A Supergirl Review That Separates Craft From Culture War

We rate Supergirl across acting, cinematography, score, plot, and rewatchability, then land on why the movie feels like a stack of missed chances instead of a character-driven breakout. We also call out how misogyny poisons the conversation while still insisting the writing has to earn its moral message. 
• our three-part review method and what we are taking beforehand 
• budget and marketing shock compared with what lands onscreen 
• the plot setup with Kara, Ruthie, Krypto’s 72-hour timer, and Lobo 
• acting takes on Millie Alcock, Jason Momoa, and the side cast 
• cinematography highs including the intergalactic bus and truck stop 
• score choices that either fit the character or break immersion 
• plot problems with the ticking clock and a thin villain motivation 
• the culture war problem and why it muddies real film criticism 
• world building lessons from The Fifth Element and Chekhov’s gun limits 
• the revenge morality that collapses under its own logic 
• how we would rewrite Supergirl around trauma, therapy, and consequences 
Listen to all our other stuff too. Yeah, just go down the list. 

2.5/5

Transcript

Monday Drinks And Dave Attell Heat

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I guess I do uh appreciate uh the Monday beverage I get here. It uh it eases Monday's passing.

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Yeah, that's fair. I don't get anything special anymore. God damn it. Stupid stupid mental illness.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yeah, if you shouldn't get one of those, it's that shit'll kill you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Should have told me that 35 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Well, what are you gonna do? Here you are. So hey everybody, welcome to High and Dry Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Bear North. With me as always, James Crosslin. And we are, of course, the only podcast keeping alive the fandom that is insomniac with Dave Vittel.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

You remember that shit? I fucking hate Dave Vittell. I cannot stand Dave Vittel at all. He uh I find I find his his voice is unbearable, the content of what he has to say is just despicable shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

He he tried to like fashion himself as this like um vulgar Anthony Bourdain there for a while. It was very yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

He's a man of culture.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah. No, it really hit. But when was Anthony Bourdain's show? His like no still going on, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:34

They they dragged they just dragged his corpse from location to location and shoved food into his decomposing mouth.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

So it looks like um Anthony Bourdain didn't start doing no reservation until 2005. So Anthony Bourdain. He was a cop was fashioning himself, yeah, as a civilized Dave Vittel. Uh my yeah, my apologies. My apologies to David. Uh you're the victim here.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

I'm sure he'd love to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Trying to cancel me.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah. Yeah. He uh, I mean, I think just time did that. I wonder, I wonder how he's doing these days. But uh Davidel, not Anthony Bourdain. Um he's doing great. Yeah, he's he's gone off to a better place. So anyway, so for those of you joining us for the first time, we're not actually going to be talking about David Tell the whole time. The whole thing we're doing. We are going to be discussing um a new film, Supergirl, came out uh last weekend, and we're going to do that in a patent three-part method, guaranteed to get you your best

The Three Step Supergirl Review Plan

SPEAKER_01 2:51

podcasting results for your best podcasting book. All right, first, we're going to give you the definitive score out of five stars so you guys can stop arguing about it online. There's no more discussion after this. Yep, that's it. Then we will dive into the golden path and unlock the deeper meaning behind Supergirl. And finally, we will insert ourselves drugs or alcohol into the film. And what makes it so special and so fun is we will be doing it under some form of mind-altering this or that. So, James, how will you be joining this week?

SPEAKER_03 3:24

I took double adderall, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

It's gonna kick in in like 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

And I will be joining you with uh this small batch 92 horsepower Larceny, stolen by John E. Fitzgerald. It says on the the bottle here.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Mmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yeah. It's weeded though. I don't really care for weeded bourbon.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Um so like yeah, your average bourbon is just corn based. Um this one they they uh they there's an additional wheated process, whether they're doing that with the grain itself or they put it into wheat barrels, one of the other things. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Wheat. Yes, wheat. Wheat, not weed. No, wheated.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, it's a wheated. Okay. Alright. So that makes sense. Well, let me line them up. So, first toast this week. This one goes out to our newest listeners, and they are coming at us from our Princess Bride episode. These ones, we have someone from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Listener Toasts And Running Gags

SPEAKER_01 4:31

I'm sorry. Boardman, Oregon. Um, Walton on Thames in Surrey, and one from Los Angeles, California. All new listeners, though. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Thanks, thanks, our new listeners. Especially those in the boring places that don't have anything to do. Listen to all our other stuff too. Yeah, just go down the list. Witch's Asshole was a really good one. So just just just goo just look up Witch's Asshole in our Spotify playlist.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Solid callback, solid callback. Alright, this next one. Goes out to uh the witch's asshole. For those of you who aren't aware, sometimes you just gotta gaze into witch's asshole. You have to listen to the episode to truly understand that particular nugget, so that's cheers.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

And our third one. This one goes out to our film this week. Cheers to you, Supergirl.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Cheers, supergirl. The beloved property.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, so it was definitely a movie. They made a movie. It was. Yeah. How much did we pump into this?

