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It's collaborating time, everybody.
The film board gathers once again to take on the biggest cinematic releases of the.
Month, and this one is a doozy.
Marvel's First family finally gets their AIMCU did you with a film that skips the origin story and jumps straight into the cosmic parenthood, vintage suits, and the surprisingly emotional showdown with.
A planet eater.
It's the Fantastic Four. First Steps famous around the world.
Please welcome the Fantastic Four, Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch.
I love you, Johnny and the Thing.
Hey, what time is it?
Say today?
That's not really something I say.
It's coppering time.
That's just in the cartoon. Never late for Sunday dinner. Let's see. Hey, what time is it? It's dinner time? Get insoide.
I harald his beginning, I harald your end. I Harald Galactus.
What is that?
Get us out of here?
Man, hold on, always safe. I don't know. The club is ticking.
We are going to find a solution. We are going to make it right. You don't want to just crush him, hide that.
The four of us will face the danger.
We will protect you.
Family.
It's about connecting to something bigger than yourself.
Who face it together.
As a family. Good evening, Ladies and chance, boys and girls and all you have cats tuned into the future of film. It's time once again for your favorite think tank of cinematic truth seekers.
The Film Board.
Gathered tonight to go atomic on Marvel's Groovus Gamble yet fantastic four First steps. Now hold the phone and cool you jets, because we've got the bosses panel and the biz first up. He's a real space brain with a rocket pack of hot takes and a utility beltful of sass. You know him from Swashbuckling Ladies, Debate Society, and Marvel Movie Minute. It's the one, the only Kyle Olsen.
Hey there, cats and kittens, happy to be here there, talk about the Big four.
Next coming at you. Faster than a Gamma burst and sharper than a slide rule. He's the maestrove the Marvel Movie Minute and Editor Supreme give it up for Rob Cabasco.
Hey, I see what you did there.
Very nice, and don't flip your wig, because we've got a mind melter of against joining the round table. They're the king of the Conscience Crowd, the Professor of Powell from Superhero Ethics and all points moral.
It's Matthew Fox.
There it is, there it is.
I'm beat Wright, your guide through this technicolored tale of stretchy Dad, sizzling siblings, invisible mothers, and big galectic guys with even bigger appetites. So grab your phosphate, pop your collar, and settle in because this one's.
Going to the moon.
Hi, Hi, folks, is really great.
Look we're doing.
This is a.
Cavalcade of superhero films that we have this month. It's a banner month in this year, twenty twenty five. We're here Fantastic four. We've done Fantastic four before as Humanity. I have the Corman version on my plex server. Let's talk though about this one, and I think before we dig into the really nerdy stuff, I think we should just pull the band aid off and get our opening thoughts out of the way about the film. How did it stack up for you? Matthew, you go first.
Sure, I'm going to ask a further thing that we mentioned, which is that what is your connection to the Final Four before this? Because I'll say, I think all of you have at least seen other movies, probably read comic books. I knew almost nothing of the Final Four going in. I knew who they were, I'd seen maybe twenty minutes of one awful movie, never read a comic book, you know,
not seeing much beyond that. And I would give this movie a solid B. I think this movie did a fantastic job of introducing me to the characters of the Fantastic Four, making me really care about them and make me really be excited about them in the MCU. And then it tried to have them go on an adventure, and that actual adventure I found kind of lackluster. Galactays
I thought was pretty dull. A lot of it was very boring, and I think I fundamentally disagreed with the main ethical question of this movie, which as a new parent is kind of interesting.
But we'll discuss that. So, uh, okay, you guys go next.
Okay, all right, Rob, this.
Is an outrageously fantastic movie with outrageously amazing moments. It's not without flaws and some wild coincidences with the previous superhero movie we discussed, so we'll talk about that. Here's here's the coming out of the movie. Did I like it better than The Thunderbolts by a smidge? Do I like it more than The Incredibles?
No?
Okay, all right, the Incredibles high esteem?
All right, Kyle.
I guess I come in as the most learned I guess of the Fantastic Four lore because I've been a fans of them since the comic books. I've read almost everything that they have done, watched all the cartoons, and I've seen all the movies, including the Corman one. So I come in with a lot of baggage, and I felt this was one of the best Marvel sequels to a movie we never got. So I agree, I have some moments of amazingness, but I also I really regret what we didn't get to see.
As the person who knew the least about it, I loved that it wasn't an origin story, but we'll talk more about that.
