May 26, 2023 • 38 mins
The great Jack Austin of 7 Lamb, who has his own pop culture podcast, Alter Ego (check it out anywhere you listen to podcasts) where he discusses pop culture in more of a Marvel-oriented way, joins Watch This Tonight to try and lure me back to the world of Marvel films and TV, that I've abandoned. We discuss how Marvel saturation reached a tipping point with the Avengers films and had to start over, the highs and lows of the Marvel cinematic universe, Jack's picks for the best Marvel movies and TV to watch now, and where Marvel needs to go from here to retain their dominant position in the culture.
Trying to figure out, "What should I stream tonight?" Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best movie recommendations for what to watch on streaming platforms. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.
Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).
Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm
Thanks for listening.
Trying to figure out, "What should I stream tonight?" Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best movie recommendations for what to watch on streaming platforms. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.
Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).
Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm
Thanks for listening.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.
(00:22):
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started, all right.
Today on the show, I havethe wonderful Jack Austin of seven Lamb.
(00:44):
Jack is an awesome guy. He'sdone a lot of stuff with us with
Voyage with scripted podcasts, but healso has a podcast called Alter Ego where
he talks about pop culture, andspecifically he talks a lot about Marvel stuff.
And I think it was god.It was one of the moves of
the Avengers where I walked out ofthe theater and I was like, and
I like walked out on Marvel.I like left, I like a jilted,
(01:07):
like you know, boyfriend or something. And and it's such a big
part of our society and also Ithink it's at as traditional point right now,
and so I wanted to have Jackon. And basically Jack's gonna gend
to convince me what I should watchthat I haven't watched a Marvel Well,
sure, so let's start. Idon't want to sound like a therapist,
(01:27):
but where did your trauma start?Where did the problems start with Marvel?
What made you want to get upand walk out? So when they got
the Avengers together, they obviously didthe first movie with Jos Sweden, and
then they had a movie after that. It's one of the ones that I
(01:47):
believe Black Panther was in it.I believe, Oh this isn't the original
Avengers. Are you talking about civilWar? Because civil warhead? I think
it was Civil War? Okay,yeah, leave it with civil War.
And I and I remember I walked, yes, you know, actually I'm
confident of the Civil War. AndI remember I watched it and I walked
out of the theater and I waslike, I have I have not been
(02:09):
improved as a person in any wayby watching it. There's nothing about this
that is going to stay with me. That is And then you know,
I would say the inverse of thatis Black Panther, which is also probably
one of the last Marvel things Iwatched, which I saw with the buddy
of mine. Um, we're bothwere both we're both Moroccans actually, and
(02:30):
we're both from Baltimore, and weboth deeply understood the meaningfulness of Black Panther,
right, and it's actually has reallyis like a meaningful thing for like
black representation, and like it wasreally an important movie. So that I
was like, that is actually aboutsomething that has meaning. I really connected
to it. But I guess whathappened is at a certain point to me
(02:51):
as like and maybe this is likea older too. I was like,
you know, if it's just fun, disposable entertainment, I don't know that
I'm I don't know that I careenough to continue watching, and so I
just sort of I flew the coop. I can understand that for sure.
And everybody perceives everything differently, right, myself included. I've been reading comics
(03:13):
and watching you know, the XMan animated series. I've been so indoctrinated
into Marvel and my heroes and stufflike that since I was a young boy.
So I think sometimes myself, asa hardcore fan, is able to
see a lot more in what they'reshowing me on the screen than what your
average person is going to appreciate.Does that make sense. Yeah, So
(03:35):
when it comes to civil war,it's tough with Marvel, right because people
see this big catalog of movies thatthey have to watch and they're like,
I've got to watch all of thisto understand everything, and that can be
really daunting. I can completely understandwhere people are coming from in that regard.
But when it comes to our heroes, right, superhero movies are so
(03:55):
different because it's so fantastic and it'sso like outside of them of reality.
And I think that's good and badbecause sure, there aren't billionaires out there
putting suits of arm around themselves andflying around and you know, trying to
stop criminals and things of that nature. That's ridiculous. But on the other
side of that coin, sometimes realitycan really suck, so that can be
(04:18):
a great escape to get to thatmedium and just kind of have some fun
for a while. And I thinkthe best superhero movies are ones that tell
the human stories that we can relateto and add that fantastic on top of
it, so we can kind oftry to live vicariously through that in a
(04:40):
way. I mean, when youlook at some of these heroes, everybody's
got somebody that they can identify with. They've got somebody that they see their
attitude or the way they represent themselveson screen, and they go, Man,
if I could do that, that'sthe kind of thing, you know
what I mean, Like everybody isCaptain America. If I could be this
big symbol and you know, goand be an icon for everybody and make
(05:04):
good in the world, I woulddo that. Or you have the people
go, if I had billions ofdollars, I'd make a cool Iron Man
suit and fly over the city allI wanted. Or some people who have
you know, it's it's funny.I'll tell you this one. This one
is probably the most meaningful story forme. For superheroes. It's Aquaman.
And a lot of people can't standAquaman. They think it's kind of a
silly movie and things like that.But my oldest son, since he was
(05:27):
very young, has been afraid ofwater. He doesn't like getting water on
his head, he didn't like gettingbathed in things of that nature. He
would have a full blown meltdown.And I found out through all this,
you know movies that I watched atAquaman was somebody he identified with. He
loved him, and I was likeAquaman, why I don't understand, and
(05:49):
it started to correlate with me.He had such a such a deep fear
of water, and this superhero wasso strong and powerful and he lived in
the water, and it was likehe saw something that he didn't have in
himself and he identified with that character. I took him to see Aquaman in
theaters and there's this moment in themovie where Aquaman is coming out wearing the
(06:12):
original Aquaman uniform and it's a deadsilent theater and all you hear is my
son go, wow, you knowwhat I mean? So like that seeing
that in heroes has a lot ofmeeting in my personal opinion. But when
I'm talking about movies that you're gonnawant to watch, it all depends on
(06:34):
the individual. So you saying youhave things that have meaning, and Black
Panther being important to you because you'rebeing Moroccan and it has something in the
I mean, it depends on whatyou're looking for. So if you're looking
for something more grounded in reality,I would probably say don't watch any of
(06:55):
the Thorn movies. I would probablysteer you toward Guardians of the Galaxy.
And that sounds ridiculous. Well,because so this is it's a really it's
a good place for us to talkhim about the pivot that's happening with Marvel,
right because and this is an interestingthing about emotion and storytelling. I
was talking to somebody m a dadat my daughter's school, and he was
(07:19):
like, yeah, man, Isaw a Guardian And he's like this big,
like kind of macho dude, andhe's like, yeah, I saw
Guardians Gazi three, very emotional.He's like, yeah, really, And
I remembered vividly seeing Guardians Galaxy twoand like there's a very emotional ending of
that movie, and even the firstone is very emotional. And it's not
a coincidence that those movies have beensort of like holding off the tide of
(07:44):
kind of some negative results for Marvel. So it's pulling off the mass exodus.
You're right, And so I thinkthat it's not to say that I
for me personally, like everything hasto be like Black Panther, where it
has its like heavy, heavy culturalsignificance. I just want movies where there's
like a real emotion to it thatis not sanitized, if that makes sense.
(08:07):
Yeah, something that you can trulyidentify with and relate to. That's
what makes these movies so great,and that's what makes James Gunn in particular
really great. I'm very excited forwhat he's going to do at DC.
I think he's an excellent storyteller,and I think he gets my point across
the best, because I say,Guardians of the Galaxy for people you can
(08:31):
identify with. None of us flyaround in spaceships for a living. We
don't live in the cranium of acelestial out there in a far away galaxy.