Budget Shock And Plot Breakdown

SPEAKER_01 5:55

I'll look it up. Did you want to give a summary while I Well uh I'll let you do the summary on that one. I I have a lot of uh mixed. It's gonna be tainted by your opinion. Maybe. Perhaps.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Perhaps. I yeah, so please. Okay. So so to start out, this movie had between 170 million and 186 million dollar budgeting with an estimated 120 million spent on marketing for a nearly 300 million dollar budget. Jesus. Total. Okay, so start off this this movie that cost you know a third of a trillion dollars to, or no, no, a third of a billion dollars.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

That'd be wild. Yeah, Jesus Christ, and that's what you guys came up with? Someone embezzled.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

So Supergirl is a story about Superman's cousin, uh, Kara, who is uh affectionately known by her superhero named Supergirl. Uh she is turning 23, and as Blink182 uh let us know, uh, nobody likes you when you're 23. And she's having a tough time. But she's uh she seems depressed and listless, and she's drink she's she's on a planet with a yellow sun drinking herself, silly. Uh I mean a red sun, a red sun, so she doesn't have her powers uh because she's Kryptonian. And uh a little girl named Ruth Yi. Ruth Yeah she uh she uh she has her family killed on the other side of this planet, goes to get some uh witness her family killed.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

She did not kill them herself.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Right, right. She witnesses her family be killed by bandits, outer space bandits, and uh and so she goes to try to find someone to help her get revenge, and they become unlikely allies uh when when uh uh uh crypto crypto, the dog, gets poisoned, and we get a nice ticking clock timer, uh literal a literal, a literal ticking clock that we keep looking at throughout the course of the movie that crypto is going to die in exactly 72 hours, and she has to retrieve the antidote from the bandit, and then uh Ruthie tags along behind her, and we learn about uh a galaxy that is uh unmoored by laws and is sexist and uh and she has she has to fight her way to uh to the across the across the galaxy to the bandits, uh uh using her smarts and and physical prowess uh uh to eventually to eventually defeat them. And also Lobo is there, played by Jason Lamoa. Yep. And we also get we also get some flashbacks throughout of of Kara Kara Zorel's backstory of being uh born after the destruction of Krypton on a floating chunk that was uh preserved by her her father, um the the dorky guy from Ten Things I Hate About You, who shows uh what's his name? The guy from oh Joseph Gordon Levitt. He shows him around high school. That guy is her dad. His name is David Chris.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

This movie might have actually uh been helped a little bit with the introduction of Joseph Gordon Levitt.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Yeah, just could add some for sure. They're he they're playing the same roles from Ten Things I Hate About You. Yeah. Uh yeah, we get some uh we get some clips of her background and how she couldn't save her family, and she got sent away, not as a baby like Clark, where he didn't have where he didn't have to like see them dying. Uh she had to like watch her parents slowly dying and succumbing to disease and uh and then she got transported away. Uh so she's traumatized and she were she makes some progress on her trauma.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah. Which is the goal there, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well and in the end, in the end, she comes back to Earth and she's like, alright, I'm ready to I'm ready to hang out, Superman. I'm ready to live with you because I am dealing with my shit.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, and they I don't know. Uh it to me this thing felt like missed opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Uh yeah, what kind of uh do you do you want to go with your review first?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yes, please. So off the bat, acting here I felt was uh it was you know it was competent. Serviceable. Yeah, the acting was competent, it was servable. Like I and I would like to preface all

James Rates Acting To Rewatchability

SPEAKER_01 11:14

this with I I like Millie Alcock, I like uh the Supergirl uh IP, I like um all those things. I I do feel like just just watching the the other review sites um that aren't us and so aren't like relevant, they just seem to be waiting on a female-led thing to fail. And yeah, which we we can't we can't like just stop and look at it as a film and look at it as a failure on a part of just our our franchise whoredom.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

It's because women, women are the reason it fails. Don't you know which their vaginas, their vaginas mess up the film. It's science, they're spores. They give off pheromones that fuck with the director's head and make them do lazy shit.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

But no, the I what I felt we had here was definitely um an opportunity, and I I feel that uh Millie Alcock is wonderfully casted for this. I I feel that Jason Momoa could definitely be a good logo. Yeah. Um he was certainly being Jason Mamoa.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Uh the parts were all there. We just started doing weird shit with it. Well, we started doing lazy shit with it, is what I felt here.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

They could have gone harder on which I think is what we had to do. I mean, what we had here was um the option to really die, like she should be a tortured individual, and it and it sucks even more because, you know, we're talking about uh a human being whose brain isn't fully developed yet and trying to deal with all this shit, be alone and everything like that, and they sort of just cheapened it. So acting was there by our main people.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, our main people. Uh everyone on the side, not so much. And I I I do feel, and I'll get into this later, but I I do feel that the Eve Ridley and the whatever you call that character, Ruth Mayer Noel, um was a waste. Like that it shouldn't have been there. It shouldn't have been there. We we did not need this guiding side character, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:49

