Speaker 1: Hey, big guys, sun's getting real low.
That's what Sam should have said to Ross in Captain America
Brave New World.
Has he not seen Avengers?
Age of Ultron?
I mean, come on, this guy wants to be in Avengers.
So bad, but he's not playing.
But we're going to be talking about Captain America Brave New
World, guys, for episode 123 of Project Geekology, we're going
to get into it.
We're going to get into the nitty gritty of what we liked,
disliked, what worked, what didn't work.
I'm one third of your hosts.
My name is Dakota.
Speaker 2: I'm joined, as always , with Anthony and joining us,
as always is.
Speaker 3: Rich, the guy who's also podcasting with Anthony and
with Dakota.
I just wanted to give people some exposition background to
explain our relationship in case they forgot what our
relationship was like before.
Speaker 1: It's a very difficult relationship to comprehend.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've been estranged for like a whole week,
you know.
So now we're back together.
I mean, I don't know, maybe there's.
Maybe there's a chance, maybe there's hope.
Speaker 1: There's definitely hope for our listeners to you
know, understand and gel with gel with.
You know our podcasting dynamic it's just three dudes, mostly
white, and I'm in a basement and rich is in a basement.
Speaker 2: How you guys been been pretty good, you know, just
, uh, just doing my thing, man doing your thing, I don't like
doing my thing I don't like to hear that we're gonna have to
touch back, touch base on you a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Uh, rich, how you doing uh, pretty good.
Speaker 3: I've been uh still grinding away at mlb the show,
for I just feel like a zombie at this point.
I think I need to put it down there how far are you along in
mlb?
Speaker 1: the show like how, like percentage wise how many of
the cards have you collected that you need to collect?
What?
Speaker 3: you want to collect.
I don't know how it works so, like you, uh, one thing you can
do is you close out every team.
So I've closed out like 24 franchises out of 30, so the
only ones.
You know I don't spend any money , so that's one problem.
And the other issue, like the otani card is 650 000 uh stubs
they call it all right.
Uh, I currently have 50.
I've spent some.
I bought juan soto.
I bought, like you know, which.
He was like 200 or no, he was 150, 000 stubs and I thought
that was a lot.
And then just, I looked to see iron judge and otani and they're
upwards of 700 to 1000.
I I don't know how I'm ever gonna get there until the prices
drop on those cards is otani still the highest he's the
highest rated regular card.
They they had to kind of change the game around because last
year they basically started releasing 99s way too early and
so they had to kind of slow that down.
So the cards that are coming out now are, you know, decent in
power, but there's still a lot that's behind paywall stuff.
And then you know, once you collect all those like regular
cards, you trade them in for like a rare card and then that
rare card goes into the set for each division and then each
league and then the league overall, and then you can get
the one card that's the top card in the game, and of course he's
a New York Met, former New York Met, carlos Beltran.
So here in the past the top card is not a Met.
I don't care, I'm like I'm'm just gonna get my mets and I can
forget about the rest of it because the top card is a met
this year I have to do everything in my power to get
that card so beautiful that's it is um, you know, my season
doesn't really start until about june, uh, end of june, so once
school's over and also charlie's going to school for two weeks
in july, oh boy, oh boy, those are, uh, those are like eight,
ten hour gaming days so, of the sevens, of the seven franchises
that you have not completed, the dodgers, the yankees and the
mets are among no.
The Mets.
I did everything I could to get that one done, basically as
soon as possible.
Speaker 1: So, like I, oh, so you have the top card.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I got some of them.
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were still trying to.
Speaker 3: Oh, no, that's the one that I kind of sold
everything out for.
I just went hard for that card.
I understand I understand, okay .
Speaker 1: Okay, so Yankees and Dodgers, you still have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're, they're a pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I hear you, bro, I hear you.
Speaker 3: If I just spent some money?
If I just spent some money, I'd be no problem, but I can't look
myself in the mirror.
Speaker 1: You know, anthony, ever since Rich has joined the
podcast this is, you know it's become a weekly recap of
everything baseball.
How do you feel?
Speaker 2: I don of everything baseball.
How do you feel?
I don't know, you know, we, we might have to, uh, you know,
separate you guys into a baseball podcast.
You know?
Speaker 3: and wait.
Hold on, I'm gonna bring it back to geekdom because uh this
week.
You know what they gave out at city field three times.
They gave it out three times.
This is I've never.
The item was so popular last year that people were lined up
outside the stadium two hours before the game started.
Their lines were starting, backed up to the subway and it
was for one hot item.
Tell me hello kitty in a mets uniform.
And they outdid themselves because this year they did it
three days in a row that's how about that, Anthony?
That's pretty impressive.
Did that raise?
Speaker 2: your interest in baseball.
So was it just Hello Kitty or was it like the rest of the
Sanrio ensemble?
Speaker 3: Sadly, they do limit it to only Hello.
So they did Hello Kitty, three days, bobbleheads and the New
York City Connect jerseys, their third kind of jersey.
Speaker 2: Is this how you're going to try to pull Dakota into
the fold?
Sadly, he has pulled my wife with this.
Speaker 1: Hello Kitty bobblehead yeah no he definitely
has.
No, yeah, my wife was talking about the Hello Kitty bobblehead
that he brought to work.
I do want to talk a little bit about baseball because I'm a
little bit salty.
This week we had a real as a Yankee fan.
We had a really, really horrible game.
It was a truly momentous upset.
I got to bring it up, you know.
I got to talk about it.
So last year we lost the World Series.
It was against the Dodgers and, as they do, they have a rematch
somewhere down the line in the year and we got to face off
against the Dodgers again.
This year they won the series, but the last game in the series
I think they won by like it was like 18 runs to two and the only
two runs were like home runs from aaron judge, which is like
it's good.
It's good for him, but it's it's just bad.
It's a bad look for the team letting 18 runs through it was
such that's crazy.
Speaker 2: yeah, that like I mean, with the way like I've
seen how scores in baseball are and it's, you know, it's very
similar to, I guess it like sits .
Maybe the scoring is a little bit above the amount that you
would see in, maybe like soccer or hockey, but most of the time
it's what like four, five you know, runs, yeah, five runs per
team per game.
Right.
Speaker 1: So, like you know, if you're seeing anybody getting
like 18 in baseball, like even I know that's crazy, that's a
blowout, it's psychological yeah , not like the Yankees were
psychologically like traumatized from the World Series, clearly
because there's literally not been a game this season where
they've gotten 16 less runs than the other team.
It was bad, it was just really bad.
Speaker 3: At least they did it on the road.
I happened to go to a Red Sox game where they lost to the
Toronto Blue Jays.
I believe the score was 27-4.
It got to the point where the Red Sox fans were cheering for
the Blue Jays to score more because they wanted to be there
for the biggest blowout game in the history of baseball, you
know.
So at least you guys did it.
Look, I mean, clearly I did mock a few people when I saw the
score and the fact that Shoei Otani it seemed for about a
couple seconds like nodded off, like he was so bored, like he
had his arms on the like.
He's on the bench or by the fence and he like put his head
down.
Speaker 1: Let's put it this way Shohei Otani from the Dodgers
is now the leading home run hitter for the entire game, the
entire baseball franchise, at 23 home runs this season, where
Judge is now below him at 21.
But Judge is still the best hitter in terms of just batting
average.
But that's yeah, anyway, let's just.
I'm so sorry, guys.
You guys have been listening to us like ramble for the past
like eight minutes about baseball.
We're going to cut it out.
No more baseball, this podcast, rich, anything else you've been
up to this week.
Speaker 3: That's really kind of just been focused on that.
And yeah, since I'm limited, that's no more, no more Rich.
Yeah, that, uh, and uh, yeah, since I'm limited, I that's no
more, no more, yeah, no, that's it.
I guess, uh, I'll just have to leave it, uh, you know, for for
another time, for next week.
It's a long season, boys, it's a long grind, don't worry, we'll
be back, just like hambone hambone, the great hambino oh,
okay, came back.
Speaker 1: That's the last thing I'll do.
This does tie into the Sandlot episode that we did a couple
weeks back.
They brought the great Hambino one of the characters from the
Sandlot to a not a major league game, but a game.
