July 22, 2025 • 49 mins
DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Fantastic Four : Rise Of The Silver Surfer" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : happinessindarknesshow@gmail.com . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Johnny, I just bought this talks chum up people, and
(00:33):
welcome to our three hundred and first episode of Happiness
and Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast, where we discuss superhero movies, Marvel, DC,
dark Horse, Image and more. Naturally, there will be spoilers, folks,
so you have been warned. I am one of your
co hosts, dijonek and has always joined me as my
superhero partner in crime, mister Keith. But this, Hey Keith,
(00:54):
how are you today? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
You know me, I'm fantastic as always. I'm always up
for a review or two. Possibly I rise to the occasion.
Let me see. I'm trying to fit as many bad
Silver Surfer puns and here as I can. You know,
I'm doing well. I can't complain. And it's actually a nice day.
It was raining earlier, but we're back to the sweltering
heat of North Carolina. So here, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I totally hear you, and I appreciated the puns because, folks,
if you hadn't realized already, to a day, of course,
we are discussing Fantastic four Rise of the Silver Surfer
from two thousand and seven. This was directed by tim story.
The story was by John Turman and Mark Frost, who
co wrote the screenplay with Don Payne, while the score
was by John Ottman and to put in today's money
(01:40):
adjusted for inflation, this movie cost two hundred and two
million dollars to make and made four hundred and seventy
million at the box office. So getting to a general
impressions here, Keith, I know this is not the first
time you sat down to watch this, so what did
you make of it on your rewatch?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It has not a very well and for a number
of reasons. The most of the special effects are dated
at best. I will say things practical costume is still awesome.
I it makes me smile every time I see him
walk on screen. He's got the big you know, all
rocky and so on and so forth. But that's about it.
(02:20):
In terms of special effects. The rest of it is
kind of aged very poorly. You look at Johnny Storm,
especially when he comes Super Scroll and the Invisible Woman
and heck Silver Surfer, and you and I know the
actor that does the Silver Surfer. He has literally done
everything under the sun. So the fact that it hasn't
aged very well kind of just shows you how dated
(02:42):
this film is, so it's a product of its time.
Is it great? No? Is it fantastic? Debatable? But is
it watchable? Yes, one hundred percent. I have watches numerous times.
It's a fun, kind of turn your brain off and
just let crap happen kind of movie. Because you and
I and all of our listeners that know anything about
the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer know that ninety
(03:05):
nine percent of the stuff that happens in this movie
is completely made up for this movie. So it's kind
of hard to be like, hey, that's wrong. This is
like point out all the failures when you know that
they just were like, we're going to slap stuff together
and see what happens. So it's good for what it is,
but it's not accurate in terms of being a Fantastic
(03:26):
Four esque movie.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And we know, of course, the troubled past that the
Fantastic Four franchise has had when it comes to bring
films to the big screen. I guess we'll see next
week when we talk about another version of this, of
course from this year. But getting into this one, I
had watched this a few times, and of course we
had reviewed this way back when on happiness and not this,
(03:50):
but I completely forgot what I said at the time.
So this is great, and I do agree the story
is decent, but ultimately, when you'll kind of a doing
your best to bring to get closer, closest climax of Galactus,
who is supposed to be your big bad and your
big bad turns out to be somebody completely different who
we had, of course encountered in the first film. And
(04:13):
then I thought to myself, then why in the world
did you tease this and not give us a payoff
when it came to that, because ultimately Galactus is just nothing.
It just happened. We even have the silver Surface saying
I call it Galactus, or it's it's known as Galactus,
but we don't ever see it aside from that you
mentioned off air a silhouette of Galactus, you know, crossing
(04:34):
the moon and what have you. So I was a
little bit let down by that. Granted, Galactus is not
in the title, so it's supposed to be more silver
surfer centric, but even the way that that character is
is dealt with, I was not particularly happy with. I
would have liked a little bit more. And yeah, I
mean the actors are decent. This was. This was a
group that we had been introduced to, obviously in the
(04:55):
first film, and by and largely the the interactions are
what they were in the first film. I don't know
where they would have gone had we had a third
film with this cast, but by and large I think
the story works. And I mean, of course, by the
time the ending rolls around, it gives you an idea
there could have been room for more films, naturally, but yeah,
(05:18):
it was. It was. It was pleasant to rewatch it,
but I can see why in retrospect a lot of
folks aren't as aren't as big fans of the sequel
compared to the first film that we got with with
this group. So let's kick off with our characters on
the board, starting with two members of the Fantastic Four
who are soon to be wed. We have Euan Griffith
(05:40):
as mister Fantastic Reed Richards and Jessica Alba as the
invisible woman, Sue Storm. So what did you make out
of these two characters? Keith?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So, I like mister Fantastic and I like Jessica Elbow
for certain films, but she just was not a good
fit for this movie. And I get it. They're trying
to get a big actress in here to kind of
complete the cast, but just it didn't work. I just
her horrifically bad blue contact lenses, the hair, the dyed hair,
(06:16):
and the weird eyebrow, like it just it was more
distracting than anything else. Anytime she was on screen. You
couldn't help but look those really bad blue contacts of
hers or the really bad dye job because you can
tell her his reshoots because her hair's two different colors
and different parts of the movie. So it almost took
away from it. And I feel like this was one
(06:36):
of those characters they didn't really know what to do
with her in this this iteration of the movie, because
you have some scenes with her, you know, chewing out
mister Fantastic because he's being a flake and it's righte
for you. So because she points out that they've tried
to get married like five times now and something happened,
so it keeps throwing things off and it's usually him
(06:58):
doing something or whatever the case may be. And then
she just kind of like turns around and gets killed
in like thirty seconds at the very end of the movie,
and you're like, she's supposed to be this badass, superpowered individual.
Her shields are damn near indestructible and so on and
so forth, but yet she gets killed with the spear essentially.
(07:21):
So it's just they didn't, you know, kind of know
what to do with her, and every so often she'd
almost almost borre aline damsel into stress, and I'm like, oh,
are you serious. The fact that you see her breakout
of jail and go talk to the server surfer, You're like,
all right, cool, we're gonna get some the spy kind
of sue storm we're familiar with. And then the silver
(07:43):
surfers like, oh, you're remind me of my significant other
on my planet. And you're like, oh, you're a so
close guy, so close. And then every time you see
her alone with her friend, she's always like, how am
I going to raise a family? How am I going
to raise a family? How am I going to raise it?
I'm like, I get that being a topic, and I'm
(08:04):
assuming they're supposed to be set up for the next
movie where she tells Franklin or Franklin mister Fantastic that
she is pregnant and that's why she keeps harping on it.
But it's literally the only thing she ever talks about.
Every time you see her talking with her bridesmaid and
you're like, you're not talking about anything else. It's like,
(08:24):
he's a screw up, and then how am I going
to raise a family? And then even when her and
him are talking to each other, she kind of elludes like, well,
is this a life for a family? And you know,
mister Fantastic, being very smart but dumb at the exact
same time, just kind of like plays it off as like, well,
we're this is our lives and we'll break up the team,
(08:45):
and you know, the band as it were, will go
their separate ways again not doing two and two here,
Like all of us are like, oh, she's gonna be pregnant.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
She's gonna be pregnant.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, and that just doesn't happen. And again, it's probably
was supposed to be foreshadowing for the next movie, but
you know, we'll never know because we're never going to
see these characters again, well potentially never see these characters
again unless they show up in some other future Marvel products,
which could potentially happen. So it's interesting. I weirdly enough,
(09:16):
I wish they had given mister fantastic, a little bit
more gray hair because his gray blotches didn't look authentic
or natural. They're just like, oh, yeah, shit, he's supposed
to have some gray hair put right here, and like
it looked like Gell opposed to actual hair.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Dye or yeah, the temples would have been appreciated.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Right, He's supposed to be a little bit more grizzled
in whatever, which I'm fine with, but you know, minor issues.
It's mostly, as we said, a product of its time.
It could have definitely been better. It could one hundred
percent been worse. Clearly, it made its money back, so
it couldn't have been that bad.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Oh no, I mean because folks still, of course want
to see this, and you know, this was still I think,
the time when we were still trying to figure superhero
movies out before they became more structured, more in depth,
and more characters driven, with more character development and such.
Because if you think about it, this one, this was
one year from Iron Man coming out in twenty eight
(10:13):
in two thousand and eight, so aside from X Men,
of course, which I think had done a decent job
when it came to trying to develop characters, and that obviously,
I believe started in two thousand. In two thousand and one,
here it was still let's throw properties at the board
and see what sticks. Also because of rights, so you
had to try and throw out as many movies as
possible to keep the rights to those characters. And that's
(10:34):
what they did here, clear, you know, to make a sequel.
The first one was successful enough for them to warrant
a sequel. Now, when it comes to these two characters,
I think, by and large, Read is pretty pretty accurate
to who he is when it comes to comics, as in,
like you said, super probably one of the greatest minds
of his time, incredibly focused on the on the sciencey stuff,
(10:57):
and went of course save the world and such while
trying to balance the fact that trying to be a
good fianceing future husband to Sue. And even when you know,
disaster strikes, he's he's always in two minds of I
kind of have to save the world, but I really
promise Sue I wouldn't do this. Yet what did he do?
He does it anyway, and you know he's like, we'll
(11:18):
go to somebody else to build the build this particular machinery.
I'm gonna get I need to get married. But he
goes ahead and spends the evening the day of his
wedding actually up until he has to actually we go
off to get married. He's working for the government and
in figuring all this out to where he literally synks
it up with his with his phone in case something happens.
(11:38):
Of course, the time we didn't. We don't know that
it's a silver surfer causing all these disturbances, but he
wants to keep, of course a little in it and
keep an eye on it. And it just keeps kind
of flip flopping back and forth with this, with this
dilemma of what I really feel that this is my
purpose in life to make the world, protect the world,
and make it better also because of the powers that
have been given us. Well at the same time, I'm
(12:00):
trying to balance his relationship and there I say, it
kind of feels a little bit miserably. But Susan I
think understands for the most part, even though there were
moments in this film where she seemed very flighty and
had these extreme mood changes which seemed a little bit
of out of context with the character, as in at first,
you know, when we have like the bachelor party and that,
(12:22):
and Readers not really enjoying himself. He doesn't really want
to be there. He's not really a party guy, but
then ultimately heads up on the dance floor and starts
dancing with these two girls. Susan shows up, and she's
obviously and she's not particularly happy at first. She's like, oh,
he's in so much trouble, and then she turns on
the dime again and says, oh, you know, it's all right.
