now, with
the snyder verse not reallyhitting where it was and him
starting his new supermanjourney for a brand new sort of
audience now.
Um, but back on to the topic ofNull as a villain.
I think the overarching sort ofnature of him was quite good
because it did seem to setsomething up and it gave it
(28:10):
increased the stakes for me,because if it was just about the
military looking for Eddie andVenom or if it was just about
those xenophages coming andlooking for Eddie or Venom, I
don't think I would have been asinvested, as if I was knowing
that you know the real world isgoing to literally implode if
they get, you know, if they getaway with it, so to speak.
So for me, null was pretty good, and for this as well our good
(28:35):
and bad ratings, as we do hereon the Real Deal segment.
If it's good, we're going tocall it Brock's Crocs.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
We want to promote Brock's Cro crocs.
That's what it's all about, andthat superheroes you know what
I mean can wear crocs and andand they are very comfortable
shoe yeah, like his shoes, likehis footwears for the start of
the movie, and if it's bad,we're going to call it sad
sandals.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Listen, I just want you to have this please.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Oh my god, thank you quality support, cushioning.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Plus, they come with an antimicrobial footbed.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
No, reject them, bastard crocs.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Thank you, those sandals were absolutely
atrocious.
He got them from Risa Phan'scharacter and he was immediately
pissed on.
Yeah, so good is Brox Crocs,bad is sad sandals.
So for you, for Null, asrepresented in Venom, the last,
last dance, what do you give it?
Uh, brox Crox.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Brox Crox I.
I.
I wish I could have seen moreof him, but what I did see of
him, and especially like thesome of the lines he delivers-
very on point for Noel.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, and they, um, it's like villain monologue kind
of lines.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like that's the, Even the lines that Mulligan says
through, which is basically likehe's saying memories like the
void has teeth, which is a linefrom the King of Black comics
that Null says no, for me Ithink it was a Brox as well,
just for that overarchinglooming sort of villain vibe
that he gave out through themovie and for the first time as
well.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
I wish that Carnage was done better for Venom 2,
because he is definitely theprimary antagonist for Venom.
But I feel like Null being madethat looming figure also teases
a little bit and it raises thestakes.
And if a villain is defeated inone movie, you're kind of like,
okay, he's portrayed as thisgod of darkness, but you kill
him in one go in a 110 minutemovie.
(30:32):
So I like that.
He is sort of still trapped onKlyntar.
I hope that Sony or even theMCU can use him in something
else, whether it be a TomHolland Spider-Man movie, an MCU
movie or an additional Sonymovie.
I just want to see him somemore.
So, brock or an additional Sonymovie, I just want to see him
some more.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
So Brock's Crocs for me.
So good start for Venom, theLast Dance, and as long as they
don't do the same thing they didwith Gore.
Gore the God Butcher yes.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Because they underutilized Absolutely,
especially with Christian Baleas the actor.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
for that, he just wasted it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
There's nothing with the character Wasted it?
Yeah, absolutely All,absolutely, all right, let's get
our next one.
Okay, so this is where we'regoing to be talking about
editing and transition.
So editing can refer to how thescenes are pieced together, how
smoothly the story flows, howit moves from one moment to the
next.
For me I'll start with this oneI feel like the editing for me
during the action sequences wereextremely choppy, to the point
(31:24):
where you were like, when thesymbiotes were fighting and the
action sequences were theretowards the end, the scenes
would change very, very quicklyand I feel like that was to
prevent focus on.
Yeah, I feel like that was toprevent people from focusing on
anything for too long.
Yeah, I really loved the waythat the symbios were designed
and the symbiote sort of movedinto different sort of hosts and
(31:47):
helped in that last fight, butI feel like the editing for me
was a little bit too choppy forme, so I'm probably going to
give this a sad sandals.
What about yourself?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, I have to agree , Sad sandals, more so for me.
I found, look, they'retraveling to New York from
Mexico.
Somehow ended over at Las Vegas.
Yeah, how, how, how?
You were, like, did they attachthemselves to the wrong plane
and fly in the oppositedirection of where they wanted
(32:17):
to actually go?
Because, like, let's go downhere.
If you want to go to New York,you go up the East Coast?
Yep, and then they ended up atLas Vegas, which is on the West
Coast, which is on the WestCoast.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Maybe some Americans know a little bit more about it
than we do, but here inAustralia, usually when you take
a direct flight, it directlygoes there, but maybe there's
something there.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I don't know how they ended up where they ended up,
and I feel like that's how theyforced them to be in the area of
where Area 51 is.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
It definitely did feel like some pigeonholing was
occurring here.
Yeah, um, it definitely didfeel like some pigeonholing was
occurring here.
I think we can also, in thisediting and transitions thing,
we can talk about how the storyflows as well.
So, talking about how I'llbring up a scene at the start
about the mcu, did you havesomething you want to mention
before we uh?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
kicked off just um, and also the with this getting
them to las ve.
As great as the actor Reese ishis family again, like Red One,
the family did nothing for me.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, I would say that the family sort of
humanized Venom and Eddie andmade him think about what he
could have had with Anne,because there was that moment in
the car where he's like, oh,you make a good dad, yeah.