But the stories all of them gothrough are so much closer to you
and I than anybody else in theuniverse. Right. We're not taking super
serium, we're not gods. We'renot billionaires, that's for sure, although
(08:52):
somehow super Serium and and Godliness seemedcloser to being billionaires at times. But
the Audians are just regular folks,well Guardians specifically. They're like fuck ups,
right, I Mean, that's sortof the idea, is that they're
all like, they're all on apersonal level disasters. Every single one of
them has has big, major characterflaws, and that's what makes them the
(09:13):
greatest group to identify with, becausethere's nobody out there's perfect. I personally
love star Lord. He's probably myfavorite in the MCU right now. Of
all those characters that are out there, star Lord I identify with the most
because he's just trying to get byman every single day. And especially in
(09:33):
Guardians three, which I won't spoilfor anybody, but I will say Guardians
three, in my humble opinion,was the best Marvel movie they've ever put
out that is not a Avengers levelmovie. I mean, there are depths
of emotion in that movie that youdon't feel from other movies, which was
what makes it so good. I'mcurious. So obviously everyone has told me,
(09:58):
you know, the Avengers movies wantsthey really went for it, and
it's like you really got to watchhim and I never did. Besides those,
and besides Scarding the Galaxy, isthere anything that I've really missed in
the Marvel ecosphere that is good,whether it's TV, your movies. Yeah,
there is probably The all star forme, which is one of that
(10:18):
nobody really knows about is a littleDisney Plus special called Werewolf by Night.
Oh. I remember hearing about that. Now that one was done. It's
in the MCU, but it's kindof separate right, and it is a
character. Werewolf by Night is aMarvel character. He's essentially a guy who
can turn into a werewolf and hefights supernatural villains in that aspect. But
(10:41):
the way they shot that was sounique to anything I've ever seen in Marvel,
and it made me just so happy. It dug into its roots of
like the old school Frankenstein Monster practicaleffects. It's all shot in black white.
It's just it's really well done.All the performances are great in it
(11:03):
too. It's just got something newand it just, I don't know,
it tugged at my heartstrings. It'sgot a lot of gore too. It's
the first time you see actual,you know, limbs getting ripped off and
people getting chopped up. And Iwas like, this is a different level
for something that Marvel has done.And that's another point that I want to
(11:24):
bring up later. But let's talkabout other things that you haven't seen.
So no TV for you yet.I'm assuming you've just kind of sworn off
Marvel. Another one that was veryinteresting and very unique was One Division.
Oh yeah, I remember hearing aboutthat as well. Yeah, I mean
a lot of people said that itwas very inventive and very different from stuff
they're also done. And yeah,it's one of those you know, to
(11:46):
me, not everybody has to beblowing something up for it to be a
great movie, especially a superhero movie, and this one was to me essentially
is a lot of dealing with traumaand how we deal with trauma, and
one division was an excellent representation ofthat, especially with somebody as such high
levels of power as a Scarlet Witchor you know, Elizabeth Olsen's character.
(12:13):
But in terms of movies that you'vemissed too, Shuan Chi, Shuan Chianchi
good. I love Shuan Chi.And so here's my question, um,
because this is they I think we'reMarvel ran into some trouble and it's a
natural thing with these sorts of stories, and they've there's been a lot of
kind of satirical in the online commentaryabout this sort of thing, where pretty
(12:35):
much it's like, all right,you have blank hero, if blank bad
guy. At some point, there'sgonna be something in the sky, it's
gonna destroy New York, the Earth, whatever, and there's gonna be a
big fight at the end. They'regonna win, and and basically we're gonna
just recycle that and we're gonna plugin like Mad Lives, We're gonna plug
(12:56):
in this hero and this bad guy. But you pretty much know it's gonna
end with this big confrontation and whatever, the big gas cloud in the sky.
So like something like a Chang Chiis a good example. This is
it different from that? Is itthe same as that? Like what made
it great for you? I thinkit's different than that because it doesn't go
towards those old tropes. And Ithink the villain of the movie is one
(13:20):
of my favorites of all time.I put him up there with Thanos.
I talk about it all the time. It's Shoon Chi's father, and I
love his character so much. Butyes, it's very different because typically it's
good guy bad guy, we're gonnameet in the middle and fight, And
this one takes a massive left turnat the end of the movie where you're
(13:43):
like, okay, this is what'sgonna happen, and you're like, okay,
I had no idea this was somethingthat was about to go on in
the movie. I don't know again, I don't I don't know how we
want to do spoilers or anything likethat, but you know, long story
short, the main villain has losthis wife and it just kind of disconnects
him from all of reality, youknow, and he has this insane plan
(14:07):
that he can get her back somehow, And the film kind of follows Shuan
cheese progression as somebody who was tryingto distance himself from his father to somebody
who has a purpose and kind ofwants to stop him. In there is
that, you know, that iconicclash, But that's not the whole movie
right there. There's a lot morethat happens beyond that. Another one if
(14:28):
you want, like the basic tropesof superhero movies, Aunt Man and the
Wasp is one that I could haveon repeat all the time. So talk
to you about that, Like,what is it? I know, obviously
it's more comic than some of theother ones. Yeah, yeah, Is
there anything they're doing differently on alike a fun foundational narrative level or is
(14:50):
it kind of the same thing butjust a more comedic approach. No,
no, no, no. Theydid things in that one that were so
different than any other Marvel movie.For instance, Laurence fishburn Fishburne's character who
code named Goliath for those of youwho are big time comic fans, you
know who Goliath is. There's auntMan, and there was this kind of
his antithesis was Goliath on the otherside. But there's a point in the
(15:13):
movie where one of the villains islike, I'm gonna go after Scott's family.
That's how we'll get him to doeverything. And that is the iconic
trope of all bad guys. Right, I'm gonna kidnap your kid, I'm
gonna go after your wife, I'mgonna do X y Z. And one
character goes, let me go aheadand tell you something. I understand we
(15:33):
have a goal that we're after,but if you do something to hurt that
person's family, I'm done. I'mout. And it's something that they follow.
They go, okay, all right, that's fair. That's the line
we're not going to cross. Andthen you know they have to unfold on
either side. I just like showingpeople who may have nefarious purposes. For
instance, Ghost is the character thatwants to do whatever she can to restore
(15:56):
herself if you will, and theyfind out that there's another way to do
it they can. They're still thebad guy. They still have nefarious purposes,
they still want to try to dothat. But somebody I was like,
why does every bad guy in everymovie always has that mentality of Nope,
I don't care about anything. Let'skill the kids, let's blow up
the city, let's do this.Why can't we ever have a bad guy
(16:18):
that goes, yeah, hold on, maybe this isn't the right thing to
do. And aunt man, Ithought did that beautifully because it avoided that
classic you know, I need tosave my daughter and da da da da
dad. No, we can stillachieve our common goal and have a compelling
narrative without having to follow the blueprint. It's funny. It's almost like like
(16:42):
when do you have stuff that youwant to see but you just never end
up seeing it? And it's likeyou're like the brain that has absorbed all
these things that I was curious about. Did you see them? Did you
see the second Black Panther? WhichI have not seen? I have I
have seen the Second Black Panther?Was So what threw me off with one?
Because again I really liked the firstone. Is that the marketing.
(17:03):
I was like, so they're fightinglike bad guy? Awqua man, Like,
what is the I was really thrownby that. I was like,
what so because that, to me, that took it away from I really
liked in the first Black Panther,where it's basically like, hey, the
bad guy has a point. Youknow, You're like, oh, I
can't you can see where he's comingfrom, And so going into the second
(17:26):
one it made it less grounded,which I think is why I checked out
a little bit. But did youlike the second one? And what was
the bad guys situation in the secondone? So the bad guy situation in
the second one is a character namedNaymore. Now nay More for comic book
fans would know, he is Ithink one of the very first ever superheroes
ever published by Marble. It wasa cyborg version of the Flash and not
(17:52):
the Flash of the human Torch andnay More. So Naymore is an X
man who's been around forever and heis kind of well, actually he was
around before Aquaman, so it's funnyto call him Marvel's Aquaman. Aquaman is
kind of DC's nay More, althoughAquaman's obviously been a lot more successful,
and they just kind of put thosetwo together, those two societies, and
(18:17):
I think Aquam Aquaman two Black Panther, Wakonda Forever really suffered from missing Chadwick
Boseman. It was hard to buildthat character up so much and have him
be so important and then him justnot be a part of it. It
was very noticeable to me, UmI personally it was not And I can
(18:40):
understand why it would be so meaningfulto you to seek being Moroccan and seeing
things that really, Oh man,that's that's that's that's kind of speaks to
you. But to me, BlackPanther and Wakanda Forever didn't really do it
for me. I thought they weregood movies, but I didn't see them
as the cultural phenomenon that everybody wassaying that they were. And Black Panther
too, I don't know. Ijust didn't like the direction that it went.
