Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of disrespectfully agree with Oatman and L.J. I am L.J. Across from me is Mr Oatman
Oatman:Oatman in the house and I can breathe.
L.J.:Oh, this time. Good. It's about time. Clip. Show over. Apologies for the clip show everybody.
Oatman:That Clip show that may have been...
L.J.:It was a really well edited clip show.
Oatman:That may have been our Citizen Kane. I mean it was so good.
L.J.:Yup.
Oatman:I thought it was brilliant.
L.J.:What if Orson Wells did a clip show? That's what it is.
Oatman:Exactly. Awesome.
L.J.:And we have a guest with us this week. He's back again. Our Geek in residence. Rezzy.
Rezzy:Hello everybody. Your Geek King, geeking out king is here.
Oatman:Why does Rezz sound like he just blew a spliff. He just... Like, yeah man. You know, I'm just coming in here talking about some films. You know what I'm saying?
Rezzy:Wow, you guys make me sound like Eddie Murphy on a bender.
L.J.:He's hitting the energy hard. Welcome Rezzy. Good to have you back.
Rezzy:Thanks for having me back guys. Appreciate it.
L.J.:This week we're going to tackle the DC animated film"Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay" directed by Sam Liu if I'm saying that right, written by Alan Burnett. He is a standard, he's a stalwart. He's been over the DC animated stuff for decades and starring Christian Slater as Deadshot. Vanessa Williams is Amanda Waller and back again. Tara strong as Harley Quinn. Oatman, you have questions you said?
Oatman:Yes. I got confused in the beginning. Okay.
L.J.:That's early.
Oatman:Who was the person dressed like The Joker and then there was a girl who seemed like Harley Quinn. Who were those two people?
Rezzy:It was not so much giving you these characters. You didn't even need to know who they were. They were just throw aways. This was really to set up who Deadshot was and who Amanda Waller was.
L.J.:Answer the man's question.
Rezzy:The length wish they will go.
Oatman:Why did they look like The Joker and Harley Quinn?
Rezzy:I couldn't answer that one for myself. I just knew them as just throwaway characters.
Oatman:Well here's the thing. If you're gonna have throwaway characters, fine.
Rezzy:Yeah.
Oatman:You got throwaway characters. Why make them look like two characters you know that I'm going to mistake them for? What is that about?
Rezzy:That DC knew you were going to mistake them for
Oatman:They should. He's dressed like a damn jester, and he's with a chick who talks like Harley Quinn, looks like her. A crazy blonde or whatever, and they're lovers. I mean. Hello. I mean...
Rezzy:Like I said, I think the whole thing was just a throwaway. The setup. It's the suicide squad,
Oatman:So those people have no names?
Rezzy:No names. They're like the no names. Here's a better way of doing this since I'm...
Oatman:That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard
Rezzy:Since I'm the geek king. Think of it like this. They're star trek red shirt.
Oatman:No, that's not. No, no!
Rezzy:red shirts get killed off. You don't think about who they are.
Oatman:But we don't mistake the red shirts for other people. See what I'm saying? They, they. They wouldn't trick you.
L.J.:This would be like if they got a guy that looks exactly like Data and...
Oatman:It would be like if they had Will Riker... What's the dude's name? He changed the name with Tom, Tom Riker, and if he was just walking around or whatever and they didn't mention that that wasn't William.
L.J.:It's like if they did a Deep Space Nine movie and they get a red head with short hair as a Bajoran and they get another shape shifter in there that looks exactly like Odo, but it's not Odo and it's not Kira. This is clearly an analogy everyone can understand.
Oatman:Then this is the problem I have with it is because of that beginning, I spent far too much time saying: what? They killed the joker? They killed Harley Quinn? I don't understand. I'm confused. Why are those two major characters dead and what are we doing here? And it just. It took me away from where I needed to be, which is understanding the backstory of Deadshot. Why not make those two completely different characters, give them a name and then once they're dead, I get that insight into Deadshot that I need to have to tell the rest of the story?
L.J.:Rezzy?
Rezzy:Wow. You guys are really in with the point. I just said. Like I said, I'm just sitting there from a movie standpoint and going, okay, these are two throwaways because maybe I'm so ingrained with knowing what the joker looks like. Any interpretation because I've seen...
Oatman:But he's joker-esque, right?
Rezzy:No, not really.
L.J.:Well...
Rezzy:He's got the little giggle thing, but that's the. I take that as the madman thing. That's the madman giggle. Everyone does the madman giggle. Okay. He had the chick on the side, and then other than that, when you do bleed into the story, you see that Harley Quinn is there, so now how is Harley Quinn dead if Harley Quinn is walking with the rest of the...
Oatman:Exactly the question that I asked myself that I shouldn't have been asking, I should have been...
