Episode 132 - Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home Review

In the latest MCU Spider-Man adventure, we travel beyond New York to several different European locations. Parker is still mourning the death of his mentor and struggling with the passing of the torch. The movie asks the question of whether or not Parker can handle it and Parker has no problem reminding the audience that he's only 16.

In this episode, we review the strengths and weaknesses of this second solo Spidey outing for the MCU. Does it deliver the joy of Homecoming or does it stretch itself too thin in order to grow the character?

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to the nerd polity. It'sgoing. Yes, marry me. I
love you and I like you.I love you and I like you.
I love that woman. I lovethe more than sharks love bloody. Hello,

(00:31):
I'm Tristan Radel and and the girland this is nerd Nuptial. Today.
We were talking about Spider Man Farfrom Home, the latest Marvel release,
and we got to see it onfourth of July weekend. Yeah.
Actually we went for your birthday.We did. We did it like I
was I'm born, I was born. I'm pretense I am born. It's

(00:51):
like one of those one man show. Yeah, exactly, like one of
those one man show. You gota Jesus light on me. I am
born. Three people are in thein the theater. I would be their
baby. I know you would,but you would only go to the first
show and be like, I'm good, this is all you. But yes,
I was born on the day afterIndependence Day in the United States and
um, and so that was that'swhat I wanted for my birthday. As

(01:15):
my birthday President, I was like, I want to go to a stupid
Marvel film and I want to haveI want to go to CMX so I
can eat. I want to havea meal while I'm putting this food.
Yes, beautiful things. So wewent, yes, and we had a
great Fourth of July. For thoseof you outside of the States, it's
uh it's when we celebrate our independence. In case you don't know, Uh,

(01:38):
yes, But it was a lotof fun, a lot of fireworks,
a lot of a lot of family, a lot of food. And
Spider Man, that's right, allthings American, all things American, that's
right, played by a brit Iwas gonna say if it was Captain America
would make a little more sense.And apparently Steve Rogers was born on the
fourth of July, because I mean, of course, one of course,
but yes, yes, Spider ManFar from Home. We're going to do

(02:01):
our normal kind of kind of structurewhere we talk about what we thought about
the film before, we said,like what we were expecting to see from
the film, then kind of giveour our general impressions of the film,
what we liked, what we didn't, non spoiler the territory, and then
we'll announce when we get into spoilerterritory. So if you haven't seen it
yet, you can you can keepon listening. Yeah, you can absolutely

(02:23):
keep on. Yeah, absolutely,and we'll let you know when it's time,
when it's time to turn off thepodcast to listen to something else,
or go see it and then listento the rest of the podcast. It's
right, all right, So SpiderMan Far from Home first, Actually,
I want to I want to talkto you about like we had a Spider
Man podcast a while back where wetalk about all the Spider Man films on

(02:45):
film, like basically every every timeSpider Man has been on film we've talked,
right, right, I'll link thatin the notes to this podcast.
So if you go to the nerdpartydot com slash Nerd Nuptial and the latest
release this one spider Man Far fromHome like a Spider Man marathon. Entially,
Yeah, we did, like wewatched all the Yeah, we watched
all the Ramy films, all theones with um Andrew Garfield and of course

(03:07):
the MCU ones, you know,including Homecoming, Civil War and uh and
that was it at the time.Ye oh no, Infinity War, yes,
because that came out, right,yes, yes, at the time.
I think so. I think so, because Infinity War came out last
year, right, but yeah,so I'll link that in the notes it's
definitely worth a listen. We won'tdo that again obviously, but it's good
listening because we're we like Spider Man. And but before we get into what

(03:30):
you were hoping to get out ofFar from Home, let's talk about Homecoming.
Okay, yes, just a littlebit, because that was the first
solo Spider Man film in the MCU, not Marvel, right, just in
the MCU, right with this SpiderMan Tom everything like that. So yeah,
like we've talked about Homecoming a lot, Yeah, we have. We

(03:52):
we didn't go into theaters to seeit. Um, we kind of skipped
it. We were like, likeit it didn't really appeal to us to
go to the theater to see it. I don't know why. At the
time, a lot of people weresaying that it wasn't worth it all.
Yeah, people were saying that itwasn't good. It was just like a
mediocre film, right, And sowe put it off until it came out
and um, you know streaming,and so we watched it and we were

(04:14):
like this is so great. Likewe were like this made our like our
some of our top ten of theyear. Yeah. Yeah, we were
blown away at how much we enjoyedHomecoming. I think it helped because everyone
downplayed it by saying it's good,don't worry about it's not worth anything.
Like the best thing I heard wasjust like it was mediocre, right,

(04:35):
the best thing I heard, right, which is really interesting because I guess
like when you go in with verylow expectations, sometimes when they're met,
you're just like, oh my gosh, yeah, like more than met.
Yeah, And for me it wasit's it is at the time, was
my favorite Spider Man film. Okay, ever, okay, and even when

(04:59):
Into Into the Spider Verse came out, I was like, this is great,
but I still like Homecoming more.Now you liked Into the Spider Verse
way more? Yeah, yeah,way more. Um. But that being
said, I do think that ifyou're you know, live action, it
was my favorite, that's your lef. So Homecoming is your favorite live action
Spider Colm, Yes, all right, So going into it then, like

(05:23):
like you obviously you loved Homecoming,you loved Tom Holland, yeah, he
was a great Peter as well asa great Spider Man, which was a
kind of a hard balance right,right that we've seen in the past,
and they didn't do, you know, in Homecoming, they didn't do the
whole backstory. It was very muchlike he already was Spider Man, just
not the Spider Man that he became, Like we saw him become into his

(05:46):
own and become a part of theAvengers versus like you know, figuring out
you know, like Uncle Ben didn'tdie and stuff like that, right,
which was a yeah, not forus, right, We were like we've
seen that done too many times.We're we can move on. Uncle Ben's
dead. We know he's dead.It's okay, right, right, Yeah.
It's so with loving Homecoming so muchand loving Tom Holland and loving him

(06:11):
in the MCU and everything like that, and also with the Russo brother saying
that this was the wrap up ofthe Infinity saga, like people he's the
Russo brother said, like Endgame isnot the final film of the last phase,
that this one is so going inloving Homecoming so much knowing it's the
final movie of the of the InfinityWars saga. What were you expecting or

(06:34):
hoping to see with Far from Home? Well, I think I was just
fine with it being Homecoming too,like just the same idea of him being
a teenager and trying to figure itout and being awkward with girls and you're
having a nerdy best friend and everythinglike that, and uh like keeping it

(06:54):
more small like where it was inyou know, him being the friendly brhood
Spider Man. Like. I wastotally fine with it being that kind of
film. It's kind of like whenDeadpool two came out and I was just
like, I just went Deadpool againand that's what I got. Um,
that's kind of what I wanted herewhere I just wanted like another one,
but with it being Spider Man farfrom home, right, you knew that

(07:16):
it was going to be in adifferent place, right, Yes, I
think I was just looking for afun ride and the same characters, which
we kind of talked about because ofthe Jumanji sequel. I didn't even read
you the blip because of the blipswe were talking. I totally misread you.