But that kind of was like ahollow comment to me, wasn't it?
Because, you know, and how muchstake would you put in that
comment, coming from a symbiotethat literally bites people's
head off, you'd be a good dad.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Okay, says a head-biting symbiote who's never
been a father.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yep, the start of the movie for me was the most
jarring part, I think, as soonas it got to the point where
where Eddie was back in his ownSony universe, you might say,
and he was trying to go from LasVegas to New York.
Then it became a road tripmovie for me, then it was
self-contained, then it was amovie that I can sit back and
have fun with and enjoy.
Before that there was just aforced MCU plug, you might say.
(34:03):
And then the offhanded commentof you know, I'm sick of this
multiverse shit.
And it's almost like Sony wastrying to, or the writers were
trying to, say yeah, we know aswell, we know that you as the
audience are sick of this stuff.
So are we.
But then at the same time, inthe same breath, they're also
trying to set up a villain likeNull that could expand across
the multiverse and perhaps beused in the MCU.
(34:24):
And it just seems a little bithypocritical for me.
But for the that mcu transition, I'm like why you could have
just not um, but I know that inthe bumpers and in the in the
end credit scenes, uh, eddie wasbouncing back and forth between
the two different universes,the mcu and the sony universe.
But coming in as a person who'snot fully fleshed out in those
spaces and this being like afour to five year old story now,
(34:46):
with with no way home and thoseblending of the universes and
then the expunging of them, it'slike yeah, no, I, I just don't
know what they were trying to dowith that mcu and even him
going in and like I'm glad herescued the dogs, don't get me
wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yep, but why so?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
so if you're looking at a like a writing perspective
and you're looking at thecharacter, it's a way that the
characters are presented to theaudience in a manner that says,
hey, look, how well eddie andvenom are working together now.
So in previous fight scenesyou'd seen in venom 2 where they
were just arguing with eachother.
There was the famous fight inthe apartment where he's
(35:26):
literally at odds with oneanother, and I'll get into this
a little bit more when I talkabout my MVTs.
But that first fight scene withthe dogs you could hear Venom
and Eddie sort of talking to oneanother and then working
together and Venom was waitingfor Eddie to relinquish control
and he was like, say when?
And then when he said whenVenom took over, huh, I guess.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I'm giving you a chance, sweetie, I really am
giving you a chance.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
You should probably take it, see, see, okay, say
when, when, so there's that sortof moment for the character
where the audience can sit thereand think, okay, their
relationship isn't a strugglefor control, who's the boss,
(36:16):
it's actually symbiotic now.
So that's what it was for me,even though, yes, you can see,
and even the part before that,when he's walking down the
street out of the bar and venomsays I'm hungry, I need to eat
before we go on this big massivetrip.
And eddie was just like, okay,that's fair, there's somebody
that needs trouble over here,and he walked over that way.
So that's another point wherethey were kind of working
together and the writers weretrying to show the audience okay
(36:38):
, these two are friends.
Now, that's what it was for me.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
No, he's looking at me, I mean I get like, well,
that will make sense.
I mean especially the fact thathe was hungry.
They need to feed him.
But even later on they're stillnot in sync when they say we
are Venom.
Yes, that's right.
In the slot machine, venom justgoes nuts, yep, and he's just
like what the fuck is going on?
What are you doing, man?
We're fucking trying to get toNew York City.
You're sitting here messingaround.
(37:02):
Gave all the money that we have.
Look for your lady tonight.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
No Snazzy jacket.
Let's beat him and steal it.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I know Lady Luck is on our side tonight.
No, I would say that Lady Luckis definitely not on your side
tonight.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I would even go so far to say that Lady Luck is
definitely not on your sidetonight.
I would even go so far to saythat Lady Luck hates you, buddy.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I can't stop now, of course you can't stop what?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
is this feeling?
It's like all of my problemshave gone away.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I do this all the time.
It's inconsistent of themworking together and not working
together.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, you could say in that moment, you know they're
working on it and theirrelationship is perfect.
But Kalia actually commented onthat because she said why is he
walking so funny?
I was like Venom's trying totake him to different places,
Like there's two people in hisbody trying to control it, and
she's just like it just looksweird.
Well, okay, that's a point ofview, but no for you.
What do you think of theediting and the story
transitions and things like that?
(38:10):
Is it sad sandals, or is itbrocks brocks?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Sad sandals.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, sad sandals.
Unfortunately, this isn't astory that you watch for its
editing or its story transitionsSad sandals.
So one apiece.
Let's get our next one,Probably our last one before we
move on.
All right, so the actingperformances and the cast.
You can start with this one.
Brash, what would you like tosay about the acting
performances and the cast?
Thinking again is it Brox Broxor is it Sad Sandals?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I like the fact that all of the American characters
in this role play are by Englishpeople.
Yeah, that's true.
But on a more serious note,Juno Temple.
I loved her character.
People have said that hercharacter might be loosely based
off of Thaddeus Payne.
Yep, I loved Juno Temple inthis.