(19:03):
I thought that they have so manyexcellent actors and performers and set designers
and stuff like that. There werejust it was just a chunky movie.
To me. There's a whole sequencewith a young lady that ironheart. I
don't think she even needed to bein the movie. To me, I
felt like her whole character. Imean, I'm sure she could be great
(19:26):
have her own series, and shewill, and I'll watch it, but
in terms of her being integral toBlack panther Workonda forever I didn't feel like
she was. There was this wholething where you know, again, I
don't want to spoil it, butit's like, we need to do this,
and it's like, well, hereare all our other options? Can
we talk about this in the badguy's Like, No, all I can
(19:49):
do is I can only kill thisperson. That's the only way it's gonna
be better. Well, you don'thave to. You have my word that
this won't happen. Let's have thingsbe kind of equitable here, let's work
together. Yeah, I appreciate yousaying that, but nope, I'm just
gonna have to kill this Person's allthe way up. The only way we
can do it. You should startdoing like Marvel movie recaps of just you
explaining like very reasonably, like allright, well you know so that maybe
(20:15):
that's a good place to pivot towhere Marvel that now. So it's been
interesting for me to watch, likeagain, like I abandoned it and left
the country basically, and then italways remained extremely popular for I would say,
a good another five years, andthen only within the last couple of
years you've sort of started to seemaybe I'm not saying the wheels come off,
(20:36):
but like maybe one wheel came off. And in terms of like the
audience responding and they're making less money. And I do wonder if it's interesting
to hear for you that like thereis a diversity and how they've presented these
stories and the diversity of like notjust like literal diversity, but like diversity
of a narrative style and things likethat. But it does seem like the
audience is starting to have a fatiguefactor. Where do you think they're gonna
(21:00):
Where do you think they need tokind of pivot from here to not like
have other people like me just abandonedship. So the challenge with Marvel is
when they got done with Infinity War, that was their big Holy crap,
this is our pivotal moment. We'vebeen building towards this for twelve years now.
When iron Man first came out,it wasn't I mean, it was
(21:22):
great, people loved it, butit wasn't like the Avengers. It wasn't
that big. They were building towardssomething. So they went to that big
moment. I think it had amassive payoff. It was great, but
then they had to start over,and then you have the casual fan who
says, well, I don't wantto start over. I like iron Man.
Bring iron Man back, And that'snot really how it's working. So
(21:42):
Marvel got really big for their britchesand they started saying, Okay, Disney
Plus and I remember reporting on thison Alter Ego. They were like,
we're gonna have something come out everymonth for like sixteen months. And you
and I know about the production side, right, that is an insane goal
(22:03):
to have, especially when you're talkingabout the level that Marvel and Disney likes
to do. And so yeah,just to put just to put the context
here, we ad Voyage. We'renow releasing a new podcasts fiction series basically
every six weeks, and yeah,that's really hard. And Jack knows because
(22:23):
they've done like seven million of these. It's really hard as a podcast,
which is an audio medium, whichmeans it's like the production of it is
actually obviously massively easier than a liveaction production. So what you just said
terrifies me, Like, if I'mthe Marvel executive, that's so scary to
have to do that, and youlook at all the wheels that have to
(22:45):
be in motion to make that happen, and they started putting out stuff that
they had been working on in theShadows, Loki Wan Division, Great Hawkeye
comes out. That one's okay,but you can tell, oh, okay,
maybe we didn't have a fully fleshedout story here. And then you
have more projects start to come out, or Love and Thunder, which I
(23:06):
think is the worst Marvel movie they'veput out. It was just absolutely terrible
in my humble opinion. I haveto add that that's my opinion. If
you love it, I'm sure sureit's great. Yeah yeah, tell yeah
yeah. And so things started toget worse and worse, and that the
(23:29):
reviews started to go, what isthis. We just came off of Infinity
War An Endgame and you know,Iron Man and Spider Man and all these
great movies. Now we're making this, And so I think Marvel has said,
okay, they pulled the reins wayway way way back, and now
they're slowing down production and allowing KevinFigi, who's their head of operations,
to go in and overview everything andkind of have his finger on the pulse
(23:52):
where they realized at Marvel that lessis more. So production has slowed way
way down and things are starting tobuild in quality. Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume three, in my opinion,being the best thing they've put out obviously,
So I'm hoping that things are startingto go in that general direction.
That's in terms of production, howthings are going. They're starting to slow
(24:15):
down and try to make better projects, which hopefully they can win some of
their people back, they'd be great. But in terms of narrative, they're
going pretty big too. So ifyou've ever been a big comic book fan,
you know, there's a lot ofdifferent comics out there. I'm looking
in my room around here and allthe pops I have, and I'm seeing
at least fifty different ones just lookingaround. Marvel is starting to do phases
(24:41):
and bring them all together, whichis kind of a massive scale. So
they have their street level heroes likeyour she Hulk, your Spider Man,
you know, all those guys thatare that are going to show up on
the street level. Daredevil is comingout with a new series which sounds really
really good. I don't know ifyou were a fan of Daredevil back on
Netflix, if you were the onethat's coming in Daredevil Born Again is one
(25:06):
of his most iconic runs that he'sever done, and this is supposed to
be a pretty spectacular series. Iloved Um Punisher, the standalone Punisher with
burnthall the first season. The secondseason, I am ashamed to admit I
have not finished. I have likethree episodes le after the second season,
and I think the reason why isthat in the second season they didn't get
(25:27):
the comic element of it quite right. And with The Punisher, if you
don't have that effective comic like release, it's so grim that it's a little
bit exhausting. In the first season, they had Micro and it worked great
because they had a really good chemistrybetween him and the actor's name. He's
a great actor. He's on Bearalso in FX. I forget his name
(25:49):
anyway, Micro the guy who playsMicro. Yeah, him and Burnthal had
an excellent chemistry that was humor.They almost had this like weird like buddy
a couple relationship, right, andit totally worked. So first season A
Punisher. That's like, for me, if you were to say, like
my personal favorite Marvel thing they've donein the last ten years something, probably
(26:10):
yeah. Well so yeah, Andthat's that's another challenge when you have not
Marvel being involved because Anthony Russo,who's your antagonist from season one, rolls
over to season two and he's playingan iconic Punisher villain named Jigsaw. Now
Jigsaw, if you ever watched Punishyour war Zone, that's probably more accurate.
He gets his face so maimed anddestroyed that when they put him back
(26:37):
together, he looks like a Jigsawpuzzle. So that's where he gets the
name. And then they have thispretty guy playing Anthony LaRusso who's got a
couple of scars, and they're callinghim Jigsaw, and it's like, Okay,
I think you're missing the point here. But so they have the street
level guys, which Punisher is confirmedto be coming back, So Punisher,
Luke Cage, Jessica Jones hopefully pleaseplease a new Iron Fist, not the
(26:59):
guy who played Finn Jones, nothim, Please not him. And then
you know, Doctor Strange bleeds intothat, and some of those other characters
that have kind of both sides,like Spider Man, kind of goes to
that higher level of global issue,you know, where your Captain America's show
up, your Iron Man's and thenyou have your Galactic which is Guardians of
the Galaxy. Now they're starting toimplement that. They have Shield on Earth,
(27:22):
they had Sword out in space.So they have all these different levels
that they're starting production on. Andso I think two things that could end
up being too big for their bridgesand people going I don't want to have
to watch this and this and thisand this. I don't want to have
to watch Captain Marvel to understand what'sgoing on with Daredevil. And that makes
(27:42):
sense. But then you have thatmindset that they're kind of catering to everybody.
So I like that personally. Ilove the street level Marvel heroes.