Yeah when he played with the Savannah Bananas.
Yes, savannah Bananas A team I had not heard of before.
Speaker 3: They're wild.
If you guys haven't seen anything, if you had not heard
of before, they're wild.
If you guys haven't seen anything, if you've never heard
of the Savannah Bananas, you don't need to like baseball at
all to enjoy their antics.
I would sincerely recommend their games are sold out.
They actually travel all over the country.
Their games are sold out.
They basically play a hybrid baseball league.
They're like the Harlemlem globetrotters they dance and
they sing and there's mascots and and characters from the
sandlot just showing up randomly .
So it's, it's really.
It's different.
It's not baseball, it's, it's an.
It's an entertainment show that that is centered around the
game of baseball loosely.
Speaker 1: Rich, you're cut off again.
Anthony, we're bringing it over to you.
What have you been up to this week?
Speaker 2: All righty.
So we're going to move from discussing baseball for eight
minutes to discussing hockey for another eight minutes.
Speaker 3: Yes, let's go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've got the Florida Panthers.
They're in the Stanley Cup for the third time in a row.
Speaker 1: Are they actually?
Speaker 2: They're the only Florida team that's repping.
You know any talent, honestly, I mean so really like nothing
crazy going on this week.
You know watching this movie for a second time, you know mean
we'll, we'll talk about it later, but hold on.
Speaker 1: Anthony I, I I distinctly remember you texting
the group chat that you were going to see another movie this
week no, no no I didn't see anything.
Speaker 2: Now it's okay.
Yeah, man.
Uh, you know this ties into another episode that we did a
while back.
Speaker 1: Uh this is pre-rich lilo and steech.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we did watch.
Uh, I did watch lilo and steech and and when you, when you had
mentioned the end, I was like you know, we're getting towards
the end, I'm like this is pretty much the same thing until like
the end and happened, and I was like, okay, you know, I, I can,
I can see like where, where, like some of the gripes were
with that, but I mean, other than that, for the most part, I
think that they did a pretty decent job with, like the rest
of the movie what I'll say about the the end of the live action
lilo and steech um I can't keep it going, because that's what we
called it so, uh, background for those of you who don't know,
if you haven't listened to our lilo and siege episode, we
pronounce it lilo and siege throughout the entire episode
pretty much, and for some reason it was huge with friends, with
with french audiences, like he uh it got like 900 a thousand
views or listens in French within the first week it was
bonkers in France.
Yeah, that's how they also pronounce it Lilo and Steech it
must be.
Speaker 1: Anyway, lilo and Steech, what I will say about
the ending of that movie without spoiling anything.
If you see that on paper, if you see that written online what
the ending changed it to, without like the context of the,
the way that the movie handles it, I can totally see why you
would be really upset by that and, um, you know, be angry
about it online and all that.
But it's definitely the best possible ending for that movie
within the context of it.
So I mean, do you agree with that, anthony?
Speaker 2: I um, I mean they could have gone the original
route and it still would have like made sense, but I I mean
what they were kind of presenting like throughout the
movie.
It was kind of headed towards that way.
You know, I mean dakota and I are kind of dancing around it,
because I don't think you haven't seen it right, rich.
Oh, I read about it, oh yeah, I spoke myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't think it's worth spoiling
the audience, cause it is like if you hear it from us it'll
sound worse than it actually is.
Speaker 2: Just see it for yourself, it's it's actually not
like most of most.
It hit pretty much like most of the beats and there were enough
changes to make it feel like fresh enough that uh, yeah, that
I mean I I feel like it could have ended the the original way
and it still would have made sense, but they were kind of
like going the route of that ending like throughout the movie
.
So I mean, but I mean overall I enjoyed it.
I thought it was a fun movie.
It there was a lot of like heartfelt moments in it and, you
know it, it still had, I I would say like what, what kind
of like what you were saying about, like you know it being a
potential, like you know, good live action.
I mean, when you think about the last, I think maybe few live
actions that they've had, they've just really missed the
mark.
But this one at least does well enough to capture the story and
keep it fresh.
Speaker 1: I totally agree.
As far as what I've been up to this past week, I feel like I
did something that's worthy of being discussed in this show,
and I've been wrecking my brain for the past five, ten minutes
because I knew my turn was coming up.
But I can't remember and it'll probably pop up in my head as
I'm editing this episode.
Speaker 3: Marvel timeline.
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything crazy going on.
Some news for those of you who watch Doctor who we have a new
doctor.
It's not Chudi got one anymore, it's uh potentially billy piper
, who was a who played rose, was the original companion of the
ninth doctor.
So very crazy uh news.
I'm not sure if I like it, um I don't.
Yeah, I saw that I, I don't know , I don't know what they're
doing over there.
I haven't been watching uh doctor who for a couple seasons,
so I'm, I'm, I'm definitely behind.
I, I missed pretty much the entirety of the shooty got web,
uh, you know thing for, except for like two, two episodes maybe
, but yeah, dude, I missed most of after capaldi.
Speaker 2: I think I watched like a couple episodes after him
and yeah, that was it yeah, I didn't stick with it yeah, rich.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you watch doctor who at all, but um
no, I I do know, you know, I know the broad strokes of what
it is.
I know that david tenet was a doctor who I believe, if that's
correct.
I know there's the targus and I know like that much essentially
.
I kind of in my head it's kind of like a quantum leap, but he
gets to pick where he goes and yeah, somewhat I never sunk my
teeth into it and then generally I've heard.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting premise.
Yeah, it's an interesting premise.
It's basically like he's an alien who, uh, can travel
through time and space with the tardis and he picks up strays,
most normally from earth, um, strays meaning like companions
and you know they.
They go on little adventures and some of them are really
crazy, some of them are really corny.
Some of them are really corny, some of them are, I don't know.
Anyway, there's some really good episodes in there and
there's some really not good episodes in there.
But that's kind of the joy of the series.
It's not, like you know, excellent every week.
It's kind of like pick and choose what you like.
But yeah, I haven't watched.
I watched the first season of Jodie whittaker.
The, the first female doctors run.
Oh and when, when, when one of the doctor dies, they are reborn
into a new actor, basically, which has kept the show's
longevity for 50 plus 60 plus years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, say that again.
Like dax from uh curzon, dax from the space nine, like they
just keep like the, so they have all the memories of, like the
previous doctor who?
Or are they completely like reborn?
Speaker 1: yeah, tabla rasa yeah , I guess it is a little bit
like dax.
Yeah, a little bit.
Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a new, it's like a literal
reincarnation of the character oh, but um yeah, yeah it's, it's
interesting, but anyway, um, they recast the doctor as one of
the previous companions from 15 , almost 20 years ago at this
point, and it was very random, so nobody really knows.
Oh no, it was 20 years ago because 2005,.
Yeah, 2005 was the first episode of the reboot of Doctor
who.
Speaker 2: Wow, 20 years ago that I mean so that that wasn't
the first time that they had pulled a previous like actor
from the show, because, remember , peter capaldi was like in a
previous episode, like he was um , he was in like that pompeii
episode, but this one was way different because this was like
an actual.
This was a main character, right, this was a main um and
like she, she was around like during, during, it's like it's
infancy, yeah, the first couple seasons, yeah yeah, she was up,
she was in it and during its upswing, so so it's.
Speaker 1: it's a weird choice to um promote that she is going
to be the next Doctor, but I don't think that she actually is
based on the credits of that episode.
It did never say that, you know , introducing Billy Piper as the
Doctor, which for the entirety of like since Christopher
Eccleston, david Tennant, matt Smith, capaldi Whitaker and
Shudy Gatwa, they have all said introducing this actor as the
Doctor, and in the credits of this it just said introducing
Billy Piper.
So I think it's just a gimmick to get people involved and
they're going to backtrack it.
But we'll see.
I do hope that she is not the Doctor, just because I don't
want any more gimmick stuff going into the show.
It doesn't make any sense.
It kind of annoys me.
Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on it.
Guys, we're talking about a MCU title this week.
We don't talk about MCU too much on Project Ecology.
Speaker 2: Rich, you've never talked about it.
We do from time to time.
Speaker 1: We do from time to time.