I thought she was amazing and Ido hope that if they are going
(38:58):
to go forward more than inmovies, that they do one where
she might be the main symbiote.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yep, well, her and Sadie Sadie Christmas, played by
Clark Backo, they actually gotaway in the end.
That gives me Thelma and Louisevibes and even though Sadie
lost her, her symbiote Lasheryeah, I'll find another one.
Yeah, you'll find another one,but you know the thing for me,
hitting back on the storycontinuation thing, the in the
(39:28):
first movie they were talkingabout how hard it was for a
symbiote and a human to maintaina symbiotic relationship, but
in this one you just seesymbiotes jumping through people
left, right and center, yeah,almost like they didn't care
about any of the continuity thatthey'd done before.
There's no consequences.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
But also too, they might have just been like you
know, being struck by lightning.
Having the like she would halfthink that she killed her
(40:02):
brother because they wereholding hands.
Lighting went through her,killed the brother she has
herself is like agonizing forher and she wakes up with after
nightmares and realisticallythis is an agony and so agony is
probably a perfect cbo for her.
But um, I I liked all of thecast.
(40:22):
Reese's family was againprobably again for me like they
were there for reasons, but thereasons for me weren't good
enough.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I can't wait until we find a movie that we review on
this podcast, where you're likethe family was required.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
I think I'd watch Fast and Furious and be like
this family is bullshit.
That's fair, no, but I've seenrumours or heard rumours, and
even he's in the credits, buthe's not actually in the movie.
Yep, so there's that secretsort of room with all the
screens, dr Dan.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Dr Dan.
He's in the first two moviesand he plays Anne's husband
slash partner.
Yeah, the one who takes Anneoff of Eddie Seems like a very
convenient way to get close tothe person who's part of the
symbiote.
Yes, there are some rumors thatsays that he is the man looking
at the screens.
I've seen that played by ReedScott as well.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, and he was in the movies, but he's in the
credits.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
But the funny thing about that going back to that
transitions thing we talkedabout again and why it's sad,
sandals that went nowhere, oh, Iknow, like we saw him and then
it was nothing.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
There was, no, there was no, like uh, agent Colson
reveal like in Iron man andstuff like anything like that.
Like it was um, yeah and yeah.
Like well, um, attached aroundoff black widow reveal, yeah,
and like that it was just likeoh, yeah, there, this other
soldier dude, what to do?
Speaker 1 (41:46):
he's pulling the strings behind the Imperium um
the Imperium military foundation.
What did you think ofStrickland?
Yeah, strickland.
Let me see if I can say hisname.
Oh, tough one, chiwetel Ejiofor.
What did you think of him?
Um, he's a good actor.
Yeah, baron Mordo well, inDoctor Strange yeah, yeah, baron
(42:07):
Mordo.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
I wanted to see him as a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Yeah, because in the comicshe's a Tyrannosaurus Rex Really,
like he changes into one, likeRex is Tyrannosaurus, oh, he
turns into like a symbiote,tyrannosaurus Rex.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
That would have been cool.
That would have been cool, yeah, but then you know.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
But then when?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
everybody's sort of sitting there, going into
territory of this is alreadyalmost slapstick.
And people like you look at theeddie venom relationship and
you're like, okay, this isgetting a little bit funny now,
caricature almost.
I thought that that I'm goingto in the mvt again, but I
thought that that relationshipwas less caricature in this
movie, the last dance than itwas in.
I'll, let there be carnage, butall right, so we do also have
(42:47):
peggy lu who plays m Mrs Chenfan favorite, that dance scene.
That was my halfway through themovie.
I saw that and I was like whatthe fuck?
Speaker 2 (42:55):
I was the same.
I was like what is happeningright now I get the name of the
movie is Last Dance, but we didreally have to have a last dance
.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, and you know I saw an interview with the
director and she said that youknow, kelly Marcell said Peggy,
peggy Lewis is a fan favoritecharacter and we wanted to give
her a send off that she deservedfor the trilogy.
And why shouldn't she?
And I was like I'll tell youwhy she shouldn't Because when
Venom transformed into his fullsymbiote form, he literally drew
the xenophage to his position.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
After specifically saying we don't, we saying we
shouldn't do this becausethey'll know where we are.
There was absolutely no needfor it.
And he's like you know what I'mgoing to do, I'm going to fully
transform and everyone's likecool let's do it, yep.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And I feel like even that part the dance and the
xenophage tracking them, both ofthose elements completely
unnecessary for the scene toachieve the purpose they wanted,
because the military werealready after Brock and they'd
seen him on camera footage, knewwhere he was, knew where he was
, they were coming, they couldget him to Area 55.
That story element had beenticked off.
You did not need the xenophagecoming in, you did not need to
(43:56):
have that dance.
It was completely useless andit was absolutely shit.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
And how fast the xenophages are when he
transformed in the base axenophage could be in there
instant anyway.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, the first thing about the Xenophages that made
me raise my eyebrow was when itwas just standing on a building
and then you see it just jumpthrough the clouds and hit the
plane and I was like, oh okay,yeah, right, he's got that Hulk
jump.
