Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
A Geek Culture Podcast - Two life-long Geeks explain, critique and poke fun at the major pillars of Geek Culture for your listening pleasure.
Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Unlocked: Reflections on 'Superman'
In this previously unreleased episode we muse over James Gunn's 'Superman'.
This Superman exists in a world that immediately feels more "comic booky" than previous iterations – complete with Superman robots, a super-powered dog, and pocket dimensions that defy explanation. It's a deliberate step away from the gritty realism of previous DC films, embracing the fantastic elements that make comic books unique.
Jake, Jake, just put your lips together and blow.
Speaker 2:No, I know I was in college. I remember. Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 1:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative All weapons. Now Hold the weapon.
Speaker 2:Now Charge the lightning field. If we were to define Skip's fandom right Now, I'm curious. We'll say the three to five things that really make up who and what Skip is, as like an internal geek. Oh, now I'm worried. I think it's easy to say that Star Trek is part of that. Yeah, we would throw the Flash in there. Yeah, and I definitely think that Super Guy I think he'd be in there, I think we probably also. Maybe. I mean, we could keep expanding. I don't think we need to. No, I just put this bit into segue to talking about superman you don't have to say a segue, you just segue uh so anyway, superman's your guy, he's your dude I do like superman.
Speaker 1:I actually am a bigger fan of superman than I am the flash, to be honest. If you had to, sacrifice one of them, you'd easily throw the flash in a fire, it wouldn't be easy, so you'd have superman it wouldn't be easy, but I would rather have super ed, if you could only have superman or star trek oh well, they're kind of the same thing, though, are they? They're hope, please? Okay, all right, god damn it. Even in zack snyder's dark movies, superman said his symbol stood for hope and he it's funny.
Speaker 2:While watching this latest super film I did think about Zack Snyder's version in almost reverential isn't the right way, but maybe a like huh, do I need to go see that again and we can get to that? Yeah, I get that when the point comes. I felt the same way in a few places, sure, so we did both go see this latest superman, the symbol of hope just called superman, not superman the movie, not man of steel, just just superman guy right, just like abrams did.
Speaker 1:They realized there was never a movie called star trek yeah just like there was never a movie called rambo.
Speaker 2:I wonder if they did a new star wars someday, if they just do a star wars oh, instead of a new hope, a new hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I don't. That is a really, really interesting premise. I don't think they could, because to this day they still call star wars star wars. They don't call it a new hope, but they say Star Wars, who's they? So the reason that they name these things this way is so that the pop culture, zeitgeist or whatever, will refer to them this way. So like when you say Star Wars, you say and you mean a new hope. Everyone knows that.
Speaker 2:I think we already have generations that never, when they go to like, look up on their Disney Plus streaming service, which is the way that they're imbibing the content. It doesn't say Star Wars, it's a Star Wars, a New Hope Right, which was they will never have, just Star Wars. You still have generations that are now dying off who went to the theaters or rented it on VHS tapes, but that's a thing of the past. It won't be too long until those people do not exist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, star Wars is a brand now I know and that's, I think, really unfortunate. But you go back 30, 40 years. It was just Star Wars. And then Empire Strikes Back and then Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 2:Yes, but we're also approaching it from a time that we existed during that transition, or relative enough 100% yeah, and maybe they've wiped that out. Yeah, that's going to be gone. It's lingering, but I think when this generation coming up, the people that were born 5, 10, 20, 30 years after we were, when they say Star Wars, they're thinking of Star Wars, the grand thing, they're not thinking of Star Wars, the first movie.
Speaker 1:They're not thinking A New Hope, right. Well, the only reason that I would think that that was different is because with Superman, originally the movie was called Superman Legacy legacy, and then they realized that there was no actual movie called just superman, because the original, the movie that we all know and love with chris free, was just called superman the movie. Just like with star trek, where it's like there was no movie called just star trek, it was star trek, the motion picture. So that's its only change. Star wars was just star wars. It wasn't called fucking new hope, it was just called star wars and the scroll was the title was a new hope period, end of story. And then when they made sequels they were called something else. Then later, when they wanted to in the 90s, when lucas was trying redo all that shit, that's when you get the episode thing and they've already gone through that transformation. I don't think you can do a star wars movie just called star wars, because it has so many branches and so many other things.
Speaker 2:They've already relabeled themselves like 15 times I mean, could you have said the same thing about star trek?
Speaker 1:no, because, like you, you have solo a star wars story, rogue one a star wars story. You can't just have a movie called star wars anymore and I just don't think it works well, I'm also talking about like, not now I'm talking about lucas is dead.
Speaker 2:You know it's been. How long was it between the hardy Trek and JJ Abrams Star Trek?
Speaker 1:You're talking about 2002 to 2009. Well, I mean, I get what? You're saying what you're saying is that the problem is that you would have to be so far away from it that you would actually straight up reboot it to do a movie just called Star Wars, and I don't see that working with star wars, because it's such a legacy fandom I don't. I mean that could happen, but you'd have to be so far down the road this is all a tangent anyway, that is unnecessary, we don't care about.
Speaker 2:It was just like a tangential, like hey, could you just call something star wars again.
Speaker 1:James gunn didn't even want to call it superman, he wanted to call the superman legacy, which is also not a good title for that movie, if I think about it. But it doesn't matter, it's just called superman. There's no philosophical thing behind it, it just feels like a reboot and feels like a new thing without having to come up with a subtitle, like into darkness. We have both now seen the movie. What are your opening thoughts?
Speaker 2:in all honesty, when, uh, when the film was done and both stinger scenes finished, I was kind of on the impression that was fine, it did what it said it was going to do. On the box I didn't really feel like it was a film designed for me. It didn't, I felt, do anything special, but it was generally entertaining. I don't think it scratched any deeper itches or really plumbed much of the depths of what superhero films could be, but it wasn't bad. It wasn'tkilled. I think maybe the pacing's a little off. Some of the plot stuff is a little sloppy. I think a lot of the characters are fairly flat, some completely ill-defined and they kind of aren't that interested in explaining the world that much. But dropped into a superhero blockbuster film, are you hoping to have a bubble gum popcorn time? It does that. It fulfills that desire.