I think they have a little bitmore to lose. I think they're a
little bit more damned of characters,so that I identify with that, and
that's where you're starting to get that. But it's it's a lot. It's
(28:06):
just a lot to think about.I wonder if you know when they made
on World war Z, there wasa big thing where they kept redoing the
ending and they brought in I wantto say it was Damon Lindeloff. They
had a bunch of guys like rewritethe ending of that movie. And the
thing with World war Z is itwas so big and so the challenge was
how do you top it in thefinal act? And the real stroke of
(28:27):
genius that they finally got to wasthat you have to go small. And
so the last the last act ofthe movie, they got rid of a
whole I think it was like awhole Russian plot that like Matthew Fox was
in The Russian Zombie Slayer is creditedat the end of that movie, and
it's some huge actor. I'm notnot like in terms of presence, but
he looked very, very big andhis name was I think the Russian Zombie
(28:49):
Slayer, and I was so pumpedto see him because I saw him in
the credits, but he was neverin a frame of the movie. Tough
break for that guy. Um.But yeah, at the end of the
movie, it's a very small sequence, right, and it's more about the
tension of something small and contained.And I wonder if if you're Marvel,
like you said, like they builttwo where it was like a cultural event,
(29:11):
right like Infinity World, and thenyou're right, like how do you
start over? So I do wonderif like if you start doing almost like
the Logan thing where it's like smallerstories, character driven, like could they
do like a cable movie and it'slike, you know, just like very
character driven and it's like more foryou know that your audience is aging with
(29:33):
the movies, right. I thinkif they made a cable movie today,
like an R rated cable movie,you and I would go see it together,
like we would be so excited.Especially with Josh Rowle and signing on
to play that character. I thoughthe did such a good job. There
are so many characters that you couldwatch, you know, a character driven
(29:55):
story or a little bit more focusedstory on. And that's why when I
bring up the freet level guys,they're perfect. You know. That's why
I love Punisher so much is whenhe gets shot, he doesn't have the
serum to heal. He doesn't haveyou know, he can't go to the
police and say, go arrest thatman, because nine times out of ten
they're looking to arrest him. ToMy favorite thing in the history of that
(30:18):
they've done with The Punisher is there'sa moment where they're watching the news and
the news are like, yeah,he's watching with Micro in the first season
Punisher, and then he's like,yeah, there's a guy who's calling himself
the Punisher and he might have killedlike eight people or something like that,
And Birnthall laughs and he goes thatthey know about Yeah, He's like,
(30:41):
he's like a serial killer. He'slike a lunatic. He's a crazy persons.
So yeah, I just I likewhen they take more risks with it.
And I think that they're at apoint now where they've so dominated the
culture that they almost will have totake some risks in order to stay as
relevant. Now there's where I say, you know what takes some narrative risks
(31:03):
here. I used to be backin Phase one before thor Ragnarok. I
was the guy who was like,man, they got it. They did
this in the comic. It's somuch better. And now that I watch
it, I'm like, well,if I've read the comic, why would
I want to go see the adaptation. I'm for you. My wife is
(31:23):
a massive Disney fan. She lovesher all the original cartoons and now the
new live actions are coming out andshe wants to go see those, And
I'm like, why do you wantYou know the story, you know everything
that's going to happen, Why doyou want to watch it? And I
kind of get it, and ithappened to me. In Thor Ragnarok,
there's a moment with Thor and Lokiwhere Loki is getting ready to do that
(31:45):
classic trope like you talked about,where he's gonna betray Thor, and Thor
kind of sees it coming and stopshim and goes up to him, and
he's saying something to Loki. ButI swear this was Marvel's way of talking
to all of their fans, andhe goes, you know, we do
the same thing over and over again. I help you, you betray me,
(32:06):
and like, it's just it's boring. You gotta do something new,
you gotta reinvent yourself. And Ithink that was Marvel's way of saying that
to people like me. But that'ssomething that they're going to have to do
narratively. They're gonna have to makesome big changes. They're gonna have to
throw some different plot points in there. But you know, it's that whole
(32:29):
lead a horse to water, butyou can't make a drink right, Like,
They've got to make the changes inus as an audience have to realize
we're not always going to get exactlywhat's in the comics, and that's okay.
I recently. I actually just beforethis, I interviewed um. A
screenwriter's name is Richard Wank. He'svery accomplished. He wrote the Equalizer films.
He's really a credible writer and awesome. He wrote They're doing a Craven
(32:52):
the Hunter movie. Yes, theyare. He has he has taken some
major changes. Yeah. Well,so talking to him, because he was
not shy about telling me, He'slike, yeah, no, I just
I just reached I just changed themythology of the character because it was like
I kind of needed to, likeI couldn't for him. It was like
a very obvious, like just thenarrative urgency. It was like I had
(33:14):
to make the story like I neededthat in order to make the story work
right. Yeah, And I dothink that again, like we've talked about,
right, it's like, if you'renot afraid to do more of that
with the right people doing it,you gotta get the right person to do
it right. You can't do thatwilly nilly. But if you're not afraid
to do more of that, Ido think that, Yeah. I mean
(33:35):
there's a shelf life on this,right if they just can't stay the course.
And I don't think they know thistoo. If they just stay the
course, this will burn itself outin another five ten years. It just
will. So if they if theycontinue invent being more inventive. I mean,
that's where to hop over to StarWars for half a second. That's
where it was like really sad thatthe Boba Fett show came out and and
I was like, man, thisis just like my dream since I was
(33:58):
a kid. I was like,Oh, they should totally do a Boba
Fete show. I'd be amazing.And I didn't. I never. I
don't watch one episode because uniformly everyonesaid it was not good, it didn't
work, and it was like,well, why wasn't. It's almost like
the like the fumble at the oneyard line of all time, right,
it's like, just make hard aresuper violent show? That's it? Just
(34:20):
thinking unapologetic. It's it sounds likethat's not what it was, and I
just don't understand why it was.It was Boba Fett turning over a new
leaf. And here's the thing,though, that's what everyone wants. Everybody
wants to see the most notorious bountyhunter in the galaxy decided that he wants
to be a philanthropist. It's justit's it's it was hard to watch that
(34:43):
one. But I think Star Warsis going to benefit from Marvel's mistakes.
I think they're going to see allthe things that they've done and do what
works and leave what doesn't. AndI think and Or is a great example
of that. I don't know ifanybody out there is seen and Or.
I cannot recommend that show to youenough. It's so cool that you liked
(35:04):
it as much as I liked it. That's like the nextest point where our
fingers touched in the taste, becauseyeah, it's like and Or to me
is like what more do you want? Right? It gives you everything you
can need. It gives you StarWars stuff, It gives you like adult
stuff, It has real emotional weightto it. It's actually about something.
It's entertaining. It's just like everythingyou can want. That's all I'm looking
(35:25):
for, is is there and andOr. That's the thing that I've said
about Star Wars for years, asI'm tired of just the two guys with
the laser swords meeting in the middle, you know what I mean. It
was always Jedi Saith, Jedi Saith. I'm like I don't care. This
is this is taking place in agalaxy far far away, and we're focusing
on five or six people. Let'slet's take a look at the world.
(35:45):
And and Or fleshed out the worldof Star Wars so well. I mean,
they really did make so many othergalaxies and so many other places feel
lived in and see the impact ofwhat was happening in the galaxy. See
when Darth Vader in the Emperor Over. One of the best parts of the
whole thing of Andor is when umsCasson Andor right, I'm gonna lose my
(36:08):
nerd creditualified for him. Um,He's like, we finished the job.
I just want to go to thebeach, man, I just want That's
it. I don't care about anyof this. I just want to go
to the beach. And literally hecan't even just go to the beach.
He gets arrested, it throw inprison or for standing there. He does
literally nothing, and he goes tothis prison where they're like, yeah,
(36:32):
you're here for the rest of yourlife. He's like, I literally didn't
do anything. I was just standingthere and they arrested me. And it's
so powerful because it's you totally understandhow he would be radicalized. And it's
really if you actually dig deeper intothat, that's basically how anybody gets radicalized.
That's how like, actual terrorists getradicalized. And these characters are terrorists.
(36:54):
They are that's literally what they are. So it's it's actually quite radical
if you really stop and think aboutwhat they're telling you. But it's done
in such a way you're like,oh, this makes perfect sense. Yeah,
oh I would do that too,you know. You see that and
you're like, oh, they werejust gonna throw me in jail forever.
Yeah, Day one of breaking outstarts right then. I don't care if
(37:15):
I need to blow up this place. Let me get out of here.
If I'm in jail with Andy Serkis, shit's going down. First of all,
he's really be a bad time storyevery night. We should wrap up
because we're gonna go way over.But what is what is like the next
Well, here's here's a good one. What is something that's out right now
(37:36):
that is Marvel that maybe not thatmany people have seen him, it was
not as popular that you like,the people should watch Werewolf night. That's
that's my biggest recommendation right now.It's it's like an hour. It was
a Halloween special. It builds intothe supernatural side of Marvel that I think
they're getting ready to do. That'sa great one. All right, cool
Jack, thank you so much forcoming on The show Man. That is
(37:58):
a show for today. I wantto thank everybody for listening until next time.
