[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about this plan a year. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's good, except it sucks. [SPEAKER_00]: So let me do the plan and that way it might be really good. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [UNKNOWN]: you [SPEAKER_04]: Hello, and welcome to it! [SPEAKER_04]: It's got accepted socks, a movie by a movie, and television series by television series, Hurtle through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. [SPEAKER_04]: This time, we're taking a look at Moon Knight, first seen in March, twenty-twenty-two.
[SPEAKER_04]: When, if you wanted to look clever in front of your friends, you could watch human resources, life and death, or America's got talent-ex-dream instead. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Tim Worthington, and we'll be finding out what I thought of Moon Knight shortly. [SPEAKER_04]: Meanwhile, joining us to give his thoughts on Moon Knight is Chris Expert, David Smith. [SPEAKER_02]: Hi Tim, this is Steven here actually. [SPEAKER_02]: You can find me shackled to a bed in a loft in North London.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find David, the most social media at DVD Smith. [SPEAKER_02]: He's a nice bloke, bit of a funny accent. [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that's all I've got to say. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me. [SPEAKER_03]: No, sorry, so I don't know what happened. [SPEAKER_03]: There, uh, kind of black down for a second. [SPEAKER_03]: How you doing? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you can find me in all the usual places. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so before we're getting further, I'll provide to you.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's actually game. [SPEAKER_04]: David, what happened to Moonlight? [SPEAKER_03]: This is the first of Marvel's Disney Plus series that centered around an entirely original character.
[SPEAKER_03]: They take us through the worlds of Egyptian gods for the first time, and we follow a man named Stephen Grant, who's an Englishman living in London, who works in a museum gift shop, who suddenly starts experiencing blackouts, where he'll wake up hours or even days later in weird and unusual places, and we actually find out that Stephen is a man named Mark Spector. [SPEAKER_03]: who has dissociative identity disorder and Steven's actually an alternate personality of his.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we find out, and this is where it gets really fun, Mark is the human avatar of Konshu, the Egyptian god of the Moon, and Mark has the ability to turn into the magical being known as Moon Knight. [SPEAKER_03]: who has healing powers and flight and super strength in all the usual superhero jazz.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the story revolves around Mark and his wife Layla trying to stop a man named Arthur Harrow, who is trying to revive the goddess Amit, who is the Egyptian god of, I think she's the god of basically hell personified or something like that, and they do a sort of minority report where they leap the souls of humanity and judge them based on actions that they have done in the past or have yet to do in the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're trying to stop this man Arthur Harrow from unleashing hell upon the world, while also trying to let Mark come to terms with Stephen, his alternate personality and have them sort of peacefully coexist. [SPEAKER_03]: at all. [SPEAKER_03]: I think the only time I knew about, I first heard about midnight when they commissioned it for Disney+.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I heard yourself in a few other Marvelites on the web, just all talking about going, oh my god, they're doing midnight. [SPEAKER_03]: I can't wait to see this. [SPEAKER_03]: And I was just thinking, when I started reading up on it, I was thinking, the concept just sounds mad. [SPEAKER_03]: And I was fully prepared to come into this podcast when you invite me to do this episode, just sending the entire time to turn what up!
[SPEAKER_03]: Was that just could not believe how they were going to make this work on screen? [SPEAKER_03]: But they actually did. [SPEAKER_03]: It actually it made sense. [SPEAKER_03]: It was fun. [SPEAKER_03]: It was good and it didn't sort of it didn't seem up itself. [SPEAKER_03]: It was really well done. [SPEAKER_03]: The concept was really well done and the character work was outstanding. [SPEAKER_03]: I had a great time with it. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's exactly why I wanted you to do Moonlight because you know I'm aware that you know you love the series, you love the films that you don't really know which about the comics but you like finding out about characters and I was aware that people have been because you know without the situation where I mean I thought bringing people like say Captain Marvel and Jessica Jones and Drax which you know like next level but they've really pushed through again people like Monica Rambo now but Moonlight in particular I didn't expect
[SPEAKER_04]: But I was aware that as you say, you will have seen people saying, I really hope they do moonlight at some point. [SPEAKER_04]: Talk about some kind of hushed or tones without getting very much away. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's why I really, really thought you'll take on it, it'd be really interesting. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was work as I heard people talk about, and I heard Kevin Feige say that when the announcer said, [SPEAKER_03]: This is going to be the most brutal one yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be absolutely not like nothing you've ever seen before. [SPEAKER_03]: And if I'm honest, there wasn't that much that was more brutal than what we've seen before. [SPEAKER_03]: You know when you compare it to sort of the blood on the Captain America shield and Falcon only went to soldier or stuff like that, because most of the action
[SPEAKER_03]: suffers from the same thing as agents of shield and all those other television shows where it has a television budget and so they don't have as much money to work with so they work have to work creatively and one of the ways that they do that is they have marker Steven just sort of black out and wake up and suddenly all the action has happened off screen and you've just got all these people lying on the ground covered in blood
[SPEAKER_03]: As I said, I was watching it as a casual viewer who hadn't seen Moon Knight before and was excited to see what he could do. [SPEAKER_03]: And I've seen the entire series twice now. [SPEAKER_03]: And if I'm honest for the first four or five episodes, I was loving the characters. [SPEAKER_03]: I was loving the story. [SPEAKER_03]: I was a little disappointed at how little actual Moon Knighting there had been.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first episode he literally appears throughout five seconds at the end. [SPEAKER_03]: The second and third, there's maybe a total of five minutes of fighting. [SPEAKER_03]: You get a very cool moment with Mr. Knight, which is apparently as a different version. [SPEAKER_03]: This is what it was really funny.