Speaker 1:It is not unenjoyable, but it was on spectacular, spectacular hmm, yeah, I, I mean it's hard for me to disagree with you on that it's. It's very james gunn, but not in the ways that I thought it was going to be. I honestly thought it was going to tug it in the heartstrings more. I thought it was going to be funnier than it was, because that's what I expect from a james gunn movie, you know like yeah but, it didn't.
Speaker 2:That's kind of his role. That's what he's done in all of his especially bigger blockbuster things Absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's the only reason that Guardians worked was that he tugged on the heartstrings and made the right jokes at the right times. And I know you and I kind of disagree on the original Guardians, not the sequels, the original Guardians of the Galaxy. As a movie-going experience enjoyed it. It is a popcorn thing. It tugged on the heartstrings, it did all the stuff that you want to see. I think it's kind of impeccable in that sense, especially since they are characters that nobody knows about, that are like you and I know who Rocket Raccoon was, but before Guardians nobody knew who fucking Groot or Rocket Raccoon was.
Speaker 2:Right. Plus, even though the people that knew they don't really have a defined need to be a certain way, there was still an amorphous, malleable quality to these characters and the storytelling you could do. That really gave you free reign to do whatever you want within vague, slight parameters. You can't say the same with Superman.
Speaker 1:No, you're right, because it is different. Because, like feige, gave him guardians though feige has very strict rules about what you can and can't do because of the world building, because of the lore in the comics as well, even though that is kind of like secondary. But they gave james gunn carte blanche and he did a, in my opinion, a great job. It's a very entertaining. It's one of my favorite from from that phase of marvel.
Speaker 1:I I do enjoy that movie. If you want to break it down, yeah, there are plot holes and whatever that. Yeah, of course, but it is one of the more entertaining films. And superman is a weird, a weird entry from him, because if you look at those films and then the Suicide Squad, music is the backbone of all of those and I think honestly one of the reasons that the first Guardians works so well and he uses music well to set the tone. It's almost like I don't know how to write a scene that makes you feel this way, so I'm going to play the music that makes me feel the way that you're supposed to feel and that works for that.
Speaker 2:It holds your hand and leads you yes, easily through the narrative absolutely.
Speaker 1:Superman doesn't have that until the end and even then I'm, like it feels, tacked on um is there a particular what a bit song that you're thinking of?
Speaker 2:the icky pop song probably?
Speaker 1:yeah, the one thing I never thought I'd associate superman and iggy pop together right, right, well, but they do that moment which feels like an old man writing young person's dialogue where they're like oh, this is a very punk rock dude, you know punk is. Why are you acting like you don't? I think, honestly, and for this exact reason, I don't like James Gunn's take on Superman, the character, in that he treats him like a fucking bumpkin, like he doesn't understand anything, and it goes to the way that he portrays the Kents.
Speaker 2:Literally stride for stride mentally with you on this. It's like where and when are they from? Yeah, Are they from Kansas or are they from 1930s?
Speaker 1:Dust Bowl Right, right, exactly. I was like is this Hillbilly Elegy? What is happening here? It's like the accents are from-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the accents are from the deep south. Yeah, their knowledge of the world is from the 30s. Yeah, it's like what?
Speaker 1:what are you trying? James gunn is from st louis. Dude, he's from here like why?
Speaker 2:why are you making them this way?
Speaker 1:what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:and we had so many versions of the Kents over the years that you can tell this story. I mean, look at Smallville where it's like, yes, they are rural, but not uneducated Right, not adaptable to the 21st century Right. I don't understand. I mean, I get what they're doing, but I did not like that version 100%.
Speaker 1:I hated that. I thought it was superficial. So that scene that he has, that Clark has with his father, is supposed to be like super inspirational and it kind of is, but not really it doesn't feel uplifting. I think what he tries to do is he tries to define them as honestly like redneck bumpkins and then try to show the wisdom in the people of the earth or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But the thing is the whole movie. It wasn't an origin story, right? Everybody knows who he is, we don't have to show his origin. So why do you have to reinvent the wheel with the kents?
Speaker 2:yeah, and there are parts where it's like oh, they're just started dating, but yet what it's been three months. Him and lois, yeah, he and lois, yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know they're to the I love you stage well, not until the end, and I think that was more trauma bonding than anything else. Sure, but so Clark and Lois have been dating for three months and she already knows he's Superman. Okay, that's a lot to dump on somebody.
Speaker 2:Did that just happen in the first week? I don't know, there were parts where it's like oh, it's a lived-in, everyone's familiar with everything that's going on. But they're also these sprinkles of like we have to introduce things, or things have to be just burgeoning, and it's like what do you want? Like, literally, they say that he and lex luther have not met face to face until, like superman's, locked up which is crazy because superman's been around for three years in this continuity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if Lex wanted to meet him, he couldn't engineer that to happen, even just to intimidate him because, like his entire thing, is that he's choreographed fights with a clone of Superman. Spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, we will be discussing some spoilers. I don't think I will see. We'll see how spoiler it gets. If you get spoiled, fuck it. Wait, you know, I'll put. I'll just put a thing in the notes.
Speaker 1:I'll put a thing in the notes, because it is.
Speaker 2:We're going to get spoilery.