Rezzy:Throughout the entire movie. You did?
Oatman:No not through the entire movie because I actually got on the phone and called you because I got confused. I'm just saying, as a movie goer, I should not be asking, why is Harley Quinn dead? Wait a minute. She's not dead. Well then, what was that before? Was that a dream sequence? Was that an Elseworld tale? What is that. I didn't know what was going on.
Rezzy:That's funny. You sound like those same people who said, how does John Travolta show up again in pulp fiction after we saw him get killed in the middle, of the movie?
L.J.:That is not the same thing.
Rezzy:It's not. Oh, okay.
Oatman:Who says that? Those are people who are slow. I mean that story is told out of sequence and that's...
Rezzy:Yeah, but there are a lot of people. When that first came out there a lot of people that didn't get that...
Oatman:Well a lot of people are doing crack. A lot of people do a lot of things.
Rezzy:But this was just looking at the end of a mission and...
Oatman:Some people are colluding with Russians. People do crazy things. I'm just saying in the scope of storytelling, that is the stupidest decision I've ever heard in the film. It makes no sense why you would do that. You're intentionally throwing out a red herring in the beginning of your picture. That doesn't serve any narrative. It would have been much stronger if those were two divergent characters. Make them both black and take them out of their jester outfit. You know what I mean? That would've been a much stronger opening for me. That's all. A small quibble.
L.J.:Alright, we're going to start with non spoilers.
Rezzy:Oh no, that's right. We forgot to even say that.
L.J.:And we'll move into spoilers at a certain point. I'll let you know when that happens.
Oatman:Well, we already had a spoiler. A nondescript character 1 and 2 had their heads blown off. I wish I knew who they were, but we don't. Spoiler alert.
Rezzy:Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening, it's the end of a mission. What the mission was, doesn't matter. This was just a setup to kill off two people so you can look and see who Amanda Waller was and who Deadshot is...
Oatman:But I kinda knew who she was already.
Rezzy:You did?
Oatman:She supposed to be the Viola Davis character from the movie, right?
L.J.:Yeah.
Oatman:And so she's kind of this scummy, you know, morally questionable type of...
Rezzy:But I'm looking at this the way you guys said that they're these separate... remember, um, and please, if you will, uh, people who are listening, go back and look at an earlier show that we did with"Batman: The Killing Joke."
Oatman:You mean that picture in which they kill The Joker?
Rezzy:Yeah. Yeah. That one, you know. Yeah. You're telling this particular story. This is a story that happened here. It's not saying that it takes all the DC universe and say, oh, well The Joker is there. No, this was just a Batman Joker story. And this one here is just a suicide squad story. It's not so much about say Joker and Harley Quinn, but it's just they got these...
Oatman:What I'm saying is I agree with you.
Rezzy:Okay.
Oatman:So then why have two characters that mimic them? It's not about them. That's the point. It's not about them, so why would you lead me down a primrose path?
L.J.:I gotta... We got to move onto a different point.
Rezzy:Okay. Yeah.
Oatman:Sorry.
L.J.:Did we like the movie? Oatman, let me start with you.
Oatman:I liked it tremendously. It had an idiotic beginning.
L.J.:Uh huh. Yeah.
Oatman:Which I thought was stupid.
L.J.:Okay.
Oatman:And I was confused by a couple things like who is this creepy Flash guy who's not Flash.
L.J.:Yeah.
Oatman:It was like Flash but with a different uniform. So I don't know what that was about.
L.J.:Well, the part of this movie, the whole conceit of this movie and suicide squad in general is that we're dealing with a lot of the third and fourth tier characters of the DC universe and Captain... is it Captain Zoom or just Zoom?
Rezzy:Professor Zoom.
L.J.:Professor Zoom? He's got a Phd? I don't know.
Oatman:Are we talking about an adjunct here? I'm guessing that could be.
Rezzy:even for the Flash TV show, he has this weird name I can never pronounce. All I know is that he's Zoom.
L.J.:in any case, he's evil Flash.
Oatman:Oh, he's evil Flash
L.J.:He's evil Flash.
Rezzy:He's reverse, reverse Flash. That's what they do. Yeah. Reverse Flash.
L.J.:So there's a lot of characters in here. They're all third, fourth tier characters and he's one of those. Although you know, if you're a Flash fan, he's incredibly important to that fiction, but for those of us not as familiar with Flash, as we shouldn't be,(laughs) we don't know who he is. Do you have another question?
Oatman:No, no. It confused me a little because he had almost the same outfit.
L.J.:Yeah, he does.
Oatman:So I'm like, oh, okay. But I, I kind of accepted it. Oh, he's like a flash-esque toss off.