It was uh they they wanted to include a moral message as a uh as a way to like as an as a as a way for supergirl to reflect because she saw herself in the younger character. But we'll we'll get to that. We'll get to we'll get to the moral moral message.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Which is I say always, if you just stopped putting your kids in the writing room and instead find talent, you could see that that entire problem is very circumventable. You can do that without introducing boring. Um but for that uh just acting there were some people who were definitely it, and if this was a good film, I'd appreciate it much more. But then you had so like 75% of the actors on screen were just so fucking basic. Um for that I'm gonna give the acting a 2.5. Uh cinematography. This thing was gorgeous. Um, there were definitely a lot of cool things to look at. Um I personally enjoyed because normally I I don't. I saw what they were going for. I was like walking in, like, great, they're gonna they're gonna guardians of the galaxy us, you know. Um, but I I like I felt that there was a very fun ecosystem here that we're seeing. Um I enjoyed having to concern themselves with the sun and how space itself is a creature. And there's there's a lot of that I enjoyed. I I don't know why the universe seems to model itself after New York City.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

I I guess that's just the name. Maybe New York City is modeling itself after the universe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Bipedles tend to make the same kinds of cities. New York City just got it right.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah. Yeah. And they're getting it more right every day. But anyway. Um cinematography, yeah, it was it was competent, and there was some of it that I really like to look at. There were definitely some very nice shots. There, there was a lot of world building that was happening just with the camera itself. Um, cinematography, I'm going to go ahead and I'm gonna give it a 3.5.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um score at first to me was a little jarring. Um, but then I I sort of I I sort of stepped back and I I had to realize that that's okay um for this particular character. And if I was rating this as an early 20-something, I would definitely have different opinions on it. And I I feel that it lent itself to that. And so I I had to step out of my 50-year-old self and sort of look at the a different side of it.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

And um we're not anywhere near 50.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

And I I felt that it worked. I I felt that it worked. And I I appreciate some of the the license they took with it, and so for that I'm going to give the score also a 3.5. The nothing like is really bringing it home.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

I guess you're allowed to have that opinion.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Uh the plot uh the plot was where I feel that this thing missed the mark, missed the opportunity that was presented in exploring this character for the first time with her own feature film. You turned it into some fucking bullshit uh like it to me, it felt like they were trying to rip off the beginning of um that one Star Wars film that everyone raves about with the Death Star plans and Rogue One. Rogue One, yeah. We never rated Rogue One, but uh Rogue One Die Hards. To me, you guys are just Snyder fans. Um, and I would rip the shit out of Rogue One, just letting you know. So good for you that it's not on this show. Um to me, it just felt like they were ripping off a Rogue One kind of deal in the beginning, and they were trying to make me feel like this was Rogue One. The plot was done a million times. Introducing this pointless side character and making them a main character was such a waste when you have so much material to work with. You have Supergirl.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

It's the hero's journey. Just the hero's journey.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

But like you had so much opportunity here. She is such a rich character with so many facets and things like that. And you have to fucking steamroll this fucking side revenge thing. Yeah. It was like this weird Rogue One uh in uh seven samurai nonsense, and it just turned into sh sh fucking trash. This this plot had so much opportunity, and just I I just wish once we would stop doing this franchise bullshit. I I think Hollywood's starting to learn now with backrooms and obsession that we're over it. That'd be nice. The Marvel days are done. Alright, it was fun while it lasted, but Marvel, Pirates of the Caribbean, it's done. And this is just it's just wrong what you did to this character. Um, for that I I give plot a 1.5.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Harsh.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah. And rewatchability, uh, I will watch this again. Um, I this show was a very big fan of the new Superman film. And um as these continue to come out, I will watch it as an overarching experience, you know. Um, just just to kind of look at it from that perspective. When I when I hit play, am I going to be looking forward to it? No. Um, but I will watch it again. Um, and for that I give uh rewatchability a 2.5.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Alright, so on the path toward our final score, yours average is out to a 2.7. All right, keep it moving. Uh, I guess I am up. Uh, I had some similar feelings and some disagreements through here with what you were saying. I think so I'll start with acting. Uh I thought the acting in

Ryan Rates It And Lands The Score

SPEAKER_03 20:39

this was generally uh good. And I didn't hate the child actress either. Um, I thought she did fine. And I think Jason Momoa was wondered on to set and they painted stuff on him. And he just yeah, he just behaved like he normally would. And I felt like they didn't give enough. I didn't I felt like they didn't give the villain enough to do. Which which is disappointing because that like is he's like his actions are like the driver of what happens in this movie. You know, everything is in response to what he has done, and he's just kind of a boring villain. He really was.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