Speaker 1:So he's examined him so much that he can choreograph his responses to fights. And yet They've never had a confrontation. Even in john burns man of steel miniseries when they rebooted after crisis on infinite earths, he straight up had a face-to-face with luther being like I know you, dude, I see you, I see what you're doing, I know I can't just go punch your criminal enterprise, but I get you and I am going after you at some point. And luther is like, yeah, well, I'm gonna go after you because you're a fucking alien invader, which makes sense to me. I'd like that dynamic. But then in this three years have gone by. He's done all this research. He created a clone and did a whole false flag thing to humiliate him, and Superman doesn't even know that they are rivals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what the fuck are rivals? Yeah, what the fuck? Lex hasn't come out and like said you know, oh, I'm, I'm against superman, or you know? Uh, he's, he's had a slew of ideas to encounter or or detract from superman. It's just like he has this one plan for somebody he's never met that he's been plotting for years.
Speaker 1:It's like that red letter media critique of prometheus, when they're like are you an expert on things that have never, ever happened?
Speaker 2:what were the things that you particularly did like with this version of superman and the superman story and what were things you distinctly did not like?
Speaker 1:I do feel like the movie was a little overstuffed. There was a lot in it which I I think was kind of to its detriment. But I understand why he thought that was what james gunn thought that was important. Why do you think he did that?
Speaker 2:because I I can't imagine someone seeing this and not thinking that there's like a little too much going on there's so much going on and I have read some articles about this, you know.
Speaker 1:Subsequently he didn't want to direct Superman, but he felt like Superman has to be the anchor of the DC Studio universe, which makes sense to me. I mean, he is the Alpha and Omega of superheroes, essentially, so you kind of have to start with Superman, especially since he did Brightburn. He did Brightburn, yeah, he wrote and directed Brightburn.
Speaker 2:I don't think he directed it. It doesn't show up in his. Maybe I'm looking. Am I looking at the wrong thing? No, he did Super.
Speaker 1:I don't think he did Brightburn. He did super for sure, which is just different.
Speaker 2:Take on kick-ass yeah, the brightburn wasn't him.
Speaker 1:I thought um that asshole did, wrote brightburn oh okay, hold on, let me figure out which one you mean when you say asshole. Is it Max Landis? You got it.
Speaker 2:Nailed it. That is who I was talking about Actually. No, it was Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn. Are these his brothers? Who are these Gunns, mm-mm? I mean born in St Louis Missouri? Is this guy related? So it's James Gunn's brother and James Gunn's cousin who wrote Brightburn. Now, neither of them directed it.
Speaker 1:I interviewed his brother.
Speaker 2:This isn't Sean Gunn, this is his other brother. Yeah, so there's James Gunn, then Sean Gun gunn, who's in all of his projects, and then brian gunn, who writes uh, he's written bright, burn and journey to the mystery island and then some other things, bring it on again uh, straight to video epic fucking filmography. I mean I'm cutting out the PG porn or the gay-ocity that he wrote, wow Interesting. I think it'd be fair to say the Gunn family, but not him Sure the Gunns.
Speaker 1:The Gunns fully loaded.
Speaker 2:Is it his sister or his sister-in-law who's a producer?
Speaker 1:This is like the wild and wonderful white.
Speaker 2:Sorry, we were talking about Superman. Superman, yes.
Speaker 1:One of the weird things that I was kind of surprised at when I watched it was the movie is aesthetic narrative framework Lee, based on.
Speaker 2:Grant.
Speaker 1:Morrison's all-star Superman right.
Speaker 2:I see some elements there, especially in particular the Superman robots.
Speaker 1:Right right, for people who don't know, all-star Superman, written by Grant Morrison, was his homage to the 1950s version of Superman. You know, he had robots that had capes, just like he did, and you know, like they just leaned into sort of like the camp of comic books, which I like aesthetically, I think, because no one's done it and James Gunn is the only guy that had balls, so it's just be like's done it, and James Gunn is the only guy that had balls, so it's just to be like eh, fuck it, why not? Which I think is one of the reasons that James Gunn has ascended to his position, is that he's just like why not just make it like a comic book? Ironic, because I remember you and I were at that Comic-Con panel with Zack Snyder when he talked about trying to make Watchmen, and all the companies were like oh no, we have to modernize it, we have to make about North Korea instead of the Soviet Union, we have to set it in 2005 or whatever the fuck was. And he's like why, why don't you just adapt the comic book? And you and I were both like yeah, he's right, this might be good, it wasn't. But yes, just do the thing and James Gunn is the guy that also is just like, why not just do the thing? Which which is why, like, the suicide squad, works so well. That movie is also too long and way over bloated and kind of masturbatory, but a really entertaining comic book movie and you're like, okay, I could totally see why you would hand the reins over to james gunn.
Speaker 1:Superman has to be the anchor of dc studios. So he did his james gunn version of superman. As a superman fan, I don't hate it, I don't dislike it, I don't love it. It's a movie that happened that sets up an interesting universe. If he's in charge of the entire universe, he is going with his version of the MCU, which is Guardians, and then just running with it, which is not what the MCU does. He's doing his the Suicide Squad version of the DC canon, which you know what? Hey, at least it's different. It feels different than the MCU, legitimately. I don't know that I enjoyed it entirely, but at least it was different and I feel like that's going to set the tone for the rest of the DCU, which, by the way, james Gunn has come out and said that the tone of superman is not going to be the tone of the other dcu movies. At the same time, I feel like it 100 percent sets the tone for that.
Speaker 1:He does at least understand on a surface level who superman is, but the fact that he treats him like a he's naive. In fact they beat you over the head with that literally the exact opposite of zack snyder's approach with everything to be fair. Not just zack snyder, but also what's his name? Who wrote man of steel and blade and oh, goyer goyer, david goyer, dark city, which actually is probably his best work and that's admirable and I think works. But at the same time they treat him like he's like an idiot in the movie and that kind of bothered me.
Speaker 1:If you read any dc comics like superman, there are plenty of critiques out there. Like brad melzer has great critiques about superman in turning his time with justice league and especially with identity crisis. Yeah, I mean, there's a hierarchy in the DC Universe and there is this weird thing where Superman is like the most authoritative character. Even Brad Meltzer knew that there's subtlety with Superman and he is a. He is a difficult character to write, understandably, because of the fact that there are other superheroes and other canon going on. Only James Gunn has the balls to just do the thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, One, yes, he has the balls to do it. But is it always a good thing?