Yes, I don't know, Honestly, probably less than five times
we've done an MCU title Rich.
I think this is the first time you've talked about an MCU title
.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, I think this is the first one, so I'm
pretty excited.
I'm not sure if you guys know much about the MCU Dakota.
Do you have a lot of familiarity with, like, how
things are laid out?
I don't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you what year this takes place.
I couldn't tell you how many months it's been since.
Speaker 3: I saw a date, I thought I got president.
Speaker 1: Thaddeus Ross was inaugurated as president.
I couldn't tell you how long Sam has been Captain America no,
no, I couldn't tell you how long Sam has been Captain
America no, no, I do happen to know a little bit about the MCU.
I'll be honest, anthony.
What's your relationship to the MCU?
Speaker 2: My relationship to the MCU.
Oh man, I don't know, it's a semi-fan.
Speaker 3: That's fair.
Speaker 2: No, I was a fan.
I would say I was a fan until after Endgame and then now it's
just been a rollercoaster of semi-good things to really bad
things.
Speaker 1: I'm going through the list of topics that we've
covered in the past.
We've actually covered quite a bit of, you know, I would say,
recent MCU ish titles Our second episode, sorry, our third
episode we did Black Panther.
Speaker 3: When did you guys do Love and Thunder?
That's a good question, have we ?
Speaker 1: not done, love and Thunder.
Speaker 2: Because I don't think that movie really exists.
We did.
Speaker 1: Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Speaker 2: We did, we did, we did one division shang chi.
Speaker 1: What if eternal spider-man no way home?
I'm just going through the list .
Hold on hold, on hold.
On guardians of the galaxy, volume three, we skipped the
first two.
Third one is a good one and I believe that was the last one,
except for, uh, deadpool and wolverine.
I think that was deadpool and wolverine was the last one that
we did.
Speaker 3: I don't think we did a wandavision one actually yeah,
I'm pretty sure we did, did we?
Speaker 2: I feel like we did all right.
Well, that's a mandela, that's.
Speaker 1: That's the mandela effect going on.
Guys, what uh?
Is this the first time you're watching this movie?
Is this the second time or the third time you're watching this
movie?
Speaker 3: for me it was the first time I saw it in theaters
and I I think I had pre-seen it in theaters.
Then I saw it in theaters.
Then I watched it two times before this episode two times.
Speaker 1: Okay, anthony, hit it .
How many times have you seen um ?
Yeah?
Speaker 2: I had ended up seeing it in theaters and, yeah, this
was like my second time, I think seeing that movie in theaters
is what kind of like just derailed me from even caring
about seeing an mcu movie in the theaters now okay, yeah, I, I
was already a little bit derailed prior to this movie.
Speaker 1: There's never been an mcu movie where I didn't see it
twice in theaters.
But uh, this was the first one, because I hadn't seen it at all
in theaters.
I, I just didn't care anymore, I guess.
Um, so this was, this was the first and only time I've seen
this movie, so I'm, I'm, I'm riding on gut instincts,
basically.
Basically, anthony, tell me your thoughts.
You said that this movie derailed you from the MCU.
Was there any positives to this ?
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, there is some positives to it.
I mean I do like Anthony Mackie and I do like Sebastian Stan.
I do like their characters.
I just feel like they.
I don't know.
I just feel like the writers wrote themselves into a corner
and now they just don't know how to write themselves out of the
corner.
They just don't know what they're doing.
They just are kind of trying to I don't know.
It's like the DC effect is happening to them.
They're trying to rush things.
It's like the DC effect is happening to them.
They're trying to rush things.
Honestly, to tell you the truth , I'm more excited to see
Superman than I am any MCU movie that's coming out.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, we'll touch back on that point
later.
Rich, what are your thoughts when you saw this movie?
Like dislike, middling.
Where do you land?
Speaker 3: So I saw it with my son.
He's 10.
It's funny.
Last night I told him that we were going to be recording, so I
asked him what he thought and he summed it up as the movie was
good.
It had some cool effects, but the stakes weren't really high
for me and I didn't really care.
But I like all the characters and I think that that's kind of
I'm I'm not sure.
I almost feel like I'm echoing anthony in this, but I don't
think I am, because I think, anthony, you enjoy going to the
movie theater.
You enjoy the experience a lot more than I do.
I've gotten to the point where I find watching movie at home so
I can pause and go to the bathroom honestly so much more
enjoyable.
Now that I have a son, that as well.
It's just easier.
I don't have to go grab anything for him or miss any of
the movie, because then I get there late and he's got to get
in there and my wife tends to knock out during the movies, so
I spend some of the time waking her up.
It's easier to keep her awake if we're at home.
So for me the movie going experience has become a little
bit more laborious and that means that I really don't.
I want to go to the movies generally for something that I
know I'm going to really enjoy or something that's going to be
big.
And I think that at first the marvel movies were all that.
For a very long time in my life those were the movies that I
went out to see every single time.
And now I am picking and choosing.
I remember I didn't go see a multiverse of madness in
theaters.
I was okay, just uh, watching it from home.
When it came out, I, you know a lot of it's just fomo, it's.
It got to the point where it's not that I wanted to see the
movies, it's that I didn't want to fall behind on what was
happening in the movie.
And I think that this is kind of the same thing.
Like, look, put this on Disney and I'm totally cool.
Like you know, I don't have to go out to the theater, I would
enjoy it.
You know I'd be like, oh, that was a nice little movie, you
know, whereas I'll be honest, and we haven't talked about it
yet, but I don't think you've seen it, dakota.
I don't think you've seen it, dakota, but thunderbolts I liked
a lot more, you know.
And like I would have said, okay.
I'm almost okay with spending the money on that kind of like.
I did with guardians the first time.
I was like I don't really know this group, but I'm going to
take a chance and see.
You know how I like them together.
And so this was.
It felt like it was lacking something.
It, the the antagonist, is a little muddied and unclear and
kind of obfuscated.
So I think that my 10 year old's assessment of the lack of
a threat being it didn't really ever feel like there was no
point.
We were talking about this a couple weeks ago when we, uh,
when we were talking about you know and or like, there were
points where I was on the edge of my seat like, oh, my goodness
, and this is supposed to be an edge of you know political
thriller, and there was never a time where I was worried about
anybody.
I wasn't worried about anything happening ross, I wasn't
worried about anything with cap.
I wasn't.
You know, there was nobody, no, even Joaquin.
Why am I calling him Redbird?
I can't the Falcon?
He, like you know, I wasn't worried about him.
I was like, oh no, he's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: There was no.
Oh no, he's out of this match.
He'll be in the next one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, next one, yeah, like I didn't.
I I think that maybe if we would have gotten more than ross
telling cap I want you to reform the avengers, right, like
if we would have had some movement towards that, maybe at
the end you get a couple of other people showing up uh, yeah
, is that like cameoing us so that it's more exciting?
Yeah, and guess and guess what, I don't care.
Like these are supposed to be steps to the bigger movie.
Right, these are the mini steps to the bigger piece.
So this is all heading towards Doomsday and I'm excited about
Doomsday and I think that one of the things that the other
movies did in the other phases when they built up was they gave
us a little bit more of the team building.
And falcon, winter soldier and cap being in the same movie, it
feels like an extension of winter.
So, captain, american winter soldier, right, or falcon and
winter soldier, like that's.
It just feels like an extension of that rather than a tentpole
marvel movie yeah, okay, no, I, I totally get that.
Speaker 1: So, uh, touching on what you said about thunderbolts
, you know being the better film or the one worth, you know
spending the money on in theaters.
I I put on twitter that.
You know.
The next thing that we're going to be covering is captain
america, brave new world, and a lot of the people who follow me
on Twitter know that I have been staying away from the MCU for a
little bit and they're like what are you doing, man, watch
Thunderbolts instead.
And I'm like this is what we decided to choose for the
podcast.
I'm not just going to just randomly change it up and talk
about Thunderbolts on our Brave New World podcast.
So there was a lot of that online today or you know, the
past week.
But, yeah, no, I do think that I will like Thunderbolts more
when I see it.
I might even love it, I don't know, but I'm again, I'm willing
to wait to see it.
Like, at this point, I'm just, I'm not like on the edge of my
seat.