(07:39):
Because of the blip. We werelike, well, will his friends
still be there? Like how doesthat work? And you know, because
he was, he went to dustand then came back and but they did,
um, you know, not givinghim away that they do address that
that you know, Oh yeah,we're totally yeah, we're not giving anything
away, but like, um,you know the idea that people basically have

(07:59):
to like keep you know, likeyou still have to go to school.
Like five years passed for them,so their friends are five years older,
but they come back as the sameage. And but the thing is,
like what we talked about was likewhen we when we did our wrap up
on end Game and we knew Farfrom Home was coming out, Like we
both said, like, I'm prettysure that their friends are all going to

(08:22):
be conveniently right exactly, like thefriends that we care about will still be
there. Interesting because we can't agethem five years more than anybody everybody else.
Uh, And yeah, like thatwas weird. Like so in the
film Continuity, they're calling it blippedthe blipped. Yeah yeah they got blipped
or the blip and everything like that. I was like, why wouldn't you

(08:43):
just say snapped? Like I don't, I guess okay, Like that was
my that was the first thing thatpopped up my head. I was just
like, just call it, likewe're all call it being snapped, Like
just do that. Well, ifyou're not in that universe, you don't
know what you'd call it, rightexam. It's like the walking Dead you
call walkers and not bombies or somethinglike that. So you don't know,
I don't. I just didn't.I didn't like blip thing I want to.

(09:05):
You just don't. You just don'tlike the word blipped. Yeah it
seems yeah, it seems cheesy tome, like it seems immature. We
are talking about a comic book film. But that's okay. No, I
know, I know, I knowit's it's I'm not I'm not saying I
have a hang up over it.I'm just saying. Then I moved on.
Then I moved on. It wasit was that sense of yes,

(09:28):
it was that sense of oh,that's stupid, and then I just forgot
about it until now. Until now. But yeah, so blip is what
they call it, being blipped,and um there were some interesting jokes that
went around that, like drinking ageand people pretending to be blipped when they
were. I thought that was hilarious. But like with me with Far from
Home, thanks for asking, um, I felt like it was. Honestly,

(09:54):
I had no idea what to expect. I really didn't. And I'm
not saying that as a cop out. I just I thoroughly had no idea
what to expect, even though Iliked Homecoming as much as you did,
if not more. I didn't havethose same I didn't have the expectation to
like it as much as Homecoming,Okay, because Homecoming was such a surprise.

(10:18):
I was like, there's no way, there's no way I'm going to
like Far from Home as much asHomecoming, and so my expectations were actually
kind of low. Well, andI also think maybe we're in a post
end game MCU two where you're like, well, you know, you had
Infinity War an end game, solike it's okay if they calm it down
a little bit in their you know, side stories. So I think that

(10:43):
like we didn't have obviously the sameanticipation or you know, maybe even expectation
that if you would have for InfinityWar end game. Oh god, any
means no, not even It's justlike, let's just have fun, yeah,
buch a fun movie, And that'swhat I was hoping for. Like
originally I wasn't even going. Imight like, if this wasn't around my

(11:07):
birthday, maybe I wouldn't have goneand seen this in the theater honestly,
Okay, but because it was mybirthday, yeah, I was like,
well we got to do something,so let's go see let's go see a
movie. Yes, and like thisis what it was like basically this or
toy story for Yes, And Istill wasn't sure if we were going to
take Ripley. So so yeah,far from that was me. That was

(11:28):
me far from home. I'm justlike, I'm not gonna I know,
I'm not gonna like this as muchas Homecoming, but hopefully it's entertaining,
Like maybe I'll be surprised. Ihad a little I had a few trepidations
about um, Jake Jillenhall being inthe movie. Yes, she did.
Even I love Jake Jillen Hall.I think he's a fantastic actor. Like,
don't get me wrong, he's justputting him in this type of movie
felt weird. He felt out ofplace because when we saw the trailers,

(11:52):
it was just like spider Man,spider Man MCU, spider Man. Hi,
I'm Jake Jillen Hall. You know, It's just it took me out
of it, okay, me outof the experience. Just doesn't feel like
he belongs there. Yeah, okay, yeah that's that's my feeling. It
Like people were cracking jokes about howJake Jillenhall is like, like, clearly
he just needed to make like likea rent payment or something or any he

(12:16):
needed that. Honestly, what Iwas going through my head too, I
was like, Oh, he justwants a little piece of that MCU money.
Just get that one off MCU money, and then he's going to go
back to his indie film. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just gotta pay
the bills. It's like, Igotta get that summer home somehow. That's
right. I'll do this for threemonths. It's a big deal. I
could wear a stupid ass costume,the fish bowl on my head, that's

(12:37):
right. Yeah. Okay, sowe saw it. That was our that
was our expectations, and then wesaw it first initial reactions, you were
walking out spoilers without spoilers, you'rewalking out of the theater. You're you're
going in Like also, by theway, our theater experience we like to
talk about our theory theater experience onthis show. Um, the seats that

(12:58):
we want we're broken. Yeah,and then and then we had to move
so they had to move us.They had to move us, and those
those are like the prime seats,Yeah, in the prime theater. And
I remember during endgame, the lessside of the screen was way darker than
the right. And this was duringendgame, So this was months ago,
and I thought, Okay, I'mlike, I won't say anything because surely

(13:22):
somebody else would have complained, andsurely they'll get it fixed by the next
time I come in. No,it was no same theater. And I'm
pretty sure that, like I sawanother seat that was broken, that was
broken last time we were there.Yeah, and this is a premium theater.
It's like a year so it's Dolbyat most premium br screen and you're