Speaker 1:Oh, no, it's debatable.
Speaker 2:It's debatable. Yeah, the CGI, you can't possibly use a real dog sometimes here use a dog, just use a dog.
Speaker 1:It looked weird. It wasn't like rocket, where, like, he can stand upright and he's a raccoon, so you have to do cgi. Okay, I get that, but you couldn't just use a?
Speaker 2:dog. Yeah, there's a suspension of disbelief with a character like rocket, because you know that he is not a normal thing, right? This is just a dog with a cape right, and by putting a cg and doing like close-ups of the cgi of like the him panting on lois's lap and things, it doesn't look real it looks so fake.
Speaker 1:This is one of the problems I had with the movie was that he has these weird parallel lines running where okay, so I have Crypto to sort of be the you know heartstring tugging character and you really want to care about it, which you do. I mean he does do a decent job, not a great job, but a decent job.
Speaker 2:I'm going to push back on that. No, I don't think he does a good pull on the heartstrings, emotional core of this film. One Superman doesn't care about him. That is a problem. He uses him twice when he needs to. Right, as someone who's a dog lover and I would do anything for my dogs. He doesn't care about crypto at all.
Speaker 1:Well, he says it's a foster situation which, yeah, you're right, negates his whole thing.
Speaker 2:Is this a redheaded stepchild? Are you gonna kick the dog too, because it's not yours, right too? Uh, they don't actually put.
Speaker 1:They don't actually put crypto in peril well, they did, but they cut that out apparently well, but that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:That it that it's only what. I don't care what was on this in the screenplay, it's only what shows up on the film that I can judge. I mean, it doesn't matter because that's not what we got. If you're trying to set everything up to be around this plot point that you cut out, that was a bad idea in the first place. That's not a benefit to the movie overall in any way. Yeah, you're completely correct. Plus, there's no, there's no payoff.
Speaker 2:It's just a plot point to get from point, to save him from situations for him to like. The only the reason he's like turning himself in over to luther is well, there's this dog out there that I don't really care about. That's my cousin's dog, right, that I guess I should sacrifice myself, and I mean in his mind he is protecting not only this country but the rest of the world, all these people, from dying. But to save this dog that he doesn't care about and we don't have any connection to, he's going to sacrifice himself, to theoretically be locked up forever or maybe executed. He doesn't know what's coming Right To then just find this dog and then, once he finds the dog, there's not any like.
Speaker 2:Hey, we're like I love you and like this is, this is connection, is like hey, go do this thing, save me from this proton river, go get these orbs that are floating around. And then, when we get back to the Fortress of Solitude, it's like ah, crypto, you suck. That's just a dog that's in here, I don't really care about it. Yeah, your owner shows up and loves you, that's great.
Speaker 1:For five seconds. That's not an emotional connection.
Speaker 2:That's the reason to make a crypto popcorn bucket. That's a reason to sell, if you want, like capitalism. Putting crypto in a Superman movie, that to me comes off more of like I want to, whether it fits or not, and that's cool in a way. It pokes at that nostalgia button and it's like hey, I like comic books, this is more comic book stuff. But just putting a bunch of comic book stuff into a comic book movie does not make a good comic book movie. They need to be separate entities 're the best ones function as separate entities for a reason. I don't think crypto really does enough to drive the story long, connect with me emotionally and crypto is a kind of a symbol of a larger problem. I think in this film people are just here to get from point a to point b. Who am I really connecting with on an emotional level? Is it Lois, is it Jimmy or Perry? Not at all. Is it Lex's girlfriend? No, is it any of the?
Speaker 1:Justice.
Speaker 2:Gang? Not really, are we going to go to. Superman. I mean, maybe I can connect most with, I don't know, Metamorpho.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's the only one I think he does actually execute well.
Speaker 2:That one and that's just that. That's the most basic character in peril has to make a moral decision with that's. That's like a C list character in this film. That's my emotional heart that I'm supposed to go with. Is it like the bumpkin parents who have to explain the basics of being superman? I mean, there there are parts of cal-el's journey that I guess you can get on board with.
Speaker 2:But even the overarching storyline ideas of who he's about and what he's trying to figure out, do they really resonate at the end of the film that I'm a punk rocker because I guess I'm doing stuff old school and I'm not going to listen to. I can care about people and I can show empathy and I'm here for the greater good and that's punk rock because that's against the grain. But if that's the story you wanted to tell, there's an entire better story written about that. That's like the Manchester Black story. If that's the story you want to tell, one million percent the Manchester Black story as this Superman versus the elite, yes, exactly. And if you want to put, lex Luthor is in charge of the elite and they are being manipulated into, you know, having this war where he's going to turn into Dr Doom, which again, we literally have Dr Doom coming, and they set up a plot line in this movie that has Luthor trying to become Dr Doom.
Speaker 1:Yes, I don't know what you're trying to do with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember him ever doing that in comic books before.
Speaker 1:That seems really base for what lex is about well, the problem is that james gunn's trying to do too much. He's trying to square a lot you can't do in one movie. He's trying super hard to pay homage to the donner films, which he does actually a really good job of doing. In fact, he kind of includes that. Superman Returns is in canon, if you watch it. How does he do that? The Daily Planet, their news floor, it's the same set. Okay, not in canon, but is a reference Right, the entire movie is just references. You know, whatever it's a 75, 80-year-old character, I mean, I get that no, I'm sure the references are fine.
Speaker 2:You know, like in in the opening credits doing that 3d graphics or you know the underlying score that hits the beats from the original song. That's, that's iconic. There's a lot of those bits in there and I, I get, and and they were fine.