(12:42):
I had an even wilder night when it came to
my my bachelorette party. So I'm like, which one is it?
Of the two? And also the fact that then she
calls Read out when when they, or rather calls about
she praises him at first for turning the government down
and saying I need to get married, and she's like, oh,
you know, that's amazing, and she doesn't so she doesn't
(13:03):
yell at him that much. When she finds out he's done,
it's like, I understand why you did it. So once again, Susan,
what which is it when it comes to to how
you're talking to Read now? I don't want to sound
like a complete douchebag when I say this, but if
we embrace the theory that she might be pregnant. That
(13:23):
could be the reason for the mood swings. That is
possibly why she is I'm not saying it has erratic behavior,
but seems to be all over the board when it
comes to her emotions. And that's I think a great
thing that you brought up, Keith, because if that were
the case, I can't reverb much understand because I have
dealt with you know, I don't have children myself, but
I've seen my sister when she was pregnant, and yes,
(13:46):
the mood her moods were all over the place, So
that would have made more sense if that was that
was ultimately the case, and that had been the story
for the third movie. And then yeah, you know, she
kind of gets killed in the last thirty seconds and
doesn't really get to do that much. But I think
what she does get to do, and very importantly, is
getting to know the Silver Surfer and understanding that he
(14:09):
is not necessarily a threat. He's not a bad guy
per se. He's not for the one destroying the planets.
It's who he serves, and her having that heart to
heart with him brings back who Susan is supposed to
be I Ei, the heart of the team and being
the more the one with the most empathy and trying
to figure stuff out with your mind rather than with
(14:31):
your fists. It's like, oh, somebody randomly shows up, let's
attack him. She is more on the let's sit down
and talk to him and see what he has to say.
So that I appreciated and I thought that was that
was clearly the thing. And yeah, and then she brings
up the whole idea of I can't really deal with
the whole celebrity status, how we're supposed to raise children
in with with with what we're doing. But ultimately, by
(14:52):
the time the film ends, I think she's embraced the
idea that their lives will always be crazy, and I
think she's now on a even key and on the
same level as read where she's like, yes, we can
have a family but also be superheroes at the same time,
as we see when they get married in Japan and
once again things go sideways. Apparently Venice is sinking, so
(15:13):
they have to fly over and deal with that. So
while there were moments while I was a little bit
frustrated with the way Susan was written, there are others work,
which I thought made the character shine. As I said before,
she's the voice of reason when it comes to potential threats,
and I really really liked that part. Less so when
it came to your other moments in this film, So
(15:34):
I guess, then let's get to our other two members
of our superhero team. We have Chris Evans, of course,
as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, but he apparently prefers
john these days, and that Michael Chickliss as the thing,
Ben Grimm. So what did you make of Ben and Johnny?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Well, you know, just john tested better with the younger kids. Stainly,
it's a demographic thing. So I understand they're interesting. I have.
If you've watched this movie and you've seen other iterations
of these characters, they're pretty much par for the course.
I'm not knocking either one of them, because Graham is
supposed to be this gruff guy and Johnny supposed to
(16:13):
be you know, mister impulse hot head blah blah blah blah.
They play both characters to a tee. I do appreciate
them expanding on both those characters emotionally. The fact that
Grim is kind of like thinking about the whole settling
down and blah blah blah blah blah. And even Johnny's like,
I should probably get my crap together because he has
(16:35):
a thing for the captain in the army. And she's like, yeah,
you're the Tony Stark of the team, you're the hot head,
you're the blah blah blah all this other stuff. And
he's like, yeah, that's pretty much spot on me. And
she's like, that's why I don't like you. And he
kind of like it was the emotional kick in the
pants that he needed, and from that point on you
see him kind of start to grow a little bit. Yes,
(16:58):
not a lot, but he does grow a little bit.
And the same thing with Ben. His character also shows
a larger range of emotions. You can't get too much
out of these two because of just the characters themselves.
If you ever read the comic books, they grim is
this broody guy and Johnny's the hothead. They don't vary
(17:18):
too much, Like it's never like you see Johnny sitting
in on a bench writing poetry or some crazy stuff
like that. So what they gave us is what I
expected from these characters in terms of previous experiences. Different cartoons,
comic books, all the other iterations of these characters, So
I was it wasn't a surprise to me. The him
(17:39):
Johnny trying to get his crap together was a little bit,
which is nice, but Ben being Ben, it was you know,
it is what it is. They I do appreciate the
chemistry of the two of them had, especially when they
were sitting at that the pub or the dive bar
or whatever the heck they were where he's playing darts.
Them having that beard together and having that bonding moment,
(18:00):
it shows they actually do care for each other. And again,
people who are familiar with the combooks and different iterations
of these characters know that they while they poke fun
at each other, they really are good friends and they
you know, try to look out for each other. And
they've had numerous adventures just the two of them, So
(18:20):
it's nice to show them outside of the context of
the world is ending, something's blowing up, I have to
go after Victor von dum or whatever other crazy shenanigans
is going on. So did I appreciate them harping on
him trying to get all the sponsors and all the
other stuff outside of the story, No, that could have
(18:41):
been cut out and they could have just focused on
the core of the two of them. And especially when
he gets corrupted, for a lack of a better term,
by the silver surface powers to see everybody kind of
rally around him, and he himself realizing that he may
never be the same again, and that also forcing him
(19:03):
to grow. It's funny they call it Rise of the
Silver Surfer when it kind of halfway through turns into
a Johnny Storm story because he now has to come
to grips with the fluctuating powers that he has or
doesn't have, depending on how you look at it. I
will say when he trades powers with the Thing and
(19:25):
he turns into Johnny Storm thing with that terrible hair
and whatnot, I wanted him to be a little bit bigger.
I'm just gonna be honest, Like, you see Thing and
he's this big, giant dude. You see Johnny Storm. He's
just a rock version of himself. He's still weirdly good
looking for a rock guy. But then you see Ben
Grimm and he looks like a pile of rocks. So
it's like, you guys could have you know, made him
(19:48):
look worse or whatever the case may be. So I mean,
it's a minor little gripe, but again practical effects. They
made a costume for him to wear as the thing,
and I can respect that they didn't just try to
see gi cheesy thing on top of him, which they
do later on in the second half of the movie,
but that's for a different reason.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, I definitely think so. I was kind of surprised
myself when we had that switch through that kind of
freaky Friday moment where where everybody has everybody else's powers.
But yeah, and you're spot on, I think with their
with these with them when it comes to not only
how they're in to interact, but who they are as characters.
Because course, for the longest time, whether you'd seen the
movie prior to this or like you said, other iterations
(20:34):
of the four be it you know, cut in comic
book form, cartoon, et cetera. They they are constantly arguing
with each other and constantly egging each other on and
picking on each other, even though ultimately we find out
that even though they are constantly you're finding ways to
get on each other's nerves, there isn't there is a
bond there and they are ultimately brothers in arms. When
(20:55):
it comes to the things they do, and like you said,
I think the pub scene is very significant when it
comes to that of showing that, yes, though they may
play practical jokes on each other, they are brothers and
they do this is a family, and I think that
is what they've always trying to do with The Fantastic
Four was it's a it's a dysfunctional family, and like
any you know, family, eventually, you know, certain family mems
(21:16):
will will argue and will you know, pick on each other.
And I think that's exactly what they do here now
when it comes to to the I think I appreciated it. Yes,
about the human Torch, Johnny was, there was definitely character
development's character growth here because for the longest time, he's
let's let's let's let's be honest, had it all good
looking guy, gets all the girls, drives around in fancy cars.
(21:40):
He is, like you said, very much to Tony Stark
of the team. But then suddenly with this brush with
the Silver Surfer, everything changes for him. One at the
ease with which narn Rad literally grabs him by the
neck and then drops him like he's a hot like
he's a hot potato. He then he then is has
to go through the fact that his powers not functioning,
(22:00):
and also I think getting incredibly frustrated because of that,
because we even see later on him rushing and trying
to save the day and ultimately failing and getting yelled
at by Reid, who usually does not lose his temper,
but in that case he's really angry with him, was like,
you know, deal with your stuff. We don't need you
right now. You're only causing trouble. And then to ultimately
have that confrontation, yes with our member of the military
(22:24):
and even Captain Ray I believe her name is, and
she is one who who I think allows Johnny to
go on this soul searching of maybe I do have
to grow up, maybe I should settle down, maybe I
do have to find somebody, because we even have the
fact that everybody's kind of matched up at this point,
because obviously Reid has Susan Thing has Alisha, who in
(22:45):
my mind is actually the best female character in this film.
It's supposed to be Susan, but I actually preferre Thelisiha
Masters to Susan Storm when it came to this film,
because that girl's got her head screwed. Ryan Tight on
her shoulders, so I definitely appreciate it much much more.
And if I may, you know, a kudos, who are
Kerry Washington for doing her such a great job playing Alicia.
(23:07):
But yes, everybody's paired up, except for Johnny who's kind
of going from one one hot girl to the other
but never really settling down. And maybe ultimately Captain Ray
will be the one that he ultimately settles down with,
because we do see her at the wedding, So maybe
Johnny and Johnny and Ray will be a thing. I guess,
I guess we shall see. So let's get to our
(23:29):
next character, whose name is in the title. We have
Laurence Fishburne voicing the Silver Surfer Norn Radd and of
course Doug Jones doing the physical work when it comes
to this character, So, Keith, what did you make of
Naurrin Rad?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Interesting and not in a good way. I say interesting
because he was almost boring And it's weird to say
that because Silver Surfer can be a cosmic level character.
It's the fact that he has like I don't know,
seven lines in the entire movie that makes him so boring.