L.J.:The flash logo is red with a yellow lightning bolt and this guy's yellow with red...
Oatman:Yeah, I got it.
L.J.:It's, it's not genius,(laughs) but that's how they do evil in comics sometimes.
Rezzy:And just give you a little bit of background on him. He's supposed to be this guy who really intimidates the flash that we know. He's a lot faster. He can kind of look at him and run backward. Like, what are you doing? Huh?
Oatman:Oh, he's faster than flash.
Rezzy:A little faster, a little bit faster. Yeah.
Oatman:That's interesting. I liked that. I liked the conceit of the story. I liked that it was a road trip store, and I loved the Winnebago. I thought it was great. I liked the freeze character that was introduced. The female freeze character I thought was great. I liked the black guy, the black guy who was sort of like an ex CIA agent, but he had kind of a moral code. He even threw in some religiosity and...
L.J.:Bronze Tiger.
Oatman:The bronze tiger. I thought he was great.
Rezzy:And the one called killer frost. He likes that one.
Oatman:Killer Frost was good. I thought it was great characters. I thought that drawing was good.
L.J.:How'd you like Copperhead?
Oatman:Copperhead was good.
L.J.:Really?
Oatman:Yeah.
L.J.:Okay. How about Captain Boomerang?
Oatman:I like, this is my favorite thing where they made a comment and he's like,"Hissss."(laughs)
L.J.:He's just freaking out a guy at the bus stop or wherever.
Oatman:Captain Boomerang or wherever the hell he was. He's a throw away. He could go, but the other ones are pretty good and I thought it was weird that sort of madman hulking villain character. I thought he was very unformed.
L.J.:The Solomon Grundy style hulkish guy?
Oatman:Yeah. Whatever. Like, well he's. He's. He was a famous butcher. He was Julius Caesar. I'm like, well,
L.J.:oh, you're talking about Vandal Savage.
Oatman:Yeah. I was like, well Julius Caesar wasn't a famous butcher.
Rezzy:No, he is a persona... this guy, in the DC universe, you're to assume that this guy took the role of a lot of famous heavies that we know in history, Hitler, this, maybe with Hitler and Stalin at the same time kind of thing. You know,
L.J.:It was Alexander the Great I found to be a bit, mmmm. I don't know.
Oatman:Or Julius Caesar, Julius
L.J.:Caesar was a bit much. Genghis Khan, sure.
Oatman:Julius Caesar was actually a pretty populist guy.
L.J.:So was Alexander the Great.
Oatman:Yeah. So I was like, Eh, that doesn't make sense.
L.J.:But yeah, Vandal Savage has been around forever and he's been. That's the whole conceit is just this guy who's lived forever and he's been various people in history and
Oatman:I thought it was a lazy, but it was fine. It wasn't enough to bother me, but as a history guy, I was like, that's a little lazy, but okay.
L.J.:Rezzy?
Rezzy:Yeah.
L.J.:How'd you like the film?
Rezzy:I got into the thing with the card that's with the title of the movie"hell to pay." There is an item that everyone seems to be after that's going to do something very, very special for the person and holds...
L.J.:Oh, we can say what it is. The McGuffin of this movie is a get out of hell free card, a literal Get Out of hell free card. So if you're a bad guy and you die holding this card, you automatically go to heaven.
Oatman:But here's my question. Is it a get out of hell card or is it a get out of death card? That's what I couldn't understand.
Rezzy:No,
L.J.:It's get out of hell
Rezzy:and it can only be used once.
Oatman:So it's not a get out of death card?
L.J.:no.
Oatman:Okay.
Rezzy:But at least you don't see the fire. You get to see the clouds and everything that's... DC is even...
L.J.:Well, we didn't see that part, but generally the conceit of this film is also: the Christianity myth is true.
Rezzy:Yeah. everyone believes in heaven and hell.
L.J.:Or that Christianity, dogma, all of the rules of Christianity. And
Oatman:so if you are a good person, the card doesn't work for you.
L.J.:Well, you don't need it. It wouldn't do anything.
Rezzy:But if you're a dark soul like our suicide squad anti heroes and the villains who are also after the actual card itself, you know, the, uh, there's a lot to worry about.
L.J.:Did you enjoy the film?
Rezzy:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I enjoyed the film a lot.
L.J.:you, in fact, I think inspired us, told us we should watch this movie after we talked about whatever DC thing and suicide squad the live action movie came up and I think you and I didn't care for it. Oatman was fine with it.
Oatman:Yeah. I liked it.
L.J.:You said this is a better film.
Rezzy:and I just stayed with it because for some reason it stays within the Canon of how everything has been playing out. Marvel does live action amazingly well. DC just doesn't. They try. Not everything is bad coming out of the camp, they have had some success. Wonder woman was great, you know, and I enjoy what has come out of the DC Canon, but they're animated movies place so well and better than whatever marvel comes up with animated.