But he had facial piercings, and that's how you know he's bad.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yeah, it's just a boring villain. We don't we don't understand the motivations. The motivations and and uh and yeah, they didn't give him a lot to say or or do really.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yeah, I feel like they should have replaced him with Rucker Howard and just let Rucker Howard be a psychopath.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Rucker Howard is a is a psych. Yeah, he could have wandered on to set too. It could have been he and Jason wandering on to set, giving being themselves. Yeah. Yeah. What am I here for? It doesn't matter. Just act. Yeah, okay. Um but otherwise, I mean I thought the acting was passable. Uh it's definitely nothing, it's not gonna blow you away. Um, and I feel like I felt like they could have given uh it it it it felt like a lot of the emotions in this movie were actually pretty muted. Um you know there was like pain and and like like people seemed pained and they were sh struggling a little bit, uh, but their emotions seemed pretty muted. Um uh uh yeah. It didn't seem like there was the agony or the wailing that would have happened if you get like kidnapped to be a sex slave or whatever. Yeah. Like sh yeah. Uh or if your planet is destroyed. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and give this a three. It just, you know, it really sucks that it's not the actor's fault, it's the direction, but we see the actors on screen. It's a failure of the direction, in my opinion. Uh cinematography for like like I felt that there were some good shots in here. Uh, I liked a lot of the perspectives they used. I think about the uh the intergalactic bus scene. I thought that was maybe the maybe the best scene in the movie. Uh with the angle, they used a lot of really unique angles and uh for for cinematography, I mean. Not the best scene in the entire movie entirely, but like for cinematography, I think they used a lot of really unique angles, and I think they used that they like they kind of played with the geometry of the space when they were like teleporting around, which I thought is a fun cinematography thing. That's what they should be doing in a scene where you have characters that can like move in like un inhuman ways. And they I feel like they failed that to do that a lot in the rest of the movie. You know, this character can like fly and like burst through shit and stuff, and they failed to do a lot of interesting things with that. Uh, but that scene particularly jumped out to me as being one where they did it.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

If if you don't a statement on that, because we're just we're talking about the DC universe, I'm a big comic person, and they're getting ready to launch all the Green Lantern stuff, which is just told in space, essentially. If anyone has read Green Lantern, and part of the fun of reading Green Lantern is alien cultures and how they move, and just everything's alien. And this makes me worry about Green Lantern.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Well, I thought they did some really interesting things. Like I saw at that intergalactic bus, like we saw like an intergalactic truck stop, and that was interesting. I was on board for that. I thought that was a fun scene. The intergalactic truck stop, where these taste like shit because of because they were like little or like pot, like like they're they looked almost like candied nuts that were pooped out by some insectoid alien.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Men and black.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Yeah, yeah, it's like men and black stop. I did in I that actually honestly looking back on it, that may have been the best scene of the movie because it like it belied some depth that was outside our vision, but also had some continuity.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Um one of my favorite things is effortless side world building.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Yeah. Fifth element did it really well. Yes. And so that kind of thing reminded me a little bit of Fifth Element. Uh, it was a little grimy, a little busted down, you you know, galactic, but galactic uh grime was kind of what it was. Yeah. And uh and I liked that scene. And the rest of it, everything else felt like empty almost, and uh, and uh yeah. But yeah, so for cinematography, uh I'm gonna give this uh 3.5. I felt like the I like the color palette for the most part. I liked the I liked the blocking of the shots, and generally, generally pretty good. The score the score I despised. I despised the the score. It started out it started out okay. I like the I like Girl Punk. Like I'm I'm I love Rebel Girl like uh like punk. I listen to Bikini Kill all the time, fucking love it. But then it got then it was not then it started to get like not great.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Yeah, they they incorporated some weird ones. They did. Yeah, and then like an old man. What the fuck do I know?

SPEAKER_03 26:45

With when they had the final fucking fight and they had the uh slowed down cover of the middle by Jimmy World. I was I was like, fuck and this movie just end. I was like at that point, I was like, God damn it, that takes me out of the movie. So when when a score does something like that, where I'm like, this takes me out of the movie, I have to rate it low.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Uh uh, this shit's getting too and I I I will say since the middle came out, music has not evolved that drastically, like as it used to, you know, like like you can 70s, 80s, 90s, it's very, very fucking clear. But then we had all the pop punk of the early 2000s, and we're back just in more.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

You're ignoring the the jump, the the evolution between uh between that pop punk and skrillix, which is the height of of music of all the weak. Of all music, yeah, the peak. And now we're slowly coming back down the other side and we're hitting pop punk again. We'll just keep sliding down.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah. Next is yeah. So next the cure is gonna well, well, yeah, no, and I've seen a well, it's weird because I've seen a resurgence in cure style goth shit. Yeah. Which means we're getting ready for we're gonna get a bowie soon. We're gonna get a new bowie. I'm if if I'm not mistaken, I think he's already exists. His name is Youngblood, and we're gonna have a new Bowie.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

And then it's just gonna be back to the 70s, and then music is gonna get better over time, though, instead of worse over time.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

We're just getting ready for the Beatles 2. And then it's gonna be if their music's gonna get worse over time. No, that's just gonna be baby. It's cold outside, and you know, it's yeah, we're fun.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