(13:45):
you're giving me broken seats and adim screen just on the left. Sto
way too much for that type ofthing. And so I did go and
complain, and I just I justI can't stand it. I can't stand
dropping forty bucks for us to gosee movie, for the two of us
to go see a movie that's noteven including snacks or food or drink or
anything like that, just tickets,right, and then getting a crappy screen

(14:07):
that's supposed to be Dolby premium.Blah blah blah blah blah. I demand
a perfect experience every single time.If I'm paying that kind of money,
if I was going to like acrappy six dollars AMC yeah or something.
It's a little bit different in theafternoon. Yeah, that's different. It's
true regardless anyway. End of rant. End of rant. Okay, so
you're walking out of the thing,you're walking to the car, You're you're

(14:31):
digesting the movie. Knee dric reaction. Go. That was okay, Yeah,
that was all right. That wasall right in what way? Like,
um, it nothing blew me away, Like would you watch it again?
Would you not watch it again?I would watch it again, but
probably just one more time. LikeI don't feel the need to own it,
you know, old style DVD.That's how I always compare it,

(14:54):
like if I wanted it on myshelf. No, this is not one
of those. Uh, definitely.It was not as good as Homecoming in
my opinion. Um it had likethe charm of the characters, which I
think really is what makes the homeHomecoming, and like this new version of
Spider Man. But it just wasokay, Like the plot was a little

(15:18):
I don't know, just just itdidn't really grab me. So even with
the interesting locations of being overseas andyou know, him being on like a
trip it was just kind of likeall right that we did that. Yeah.
So yeah, I mean I stilllike him as Spider Man. I

(15:39):
still like, you know, hishis friends and everything like that. Um,
you know, the cast I'm stillgood with, but it just kind
of fell flat for me. Andyeah, I don't. I mean,
like I said I would, Iwould watch it again, but I don't
really if I didn't, I wouldn'tbe like heartbroken, gotcha. Yeah,
I I probably liked it a littlebit more than you did, okay,

(16:03):
but not much. Okay, likeI'm talking like an inch more than you
okay, where because when I walkedout, I was just like I was
like, Okay, that's an entertainingmovie. That's that's an entertaining movie.
I didn't I wasn't going to saygood movie, but that's an entertaining movie.
I mean, as we've said somany times on this show, AMCU
gives you a bass level entertainment quotient. This delivered that base level entertainment quotient.

(16:27):
I'd say nine percent of the time. Yeah, Marvel does that.
Yeah, absolutely, and that theydelivered that with this. It parts of
the movie went beyond that. Ithink there was a lot of great jokes.
I think, Yeah, we laugheda lot, we were smiling a
lot. I thought there was somegreat fight scenes. I thought that was
some fantastic choreography. I thought thecamera work was probably some of the best

(16:52):
Spider Man camera work I've ever seenin any Spider Man film. Okay,
um, And but there was alot of lows. There was a lot
of things that took you out ofit. There was a lot of a
lot of weird exposition. Yeah,we're just like, oh, we're monologuing
now, is this the nineties?Yeah? You know, like is this

(17:15):
the eighties? What's going on here? Yeah? And then there's just like
they're like, oh, well,okay, that was obvious. That wasn't
They weren't even trying to be cleverthere, you know, like certain things
they're like, wow, this isso boring or like this just like it
just kept going up and down whereI feel like it started off really strong
and really small and really quaint andreally cute, and I mean that all

(17:36):
in good ways. Yeah, andthen it tried to get bigger, and
it got when it went bigger andyou got to the quiet moments. The
quiet moments were then boring compared tothe quiet moments at the beginning. It's
just it was very disjointed. Theplot was super thin, super thin,
one of the weakest antagonists. Ohmy god, and the entire MCU.

(18:03):
And that's saying something. Yeah,that is saying something that was really bad.
Because Marvel's known for having bad badThis one was like, do you
even believe the reason why you're doingit? Yeah? Oh? Almost?
No motivation, yeah, or atleast no clear motivation, at least not
from the artist perspective. No,it was very like wow, and here,

(18:25):
okay, here's the thing is thatwhen you when you look at motivations,
you can when it comes to abad guy, you can have I
think, let's look at super let'slook at superhero films. Here, okay,
so you can have two points ofthe spectrum. You have Thanos clear
motivation, right, explains it doesn'tfeel like exposition, but he explains it

(18:45):
to the instigree, saying this iswhat I want to do and this is
how I'm going to do it.Does it really make sense in a real
world perspective? Now? But butyou accept it? Right? He said,
I'm going to destroy half of allsentient life so that the others can
survive. This needs to happen.They call me a madman. I don't
care. Go screw yourself. Thisis my goal and I'm going to do
anything I can to make this goalhappen. That's one side of the spectrum.

(19:07):
That's pretty awesome, right. Youcould also throw kill Monger in there,
Okay, yeah yeah, Um thenyou look at DC. Look at
the joker, Heath Ledger's joker chaos, right, that's his only motivation,
right, No, clear motivation.You can't you can't rationalized crazy. Exactly
that, and they explain that,you know, you had Alfred say like,
some men just want to watch theworld burn. Right, That's fine.

(19:30):
It's not like, oh I hada horrible childhood or my dad left
me or no, no, noneof that. Like it was just I
want to watch the world burn.I want chaos. Those are two sides
of the spectrum. Totally acceptable.What's not acceptable is in the middle,
right, And that is exactly wherethe antagonist was for Spider Man. I
don't even know if it was ona line. It was just really poor.