[SPEAKER_03]: and I was going into episode six thinking they'd better show some proper midnight because otherwise I feel we've been shortchanged on our midnight and they actually delivered I think the series finale episode six was the best finale we've had of all these TV shows just the amount of action was brilliant and when I saw it I could kind of see why because
[SPEAKER_03]: The concept of Moon Knight as far as I can tell is the backstory and the character itself, the sort of dissociative identity that is the key feature because when you look at his powers, he's got flight, he's got super strength, he's got healing powers, he doesn't really do anything that we haven't seen before in a lot of other heroes in the MCU.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I can kind of understand why they didn't make the hero himself the focus of it because you're just watching sex episodes of as superhero do stuff that you've already seen before. [SPEAKER_03]: Watching it a second time, I really appreciated that they went more into the sort of the actual characters rather than the hero himself. [SPEAKER_03]: But I think with the amount of action that they had at the end of it, I think overall it was a really good series.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I really hope that they bring more of it back. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's interesting to bring that up because one thing that's really struck me about the reaction to it is that there has been a kind of perception that, you know, are they finally done this as the series? [SPEAKER_04]: The clever people like me who get clever things when people do them.
[SPEAKER_04]: There was actually when it was first announced, the press conference where somebody kind of more or less asked that, you know, like, oh, he tried to do something more intellectual now, really. [SPEAKER_04]: Kevin Farge got visibly irritated and said, he's an action-gearer who jumps out of buildings. [SPEAKER_04]: And then later found out that there was another interview where he'd said, it will be moreambling entertainment than that house cinema.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Jeremy Slater, the writer, who I think will have more to say about in the minute, said he actually consciously modeled it on Ghostbusters. [SPEAKER_04]: not rates lost arc, which he thought would be too obvious, because he thought that's the tone, you know, kind of action comedy with jump scares. [SPEAKER_04]: But people still treat it as though.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I disregarded the silly films about the flying god of thunder with his hammer, but this one is for me, and now keep that opinion to yourself. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, people seem like they want to turn everything that Marvel makes into sort of the dark night basically when they hear it. [SPEAKER_03]: They want this is going to be Marvel's gritty.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is going to be Marvel's sort of dark and it's going to be brutal and it's going to be violent and it's going to put off all the Marvel fans that they've amassed over the past twelve years. [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I mean, there will be some, I think later down the line, there are going to be some R rated stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: There's going to be deadpool. [SPEAKER_03]: There's going to be blade. [SPEAKER_03]: But this is still, this is a TV show.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's still got, it's got to appeal to the fans, especially when you're taking a risk on a new and relatively obscure character. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, you've already got people on board with one division and Falcon in the winter soldier. [SPEAKER_03]: You've got them on board, Disney plus and all this sort of format. [SPEAKER_03]: Then you start bringing in people they've never seen before.
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to make sure that you retain that audience while also giving them something they've never seen before. [SPEAKER_03]: And if you completely change it and turn it into Zack Snyder's Justice League,
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not going to be it's going to be too much of a tonal shift and the idea that oh they're finally they're going to do something for smart people that implies that the entire thing that they've done before has been for idiots like the entire infinity saga the entire sort of all the stuff that's come before they're saying oh there's there's not been a hint of intelligence in that and that's really condescending
[SPEAKER_03]: And also, I don't think there's anything as great as midnight. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think there's anything particularly special about it compared to the rest of them in terms of you don't need to have a degree in Egyptology to be able to understand it. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it probably would have helped because there were a lot of gods to keep track of it and that scene in the pyramid, but other than that, I think it seemed, it was relatively accessible, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, it reminded to be off. [SPEAKER_04]: I've only a character that I half expected to turn up in this, who didn't suddenly. [SPEAKER_04]: The Netflix series of the Punisher, it seems to be quite heavily structurally influenced by the even down to the bottle episode. [SPEAKER_04]: What's interesting there is, you know, talking about the level of violence in it.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've really nailed this thing now, because obviously in the Punisher and in things like that, that's all you got things like, you know, you've got people's head being smashed into mirrors. [SPEAKER_04]: you know, that sort of thing. [SPEAKER_04]: But if really perfected the thing of making you think you've seen things, you know, exactly what you were saying about Mark slush the even waking up after things have happened. [SPEAKER_04]: I would like it too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Actually, we didn't mention this when we talked about Black Widow. [SPEAKER_04]: It only struck me later. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, there is a scene where all the Widow's punches around face off. [SPEAKER_04]: And you think you've seen it. [SPEAKER_04]: But you actually haven't. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, there's a shot of her from a bush.