(24:06):
He talks to Sue when he has lost his board
he and at different points he just says like one
or two things, like the whole noran rad and I
swear when she goes calls his name, it sounds like
she says Norm. And I'm like, did she just say Norm?
And they're like, no, no, it's Nora. And he was like, no, no,
(24:27):
I know what his name is supposed to be, but
what does it sound like? And it's kind of funny
because you hear it and you're just like, no, sounds
like Norm. So it was you know, it is what
it is the fact that he and I get it
because this interaction with the fantastic for is what triggers
(24:49):
his rebellion from Galactus. That this allows and forces him
to grow and mature, if you want to call that,
or come to that realization that individuals don't have to die.
He doesn't have to keep doing this. He can reject
his master and go on his merry little way. What
(25:14):
I didn't like is the fact that how crazy powerful
they made him. Yes he has the power cause making.
Yes he's a very strong being and he can do
a lot of these things, but they seem to ratchet
up to eleven, like with the him irradiating Johnny and
causing him to have the power fluctuations, and when he
(25:36):
hits Doom's character and it causes Doom to revert back
to his human form. I was like that that seems
a little intense, but I get it. They had to
do something to fix Doom because he was so jacked
up from the last movie. They're like, how can we
save Doom or fix him or make him whatever again?
And it was probably the actor throwing a temper tantrum, saying,
(25:56):
if I'm going to be this character, I want to
show my face. I don't want to have to worry
this stupid mask. Apparently he forgot he's playing Victor von Doom,
who wears armor and has a stupid mask. So that's fine.
Whatever the ability, I shouldn't say the ability. The fact
that he lost his board so easily. It was kind
(26:17):
of annoying, But I get the story they were trying
to pull from, right, I get the reference. I should say.
There was a story where Doom does take the board
from the Silver Surfer and becomes the surfer esque character
and Surfer gets trapped on Earth. I was like, all right,
that's okay, the Surfer again losing his powers when he
(26:40):
fell off the board was a random reference to a comic,
but that was quickly retcons because they realized how dumb
that was. So there's a lot of like fits and starts.
There's so much potential with the Silver Surfer. I personally
did not like the fact that he was the one
to defeat Glack this because anybody who knows who Galactus
(27:00):
is knows that there's no chance in heck that the
Silver Surfer has enough energy to do what he did,
Considering Galactus bestows like point zero one percent of his
powers onto the Silver Surfer to make him this powerful.
So clearly, if he imbued this minuscule amount, there's no
(27:23):
way that he could generate enough to eventually vaporize Galactus.
So it's just seemed like a crap. We need to
end a movie and we don't know how, so we'll
just make the character stupid powerful, even though he's not
shown any of this power abilities up until this point
in time. Heck, he had to force or use a
(27:43):
ridiculous amount of energy to resurrect Sue Storm spoilers by
the way, So the fact that you know, like there's
just no scaling, it's the he required a crep ton
of power to destroy Galactus, but then almost burns himself
out saving her right first, or rather so he brings
himself out saving her, but then turns into a nuclear
(28:05):
bomb and blows Galactus up. It's like pick a lane.
It's either really really hard or not hard at all.
So I don't know. I wish we got another movie
with a minute or even a spin off of Just
Him to you know, show more of this character's background,
because he is a very trolled individual. He's done some things,
(28:26):
he's seen some things. It's all the bad stuff and
all the good stuff eventually, so it would have been interesting.
This would have been a good setup for a cosmic
Marvel universe and the fantastic for realm.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Especially since we do get a post credit scene where
we learned that Norain is still alive and well and
he's kind of is able to get his board back
whe we seem sort of floating through space and then boom,
his eyes open and he's back back on the board again.
So possibly that could have been another storyline for a
third movie or even down the line, like you said,
exploring them all cosmic side of Marvel before the MCU
(29:02):
did so, and I mean, you have Laurence Fishburne and
Doug Jones, so on paper, that sounds like dreamcasting when
it comes to a character, because of course we know
what a beautiful voice Lawrence has, even though like you said,
he has seven lines in this and Doug we know
as is that character act and that body actor who
has done so many amazing, amazing things. You know, we
have sung Doug's praises when we talked about hell Boy.
(29:25):
You know, I loved him with the work he did
with Hans Labyrinth, even Hocus Pocus. The man has such
an extensive body of work for what he does that
I'm like, wow, this is a great pairing. But we
don't being in the title. We barely get any Silver
Surfer in the film. I mean, aside from you know,
having our characters ostensibly trying to capture him because they
(29:49):
see it because the army sees him as a threat.
And while Sue is like, you know, let's talk to
the guy, and you know, him randomly flying over various
parts of the world and causing disturbances, we don't really
get much except possibly from the talk that he does
have with Susan, where you know, he explains the fact
that he does what he does because he's made this struck,
(30:09):
this deal with Galactus that if he acts as his herald,
Galactus won't destroy his home planet. But that's where he
sort of it, and the Prank's got family back home
and such, so he's doing this for his family, even
though maybe one could see, you could see where he's
coming from. At the same time, you're like, okay, but
in the meantime, you're having billions of lives destroyed because
(30:31):
of this. And I think ultimately that is what makes
Norn turn around and change and rebel against his master,
like you said, because I do believe it is. Seeing
how the Fantastic Four are acting, especially the talk with
Susan is very much giving him a change of mind
when it comes to that, and him ultimately seemingly sacrificing
(30:52):
himself to destroy Galactus, which on its head does seem
a little bit ridiculous because like you, like you mentioned,
if this is your herald, you're not going to give
your herald enough power to destroy you. So when you
have your underlings doing things, you're technically more powerful than
your underlings, because it's not a smart move to make
(31:13):
those beneath you have almost an equal power to you,
because then obviously if they ever changed their mind, like
how this happened, they become a threat, and they definitely
threat at that, So that did seem a little bit ridiculous.
I think what the point of the of the of
the story was possibly, Look what a heroic man he is.
He's ultimately you know, changed, or a heroic alien, I
(31:33):
should say, and literally giving his life to save this planet,
even though of course we learned that Lady he has survived.
But that's that's another point of contention for another time.
But I think that was ultimately what there was. They
were trying to make make this character be like I've
seen so many worlds die, I think I have to
kind of now give my life for these people, even
(31:55):
though I've spoken them for two minutes, I still am
going to do this. And once again, it just made
me so disappointed when it came to Galactus, because there's
no bodily version of this character is just like the
nothing from the never Ending Story. So okay, whatever, But
I see what they were doing, but ultimately I think
it fell a little bit flat. That's that's my point
(32:17):
of view. Because let's round off our characters with our
real villain, because it's not Galactus. It's actually the late
great Julia McMahon, who sadly passed away earlier this month
as victiv On Doom. So we have talked about Dooming
other versions and other sources. Keith, So, what did you
make of this version of victiv On Doom? So?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I liked the actor, but I hate Doom. It's weird. Well,
let me correct myself. I do like doctor Doom. I
think Doctor Dum's a very interesting villain. That being said,
what they did to him in this movie, giving him
all these weird electrical powers and all these crazy abilities,
I did not like. They could have just gone with
(33:01):
the Iron Man armor and potentially magic, and I would
have been cool with this, but the fact that they
had to change his powers and abilities kind of irked
me a little bit. The fact that he is uber intelligent,
like read I was fine with because that's what he's
supposed to be. That is a character trait of him.
Is he a narcissist one hundred percent? Is he ego driven? Again?
(33:25):
A lot of the characteristics of Doom they got right.
But then they're like, we're gonna make him shoot lightning bolts,
and you're like why because reasons, And you're like, but
what why, And we're going to change his body into
metal instead of, you know, just him being disfigured, because
he could have been disfigured in the explosion and then
(33:45):
he made his armor and we all would have been
like cool, great, not let's turn him into this weird
metal person thing. And he's covering his face up because
he doesn't like metal, his metal skin. So it was
just weird design choice. Is that kind of threw me
more than anything else. The fact that he created that
device to control the surfboard. Again, they were referencing a
(34:08):
comic book that happened where he does steal the surfboard
from the Silver Surfer. So I was fine with that
in terms of how easily they defeated him. It's just
on a lazy writing considering how much they struggled the
first time they encountered him. Yes, I get it. They
essentially turned Johnny Storm into a super scroll, which I hated,
(34:33):
but it's not for the reason why I hated it.
I hated it because I wanted to see a super scroll.
I didn't hate it because they made Johnny Storm the
super Scroll. So it's one of those. He took the
powers and abilities all for him, and that shows you
when they work together or kremon mall into one person,
they are damn near unstoppable. They are invincible, they're super strong,
(34:53):
blah blah blah blah blah, and so on and so forth.
So I had fun watching the two of them fight.
The fact that Johnny stacks all these abilities and then
knocks the everloving snot out of Doom, I was fine with. Again,
we had five minutes left in the movie. We have
to defeat the bad guy, and this is what we're
gonna do.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Was it good?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And that's subjective? Did I one hundred percent want to
see a super scroll that looked like the Fantastic Four? Yes?
Did we get that in the MCU. No, we got
some weird, jinky, horrific CGI shenanigans. This is what I
wanted in a super scroll. Sorry, Soapbox, I apologize.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Being a podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I know, I know it ran for a different day,
but I do like I I appreciated him as the
Victor von Doom. That's the type of character like when
I see Doom, when I see RDJ play Doom, that's
the kind of Doom I want to see is this crazy,
narcissistic character who's always got these schemes going on, you know,
pulling all these strings and everything. Like, That's what I
(35:58):
want to see when I see RDJ. This character, he
is the measuring stick. This is probably the thus far
the best iteration of doctor Doom we've gotten in a
live action movie.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yep, because and there have been various ones, and more
of them have been more missed and hit, and I
think Julian's Doom was the closest one, at least when
it came to the character traits. Yes, they exaggerated a
lot of the things like the lightning from his hands
and such, which I believe was came from what happened
to him in the first film. But other than that,
(36:32):
I did not know the back to the back scene,
the fact that Julian actually wanted his face to be
shown on camera and so did not want to wear
the mask, and hence that's why they made the story
to where when he has that encounter with nurn Rad,
that he ultimately loses his disfigurements and goes back to
being the handsome guy that we see on screen. But yeah,
by and large. He very much does represent who Victor
(36:55):
von Doom is in the comics and elsewhere. But I
agree with seem very very facile the way he was defeated,
especially when he's now got I guess they'd never call
it that, but the power cosmic by being on the
surfer's board, even you know, the combined powers of the
Fantastic Four should they should have had a harder time
(37:16):
defeating him. But then again, as as we said, you know,
we're probably looking at to the story going, oh, we're
pressed for time. We have to we have to get you,
defeat this first guy, and then sort out the Galactus thing.