I don't.
I have no fear of missing out right now.
There's nothing you can tell me online.
You can.
You can tell me any character dies.
I will be okay, you know, like that's, that's my level with the
MCU.
Like you can tell me that Falcon kills the aged Steve
Rogers in in Captain America, brave New World, and I will be
like that tracks.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Um, I'm okay with that.
Like I, I don't.
I don't have the emotional stakes anymore in the mcu that I
used to have and I think that that's a problem yeah, well, I
mean it opens you up to more, I guess like artistic direction
with your youtube channel.
Speaker 2: But but I agree with you, dakota.
Honestly, to tell you the truth , I would go even further to say
that if they didn't announce an MCU movie for the next five
years, I wouldn't care.
Like I mean, honestly, to tell you the truth, I'm just like I
am fatigued with the MCU.
I wouldn't say superhero stuff in general, because I mean I
watch anime and there's a lot of like super-powered stuff going
on.
You know I watch my Hero Academia and, like you know
that's superheroes and stuff.
But like I'm just tired of mediocre stuff.
Like stop giving us mediocre stuff.
What is?
It's like they're giving us all of those.
It's like every movie is being written by those, those like
writers that they get during like strikes.
That's what it seems like, that's what these movies feel
like and this one especially does have that vibe.
Speaker 1: What I will say is I'm not averse to new MCU titles
coming out.
I'm not I'm not necessarily, like, opposed to the idea of no
announcements coming out.
I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of no announcements
coming out, but I will say I am excited about the Fantastic Four
movie.
That's probably the only title right now that has any interest
to me, just because it looks unique enough that I will
definitely be giving that a shot and I love the.
I I have, you know, said for a long time that they should have
been in the movies.
You know, ages ago.
You know they.
They have absorbed fox into you know their system over what,
six, seven years ago at this point, and they're just now
getting to making, you know, fox owned properties.
It's, it's actually a crazy timeline.
If fox had bought disney, you know, they would have had, you
know, like five, ten movies out by now.
But because the mcu has so much meat to chew on and they don't,
they don't want to say no to projects, you know they they've
had to, like, push off their plans for, you know, adding the
x-men and the fantastic four, and that sucks because those are
some of the biggest marvel properties ever.
But you know I'm I X-Men and the Fantastic Four and that
sucks because those are some of the biggest Marvel properties
ever.
But you know I'm digressing and we're talking about MCU as a
whole.
We should, you know, dial it back to Brave New World.
Speaker 2: It's so hard to like talk about this movie without
kind of, I guess, expressing your dis.
You know how we're disgruntled with the mcu and kind of like
the I guess the missed missteps that it's like taken, it's
definitely fallen pretty fall.
It's fallen far from the its grace.
You know like it was at one point it was tough, but it was
tough to point out a bad MCU movie and now you could just see
it all over the place.
But yeah, I agree, let's talk a little bit about this,
Something that I noticed.
Speaker 1: Really quickly.
You mentioned that this feels or the MCU movies recently have
felt like it's when writers go on strike, they get like the
non-union writers to come in to, like you know, fix up and patch
it up.
It feels to me like this movie feels to me like they had a
really good premise.
You know, like you take the premise there's a new Captain
America, there's a new president it happens to be Ross America.
There's a new president it's it happens to be Ross, Thunderbolt
Ross.
He's running for president and he's going to turn into the, the
Red Hulk, at some point in in this movie.
Whatever, do your best to make a Captain America like it's.
Imagine putting this in chat, gpt, feed it all the scripts of
the previous movies, type in, you know, write a script for a
captain america 4 featuring sam as the new captain america, and
also, uh, make sure to incorporate, uh, loose tie-ins
that we haven't done yet and also tease an x-men movie coming
forward and that's exactly all.
Like that, those are the three like jumping on points for this
movie, because we have a Captain America movie, we have Ross
back, and then it feels like they're tying in loose ends from
movies that they've forgotten about.
The first movie obviously is Eternals.
There's a big Eternals.
Call out that.
It's been years since they've brought up the fact that there's
a big celestial in the Indian Ocean.
Speaker 2: That's just there I literally said that when, when I
had seen this in the in the movie theater, I was like, oh
wow, they finally bring back this giant celestial being that
is in the ocean.
Like how do you not bring that up?
You know that, like, that thing is like way more massive than
um, like the statue of liberty, like any of the like anything,
yeah, any of the wonders in the world and it's like way bigger
than that.
Speaker 1: That's like the ninth wonder of the world it's like
tall enough where it reaches into space like the hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, like like you see it right there, like
it's like breaking the atmosphere, like in dakota has.
He has the, the, the, uh, the celestial being like as his
backdrop in zoom and like you could see like its hands like
kind of pointing out like out of the atmosphere.
But yeah, like it's insane.
But yeah, like when you said that there is a tie into the
x-men, I noticed that also when they said that this being had
like adamantium in it yeah, I, I previously knew adamantium to
be an alloy, meaning that they mixed it with two different
metals.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's how it is in the comics.
I know that that's how it is in the x-men movies, but uh, yeah,
I was a little bit surprised about that.
I mean, I, I knew, like I had heard the rumors that they were
going to use, you know, the celestial to like be the
producer of adamantium.
But you know what let's, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give my time
over to rich, who is our resident wolverine fan on the
podcast.
Well, he, even he had, for at least as long as I've known him,
and I'm sure it's much longer than that he has shaped his
facial hair to be wolverine-esque yeah, I gotta be
ready for comic con every year.
Speaker 3: I I used to go.
I cosplayed as wolverine one year and my friend said if
you're really dedicated, you know you gotta do this, you to
grow out the beard for the whole year.
Speaker 2: And I went he's got the hugh jackman thing going on
right now.
He's got the yeah, the white tank top.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, sorry, that's just the, that's just the
half cuban in me.
Speaker 2: Uh, this is summertime, half cuban, no no
man come on like what's, what's the other half, canadian logan I
, I, the ital, but uh, I've, I've had this since.
Speaker 3: Uh, since the wolverine came out.
Uh, yeah, right, because it was a summer movie, it was a july
release, so it was between.
Uh, you know, I didn't have to deal with the students the next
day, so I just did something wild.
But uh, I, I won't say that, you know I was.
You know it's sad.
I didn't even get excited, like I knew what it meant, I knew
what they were doing.
But also, I guess part of me is like, I love Hugh Jackman.
He's done the role of great service.
But listen, as a longtime Wolverine fan, as a child who
was offered HGH shots because I was on the we side and my family
was like, hey, maybe you should be taller, the we side, and my
family was like, hey, maybe you should be taller, uh, the guy
who the back of the card said five, three was my favorite
superhero.
That's that's why I attached myself to him at first, and then
everything I found out and I fell in love with him.
I, you know, after watching dead pool and wolverine, I
really enjoyed that movie.
You know, I guess for me it's like I need to see who wolverine
might be next.
You know, for me to get a little bit more excited, like at
this point in my mcu fandom.
I've seen enough of it where just dropping me, oh adamantium
is not gonna send shivers up my spine.
I'm not like, oh, he's coming back, uh, I, because I I don't
know what they're gonna do with it.
You know, I almost feel like they really need to.
I mean, they have they're.
They're just sitting on all this money, like why don't you
just have like tons of of just groups working on this stuff and
and making good stuff all the time?
I don't.
I think part of what there is happening and it's something
that happens with the comics as well is is kind of when they
like reset a little bit right it it takes.
When they do something a little bit different, you know, a lot
of times readership drops, people aren't, aren't as
involved with it or or care as much, and then what ends up
happening is they have to stop making kind of strong narrative
choices to keep the characters where they are right.
And I and I think that's a little bit there's a transition.
I I don't think.
I mean I think that uh, chad boseman passing away was I think
he was going to be like the next centerpiece, in many ways,
of the marvel mcu that's interesting and I think that his
because he was, because he, he was star power, right, like that
black, that black panther movie comes out and it it brought in
a whole new audience, right and and he, he was carrying, he I
think he was one of the major stars and losing him, I think,
was a major blow.
And here I think that this movie just could have had more heroes
to help, to help kind of boost them up a little bit, uh, to get
people excited a little bit more.