[SPEAKER_04]: and the shot of the tasher in your lane and kneeling over it and you don't actually really say it and I think that bowed well for the future that they're able to do these things like you're saying without really making it tremendously unsuitable and necessarily scaring or offending people and I think that's be applauded really.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's also, I mean, it's a great way to say Mike's a great way to sort of imply the brutality, especially the brutality of Jake Lockley, which is a character that we're hopefully going to see more of the next time, the idea that, because you think when you see the star and you see, particularly in Episode One, they're in that village in the Alps, and Stephen Blacks out anyway, so up in everyone is covered in blood, and you think it's Mark.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then over the course of the next few episodes, you realize that Mark's not actually as violent as you initially think he is. [SPEAKER_03]: And then you realize, particularly in episode three in Cairo, there's one scene where Mark Blacks out and suddenly everyone is covered in blood and you realize Hang on, who's this third person?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's the idea that there's an actual, there isn't actual monster in there and we don't see them at all and they're just planting that seed. [SPEAKER_03]: this way of implying the actual violence without seeing it and without getting the rating that means that it's going to be unsuitable for viewers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your point there did remind me of the black widow hitting herself in the face because there's a really fine moment where I think is it marked that punch is Steven in the face after he kisses Laila and it's I think it's the first time on television that we've had a love triangle between two people because yeah I think Steven kisses Mark's wife and then Mark just punches Steven in the face and I just turned that so funny.
[SPEAKER_04]: actually think they'd be really clever in, because I mean the first illusion to Moon Knight in the MCU was way back in Captain America the Winter Soldier, but I hinted at one of the little scene personalities, but I think going for the English and the American one first, although they're very clearly cast Oscar Isaac because he has got that element of racial ambiguity to him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I still think they were very wise to go over the English and the American personalities because you know Jake obviously who Spanish only comes in right at the end I think they've avoided a lot of potential pitfalls and criticism that way when you deal with the new character I think that's quite important but what's really annoying me the second way in which people react into it annoying me is people are still going on about Stephen's accents
[SPEAKER_04]: It should be quite obvious to the first trailer. [SPEAKER_04]: It was supposed to indicate all is not right. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's not just somebody they've roped in after it and it's got talent to say, it's Oscar Isaac. [SPEAKER_04]: And he would either deal with proper action or not do it. [SPEAKER_04]: He's clearly doing it for a reason.
[SPEAKER_04]: It explains clearly in the show, the fact that the Stephen even really exists in any form, but people are still saying, OMG loved it apart from that accident. [SPEAKER_04]: Did you actually watch any of it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think after hitting my accent at the beginning of this they might have second thoughts, but yeah Oscar Isaac is an incredible actor and I could not I mean there was part of me in this and I must confess that there were times where I was thinking is he doing a really good London accent or is he doing a terrible London accent?
[SPEAKER_03]: My ear isn't very good at dealing between the two if I'm honest [SPEAKER_03]: And then you get into the actual canon of it, which is he is an American doing an English accent. [SPEAKER_03]: Even if it's not the best English accent, canonically that's okay because he is fundamentally not English. [SPEAKER_03]: He's doing an accent.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it kind of reminded me of, I remember hearing Sandy talks about talk about a story about how she just changed her accent one day because she was, she used to have a New York accent and she was getting bullied at school for it. [SPEAKER_03]: So she just one day decided to start talking in an English accent so that she'd fit in. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's what reminded me of Mark and Steven.
[SPEAKER_03]: He just switched one day and that was him as Steven and just started talking like that. [SPEAKER_03]: And it's not going to be perfect, but it's still, I mean Oscar Rising is just such a good actor. [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, I think that's probably the first time ever that someone has compared Moon Knight to Sandy Talkswick. [SPEAKER_03]: I'll guarantee that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, and the thing is that because Oscar Isaac, like Oscar Isaac, this shows me this show has showed me so much how Oscar Isaac was wasted in Star Wars. [SPEAKER_03]: Like absolutely wasted. [SPEAKER_03]: He is such a great acting talent that in the fifth episode where they're in that sort of afterlife hospital and it actually is the two physical personalities as actual separate people.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't think of it as Oscar Isaac, like the same person twice because he plays them so differently. [SPEAKER_03]: They're mannerisms and just the way they look, the way they walk, even the way they're here is. [SPEAKER_03]: It looks like two different people, and you see it as two different people.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's such a brilliant actor, and you've got to give props to Laila's actress as well, Mikala Maui, because there's a scene right in the finale where she starts channeling tower it, the god is there. [SPEAKER_03]: And just switching between the two voices and the two personalities, you know, channeling this god that's talking to her, all in the same scene in the same shot, without the camera panning away or anything like that, that is proper skill.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was just, I was hugely impressed by both of them, particularly right at the end in the finale when Mark and Steven are both co-existing in the same body. [SPEAKER_03]: And in the same shot, you can see Oscar Isaac go from Mark to Steven, visibly, and you can tell without the accent without anything, you can just see it in his face, whether he's Mark or Steven. [SPEAKER_03]: And I just thought that was superb.