Bye bye, see yeah. Mmhm m hm m m h m hm
Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore.
(00:22):
I'm a producer, writer of filmand television and now a podcast producer.
And despite having every streaming service,I never know what to watch. So
anytime I watch something good, Italk about it on this show. This
way, you'll never have the sameproblem I do. I watched this tonight.
There's always something good to watch.Let's get started, all right.
Today on the show, I havethe wonderful Jack Austin of seven Lamb.
(00:44):
Jack is an awesome guy. He'sdone a lot of stuff with us with
Voyage with scripted podcasts, but healso has a podcast called Alter Ego where
he talks about pop culture, andspecifically he talks a lot about Marvel stuff.
And I think it was god.It was one of the moves of
the Avengers where I walked out ofthe theater and I was like, and
I like walked out on Marvel.I like left, I like a jilted,
(01:07):
like you know, boyfriend or something. And and it's such a big
part of our society and also Ithink it's at as traditional point right now,
and so I wanted to have Jackon. And basically Jack's gonna gend
to convince me what I should watchthat I haven't watched a Marvel Well,
sure, so let's start. Idon't want to sound like a therapist,
(01:27):
but where did your trauma start?Where did the problems start with Marvel?
What made you want to get upand walk out? So when they got
the Avengers together, they obviously didthe first movie with Jos Sweden, and
then they had a movie after that. It's one of the ones that I
(01:47):
believe Black Panther was in it.I believe, Oh this isn't the original
Avengers. Are you talking about civilWar? Because civil warhead? I think
it was Civil War? Okay,yeah, leave it with civil War.
And I and I remember I walked, yes, you know, actually I'm
confident of the Civil War. AndI remember I watched it and I walked
out of the theater and I waslike, I have I have not been
(02:09):
improved as a person in any wayby watching it. There's nothing about this
that is going to stay with me. That is And then you know,
I would say the inverse of thatis Black Panther, which is also probably
one of the last Marvel things Iwatched, which I saw with the buddy
of mine. Um, we're bothwere both we're both Moroccans actually, and
(02:30):
we're both from Baltimore, and weboth deeply understood the meaningfulness of Black Panther,
right, and it's actually has reallyis like a meaningful thing for like
black representation, and like it wasreally an important movie. So that I
was like, that is actually aboutsomething that has meaning. I really connected
to it. But I guess whathappened is at a certain point to me
(02:51):
as like and maybe this is likea older too. I was like,
you know, if it's just fun, disposable entertainment, I don't know that
I'm I don't know that I careenough to continue watching, and so I
just sort of I flew the coop. I can understand that for sure.
And everybody perceives everything differently, right, myself included. I've been reading comics
(03:13):
and watching you know, the XMan animated series. I've been so indoctrinated
into Marvel and my heroes and stufflike that since I was a young boy.
So I think sometimes myself, asa hardcore fan, is able to
see a lot more in what they'reshowing me on the screen than what your
average person is going to appreciate.Does that make sense. Yeah, So
(03:35):
when it comes to civil war,it's tough with Marvel, right because people
see this big catalog of movies thatthey have to watch and they're like,
I've got to watch all of thisto understand everything, and that can be
really daunting. I can completely understandwhere people are coming from in that regard.
But when it comes to our heroes, right, superhero movies are so
(03:55):
different because it's so fantastic and it'sso like outside of them of reality.
And I think that's good and badbecause sure, there aren't billionaires out there
putting suits of arm around themselves andflying around and you know, trying to
stop criminals and things of that nature. That's ridiculous. But on the other
side of that coin, sometimes realitycan really suck, so that can be
(04:18):
a great escape to get to thatmedium and just kind of have some fun
for a while. And I thinkthe best superhero movies are ones that tell
the human stories that we can relateto and add that fantastic on top of
it, so we can kind oftry to live vicariously through that in a
(04:40):
way. I mean, when youlook at some of these heroes, everybody's
got somebody that they can identify with. They've got somebody that they see their
attitude or the way they represent themselveson screen, and they go, Man,
if I could do that, that'sthe kind of thing, you know
what I mean, Like everybody isCaptain America. If I could be this
big symbol and you know, goand be an icon for everybody and make
(05:04):
good in the world, I woulddo that. Or you have the people
go, if I had billions ofdollars, I'd make a cool Iron Man
suit and fly over the city allI wanted. Or some people who have
you know, it's it's funny.I'll tell you this one. This one
is probably the most meaningful story forme. For superheroes. It's Aquaman.
And a lot of people can't standAquaman. They think it's kind of a
silly movie and things like that.But my oldest son, since he was
(05:27):
very young, has been afraid ofwater. He doesn't like getting water on
his head, he didn't like gettingbathed in things of that nature. He
would have a full blown meltdown.And I found out through all this,
you know movies that I watched atAquaman was somebody he identified with. He
loved him, and I was likeAquaman, why I don't understand, and
(05:49):
it started to correlate with me.He had such a such a deep fear
of water, and this superhero wasso strong and powerful and he lived in
the water, and it was likehe saw something that he didn't have in
himself and he identified with that character. I took him to see Aquaman in
theaters and there's this moment in themovie where Aquaman is coming out wearing the
(06:12):
original Aquaman uniform and it's a deadsilent theater and all you hear is my
son go, wow, you knowwhat I mean? So like that seeing
that in heroes has a lot ofmeeting in my personal opinion. But when
I'm talking about movies that you're gonnawant to watch, it all depends on
(06:34):
the individual. So you saying youhave things that have meaning, and Black
Panther being important to you because you'rebeing Moroccan and it has something in the
I mean, it depends on whatyou're looking for. So if you're looking
for something more grounded in reality,I would probably say don't watch any of
(06:55):
the Thorn movies. I would probablysteer you toward Guardians of the Galaxy.
And that sounds ridiculous. Well,because so this is it's a really it's
a good place for us to talkhim about the pivot that's happening with Marvel,
right because and this is an interestingthing about emotion and storytelling. I
was talking to somebody m a dadat my daughter's school, and he was
(07:19):
like, yeah, man, Isaw a Guardian And he's like this big,
like kind of macho dude, andhe's like, yeah, I saw
Guardians Gazi three, very emotional.He's like, yeah, really, And
I remembered vividly seeing Guardians Galaxy twoand like there's a very emotional ending of
that movie, and even the firstone is very emotional. And it's not
a coincidence that those movies have beensort of like holding off the tide of
(07:44):
kind of some negative results for Marvel. So it's pulling off the mass exodus.
You're right, And so I thinkthat it's not to say that I
for me personally, like everything hasto be like Black Panther, where it
has its like heavy, heavy culturalsignificance. I just want movies where there's
like a real emotion to it thatis not sanitized, if that makes sense.
(08:07):
Yeah, something that you can trulyidentify with and relate to. That's
what makes these movies so great,and that's what makes James Gunn in particular
really great. I'm very excited forwhat he's going to do at DC.
I think he's an excellent storyteller,and I think he gets my point across
the best, because I say,Guardians of the Galaxy for people you can
(08:31):
identify with. None of us flyaround in spaceships for a living. We
don't live in the cranium of acelestial out there in a far away galaxy.
But the stories all of them gothrough are so much closer to you
and I than anybody else in theuniverse. Right. We're not taking super
serium, we're not gods. We'renot billionaires, that's for sure, although
(08:52):
somehow super Serium and and Godliness seemedcloser to being billionaires at times. But
the Audians are just regular folks,well Guardians specifically. They're like fuck ups,
right, I Mean, that's sortof the idea, is that they're
all like, they're all on apersonal level disasters. Every single one of
them has has big, major characterflaws, and that's what makes them the
(09:13):
greatest group to identify with, becausethere's nobody out there's perfect. I personally
love star Lord. He's probably myfavorite in the MCU right now. Of
all those characters that are out there, star Lord I identify with the most
because he's just trying to get byman every single day. And especially in
(09:33):
Guardians three, which I won't spoilfor anybody, but I will say Guardians
three, in my humble opinion,was the best Marvel movie they've ever put
out that is not a Avengers levelmovie. I mean, there are depths
of emotion in that movie that youdon't feel from other movies, which was
what makes it so good. I'mcurious. So obviously everyone has told me,
(09:58):
you know, the Avengers movies wantsthey really went for it, and
it's like you really got to watchhim and I never did. Besides those,
and besides Scarding the Galaxy, isthere anything that I've really missed in
the Marvel ecosphere that is good,whether it's TV, your movies. Yeah,
there is probably The all star forme, which is one of that
(10:18):
nobody really knows about is a littleDisney Plus special called Werewolf by Night.