Yeah, we can move prettyquickly.
But yeah, in terms of Peggy Wu,I just feel like that character
was pretty unnecessary and youhad played a very sort of cranky
shopkeeping lady for the wholeseries and then in this one,
(44:32):
suddenly she's just like alittle bit drunk and she's just
playing that stereotype of thegambling person at the casino.
Yeah, wanted some money.
He's in a penthouse.
Yep, just very convenient.
So let's talk about the man ofthe moment Tom Hardy as Eddie
Brock and Venom.
Okay, this might be a hot take.
I moment Tom Hardy as EddieBrock and Venom okay, this might
be a hot take.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I love Tom Hardy, yeah, like.
Have you watched Legend?
Oh, it is an amazing movie.
I love that he and him playingthose two like twins, oh, so
good.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
They used similar techniques in this to play the
duality of the character,because he had that earpiece in
where he'd hear Venom lines thathe previously recorded, and
then he would act out as Eddiebased on what he heard, and he
did the same thing in Legend.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, and him and Taboo and stuff like that.
Tom Hardy is just amazing, or?
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Bane?
Yeah, absolutely, Anything hedoes with Chris Nolan Dunkirk he
was great in Dunkirk.
Yes, so good.
But yeah, here we go, herecomes the hot take.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
His Eddie just looked like he was constantly tweaking
and looking to score.
Yeah, that was just him actinglike he was always like twitchy
and fidgety.
I'm like I mean, yeah,initially, like when he first
gets to the scene he's stillgetting like, he's sort of like
that'd be fair.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
but after three movies a year long and he's
still just tweaking, I'm like,come on come on, I um, when he
was walking, as I was sayingbefore with with Kalia, as he
was walking, I was like this guywalks and looks like the
villain from Men in Black.
Oh yeah, I was like man.
He's just walking like thatdude.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
And like I understand he's trying to like, he's
trying to show that like there'smore, it's not just him.
It's someone else also in hisbody, but like is Venom always
making you move weird, or likeit just seemed like too much.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Yeah, yeah, I get that, and physical performances
for me can be hit or miss.
I think that the work that theydid in terms of the stunts and
the cgi were pretty good,because you know, the stuff that
he has to do with venom isobviously a lot of cgi and him
acting out that cgi sort ofstuff.
So physically I feel like he hedid maybe do a little bit too
much, uh, in terms of the waythat he can mentally respond to
(46:52):
a recording which I saw aninterview of, and he also gets
directorial advice and commentsthrough that earpiece as well.
So he's hearing Venom'srecorded lines and the lines
being fed to him from the firstunit or second unit.
Director.
All the sound guys is sort ofasking him to do something
different and apparently he canjust act and react to those
different sorts of lines anddeliver something uh that is
(47:14):
required for the scene or ifthey need something nuanced or
different, they can do it rightthere before they need to post
or or create something in anediting way.
Um, I think that takes sometremendous talent.
In terms of his eddie brockperformance, I kind of agree
with you.
Um, there wasn't much growthfor eddie throughout and for him
as a character.
Yeah, he just did seem to betweaking the whole time.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I remember even the first movie, when he dunked
himself in the fish tank andshit.
I was like I get it, it's yourfirst time.
That for me was fine, because Iwas like yeah you just combine
with the same thing for thefirst time.
It's going to be weird Over.
You just combine with thesymbiote for the first time,
it's going to be weirdoverheating.
It's going to be weird, yeah,but like after a year you're
still tweaking, yeah, and likeVenom's meant to be one of those
(47:56):
symbiotes who, instead of likefeeding off their host, is meant
to symbiotically bond and likesto protect the host, yeah.
Yeah, for him to still betweaking out after a year
doesn't make me feel likeVenom's looking after him that
well.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
So if we're talking about the cast here, it's
actually pretty star-studded,Like you've got Juno Temple,
you've got Tom Hardy, ReeceYffans, you've got Stephen
Graham playing DetectiveMulligan, you've got Chiwetel
Ejiofor playing Strickland.
It's pretty star-studded and,to me, pretty underutilized.
I'm going to give it a sadsandals.
What do you reckon I'm actuallygoing to give?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
it a rocks, rocks.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Okay, after all that crap you just gave Tom.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Hardy.
Well, no See, that's Tom Hardy,and that was my look.
He was amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
It was just his Physical Mr Bean, yeah, like his
John Cleese from Polly Towerslapstick yeah, his.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
What do you call like your when people have like two
little quirks, quirks it?
was like his little quirks.
For me it was just a bit overthe top, but other than that I
reckon everyone did an amazingjob.
Like, yeah, I loved Juno'sGakutete yep Strickland, he was
amazing too.
Like, for a while I thought, oh, he's going to be like.
I thought maybe at the startthat he'd get a hold of a
(49:12):
symbiote and go rogue and go badas well, but he ended up just
like he was.
He was a person I loved to hateuntil I liked him.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I um, before we move on from this segment and going
to our MVTs, final comment onthis one um, I just love how
Sony put this movie in the sameum universe as Andrew Garfield's
Spider-Man movie and justexpected us not to notice that.