L.J.:Well sure. But
Rezzy:it's like a reverse of everything.
L.J.:It's that Bruce Timm engine who you know from back in the day in the nineties, Batman animated series. A lot of these guys have been working on these are graduates of that school. They came from Batman animated series, Superman animated series and so on.
Rezzy:But like you said at the Bruce Timm engine, it's just something that's good. They understand what our generation grew up with and they continue to tell those stories pretty much for us.
L.J.:Well there's a mentality that cartoons are for children and a lot of those other animated endeavors and these movies, especially this one, this is their first R rated movie, animated movie as I recall,
Rezzy:Second.
L.J.:What's the first one.
Rezzy:Their first R rated movie was The Killing Joke.
L.J.:Oh was at R? Okay.
Rezzy:And then they did Justice League something called Dark and I still have to get to that one.
L.J.:In any case, Suicide Squad has a ton of squibs on these characters. They get blown up real good. They get cut up real good. They get shot real good, and blood goes everywhere. There's brief nudity, female nudity in this and a ton of swear words. My favorite thing about this actually is the opening title sequence. It was so grindhouse-y. You've got the grindhouse music and then the 70's grindhouse imagery with the bullets and the weird squiggly like lava lamp stuff. That was great. Set a great tone. I don't know the movie quite matches it. They try to go for that grindhouse tone, but it still feels very much like kind of an edgier DC animated film. It's fine. I enjoyed it.
Oatman:I enjoyed it as well. I only has one real glaring part. Every time it came on, I rolled my eyes. Every time Deadshot's daughter came into it. What a snooze fest.
L.J.:Why?
Oatman:I could just care less about his daughter.
L.J.:You always don't care about these characters,
Oatman:Oh my god. I'm so not into it.
L.J.:Well, she was technically only in it for one scene. At the end.
Oatman:One scene of my life, I'll never get back.(laughs) I was so tired of when he goes looking for her. Oh, enough!
L.J.:Well it's the same thing in the live action version.
Rezzy:Yeah. But what? It echoes too much for you. The girl who know her dad does bad things and...
Oatman:I just don't care. It's one of those things where you're not going to invest anything in her, so why should we pretend like you're going to invest anything in her? You don't care about that character.
L.J.:Well, no, we're not, but we're supposed to care about Deadshot. That's why she's there.
Oatman:Yeah, that's a bad. That's a bad reason to have a character there.
L.J.:Okay. Did you care about Deadshot?
Rezzy:Yeah?
Oatman:Yeah.
L.J.:Why?
Oatman:For me, I'm always drawn to that trope of sort of the guy who is the put upon leader who has to hold together sort of this fragmented troop. I liked that trope and then when they introduced almost a secondary rival character to deadshot in that the black
L.J.:bronze tiger,
Oatman:Yeah. the tiger character. I just love that dynamic between the two that you know and, and in this is a spoiler alert, but when Deadshot kind of loses command or whatever, and he has to kind of figure that out and then still, even though he's lost his actual title, he still is the one in the end that has to figure it out and fight for leadership of that group. I liked that trope.
L.J.:Yeah, I got you, but he would never be there. There's no reason for them to be there unless his daughter is a character.
Oatman:Oh, I agree. I agree. I just don't think she has to be on the screen. We know about the daughter. Enough.
L.J.:that scene was at the end of the movie for all of five seconds.
Oatman:Well there's another scene where he leaves the mission to go see how his daughter's... Enough already. Enough of the daughter.
L.J.:But that leads to the thing you like where he loses control of the mission.
Oatman:Yeah, I'd get it. I wish they would have used another trope to do that. Then he talks to the little girl's out a friend or something. Enough of that.
L.J.:Man you're cold, cold hearted. Tell me I'm a cold hearted man. You are cold hearted.
Oatman:It just bores me stiff because the characters are not characters. They're one of the few characters... They might as well be those sort of pretend bad guys who fall down like dominoes.
L.J.:This is like saying, why do we gotta see the card that they're after? I don't care about the card. I care about these characters. Why are we following this card?
Oatman:The card was more interesting.(laughs) I Felt the card had more definition and life to it than this daughter character of hers. That's just(mocking voice).
L.J.:Alright. I'm going to cut you off before we lose more listeners.(laughs)
Oatman:Oh my gosh. She was so boring.
L.J.:Those are general reactions. We're going to jump now into spoiler territory. Spoiler alert, everybody. Last chance. Here we go.
Oatman:My spoiler is this
L.J.:Okay.
Oatman:the reason I was asking about the card is, if the conceit of the card is, it is in a sense a redemption card to redeem a wayward soul to free them from the bonds of hell
L.J.:Why does Bronze Tiger need it?