[SPEAKER_03]: And not everyone is going to be able to pull that off as convincingly as he did. [SPEAKER_03]: So I think it was a superb choice to cast him in this role. [SPEAKER_04]: I think she was absolutely brilliant as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: The color scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scarlet scar [SPEAKER_04]: It is more, apparently she still did a lot of Middle Eastern cinema to get the right kind of strong attitude but with the different take on it. [SPEAKER_04]: But the way Hollywood character's always presented and that rarely comes across. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a huge amount of Egyptian influence in this show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the amount of the good got Egyptian directors, writers, composers and Maya herself is an Egyptian actress as well. [SPEAKER_03]: So the amount of actual native Egyptian stuff in this that's not Hollywood at all is superb. [SPEAKER_03]: Although I do have an issue with the Scarlet Scarab's Outfit because I do wonder how long it will be before Sam Wilson shows up with a cease and desist letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just watching and thinking this is just Egyptian Falcon come on because I was kind of thinking like she gets channeled by the goddess tower it who is this hippo god the goddess of fertility and children all this [SPEAKER_03]: And apparently in the Egyptian mythology like tower it has nothing to do with balancing the scales around like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I do wonder if maybe like in the pyramid we saw all these gods in case in stone if maybe there was some bigger story about the Egyptian gods aren't doing what they're supposed to because someone is imprisoning them or something. [SPEAKER_03]: But when Leila gets sort of when she becomes the avatar of tower it tower it is a hippo god why does Leila not transform into a giant hippo?
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to see her in some kind of enormous get up like a big bernie the purple dinosaur or something
[SPEAKER_03]: You know this massive hip-o outfit just stamp eating through the streets of Cairo just trampling all the bad guys I know they had to decide to make her cool and sleek and golden and badass and all this stuff and give her wings and I was like no I want to see a big hip-o god just bumbling down the street But yeah, apparently cuz I thought she was an entirely I thought this is the end to use first entirely original superhero cuz I couldn't see anything, but yeah, apparently the Scarlet Scarlet is what they based her on
[SPEAKER_03]: Which I think was a really cool thing. [SPEAKER_03]: There was a little line at the end where it felt a bit contrived. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a girl that says, are you an Egyptian superhero? [SPEAKER_03]: And she says, I am. [SPEAKER_03]: And that did feel it felt a little bit contrived in the same way that sort of the female team up scene in end game. [SPEAKER_03]: Kind of felt where it's like, you know, depending on how you look at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's either really, really cool and really representative and amazing. [SPEAKER_03]: But also at the same time, there's part of you thinking, [SPEAKER_03]: Ah, it's a bit on the nose, but you know, it was still amazing to see. [SPEAKER_03]: And I really hope that she comes back because one of the dialogues scenes she says, I'll be your avatar, but only temporarily.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like if there is a series to have been like, it'll be a shame if she doesn't come back in some form. [SPEAKER_03]: Because yeah, there's a really, really cool canics. [SPEAKER_03]: And it was great for her to have something to do beside just being the wife, you know, as so many female characters have been in these things before. [UNKNOWN]: Amen. [SPEAKER_01]: It's all right, Rossa. [SPEAKER_01]: It's all right. [SPEAKER_01]: Those old bones can't hurt you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, at least now we know it happened to Paul and Talbin. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: And to anyone who chooses a path of greed. [SPEAKER_01]: Does this mean a treasure has gone to? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I think not. [SPEAKER_01]: Do you notice anything unusual about that statue? [SPEAKER_01]: The statue, of course, shallke. [SPEAKER_01]: Luna, god of the Aztecs. [SPEAKER_01]: No, but I'm just a lad trying to steal my vest. [SPEAKER_01]: Your doctor's Steven Grant.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's a good moment to bring in, mention it. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, actually, just before I get onto the director, I'll just say Jeremy Slater, the writer.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was surprised with her, he was attached to this, because the main thing he's known for is the twenty-fifty non-marval fantastic four, [SPEAKER_04]: Literally early today on Twitter and sure you saw it there was somebody trying to reclaim it as a mess on the store film and basically no there's literally nothing about that Leave it alone, but apparently I didn't notice or recently what ended up on screen bought almost no relations with original script and he
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he's quite well known in kind of art house circles. [SPEAKER_04]: for, you know, the kind of films that the sort of people that want to say, ah, I understand Moonlight, like Kyro-Six-Seven-Eight and Clash and things like that. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, a really good film's, but they're not quite mainstream. [SPEAKER_04]: He apparently had no idea that this was even the thing he was just contacted by Marvel, who said, would you be interested in directing this?