Speaker 1:Some of them were great, some of them were bad. And yeah, you hit on a lot of things there. I completely agree that most of the characters are completely flat. The thing is, his approach is well, you already know these characters. Why do we have to define them? He's right, I don't want to see Batman's origin every time I see a fucking Batman movie Right, we don't want to see batman's origin every time I see a fucking batman movie. Right, we don't need a superman origin story. I get it. But at the same time, then we chose folding your heartstrings. I think he kind of misses in a lot of ways. I don't think he does the kents very well, even though I think the only one of the only actually emotional moments in the movie is when he's talking to his father. That's just kind of like. Yeah, I could have seen an episode of smallville where they do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's okay and they kind of like neuter that a bit because his mother literally comes out. It's like I call paul camp mush because he's just too emotional to be a man in kansas dude you're from the west getting mushy again, and if you're like, hey, it is I I read it as a little like less masculine, to like be overly emotional, that we need to kind of like degrade you, yeah, and then that's like supposed to be the moment that we identify with the emotions. What are you trying to do there?
Speaker 1:I totally see where you're coming from there. I don't think it's quite that. I think it's more like he's trying to do there. I totally see where you're coming from there. I don't think it's quite that. I think it's more like he's trying to do wisdom from the, from the masses thing. But it doesn't work because a kansas isn't the south and b he's from fucking the midwest. He knows what midwest like I.
Speaker 1:Sadly the kevin costner version of that makes way more sense than the weird southern thing that he's doing. He's doing like these weird, he's doing tropes. If you look at his entire body of work, even going back to like I don't know, fucking his remake of Dawn of the Dead, it's tropes. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and this one OK. So you're going to do the whole Clark thing and you want to do the whole. You know going home, reorienting, reconnecting with your roots and your moral, you know standards or whatever. Fine, that may be the only good part of the movie when it comes to like personal, like character building in that, but even that I don't think it works very well and I don't like the way that they play him as dumb, they play him as naive.
Speaker 2:That's one thing I mean if I were to say I think they do that it is an easy way for writers to help ground. It's cheap, right character that's it is. It's like this character can do so much and he's unbeatable and he's super at everything. So we need to kind of make him not necessarily dull, but maybe a little naive in a lot of ways, which is why you know, like you pair him with batman, he's like the boy scout. You know versus right.
Speaker 1:You know the dark knight kind of thing what they tried to do with Mr Terrific and Guy Gardner. They posed those as the alternates to him in a way that kind of beats you over the head with it, Except for Mr Terrific.
Speaker 2:Mr Terrific was a fun representation on screen. I couldn't tell you what Mr Terrific's beliefs are or what he stands for, or what he does even really, or, yeah, I don't know. Technologically he does stuff and he's super tech wizard and he has these balls that can do just about anything, sure, which is not that far off from the comic books, but he doesn't have any emotion and he like speaks to that, that he doesn't want to engage on an emotional level and other than, like I want to dick over Guy Gardner what is his purpose for doing anything? Because it doesn't seem to be money. It doesn't seem to be fame, right. It doesn't seem to be equality or justice.
Speaker 1:Or even pursuit of knowledge.
Speaker 2:No, I don't know what his purpose is.
Speaker 1:If you're going to do Mr Terrific. I mean he literally has a jacket that says fair play on his sleeves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give him a motive. In that sense, then, like, make that his motivation, not just an aesthetic choice, which they don't do. I do like, though, the fact that he was like I'm going to turn him into a blaxploitation character who's also super badass, and then I'm going to do my own montage showing that he's badass because he's a D F list DC character. Fine, that works for me. But if you're going to use a character like that, make that more important. You're correct. Give him a motivation.
Speaker 2:Give him a backstory, not even a backstory, just a simple monologue he's in the plane with lois and he can just say like, hey, you know, I've seen you around, I am a reporter. Maybe I should try to like ask you questions about who the fuck you are, what the fuck's going on, and he can kind of explain.
Speaker 1:I stand for this and this is like what I do and I'm doing this for this they kind of do that because, like, they all say no when she comes to them, and then he actually does do a scene where he's like, well fuck, this is for the science kind of he says hey, you know, I gotta make sure that this pocket dimension thing is real and I want to piss off guy gardner because he doesn't want to do this, but that still doesn't tell me anything about who he is, or what he's about he's, he's highlighted to be like the breakout character from this film.
Speaker 2:It's like crypto and him.
Speaker 1:I think that's a cool fucking idea. But no, you're right, they don't do anything with it. There's no motivation there. They basically make sweet sweet back for no reason. Why does he have fair play on his sleeves? They make a point to show him putting on his jacket. Then why? That would be cool, and you know what? James Gunn would be a good person to do that. And they don't do it, they just like gloss over it. And on top of that, think about that scene where he finally decides to go with Lois. And they do that scene where it takes forever for the fucking garage door to open.
Speaker 1:That is such a like a weird tact on in the guardians movies. That scene at least would have, would have made sense, it would have flowed within the jokes of the movie. But that one was just kind of like I need something funny here. Yeah, it's comic relief, but it doesn't work. There was no payoff, there was no build-up, it was just kind of like this and then that happened and that was it, and they never addressed it like it didn't work comedically. This is the weird thing about the movie in general. It's a james gunn movie that doesn't seem like it's done by james gunn. It feels like he's fighting himself in this movie. I could get on board if I could talk to him and he'd be like, yeah, I didn't want to do it, but they wanted me to anchor the universe and I have a name and yada, yada, yada. But if you're going to expand this universe, don't direct this movie. He's the wrong pick for this movie, even as written right, didn't it feel like it should have belonged to somebody else?
Speaker 2:Well, it's tough because so much of it is James Gunn's Superman, james Gunn's DC Universe, right? So when you set it up like that, I'm getting exactly what I expect, and it's hard for me to not see what's coming. And, you know, be prepared for that. I'm expecting that. Yeah, similar type of like oh that happened. Humor, which is kind of like what dominates marvel films, for mostly ill. At this point it was like oh, that's cute when it first began 20 years ago, but I don't need that. Oh, then that happened. That's peter quill's whole spiel, that's his whole thing. And adding that to these characters, I mean, I just expected that. So when it happens, I'm not, you know, not anticipating it or being rubbed the wrong way with it well, I mean, you're completely correct.