Oatman:Why does bronze tiger need it? Clearly throughout the piece he is portrayed as somebody who has already been redeemed. He already has accepted his Christ and savior.
L.J.:He's accepted that but...
Rezzy:No he's accepted Christ as savior, but remember too, he knows that he's done all these things for his government, killing people,
Oatman:But he's already asked forgiveness.
Rezzy:When did he ask for forgiveness because I though he just knew his soul was doomed. He knew that...
Oatman:he has clearly, to me, at least by the comments that he's made, they've been saying one of the biggest things about this guy, he won't kill anybody. He won't.
L.J.:Anymore.
Rezzy:He won't kill anybody who...
Oatman:exactly anymore. He's, he's made.
L.J.:At least no innocent people.
Oatman:He won't murder anybody anymore and then when it gets,
L.J.:I think he will, it's just not innocent people.
Oatman:He won't murder innocent people. Of course. He's not a. he's not going to murder innocent people,
L.J.:but even murder is still a mortal sin.
Oatman:Yeah, but that has nothing to do with soldiers. Soldiers go to war and they wear crosses on their uniforms when they're blowing people's heads off. We're talking about murder, not killing, but the Bible has no problem with killing. You can kill...
L.J.:Look, if we're going to get into the rules of the Bible, we can be here all day.
Oatman:I mean, you guys said that this is based upon a Christian conceit, and I agree with you on that. I'm just saying if we are based within a Christian conceit, he is already redeemed.
Rezzy:Not redeemed. He's just accepted that this is going to be his fate. He's just along with everybody else, but I don't think that he's completely saying that...
Oatman:But I think he has already asked for forgiveness. He has clearly made amends with his savior.
Rezzy:I don't think he's even asked for forgiveness. I just think he's at peace with what he's done and who he is, and then just...
Oatman:Well then you should watch that movie again and watch the way that character is constructed. Clearly. That is a guy who has redeemed himself in terms of his relationship with Christ. That's why they give him an entire monologue in there when they're talking about Jesus and the importance of your higher power and all that stuff. That's what that speech is about. That's not a guy that hasn't redeemed himself. That's why won't kill. He's not just not murdering because it became tedious to him. He won't murder because he's made a new relationship with God. Why does he need the card?
L.J.:So let's. Well, if we're going to, again going back to the idea that we take for granted that the Christian, you know the rules of it are true. Well, clearly he does because he glows at the end. Deadshot gives him the card, he passes away. He glows magically and so clearly he did need to be redeemed,
Oatman:but no, but here's the question. Maybe we have the conceit of the film wrong. Maybe what it is. It's not about redemption. Maybe it's about freedom from death because he's about to die and maybe he is free from death.
Rezzy:No,
L.J.:no. Every character that's about to die is aware they're going to die. They're not looking for immortality, they're just looking to get out of the bad place.
Rezzy:And the Suicide Squad is primarily there to get the card for Amanda Waller. They don't care about...
Oatman:But I don't know that I find Waller to be a character that's worried about Hell.
Rezzy:Really?
Oatman:I think she's worried about death. I don't think she's worried about Hell. I think Amanda Waller is worried about dying as opposed to dying and going to Hell. See the whole concept would then be, If I die and I go to heaven, I'm cool with it. I don't get that feel from Waller. Waller doesn't want to go to heaven. She doesn't want to leave here. She doesn't want to die. That's what she's trying to be saved from. She's trying to be saved from death. The Zoom character, he isn't really talking about hell. He doesn't want to die. He's talking about death not freedom from hell, which is different.
L.J.:Well, that's. Zoom is a character who's aware he's going to die. He's bought himself some time in order to get out of the bad place. Same thing with a vandal savage, you know, they said, well, aren't you immortal? And he's like, yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm in vulnerable.
Oatman:Of course
L.J.:if I die this card will at least let me go to the good place.
Oatman:I think with him, you're right, but...
L.J.:the card literally says, get out of hell free. I mean, what do you want me to tell you?
Oatman:No, I'm saying it's sort of like when you were telling me about your students, sometimes you can build a world and just not build it well. I'm saying if that's supposed to be the conceit that isn't consistent throughout.
L.J.:I will go along with you in saying that Amanda Waller doesn't seem like the character that would believe in an afterlife.
Oatman:Nope.
L.J.:I'll grant you that. Like if you're saying it doesn't make sense that she's the one who wants the card for that reason. Sure. I gotcha.
Oatman:If you want to flip it and say that the guy who ends up using it, if it's about redemption, I don't think he needs it.
L.J.:I can believe... I can go along with the guy who is so damned. There is nothing he can do to redeem himself in his own eyes.