You know, I know that there's going to be a different avengers
coming up, so I just would have liked to see a couple of them
in here.
I think it would have.
It would have just made look, I don't think you need to be
subtle anymore that these movies are tying together.
Like I don't think you need to be subtle anymore that these
movies are tying together.
Like I don't think we need a subtle drop, like don't, don't
give me a subtle drop of animantium, like you already
here's the thing, though I don't think this was subtle, I I
really don't think like they.
Speaker 1: They made it a focal point.
Speaker 3: Oh, just give me.
But see, I guess I'm greedy, like I want to see hank mccoy in
that, in that, in that lab, you know, like that you guys showed
us in the marvels, you know, right, okay, I, I, I wanted to
see you know what drive by the mansion.
It's right over here in westchester, we're not far from
it, okay, on gray malkin lane, all right, uh, it's, it's real
close to you.
Know, I've mapped it out from my house, one of the reasons why
I moved to westchester.
Uh, so I, I, just, I, I don't know, maybe that's part of it
also.
It's like I know you're saying it's obvious, but, man, just
it's obvious to you and me, right, it's obvious to anthony,
right, is it obvious to the guy who just goes hey, I'm gonna go
see a captain america movie who's not deep in, are they like
?
Oh, adamantium, that means the x-men are coming.
Speaker 1: I think at this point that average dude knows what
adamantium is and knows the the context behind it you know after
what.
10 different films with wolverine um being either, you
know, like saved by his adamantium or poisoned by it, or
any anything in between that that's just us, dakota.
Speaker 2: That's just us because we watched all those
movies in a row it could be.
Speaker 1: It could be that, um, I I can't deny that fact, but I
I feel like making it wasn't, as it didn't just say that.
You know that this is the celestial, is new land that's
popped up.
It's that they're fighting over what's inside the celestial.
You know it's a new material that has so far been absent from
the earth.
But again, what does it mean?
Like I'm trying to picture what the future of the mcu looks
like from this point and it doesn't make any sense.
So we know that secret invasion or not secret invasion, um,
secret wars is coming up, which is like the end of the
multiverse saga, which is the second major saga after the
infinity saga that encompassed the first three phases of
Marvel's cinematic universe.
The multiverse saga ends with Secret Wars which, spoiler alert
it will bring multiple universes into one.
There will be a type of sentient being, probably Doom,
played by Robert Downey Jr for some random reason, who brings
random worlds together into a battle world scenario where they
will have to literally battle for their world and there will
be, you know, different factions among them.
They will get along or they won't get along and eventually
they'll all come to the conclusion that you know we're
wait a minute, we're on the same side, which is what happened in
the secret wars comic um.
That will happen at the end of the multiverse saga and the
worlds will be rearranged somewhat.
We will have x-men and fantastic four full scale within
the mcu proper.
Will the current mcu be any different?
We don't really know.
Most likely it will, because most of, like, their main cast
has aged out of the roles or are no longer willing to play them.
You know, long term, like we don't have a proper steve rogers
anymore, we don't have.
Well, I guess we do have a thor , but we don't have a black
widow anymore, we don't.
There's a number of characters that have, you know, aged out of
their primary roles and they will need to be recast at some
point if the MCU is going to continue.
So my question is are they going to reboot the universe as
a whole and this celestial will stay and this adamantium will be
the driving point?
Which will, you know, feed wolverine's?
You know exoskeleton, or is he just going to be a new character
from another world who already has adamantium in his skeleton
because he's supposed to be older than all the x-men by
about a century?
It doesn't make any sense to me and I'm just like what is the
point of this easter egg that?
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 3: I'll be furious.
Listen to me, I will be furious , furious if it's just like oh,
we just ran, uh, you know, uh, weapon, the weapon x program,
and in in 2027 because we discovered adamantium.
Now, like I, I will, I will rage, I, I will, I will, I will
lose my mind.
Like part of what I love about Wolverine is that kind of you
know.
Oh man, he was in World War II, you know.
It's cool, you know like that kind of stuff.
I really that he's seen our earth and he's seen our culture
adapt and change and morph and evolve over these years.
He knows our shared history and that's what makes him also
different from everybody else, because he also carries the pain
of the loss that he, I, I, no, no, I, I so do you see my
problem with the adamantium being proposed as a new element
in this movie?
Speaker 1: Like, what is the end goal, you know?
Like if they're going to reboot this, what does it matter that
they bring adamantium in the first place?
And if they don't reboot this, it will be even worse, because
we will suddenly have a Wolverine in the mid-21st
century at this point, who is just being, you know, turned
into wolverine.
It would be terrible.
So maybe are you following along with like our logic, like
is it, is it making sense?
Speaker 2: yeah, no, I, I get what you're talking about.
Uh, I'm thinking that it's probably gonna really sit on the
shoulders of secret wars, that that's probably when some of
these characters are going to come into the fold, you know,
being brought in from another world.
But yeah, no, no, I totally get what you're talking about.
I do want to because, man, we, we've been so focused I know
we're, we're, we're like so meta right now.
Speaker 1: We got to talk about the film itself.
Speaker 2: Right right, right, right Well.
So obviously like Ross is the focal point of like the film you
know, kind of like in the trailers, like you knew that
there was going to be a Red Hulk , but there is also a villain
that's kind of hiding in the shadows.
What are your guys' thoughts of how they portrayed the leader
in this?
Speaker 3: If he's so smart, why didn't he get himself out of
prison?
I don't even he's been.
Ross has been stringing him along like some mistress over
here, saying like don't worry, don't worry, don't worry, after
the kid's graduation I'll get the divorce, but until
graduation we got to stay together.
I just don't understand how I really.
It boggles my mind how I'm supposed to believe that this
man is so smart but he can't just contact someone on Reddit.
He's apparently got internet access.
Like you can't get anybody sent .
Speaker 2: like I don't, I get 15 emails a day from a Nigerian
prince.
See, the thing for me is that it's not that he couldn't break
out of prison.
Speaker 3: He was there very much, so purposefully, like he,
he was but he's like a scorned lover afterwards, right after he
doesn't get what he, like his whole goal was to be free.
Speaker 1: You know, like that was, that was his whole goal.
Speaker 2: Like, well, but but was it?
Was it free from prison or was it free from something else?
Free?
Free from Ross?
Right, because, like the whole thing was him getting back at
Ross for being slighted, and his best bet for that was to be
where he was, because Ross had something that he needed and he
was able to really like, I guess , show the world the monster
that ross is, and so, like, pretty much he, he got what he
wanted.
You know, even though, like I mean, he get beaten down at the
end, he still got what he wanted .
Speaker 1: As far as you know, ross, so I'm, you know I was
sitting thinking about the uh, the leader.
As you know, he samuel stearns.
You know, he's a character that was first introduced in the
incredible hulk, which was the second mcu movie ever, um, in
2008, and they're finally bringing him back in a 2025
movie to play against an actor who's portraying another actor
who has died, and it's too little, too late.
I'm sorry, it's too little, too late.
It's 10 years too late that they bring these characters back
.
You know, and I'm really frustrated by it, because I
don't care about the leader, I don't care about Liv Tyler's, I
don't care about this dynamic that these characters have
anymore, because it's been so long that it didn't matter.
They basically were kind of retconned from the MCU, with
Edward Norton no longer being the Hulk anymore.
You know what I'm saying.
These actors were attached to a previous version of the Hulk
and it became so, uh, distinguished from the rest of
the MCU in terms of, like, how it felt or what was going on.
Besides, you know, of course, um Everett Ross, that these
characters didn't make any sense to bring back anymore, and now
that they're bringing them back, it doesn't make any more.
It literally doesn't make any sense to me.
I have no emotional attachment to them and I'm I was so
surprised that they brought back live tyler and, uh, this
accurate actor who's playing samuel stearns I don't remember
his name, but I, I could not.
Speaker 2: I could not believe that they did that, and I feel
like it was a weird placement though, like because these
characters existed within an incredible hulk film, but then
they brought them back into a captain america film, which I
mean, I agree, it made no sense.
I don't know about you, but when they finally show betty
ross, you know, live, live, tyler.