So it was it seemed I think that the word
was very rushed when it came to not just the fights,
but also the whole development of it all, because it
(37:39):
could have been so much better. I think maybe you
could have had more scenes with Doom, or may prolonged
the fight a little bit more, gear raised the stakes
a little bit because you had slightly raised them when
it seemed that Sue was going to die, and I
think it was. It does give Johnny a great moment
to shine after everything he's been throughout the film, Doubting
himself and feeling like he's no longer who he was.
(38:01):
So it was great for that sense. But it worked
more for Johnny than it did for Doom because we
didn't really get too much of him other than him
obviously conspiring and playing everybody as we know, because even
with the armies like oh yeah, I'm here, I will
help you guys out. We know of course, his ultimate
goal is to take the surface board and be as
powerful as he can be. I mean, he doesn't change
(38:23):
it's Doom. We know that that's what that's what we
were all about. But I agree. I look forward to
seeing what our DJ can do with this character and
hopefully certain things will be better. And when it comes
to the super scroll situation, well I wonder where the
MCU will ever address that, or they could. They'll you know,
brush it under the rug and forget about it for
(38:44):
a while, like, oh yeah, we have a super scroll,
rush it running around. Where can we use this? So
it'll be curious to see when and if the super
scroll ever resurfaces. I'm assuming it possibly probably will, but
it just seems like right now they've completely forgotten about it,
and we'll see in whatever phase of the mcu where
they bring it back. So before we get to ratings, Keith,
(39:05):
is anything else? So you would like to mention about
this film or that we maybe did not talk about,
or maybe that you didn't get a chance to voice
your opinion on.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
No, I don't. I don't think so. I think we've
covered this one. This is an oldie, but a goodie
very well.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
So let's see what you make of it when it
comes to ratings. So what do you give it? Out
of ten?
Speaker 2 (39:32):
But I think this one's gonna outdo my Superman from
last week. And everybody who listened to the last week's
episode knows I gave that interesting movie a seven, So
I think I'm gonna have to give this one a
seven point five, a borderline eight. If they had done
a little bit better writing with some of these characters,
one hundred percent would have been eight for me. But
seven point five.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Okay, I'm gonna give it the rating you gave Superman.
I'm gonna give us a seven out of ten. Yes,
there are some parts which are enjoyable. Yes, I think
By and Lodge the characters are who we have known
and enjoyed for decades. When it comes to the comics
and all the source material, but so I just felt
there were there were moments in the film which were
a little bit rushed, and as I said before, I
(40:13):
still can't get over Susan's mood swings throughout the whole
the whole thing unness. You know there is an underlying
pregnancy there, but we will never know. So seven and
seven out of ten for me. So get into recommendations, Keith,
is there anything you'd like to recommend to the class
if in fact they did enjoy this movie?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Ooh, this is gonna be a weird one. But anybody
who liked this movie. There was a cartoon set in
the early two thousands called Fantastic Four World's Greatest Heros.
If you like these characters and you want to see
Sue Storm be the badass that we all know she
can be, go check it out. It's twenty six episodes.
It was on for a couple of years in the
(40:52):
early thousands. The anime, the animation is a little janky
and the designs are a little weird. I think it
was anime inspired, so it is what it is. But
the characters that you see and the weird dynamics with
some of them and I'm not going to mention the
sub Mariner, but he may show up and cause some
issues in the family, as it were, So you know,
(41:15):
go check that out. Definitely read up on the current
run of the Fantastic Four, especially One World Under Doom.
That would be my other recommendation recommendations with an s
because that's two or three different stories and there's a
lot going on in the Marvel universe. So if you
guys haven't been reading, might want to start because it's
(41:36):
a lot to dig into.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
This is very true. I would take it all the
way back to the basics, which I think I might
have done when we first reviewed this film. I'm going
to go all the way back to the sixties and
recommend that you guys check out Fantastic Four Issue one
volume Issue one from nineteen sixty one, which of course
features the great art of the legend Jack King Kirby,
(42:01):
who I was a huge fan of when it came
to his artwork. I mean, now, maybe some folks might
not enjoy it as much, but I thoroughly enjoyed what
Jack did with his artwork, and I think it's a
great introduction. And yes, it might seem come across a
little bit dated because it was nineteen sixty one, But
if you really want to see where the Fantastic Four
began their journey and with the world in being introduced
to these characters, and definitely check out the Stanley Jack
(42:23):
Kirby Fantastic Four Issue one. Now, you'd be very lucky
if you were able to find this as a physical copy,
which I think you know you probably would want to
hang on to that for dear life. On this you
want to make a mint when it comes to selling
it on you know, at an auction. But you can
definitely get it in digital form through Amazon because, of course,
(42:47):
as we mentioned before, Comic Sology no longer exists. It
has been picked up and co opted by Amazon, So
through Amazon you can now get these digital comics, and
I would thoroughly recommend you do that and enjoy the
in my opinion, some of the greatest artwork I've seen comics.
I'm bay biased because I said I love Jack Herby,
but yeah, check it out and see where the Fantastic
(43:08):
Four we're born. So from that, Keith, when you're not
here discussing superhero movies and everything else where can folks
find you on the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Well, I'm still working on my ninety seven new podcasts.
I currently have two lined up and another ninety four
to go. Finally have caught up to you and our
friend Charles. In the meantime, when I'm not doing that
or trying to take over the world, I occasionally pop
up on some of our friends podcast. You can find
me on a couple episodes of the most recent season
(43:42):
of Star Trek the Undiscovered podcast. I think I was
on four episodes this year. I was also on an
episode the initial episode of Real Reactions with our friend
Greg Vorab and Kyle what Else The Hour of Comics
is upon Us, did an episode of Gold Standards with
You and the Gang. I'm still trying to figure out
what movie I'm going to torture you guys with. I've
(44:03):
narrowed it down to, like, I think about a dozen.
I'm gonna have a wheel and figure it out from there.
And what I'm not doing any of that. You can
always find me on our Facebook page. You can drop
a comment or a message, and I'm always around to
talk about colm, books, cartoons, anime, manga, pretty much anything
fantastic stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
And yes, indeed you are going to be returning to
the gold Standard Theater next year, and more about that
I will discuss with you off air. But of course, folks,
I also wanted to mention before I get to what
I'm up to, which is a lot, which is a lot.
If you want to, of course, share your thoughts on
the movies we do discuss here, you can should an
email to Happiness and Darkness How at gmail dot com
(44:43):
and once again Happiness and Darkness How at gmail dot com.
I'm sure to follow us on our socials Facebook, Happiness
and Darkness and on X week and finance This High
Darkness Pod, and naturally if you listen to us on
such platforms as Spotify, at podcasts Pandora, you can rate
and review us, as that keeps the algorithm stimulating, allows
will show to reach more like minded ears like yours.
(45:05):
Big thank for those who have done so, and the
future thank you to those who will spread the word.
Tell your friends, tell your enemies. We don't care just
as long as you promote it. We really really appreciate
you for doing so. When it comes to me, you
can find me hosting the radio show Whiskey and Cigarettes,
where we play the very best and nothing but the
best of country music for you guys from Alabama to
(45:25):
Zach Bryan. For more information about that, you can vis
our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes Show dot com.
Podcast Wise, as Keith kindly mentioned, you can also find
myself and Rachel Friend and Zan Sprouse on gold Standard
the Oscars podcast, where we have reviewed all the Best
Picture winning movies in chronological order. Now, as we wait
for the ninety eighth Best Picture to reveal itself, we
(45:47):
are reviewing movies that we have picked, and we also
have returning in new guest co hosts bring their favorite
films to the gold Standard Theater. Recently, Meeka joined us
and made her debut on the podcast. She's a great
YouTube content creator and video essayist and was wonderful having
her on and she brought the movie into State sixty,
which I'd never seen at the time, to Bob Gail
(46:08):
directed and written film. You'll probably remember Bob Gail from
such things as Back to the Future, which he co
wrote with Robert Zemeckis, and moving on from there, we
are going to be reviewing our movie that Zan picked,
which is the nineteen seventy one A New Leaf is
directed by Elaine May starring Elaine May next to Walter Mathow,
So if you know anything about water math Owl, you
(46:30):
know that he's always great on screen, and I will
say Elaine does a great job as well. So that's
what we have going on there and last Beer'sode not
least myself and that childs Skagg's Guy. Have returned to
the fandom Zone podcast where we're currently reviewing the second
season of The Sandman, going through it episode by episode,
because of course we reviewed them all that once it
would be insanity, So speaking to come on this show.
(46:52):
Next time, we'll be taking on the twenty twenty five
Matt Shackman film Fantastic Four First Steps. So keith, I guess,
judging by our trailers and the buzz and what have you,
when it comes to this film, what are your how
are you feeling about this? Are you optimistic? Are you concerned?
What are your expectations?
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Like I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm going into this movie with
the same level of optimism I went in with Superman.
So I know enough about the Fantastic Four that I
can pick it apart some of the newer stories I
haven't read because just there's so many right now, but
(47:34):
I'm holding my breath. I'm we'll wait and see.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I think I'm holding my breath as well. And this one,
I guess we'll see. If I think fifth time is
that is the charm and they might finally be able
to get the Fantastic four right where everybody is happy.
I guess we'll all find out together next time, as
of course, so we will be back of course with that.
So folks, thanks is always this issue and supporting us.