Oh. I remember hearing about that. Now that one was done. It's
in the MCU, but it's kindof separate right, and it is a
character. Werewolf by Night is aMarvel character. He's essentially a guy who
can turn into a werewolf and hefights supernatural villains in that aspect. But
(10:41):
the way they shot that was sounique to anything I've ever seen in Marvel,
and it made me just so happy. It dug into its roots of
like the old school Frankenstein Monster practicaleffects. It's all shot in black white.
It's just it's really well done.All the performances are great in it
(11:03):
too. It's just got something newand it just, I don't know,
it tugged at my heartstrings. It'sgot a lot of gore too. It's
the first time you see actual,you know, limbs getting ripped off and
people getting chopped up. And Iwas like, this is a different level
for something that Marvel has done.And that's another point that I want to
(11:24):
bring up later. But let's talkabout other things that you haven't seen.
So no TV for you yet.I'm assuming you've just kind of sworn off
Marvel. Another one that was veryinteresting and very unique was One Division.
Oh yeah, I remember hearing aboutthat as well. Yeah, I mean
a lot of people said that itwas very inventive and very different from stuff
they're also done. And yeah,it's one of those you know, to
(11:46):
me, not everybody has to beblowing something up for it to be a
great movie, especially a superhero movie, and this one was to me essentially
is a lot of dealing with traumaand how we deal with trauma, and
one division was an excellent representation ofthat, especially with somebody as such high
levels of power as a Scarlet Witchor you know, Elizabeth Olsen's character.
(12:13):
But in terms of movies that you'vemissed too, Shuan Chi, Shuan Chianchi
good. I love Shuan Chi.And so here's my question, um,
because this is they I think we'reMarvel ran into some trouble and it's a
natural thing with these sorts of stories, and they've there's been a lot of
kind of satirical in the online commentaryabout this sort of thing, where pretty
(12:35):
much it's like, all right,you have blank hero, if blank bad
guy. At some point, there'sgonna be something in the sky, it's
gonna destroy New York, the Earth, whatever, and there's gonna be a
big fight at the end. They'regonna win, and and basically we're gonna
just recycle that and we're gonna plugin like Mad Lives, We're gonna plug
(12:56):
in this hero and this bad guy. But you pretty much know it's gonna
end with this big confrontation and whatever, the big gas cloud in the sky.
So like something like a Chang Chiis a good example. This is
it different from that? Is itthe same as that? Like what made
it great for you? I thinkit's different than that because it doesn't go
towards those old tropes. And Ithink the villain of the movie is one
(13:20):
of my favorites of all time.I put him up there with Thanos.
I talk about it all the time. It's Shoon Chi's father, and I
love his character so much. Butyes, it's very different because typically it's
good guy bad guy, we're gonnameet in the middle and fight, And
this one takes a massive left turnat the end of the movie where you're
(13:43):
like, okay, this is what'sgonna happen, and you're like, okay,
I had no idea this was somethingthat was about to go on in
the movie. I don't know again, I don't I don't know how we
want to do spoilers or anything likethat, but you know, long story
short, the main villain has losthis wife and it just kind of disconnects
him from all of reality, youknow, and he has this insane plan
(14:07):
that he can get her back somehow, And the film kind of follows Shuan
cheese progression as somebody who was tryingto distance himself from his father to somebody
who has a purpose and kind ofwants to stop him. In there is
that, you know, that iconicclash, But that's not the whole movie
right there. There's a lot morethat happens beyond that. Another one if
(14:28):
you want, like the basic tropesof superhero movies, Aunt Man and the
Wasp is one that I could haveon repeat all the time. So talk
to you about that, Like,what is it? I know, obviously
it's more comic than some of theother ones. Yeah, yeah, Is
there anything they're doing differently on alike a fun foundational narrative level or is
(14:50):
it kind of the same thing butjust a more comedic approach. No,
no, no, no. Theydid things in that one that were so
different than any other Marvel movie.For instance, Laurence fishburn Fishburne's character who
code named Goliath for those of youwho are big time comic fans, you
know who Goliath is. There's auntMan, and there was this kind of
his antithesis was Goliath on the otherside. But there's a point in the
(15:13):
movie where one of the villains islike, I'm gonna go after Scott's family.
That's how we'll get him to doeverything. And that is the iconic
trope of all bad guys. Right, I'm gonna kidnap your kid, I'm
gonna go after your wife, I'mgonna do X y Z. And one
character goes, let me go aheadand tell you something. I understand we
(15:33):
have a goal that we're after,but if you do something to hurt that
person's family, I'm done. I'mout. And it's something that they follow.
They go, okay, all right, that's fair. That's the line
we're not going to cross. Andthen you know they have to unfold on
either side. I just like showingpeople who may have nefarious purposes. For
instance, Ghost is the character thatwants to do whatever she can to restore
(15:56):
herself if you will, and theyfind out that there's another way to do
it they can. They're still thebad guy. They still have nefarious purposes,
they still want to try to dothat. But somebody I was like,
why does every bad guy in everymovie always has that mentality of Nope,
I don't care about anything. Let'skill the kids, let's blow up
the city, let's do this.Why can't we ever have a bad guy
(16:18):
that goes, yeah, hold on, maybe this isn't the right thing to
do. And aunt man, Ithought did that beautifully because it avoided that
classic you know, I need tosave my daughter and da da da da
dad. No, we can stillachieve our common goal and have a compelling
narrative without having to follow the blueprint. It's funny. It's almost like like
(16:42):
when do you have stuff that youwant to see but you just never end
up seeing it? And it's likeyou're like the brain that has absorbed all
these things that I was curious about. Did you see them? Did you
see the second Black Panther? WhichI have not seen? I have I
have seen the Second Black Panther?Was So what threw me off with one?
Because again I really liked the firstone. Is that the marketing.
(17:03):
I was like, so they're fightinglike bad guy? Awqua man, Like,
what is the I was really thrownby that. I was like,
what so because that, to me, that took it away from I really
liked in the first Black Panther,where it's basically like, hey, the
bad guy has a point. Youknow, You're like, oh, I
can't you can see where he's comingfrom, And so going into the second
(17:26):
one it made it less grounded,which I think is why I checked out
a little bit. But did youlike the second one? And what was
the bad guys situation in the secondone? So the bad guy situation in
the second one is a character namedNaymore. Now nay More for comic book
fans would know, he is Ithink one of the very first ever superheroes
ever published by Marble. It wasa cyborg version of the Flash and not
(17:52):
the Flash of the human Torch andnay More. So Naymore is an X
man who's been around forever and heis kind of well, actually he was
around before Aquaman, so it's funnyto call him Marvel's Aquaman. Aquaman is
kind of DC's nay More, althoughAquaman's obviously been a lot more successful,
and they just kind of put thosetwo together, those two societies, and
(18:17):
I think Aquam Aquaman two Black Panther, Wakonda Forever really suffered from missing Chadwick
Boseman. It was hard to buildthat character up so much and have him
be so important and then him justnot be a part of it. It
was very noticeable to me, UmI personally it was not And I can
(18:40):
understand why it would be so meaningfulto you to seek being Moroccan and seeing
things that really, Oh man,that's that's that's that's kind of speaks to
you. But to me, BlackPanther and Wakanda Forever didn't really do it
for me. I thought they weregood movies, but I didn't see them
as the cultural phenomenon that everybody wassaying that they were. And Black Panther
too, I don't know. Ijust didn't like the direction that it went.
(19:03):
I thought that they have so manyexcellent actors and performers and set designers
and stuff like that. There werejust it was just a chunky movie.