It's a cycle. It's a cycle, yeah. It's a cycle. Skrillicks, don't worry, don't worry, we'll get back to Skrillex again.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

We'll be back to Skrillix before you know it. 40 years from now, it's gonna be Skrillix, and you're gonna be good to go. Alright.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

So plot. Oh, I gave it a two. Uh so plot. Yeah, this plot is um this plot is really it's really it's really uh murky. It's like a murky plot that I okay. So you got a hero's journey, right? Good, perfect. The ultimate plot. Yeah, do it, fine. But then they added a ticking clock on top of it. The ticking clock is possibly I I'm not gonna say it's the worst plot device ever, but it's lazy. It's so fucking lazy. It's it's cliche and overdone, and the we literally I counted how many times we looked at the watch. I I stopped counting at nine. We looked at the watch. I thought it was weird.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

I thought it was weird that she owned a my dog is dying watch.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's she was setting it, said it for 72 hours. Uh by the way, this totally ignores the law of relativity, where when you're when you're traveling away from something or towards something with higher gravity, time is like distorted for you during that travel game.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

And her being a sun creature, yeah, that's a big fucking deal. Yeah, that was really dumb to do.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

But anyway, yeah, it's a real dumb, just ignoring physics. Uh the plot just like I said, the the morality message is part of the plot. We'll get to it in the next section to talk about it like more deeply because there's a lot to say about it. But fuck did they just like fumble? They fumbled that in so many ways. Like so much of the plot was wrapped up in this morality message about uh Ruthie, Ruthia's revenge. And uh, and then just at the finish line, they were like they're they like let let's let's say they were playing it was like a game of chess and they're setting up the big epic move, and at the end they just fucking flip the board and they're like, Yeah, fuck you right before the end of the game. Like they were ready to win. They were ready to win, they just flipped the fuck you, and then they eat shit. And and uh and that sucks. Uh so I'm gonna give that a 1.5. Mostly I mean like it's it's I I was I was bored through the middle when she was trapped on the planet and the and nothing was happening, and we just kept looking at her slowly dying. And it's like, okay, we could have cut 10 minutes out here. Easily. Uh bored. Uh so yeah, 1.5 rewatchability. I'm going to give this uh I'll re-watch this again because there's some there's some good stuff here. I'll rewatch it again because Sarah didn't see it with me. Um and I won't complain about it. I'll just be like, I'll just be like, you know, it's it's okay. It's okay. Let's watch it. Let's see what's up.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

She's like, shut the fuck up.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Yeah, so I'll give it a two. Um, and so this comes out to a 2.55. We round down to 2.5. 2.5?

SPEAKER_01 32:28

That's that sounds right. That sounds right. That's fair as fuck.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

That is it might be generous.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Fair as fuck. As always, high and dry is right. It's your north star in the world of movie reviews.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Yeah, it really sucks that the reviews of the this movie are tainted by so much misogyny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Misogyny and incel

Culture War Noise And Honest Criticism

SPEAKER_03 32:57

culture and shit, because it it it leads to this like counter uh type of of position where you have to be like where a lot of people are like immediately defensive about criticism because a lot of it's coming from a place where of prejudice.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Well, you're you're you're delving very heavily onto the golden path. Oh, my bad. Which means it's time for a mile a minute. God damn it. I know.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

But oh, this this is why this is why all those Nazi pilots took meth. Yeah. Woo!

SPEAKER_01 33:37

You heard it here. Nazi pilot meth. I undercast. Uh and here is to a solid review, a sensible review, and a decent opinion. When the world just wants this bipolar, you know, two sides to the coin.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

It's the culture war.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah. Fuck the culture war. So here's our final toast. Fuck the culture war. They're just using it to control you. It's just the rich against us, boys. So cheers.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

Cheers. Yeah, no war but class war. Amen to that, brother.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

They're all going up against the wall, so enough of that shit. Now. So let's talk, let's talk business. It's time to dive into the golden path. There's a lot to talk about here. Maybe not about Supergirl itself, but the discussions that have come up about it, and I definitely have a point. You brought up the fifth element earlier.

World Building Lessons From Fifth Element

SPEAKER_01 34:44

I have a point on that.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Sure. You want to start with that?

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Sure. Because that that's definitely easier than attacking the current culture wars that we're in.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Yeah, I we've said a lot on it already. I don't even know if you're not.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yeah, like if you're not aware, this is definitely an anarchist podcast. But um what's the Philip Seymour Hoffman Pirate Radio? But they were more like, yeah. We already trashed the Beatles today, so that doesn't work either. Well, anyway. So uh I was talking, you you brought up the fifth element. We did an episode on the fifth element, and what we talked about was the level of world building that occurred in that film with no intention of a sequel. Right. It was just it it was just arbitrary world building. It was just the writers and the actors and everyone involved put themselves into this universe that doesn't exist because for an hour and a half, this is the world we live in. And what what I saw here was the opportunity for that, and what I hope that they catch on with all this Green Lantern stuff that's coming is the same thing. Is this opportunity of infinite world building, and it does not, none of it has to be the central plot point because to these characters, they just live in the world. When you and I bring up something, it doesn't become our plot, it's just our world. And I think that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

No, it fuels my narrative. Everything that is everything that I say has a narrative effect because why would I say Chekhov's gun?