I agree, I feel like the I enjoyed my time in the theater, with this movie. I really did, and I walked out, and two hours later I had to really really think about how it ended. I could not, for the life of me remember the third act. I got there eventually, but I think that's sort of telling about what stuck in the movie and what as a superhero action film did not really lock in for me. As much as I enjoyed my time with it. And we'll talk about our big bad, the biggest of the big bads in a bit.
I.
Feel like there were some empty calories going on in this movie after a wonderful setup. So with that all out of the way, if you're listening to this and you haven't seen the movie, you pretty much get how it ends by looking at the trailer.
You could figure it out.
This is a spoiler full conversation. We do nothing but spoilers, So if you really don't want to be spoiled in specific, please go watch the movie and come back.
You have been notified, all right.
Let us do our comic our comic allegiance segment I and I didn't I mention I am a fan of Fantastic for I have not encyclopedic like Kyle, but I did read a bunch of the comics spent more time with the animated series the Hanna Barbara bit, and so I can say that I have I have some of the.
Some of the spirit, but not inclusive. So I get it.
I do love it, and I love what the Fantastic for represent as a family, which I would love to talk about and how well that transitions to screen.
So Kyle, you want to kick us off here.
Sure, I mean, I'm I'll give you a full sort of bile might give you like a little bit of sort of my understanding of Fantastic for It is obviously Lean Kirby came out with this. This they were they would call the first family because they were the first thing that Marvel ever put out. This is what sort of defined what the Marvel style was, which is taking this fantastic adventures and space gods and surfers in silver and also having a human drama at the center of it.
From this came X Men, Spider Man all that stuff added. But like this is sort of where Stan and Jack first established what became sort of the House style, and then a franchise was born from there. They have struggled because once LeAnn Kirby sort of stopped rinning it and hand off. It's been a series of handing off to people who either get it or they don't get it, and so their comic book history is more littered with people who didn't understand what was interesting about the Fantastic
for than people who did. So there are moments where they really shine at a lot more moments where they don't, and so a lot of what comes the problem is is that they aren't superheroes, and even this movie sometimes that they are adventurers, they are explorers. They are much closer to Flash Gordon and Doc Savage than they are to Spider Man and Captain America. Because they're in a superhero universe, they keep getting pulled into superhero circumstances and
then it never quite fits right. And this movie, I think is an example of it doesn't quite fit right. They have the family in Anames right, but they still don't They still trying to fit into the tropes that the MCU has established, and like from the first trailer, I was like, Ooh, I don't know if they got it, in the same way where I watched James Gun's trailer
for a Superman. As we're making this comparison and when he got it, like he understood what Superman was in a way, and I was worried that this would happen, and it kind of did. It's like, for now, four times they've done it, and they've never quite gotten it, right that because they keep trying to make them into something that they aren't.
Well, and I would I would say this is the best of the four times for me, Yes, I would agree with that. But yeah, I think the thing that I that I'm challenged with is that my first exposure to the Fantastic Four introduced a family that was deeply flawed, right that they were dysfunctional. And I love the way you put it that their adventure is not heroes, that they are dragged into this because of circumstance and never quite embrace it. They just they just exist in this
space kind of reluctant hero. Trope writ large And I think this, you know this movie actually, particularly through Pedro Pascal, I think they get some of the vibe of like, hey, I'm just a scientist man, and I think he pulls it off maybe better than anybody else.
I'm sorry, Matthew, you were gonna say something.
No, I would add to that. First of all, you agreeed on the peedro Pascal. A hero who stretches sounds incredibly boring to me, and I really liked that. It was just a cool effect sometimes but mostly his superpower is his brain and his dedication and also the flaws that came up. I love that about his character. But Kyle, what you said is, I will say in that regard for me, as someone who knows only this movie, it totally failed because and this I think will deeply affect
the ethical questions I'm gonna get into later. I definitely saw them as not only is being superpowered people, but like I'm always really interested in what authority do people
have to do superhero things? And it felt like in this world there was an agreement they had with the governments of the world that they would be given certain dispensations and freedoms, and like, you know, if they go to some country that no one's gonna check their passport because they're just gonna be like, you're here to defeat the monster and we're not gonna worry about feral d. You know, there was an agreement that they had not the Zirkoba Accords by any means, but something that they
were empowered by the governments of the world to do these things and thus expected by the governments of the world to do these things, And as we'll talk about later, I think that fundamentally changes how we understand the decisions they had to make regarding Franklin. So it's really interesting to me to hear that, because that is as someone very new to this, absolutely not what I got from the story. What I got in the story was they
are the Avengers, they are the Justice League. They are empowered by the world to do these things.