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's a bit sort of what, but he saw it as an opportunity to depict Egypt on screen. [SPEAKER_04]: as a modern city to quote him for better and for worse. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, so shall we get to not brilliant. [SPEAKER_04]: It's not a utopian metropolis, but it's not what's depicted as either. [SPEAKER_04]: I think he did a spectacular job of that because you don't actually a lot of the time. [SPEAKER_04]: If this makes sense, you don't realize where it's set.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think, especially considering that they didn't, I don't think they filmed any of it in actual Egypt, because I think the desert parts, the parts in Cairo are all filmed in Jordan, and the parts that are supposed to be London are sent in Budapest, which you can kind of tell when someone gets off a Tottenham court road to go to Schrufheimer Square, which is about, you know, forty-minute walk or something like that, and then apparently the British Museum is now in Trafalgar Square and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, and whenever you think of films set in Egypt or something like that, it's [SPEAKER_03]: Always ancient Egypt you never see modern Cairo you never see because there's always that famous shot of what people think the pyramids look like and it's these three pyramids in the middle of a vast desert and what the pyramids actually look like and you know there's a KFC sort of two minutes walk from them and it's just the entirety of Cairo encroaching on the pyramid site
[SPEAKER_03]: and so to actually see that and see them on the streets like the final battle takes place on the streets of Cairo while this giant Kaiju fight is happening next to the Pettamism cells. [SPEAKER_03]: I think he did a really good job especially like I say considering that they didn't film a second of it in actual Egypt. [SPEAKER_03]: He managed to represent it really well and actually show modern Egypt pretty well yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It has a sense that it's somewhere where all of this is happening in it, not because of it, not caused by the location. [SPEAKER_04]: It is just a location for the action. [SPEAKER_04]: In this day in age, that is quite the achievement, but another thing I think they both deserve real praise for is, kind of a byproduct of the fact that everything has to be shifted around after the pandemic. [SPEAKER_04]: And you know, the production order of things has changed.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's recently emerged that America was supposed to be inspired by no way home, but the two films got swapped around.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, they would have to [SPEAKER_04]: If you choose that after she's already appeared in something, but this, I mean a number of people have commented on the fact that it doesn't seem to have much connection to the wider marbles that you know that is, which is, I think they've done a couple of times, like, you know, health strum is probably the best example, but if you think like the first amount of my film feels quite disconnected from everything else.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not like they haven't got form in that, but apparently it was originally supposed to tie in much more closely, but because of things being moved round. [SPEAKER_04]: The things that have emerged are that they were supposed to be, and I can actually say where this would have slotted into the script.
[SPEAKER_04]: References to the god butcher, who [SPEAKER_04]: we'll see in Thorlof and Thunder but isn't yet because it's been moved so that had to go but also Echo we was introduced in Hawkeye and King Go from the Eternal's will originally part of the plot and it was simply that in both cases the actors weren't available.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because production of this has moved so that's the primary reason why they've both got taken I don't even tell that three major elements were taken out of it, but I think having lost that context they've done an amazing job of making it just as valid in its own right [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's the tricky part, especially with an original property, is that you don't want it to just feel like an extension of something that's come before.
[SPEAKER_03]: You want it to be able to stand on its own, and if you just go, hey, here's this guy. [SPEAKER_03]: Here's how he relates to everyone you've already seen. [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, you're gonna like this guy, because you like those guys, right? [SPEAKER_03]: I like that they left, because I think part of the thing with Oscar Isaac was that he only signed up if he wasn't immediately gonna be contracted to do nine films or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wanted to do this thing, and if it was good, maybe they'll do something more later on. [SPEAKER_03]: So I kind of like that it's almost entirely self-contained because there was talk for the while. [SPEAKER_03]: I saw speculation during its run that it might not even be in the same universe as the rest of the MCU.