SPEAKER_01 36:33

And Chekhov's gun is a uh two-sided blade. But we your characters you create, yeah. The the Chekhov's gun. Yes. Chekhov made that before we had the Marvel universe. All right. He didn't know where art and media was going.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Yeah, exactly. He had no idea how many props you could fit on a screen.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Yeah. He had no fucking idea. All right, he was talking plays. All right. So yeah, Chekhov Gun is useful with plot devices and plot items. Right. But but if you're if you're going to insert an alien truck stop, just like if we're going to a gas station today, I'm gonna see 2,000 things. Yeah. And that's just the world I'm in.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

And you And that was that was the best world building of that movie was that truck stop, because it really did have like all those products and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Oh no. And I think that's just the main problem with this whole situation is that we only look in terms of like what's the next franchise? What is the next piece of merchandise? How do we turn this into more money?

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Yeah. Well, I I I'm telling you, that bug that shits nuts, that's a moneymaker. Give me the nutshitter. Give me a home nut shitter that looks at me while it's shitting, which I thought was the best part of that scene. It looked right at me, and it was like, you make an icon while it shits your food.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

And but uh we've just we've stopped allowing artists into the writing room. Uh that I think that's the problem. All we have now is a bunch of kids of rich people who had their heyday in the 80s and 90s, early 2000s, and now all their kids are there, and they're not fucking artists. They don't create worlds or anything like that. They they don't, in my opinion, the the number one requirement to create a world is that you want to escape the one you have, and you just can't fucking do that if you're rich. World building only comes world building only comes from poor people.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

So, yeah, that's that's where I'm at uh as far as the uh fifth element thought is concerned.

SPEAKER_03 39:11

I don't know who hold hold on. Who wrote the fifth element? Yes. Is it a poor person? Luke Bassan. Luke Bassan wasn't poor, I don't think. But it wasn't fifth element originally a novel? No, fifth element's uh fifth element is its own property. It is not based on anything.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

No, the fifth element was in the uh was uh oh, there was a fifth element novel that came out after the fact.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

But who was Basson?

SPEAKER_03 39:45

The writer.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Yeah, Luc Besson. The uh wait, you're talking about No, not the French filmmaker.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

Yeah. Luc Basson, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yeah. Um Yeah, his parents were both scuba diving instructors. And he had planned to become a marine biologist. He was a normal fucking guy. Like I mean, I guess. Like, he let's see, he wanted to be a marine biologist. Um let's see.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Uh he had a diving accident at the age of diving. That's sad. I haven't been able to dive in a year because my blazing.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Well, and that's what I'm talking about. He wanted other things that were not available to him, and so you start building worlds. And you need trauma to build worlds, you need trauma to build worlds. You something has to fail. Otherwise, all you're doing is marketing, you're just marketing.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Right, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Yeah, yeah, and that's what that's what I felt this way.

SPEAKER_03 40:51

I love marketing.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

And like, because I mean, everyone's talking about how Superman was so much better, and they try and turn it into this misogynistic thing. You're like, no, that's not why it was better. It was not better because Superman is a man, it's better because heart and soul was put into that. They they had a message, a clear message, they had a universe they wanted to portray, and they did it. And then in Supergirl, they stopped for whatever reason.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

I don't know. I don't know. All I know is that all I know is that someone had their hands in this. The the writer of it was a writer for or was an actor on vampire diaries.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Oh well, there's your problem. They should have all been put to the sword.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

But anyway. Yeah, so I I totally agree. Before we leave this section, though, I definitely want to uh talk about the morality message of this movie. So throughout this movie, Ruthie wants to get revenge on oh, what's his character's name? Uh Krem. Krem? Krem. Yeah.

Revenge Moral And Story Logic Collapse

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Uh she wants to kill Krem. And she uh she has a sword, the sword to do it. And and there's a few times when she's close, like she's got a wind up to like fucking chop off his head. And Supergirl flies in to like grab her and physically stop her from killing the guy. And then like and then like right after that happens on the alien planet where she gets drugged, like he kills a family. Like he he per she's about like Ruthie's about to kill Krem, and then Krem kills a whole family. And if Ruthie had killed Krem, that wouldn't have happened. And they don't talk about that, they just let that slide. Yeah, they let that slide. And then at the very end, when Ruthie is like standing over Krem with her sword, like ready to kill Krem. Uh Supergirl is like, don't do it. Your soul be fucking tainted. Like you can't, uh and she convinces her not to do it. As soon as she walks away, she's like, BAM stabs, she fucking stabs him in the back in the stomach and shit. She starts stabbing him. And it's like, okay. I I have to now try to glean the message from this, okay? The message from this is it doesn't matter if people are killed. Sometimes people need to be killed. It's just who kills the people that's important.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

That's what's important.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

But I also don't understand how we choose who kills the people. So is it just if if Supergirl is able to stop other people from killing people so that she can kill them instead, she's the she's she gets to be the only killer? Is like that the is that the moral message? How if if the moral message is some people are protectors and take on the burden of killing in order to um in order to protect others, what gives Kara the right to stop Ruthie from going into that role of protector?