We will see you next time, of course, with fantastic
(47:59):
four steps. Until then, thank you so much for the
privilege of your time. Stay Super Show Mommy turn to
(49:02):
the ATTA
Johnny, I just bought this talks chum up people, and
(00:33):
welcome to our three hundred and first episode of Happiness
and Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast, where we discuss superhero movies, Marvel, DC,
dark Horse, Image and more. Naturally, there will be spoilers, folks,
so you have been warned. I am one of your
co hosts, dijonek and has always joined me as my
superhero partner in crime, mister Keith. But this, Hey Keith,
(00:54):
how are you today? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
You know me, I'm fantastic as always. I'm always up
for a review or two. Possibly I rise to the occasion.
Let me see. I'm trying to fit as many bad
Silver Surfer puns and here as I can. You know,
I'm doing well. I can't complain. And it's actually a nice day.
It was raining earlier, but we're back to the sweltering
heat of North Carolina. So here, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I totally hear you, and I appreciated the puns because, folks,
if you hadn't realized already, to a day, of course,
we are discussing Fantastic four Rise of the Silver Surfer
from two thousand and seven. This was directed by tim story.
The story was by John Turman and Mark Frost, who
co wrote the screenplay with Don Payne, while the score
was by John Ottman and to put in today's money
(01:40):
adjusted for inflation, this movie cost two hundred and two
million dollars to make and made four hundred and seventy
million at the box office. So getting to a general
impressions here, Keith, I know this is not the first
time you sat down to watch this, so what did
you make of it on your rewatch?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
It has not a very well and for a number
of reasons. The most of the special effects are dated
at best. I will say things practical costume is still awesome.
I it makes me smile every time I see him
walk on screen. He's got the big you know, all
rocky and so on and so forth. But that's about it.
(02:20):
In terms of special effects. The rest of it is
kind of aged very poorly. You look at Johnny Storm,
especially when he comes Super Scroll and the Invisible Woman
and heck Silver Surfer, and you and I know the
actor that does the Silver Surfer. He has literally done
everything under the sun. So the fact that it hasn't
aged very well kind of just shows you how dated
(02:42):
this film is, so it's a product of its time.
Is it great? No? Is it fantastic? Debatable? But is
it watchable? Yes, one hundred percent. I have watches numerous times.
It's a fun, kind of turn your brain off and
just let crap happen kind of movie. Because you and
I and all of our listeners that know anything about
the Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer know that ninety
(03:05):
nine percent of the stuff that happens in this movie
is completely made up for this movie. So it's kind
of hard to be like, hey, that's wrong. This is
like point out all the failures when you know that
they just were like, we're going to slap stuff together
and see what happens. So it's good for what it is,
but it's not accurate in terms of being a Fantastic
(03:26):
Four esque movie.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And we know, of course, the troubled past that the
Fantastic Four franchise has had when it comes to bring
films to the big screen. I guess we'll see next
week when we talk about another version of this, of
course from this year. But getting into this one, I
had watched this a few times, and of course we
had reviewed this way back when on happiness and not this,
(03:50):
but I completely forgot what I said at the time.
So this is great, and I do agree the story
is decent, but ultimately, when you'll kind of a doing
your best to bring to get closer, closest climax of Galactus,
who is supposed to be your big bad and your
big bad turns out to be somebody completely different who
we had, of course encountered in the first film. And
(04:13):
then I thought to myself, then why in the world
did you tease this and not give us a payoff
when it came to that, because ultimately Galactus is just nothing.
It just happened. We even have the silver Surface saying
I call it Galactus, or it's it's known as Galactus,
but we don't ever see it aside from that you
mentioned off air a silhouette of Galactus, you know, crossing
(04:34):
the moon and what have you. So I was a
little bit let down by that. Granted, Galactus is not
in the title, so it's supposed to be more silver
surfer centric, but even the way that that character is
is dealt with, I was not particularly happy with. I
would have liked a little bit more. And yeah, I
mean the actors are decent. This was. This was a
group that we had been introduced to, obviously in the
(04:55):
first film, and by and largely the the interactions are
what they were in the first film. I don't know
where they would have gone had we had a third
film with this cast, but by and large I think
the story works. And I mean, of course, by the
time the ending rolls around, it gives you an idea
there could have been room for more films, naturally, but yeah,
(05:18):
it was. It was. It was pleasant to rewatch it,
but I can see why in retrospect a lot of
folks aren't as aren't as big fans of the sequel
compared to the first film that we got with with
this group. So let's kick off with our characters on
the board, starting with two members of the Fantastic Four
who are soon to be wed. We have Euan Griffith
(05:40):
as mister Fantastic Reed Richards and Jessica Alba as the
invisible woman, Sue Storm. So what did you make out
of these two characters? Keith?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So, I like mister Fantastic and I like Jessica Elbow
for certain films, but she just was not a good
fit for this movie. And I get it. They're trying
to get a big actress in here to kind of
complete the cast, but just it didn't work. I just
her horrifically bad blue contact lenses, the hair, the dyed hair,
(06:16):
and the weird eyebrow, like it just it was more
distracting than anything else. Anytime she was on screen. You
couldn't help but look those really bad blue contacts of
hers or the really bad dye job because you can
tell her his reshoots because her hair's two different colors
and different parts of the movie. So it almost took
away from it. And I feel like this was one
(06:36):
of those characters they didn't really know what to do
with her in this this iteration of the movie, because
you have some scenes with her, you know, chewing out
mister Fantastic because he's being a flake and it's righte
for you. So because she points out that they've tried
to get married like five times now and something happened,
so it keeps throwing things off and it's usually him
(06:58):
doing something or whatever the case may be. And then
she just kind of like turns around and gets killed
in like thirty seconds at the very end of the movie,
and you're like, she's supposed to be this badass, superpowered individual.
Her shields are damn near indestructible and so on and
so forth, but yet she gets killed with the spear essentially.
(07:21):
So it's just they didn't, you know, kind of know
what to do with her, and every so often she'd
almost almost borre aline damsel into stress, and I'm like, oh,
are you serious. The fact that you see her breakout
of jail and go talk to the server surfer, You're like,
all right, cool, we're gonna get some the spy kind
of sue storm we're familiar with. And then the silver
(07:43):
surfers like, oh, you're remind me of my significant other
on my planet. And you're like, oh, you're a so
close guy, so close. And then every time you see
her alone with her friend, she's always like, how am
I going to raise a family? How am I going
to raise a family? How am I going to raise it?
I'm like, I get that being a topic, and I'm
(08:04):
assuming they're supposed to be set up for the next
movie where she tells Franklin or Franklin mister Fantastic that
she is pregnant and that's why she keeps harping on it.
But it's literally the only thing she ever talks about.
Every time you see her talking with her bridesmaid and
you're like, you're not talking about anything else. It's like,
(08:24):
he's a screw up, and then how am I going
to raise a family? And then even when her and
him are talking to each other, she kind of elludes like, well,
is this a life for a family? And you know,
mister Fantastic, being very smart but dumb at the exact
same time, just kind of like plays it off as like, well,
we're this is our lives and we'll break up the team,
(08:45):
and you know, the band as it were, will go
their separate ways again not doing two and two here,
Like all of us are like, oh, she's gonna be pregnant.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
She's gonna be pregnant.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, and that just doesn't happen. And again, it's probably
was supposed to be foreshadowing for the next movie, but
you know, we'll never know because we're never going to
see these characters again, well potentially never see these characters
again unless they show up in some other future Marvel products,
which could potentially happen. So it's interesting. I weirdly enough,
(09:16):
I wish they had given mister fantastic, a little bit
more gray hair because his gray blotches didn't look authentic
or natural. They're just like, oh, yeah, shit, he's supposed
to have some gray hair put right here, and like
it looked like Gell opposed to actual hair.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Dye or yeah, the temples would have been appreciated.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Right, He's supposed to be a little bit more grizzled
in whatever, which I'm fine with, but you know, minor issues.
It's mostly, as we said, a product of its time.
It could have definitely been better. It could one hundred
percent been worse. Clearly, it made its money back, so
it couldn't have been that bad.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Oh no, I mean because folks still, of course want
to see this, and you know, this was still I think,
the time when we were still trying to figure superhero
movies out before they became more structured, more in depth,
and more characters driven, with more character development and such.
Because if you think about it, this one, this was
one year from Iron Man coming out in twenty eight
(10:13):
in two thousand and eight, so aside from X Men,
of course, which I think had done a decent job
when it came to trying to develop characters, and that obviously,
I believe started in two thousand. In two thousand and one,
here it was still let's throw properties at the board
and see what sticks. Also because of rights, so you
had to try and throw out as many movies as
possible to keep the rights to those characters. And that's
(10:34):
what they did here, clear, you know, to make a sequel.
The first one was successful enough for them to warrant
a sequel. Now, when it comes to these two characters,
I think, by and large, Read is pretty pretty accurate
to who he is when it comes to comics, as in,
like you said, super probably one of the greatest minds
of his time, incredibly focused on the on the sciencey stuff,
(10:57):
and went of course save the world and such while
trying to balance the fact that trying to be a
good fianceing future husband to Sue. And even when you know,
disaster strikes, he's he's always in two minds of I
kind of have to save the world, but I really
promise Sue I wouldn't do this. Yet what did he do?
He does it anyway, and you know he's like, we'll
(11:18):
go to somebody else to build the build this particular machinery.
I'm gonna get I need to get married. But he
goes ahead and spends the evening the day of his
wedding actually up until he has to actually we go
off to get married. He's working for the government and
in figuring all this out to where he literally synks
it up with his with his phone in case something happens.
(11:38):
Of course, the time we didn't. We don't know that
it's a silver surfer causing all these disturbances, but he
wants to keep, of course a little in it and
keep an eye on it. And it just keeps kind
of flip flopping back and forth with this, with this
dilemma of what I really feel that this is my
purpose in life to make the world, protect the world,
and make it better also because of the powers that
have been given us. Well at the same time, I'm
(12:00):
trying to balance his relationship and there I say, it
kind of feels a little bit miserably. But Susan I
think understands for the most part, even though there were
moments in this film where she seemed very flighty and
had these extreme mood changes which seemed a little bit
of out of context with the character, as in at first,
you know, when we have like the bachelor party and that,
(12:22):
and Readers not really enjoying himself. He doesn't really want
to be there. He's not really a party guy, but
then ultimately heads up on the dance floor and starts
dancing with these two girls. Susan shows up, and she's
obviously and she's not particularly happy at first. She's like, oh,
he's in so much trouble, and then she turns on
the dime again and says, oh, you know, it's all right.