(19:56):
It was. It was very poorlyexecuted, and um, like I
said, it was to the pointwhere it was like is this a joke,
Like, does the character even believetheir motivation? Like, it didn't
feel like it, It really didn't. Yeah, and then you had And
I was a little excited for forSpider Man to be working with Nick Fury

(20:18):
on this, but then like NickFury felt wasted and felt like a middleman,
and which I mean, I guessoftentimes Nick Fury is kind of the
middleman of the MCU. He's reallyjust there to introduce you to other characters
and new characters and kind of movethe plot along. Is that in Captain
Marvel except for in Captain Marble Andwith this one, it just felt it

(20:44):
just felt weird. It fell off, and it felt like he didn't need
to be there. He really didn'tneed to be there. Yeah, really
didn't need to be there. Samething with Colby Smolders or whatever. Yeah.
Maria Hill, she Maria always feelsthrown in. Oh yeah, always
feels I mean she's getting that Marvelcash good for her, Yeah, because
she's in a lot of Marvel films. Yeah, absolutely, Again, they

(21:07):
waste her, like she could beway cooler. Yeah, and in the
comic book she's way cooler in thecoma. Yeah, And it just feels
like she's just there hanging out.And but what I did like, yes,
was definitely the charisma of Toma Holland. Oh yeah, I feel like
it's it's it's almost the rock esquein his charisma, where if you throw

(21:32):
the rock in a bad movie,at least you get the rock right,
right, Tom Holland, I feellike he is such a genuine, good,
good character action, very lovable,very lovable, Like you want to
see him succeed. You want tosee him, you know, like you
want to see him do well.And he put and that's what you need
out of a Peter Parker. Andso when Tom Holland excels, the rest

(21:55):
of the movie excels absolutely, Buthe can only carry it so far,
right, So that when you puta terrible antagonist into a horrible plot and
like what can you do? Yeah, yeah, like a horrible antagonist with
a thin motivation and a messy plot. Yeah, it's just he can only
carry it so far. Yeah,So what were some of the positives for

(22:17):
you? Um? Without any spoilers, I mean, I really do think
it was probably the chemistry of thecharacters. Again, I mean, and
like you said it, Tom Holland, carries the show. You know,
you you love, you love tosee him succeed. He's like the lovable
nerd, have a place for lovablenerds. So I just I think that

(22:41):
that was really the only thing thatI super enjoyed about it. Um.
I mean yeah, that for me, that was pretty much it. And
like I think the whole time forme, like the plot twist wasn't really
a plotist because you knew the structureof a superhero hero film that like,
this can't be just it. Soum, I mean it was fun to

(23:03):
see some locations overseas, you know, interesting locations, but still it was
just was I think it got inthe way of like, honestly, I
was totally fine in Homecoming. Wewere just like hanging out by the lockers.
I think that's why. I thinkthat's why you and I really enjoyed
the beginning of the film. Yeah, I'm getting that sense. Yeah,

(23:25):
absolutely. I think my favorite partof the film was the first ten fifteen
minutes. Yeah, because it wasall in New York or it was just
the core group of the high schoolstudents, right, and so it felt
like Homecoming where that was. That'sanother positive for me is that like the
stupid romantic stuff between Ned and theblonde girl. Yeah, was so much

(23:47):
fun and so relatable because we've allseen that couple. Yeah, we've also
on the seen these people who hookup on trips and then yeah, and
a fling and it's just a flingand then like we've all had that plan
on what we're going to say tothe guy or to the girl, right,
we're going to get that necklace.Well, I think that that's so
much of what they've made this SpiderMan into. Is it just like skewing

(24:10):
himself. I mean, he's heseems I mean, I know he's older
than he looks, but they definitelyhave like tried to root him in high
school, whereas it always felt likethey were going to the bugle and stuff
like that in the other Superman I'msorry, Superman, Spider Man A villains,
different different publication. Um, soit felt it felt like, oh,

(24:33):
Okay, we're staying in high school. We're staying relatable. You know,
we're keeping it young and and verycute. See and um, I
mean like we were just laughing sohard when they were showing like the high
school TV montage of like saying goodbyeto all the superheroes. And I was
totally that blonde girl in my highschool, Like I was the one who

(24:55):
was doing like the announcement type things, and so it's just so funny everybody
getty images and stuff like that.It's just hilarious, so so relatable again
as well as you know the thingslike like hey, let's just go play
games and stuff like that. Soit just when they take that part away,

(25:15):
then it's just like what do Icare? I don't really care as
much. Here's the thing, AndI think this is the fundamental flaw in
spider Man in the MCU, notSpider Man or Marvel spider Man in the
MCU, as it is established.We loved spider Man Homecoming because it was
spider Man in high school and thatfelt like Spider Man in high school.

(25:38):
Yeah. Now, you had alot of Tony Stark in Homecoming, Yeah
you did. You had a lotof him bringing his influence and his big
world to Spider Man, right,and Spider Man couldn't hack it, or
he felt like he couldn't hack it. Thus was the feeling of Spider Man
Tom Holland as Spidy in the MCU, like when you have him in Civil
War and Infinity War and everything likethat. It's really just okay, we're

(26:00):
going to take this character and throwhim in the sandbox and just see his
personality interact with everybody else. Right, It's fine. You could sell that
you have a big world movie,right, and then there you go.
He's one of many parts. He'sone of many parts. But when you
have when you have far from Home, where I think far from Home failed
was that you have your friendly neighborhoodSpider Man in a big world story.

(26:26):
Yes, that doesn't work right now, right right, And that's not true
to the Spider Man character. Inmy opinion, there are many different versions
of Spider Man in the comic books, in the movies, in everything,
there's many different versions of Spider Man. Well, what they're doing right now,
but what they're doing right now,Like, what I like about Spider
Man is that he has he canhave small stories. Now obviously in the

(26:49):
comic books he does have big stories. Yes, so please don't write me,
I understand. What I particularly likeare the smaller Spider that's kind of
a personal choice of this internuptial too, Like the two of us tend to
like smaller, less explosions. Morefocused on those like detective like stories or
just keep it in New York wherehe is the friendly neighborhood spider Man and

(27:12):
you know, but it's hard togo back, like he's been to space.
They said, you know, likeso yeah, so like you've you
had Homecoming, which was small likewe were doing with an issue just around
like Brooklyn and stuff like that.And then the world was not was not
going to explode. It was aboutlike alien like basically like a black market

(27:33):
situation, black market alien right exactlyin itself. It's still big. The
fact that we're saying that out loudsounds ridiculous, black market aliens, but
it was localized. It was yes, right, and Michael Keaton was not
going to blow up the earth.Michael Keaton was not going He's not He
wasn't going to kill billions of peopleexactly like. It was much more I

(27:55):
want to do this and you're preventingme from doing this, and go and
you're dating my daughter exactly exactly.So the smaller the better in that situation.
But that's not how they've utilized himsince. So he's been to space,
he's been a part of the Avengers. He's had to fight off Thanos
with them, right exactly, Sohow do you do that and go back