Final comment on this one Ijust love how Sony put this
movie in the same universe asAndrew Garfield's Spider-Man
movie and just expected us notto notice that Reece Yifans is
playing Martin in this movie,but also played Dr Connors the
lizard in that movie.
So yeah, we'll just look pastthat it's fine.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Well, I was saying that too, detective Mulligan,
played by Stephen Graham.
Stephen Graham he I see how wewere talking about Red One when
what's his name's character getstaken over by, yeah, nick Kroll
, nick Kroll, he did a great onehe did a great job of like
being taken over and I was goingin and talking like this.
(50:05):
He did a.
That's what you need to do.
That's what you need to dosubtle but impactful yep,
exactly right.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
He got the message, knew the assignment and he
nailed it.
I agree.
So for me just to be clear, I'mgiving it a sad sandals because
I feel like the cast that theyhad was underutilized.
Not because they did a bad job,I feel like they did a bad job.
I just feel like theyunderutilized them in terms of
story, in terms of somecharacters being there and not
being necessary, like Rizifan'scharacter and his family like
okay, he's here and that wouldhave freed up so much more
(50:33):
screen time to flesh it out toother people.
Yeah, I agree.
Alright, we'll move on to ournext segment, which is our MVT,
our most valuable takeawaysalright?
So this is the segment of theshow where we discuss the one or
two things that we absolutelytook from this movie.
It could be something that welearned.
It could be something that wegrew from.
(50:54):
It could be something relatingto the characters or their arc.
It could be somethingeducational that we learned.
I'll go first Brash for this one, specifically the character of
Venom, the symbiote character ofVenom, his arc from the Venom
one made in 2018, all the way tothis movie, venom the Last
(51:16):
Dance, and, in particular, Iliked how it represented the
transition and the growth from acodependent relationship to an
independent relationship andthen an interdependent
relationship, and by that I meanin the first movie.
You can see Eddie and Venombattling for control, and Venom
is very impulsive and I've seenTom Hardy actually say you know,
it's almost like channelingwhat a wild animal would do if
(51:38):
they had the cognizance to reactto things in the human world,
and I feel like he does thatvery well.
But he also takes a lot ofcontrol away from Eddie and
they're battling with each otherin terms of who gets that
control.
There's that domineering effect, there's no boundaries that are
set, which is definitely sortof there on a codependent side
of a relationship and theyactually do need each other for
survival.
In terms of the second movie,let there Be Carnage.
(52:01):
You're in that sort ofbickering phase of the
codependent relationship andEddie and Venom are both trying
to express their needs and theneventually they separate, as you
would in a you know, a romanticrelationship, if you would, and
then the growth comes from thatseparation.
They come back in the end andthen in this movie, as we
discussed previously, they arepresented to us as a unified
(52:24):
pair of people.
So that sort of growth.
And then coming to that endingsequence where venom was a
parasite.
He was described as a parasitewhere he absolutely takes from
his host and there's nothingthat he considers in terms of an
emotional tie to eddie.
He's there for food, he's therefor sustenance, he's there for
survival and then at the veryend, for him to then sacrifice
(52:46):
himself and potentially dieafter basically slugging his way
toward the acid sort offacility in Area 55 and
gathering all the xenophages.
And you can't look at me in theeyes, brash, and tell me that
you didn't shed a tear when heplaced ever so gently that door
down on Tom Hardy, on EddieBrock, and you know that sort of
that is not what a parasitedoes.
(53:08):
For me that is definitely arelationship that has
experienced some growth.
In terms of Venom, where he was, he literally says to him in
the first movie he's like I'm incontrol, you need me, I'm going
to do what I want with you, andthen now he's literally laying
down his life for this guy.
So for me the character arc ofVenom is good and was something
that I was there for and that Ienjoyed in this movie.
(53:29):
That's the most valuabletakeaway for me that growth can
happen even if you're ablood-sucking, head-chewing
alien symbiote monster thatneeds somebody else to survive.
Everybody can do the work andbe better.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, that's powerful .
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Thanks, brash.
Powerful, deep, deep.
Well, you know I like to lookinto movies a little bit more
than I probably should.
That's what I took from it.
So that last scene, how'd youfeel about it?
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yeah, I liked that whole entire last scene.
The one thing that did sort ofget me a little bit was the fact
that all these symbiotes tryingto hack and slash these
xenophages, and then Bems islike hold my beer and just
attaches to all of them, sucksthem into himself and walks them
to the acid Like damn man, whycouldn't you do that at the
(54:15):
start?
Yeah, yep, I mean well, notlike so much do that at the
start, but why couldn't youcorral them or like that at the
start?
Yeah, and just everyone justhack pieces off from under, like
there's other ways.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, the fact that those just kept coming back
together.
I liked the way that they cameback together too by the way, it
was almost like a flinky dollyeah, that was good.
But yeah, carly and I, watchingit, looked at each other and
just said how are they going tokill these guys?
Yeah, that's what I'm like.
And then more are coming.
(54:44):
You're like they're fucked.