[SPEAKER_03]: It might be in another part of the multiverse and at the end of the show part of multiverse of madness, midnight was going to get dragged into another universe or something like that. [SPEAKER_03]: That was how sort of self-contained it was. [SPEAKER_03]: But there are, there are a couple of references. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's one reference to the ancestral plain, which tower it makes.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's one poster on a bus, referring to the global repatriation, kind of, so false. [SPEAKER_03]: Talk in the winter soldier. [SPEAKER_03]: I saw someone comment that there was an advert for teymet as a holiday destination. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if that's actually real or if someone made that up, but that would imply that it took place after the internals.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I, yeah, I saw the same things as you about the possibility of war, the god but you're being in it because, you know, gods and all that. [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, it's you've Christian Bale shows up and chops off towerettes head and Thor lovin thunder. [SPEAKER_03]: I've never watched anything else again. [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like leave that hip-o-all-o and she's a cheap precious.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I did hear like apparently like in the London scenes Dean Whitman might have been showing up at some point. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, again, if that was effort on the cards, I doubt getting having to be the valuable things have been moved round. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I do like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think as nice it would have been because there were all these people talking about one division and like they were waiting for Doctor Strange to turn up and for read Richards and you know, because obviously we got the fake quicksover and suddenly that opened the can of worms about who else are we going to get.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I kind of like that they don't sort of everyone's waiting for the next high profile cammy or the surprise appearance and [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's when you have to worry about the MCU's sort of getting bigger than itself where people are. [SPEAKER_03]: They're not watching a show and enjoying it for what it is. [SPEAKER_03]: They're waiting to see their favorite characters turn up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as cool as it was to see the cameo is in multiverse of madness and I won't mention them just in case people still haven't seen it yet. [SPEAKER_03]: But as cool as it was, I do like the self-containedness of these kind of shows. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think if you're introducing particularly brand new characters, it's fine if it's sequels, it's fine if it's crossovers.
[SPEAKER_03]: If it's a brand new character who has to be sold to you, particularly someone as obscure as midnight, let them do their thing and don't bring in other people for the sake of it. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm kind of glad. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, you know, if the writers were intending it from the start,
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure you know I have faith in them that they would have done something right but I honestly prefer that Moon Knight was just about midnight because Mark and Steven are such interesting characters themselves and if they do a later team up if they do like a midnight suns or something like that later down the line and he shows up elsewhere fantastic but right now just let him have his fun let him do his thing and don't worry about trying to tie him into a universe that we've seen a hundred times at this point
[SPEAKER_04]: did you spot the more subtle hidden extra which is that I'm not sure if they're being found in every episode yet but there are hidden QR codes in the same time itself which take you to now Moon Knight is interesting because I mean they have been some Moon Knight comics series over the years but he's mainly been I think he started to support in character well by night too is yet another character who I thought oh yeah as if they're gonna think
[SPEAKER_04]: where we'll find out at the end of the year. [SPEAKER_04]: And they're doing a Halloween special on Disney Plus. [SPEAKER_04]: But over the years, he's mainly been show the alongside people like particularly the Punisher who does that, you know, obviously Mark Specter is not scared of the Punisher and does that famous panel that does the Browns occasionally of him saying, Hi Castle, how's the dead fuck? [SPEAKER_04]: You can't imagine anyone else getting away with saying that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it takes you to sort of key comics. [SPEAKER_04]: You know, not all issues of moonlight comics featuring him. [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's a really interesting way of doing it as well. [SPEAKER_04]: It's not just trying to sell the collected volumes of his own series on the back of it. [SPEAKER_04]: It's saying here's something interesting with this character.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's more sort of for the fans who want to discover it like if you stick a QR code in anything people are gonna scan it so you'd better know what you're doing and the fact that I mean how long do you think they're gonna have to keep those QR codes in those websites active for because obviously this is a series it's gonna be around for a while I remember thinking there are some old comedies from the early two thousand things like how you're making your mother in that where they always have fake websites and you go into the internet and type in and it would be a genuine website that someone has set up and as far as I know you know those series unlike nearly twenty years old those websites are still
[SPEAKER_03]: there. [SPEAKER_03]: It does make you think that if you're going to put something in like that, people are going to discover it now, they're going to discover it in ten years, twenty years, and it's just a way of getting more people to sort of read the actual source material. [SPEAKER_03]: And not everyone's going to do that. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, personally, I still haven't read a Marvel comic.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm still, I'm just enjoying the ride and also I kind of don't want to be spoiled too much about what happens in the comics in case it does happen on the screen. [SPEAKER_03]: But I love that they're doing it. [SPEAKER_03]: I love that they're also because this is something that Disney have been guilty of in the past. [SPEAKER_03]: I love that they're actually giving the Jew to the comic book writers and artists because they haven't always done that.