(28:18):
like it? Don't you know?I could see a lot of fans being
like, what, he's just solvingcrimes in New York still, you know.
So, but here's the thing is, like, you know, take
it to another level. Yeah,it's okay, certain things don't need the
Avengers, like you know, apparentlythis problem didn't need some of the Avengers

(28:38):
or whatever. They were all yeah, they were all busy whatever. I
hate that. Just don't do that. Just don't talk about it, just
like say I just need you,okay, But they have to because he's
a part of the Avengers and becausewe all have seen every single exactly.
So it's like when aunt Man saidthis is a job for the Avengers,
yes, yes exactly. I feellike he was the first one to say,

(29:00):
right right, why aren't we callit exactly like, can we please
fix this? And now we haveto do it every single time? Yes,
whereas it's okay for but then keepthe problems smaller so that we don't
feel like we have to bring inthe Avengers. There you go, hey,
look at that. Yeah, youshould be in a writer's room.
But I feel like Far from Homeis those growing pains, and I think

(29:22):
it's trying to bridge that gap.It's it's it's trying to talk about how
Tony Stark is dead. He wasthe leader, you know, like he
was he was kind of the world. The world viewed him as the lead
of Injury. CAP's gone in CAP'sgone, and and so yeah, you
have those major players gone, andThor's off world and so what's going on?
And then you have Spider Man,but Spider Man sixteen Spider Man is

(29:47):
the friendly neighborhood spider Man, right, and so Far from Home is trying
to take you from those small worldstories into the galactic universe that is the
MCU right on his own rights,like he is now a major player in
the galactic MCU. And this Ithink that's why it didn't work. I

(30:07):
feel like that's why this movie didn'twork is because it tried to accomplish that.
It had to accomplish that, ordid it, you know? And
right, but I think when yougo so big, like it's hard to
go back, right, you know, when you've gone from if any were
in Endgame, all of all ofthe films after this are going to have

(30:29):
a hard time explaining themselves. Ifeel like with Spider Man three, that's
going to be coming out. I'msure it's going to come out. Um
well, when we get to thespoiler territory, I feel like Spider Man
three will be a chance to goback to a smaller story if it deals
with what I think it's going todeal with. Okay, um, but

(30:51):
I can't say anything about it untilwe can get territory. Okay, Well
do you want to get to spoilerto I guess yeah, let's do it.
Let's go and do it because obviouslyyou hear thoughts about it. Yes,
it's entertaining because it's Spider Man,because it's MCU get some great fighting
moments, we like Tom Holland.You get some great fighting moments, some
great superhero moments. But the plotis then the antagonist sucks. And yeah,

(31:15):
yeah, So if you don't wantto spend the money to go see
it in the theater, you canwait until Disney Plus comes out in November,
that's right, and spend your moneyon that. And spending money on
that, like we are going to. Okay, so spoiler territory here,
you go from here on out,we're going to spoil things. We're going
to talk about the ending. We'regoing to talk about the reveals, right,
you have been warrant. That's right. Spoiler territory five three two one.

(31:41):
The ending, the very very end, Like, let's just jump to
the end, because if you're inspoiler Terry story, you've seen it.
In the end, the post creditsequence is Jay Jonah Jamison who played by
j K. Simmons, right,which is insane, right, which is
crazy, like the guy from theSam Ramy Jay Jones Jimsons. And of
course people are going to be like, what does that mean that they're linked?

(32:01):
No, screw, just go screw. They're not linked. Just accepted.
It's just it's some fan casting.Move on. But he reveals the
identity of Spider Man as Peter Parkershows a picture of him because apparently Mysterio
played by Jake Jillenhall, shows afake video of Spider Man using the drone

(32:23):
attack right against people's trying to executepeople obviously, which is fake. And
so that's why I think Spider Manthree could be a smaller film with him
trying to clear his name or continueto be a good guy even though the
world hates him absolutely, and thatyou don't need aliens to try and destroy

(32:44):
New York in order for that tohappen. Very true, I mean.
And also that's a huge reveal.I mean, that's is Yeah, that
is a jite. Okay. Here'sthe thing though, I'm glad that you
brought it up, okay, isthat that is a huge reveal in the
comic books, in the MCU,well, we all know that Tony Stark

(33:05):
was Iron Man, right exactly.We know, we knew Steve Rodgers was
Captain America, we knew Tony Starkswas, we knew who Black Widow was.
We um, they all out ofthemselves exactly. Yes, that's true.
So yeah, like he didn't wantnecessarily want me, But that's a
fundamental thing. Like that's actually whenCivil War happened the movie, that's one

(33:29):
thing that a lot of people werewondering how they were gonna you know,
like, how are they going tohandle Civil War because in the comic books,
a lot of it involved people liketheir secret identities being revealed. Okay,
and spider Man Peter Parker in theoriginal Civil War comics him revealing himself
to the world. He chose todo it. Tony Stark asked him to
do it. That was a bigdeal for Peter Parker to pull off his

(33:52):
mask and say I'm Peter Parker,I'm Spider Man. Okay, huge deal
in the MCU. It's not thatnot a big deal because everybody knows everybody
well and it definitely got the impressionthat we're passing the torch from twenty start
to Peter Parker. Do you feelabout that? How do you? How
do I want to ask you?I want to ask your opinion. I

(34:12):
know I've been talking a lot,but I'm going to pass the torch onto
you to speak because this has beenthe Russell brother said, this is the
end of the Infinitey War saga.This is the wrap up, and this
is very much the passing of thetorch from Iron Man kind of leading the
MCU to Spider Man leading the MCU, whether like in the film franchise as
well as within the MCU universe.Wow do you feel about that? Well?

(34:40):
I feel like it's a weird choice, but it's like what other options
do we have? Um? Althoughif they actually chose to utilize Captain Marvel
properly unlike they did an mgame,I have issues. M she would be
a logical because at least she was, like, you know, in the

(35:01):
military or something like that. It'skind of like you you everyone kind of
at least we did accepted that Cappwas like the leader in a way because
he had some type of militaristic hehad military training, he exactly whereas you
know, and Tony even would takehis lead on that type of thing.