SPEAKER_01 44:50

See, and that's that's the key problem with this is that they attacked the entirely wrong emotional message. I mean, you have you have a character here who they essentially introduce her as a lost, wayward, young alcoholic. Right. And that's all coming from pain. And instead of exploring the pain, they give some bullshit as to why she gets out of it. Yeah. And and when you look at the the Supergirl story as a whole, they have like uh in the comic books um back in uh the early 2000s, um, she eventually like she gets brainwashed, she joins Darkseid, and it's because she has these openings where a manipulator can get to her and give her an ease to the pain she's experiencing. And and instead of delving into how much this young character must be hurting that she's doing all this, instead, they do some bullshit seven samurai rogue one half-assed. And that's where this movie fails. It's not because it was a female star. Right. Millie Alcock was great, and she was perfectly casted. That is not the problem. The problem is that you guys don't know how to write jack shit. You don't understand character character development or story structure. That's the problem. You're you're the goddamn producer comes in with pizza on a Tuesday and says, I want this done, and hands you this uh the fucking booklet that was written by the dude who made Star Wars, whatever the fuck his name is. George Lucas? George Lucas. Uh uh, and all it is is just a half-assed hero's journey. And like, no, you need to follow this. This sells movies. And and those same guys wonder why obsession fucking rocked the box office.

SPEAKER_03 47:03

Yeah. Yeah. Uh because it because it it went hard. It like it actually it actually had something it wanted to focus on. When those women are being collected to be breeding slaves, there should be don't say anything about it. There should be genuine horror around that. The idea that these two young women who have who are vulnerable and and are uh traumatized could be captured and have, you know, a lot of people would say worse than death would be to be held captive as a s uh breeding sex slave, to be forcibly inseminated. And it's like it's a horror premise that is like totally fucking overlooked, especially in like the climate nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

They should have had more to say about what tells me is that there was literally a meeting where all they there's no art involved, there is no message involved, they're not trying to say anything. It was literally a meeting where they said, now look, audiences right now want something a little darker. What could you insert to make it a little uh edgier? Well, what about sex slaves? I like it, let's do it. Okay, how how how much uh just mention it? It's a PG 13 thing, so like just mention it, just mention it. Yeah, have them in a cage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit just to you know to to appeal to our male audiences.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

Yeah, don't make the men rapey at all. No, because that's not what it's about, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, no, and that's that's the problem with this film, is that but like that's it right there. That's why this won't get a good rating. That's that's why it won't do well. Like, look, the days of Marvel box office bullshit are over. All right, it's done. That was great in 2016.

SPEAKER_03 49:24

But how edgy is a nut shitting insect? Put it in.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Put it in, put it in. Gremlins 2 with a rape slant. That's the problem here. Is you guys you don't you you shouldn't be making movies anymore. Your kids are talentless, and let's be honest, so were you.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

I don't know who in here is a Nepo baby. I don't actually know of anyone. I don't know of anyone who's actually a Nepo baby.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

I guarantee it. I fucking guarantee it. We've been doing this show long enough. As soon as you start Googling them for half a second, you know, it it just it all pours out. Like i and if it's not Nepo Baby, it's just Hollywood boardroom meetings where it's not about the art anymore. It's just about producers, it's just about making an action figure, that's all it is anymore.

SPEAKER_03 50:26

Uh uh David Crumholtz, who was from Ten Things I Hate About You and played the dad, uh uh Supergirl's dad, his uh his dad was a uh a postman, a postal worker, and his mom was a dental assistant.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Okay, well, uh well, I guess we lay the blame at the film at his feet. What the fuck, man?

SPEAKER_03 50:56

I thought he did really good in this.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

But where was he? Why didn't he stop this? That's my question.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

You know, guys, I have some experience. I usually let me give you some tips on how we should actually fill this movie out.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Well, when I worked with Heath Ledger. I work with Heath, baby. I work with Heath. And when the time comes, he will be the one who's hung for this failure. You're not the Nepo baby. Our Nepo babies will be safe. Well, yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

I think I think I think I think we I think we really the lesson here is really that if you have if you want to have a moral message and you want to have a meaningful film, don't you gotta go hard on it. You gotta be all in on it, and you gotta give it some actual thought because audiences, surprisingly, want to uh think about things. They want a message, all right.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

This is not 2016 anymore, all right. We culture realized its mistake in 2016, forgot its mistake four years later, but now we're reminded of it again, and we want meaning. So, with that being said, it's time to get into the third portion of this. It's time to insert ourselves two white men into Supergirl, James. How does this film change?