Speaker 1:The worst part about that, though, is that, if you really look at the MCU, I think, honestly, the only things that give those moments that James Gunn does real validity is when the Russo brothers translate it. In Infinity War and Endgame, they bring in Guardians with James Gunn's humor and they manage to meld that into the sober like darker, more realistic. You know MCU. My favorite moment in in the entirety of the MCU is in Infinity War when Tony is coordinating with the Guardians and they do a dumb joke about like you know. He says something about being plucky, and then Star-Lord's like well, don't call us plucky, we know what that means. And tony just kind of looks at them and he sighs, he's like okay. It's like such a sobering moment when the silliness and the reality come together a lot of those things that makes the the gun movies popular.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I think we're the russo brothers made better. You need somebody else in the room. You need a Lawrence Kasdan type in the room. Right, he does the James Gunn stuff, but some of it just seems performative. I figured it would be funnier. I thought it would be more heartfelt. I expected tugging on the heartstrings more than it did and the stuff that they did didn't really work that well, and this is not to say I disliked the movie. I think it was still overall entertaining and one of the better DC movies Well, probably the best DC movies that's come out in a long time.
Speaker 2:Which one was better in your mind Suicide Squad or Superman?
Speaker 1:I think I actually I think I like Suicide Squad better than.
Speaker 2:Superman. I mean, I would agree.
Speaker 1:I think it works better within the realms of what it's trying to do yeah, and it still sets up a larger universe, but not sacrificing the narrative that superman, I think, has a problem with, like you were saying, like we don't care about crypto because it's not superman's dog, it's. It's supergirl's dog only so that we can set up the fact that supergirl's coming out. If you had just made it superman's dog, and it's Supergirl's dog only so that we can set up the fact that Supergirl's coming out, if you had just made it Superman's dog and made that more interactive, it would have been a better movie and doing what he thought he was doing.
Speaker 2:Just make him care about the goddamn dog. Yes, that would mean so much more. I kind of see him act with crypto and I'm like you know what? Fuck you, superman, why don't you go, go, like, take care of this dog?
Speaker 1:he's just in this fortress of solitude for I don't know, days, weeks, months on end by himself, these robots it's the death of the superman robot, you're supposed to feel something like it's the death of yeah character in guardians, or whatever, or like the death of another ellen tydic character in rogue one. You're like you're of another ellen tida character in rogue one. You're like you're supposed to feel something when he dies. You don't. I was like, okay, well, I guess the superman robot died, but that was supposed to be like an emotional moment and it wasn't they make a point at the beginning of the film.
Speaker 2:These guys have no names, they have no purpose other than to serve me, and they are not something to be emotional with at all. So then, to kill them, and the one dies in his arms. Who could possibly care?
Speaker 1:and I'm not supposed to care but then you set up scenes where you're supposed to care and you're like why, what is the point of the scene, especially since he offloads that to crypto? Yeah, it's so contradictory. It fights against itself the entire time, not in a way that is so detrimental that you hate it, but in a way that you're like well, that happened. You know, yes, I know, I know that's an ironic thing to say.
Speaker 2:But Okay, the Justice Gang Thumbs up, thumbs down Thoughts.
Speaker 1:It feels like a plot device to set up something else, which is fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could have done some more with like these are all heroes for hire. There's only the privatization of super Of metahumans. Yes, yeah, you can say something with that. They don't at all. But again, all right. Lex Luthor, I know you were a little hesitant about this casting originally. How did you feel the portrayal? How did Nicholas Holtt do his ideas, his schemes, his dialogue, thoughts?
Speaker 1:I love nicholas holt. I think he's a great actor. I think it's an even kind of an inspired it's not what I would have done, but I think it's an inspired casting. As lex luther and you know what I think he does a great job. I don't think I like the way that it's written, but the subtleties of lex luther is what makes him a great villain. They went straight up super villain. They give you a couple of lines to explain why he can do what he does, but it didn't work for me. It just I, I just it, just the whole character didn't work for me. And then you get to ultraman, which was just a setup for bizarro, obviously or uh, superman 4 no, they make reference to superman.
Speaker 1:Okay, exactly so. If you want to, if you want to do quick hits, here's it. Here it is.
Speaker 1:The things I do really, really, really like about the movie is that james gunn is meticulous in his specific references. He makes decisions and he stands by them and he goes for very specific, deep cut references. What state license plates are in a superman movie? This movie, straight up, has delaware plates, end of story. And I'm like, okay, he made a decision and I'm with you, we don't have to debate this anymore.
Speaker 1:And then he does the whole like hypno-glasses thing. Yeah, whatever, that's a James Gunn hand-wavy thing, that's fine. But then when they reveal Ultraman to be Bizarro essentially he's got long hair and a black suit it's very obviously a reference to the death of Superman, right, a reference to the death of superman, right? I mean like, I get it. Cool, you're making a decision, you're not being wishy-washy, you're just doing it. Good, don't leave it up to jeff johns to write a story about how wonder woman raped a dude. Go for it.
Speaker 1:And he does, and for the most part it works. It doesn't work in a lot of ways because he doesn't understand superman, though he does like he doesn't know how to write superman, but he understands the core of the character. In a certain sense he makes him kind of a country bumpkin and kind of a naive idiot, but at the same time he understands that he is fundamentally good, which is a rip on David Goyer and Zack Snyder. But at the same time his approach is also kind of contradictory, because he's fighting the fucking kaiju. He's like eyes up here, that confidence that the authoritative thing that superman has, which is, I think, great, but then is also he's an idiot. The rest of the movie and you're like, well, which?
Speaker 2:is he?