(35:22):
And even though Tony Stark has thisvery charismatic personality that is, you know,
larger than life in the room,he still understood when he didn't know
better, right like Cap knew betterwhen it came to that those type of
things. Whereas giving it to asixteen year old kid that hasn't even graduated

(35:45):
high school yet and like, youknow, just figuring it out like that
just seems a little silly to me. I do. I did like the
father like relationship he had with PeterParker Tony and Peter had, but that's
fine if you want to give himyour tech, But to make him like

(36:07):
a leader in the MC like thatjust doesn't feel quite right to me.
This is um You and I talkedabout this a couple weeks ago about muelnir
yes, yes, and I'm goingto tell the story and it's totally going
to be applicable. Okay. SoI saw a post online somebody was talking

(36:27):
about like someone like made some fanart of Peter mourning Tony's death, and
then Thor's there to console him,and then he like, you know,
and Peter's just like, I don'tknow if I can do this. I
don't know if I can continue on. And we see that Peter accidentally picks
up Mulnir and this was all fanart. It's a fan art, it's

(36:52):
a fan story, so it doesn'texist, it doesn't expands interpretation. It
was. This wasn't in the comicbooks, This wasn't in anything. It
was just a fan interpretation of whatit could be. Fun. Then I
saw somebody write a text post underneathit saying and they were very respectful,
but they said, they're like this, that's not how Mulnar works, Like

(37:12):
you do not have to be ajust a good person in order to lift
Mule, nor to be honored tobe worthy of being Thor or holding muor
Noir or wielding Mulenar, like youhave to have a whole lot more characteristics.
Where they started talking about how thereason why Cap could do it an
end game was not because he's justa good person. It's because he also

(37:37):
is a leader. He can heknows how to battle, and he also
knows that sometimes you have to killyour enemies. This now, this is
one person's interpretation. Okay, thisis one person's interpretation. I'm just reciting
what this person said, and Ihappen to agree with it. It's just
not because you're pure of heart,young, it's not Excalibur. It's because
your part or you're British. It'sit's like you like you have to,

(38:00):
like you have to crush some skulls, and you have to be willing to
carry that weight of killing your enemiesand saving the innocent. And it's not
special if everyone can do it justbecause they're good, right right exactly,
And so that's why Cap could doit, an Iron Man couldn't and why
everybody else couldn't. But you know, like later on Cap became worthy of

(38:22):
it, and Spider Man is agood person, that doesn't mean that he's
worthy of Muel noir. And onething another example that somebody said, like
like during a DC Marvel crossover,I have to look into this, but
they brought this up, not me, Like during a DC Marvel crossover years
ago, like some of our DCheroes trying to pick up Mulenoir and Superman

(38:44):
couldn't even do it. And Supermanis one of the best people ever,
like one of the most moral peopleever, right, and he couldn't do
it, but Wonder Woman could becauseWonder Woman knows that sometimes you have to
kill your enemies. And she isa leader of women. She knows how
to lead a battalions. Yeah,yeah, And I felt like that was

(39:06):
analogous to Tony's legacy, especially Tony'stech. Tony's technology, which we need
to get into, is put inthe hands of the wrong person. We
see what that looks like, Right, do you really want Like, sure,
I was a good person at sixteen. I like I was a moral

(39:28):
person, but I was still asixteen year old, right. I wasn't
Peter Parker, obviously, I wasn'tSpider Man. But I understand that this
person is good and pure, buthe's still sixteen. You're going to give
him a satellite which can kill literallyanybody on the earth. So let's not
even unpack the moral implications of Tonyhaving that satellite right where we even dealt

(39:51):
with an entire movie called Winter Soldierabout that very thing about how no one
should have that kind of technology.Right, that was kind of a big
deal back then. That was abig deal back then. And then all
of a sudden, like far fromHome almost just like whatever, you go,
screw Winter Soldier, Peter, youcan have that, like you can
have you can have a nuclear bombthat can detonate on anybody you choose and
then accidentally right almost kill your classmate, your classmate, proof that he shouldn't

(40:15):
have this kind of power. Right. The backtracking in that whole thing was
very like, yeah, oh mygosh. I mean so that's my long
explanation to say that you can't givethat to a sixteen year old. He's
not, no, no, AndI feel like there needs to be a
little bit more history too, Likewe all like him as Spider Man,
but that doesn't necessarily mean that heis deserving of that type of role.

(40:42):
Yeah, nor could he necessarily youknow, command the room like a Tony
Stark. I mean, let's beeven, let's take the actors. It's
just different, right, So,I mean without some of those characters,
the MC looks very different now.Yeah, so you probably need to switch
it up a little bit and figureit out, because honestly, like think

(41:05):
about it, like, let's getlike my example of Captain Marvel and Spider
Man. Spider Man would take ordersfrom Captain Marvel. Yes, yes,
he would. It just makes moresense, right, Like it doesn't make
sense that. I mean, PeterParker is kind of a little bit of
like, you know, he thinksout loud. He you know, he's

(41:28):
just not he's he's cute, he'sum awkward, he's awkward teenager. He's
not going he'd be like, hey, guys, hey, listen up,
Hey guys, Hey guys, canyou look over here? Hey, guys,
Like that's how he would lead.Let's be that's who they established.
Okay. So and also, andI'm wondering here, like what are they

(41:50):
trying to tell us because it wasso confusing to me, Like, Okay,
he inherited the satellite. Does thatmean he inherited Tony's fortune? Does
that mean he inherited other things?Yeah? Does that mean he inherited a
stake in the Stark industry? Right, Where's where's Pepper? And all that?
That's what I was thinking too,Like, I mean, Pepper at

(42:12):
least like knew what was going onand like had experienced and like they gave
her role an endgame, like shewas fighting with him, so like gave
her a suit, right, Likewhy wouldn't they give her that legacy?
I mean, do I think thatshe you know, she could maybe not
like her character. We haven't reallyseen her character in that kind of light,

(42:36):
but it just felt like an oddchoice With Spider Man, it felt
very odd, and there was theyI think they they left more questions unanswered
than they answered, and I thinkthat's the problem because they this was build
as a wrap up to endgame,but it kind of gave him this feeling
of in terms of a wrap upto endgame, where I go to a

(42:59):
two hour meeting at work and I'mlike, you could have emailed that to
me. Yeah, it did notfeel like they put a lot more hype
into it being a wrap up thanit actually was. It really isn't like
in terms of quote unquote wrap up, it's you have an explanation of the

(43:19):
five year discrepancy with the blip atthe beginning, and then you have Spider
Man getting Tony's glasses that's control akill satellite at the end. That's it,
right, It's not that big adeal. And then you have like
some stuff with um Samuel Jackson atthe end where he's but that has nothing
to do with it doesn't. No, it doesn't. But I'm just saying,
like, I don't know, itdidn't feel like it at all to

(43:44):
me. It's just like we talkedabout, like this has some really entertaining
moments, but it just felt somessy. I mean we kind of talked
about Jake Gyllenhall, but oh yeah, talk about it. Yeah. Oh
did you know that Mysterial was goingto be the bad guy of the film?
No? What what I didn't knowat the beginning? Oh my gosh.