Oatman:If that's true then that's not based in Christian dogma. Christian Dogma is based in I can murder two or three children...
L.J.:I got bad news for you. There's a lot of different versions of Christian Dogma.
Oatman:Yeah, but most of them are fairly consistent on this point across the different cannons that as long as I look into the face of God, accept God's love and ask for forgiveness, I am forgiven. That's the basis of almost every Christian text, Christian sect that I know of.
Rezzy:I think also too, that we're seeing there and God's going to eventually go, hey look, come on. I mean like Hitler. I'm sorry I killed everyone. Dear Jesus, please forgive me. I'm sure he's like, mmmm.
Oatman:But that's not Christian dogma. That may be how you feel personally and as somebody who is not a Christian, I get what you're saying, but that's not what Christian dogma is. Christian dogma is you can kill 50 people and say, you know what, God, I'm ready to accept you into my heart and I'd need to be forgiven. There's nobody below redemption. If this is based in that than the ending doesn't make sense.
L.J.:I want to talk about the male stripper former Dr. Fate.
Oatman:That's another problematic issue.
Rezzy:I had a problem with that.
Oatman:I enjoyed it because I get, I got what they were doing, but it makes no sense to the fabric of the story.
L.J.:It makes no sense to me in the DC universe. Now, Rezzy, you might have to help me out here. Now Dr. Fate, they get new ones of those.
Rezzy:Uh, this is something. Think of Dr. fate as Dr. Who. Every now and again you're going to get...
Oatman:But some of them are idiots?
Rezzy:yes.
L.J.:Really?'Cause that crazy. So the guy...
Rezzy:It's like, the helmet makes you smart, but the guy himself can, you can be as dumb as anything.
Oatman:Oh, so he's like a vessel.
Rezzy:Yes. you're just...
Oatman:Okay.
Rezzy:You're actually a vessel for a thing that's smarter than you.
Oatman:That makes sense.
L.J.:Hold on though. He put on the helmet and he still acted like a dummy.
Oatman:No he didn't.
Rezzy:Yeah, He was dumb.
L.J.:Well remember when he was telling the story with Banshee. Hold on, let me say it. When he's telling the story about him and Banshee meeting up. If we take him at his word anyway, he's wearing the helmet. He's still Dr. Fate at that time and he's still trying to mack on this girl who's a villain who is also trying to kill him, he's still driven by his own primal urges when he's wearing the helmet, at least according to his own testimony.
Oatman:Dr. Fate needs love too.
L.J.:Yeah, but that's, but that's stupid. What he's doing is dumb.
Rezzy:The helmet gives you the insight to be able to do and have these powers and see things, but how you're gonna handle it, then that's up to you so you can actually be as smart or as dumb as you're going to be, but you are Dr. Fate. There's no escaping that.
L.J.:I get that, but why? Why? Who's the guy who chooses these? What's the guy's name? Who chooses the Dr. Fates
Oatman:He's like some big floating head.
L.J.:There is like a wizard of Oz character. I forget his name
Oatman:Well now that you say it, that makes more sense to me,
L.J.:but he's still an idiot. Why would you choose, if he's this all knowing, all powerful being. Why would he choose such a dunce who's clearly going to screw up?
Oatman:Well, here's the thing. If you were using somebody as a vessel, you'd almost really what you would want from a vessel, I would think would be physical prowess.
Rezzy:It may be learning.
L.J.:Dr. Fate isn't about physical prowess. That's not his deal.
Oatman:Clearly
L.J.:Well, according to this guy, but that's not what Dr Fate's deal is. He's not a crime fighter. He's not punching dudes,
Oatman:No, I'm not saying he's punch dudes, but I'm just saying that might be more what you want from a vessel than intellect. Intellect might actually be an impediment to something that is going to take over your body.
Rezzy:I hope this doesn't sound too silly. What if the helmet actually wants to see the worst of humanity? okay. This is how dumb these vessels can sometimes get.
L.J.:Then they would have needed to explain that in the story.
Rezzy:Well, yeah. Well, this is something that I would know from the. Yeah,
Oatman:it makes sense to me a little more now that you say that, that Fate is in the helmet and that the body is more or less a vessel.
Rezzy:It becomes everything. Yeah. You're actually an extension of the helmet
Oatman:I don't know that it was executed well, but I at least did it a little more.
L.J.:I'd buy that if that's what we saw.
Oatman:I thought it was one of those things where, and I see this sometimes in film where they will step outside the fabric of the storytelling in order to give you comic relief and sometimes like, okay, this doesn't fit this story arc really, but I need to pull some chuckles in here from all of these bodies that are dropping everywhere, and so when he came on, I got what it was. It was, hey, we keep shooting people in the face. We need to lighten this up a little taste. Here's your comic relief. Please enjoy. So was like, okay, I guess, I'll take that. And it was fairly comical. It wasn't. It didn't go on for too long. I agree with you. I don't think it was executed well because you're right. We needed to see that transformation when he puts the helmet on and he's talking to the lady superhero...