[SPEAKER_03]: They've taken their ideas, they've taken their storylines, they've taken their properties and their IPs and they've not always sent people back to them. [SPEAKER_03]: in the way that they really deserve. [SPEAKER_03]: And then there's a whole talk about royalties and all that. [SPEAKER_03]: So I love that they've put that in as if to say you might not have heard of this character before. [SPEAKER_03]: Here's where you can find out more about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought that was a superb thing. [SPEAKER_03]: I love those little kind of Easter eggs. [SPEAKER_03]: You might not get away with it in everything like I don't think they're likely to be QR codes on nowhere for example. [SPEAKER_03]: But if you're gonna have it in the London Museum, yeah sure. [SPEAKER_03]: You can stick a QR code in there. [SPEAKER_03]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_04]: It should also just mention someone who bizarrely would not have actually touched on yet, which is Ethan Hork. [SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, you know, aged up and made to look a bit wizards and hackered. [SPEAKER_04]: But as well as performance being excellent, it's fairly strange to think of literally the evening before the first episode went out, their poet society was on the TV.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you don't always think of a movie that fresh face teenage boy, or, you know, maybe it approached the slacker films he was in in the early nineties. [SPEAKER_04]: But it's so bizarrely that you were totally in habit, this character who's even older than he looked.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, at least I think we're supposed to think that he plays it so well, but apparently he brought a lot to the production in terms of Oscar Isaac recommended him and here's something it's sight on scenes and he didn't want to see the scripts before we spoke to the director without him reading it and thinking ah, here's my take on the character
[SPEAKER_04]: And he also encouraged, apparently they had informal cast-and-crew bronchies every Sunday, which, every on-the-volt says, really, really helped the productions, they all knew what each other was doing and thinking. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's born out by, supposedly, the reshoot and pickups only took four days. [SPEAKER_04]: Wow, apparently it's like almost unheard of.
[SPEAKER_04]: Imagine a multiverse mad, it was a ratio to that right up until I think a couple of weeks before it went out, but this was wrapped almost straight away. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and the same with no way home as well. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, they were reshooting that and rewriting it and they were doing test screenings and people were saying, oh, it doesn't quite all make sense. [SPEAKER_03]: We need to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always the same with these kind of things where they say, the more reshutes something needs, the more of a mess it is and the worse the film's gonna be. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's not always true, because like Rogue One, the Star Wars, it's been our film. [SPEAKER_03]: The best scene in that where Darth Vader massacres a bunch of rebels was added in reshutes, so that reshutes are not always a bad thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, if you can get it done in the main shoot, and if everyone knows what they're doing, then that can be hugely beneficial. [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, it sounds like Ethan Hawk was, it's always great when you see someone actually take a vested interest, because some people, you hear these stories about actor signing up to superhero films, and they're only, they're just doing it for the money, and they don't really care about the actual character in like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But then you get these people that actually, yeah, they dedicate themselves to it. [SPEAKER_03]: They want to make sure they do a good thing. [SPEAKER_03]: They don't take over it. [SPEAKER_03]: They respect the material. [SPEAKER_03]: They learn about it. [SPEAKER_03]: They see what they can bring to it without taking over it. [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I thought Ethan Hart was superb in this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're right, because especially in the sort of hospital scene, what he's playing this kind of doctor, what he has as Steven says, he goes a bit near flanders. [SPEAKER_03]: He does kind of have this kind of sort of wisdomd old professor look. [SPEAKER_03]: I genuinely don't know how actually how old he was, but he did the character really well, like when Harold resurrects Ameth in the final episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's been going all along about, like I say, doing this sort of minority report thing of judging people based on any future sins they may commit. [SPEAKER_03]: And when he resurrects Ameth and she says, I'm going to sort of judge you based on sins you haven't committed yet. [SPEAKER_03]: And he says, yeah, I'm completely on board with that. [SPEAKER_03]: I stand by, you know, he doesn't back away from the mission that he set out on.
[SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't see what he's done and then go, actually, no, I'm going to save myself. [SPEAKER_03]: He's fully prepared to sacrifice himself for the greater good and for his God. [SPEAKER_03]: And then she goes, I actually know you're going to do my killing for me. [SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, yeah, sure, okay. [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I thought he was great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's kind of been, because everyone's been talking about, I mean, ourselves have been talking about Oscar Isaac and about Maya Calamawi. [SPEAKER_03]: I think I've pronounced that right. [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, he's not really been getting much of the praise, despite the fact that he is super open this. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I can't think of a single bad performance apart from possibly Steven's accent. [SPEAKER_03]: Now I'm kidding.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always great to see a star that goes to a superhero or a Marvel property and actually, you know, commits to it. [SPEAKER_03]: Speaking of the gods, the scene where they bring in, they have this big meeting of the gods and they bring in their avatars from all over the world who just seem to be random people that just seem to be plucked out their lives. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a northern Irish guy, there's a guy just walks in and like a workout for it or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm thinking, if they've just been called away from their homes, like what happens if they're getting cold to the pyramid while they're in the middle of something important? [SPEAKER_03]: What happens if they're getting cold? [SPEAKER_03]: and it's like, and here comes a new business avatar, and it's the guy who's got his trousers around his angles, because like, Saudi, I was in the middle of something there.
[SPEAKER_03]: The other thing that I wanted to mention is that there's a big part of episode five when we see Mark's backstory.