Speaker 1:that's one of the things that christopher reeve does so well. Oh, I wish I could do this, I wish I could save it or whatever, and then everybody makes fun of him. He would just figure it out, like in that Manchester Black story we were talking about, and that's what Christopher Reeve brought to the character. He had that gravitas, you know, like when Lois interviews him and he's like every answer he has to her questions made sense and they were well thought out and confident and sort of authoritative. That's what made him Superman. Not what he looked like in the suit, not with the things he did in the movie. The dialogue and the way he handled things is what made him superman. In this movie they do it like half the time and then the other half the time he makes him a silly dumbass and it's like just pick a lane, pick a lois lane, and then we're not even getting into the jimmy olsen thing, which I I did find entertaining, but also they didn't give you enough to make that make sense.
Speaker 2:I mean they do reference why and you know it's kind of just a shoulder shrug, it's an in joke supposed to be funny. That's, that's fine. Not everything has to be it's fine. There are things that can just be comic book non sequiturs that are thrown in here to spice up action or add some comedic bits. Not everything has to have dramatic, half a long backstory, a monologue, whatever. But you do have to have some of those things right, otherwise it's going to feel patchy, it's going to feel spotty, it's going to feel disconnected and the flow isn't going to be, which I think is superman's problem. Overall it is an enjoying you enjoy your time in the theater, yes, but it just feels a little disconnected, it feels disjointed for sure. Yeah, nothing about it hits fully right. Right, it's all like 60 to 70 percent of what you want, but there's nothing like right. Well, that's it. That's 100, what it should be, what I want it to be across the board. So that makes for a, you know, a solid c. But look at the theme song.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh great, they use john williams theme but they kind of don't like they use it but it's like in sporadic ways and then they go away from it. It's never a build to the dramatic build of when john williams used it. You know what I mean. They do the one they do the dramatic build when the kids are lifting the flag sure, but honestly I I feel more emotion from superman returns when they do that than I did in that movie. It's not enough. It seems like he's fighting himself in this movie.
Speaker 2:I think he's trying to cover his bases, because one the generation this is made for is not someone who saw the 1970s Superman. This is a movie to wink and nod and show references and reverence to those past films, but not be beholden to them and do something new for this newer audience. I think some of it is a positive and some of it's detrimental. I don't think the movie fully works, but I do think it's enjoyable yeah, yeah, and that's that's kind of where I come out.
Speaker 1:It's like a b minus, I think, probably or a b yeah, and I go like a c you know, yeah, I could see cc plus.
Speaker 2:Actually, the more that I've talked to you and thought about it, the less I like it me too, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:When I saw it, I was like I wasn't like enamored with it. I was just like I'm confused. Why is there so much going?
Speaker 2:on. Yeah, there's just too much going on. I think there are parts that I would really really like. You know there's like a much going on. I think there are parts that I would really really like. You know, there's like a Mr Handsome which is a weird creepy X-Files-esque character in this bizarre Mario world in between, you know, with possible mother boxes, which would have been great if they had talked about using that, addressed it. Yeah, like, yeah, something. It doesn't really fit in this film, but it feels like.
Speaker 1:It feels like three different movies in one movie.
Speaker 2:It just it's like it's the sloppiness you know it's there's just yeah too much.
Speaker 1:he's doing what lex luther did and trying to create a universe, but in one movie it does work in certain ways and I think in certain ways that are great, because I think the whole metamorpho thing kind of kicks ass and I think that feels like a classic James Gunn thing, where you take a character that doesn't matter and that no one gives a shit about and you care about him.
Speaker 2:Kind of.
Speaker 1:Where did his kid come from? Why does that kid in peril? I don't know. Whatever Fine, but you still kind of care. Still, that was just a plot device. It advanced the plot, but I don't know that it did anything for the universe or because he just like literally walks away into the woods like bruce banner in the whole tv show.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a sloppy joe of a fucking superhero movie, but one that you don't mind eating yeah, I mean sloppy joe is perfect, because a sloppy joe it's something for the unwashed masses that you're just going to have, a tasty treat that's not ideally nutritious but gets enough. You know, you're getting your protein, you're getting some carbohydrates, you're getting lots of sodium, but it's like something to have around the dinner table. You know, in the middle of the week with your family, you're going to eat it, you're going to enjoy it, but you're not going to think about it ever again.
Speaker 1:Also like it creates a whole culture behind it, which is what he's trying to establish. This is our thing now. And you know what? After watching it, I was like you know what? It wasn't the marvel universe. It didn't feel like it. The rules weren't the same. It definitely felt different than marvel, and I think that was one of the major points that's.
Speaker 2:That's funny because I, to me, this feels the closest to any of the other marvel films what really?
Speaker 1:when mr terrific is like that's an anti-proton stream and then he and then superman, like is flowing through an interpro, I'm like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:like the marvel would never do this I mean if you watch, if you watch guardians three well, okay, there's a lot of like weird.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just saying it's like that, that is, that's where it's coming from you know it felt more comic booky and less grounded than the mcu very much so, and I will, I will that, yeah, I can't disagree with that at least in that sense I appreciate that and I think audiences appreciated that and I think that's why it did well in the theaters, because people have marvel fatigue and also the marvel movies have sucked recently, so this was at least a breath of fresh air although would you want more in this vein, like if this if this is what you got dc going forward, are you happy with that? I mean that's a complicated question. I'm not really sure. I don't.
Speaker 2:We don't have time to really get into it, but I don't want james gunn to do another superman movie.
Speaker 1:I'm glad this happened and and it's interesting that it created another universe, and I'm kind of glad that a guy that really appreciates detail and minutiae and world building is in charge. I don't want him to direct another superman movie. I would like to see this universe go on. This is at least different. It's not something that's run itself into the ground. I'm excited about that possibility. I would like to see somebody do a superman sequel that has like a more epic vision that inspires you more. You know like it gives you that sense of awe, and this one just felt like James Gunn had to do it and he did his best, and some of it's great and some of it's just okay. I'm not going to come away from this film Feeling like you would if you were a kid Watching Donner Superman, obviously, or Tim Burton's Batman.