She looked a little weird, didn't she?
She looked like she was CG, she did.
Speaker 1: Or just heavily filtered.
Heavily filtered, or like obviously she was not present on
set.
You know, like even the voice that they had her speak over the
phone to the president early on the film, it didn't really
sound like her, it sounded like an approximation of her.
Speaker 2: And they promised that that was her.
They said that no, that that was her but I'm like dude that
does not look like her.
Speaker 3: She was on the phone on her way to like the beach
yeah you know, oh, hold on guys, I'll pull over santa monica
boulevard.
There's cars honking and she's just hey dad this is your
daughter
Speaker 1: that was the one who's estranged by.
Speaker 3: By the way, can we just acknowledge?
That they did that.
So like they were just oh, you mean, you're a strange daughter,
the one you haven't talked to, like the way they, uh, would
kind of remind the audience of who betty was was just, and the
fact, weird.
Speaker 1: You know like.
I'm sorry, but like harrison ford does not look like the
previous thunderbolt Ross in the slightest.
They should have kept the mustache.
No, I heard he refused.
I don't know what they were doing.
Speaker 3: No, he refused.
I think that was literally.
I think, if you look, I'm almost positive.
I came across this that the reason that he's clean-shaven is
because Harrison Ford's, like I'm not doing it, he just
refused.
I'm not doing it Okay.
Speaker 1: All right.
Well, I mean.
Harrison Ford gets what he wants .
I can't argue with that logic.
But going back to the leader, samuel Stern's being the villain
in this movie, as much as I can criticize the fact that it's
way too late, I have to agree with Rich here.
He's way too smart to get outsmarted so often, or at least
he, you know.
Like he claims to be so smart that he can calculate every
possibility to you know a percentile chance.
But I think, like only twice in this movie did his like you
know calculations actually like work.
Besides, you know, like the music that he plays, that worked
out a number of times.
But there was a number of scenarios where he's just like
there's a percentile chance that this will happen and you ruined
it.
You didn't do what I wanted you to do and it made me think of
Star Wars Rebels, where you introduce Thrawn, who's a
character known in the novels for being three steps ahead, and
then in Star Wars Rebels rebels , they diminish him to a point
where, like he doesn't get any victories.
But we have to believe that this is some like master genius
at work, because you know that's what the books previously that
are no longer canon have you think, and it gets to a point
where you know, every single time that Thrawn gets outsmarted
, he's just like, uh, yes, this, this works perfectly in my
plans and it's, it's.
It's just a number of those you know like, ah, you've fallen
right into my, my, my, my plans to, you know, be outsmarted
again.
And it.
That's how the leader felt, where, like, everything that
went wrong with him didn't make us feel that he was a smart
villain, even though he was purported to be so.
Okay, in the Winter Soldier, you have the AI algorithm of
Arnim Zola, who is controlling Hydra, you know, from a digital
space.
That was a genius concept that worked perfectly within that
movie.
This felt like such a poor successor, like a poor yeah, it
was a poor successor, like it.
It felt like the same story beats again, but on a much
smaller scale, um, and they tried to make it big by like,
make, like, bringing the whole world into it with.
You know like, uh, inter um, continental politics and stuff.
Man, I I'm sorry I I haven't actually said any nice things
about this movie yet and I I realized, you know, I didn't
hate it.
I liked the concept of it, I liked the ideas that were
introduced.
You know like I like, I like the fact that you know we're
learning more about how the world is shaping up after like,
like, post, snap, post eternals with the celestial.
I like to know what's going on on the like socioeconomics, like
scale.
Um, I want to see how the united states is dealing with
india and and Japan and all that , and how they're fighting over
resources.
I think that's a really, really cool concept, but this did not
showcase that well enough, where it sated any of my questions
and ultimately it felt like I was wasting my time.
It was so rote.
It felt like an AI script had been written and filmed In the
beginning of the movie.
When Captain America saves the day from that church, from
Giancarlo Esposito, there's that scene where he's talking to a
number of army generals and I've never seen in an MCU movie two
actors who are so clearly not listening to the other actor but
waiting for the other actor to finish their lines before their
next line, like it was just like I say ABC and you say you say
DEF, and then I I say g h, I.
That that's how that scene played out, and there was a
number of scenes in this movie where you could just tell the
actors were waiting for the other actor to finish their
lines before they jumped in with their line and it didn't feel
like acting, it just felt like reading from a script and it it
really bothered me, man, like there was, there was a lot in
this movie that like could have been cool conceptually but fell
so far from the mark um, that you know, like I, I I've have
loved from the mcu and right I don't know like it
Speaker 2: fell it fell short, no, no, but I mean, like the
thing is, is that like that's the the whole thing and that's
how?
That's how we ended up on that whole tangent prior to this
discussion is because, you know, this is what I'm talking about
with the mcu, like taking missteps.
This is a misstep and this is why, you know, I mean, obviously
there there had been.
I mean, for a while I would say that you know, I I hadn't
really felt the push to go see a , an mcu film, but like,
definitely, after seeing this, I'm like, dude, I really just
don't care at this point.
And this is where I'm like, you know, I mean, yeah, I'll
probably go and see the fantastic four, just because
that is like a Fox IP.
But you know that that's what I'm saying.
Like, for me, I won't.
I wouldn't care if they didn't, if they said that they were
taking like a five, like a five year hiatus on making movies.
I would not.
I really it wouldn't bother me it would actually give us a time
.
Speaker 1: Huh, did you watch Thunderbolts?
Speaker 2: Uh, Did you watch Thunderbolts?
No, not yet.
Yeah, not yet.
Speaker 1: We'll have to cover that when it comes to Disney+.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll look into it and I mean I'm pretty sure
that I'll like it, but I'm also fairly certain that it's still
not going to live up to that quality that we're used to.
We'll probably like it a lot more than this.
But the fact that we, you know, the fact that you're stacking
that up to a movie like this and you're saying like, yeah,
that's the better movie, it's not, it's you know, it's you,
you're punch, it's at like a different, like you know, just
weight class, you know that that's probably a welterweight
and this is a lightweight, you know do you guys read comics
like now?
Speaker 3: do you have you guys been reading comics last couple
years?
Speaker 1: the past year.
No, so I prior to that I have.
I have been reading, I I was reading pretty regularly yeah.
Speaker 3: So I was reading, like lots of marvel stuff for,
like I'd say, a strong 10 years where I was reading 15 comics,
20 comics a week, uh, and I was reading almost every title.
Uh, there there was almost I I would.
I would honestly just have to kind of open it and not like the
artwork to not give it a chance .
I didn't.
You know, that's why I ended up enjoying squirrel girl so much,
because I gave it a shot when I normally wouldn't have before.
Squirrel girl is awesome, yeah, no, it really is.
And I just wonder if, like you know, there are those lulls,
there are those times where I I don't particularly like, uh, a
story arc or something, but I I kind of just hang on and and
part of the allure is almost like the characters are always
there, right, they're always there to come back to, like
that's the comfort, right, it's not.
It's not like I go back, because every time I'm I'm
really enjoying it.
Almost it's like it's part of my, the fabric of my universe.
Is that the I care about these characters and even if I'm a
little disinterested, I still kind of hang on.
And I know, when I was a kid I didn't care, I just kept reading
for years and years and you know, as long as I had the money
I was reading comics.
So the only break I the only reason I really took a break was
I was just a broke early 20 year old.
So when I started having more money I started buying comics
again.
I I wonder if we're just at that point like in the mcu, where
it's just like there's so much to tell and they're just kind of
lulls a little bit.
I don't, we're never gonna get, we're never.
I don't think we're ever gonna get the feeling of seeing steve
rogers and iron man and captain america I mean, I'm sorry, uh,
captain America, iron man, thor, black Widow, you know, all
together and like that, that hype, that feel that like, oh,
my goodness, I can't believe we're seeing this Like, what can
they really do at this point?
That is going to wow us again.
I almost feel like.
I know they're adult movies, but it's like a kid's franchise
almost, where you just keep going because they're the
characters are there.
I don't know, I know that sounds like I'm making excuses.
Speaker 1: No, that's a good point.
Yeah, the idea of the first Avengers movie.