(44:07):
Yeah, it was so obvious thewhole time it was it was really
eye rolling, Like the whole time, you're just like, really, we've
seen this done. This is Imean, I know that there's a formula
to every super you know, heromovie, but like I said before,

(44:28):
Jake Gyllenhaal didn't believe his motivation andlike the tie ins to like pass movies,
they were trying so hard to likedo fan service that it was just
kind of obnoxious and kind of like, Okay, is this where we're going
with this? It's just like whenhe like when you when you realize that,

(44:50):
like okay, so like you meanat the beginning of the movie,
when we realized he was mysterious.Well no, I mean, like okay,
if you didn't see the trailer,right U. So, like in
the trailer, we all know hewas going to be an antagonist because they
didn't tell you who the antagonist was, right, That's why, right,
because in any kind of trailer,you're going to see who the antagonist is.
You just are. It is likeninety nine percent of the time.

(45:13):
I know that there's exceptions, don'twrite me. Um. But with Jake
Jillen, like we all knew likethere was it was gonna go one of
two ways where Okay, so Jakejan Lea Hall is actually from an alternate
universe and he's hiding his intentions wherehe's there to help save you, but
really he's there for selfish reasons,right, or it was all fake and

(45:35):
it turned out to be the latter. It was all fake, right,
um. And and so he wasn'tactually from another universe, which was a
little disappointing from me because I wasjust like when they showed you in the
trailer that they were introducing the multiversetheory into the MCU, I was just
like, this opens up so manypossibilities. This could be a lot of
fun. Oh yeah, and thenthey're like, oh crap, yeah do

(46:00):
that. But I guess we havethis and we also that's true. That's
what I was going to say,like we love multiverse stuff. Um,
but they're doing that over with youknow. Yeah, so that's very very
so I don't know, but yeah, with Jake Chelhall, like when he
started, like when when Spidy wasjust like, I don't know if I
can do this. I can't havethis. I can't have these glasses.
I'm like, oh god, he'sgonna give it to Mysterio. Then Mysteriro

(46:23):
is going to abuse it. Andthen it also felt like such like a
well, since we hung out togetherfor this amount of time, here's the
glasses that were given to me bymy mentor like that also felt so weak
to me. It was the motivationswere just so lame that it felt insulting

(46:44):
as a viewer. It did.And that's like some people are like there's
kind of been like this this antisnobbery movement about people saying that films are
too predictable, where some people aresaying like, well, if you can
predict the story structure, then thatmeans that it's a plotted out story structure
or like that. It makes sense, It makes logical sense to a certain

(47:05):
degree. To a certain degree,I understand that that rationale. I don't
always agree with it, because I'mnot saying you need to imnite shalam on
me or anything like that with yourreveals, but I shouldn't see it coming
from the trailer, Yeah, andevery single step of the way, go
like this is where it's going tobe. This is where this is going
to be the reveal, Like makeit if it's obvious, make it obvious,

(47:28):
right, don't act like it's abig reveal, right, Like make
it dubious. Make him like makethe audience know from the get go if
you're going you don't have him monologueto the people that know exactly, yeah
exactly, And so like you couldeven do that better where if we immediately
knew Mysterio was a fake, thatMysterio was like had negative intentions, then

(47:51):
that would add more drama to SpiderMan giving up those glasses right, instead
of making it big reveal that everystructure was completely messed up, because if
we saw a spidy we'd be like, no, spody, don't do it.
It's like, don't go in thebasement, don't go. Yeah,
I don't know. I just feltlike Jake Jillenhaw totally felt like he was
just getting a paycheck and he barelyshowed up. He really did, and

(48:15):
we like him, we really do. Fantastic actor, but it was just
such league. Yeah maybe not thatyeah, yeah, maybe not. That's
a pretty low bar there, butit was just it was you didn't care
because he didn't care. Would youthink about like the drone tech? Did

(48:40):
you think that was cool? Notso cool? I couldn't get like,
I couldn't focus on, Like Icouldn't enjoy it because the entire time I
was thinking Tony had this satellite.The entire time, Yeah, I thought
that same thing, like we didn'tuse it, Like, we didn't use
it. Why does he have it? Why on earth would one person have

(49:01):
this kind of technology? Yeah,and also you have you have you have
Spider Man who's just like, oh, I shouldn't spy on people's text messages.
But I'll have a satellite that cankill anybody on the Earth at any
time. That's your line. Yeah, I'm not going to read it doesn't
make any sense. But in termsof the drone tech, like, it's
just a lot of people are talkingabout drones, a lot of people are

(49:22):
using drones and films because it's veryprevalent, very relevant today's society. Like
the whole holographic thing, you know, I don't know, like they're part
of it. It was just kindof like that's interesting, and the other
part of me it was just likethat's cheesy, and it's just it was
a lot of things. I hadto jump a lot. I gotta jump
through a lot of hoops in orderto try and enjoy it. What did

(49:43):
you think of the whole scenes whereSpider Man was in like this weird dreamlike
reality where it was all holographic.Yeah, I thought it was interesting,
but then it got became noise.Okay, so I thought like to a
certain degree, but then they justmaybe maybe each sequence went a little bit

(50:05):
too long for me, where thenI just kind of started spacing out because
you're just kind of like watching um, you're kind of like having a heart.
It's almost like your brain or youreyes have a hard time catching up
because it was like too much.Yeah so, and then then they kept
like switching it up and like thatwasn't real, that was real. It

(50:25):
was just like okay, I reallydo feel like your brain kind of says
like all right, well then I'mjust gonna give up. Maybe that's late.
Maybe that's just the state I wasin when I was watching it.
I'm gonna go play pong. Inthe back corner of my brain, it
felt like a video game to me. Yeah it did, maybe because I've
been playing a lot of Arkham.That's true. You have, you had