To me. There's a whole sequencewith a young lady that ironheart. I
don't think she even needed to bein the movie. To me, I
felt like her whole character. Imean, I'm sure she could be great
(19:26):
have her own series, and shewill, and I'll watch it, but
in terms of her being integral toBlack panther Workonda forever I didn't feel like
she was. There was this wholething where you know, again, I
don't want to spoil it, butit's like, we need to do this,
and it's like, well, hereare all our other options? Can
we talk about this in the badguy's Like, No, all I can
(19:49):
do is I can only kill thisperson. That's the only way it's gonna
be better. Well, you don'thave to. You have my word that
this won't happen. Let's have thingsbe kind of equitable here, let's work
together. Yeah, I appreciate yousaying that, but nope, I'm just
gonna have to kill this Person's allthe way up. The only way we
can do it. You should startdoing like Marvel movie recaps of just you
explaining like very reasonably, like allright, well you know so that maybe
(20:15):
that's a good place to pivot towhere Marvel that now. So it's been
interesting for me to watch, likeagain, like I abandoned it and left
the country basically, and then italways remained extremely popular for I would say,
a good another five years, andthen only within the last couple of
years you've sort of started to seemaybe I'm not saying the wheels come off,
(20:36):
but like maybe one wheel came off. And in terms of like the
audience responding and they're making less money. And I do wonder if it's interesting
to hear for you that like thereis a diversity and how they've presented these
stories and the diversity of like notjust like literal diversity, but like diversity
of a narrative style and things likethat. But it does seem like the
audience is starting to have a fatiguefactor. Where do you think they're gonna
(21:00):
Where do you think they need tokind of pivot from here to not like
have other people like me just abandonedship. So the challenge with Marvel is
when they got done with Infinity War, that was their big Holy crap,
this is our pivotal moment. We'vebeen building towards this for twelve years now.
When iron Man first came out,it wasn't I mean, it was
(21:22):
great, people loved it, butit wasn't like the Avengers. It wasn't
that big. They were building towardssomething. So they went to that big
moment. I think it had amassive payoff. It was great, but
then they had to start over,and then you have the casual fan who
says, well, I don't wantto start over. I like iron Man.
Bring iron Man back, And that'snot really how it's working. So
(21:42):
Marvel got really big for their britchesand they started saying, Okay, Disney
Plus and I remember reporting on thison Alter Ego. They were like,
we're gonna have something come out everymonth for like sixteen months. And you
and I know about the production side, right, that is an insane goal
(22:03):
to have, especially when you're talkingabout the level that Marvel and Disney likes
to do. And so yeah,just to put just to put the context
here, we ad Voyage. We'renow releasing a new podcasts fiction series basically
every six weeks, and yeah,that's really hard. And Jack knows because
(22:23):
they've done like seven million of these. It's really hard as a podcast,
which is an audio medium, whichmeans it's like the production of it is
actually obviously massively easier than a liveaction production. So what you just said
terrifies me, Like, if I'mthe Marvel executive, that's so scary to
have to do that, and youlook at all the wheels that have to
(22:45):
be in motion to make that happen, and they started putting out stuff that
they had been working on in theShadows, Loki Wan Division, Great Hawkeye
comes out. That one's okay,but you can tell, oh, okay,
maybe we didn't have a fully fleshedout story here. And then you
have more projects start to come out, or Love and Thunder, which I
(23:06):
think is the worst Marvel movie they'veput out. It was just absolutely terrible
in my humble opinion. I haveto add that that's my opinion. If
you love it, I'm sure sureit's great. Yeah yeah, tell yeah
yeah. And so things started toget worse and worse, and that the
(23:29):
reviews started to go, what isthis. We just came off of Infinity
War An Endgame and you know,Iron Man and Spider Man and all these
great movies. Now we're making this, And so I think Marvel has said,
okay, they pulled the reins wayway way way back, and now
they're slowing down production and allowing KevinFigi, who's their head of operations,
to go in and overview everything andkind of have his finger on the pulse
(23:52):
where they realized at Marvel that lessis more. So production has slowed way
way down and things are starting tobuild in quality. Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume three, in my opinion,being the best thing they've put out obviously,
So I'm hoping that things are startingto go in that general direction.
That's in terms of production, howthings are going. They're starting to slow
(24:15):
down and try to make better projects, which hopefully they can win some of
their people back, they'd be great. But in terms of narrative, they're
going pretty big too. So ifyou've ever been a big comic book fan,
you know, there's a lot ofdifferent comics out there. I'm looking
in my room around here and allthe pops I have, and I'm seeing
at least fifty different ones just lookingaround. Marvel is starting to do phases
(24:41):
and bring them all together, whichis kind of a massive scale. So
they have their street level heroes likeyour she Hulk, your Spider Man,
you know, all those guys thatare that are going to show up on
the street level. Daredevil is comingout with a new series which sounds really
really good. I don't know ifyou were a fan of Daredevil back on
Netflix, if you were the onethat's coming in Daredevil Born Again is one
(25:06):
of his most iconic runs that he'sever done, and this is supposed to
be a pretty spectacular series. Iloved Um Punisher, the standalone Punisher with
burnthall the first season. The secondseason, I am ashamed to admit I
have not finished. I have likethree episodes le after the second season,
and I think the reason why isthat in the second season they didn't get
(25:27):
the comic element of it quite right. And with The Punisher, if you
don't have that effective comic like release, it's so grim that it's a little
bit exhausting. In the first season, they had Micro and it worked great
because they had a really good chemistrybetween him and the actor's name. He's
a great actor. He's on Bearalso in FX. I forget his name
(25:49):
anyway, Micro the guy who playsMicro. Yeah, him and Burnthal had
an excellent chemistry that was humor.They almost had this like weird like buddy
a couple relationship, right, andit totally worked. So first season A
Punisher. That's like, for me, if you were to say, like
my personal favorite Marvel thing they've donein the last ten years something, probably
(26:10):
yeah. Well so yeah, Andthat's that's another challenge when you have not
Marvel being involved because Anthony Russo,who's your antagonist from season one, rolls
over to season two and he's playingan iconic Punisher villain named Jigsaw. Now
Jigsaw, if you ever watched Punishyour war Zone, that's probably more accurate.
He gets his face so maimed anddestroyed that when they put him back
(26:37):
together, he looks like a Jigsawpuzzle. So that's where he gets the
name. And then they have thispretty guy playing Anthony LaRusso who's got a
couple of scars, and they're callinghim Jigsaw, and it's like, Okay,
I think you're missing the point here. But so they have the street
level guys, which Punisher is confirmedto be coming back, So Punisher,
Luke Cage, Jessica Jones hopefully pleaseplease a new Iron Fist, not the
(26:59):
guy who played Finn Jones, nothim, Please not him. And then
you know, Doctor Strange bleeds intothat, and some of those other characters
that have kind of both sides,like Spider Man, kind of goes to
that higher level of global issue,you know, where your Captain America's show
up, your Iron Man's and thenyou have your Galactic which is Guardians of
the Galaxy. Now they're starting toimplement that. They have Shield on Earth,
(27:22):
they had Sword out in space.So they have all these different levels
that they're starting production on. Andso I think two things that could end
up being too big for their bridgesand people going I don't want to have
to watch this and this and thisand this. I don't want to have
to watch Captain Marvel to understand what'sgoing on with Daredevil. And that makes
(27:42):
sense. But then you have thatmindset that they're kind of catering to everybody.
So I like that personally. Ilove the street level Marvel heroes.