Speaker 1:I think those are both stronger visions than this, right, but this is the vision of an entire universe and it shows that he's not focusing on superman, he's focusing on the dcu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's kind of its detriment yeah, I mean it's good that it opens up a lot of doorways, but but if you're trying to tell a coherent, streamlined narrative, that's not the way to go. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, it's not that it's bad. No, I think Guardians 3 is kind of bad Same, but this Guardians 2 is kind of bad, but like Guardians 2 is like half, half and half.
Speaker 2:It's like Guardians 1 is 90 great yeah. Guardians 2 is about 50 50. Guardians 3 is like 30, which is essentially just the soul crushing rocket story.
Speaker 1:Everything else about it sucks you're right, everything else in the movie sucks. That part is legitimately some of the best MCU stuff ever the soul crushing rocket thing which I never want to see ever again because it's so heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:It's like, oh yeah, I guess. Yeah, Not every piece of art needs to be entertaining, as they say.
Speaker 1:Right, it's not a bad movie. It's actually, in fact, a good movie, and we had basically the same review of the Flash, which is like it's not as bad as people think it is. It's not good. No, we agreed on this. It's bad, it's bad.
Speaker 2:This is much better than the Flash, it's just not as bad as people think it is. Well, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:It's a million percent better than the Flash.
Speaker 2:I guess I have a better feel for what. I think people I think most people like this film a lot more than we do. Oh yeah, most people and I don't. I don't know what the consensus is. On the flash, there's a lot.
Speaker 1:We didn't even get into the politics of this film well, I mean it, superman has always been political. It always has been yes, yeah, so whatever, that's a different story too.
Speaker 2:We don't. We don't have time to get into all of that we will critique it.
Speaker 1:We think it's. It's a kind of a mess of a movie. It is an enjoyable watch and it at least sets up something different for superhero films going forward. It doesn't feel like it's the mcu rubber stamp formulaic thing that has been just a copy of a copy of a copy into mediocrity that the mcu has been. It's at least something fresh and new and even if it's limited by james gunn because he feels like he has a ceiling, in general it's something fun and go to the movie, watch it, go for it, have fun it makes me want to watch fantastic four more because I want to see the compare contrast between what they do with that and Superman.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's funny because I feel like Fantastic Four feels like a desperation, I think one trying to do something when you have very little to work with that's never worked before is a big swing that I don't know. Yeah, I think. I think this is the precursor to the truly all out throw everything at the wall that we possibly can to bring you to the theater and what the Avengers movies are going to be but I thought Thunderbolts was that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean, oh see, I don't. Fantasy 4 feels like a. They finally were like all right, fuck, let's just put it in the 60s, which, I mean I've always said is the way to go. That's what you should do, always agreed on that you should always have done that, which is kind of the thing that gives me hope. I don't know that it's going to be good. I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm not hopeful, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I concur. One last thing on superman. I do want to just point out that they did make an entire clone of superman and it is complete afterthought in this film, which, when on the other surface it's that's crazy bizarre well he's gone. Well, he's got thrown into a black hole yeah, I know, but it's superman, so like right, right, and it's comic books.
Speaker 2:You can always do something, but right, I mean one. We knew. I knew from the very get-go. I didn't know from spoilers or anything, I just knew. Like once they like went to the fortress of solitude, oh, it's ultra man, he's a clone, blah blah, blah. That's why he's in the suit. Blah blah, I get that right, but it just seems weird to have, yeah, that just like as just a throwaway plotline in this film.
Speaker 1:Right, but I do appreciate that. In that I mean he essentially gives him the whole like nuclear man explanation for it. And he is the nuclear man. That's the one thing I really do appreciate about that that Gunn takes the lore really seriously and there are other like Easter egg things in there that he takes from other Superman movies that most people wouldn't notice. He takes the character seriously and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:There's a lot going on. Also, I have to point out this this falls into the Jurassic World problem that if you have one clone, then there's got to be more clones out there and that's just like that's a whole. Nother gets you into a snowball of, unless you were, like, destroyed the cloning facility, which is kind of what they do well in civil war, where they're like, all right, see, I've killed all of the superpowered people.
Speaker 1:There is no more of this formula to make any more of you. You arguably ruined baron zemo as a character by doing that, but that's okay. Whatever who cares? His mask was dumb and who's really?
Speaker 2:like on board, I need more neo-nazis to be super villain. It's like I like that he was this tortured guy. He devoted his life to, like, executing this plan and he did it, and then he tries to take his own life and doesn't succeed. Yeah, that's a much more compelling narrative to me. But whatever to wrap, to wrap up, superman eh it's all right.
Speaker 1:It's an okay-ish good time. Yeah, it doesn't know what it is, even though it's supposed to define everything. But you know what? It just thinks it's a lot of things. It definitely thinks it's a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's worth watching. It's fun Not life-changing, but not bad. So there's that. Yeah, we hope that you feel the same about this podcast, that you know it wasn't bad. I don't know about good, but it wasn't bad. That's the spirit. If you do feel that way, that it is better than bad, please do like, share, subscribe. If you wouldn't mind writing a review on Apple podcast or whatever podcast app of your choice, that would be preferable and pleasurable to us. It's the best way for us to get heard and seen and for us to spread our reach around baravia and jarhampur or wherever else. We're right. Yeah, whatever. Uh, lexburg, skip what Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whatever Lexburg Skip. What should the audience do?
Speaker 1:Oh, they should probably Clean up after themselves To some sort of Reasonable degree. I mean, jesus Christ, it's getting cluttered in here. Make sure they have Paid their tabs, make sure they have Tipped their bartenders, their KJs, their wait staff, make sure they, you know, support their local Comic shops and retailers. And from Dispatch Ajax we would like to say Godspeed, fair wizards.
Speaker 2:Skip, save me, take me home, please go away.