(12:42):
I had an even wilder night when it came to
my my bachelorette party. So I'm like, which one is it?
Of the two? And also the fact that then she
calls Read out when when they, or rather calls about
she praises him at first for turning the government down
and saying I need to get married, and she's like, oh,
you know, that's amazing, and she doesn't so she doesn't
(13:03):
yell at him that much. When she finds out he's done,
it's like, I understand why you did it. So once again, Susan,
what which is it when it comes to to how
you're talking to Read now? I don't want to sound
like a complete douchebag when I say this, but if
we embrace the theory that she might be pregnant. That
(13:23):
could be the reason for the mood swings. That is
possibly why she is I'm not saying it has erratic behavior,
but seems to be all over the board when it
comes to her emotions. And that's I think a great
thing that you brought up, Keith, because if that were
the case, I can't reverb much understand because I have
dealt with you know, I don't have children myself, but
I've seen my sister when she was pregnant, and yes,
(13:46):
the mood her moods were all over the place, So
that would have made more sense if that was that
was ultimately the case, and that had been the story
for the third movie. And then yeah, you know, she
kind of gets killed in the last thirty seconds and
doesn't really get to do that much. But I think
what she does get to do, and very importantly, is
getting to know the Silver Surfer and understanding that he
(14:09):
is not necessarily a threat. He's not a bad guy
per se. He's not for the one destroying the planets.
It's who he serves, and her having that heart to
heart with him brings back who Susan is supposed to
be I Ei, the heart of the team and being
the more the one with the most empathy and trying
to figure stuff out with your mind rather than with
(14:31):
your fists. It's like, oh, somebody randomly shows up, let's
attack him. She is more on the let's sit down
and talk to him and see what he has to say.
So that I appreciated and I thought that was that
was clearly the thing. And yeah, and then she brings
up the whole idea of I can't really deal with
the whole celebrity status, how we're supposed to raise children
in with with with what we're doing. But ultimately, by
(14:52):
the time the film ends, I think she's embraced the
idea that their lives will always be crazy, and I
think she's now on a even key and on the
same level as read where she's like, yes, we can
have a family but also be superheroes at the same time,
as we see when they get married in Japan and
once again things go sideways. Apparently Venice is sinking, so
(15:13):
they have to fly over and deal with that. So
while there were moments while I was a little bit
frustrated with the way Susan was written, there are others work,
which I thought made the character shine. As I said before,
she's the voice of reason when it comes to potential threats,
and I really really liked that part. Less so when
it came to your other moments in this film, So
(15:34):
I guess, then let's get to our other two members
of our superhero team. We have Chris Evans, of course,
as Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, but he apparently prefers
john these days, and that Michael Chickliss as the thing,
Ben Grimm. So what did you make of Ben and Johnny?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Well, you know, just john tested better with the younger kids. Stainly,
it's a demographic thing. So I understand they're interesting. I have.
If you've watched this movie and you've seen other iterations
of these characters, they're pretty much par for the course.
I'm not knocking either one of them, because Graham is
supposed to be this gruff guy and Johnny supposed to
(16:13):
be you know, mister impulse hot head blah blah blah blah.
They play both characters to a tee. I do appreciate
them expanding on both those characters emotionally. The fact that
Grim is kind of like thinking about the whole settling
down and blah blah blah blah blah. And even Johnny's like,
I should probably get my crap together because he has
(16:35):
a thing for the captain in the army. And she's like, yeah,
you're the Tony Stark of the team, you're the hot head,
you're the blah blah blah all this other stuff. And
he's like, yeah, that's pretty much spot on me. And
she's like, that's why I don't like you. And he
kind of like it was the emotional kick in the
pants that he needed, and from that point on you
see him kind of start to grow a little bit. Yes,
(16:58):
not a lot, but he does grow a little bit.
And the same thing with Ben. His character also shows
a larger range of emotions. You can't get too much
out of these two because of just the characters themselves.
If you ever read the comic books, they grim is
this broody guy and Johnny's the hothead. They don't vary
(17:18):
too much, Like it's never like you see Johnny sitting
in on a bench writing poetry or some crazy stuff
like that. So what they gave us is what I
expected from these characters in terms of previous experiences. Different cartoons,
comic books, all the other iterations of these characters, So
I was it wasn't a surprise to me. The him
(17:39):
Johnny trying to get his crap together was a little bit,
which is nice, but Ben being Ben, it was you know,
it is what it is. They I do appreciate the
chemistry of the two of them had, especially when they
were sitting at that the pub or the dive bar
or whatever the heck they were where he's playing darts.
Them having that beard together and having that bonding moment,
(18:00):
it shows they actually do care for each other. And again,
people who are familiar with the combooks and different iterations
of these characters know that they while they poke fun
at each other, they really are good friends and they
you know, try to look out for each other. And
they've had numerous adventures just the two of them, So
(18:20):
it's nice to show them outside of the context of
the world is ending, something's blowing up, I have to
go after Victor von dum or whatever other crazy shenanigans
is going on. So did I appreciate them harping on
him trying to get all the sponsors and all the
other stuff outside of the story, No, that could have
(18:41):
been cut out and they could have just focused on
the core of the two of them. And especially when
he gets corrupted, for a lack of a better term,
by the silver surface powers to see everybody kind of
rally around him, and he himself realizing that he may
never be the same again, and that also forcing him
(19:03):
to grow. It's funny they call it Rise of the
Silver Surfer when it kind of halfway through turns into
a Johnny Storm story because he now has to come
to grips with the fluctuating powers that he has or
doesn't have, depending on how you look at it. I
will say when he trades powers with the Thing and
(19:25):
he turns into Johnny Storm thing with that terrible hair
and whatnot, I wanted him to be a little bit bigger.
I'm just gonna be honest, Like, you see Thing and
he's this big, giant dude. You see Johnny Storm. He's
just a rock version of himself. He's still weirdly good
looking for a rock guy. But then you see Ben
Grimm and he looks like a pile of rocks. So
it's like, you guys could have you know, made him
(19:48):
look worse or whatever the case may be. So I mean,
it's a minor little gripe, but again practical effects. They
made a costume for him to wear as the thing,
and I can respect that they didn't just try to
see gi cheesy thing on top of him, which they
do later on in the second half of the movie,
but that's for a different reason.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah, I definitely think so. I was kind of surprised
myself when we had that switch through that kind of
freaky Friday moment where where everybody has everybody else's powers.
But yeah, and you're spot on, I think with their
with these with them when it comes to not only
how they're in to interact, but who they are as characters.
Because course, for the longest time, whether you'd seen the
movie prior to this or like you said, other iterations
(20:34):
of the four be it you know, cut in comic
book form, cartoon, et cetera. They they are constantly arguing
with each other and constantly egging each other on and
picking on each other, even though ultimately we find out
that even though they are constantly you're finding ways to
get on each other's nerves, there isn't there is a
bond there and they are ultimately brothers in arms. When
(20:55):
it comes to the things they do, and like you said,
I think the pub scene is very significant when it
comes to that of showing that, yes, though they may
play practical jokes on each other, they are brothers and
they do this is a family, and I think that
is what they've always trying to do with The Fantastic
Four was it's a it's a dysfunctional family, and like
any you know, family, eventually, you know, certain family mems
(21:16):
will will argue and will you know, pick on each other.
And I think that's exactly what they do here now
when it comes to to the I think I appreciated it. Yes,
about the human Torch, Johnny was, there was definitely character
development's character growth here because for the longest time, he's
let's let's let's let's be honest, had it all good
looking guy, gets all the girls, drives around in fancy cars.
(21:40):
He is, like you said, very much to Tony Stark
of the team. But then suddenly with this brush with
the Silver Surfer, everything changes for him. One at the
ease with which narn Rad literally grabs him by the
neck and then drops him like he's a hot like
he's a hot potato. He then he then is has
to go through the fact that his powers not functioning,
(22:00):
and also I think getting incredibly frustrated because of that,
because we even see later on him rushing and trying
to save the day and ultimately failing and getting yelled
at by Reid, who usually does not lose his temper,
but in that case he's really angry with him, was like,
you know, deal with your stuff. We don't need you
right now. You're only causing trouble. And then to ultimately
have that confrontation, yes with our member of the military
(22:24):
and even Captain Ray I believe her name is, and
she is one who who I think allows Johnny to
go on this soul searching of maybe I do have
to grow up, maybe I should settle down, maybe I
do have to find somebody, because we even have the
fact that everybody's kind of matched up at this point,
because obviously Reid has Susan Thing has Alisha, who in
(22:45):
my mind is actually the best female character in this film.
It's supposed to be Susan, but I actually preferre Thelisiha
Masters to Susan Storm when it came to this film,
because that girl's got her head screwed. Ryan Tight on
her shoulders, so I definitely appreciate it much much more.
And if I may, you know, a kudos, who are
Kerry Washington for doing her such a great job playing Alicia.
(23:07):
But yes, everybody's paired up, except for Johnny who's kind
of going from one one hot girl to the other
but never really settling down. And maybe ultimately Captain Ray
will be the one that he ultimately settles down with,
because we do see her at the wedding, So maybe
Johnny and Johnny and Ray will be a thing. I guess,
I guess we shall see. So let's get to our
(23:29):
next character, whose name is in the title. We have
Laurence Fishburne voicing the Silver Surfer Norn Radd and of
course Doug Jones doing the physical work when it comes
to this character, So, Keith, what did you make of
Naurrin Rad?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Interesting and not in a good way. I say interesting
because he was almost boring And it's weird to say
that because Silver Surfer can be a cosmic level character.
It's the fact that he has like I don't know,
seven lines in the entire movie that makes him so boring.