Nowadays it happens a couple times a year, but back in 2012,
when they first brought those franchises together, there had
been nothing.
Nothing like that to a degree and and a success.
There had never been a success like that prior to that point,
where, like it was the, it was greater than the sum of its
parts in terms of, like, how much the box office, you know,
uh, picked up after that and it just steamrolled into what.
What ended up happening?
Uh, with endgame.
You know what was it?
Speaker 3: 18, 19 films later yeah, you know, I don't know if
you guys like, when street fighter the movie came out it
was not great, you know, but it was like the first time that my
friends and I were like, oh man, it's the video.
Look, there's vega and there's m bison, and like we were just
happy to see them on the screen, like our, our standards were so
low.
Like, go back and watch street fighter it's.
It's a rough movie, you know, but I think it was just the
novelty, and the novelty is worn off and and, and, and they're.
They've played their card with their bit, with their biggest,
most exciting characters, and they're they're, you know.
I think that hopefully you're right, dakota, that we get this
reboot.
But what is that even going to mean?
Is it a reboot for fans?
Is it a new entry point for a new generation of kids to come
in?
Because I don't know if this is almost like a cyclical.
I don't know if this is some sort of cycle where you'll get
into it, you'll really enjoy that phase and then you phase
out.
I don't know if this is some sort of cycle where you'll get
into it, you'll really enjoy that phase and then you phase
out.
I don't know.
Speaker 1: No, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, I think the issue is time .
It doesn't work the same way that comics do, where you can
pick up a comic at any point and the characters are roughly the
same age as they were 20 years ago.
It doesn't work like that in real life, with real acting.
You're going to have to change actors eventually, especially if
you want to keep reusing the characters.
But as it stands currently, we're in a phase where we're now
treating the sidekicks of characters as the main
characters and we're trying to make the sidekicks of the
sidekicks just regular sidekicks .
At this point, um and that's that's a big part of why, like
falcon and the winter soldier didn't really do anything for me
, because or sorry, not falcon and the winter soldier, captain
america, brave new world um, it's because we've had sam
wilson be this sidekick character for several films.
At this point he had his own TV show and all that with Winter
Soldier, and in that TV show we're introduced to Joaquin
Torres, who plays the sidekick's sidekick, and in this movie he
gets bumped up to regular sidekick and he's trying to take
on the role of the Falcon, who is the second to Captain America
.
And I guess my issue with that is why not just make the Falcon
its own like top tier like.
Why not make the Falcon its own like top tier hero?
I'm not.
I'm not suggesting that.
I don't think it's a good idea for cap or for sam wilson to be
captain america, but denigrating falcon as a lesser hero to
captain america like this is a tiered system that you have to
like, level up to gives the whole sidekick thing meaning and
lessens the roles for future sidekicks down the line.
If that makes any sense, it's just.
It's just like you said.
It's a cyclical thing where, like, you level up sam wilson to
captain america, but now who's going to be the falcon, who's
going to be the sidekick to the new captain america?
well, it's the, the sidekick to the falcon.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's, it could be like an evolution in a way,
because like it's so, so like, think about, like batman or
robin right, it's hard to see robin as, like you know,
somebody other than a sidekick to batman, but then when he
becomes nightwing, you're like, okay, now, like it's like this,
this character is his own hero, you know it's, he's like his own
, it's like batman, but like different, you know.
And so I, I totally agree with you.
So like, maybe not as the falcon, but like you know, say
that.
So I, I totally agree with you.
So like, maybe not as the Falcon, but like you know, say
that Sam Wilson was the Falcon and he stayed the Falcon.
You know, instead of, yeah, him being a sidekick character,
there could have been like an evolution of that character.
Maybe you know there could be an evolution for that character
with, uh, joaquin Torres.
But you know, honestly, to tell you the truth, like, and it, I
like that you brought up the Falcon and Winter Soldier.
Honestly, to tell you the truth , I like that show more than I
like this movie.
Speaker 3: I thought you said the F in Winter Soldier and I
was like, whoa, this is very powerful, anthony, I don't know
if you were reading at this time , but there was a point in time
where, essentially, amadeus Cho became Hulk, jane Foster became
Thor, sam Wilson became Captain America, right, uh, and I think
there was.
There was another one, uh, but oh, Riri Williams came out as
kind of Ironheart, right and and , and I think, uh, miss, and,
then right, I mean, right around the same time, I think, miss
Marvel, uh, kamala Harris, uh, not Kamala Harris, kamala Khan,
kam, come on, came around, and for me kamala khan was the only
one that really stuck and, and maybe that's because I I had
less of an established version or vision in my head of miss
marvel overall, but that was a rough time for marvel, like the
fans were not happy and you know , and it was.
They were trying to take the ip or the hero's name and put
somebody else there and make it work.
And, anthony, to your point, the thing that Marvel didn't do
was they didn't have this person be a new person, they had this
person try to be the person that people knew as somebody else.
And yeah, you know what that maybe worked with Ghost Rider,
but I don't think you can't just pull that off with marquee
characters, right, and I think that's part of the issue also is
that some audiences you know, yeah, you're learning that Sam
Wilson and look, I like the Sam Wilson part, I do.
But you could even see that they did it a little bit with,
they did that storyline a little bit in Thor, love and Thunder
or no is it Love?
Speaker 1: and with with?
Speaker 3: uh, you know and and they did and look it's, it's the
movies.
It's weird, but it's the movies where they're almost kind of
like replacing some of these characters where people are less
than enthused because you know that that's that lack of
investment.
You know, and and and dakota, you said it before.
You said, time's the issue where you just pick up and put
down a comic.
But the other problem is, is that time's an issue also with
the actors?
Right, comics freeze time.
The characters don't have to age, and they do here and, as
you've chronicled very, in a very detailed way, part of the
other problem is this damn continuity, right, where,
because you got, uh, people paying attention to dates and
and they have to be, they have to do things that make sense and
they're they're kind of getting themselves trapped because of
the constraints of time and and space that comics don't have to
inhabit.
Speaker 1: I've I've come up with a like reviewing method
that I don't always employ for everything, but if I'm if I'm
like trying to be really critical about something, um, or
I'm trying to understand why it worked or why it didn't, I'll
employ it.
And it's actually influenced heavily by thanos's infinity
gauntlet, it's's the six infinity stones.
You know they focus on different aspects of you know
you got reality, mind, time, space and so on and so forth.
And if you take those concepts, say time, let's just focus on
time, because that's a big part of what I do with my YouTube
channel is focus on, like the.
That's a big part of what I do with my YouTube channel.
It's focused on the timelines and continuity and stuff.
You can pinpoint how well a movie realizes time, because
time is a concept that is encompassed in every single
story ever told.
If you say a sentence that this person went here and then he
went here, that's a story and it has a linear like one, two and
three.
You know like time is an integral part of that story and
it's a part of every story.
And then you have space.
You know, like another way you can visualize this is in I'm
going to bring up Star Wars, obi-wan Kenobi.
There's a lot of visual aid to the idea that space is very
important, because what you can see on camera may not translate
to what the script actually entails.
So there's several scenes in the visual of Obi-Wan Kenobi
where you can say wait a minute, those characters can just walk
around that obstacle.
That's on-screen space.
You can review, you can critique this piece based on the space,
the spatial awareness of the actors, the direction and the
way that the script unfurls.
You can review things on a scale of reality.
You can say that this is realistic because in this
universe this makes sense, because in XYZ episode of Doctor
who they've already established that this happens.
So this has always been a possibility in this episode.
So you can't really argue that point.
So you can bring reality as it, as it works within that
universe, into this.
You know world or you can keep going with this logic.
You know Mind Stone.
You can bring real, real world calculations into things.
You can.
Soul Stone, you can.
Speaker 2: You can bring in like real world or like
relationships between characters yeah, man, it's, it's going,
it's it's going rough for the, uh, the mcu these days.
I just, I don't know, man it's.
You know, like, like, I'll agree with you about, you know,
a little bit of the excitement with the fantastic four.
But you know, I mean I still I think I'm going into that one
cautiously, optimistic, and usually when I go into something
like that that seems promising.
You know I'm I'm proven wrong.