Rezzy:But then that's also taking you into understanding another character that's not actually part of the suicide squad. You read any of them. I know it would have helped the narrative if you had some background and some explanation as to that, but not fit to drive the story forward.
Oatman:If we could have seen a transformation of him from, you know, like I'm a huge Supernatural fan. They don't need to spend a lot of time over here.
Rezzy:Really? You are?
Oatman:Oh I'm a huge Supernatural fan, and in Supernatural, they do a thing where the devil jumps into different bodies and the second that the devil is in that body, no matter what actor it is, they become that thing. You could almost see that they stand different and they transform into it.
Rezzy:That same swagger
Oatman:Same swagger and is like, oh, I can almost see the character in the act or playing it. We didn't get to see that here.
L.J.:This solved by one or two lines of dialogue. Frankly. They just didn't do it.
Oatman:I agree. They did not execute it as well as they could have, but I think the mistake that we're talking isn't a mistake. It's intentional. I think they made an intentional decision to step away from the narrative and create a funny moment
L.J.:That is intentional. I'm fine with that. It's just. It doesn't make sense for the world.
Oatman:I agree, but I think they were okay with that.
L.J.:Yeah, fine. I still don't like it. Zoom. I actually liked what they were doing with this guy. When he shows up and he goes running after the RV and any of us who are familiar with the flash or zoom, we gotta be like, he's running really slow and Deadshot even comments on that.
Oatman:He's like, why could I see him?
L.J.:Something weird is going on here and we get other clues that something weird is going on with him and throughout the thing and when we finally learn what it is, we're like what the...
Oatman:I loved that.
L.J.:and it turns out... it was cool, and it turns out it's this weird... I despise a lot of what DC does with their metaphysical Mumbo jumbo pseudoscience, especially when it comes to Flash type characters. This is actually weirdly connected to the continuity of Flashpoint Paradox. That movie. This is one of the few times where they actually connect the continuity
Rezzy:That was the spoiler alert that I remember saying...
L.J.:That's the spoiler. Okay. That's what it is.
Oatman:Explain what it was. I missed it.
L.J.:It's the character from... Go ahead, Rezzy.
Rezzy:There was a DC movie called flashpoint paradox and this one took place with the flash. He ran back in time to save his mother and ended up changing the scope of everything. Bruce Wayne was the one who got killed in the alleyway. The mom went crazy. Dad became Batman.
L.J.:Thomas Wayne.
Rezzy:Yeah. Thomas Wayne.
Oatman:Was he a good Batman?
Rezzy:Kind of devastating that Batman worked with guns. He didn't mind using guns.[Oatman laughs] We'll wait. Wait, Superman. Superman wasn't found by the lovely Kent's. He was found by the US government and held in the stasis room where they just experimented with him. So when you finally do see Superman, he's just anorexic, kind of like, give me a sandwich.
Oatman:What movie is this?
Rezzy:This is Flashpoint Paradox. We're going...
Oatman:Why don't we do this movie?
L.J.:Maybe we'll do it.
Rezzy:It's just to tie in to what they did.
L.J.:Jump to the end.
Rezzy:Okay. You see where Flash where? No, you see what Zoom is shot in the head pretty much the same way and through the hole is head you see the Thomas Wayne Batman is the one who shot him.
Oatman:Oh, That's Thomas who shot him.
Rezzy:Thomas Wayne. Not Bruce Wayne.
L.J.:Yeah. It's a different universe.
Rezzy:Yeah, he was the one that ended up killing Zoom. So now you see what zoom was trying to escape.
L.J.:So the conceit here is this ridiculous conceit where he vibrates himself so hard, like as he's getting shot through the head, he vibrates so hard that he kind of freezes himself in time and,
Oatman:I love that.
L.J.:and transmits himself to an alternate dimension.
Oatman:Yes! right?
L.J.:Where he's more or less slowed his decay is slowed...
Oatman:I love that, and he's got the bullet in the head.
L.J.:Has got a hole in his head.
Rezzy:You make me wonder about something though. In just listening to what you just said, does that make Flash almost like a god character or the most powerful character in the DC universe?
L.J.:Sometimes
Rezzy:Because if you can control time like that.
L.J.:Well that's the thing. He can't control... Zoom, he says something weird, which is no one can go back in time except for Flash. He says that in this movie, suicide squad.
Rezzy:Yeah, he did, didn't he.