[SPEAKER_03]: They always seem to do this in that the Marvel Disney plush was like, one division did this, for example, in the winter soldier did it, I know midnight stunt as well, which is that the second last episode is always the big exposition episode, it's always the big backstory where you find out all the answers to all the questions, or, well, most of the questions, so that they can have all the action in the finale.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the second last episode of this, we find out about Mark's upbringing. [SPEAKER_03]: We find out he had an abusive mother because she held him responsible for the death of his brother. [SPEAKER_03]: And we also find out that he's Jewish. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think is this the first time we've seen a Jewish hero in the MCU. [SPEAKER_03]: He goes to his mother's shiver. [SPEAKER_03]: We see him wearing a Yamaka in the street outside his house.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just, it was interesting because I think that's, like I say, it's the first thing we've seen a Jewish hero in the MCU. [SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I can't really comment too much on how well it was represented. [SPEAKER_03]: I've seen some people say that the representation was done really well. [SPEAKER_03]: I've seen some people say [SPEAKER_03]: that are more mixed or negative response because apparently in the comics his dad is a rabbi.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think he's meant to be in this. [SPEAKER_03]: I certainly didn't see anything this is just that he was. [SPEAKER_03]: It was just interesting to see because obviously we're getting our first Muslim hero with Miss Marvel and it's just it's good to see more representation like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't seem to be as integral to his character as something like Matt Murdoch's Catholicism is, you know, it's part of his upbringing but it doesn't seem to influence or motivate his life day to day. [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, that was just that was something that I hadn't seen before and I thought that was good to see.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we have to give a special shout out to F-Mori Abraham as the voice of Concher as well, because that was something that, again, if you're the voice of an Egyptian god, there's so many different ways to play that and it could come across as camp, it could come across as over the top, but I think F-Mori Abraham, he has one of those voices that's just perfect for this sort of thing. [SPEAKER_03]: If anyone seen him in mythic quest, his character in that, he's brilliant in that.
[SPEAKER_03]: but it does mean that after seeing the first episode any time I am at work and someone gives me a big project to do all I can hear now is if money Abraham's voice in my head going oh no the idiots in charge
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just it's kind of ruined it for me, but I really hope that we get a season two because this was one of those shows that depending on how you look at it, it could have been a movie and maybe would have gotten more sort of big budget fight scenes because I think they did really well with the budget that they had, but you could still tell in places that they wanted to have more moonlight than they maybe did, but also it's a sort of thing that I could see it running run, you know, there's just when you've got basically two protagonists
[SPEAKER_03]: who don't really acknowledge each other's existence until halfway through. [SPEAKER_03]: And then people like Layla, we saw the name in Mark's phone dision, which is another character from midnight as far as I'm aware. [SPEAKER_03]: It just seems like there's so much more we could do with this universe with these Egyptian gods. [SPEAKER_03]: And I would love to see a season two.
[SPEAKER_03]: It hasn't been confirmed yet, but the originally changed the advertising for it from the series finale to the season finale before episode six went out. [SPEAKER_03]: So that [SPEAKER_03]: boards well for us getting more moon night. [SPEAKER_03]: Whether or not we see it as a movie, whether or not we see Mark and Steven show up in something else before that. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not entirely sure where, but I just I want to see more moon night. [SPEAKER_03]: I love this show.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love this character. [SPEAKER_03]: I love how well as far as I can tell, again, I'm not an expert on these things, but it seems like they did dissociative identity disorder. [SPEAKER_03]: They gave it the respect that it deserves. [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't done for laughs. [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't used to mock the character in like that. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just part of who he is and how he cocks with that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But apparently they had the very respected academic on board to check over the script and make sure that we're doing it in a reasonable way. [SPEAKER_04]: And that really does, you know, it's not very often people go to that length of what in a sentence representation really. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, in the same way that the short sort of PTSD and Jessica Jones
[SPEAKER_03]: it's great to see them actually sort of deal with real-life issues in a way that doesn't come across like it's not a gimmick it's not all he is like Mark and Steven are two completely different characters but the fact that he has the idea it doesn't define who he is and it's how he deals with that and sort of still is a hero I thought it was really well done one final thought I have which is my other favourite quote from the show which is kill the hippo steal the boat which to me should be the new save the cheerleader save the world like I want to see people graffitiing that on walls all over the world no context whatsoever for
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, for one's that brings me straight into my coaching question, which is David, if you could summon the soup bearing the power of an ancient Egyptian god, what would you use it for? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'd probably choose the god of the sun because that way I could actually live in Scotland and actually get a tan. [SPEAKER_04]: I honestly don't have anything to say, response to that. [SPEAKER_04]: David, thank you. [SPEAKER_04]: Alex Salcio.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks very much, Tim. [SPEAKER_04]: If you've enjoyed this, don't forget you can find more additions if it's called Accepted Socks and Plenty more besides including details on our book card help thinking about me at Timworthinson.org.