You know I the, you know live action one piece.
You know I went to that one cautiously, like, you know, not
too sure it ended up being a lot better than I thought.
Speaker 1: You're excited about Superman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, it looks good man.
To me it looks good, and it's been a while since we've had a
solid DC film.
The thing is that we need DC to succeed so that Marvel gets
better.
When there's no competition, you could just throw out
whatever crap, you Just whatever .
Speaker 1: People will just go to see it.
Competition breeds creativity, so I do agree about that.
I don't know why I was talking about my Infinity Gauntlet
ranking system just now.
Speaker 3: What?
Maybe you saw that was wrong.
That didn't work in this movie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm not going to go into all that.
I was just, you know, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is and
can be, a creative genius.
It can be a realm of, you know, creative possibility.
There are so many characters for it to play with and, unlike
Andor, which we covered a couple weeks back and we're going to
cover next week spoiler alert are we no I thought we were
waiting two more years.
We're gonna wait two more years uh, no, I'm kidding, we're
covering it next week.
Uh, and our season two episodes , one through six, unlike andor,
which, when backed into a corner of continuity or like you
know, like they get backed into a corner of canon.
They thrive there.
When you back sam wilson, as they get backed into a corner of
canon, they thrive there.
When you back sam wilson as captain america into a corner of
canon in the mcu, it doesn't make any sense.
Sorry, I'm like losing my voice .
Speaker 3: I think, I think and I'm not sure if it's whoever's
overseeing everything, uh, but I feel like the star wars writers
that are hired and maybe I might be, I might be way off,
maybe they're just very good at what they do, but I feel like
they know it so well.
There's something about that, and I wonder how many people
working on this project know these characters so sometimes
you need somebody to think outside the box.
Speaker 2: Remember we were talking about how the rogue one
director who is also over and or , really was not a star wars fan
and really was not all about that that uh, you know that
series, you know that world, but he wrote it differently.
He wrote it as it was.
It was themed as, like rogue one, was a war movie.
It was a straight-up war movie but it happened to be set in the
star wars universe and that's what a lot of marvel movies
thrived in there were.
There were themed movies that just happened to be in the mcu,
like one one that I really liked .
That was the winter soldier.
That was a, that was a spy, that was like a spy thriller
film but in the mcu.
And so the that's what we got with andor and I think that that
a lot of the mcu needs to kind of go back to that, like you
know.
Go back to.
I mean, I know that this one could, you could consider this
one like a political film, but they were still trying to do too
much on a grander scale that it just didn't work for this film
what was up with the leader randomly saying I'm the hero,
like in all your infinite wisdom , you cannot tell that you're
the villain?
Speaker 1: I I was.
I was really like boggled at that line choice uh by the, by
the writers.
But yeah, I, I to go along with what you're saying, anthony the
, uh, the mcu has marvel parliament.
The MCU has Marvel Parliament versus Star Wars having the
Lucasfilm Story Group.
The Marvel Parliament is basically just a bunch of
producers who meet together regularly to discuss what the
latest is on each of their respective projects, because
they do group things up into different.
You know like you get these films, you get these shows
whatever.
You know like you get these films, you get these shows
whatever.
The Lucasfilm Story Group has members for each section of
continuity, whether it's concept art or timeline or the way
creatures are portrayed on screen and on the page.
Speaker 2: And you know, like there's there's a way, way, way
more attention to detail within like continuity within the
Lucasfilm Story Group than there ever will be within Marvel
Parliament, as, as the you know, the way it stands currently.
So I think that's part of the issue, yeah, man.
So you know, we're kind of we're kind of getting a little
bit deep in there.
Uh, let's get some last minute thoughts on this movie rich, how
about?
You rich, throw it, throw it down.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean I'm going to be honest, here Sitting
on my couch putting that on Disney Plus yeah, why not?
I cannot say to anybody out there, don't watch this film.
Now, if I had watched it in the theater, I would have said, eh,
wait for it to come on Disney Plus.
But to spend a couple hours on my couch watching some marvel
content, I was fine, you know, I .
I just I've lowered my expectations and I'm not sure if
that's because I'm 43, right, and I don't know if I, I don't
know if I get excited as much anymore.
You know, uh, in terms of, like , highs and lows, I don't get as
as high but I also don't get as low, so I'm kind of more in the
middle, you know.
So did it give me more content about characters that I
generally love?
Yeah, did it give me some scenes that I I kind of enjoyed
and enjoyed seeing the way I thought the fight, some of the
flying scenes, and the way that they kind of incorporated the
Wakandan, the wakandan armor, I think what did a really good job
of kind of explaining how sam wilson can do all these things
despite the fact that he doesn't have the super soldier serum,
you know.
So I mean, I mean, but the truth is this, and and and this
happens in the comic too, you know, he's not captain america,
he's he's falcon, he's sam wilson, you know, and that's
okay.
Uh, but I, I, I think this is fine, that's it.
It's fine, I get, it's not good , it's not bad, it's it's just,
it exists.
It's better than secret invasion.
You're not going to slam your fist and be angry about stuff.
You're not going to throw your hands up and be like I can't
believe it, but you're also not going to be like wow, that was
really awesome.
Speaker 2: If you had to rank it , where would you rank it?
On one to ten.
Speaker 3: That's a tough one.
I mean, I don't know how much Marvel stuff goes over seven
these days.
I'm not lying, I put it at a.
I put it at this, I don't.
Okay, passing of my school is 65, so I'm gonna say 6.5.
You did not get out of the park , kid, all right, but uh, you
know you're not going to summer school um, this is a top five
mcu movie for me I really loved it, you know I I'm sorry you cut
my laughing out.
I'm sorry that's too much that's staying.
Speaker 1: That's staying right where it is.
No, it's, it's a genuinely good movie.
It's.
It's a really fun popcorn flick .
I'm I'm pissed that I didn't see it in theaters.
Um, really nice seeing live tyler back.
Really nice seeing the the leader back and the special
effects when it comes to the Red Hulk, and then like the blown
out scenery around them.
You know like it was gorgeous.
It reminded me of, you know, past times I went to DC and it
was all like destroyed and stuff .
It was really.
We'll watch again for sure.
Anthony, what are your thoughts ?
Speaker 2: Well, mine is that it's definitely not a movie,
theater film, something that, yes, that waiting to.
I mean, obviously it's on Disney Plus now, but if we were
covering it while it was still in the theaters, definitely yeah
, it would be a Disney Plus movie.
Rich, you definitely gave it a lot of grace.
I would give this thing a 4.5.
Not, I mean, it's not possible.
As an mcu film it's okay, it's decent, but like I can't put
this over a five, I really I just can just can't.
Speaker 1: I really I'm going to , I'm going to disagree with you
here.
The way I like in this movie is it's it's like the first three
seasons of agents of shield, you know, like when they had that
big finale episode where they brought back some real big MCU
cameos, uh, like Samuel Jackson, for like a scene, um, and then
the rest of it was like a semi-political thriller slash,
you know like sci-fi series.
You know that's how this felt.
Speaker 3: It was a really good early Agents of SHIELD finale
you know, I think, guys, that I must report that it seems that
Dakota is actually a Skrull and has been for this entire episode
I thinkota broke somewhere along the lines yeah, yeah, I'm
uh, you know what will fix me, though, kind of like how, uh,
you know, everett thunderbolt ross was taking those pills that
juiced him up.
Speaker 1: You guys need to juice this podcast up with a
five-star juicy review.
We really thrive on that, just like Everett Ross was able to
live on in another actor through those pills.
We require your feedback so that we, as a podcast, can live
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You want to be able to see us cover Andor, season 2, correct?
Yes, so what you're going to have to do is you're going to
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something in the comments down below, because we love to see
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Thank you so much for listening to us here for our 123rd
episode of Project ecology.
If you want to check out any of our socials, be sure to check
down in the show notes, uh, so that you don't miss any of our
uh, random outbursts online.
Uh, yeah, that'll, that'll do it for us here.
My name is dakota.
Speaker 2: Have a juicy one, friends this episode has been
sponsored by thunderbolts.
Ross juice pills bye y'all.
Speaker 1: Hey, the wolverine actually mattered in this
episode, okay.