Yeah, that's what I gave itthree stars, do you see?
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Yeah, but like um, I suppose in a way they are, they
were pretty much nearlyunkillable, but the big fatal
flaw was they couldn't seeanything.
But, yes, the um, the codex,the codex.
And the only time that they didhurt anyone else is when, like,
they were getting hurt by them,so like, if you just, like you,
just walked past one, itprobably wouldn't do anything.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Yep, yep, I can see that.
I think, in terms of the endscene and in terms of the growth
that I was just talking about,I really liked seeing how in
this instance we were talkingabout how jarring Tom Hardy and
Venom's movements werethroughout the trilogy.
In this ending scene, the waythat he was riding that bike, he
literally using venom'sabilities, blades helicopter
(55:31):
blades.
That was smooth transition.
That was complete symbiosis.
That was the ending of the arcfor those two, where they
achieved exactly what theywanted to do.
They're in a healthyrelationship now.
We're both exhibiting andrelinquishing control wherever
they need to, respecting eachother's boundaries, helping each
other achieve mutual goals.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Oh, and as sad as Venom and Eddie's departure was.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
I like that they went there.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
That's what I like.
I felt I think I was sadder forSadie and Lasher.
Speaker 1 (56:04):
Yeah, Sadie and Teddy Payne.
No, no, no Like the symbioteLasher.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Oh yeah, sadie and Lasher Actually.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
I actually explained no when that happened.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
This is sort of my thing we'll touch on, but like
the fact that Sadie throughoutthe whole movie and even Teddy
both like care for the symbiotesin a way of like not so much
like all for them, but just likewell, they're here now, they
sort of guess.
(56:33):
We'll try and look after themas best we can.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
Yeah, try and get the best out of a bad situation.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
And pretty much Sadie , the whole time has a sort of
infatuation about it, it seems.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
Or curiosity.
At least you can see it, andshe plays that really well.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Well, yeah, and then when she, when the assimilates
and her join, and instantly theyjust like, as lasher, just
absolutely smash it, yep.
And then poor lasher getsstripped off from from me and
just made him into me.
And then you said he's thereand along with lash, and I'm
like, oh, that's sad.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
Yeah, I felt so bad for say like, so sorry for sadie
, like oh, absolutely I yeah,and, as I said, that was a
moment in the movie where I waslike no like, and I thought that
she might be one of the onesthat like escaped, survived, and
I kind of like how movies getyou unpredictably like that.
It's almost like games ofthrones-esque and I'm not
comparing venom the last danceto game of thrones, no way don't
(57:22):
quote me on that.
But you know how the ones youdon't expect to die die.
Yeah, it gives you that sort ofgravity.
It did that for me when thesymbiote died, like when Venom
the symbiote died, I was like,okay, they went there, they did
this, but then again the samething and she was only on screen
for I don't know 10, 15 minutesand it already created that
experience.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
I was like those two are perfect for each other and
I'm like they would be perfect.
And then I'm like I'll ask thewhole thing.
I'm like, oh yeah, all the restof them are probably going to
get messed up, but I'm like Ireckon, um, so I reckon, uh,
teddy should have with agony,yep, should have rescued sadie
and lasher and lasher, yeah.
(58:03):
But I, I'm like it did.
It did give that bit of extraemotional sort of hit which, in
terms of a movie, is good yeah,would you watch a, a Teddy Payne
, a Sadie Christmas, agony andLash a movie?
Speaker 1 (58:17):
100%, yeah, 100%, yeah.
I think there's a market for it, oh, 100%.
I think there is even if it isjust like a Thelma and Louise
being chased by whatevermilitary, whether it's Imperium
hardcore yeah like agony isamazing.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, like she also technically is meant to be able
to spit acid.
Yeah, I, I, I found that to bea very touching, sad moment.
Speaker 1 (58:44):
Yeah is that your mvt with those two?
Speaker 2 (58:46):
no, so my mvt is sort of aligned.
Yeah, um, my mvt is, um, bothsadie and teddy, how they, even
though they are governmentemployees who are there to
pretty much experiment and testand research the symbiotes, um,
have that humanity to be like,well, no, these are creatures as
(59:09):
well.
Yeah, and have that compassionto not want to just do terrible
things to them.
And, yeah, like, have, thenhave that compassion.
I think that, like, justshowing compassion to others,
even though how they may be verydifferent to you, is something
that we all probably should do abit more yeah, I like that as
well.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
and in terms of like tropes in in films, there is
always the scientist that wantsto chop up the alien, like there
was even a um, an et joke inthis one, and that's very
prevalent in et, et.
They want to take the alien anddissect them and see what they
can learn from them and there isdefinitely some scientists that
are doing that.
But these two are intrigued andcurious and they want to see
what's going on and they want tohelp.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
And it generally seems like you don't really get
to see any other scientists, butit all seems like they all sort
of seem like that.
It was more Strickland generalmilitary will like no, we have
to kill all these things.
Yeah, um, uh.
When he took and takes over theoperation, he's like oh, this
is my operation now and I'mpretty much going to just burn
the whole place down.
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Yep.