(50:49):
a lot of video game time reallyrecently. I have. Yes, I
have, and I've been playing alot of the Arkham games. And whenever
you encounter the Scarecrow, you gothrough a level that is exactly like,
okay, that scene where everything's fake, everything's fake, everything's not real,
and like it's everybody's like enlarged,and then you're shrinking and then there's multiple
versions of you, and then there'smultiple version of them. It's just like

(51:10):
yeah, yah yah yah, Andso that's all that I thought of.
It reminded me of like a andcertain Yeah, it definitely reminds me of
a video game, and especially likethat type of the CGI and stuff like
that. It's just it kind ofamused you. And I know I was
supposed to you, you know,you're supposed to be in that world.
Um, maybe answer this question.Maybe I completely you know, missed it,

(51:34):
But like, how did he thinkthat he was fighting something and like
getting knocked around if they were justdrones, Well, the drones were I
think that was something that they couldhave explained a little bit more, like
the drones were actually doing damage,Okay, okay, okay, like the
holograms were just portraying the damage becausethey did have like they did have the

(51:57):
ability to like destroy right, Okay, they had to, Bill. I
didn't see that because with the exampleif they gave okay, like so when
a column is destroyed, column isactually destroyed okay by the drone Okay,
And but they just made it looklike it was a wind monster who knocked
down the coach. That kind ofgotcha. Okay, Yeah, it could
have been explained a little bit better. Yeah, And it was just again

(52:20):
it was just part of the wholemessiness on it. It was just a
mess. It was just convoluted.It was too simplicit, Like it was
too simplicity of a story to bethat convoluted. I agree, I agree,
And I think that's where I'm like, the more I'm talking about it,
I definitely just knocked off a halfstar from my radio. I feel
like that happens whenever we podcast.It's either like it goes up or down,

(52:44):
and I usually blame you. Yeah, if you either make me enjoy
something more or less. It's neverthe same amount. It's never like,
oh, this is how I feelat the beginning, end of the end.
That's right, You're welcome. It'sa journey, all right. Well
we've been going for fifty two minutes. Yeah, I didn't think that we
were going to be going this longer. Yeah, So what what rating would

(53:05):
you give? I wanted you totell you always right, way harsher than
I do, and you ground mein reality though, because I'm always so
forgiving with my ratings. But originally, like when I wanted to put it
on letterbox, I was going toput three and a half stars. Now
I think I'm thinking of solid threejust because the entertaining moments are really entertaining.
But it's a mess. Yeah,I think. I think I give

(53:28):
it two and a half. LikeI gave Venom two and a half.
Okay, well I didn't see Venom. Okay, Um, and so two
and a half to be it ispretty bad. It's pretty low, okay,
but I mean yours. I tendto be harsher your system. Like
your system, This feels like atwo and a half for you, but
not for me. I'm glad youapproved of my system. I respect your
system. I do I respect howyou were. I mean, I think

(53:51):
it's worth a rental if you don'thave anything to do. But do you
need to see this to finish anendgame? No, you don't need it.
And this does not wrap up ingame. Honestly, it really doesn't.
It really doesn't because it's not clear, like is the torch passed from
Tony to Spider Man? And thenif so, how is it philosophical?

(54:14):
Yeah? Is it tech? Isit money? And if you didn't like
Homecoming, then you really shouldn't watchthis one at all, Like then you're
not really getting anything. So andon top of that, honestly, what
bothers me is that, um,spider Man. One thing, one key
thing about Spider Man is that he'spoor. He's like a poor student,
like a poor college student, andhe's trying to get side jobs in order

(54:37):
to pay for Yeah, he's aphotographer on the rise and every like trying
to be a photographer just to paythe bills, and he's always late to
everything. But this is the MCUspider Man. This is a spider man
who has a trillion dollar kill satellitein space. And yet you know that
ant May is going to be drivinga Ford pos And that's what really bugs

(54:58):
me, is that, like,if they're passing the torch and he has
all this, should be living inStark Tower or some version of that,
should be taking care of him.Yeah, why isn't Pepper taking care of
him? If happy can fly ina Harrier jet to pick him up and
he can build whatever type of suithe wants in a three D printer,
Right, and he's still living ina crappy, you know, two bedroom

(55:20):
apartment in Brooklyn, Right, thatdoesn't make any sense. Yeah, you
can't have it both ways. Puthim on the payroll, make him a
full timer, right right, youknow, it's just what but I guess
he did have that. I guessthey did talk about that at the end
of Homecoming where he said it's like, you know, become an avenger,
you know, live on the compoundand everything like that, and he said,

(55:42):
no, he wanted to be anormal kid. But there could be
some middle ground here, like youget a stipend from Stark Industry something Stark
Internship. All right, well,there you go, folks. Let us
know what you thought afar from Home? Are we crazy? Was it a
totally big reveal that Mysterial was abad guy? You know, like maybe

(56:04):
maybe that's maybe you were surprised,or maybe you weren't surprised, but you
still loved it, you know,absolutely, let us know what you thought.
You can go to the nerdparty dotcom slash contact, select nerd duptial
from the drop down menu, filledthe form, it'll send us an email.
You can find us all over onsocial media on Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter, or Twitter hander handle isjoin nerd Party. Mine personally on Twitter
is the Insane Robin And if youcan take the time, go to Apple

(56:29):
Podcasts or iTunes, whatever it's calledand leave us a review. If you
leave us a five star review,we'll mention you on the show. And
if you left us a five starreview and we haven't mentioned it yet.
Sometimes it takes a long time toget through. Sometimes it takes a long
time for us to get the email, so we will mention you on the
As soon as we get the information, we will mention it. Sometimes these

(56:51):
things can take months, so butbut yes, please let us know.
Please talk to us, and alsogo to the nerdparty dot com for all
of our other shows, whether it'sour other episodes or other shows on the
network, whether it's Harry Potter orDoctor Who, or movies about that are
distributed by a twenty four You know, things like that we got we got
something for everyone at the Nerdparty dotcom. I love you. I know

(57:14):
it's going yes, all right,may I love you and my liking I
love you and I like you.I love that woman. I love them
more than shocks love blood. Yeah,