(24:06):
He talks to Sue when he has lost his board
he and at different points he just says like one
or two things, like the whole noran rad and I
swear when she goes calls his name, it sounds like
she says Norm. And I'm like, did she just say Norm?
And they're like, no, no, it's Nora. And he was like, no, no,
(24:27):
I know what his name is supposed to be, but
what does it sound like? And it's kind of funny
because you hear it and you're just like, no, sounds
like Norm. So it was you know, it is what
it is the fact that he and I get it
because this interaction with the fantastic for is what triggers
(24:49):
his rebellion from Galactus. That this allows and forces him
to grow and mature, if you want to call that,
or come to that realization that individuals don't have to die.
He doesn't have to keep doing this. He can reject
his master and go on his merry little way. What
(25:14):
I didn't like is the fact that how crazy powerful
they made him. Yes he has the power cause making.
Yes he's a very strong being and he can do
a lot of these things, but they seem to ratchet
up to eleven, like with the him irradiating Johnny and
causing him to have the power fluctuations, and when he
(25:36):
hits Doom's character and it causes Doom to revert back
to his human form. I was like that that seems
a little intense, but I get it. They had to
do something to fix Doom because he was so jacked
up from the last movie. They're like, how can we
save Doom or fix him or make him whatever again?
And it was probably the actor throwing a temper tantrum, saying,
(25:56):
if I'm going to be this character, I want to
show my face. I don't want to have to worry
this stupid mask. Apparently he forgot he's playing Victor von Doom,
who wears armor and has a stupid mask. So that's fine.
Whatever the ability, I shouldn't say the ability. The fact
that he lost his board so easily. It was kind
(26:17):
of annoying, But I get the story they were trying
to pull from, right, I get the reference. I should say.
There was a story where Doom does take the board
from the Silver Surfer and becomes the surfer esque character
and Surfer gets trapped on Earth. I was like, all right,
that's okay, the Surfer again losing his powers when he
(26:40):
fell off the board was a random reference to a comic,
but that was quickly retcons because they realized how dumb
that was. So there's a lot of like fits and starts.
There's so much potential with the Silver Surfer. I personally
did not like the fact that he was the one
to defeat Glack this because anybody who knows who Galactus
(27:00):
is knows that there's no chance in heck that the
Silver Surfer has enough energy to do what he did,
Considering Galactus bestows like point zero one percent of his
powers onto the Silver Surfer to make him this powerful.
So clearly, if he imbued this minuscule amount, there's no
(27:23):
way that he could generate enough to eventually vaporize Galactus.
So it's just seemed like a crap. We need to
end a movie and we don't know how, so we'll
just make the character stupid powerful, even though he's not
shown any of this power abilities up until this point
in time. Heck, he had to force or use a
(27:43):
ridiculous amount of energy to resurrect Sue Storm spoilers by
the way, So the fact that you know, like there's
just no scaling, it's the he required a crep ton
of power to destroy Galactus, but then almost burns himself
out saving her right first, or rather so he brings
himself out saving her, but then turns into a nuclear
(28:05):
bomb and blows Galactus up. It's like pick a lane.
It's either really really hard or not hard at all.
So I don't know. I wish we got another movie
with a minute or even a spin off of Just
Him to you know, show more of this character's background,
because he is a very trolled individual. He's done some things,
(28:26):
he's seen some things. It's all the bad stuff and
all the good stuff eventually, so it would have been interesting.
This would have been a good setup for a cosmic
Marvel universe and the fantastic for realm.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Especially since we do get a post credit scene where
we learned that Norain is still alive and well and
he's kind of is able to get his board back
whe we seem sort of floating through space and then boom,
his eyes open and he's back back on the board again.
So possibly that could have been another storyline for a
third movie or even down the line, like you said,
exploring them all cosmic side of Marvel before the MCU
(29:02):
did so, and I mean, you have Laurence Fishburne and
Doug Jones, so on paper, that sounds like dreamcasting when
it comes to a character, because of course we know
what a beautiful voice Lawrence has, even though like you said,
he has seven lines in this and Doug we know
as is that character act and that body actor who
has done so many amazing, amazing things. You know, we
have sung Doug's praises when we talked about hell Boy.
(29:25):
You know, I loved him with the work he did
with Hans Labyrinth, even Hocus Pocus. The man has such
an extensive body of work for what he does that
I'm like, wow, this is a great pairing. But we
don't being in the title. We barely get any Silver
Surfer in the film. I mean, aside from you know,
having our characters ostensibly trying to capture him because they
(29:49):
see it because the army sees him as a threat.
And while Sue is like, you know, let's talk to
the guy, and you know, him randomly flying over various
parts of the world and causing disturbances, we don't really
get much except possibly from the talk that he does
have with Susan, where you know, he explains the fact
that he does what he does because he's made this struck,
(30:09):
this deal with Galactus that if he acts as his herald,
Galactus won't destroy his home planet. But that's where he
sort of it, and the Prank's got family back home
and such, so he's doing this for his family, even
though maybe one could see, you could see where he's
coming from. At the same time, you're like, okay, but
in the meantime, you're having billions of lives destroyed because
(30:31):
of this. And I think ultimately that is what makes
Norn turn around and change and rebel against his master,
like you said, because I do believe it is. Seeing
how the Fantastic Four are acting, especially the talk with
Susan is very much giving him a change of mind
when it comes to that, and him ultimately seemingly sacrificing
(30:52):
himself to destroy Galactus, which on its head does seem
a little bit ridiculous because like you, like you mentioned,
if this is your herald, you're not going to give
your herald enough power to destroy you. So when you
have your underlings doing things, you're technically more powerful than
your underlings, because it's not a smart move to make
(31:13):
those beneath you have almost an equal power to you,
because then obviously if they ever changed their mind, like
how this happened, they become a threat, and they definitely
threat at that, So that did seem a little bit ridiculous.
I think what the point of the of the of
the story was possibly, Look what a heroic man he is.
He's ultimately you know, changed, or a heroic alien, I
(31:33):
should say, and literally giving his life to save this planet,
even though of course we learned that Lady he has survived.
But that's that's another point of contention for another time.
But I think that was ultimately what there was. They
were trying to make make this character be like I've
seen so many worlds die, I think I have to
kind of now give my life for these people, even
(31:55):
though I've spoken them for two minutes, I still am
going to do this. And once again, it just made
me so disappointed when it came to Galactus, because there's
no bodily version of this character is just like the
nothing from the never Ending Story. So okay, whatever, But
I see what they were doing, but ultimately I think
it fell a little bit flat. That's that's my point
(32:17):
of view. Because let's round off our characters with our
real villain, because it's not Galactus. It's actually the late
great Julia McMahon, who sadly passed away earlier this month
as victiv On Doom. So we have talked about Dooming
other versions and other sources. Keith, So, what did you
make of this version of victiv On Doom? So?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I liked the actor, but I hate Doom. It's weird. Well,
let me correct myself. I do like doctor Doom. I
think Doctor Dum's a very interesting villain. That being said,
what they did to him in this movie, giving him
all these weird electrical powers and all these crazy abilities,
I did not like. They could have just gone with
(33:01):
the Iron Man armor and potentially magic, and I would
have been cool with this, but the fact that they
had to change his powers and abilities kind of irked
me a little bit. The fact that he is uber intelligent,
like read I was fine with because that's what he's
supposed to be. That is a character trait of him.
Is he a narcissist one hundred percent? Is he ego driven? Again?
(33:25):
A lot of the characteristics of Doom they got right.
But then they're like, we're gonna make him shoot lightning bolts,
and you're like why because reasons, And you're like, but
what why, And we're going to change his body into
metal instead of, you know, just him being disfigured, because
he could have been disfigured in the explosion and then
(33:45):
he made his armor and we all would have been
like cool, great, not let's turn him into this weird
metal person thing. And he's covering his face up because
he doesn't like metal, his metal skin. So it was
just weird design choice. Is that kind of threw me
more than anything else. The fact that he created that
device to control the surfboard. Again, they were referencing a
(34:08):
comic book that happened where he does steal the surfboard
from the Silver Surfer. So I was fine with that
in terms of how easily they defeated him. It's just
on a lazy writing considering how much they struggled the
first time they encountered him. Yes, I get it. They
essentially turned Johnny Storm into a super scroll, which I hated,
(34:33):
but it's not for the reason why I hated it.
I hated it because I wanted to see a super scroll.
I didn't hate it because they made Johnny Storm the
super Scroll. So it's one of those. He took the
powers and abilities all for him, and that shows you
when they work together or kremon mall into one person,
they are damn near unstoppable. They are invincible, they're super strong,
(34:53):
blah blah blah blah blah, and so on and so forth.
So I had fun watching the two of them fight.
The fact that Johnny stacks all these abilities and then
knocks the everloving snot out of Doom, I was fine with. Again,
we had five minutes left in the movie. We have
to defeat the bad guy, and this is what we're
gonna do.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Was it good?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And that's subjective? Did I one hundred percent want to
see a super scroll that looked like the Fantastic Four? Yes?
Did we get that in the MCU. No, we got
some weird, jinky, horrific CGI shenanigans. This is what I
wanted in a super scroll. Sorry, Soapbox, I apologize.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Being a podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I know, I know it ran for a different day,
but I do like I I appreciated him as the
Victor von Doom. That's the type of character like when
I see Doom, when I see RDJ play Doom, that's
the kind of Doom I want to see is this crazy,
narcissistic character who's always got these schemes going on, you know,
pulling all these strings and everything. Like, That's what I
(35:58):
want to see when I see RDJ. This character, he
is the measuring stick. This is probably the thus far
the best iteration of doctor Doom we've gotten in a
live action movie.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yep, because and there have been various ones, and more
of them have been more missed and hit, and I
think Julian's Doom was the closest one, at least when
it came to the character traits. Yes, they exaggerated a
lot of the things like the lightning from his hands
and such, which I believe was came from what happened
to him in the first film. But other than that,
(36:32):
I did not know the back to the back scene,
the fact that Julian actually wanted his face to be
shown on camera and so did not want to wear
the mask, and hence that's why they made the story
to where when he has that encounter with nurn Rad,
that he ultimately loses his disfigurements and goes back to
being the handsome guy that we see on screen. But yeah,
by and large. He very much does represent who Victor
(36:55):
von Doom is in the comics and elsewhere. But I
agree with seem very very facile the way he was defeated,
especially when he's now got I guess they'd never call
it that, but the power cosmic by being on the
surfer's board, even you know, the combined powers of the
Fantastic Four should they should have had a harder time
(37:16):
defeating him. But then again, as as we said, you know,
we're probably looking at to the story going, oh, we're
pressed for time. We have to we have to get you,
defeat this first guy, and then sort out the Galactus thing.