Um, we should put a compilationtogether of all the movies
where a military person saysthis by operation oh yeah, jesus
.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
I have so many times they pretty much put themselves
at risk and their careers andeverything at risk to protect
these symbiote creatures thatthey're not fully aware of what
their agenda is.
And like, uh, how the um snake,like tendril um symbiote that
(01:00:34):
um was attached to Mulligan umwas saying how they were running
away cause they were scaredtheir creator was going to try
and kill them.
They imprisoned them and nowthey're trying to get away and
they're like, oh shit, they'renot here to take over, they're
here to escape from a terriblelife they had.
And Strickland's like, oh no,they're here to invade.
Yeah, like every alien sort ofmovie, they're coming here.
(01:00:59):
Him and take over.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Yeah, the first two movies set that up, though,
because you know Venom one,there was riot, which is the
symbiote in there, who wasliterally trying to use the
rocket to implement his evilalien plan, and then, in carnage
I'll let there be carnage heattached to him the serial
killer Cletus Kasady, and wasjust literally performing
carnage all over the place, andthat was a slasher movie.
(01:01:20):
So they had those badexperiences with the symbiotes.
But even still, you know, thesescientists were looking at them
in that different sort of light, saying what's their purpose?
They're looking that little bitdeeper and they did discover
just from asking questions, like, instead of just assuming, they
went and they asked thequestions and they found out.
Oh wait, these went and theyasked the questions and they
found out oh wait, these guysare actually escaping their
planet or they're trying toensure that a really dark and
(01:01:42):
evil force is not going to killeverybody.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
And you may be aware, but Thor was actually the
reason why they could escapefrom Null.
Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Clinta, oh yeah, from their planet Clinta, no, no, so
.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Null created all the symbiotes, started wiping out
planets.
Thor killed one of thesymbiotes and that broke the
connection between Null and thesymbiotes.
The symbiotes basically becameself-aware and had some sort of
conscience and was like no, wecan't do this.
And then that's how theytrapped Null on Imprisoned demon
, yeah, and that's how they sortof got their own individuality.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Yep, wow, they got their sentience from there, do
you know?
I don't know if you know or not, but do the symbiotes, do they,
actively seek hosts, or arethey happily existing on their
own little mucky, gloopy, blueyselves?
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
It's been up and down , yeah, but primarily they do
need generally need hosts tosurvive because they need
sustenance.
Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Yeah, well, at least on our planet they explain that
in Venom 1, where on this planetthey need a host to survive.
And then the guy that, what washis name?
Drake?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he playsRiot.
Yeah, he said you know, if theycan survive here with a host,
we can survive there with a hostwith them as well.
So that was the kind of tiethere.
Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Yeah, and I think it's more so that if a planet
had an abundance of the foodsource, which is the chemical
that we have in our brains Yepand chocolate and chocolate, If
they just had that as like aplant or something on a planet,
they probably could just liveoff as their gooey selves and
just eat like the plants to giveoff the same sustenance they
need.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
So I think it's like to bring our segment to a close.
I think it's really interestingthat even like a crappy I'll
say crappy, but you know, in amovie like Venom, the Last Dance
, where it's literally just likea fun sit at home, enjoy your
popcorn flick, end of a trilogyEven in those sorts of movies
you can still find a messagethat can help you throughout.
So I really like that aspect ofour podcast that we're kind of
(01:03:48):
doing with RMBT.
Final question, just before wejump into our very last and
final segment Do you think thiswas a good ending for the
trilogy?
Do you think it was somethingthat rounded out well?
Do you think it serves theVenom character in a neat little
package that can be used lateron, or not?
How do you feel like it'sclosed in closure terms for fans
?
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
I, honestly, would have preferred.
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Brock sacrifice himself.
Me too, that would have beengrowth, honestly, because at the
start as well, he literallythrows his fiancee under the bus
for a story lead and then atthe end of this movie, somebody
else sacrifices themselves so hecan stay alive again.
And that's what I meant when Isaid Brock didn't really grow.
Even though he learned to livewith Venom, he didn't really
grow.
Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
And because one of them needs to die for the codex
to be done.
If Brock had sacrificed himself, they would have got rid of the
Codex, venom could havesurvived and then well, he might
still be alive.
But then that brings up thething again if Venom's still
alive and Brock's still alive,then technically the Codex is
still alive.
Yeah, but if Venom, if Brockhad died, they would have got
(01:04:52):
rid of the Codex.
So they would have had to findanother way to escape, which
could have been a whole other.
But then they could have had.
They took Venom and Venom couldhave gone to Flash like,
attached himself to FlashThompson, and become Agent Venom
.
I was hoping you'd bring thatup and that could have been a
next thing and that could leadon to Secret Wars like that TV
show Secret Wars they had.
Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Well in this regard.
Flash gets the symbiote.
From what I've briefly read,flash gets the symbiote.
From what I've briefly read.
Flash gets the symbiote afterhe's done a tour in Iraq and he
returns and he's actually losthis legs.
So when he comes and he takeson the symbiote, he becomes
Agent Venom and it's almost likethat coupling and that's when
he does actually become like ananti-hero in that regard talking
back before about the 1988.