Fixing Supergirl With Therapy And Darkness

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Uh good question. Uh so I think it's pretty obvious that who I would be in the movie. I would be crypto. And I would So you wearing dog ears? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the vast majority of the movie, I would I would be uh laying incapacitated in a room while uh while a big-eyed alien looks over me. No, I would I'd be super girl. Uh, and I would um I think that the first thing she needs to do is the first we'd open up the movie, go to therapy. Go to therapy, uh, I and I'd and I'd get therapy uh from the Martian manhunter. We'd go sit down, he'd be able to look into my mind, uh, and and and see everything that was in there, and we'd do some real real good psychotherapy. I'd go to a red sun whenever I needed to take some mood stabilizer uh that that I that I definitely need. I'd carry around some, what is it, pink, pink, uh, pink kryptonite. Just so the meds work. And uh and uh uh I would have helped that little girl get revenge because I would have been a better person already. Um uh I would have uh I would have definitely had big conversations about uh about the effects of sex slavery uh and human trafficking instead of just kind of being like, you know, you know, when some you know they take slaves, they take slaves to breed them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Yeah, no. It's just part of the culture.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Don't be really normal shit, really normal galaxy shit.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:15

Uh and I would have uh uh and I would have sucked nuts directly out of that bug's ass. I would have just put my mouth right up to it and just uh have him shove straight down my throat. That would definitely change the rating of that particular I would carry I would carry the insect with me and I would just hold it up to my mouth.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Yeah, no, and me, uh like I'd be a Kryptonian, but you wouldn't be Lobo? No. No, I'd be a Kryptonian, and I would be entirely imperfect, and we the the audience would be dragged, kicking and screaming through this imperfect character who can go to one planet and be a god, go to the next planet, be an alcoholic, and we would deal with it fucking all. We would deal with it all. I feel like audience today are convinced because of like the boys and Superman that there's only two versions of this character. You're either Homelander or you're Superman, and both are uh and only Homelander's realistic. Like, no, no, and so I would drag my audiences through a Kryptonian look at PTSD, at not knowing what the fuck is right, at the ability to just open my eyes wide and kill a bunch of sex slavers. This this movie's going grim dark. Like this movie's going dark fast. And we are going to look at every ugly aspect of a human being who has to figure out what the fuck is right and wrong. And I could shoot lasers out of my eyes, by the way. Um, and we're gonna we're going to I'm gonna take the audience's faces and rub it in the shit like a dog who just crapped inside.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Like this is where we love that.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

I mean, like you guys want real. You guys want real, you like the obsession. So welcome to this. It it's not as black and white as Homelander and Superman. We're talking about like they portray Kryptonians as just as flawed as human beings, but with the ability to be gods. And you're going to take someone who is flawed, give them all of this, and he's trying his best. He's trying his fucking best. Um, but then he sees sex slavers, and they all have to die, obviously, right? And then he has to deal with the PTSD of killing a bunch of slay sex slavers. Uh it's it's a complex, horrific film. It is a horrific film.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Yeah, she didn't have any PTSD about killing that, about stabbing that guy in the neck and watching his lifeblood flow out. Nothing. Oh, was that the only was that the first person she killed, as far as we know, right? And she's just totally just disinterested.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

It happens, it happens.

SPEAKER_03 57:17

She's like, I'm back home. She's like, I'm I'm actually doing better.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

No, no, we're gonna we're gonna take a Kryptonian. He's been drinking for a while, uh, because his home world died. And now death is starting to stack up. The PTSD is growing. Uh, he had anxiety to begin with, so that's just an added bonus. And um we're gonna look at it. We're gonna look at every fucking ugly angle of it. That bug shit's nuts, by the way. And that's that's what we're gonna do. That's gonna be the film. World Building Baby.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

World building baby.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

Uh I I do want to point out I was wrong about Pink Kryptonite. So Pink Kryptonite makes Superman gay. And it it altered Superman's

Pink Kryptonite Bit And Goodbye

SPEAKER_03 58:12

sexual orientation, making him gay. That was in 2003.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

Hell yeah. That that's a progressive issue. That is a progressive issue right there. Well, there you go. I wonder when I wonder when we'll get a movie about that. We have surely regressed.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

So I would I would 100% have Pink Kryptonite on me. I would be I'd be gay supergirl. It would be pretty dope. You'd get gay supergirl in this movie. It'd be it would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

I'm not actually gay, but god damn it, do I want some vagina in my face?

SPEAKER_03 58:50

So yeah, yeah. I carry the kryptonite around uh aspirationally.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

One day maybe I'll be gay on my own. And that'll that'll bring its own golden path right there. It's not a choice, people. It's not a choice.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

So magic rocks make you do it.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

Magic rocks make you eat vagina. So there you go, everybody. I'm your host, Ryan Barron North. With me as always, James Graslin. We're high enjoy podcast. Um, I I don't fucking know anymore.

SPEAKER_03 59:23

I don't know either.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

This world confuses me.

SPEAKER_03 59:28

Bye. Bye.