So it was it seemed I think that the word
was very rushed when it came to not just the fights,
but also the whole development of it all, because it
(37:39):
could have been so much better. I think maybe you
could have had more scenes with Doom, or may prolonged
the fight a little bit more, gear raised the stakes
a little bit because you had slightly raised them when
it seemed that Sue was going to die, and I
think it was. It does give Johnny a great moment
to shine after everything he's been throughout the film, Doubting
himself and feeling like he's no longer who he was.
(38:01):
So it was great for that sense. But it worked
more for Johnny than it did for Doom because we
didn't really get too much of him other than him
obviously conspiring and playing everybody as we know, because even
with the armies like oh yeah, I'm here, I will
help you guys out. We know of course, his ultimate
goal is to take the surface board and be as
powerful as he can be. I mean, he doesn't change
(38:23):
it's Doom. We know that that's what that's what we
were all about. But I agree. I look forward to
seeing what our DJ can do with this character and
hopefully certain things will be better. And when it comes
to the super scroll situation, well I wonder where the
MCU will ever address that, or they could. They'll you know,
brush it under the rug and forget about it for
(38:44):
a while, like, oh yeah, we have a super scroll,
rush it running around. Where can we use this? So
it'll be curious to see when and if the super
scroll ever resurfaces. I'm assuming it possibly probably will, but
it just seems like right now they've completely forgotten about it,
and we'll see in whatever phase of the mcu where
they bring it back. So before we get to ratings, Keith,
(39:05):
is anything else? So you would like to mention about
this film or that we maybe did not talk about,
or maybe that you didn't get a chance to voice
your opinion on.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
No, I don't. I don't think so. I think we've
covered this one. This is an oldie, but a goodie
very well.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
So let's see what you make of it when it
comes to ratings. So what do you give it? Out
of ten?
Speaker 2 (39:32):
But I think this one's gonna outdo my Superman from
last week. And everybody who listened to the last week's
episode knows I gave that interesting movie a seven, So
I think I'm gonna have to give this one a
seven point five, a borderline eight. If they had done
a little bit better writing with some of these characters,
one hundred percent would have been eight for me. But
seven point five.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Okay, I'm gonna give it the rating you gave Superman.
I'm gonna give us a seven out of ten. Yes,
there are some parts which are enjoyable. Yes, I think
By and Lodge the characters are who we have known
and enjoyed for decades. When it comes to the comics
and all the source material, but so I just felt
there were there were moments in the film which were
a little bit rushed, and as I said before, I
(40:13):
still can't get over Susan's mood swings throughout the whole
the whole thing unness. You know there is an underlying
pregnancy there, but we will never know. So seven and
seven out of ten for me. So get into recommendations, Keith,
is there anything you'd like to recommend to the class
if in fact they did enjoy this movie?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Ooh, this is gonna be a weird one. But anybody
who liked this movie. There was a cartoon set in
the early two thousands called Fantastic Four World's Greatest Heros.
If you like these characters and you want to see
Sue Storm be the badass that we all know she
can be, go check it out. It's twenty six episodes.
It was on for a couple of years in the
(40:52):
early thousands. The anime, the animation is a little janky
and the designs are a little weird. I think it
was anime inspired, so it is what it is. But
the characters that you see and the weird dynamics with
some of them and I'm not going to mention the
sub Mariner, but he may show up and cause some
issues in the family, as it were, So you know,
(41:15):
go check that out. Definitely read up on the current
run of the Fantastic Four, especially One World Under Doom.
That would be my other recommendation recommendations with an s
because that's two or three different stories and there's a
lot going on in the Marvel universe. So if you
guys haven't been reading, might want to start because it's
(41:36):
a lot to dig into.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
This is very true. I would take it all the
way back to the basics, which I think I might
have done when we first reviewed this film. I'm going
to go all the way back to the sixties and
recommend that you guys check out Fantastic Four Issue one
volume Issue one from nineteen sixty one, which of course
features the great art of the legend Jack King Kirby,
(42:01):
who I was a huge fan of when it came
to his artwork. I mean, now, maybe some folks might
not enjoy it as much, but I thoroughly enjoyed what
Jack did with his artwork, and I think it's a
great introduction. And yes, it might seem come across a
little bit dated because it was nineteen sixty one, But
if you really want to see where the Fantastic Four
began their journey and with the world in being introduced
to these characters, and definitely check out the Stanley Jack
(42:23):
Kirby Fantastic Four Issue one. Now, you'd be very lucky
if you were able to find this as a physical copy,
which I think you know you probably would want to
hang on to that for dear life. On this you
want to make a mint when it comes to selling
it on you know, at an auction. But you can
definitely get it in digital form through Amazon because, of course,
(42:47):
as we mentioned before, Comic Sology no longer exists. It
has been picked up and co opted by Amazon, So
through Amazon you can now get these digital comics, and
I would thoroughly recommend you do that and enjoy the
in my opinion, some of the greatest artwork I've seen comics.
I'm bay biased because I said I love Jack Herby,
but yeah, check it out and see where the Fantastic
(43:08):
Four we're born. So from that, Keith, when you're not
here discussing superhero movies and everything else where can folks
find you on the interwebs.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Well, I'm still working on my ninety seven new podcasts.
I currently have two lined up and another ninety four
to go. Finally have caught up to you and our
friend Charles. In the meantime, when I'm not doing that
or trying to take over the world, I occasionally pop
up on some of our friends podcast. You can find
me on a couple episodes of the most recent season
(43:42):
of Star Trek the Undiscovered podcast. I think I was
on four episodes this year. I was also on an
episode the initial episode of Real Reactions with our friend
Greg Vorab and Kyle what Else The Hour of Comics
is upon Us, did an episode of Gold Standards with
You and the Gang. I'm still trying to figure out
what movie I'm going to torture you guys with. I've
(44:03):
narrowed it down to, like, I think about a dozen.
I'm gonna have a wheel and figure it out from there.
And what I'm not doing any of that. You can
always find me on our Facebook page. You can drop
a comment or a message, and I'm always around to
talk about colm, books, cartoons, anime, manga, pretty much anything
fantastic stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
And yes, indeed you are going to be returning to
the gold Standard Theater next year, and more about that
I will discuss with you off air. But of course, folks,
I also wanted to mention before I get to what
I'm up to, which is a lot, which is a lot.
If you want to, of course, share your thoughts on
the movies we do discuss here, you can should an
email to Happiness and Darkness How at gmail dot com
(44:43):
and once again Happiness and Darkness How at gmail dot com.
I'm sure to follow us on our socials Facebook, Happiness
and Darkness and on X week and finance This High
Darkness Pod, and naturally if you listen to us on
such platforms as Spotify, at podcasts Pandora, you can rate
and review us, as that keeps the algorithm stimulating, allows
will show to reach more like minded ears like yours.
(45:05):
Big thank for those who have done so, and the
future thank you to those who will spread the word.
Tell your friends, tell your enemies. We don't care just
as long as you promote it. We really really appreciate
you for doing so. When it comes to me, you
can find me hosting the radio show Whiskey and Cigarettes,
where we play the very best and nothing but the
best of country music for you guys from Alabama to
(45:25):
Zach Bryan. For more information about that, you can vis
our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes Show dot com.
Podcast Wise, as Keith kindly mentioned, you can also find
myself and Rachel Friend and Zan Sprouse on gold Standard
the Oscars podcast, where we have reviewed all the Best
Picture winning movies in chronological order. Now, as we wait
for the ninety eighth Best Picture to reveal itself, we
(45:47):
are reviewing movies that we have picked, and we also
have returning in new guest co hosts bring their favorite
films to the gold Standard Theater. Recently, Meeka joined us
and made her debut on the podcast. She's a great
YouTube content creator and video essayist and was wonderful having
her on and she brought the movie into State sixty,
which I'd never seen at the time, to Bob Gail
(46:08):
directed and written film. You'll probably remember Bob Gail from
such things as Back to the Future, which he co
wrote with Robert Zemeckis, and moving on from there, we
are going to be reviewing our movie that Zan picked,
which is the nineteen seventy one A New Leaf is
directed by Elaine May starring Elaine May next to Walter Mathow,
So if you know anything about water math Owl, you
(46:30):
know that he's always great on screen, and I will
say Elaine does a great job as well. So that's
what we have going on there and last Beer'sode not
least myself and that childs Skagg's Guy. Have returned to
the fandom Zone podcast where we're currently reviewing the second
season of The Sandman, going through it episode by episode,
because of course we reviewed them all that once it
would be insanity, So speaking to come on this show.
(46:52):
Next time, we'll be taking on the twenty twenty five
Matt Shackman film Fantastic Four First Steps. So keith, I guess,
judging by our trailers and the buzz and what have you,
when it comes to this film, what are your how
are you feeling about this? Are you optimistic? Are you concerned?
What are your expectations?
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Like I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm going into this movie with
the same level of optimism I went in with Superman.
So I know enough about the Fantastic Four that I
can pick it apart some of the newer stories I
haven't read because just there's so many right now, but
(47:34):
I'm holding my breath. I'm we'll wait and see.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I think I'm holding my breath as well. And this one,
I guess we'll see. If I think fifth time is
that is the charm and they might finally be able
to get the Fantastic four right where everybody is happy.
I guess we'll all find out together next time, as
of course, so we will be back of course with that.
So folks, thanks is always this issue and supporting us.
We will see you next time, of course, with fantastic
(47:59):
four steps. Until then, thank you so much for the
privilege of your time. Stay Super Show Mommy turn to
(49:02):
the ATTA
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