L.J.:So he can't go back in time. I guess that's the explanation. He could only kind of slow his body down enough, but weirdly he slows body down enough. But putting his body in a different dimension while his body is still back in the flashpoint dimension, still frozen in that moment being shot.
Oatman:So what cued you that it was Thomas Wayne? You actually saw his face? or just the fact that he was using a gun.
L.J.:It's more He's got the red eyes and the costume is different. It's the Batman from that movie.
Oatman:Is he Evil?
Rezzy:No, no.
L.J.:No. He's just a murderer.[Oatman laughs]
Rezzy:He's Batman if Batman were The Punisher.
L.J.:Yes.
Oatman:Really.
L.J.:There you go.
Rezzy:Yeah, there you go.
Oatman:Oh, we got to check this out.
Rezzy:You never saw this one?
Oatman:No. Never heard of it.
L.J.:Well, we'll check it out. In any case. As much as I think all of that pseudoscience, you know, Flash stuff is b.s. I still thought that was kinda cool.
Rezzy:that's a nice touch.
Oatman:I bought it. Hook, line and sinker.
L.J.:It was an interesting idea. It was cool. It's nonsense. But you know, I did enjoy it.
Oatman:and I enjoyed his character.
L.J.:Yeah. I mean he's, he's evil Flash, but you're like, I get it.
Oatman:But he didn't seem that evil.
L.J.:Not here, but he's not interested. He's not looking to the future anymore. In any case. I think we've said enough here.
Rezzy:Okay. I ended up liking it. Yeah. I liked the movie overall,
Oatman:enjoyed it very much. Thought was good, and the thing that I liked about this movie, which a lot of cartoons don't have...
L.J.:Animated films!
Oatman:Yeah whatever. Cartoons. So most cartoons where a lot of them don't have really vibrant stakes to me and this thing just had stakes all over the place. Every character was motivated by a very strong need to survive. That it had a real strong engine which was to me, which is sort of the birthplace of where drama lives. You know, what does the character want that they can have and the one here was so very strong. You understood why they would murder, betray, double each other either to save their own lives or to create a way of life that'll probably sustain them the rest of their lives. Selling the card, whatever it was. I thought the card was a brilliant but simple device.
Rezzy:Simple, but it was also an important device too.
Oatman:I'm not knocking it. I think it's great.
L.J.:Fight. Fight. Fight.[laughs]
Rezzy:I was just laughing at the importance that Amanda Waller put on it. I mean she took the other 10 years off of Deadpool's sentence to get this card.
L.J.:Oh, look what you did. You said Deadpool.
Rezzy:Oooh. I did.
L.J.:Careful.
Rezzy:Deadshot.
Oatman:Which one preceded the other?
L.J.:Well this isn't that character. Slade Wilson is the original character. He wasn't even in this movie. Slade Wilson is um, what's his character's name in the DC... Deathstroke. Deathstroke was the original. And then Wade Wilson was like the imitation who later became kind of this comedy character. Deadpool. Yeah. So you were two or three characters removed with Deadshot. Everybody's got the name dead in there...
Oatman:Is Deadshot sort of a derivative of those?
L.J.:No, I'm not sure who came first. Slade Wilson or Deadshot. I couldn't tell you.
Rezzy:They're all supposed to be expert assassins.
L.J.:Yeah, they're largely the same character. I guess that's true. In any the case that'll do it for us on Suicide Squad: hell to Pay. Please drop us a review on the apple itunes music store or the apple podcast APP. Google play music anywhere you get your podcasts, check us out at disagreepodcast.com. We look forward to talking at you next week.
Oatman:Peace and chicken grease
L.J.:By everybody.
Rezzy:Same old. Same old.
L.J.:Horrible. Horrible ending.[laughs][post show segment] I mean he's evil Flash, but you're like, I get it.
Oatman:But he didn't seem that evil.
L.J.:Not here, but he's not interested. He's not looking to the future anymore. You know he's got.
Rezzy:C. Thomas Howell, right?
L.J.:Let me see.
Rezzy:It's the Soul Man. Oh No, no, no.
L.J.:What was his name? Zoom here.
Oatman:[singing] I'm a soul man.
Rezzy:Okay, let's leave it to just Ponyboy.
L.J.:Oh, that's right. Yeah, he was Soul Man. Oh No.
Rezzy:Let's just leave it to Ponyboy. Okay.
Oatman:One of the greatest commentaries on race in America ever.
L.J.:James Earl Jones in that film.
Oatman:Right!?
L.J.:What was he doing in that film?
Oatman:He's like,"Now you see what it was to be a black man," and he looks at him and he says,"No, I didn't professor, because I could always take it off.""Oh, I see you've learned more than I thought." Right?!
L.J.:It was a different time.[laughs]
Oatman:Soul Man, baby.