(01:05:33):
Lethal Protector.
Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
He actually gives Venom to other superheroes to
help them fight their big badsand stuff like that, and that's
when he gets recruited into thesecret.
Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Avengers Yep, exactly , and I think that taking this
character of the symbiote into aFlash Thompson sort of arc if
that was the way that it wasgoing to go I'd like to see that
sort of element being broughtback.
Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
I mean technically.
There was that one soldier whogot his legs chopped off.
Well, yeah, he got half.
Maybe that's Flash Thompson,Maybe that's.
Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Well, we can only hope, but I would very much
enjoy a Flash Thompson AgentVenom, and even if Tom Hardy
comes back to voice the Venom, Iwouldn't mind that.
I think that would be a goodway to continue the character if
they wanted to.
Or, you know, in the comic bookapparently they've got Dylan
Brock, who is Eddie's biologicalson, as the current host.
(01:06:27):
All right, so this is the finalsegment.
This is where Brash and I areconducting a Fandom Portals
Honor Board and that means thatevery movie that we or tv show
that we look at for the fandomportals podcast, we're going to
be conducting and compiling alist, uh, that ranks these
movies from one to however manyepisodes and movies that we do.
(01:06:50):
Obviously, we have done onemovie together so far, being red
one, so that is the only movieand that is the first place and
has been for an entire week onour honor board so far Scary, I
know, and this week as well, andforever.
You can find this list on ourFandom Portals letterbox.
It will be linked in the shownotes below.
So, basically, every week, themovie that we do, we will decide
(01:07:13):
whether it is better or worsethan the movie that we did
previously and we'll see howhigh or how low we can sort of
rank it.
So at the moment this job ispretty easy.
So for you, brash, do you thinkVenom the Last Dance should be
ranked first and be our newchampion on the leaderboard of
the honor board for PhantomPortals, or do you think it
should sit below Red Onestarring Dwayne the Rock Johnson
?
What's your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Okay, I don't was thinking about it and I'm having
trouble determining which oneis better than the other,
because both of them had veryaverage parts in it, but then
also had some good parts in it.
Yes, absolutely, I'm going tohave to say better, yeah, more
so, because, like I love LucyLiu, jk Simmons, absolutely
(01:07:56):
amazing.
The Rock, even though he playsthe same character in every
movie, still good, um, uh, buddyChris Evans, love Chris Evans.
Uh, scott Pilgrim versus theworld, one of my favorite, like
he played like and the same withnot another teen movie, he, uh,
anyway, um, I've always likedChris Evans as an actor, with
Venom, the nostalgia, the um,the nerdiness to it and the
(01:08:23):
amazing actor that is Tom Hardy.
I just feel it's just a bitmore my kind of movie.
Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
I rated both of these three stars, but for me I just
feel like this rounded out thetrilogy kind of well.
It was a big pickup from uh,venom to let there be cringe.
I feel like that arc and growthfrom venom really carried me
through.
They have made over a billiondollars at the box office, we'll
say as well.
This movie made way more thanred one did, at least four, four
(01:08:53):
times more.
But not just for that reasonbut for the facts, similar to
what you were saying, for thatnostalgia, for that connection
with the character of Venom, I'mrating it above Red One as well
.
So we have a new champion forthe honor board, at least for a
week, yeah, until we look at ournext movie in our next episode
of the Fandom Portals podcast.
But Venom the Last Dance sitsat the top of the honor board
(01:09:14):
streak of a week from Red 1.
We'll see how it goes.
We'll see, hopefully see how itgoes.
Prash, do you want to telleverybody where they can find us
?
Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
it's at Venom Portals , on everything.
So it'll be Instagram, twitter,not Twitter.
We don't Instagram and Threads.
Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Instagram and Threads oh yeah, and Letterboxd,
letterboxd very good, alright.
So, with that being said, guys,make sure you share this
podcast with somebody who isyour symbiotic brother and you
know share some good movie chats.
We definitely love it whenpeople chat to us on those
(01:09:49):
medias, whether it be Instagramthreads or even Letterboxd.
If you have a Letterboxdaccount, definitely come and
follow us, and we have somechallenges on our Letterboxd
right now as well.
We've got a January challenge.
Four of the movies on the listare my picks, four are Brash's
picks, and that was a way thatwe could be given a little bit
of criteria for you guys to pick, and we are looking for
community suggestions to putinto those challenges as well.
(01:10:11):
And some of the movies we watchwill end up being topics for
our podcast chats, so this wasone of my picks.
Venom the Last Dance was one ofmy picks picks for our podcast
cats so this was one of my picks.
The venom the last dance wasone of my picks.
We both agreed on it together,but I put it on as one of my
picks.
Next week, we're going to bedoing another one from the
challenge, so if you want tojump on board with it,
definitely go on and look atthat list and watch those movies
yourselves, give them a ratingand see how you go.
(01:10:33):
So that is at phantom portals.
All right, this is Aaronsigning out.
This is Brash signing out andwe'll see you next week.
Bye, everybody, see ya, bye,bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.