I think they have a little bitmore to lose. I think they're a
little bit more damned of characters,so that I identify with that, and
that's where you're starting to get that. But it's it's a lot. It's
(28:06):
just a lot to think about.I wonder if you know when they made
on World war Z, there wasa big thing where they kept redoing the
ending and they brought in I wantto say it was Damon Lindeloff. They
had a bunch of guys like rewritethe ending of that movie. And the
thing with World war Z is itwas so big and so the challenge was
how do you top it in thefinal act? And the real stroke of
(28:27):
genius that they finally got to wasthat you have to go small. And
so the last the last act ofthe movie, they got rid of a
whole I think it was like awhole Russian plot that like Matthew Fox was
in The Russian Zombie Slayer is creditedat the end of that movie, and
it's some huge actor. I'm notnot like in terms of presence, but
he looked very, very big andhis name was I think the Russian Zombie
(28:49):
Slayer, and I was so pumpedto see him because I saw him in
the credits, but he was neverin a frame of the movie. Tough
break for that guy. Um.But yeah, at the end of the
movie, it's a very small sequence, right, and it's more about the
tension of something small and contained.And I wonder if if you're Marvel,
like you said, like they builttwo where it was like a cultural event,
(29:11):
right like Infinity World, and thenyou're right, like how do you
start over? So I do wonderif like if you start doing almost like
the Logan thing where it's like smallerstories, character driven, like could they
do like a cable movie and it'slike, you know, just like very
character driven and it's like more foryou know that your audience is aging with
(29:33):
the movies, right. I thinkif they made a cable movie today,
like an R rated cable movie,you and I would go see it together,
like we would be so excited.Especially with Josh Rowle and signing on
to play that character. I thoughthe did such a good job. There
are so many characters that you couldwatch, you know, a character driven
(29:55):
story or a little bit more focusedstory on. And that's why when I
bring up the freet level guys,they're perfect. You know. That's why
I love Punisher so much is whenhe gets shot, he doesn't have the
serum to heal. He doesn't haveyou know, he can't go to the
police and say, go arrest thatman, because nine times out of ten
they're looking to arrest him. ToMy favorite thing in the history of that
(30:18):
they've done with The Punisher is there'sa moment where they're watching the news and
the news are like, yeah,he's watching with Micro in the first season
Punisher, and then he's like,yeah, there's a guy who's calling himself
the Punisher and he might have killedlike eight people or something like that,
And Birnthall laughs and he goes thatthey know about Yeah, He's like,
(30:41):
he's like a serial killer. He'slike a lunatic. He's a crazy persons.
So yeah, I just I likewhen they take more risks with it.
And I think that they're at apoint now where they've so dominated the
culture that they almost will have totake some risks in order to stay as
relevant. Now there's where I say, you know what takes some narrative risks
(31:03):
here. I used to be backin Phase one before thor Ragnarok. I
was the guy who was like,man, they got it. They did
this in the comic. It's somuch better. And now that I watch
it, I'm like, well,if I've read the comic, why would
I want to go see the adaptation. I'm for you. My wife is
(31:23):
a massive Disney fan. She lovesher all the original cartoons and now the
new live actions are coming out andshe wants to go see those, And
I'm like, why do you wantYou know the story, you know everything
that's going to happen, Why doyou want to watch it? And I
kind of get it, and ithappened to me. In Thor Ragnarok,
there's a moment with Thor and Lokiwhere Loki is getting ready to do that
(31:45):
classic trope like you talked about,where he's gonna betray Thor, and Thor
kind of sees it coming and stopshim and goes up to him, and
he's saying something to Loki. ButI swear this was Marvel's way of talking
to all of their fans, andhe goes, you know, we do
the same thing over and over again. I help you, you betray me,
(32:06):
and like, it's just it's boring. You gotta do something new,
you gotta reinvent yourself. And Ithink that was Marvel's way of saying that
to people like me. But that'ssomething that they're going to have to do
narratively. They're gonna have to makesome big changes. They're gonna have to
throw some different plot points in there. But you know, it's that whole
(32:29):
lead a horse to water, butyou can't make a drink right, Like,
They've got to make the changes inus as an audience have to realize
we're not always going to get exactlywhat's in the comics, and that's okay.
I recently. I actually just beforethis, I interviewed um. A
screenwriter's name is Richard Wank. He'svery accomplished. He wrote the Equalizer films.
He's really a credible writer and awesome. He wrote They're doing a Craven
(32:52):
the Hunter movie. Yes, theyare. He has he has taken some
major changes. Yeah. Well,so talking to him, because he was
not shy about telling me, He'slike, yeah, no, I just
I just reached I just changed themythology of the character because it was like
I kind of needed to, likeI couldn't for him. It was like
a very obvious, like just thenarrative urgency. It was like I had
(33:14):
to make the story like I neededthat in order to make the story work
right. Yeah, And I dothink that again, like we've talked about,
right, it's like, if you'renot afraid to do more of that
with the right people doing it,you gotta get the right person to do
it right. You can't do thatwilly nilly. But if you're not afraid
to do more of that, Ido think that, Yeah. I mean
(33:35):
there's a shelf life on this,right if they just can't stay the course.
And I don't think they know thistoo. If they just stay the
course, this will burn itself outin another five ten years. It just
will. So if they if theycontinue invent being more inventive. I mean,
that's where to hop over to StarWars for half a second. That's
where it was like really sad thatthe Boba Fett show came out and and
I was like, man, thisis just like my dream since I was
(33:58):
a kid. I was like,Oh, they should totally do a Boba
Fete show. I'd be amazing.And I didn't. I never. I
don't watch one episode because uniformly everyonesaid it was not good, it didn't
work, and it was like,well, why wasn't. It's almost like
the like the fumble at the oneyard line of all time, right,
it's like, just make hard aresuper violent show? That's it? Just
(34:20):
thinking unapologetic. It's it sounds likethat's not what it was, and I
just don't understand why it was.It was Boba Fett turning over a new
leaf. And here's the thing,though, that's what everyone wants. Everybody
wants to see the most notorious bountyhunter in the galaxy decided that he wants
to be a philanthropist. It's justit's it's it was hard to watch that
(34:43):
one. But I think Star Warsis going to benefit from Marvel's mistakes.
I think they're going to see allthe things that they've done and do what
works and leave what doesn't. AndI think and Or is a great example
of that. I don't know ifanybody out there is seen and Or.
I cannot recommend that show to youenough. It's so cool that you liked
(35:04):
it as much as I liked it. That's like the nextest point where our
fingers touched in the taste, becauseyeah, it's like and Or to me
is like what more do you want? Right? It gives you everything you
can need. It gives you StarWars stuff, It gives you like adult
stuff, It has real emotional weightto it. It's actually about something.
It's entertaining. It's just like everythingyou can want. That's all I'm looking
(35:25):
for, is is there and andOr. That's the thing that I've said
about Star Wars for years, asI'm tired of just the two guys with
the laser swords meeting in the middle, you know what I mean. It
was always Jedi Saith, Jedi Saith. I'm like I don't care. This
is this is taking place in agalaxy far far away, and we're focusing
on five or six people. Let'slet's take a look at the world.
(35:45):
And and Or fleshed out the worldof Star Wars so well. I mean,
they really did make so many othergalaxies and so many other places feel
lived in and see the impact ofwhat was happening in the galaxy. See
when Darth Vader in the Emperor Over. One of the best parts of the
whole thing of Andor is when umsCasson Andor right, I'm gonna lose my
(36:08):
nerd creditualified for him. Um,He's like, we finished the job.
I just want to go to thebeach, man, I just want That's
it. I don't care about anyof this. I just want to go
to the beach. And literally hecan't even just go to the beach.
He gets arrested, it throw inprison or for standing there. He does
literally nothing, and he goes tothis prison where they're like, yeah,
(36:32):
you're here for the rest of yourlife. He's like, I literally didn't
do anything. I was just standingthere and they arrested me. And it's
so powerful because it's you totally understandhow he would be radicalized. And it's
really if you actually dig deeper intothat, that's basically how anybody gets radicalized.
That's how like, actual terrorists getradicalized. And these characters are terrorists.
(36:54):
They are that's literally what they are. So it's it's actually quite radical
if you really stop and think aboutwhat they're telling you. But it's done
in such a way you're like,oh, this makes perfect sense. Yeah,
oh I would do that too,you know. You see that and
you're like, oh, they werejust gonna throw me in jail forever.
Yeah, Day one of breaking outstarts right then. I don't care if
(37:15):
I need to blow up this place. Let me get out of here.
If I'm in jail with Andy Serkis, shit's going down. First of all,
he's really be a bad time storyevery night. We should wrap up
because we're gonna go way over.But what is what is like the next
Well, here's here's a good one. What is something that's out right now
(37:36):
that is Marvel that maybe not thatmany people have seen him, it was
not as popular that you like,the people should watch Werewolf night. That's
that's my biggest recommendation right now.It's it's like an hour. It was
a Halloween special. It builds intothe supernatural side of Marvel that I think
they're getting ready to do. That'sa great one. All right, cool
Jack, thank you so much forcoming on The show Man. That is
(37:58):
a show for today. I wantto thank everybody for listening until next time.
Bye bye, see yeah. Mmhm m hm m m h m hm
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.