Yeah, which I think does not serve them well. I think if you're put in for any sort of any Star Trek kind of scenario of like high science and then high ethical kind of questions, which is what they tried to do, it gets interesting. But when you try and do that in the superhero genre, it doesn't quite work because, like, the Avengers only got to be the Avengers for one movie, and after that they're immediately like, oh,
there are a great heroes. Now, let's immediately tear them down and tell them apart and make sure they never are together again. Whereas this we have a world that goes these guys are amazing we love them, will follow anything they do, We trust them implicitly. And I was like, oh, this is really cool. Like we've never really seen this in any modern superhero, even even in Superman, which you know, I think we bring up just because of high proximity
of time. They the superheroes around and they they don't have that same kind of relationship. Even they don't quite trust Superman at this point, but here, like everyone immediately entrusts them, and then immediately that's taken away. It's like, but could we live in that world a little bit longer like this because we haven't seen that before. But no, immediately the world turns on them.
Yeah, yeah, I like I really agree with all of that. I'm struggling a little bit because with the Superman comparison, they had been superpowered sort of people. Meta humans had been around so long that there was enough time for the Vox POPULARI to split. So you have some heroes that were beloved and some that were not, and Superman
is mistrusted and for a time. But you know, corporate sponsorships are what they are, and branding is what it is, and so there's a much more sort of sophisticated emotional tapestry for the public in Superman, and I think that that works well for I think what they're trying to do with that movie and that universe this one, I'm with you. I loved the fact that we had given over the sort of allegiance to this superpowered team because
they were you know, they too like Superman. They exist in a world with lots of malcontents, and the nods to Mollman and Red Ghost and Mad Thinker and puppet Master and Diablo, all of those.
Are really great.
We live in a time and there are bad things that manifest in the form of individuals who are you know, doing their thing. What we get with Moulman, which is a you know, I think that's that is the most legacy evil doer in the Fantastic Four.
That's like Fantastic four number one.
There's even an Oma, but I don't know how many she is. But the of the first cover of the first comic, they like literally have that in opening sequence of the Green Monster coming out of the thing, that's that's the cover. I was like, Oh, they really aren't going all the way with it.
Yeah, it's cool, right they did. I think they did it really well. And the fact that they gave agency to the relationship of Mollman and his people his domain. Uh, you know, to not just be an evil doer he had. Yeah, he wasn't just modul was a little bit more complex, not a lot more complex, but a little bit. He was also a plot tool. So so I liked that stuff.
I didn't find that to be And I also found that, you know, the things we talked about with Superman, the fact that they evacuated the city before they destroyed it.
I was thinking about Rob.
The whole time when buildings fell, buildings fell, right, I didn't have any problems with But Rob is just Rob is just nodding there, and it makes me nervous, like I can't stop talking.
No, I like he's about to do his thing.
I am enjoying, enjoying.
I'm enjoyed this, know, Like I gotta tell you, I looked at this so much from show me the story you want to tell. And the thing that is amazing about this is we have this talk. In Superman they showed they didn't tell that montage, which, by the way, kudos to Michael Giaccino. That song, which is from the Score Fantastic four to be reckoned with that's the name of the sequence during the montage is one of his
best pieces of music I have ever heard. It has been on repeat ever since the soundtrack dropped that whole montage. That's what I wanted Superman to do. If they would have done that, it would have done huge benefit to that story. In this story, it's great. Here's the weird issue I had with the first act, which is a little bit about the story of the family. It was almost too brilliant. That montage is so good. The casting on this movie is so good. I felt like the
first act was lagging. And I will tell you what it's missing is tell me the same background story of Galactus, because that's where I'm failing to understand. Like I know, I'm here if you want to hear my one of my controversial statements is I got Kang Quantumania vibes with
the way that they treated Galactus in this movie. And that's what's missing in the first act is you know what, after you've done showed me the montage of the of the family, Now go hyperspace to the other end of the universe and show me the story so that at least I can understand what we're dealing with, and that's something that was lacking. I think of the first act.
I had that same problem because I got to the point where they're in hyperspace on their way to confront Galactus, and it was like, I little thirty five minutes forty minutes in the movie, and I was like, when does this movie start? Because I was still sort of in the Okay, we we had like the domestic scene and then the montage and then and then the reaction and then the and I was like, is this is this really yet? Like is this actually happening?
Okay, so here so wait's so the thing the thing I just want to say about this whole issue with collactuses. He was presented as a giant grail Night zombie.
Okay, I'm gonna need more. Okay, yeah, break that down.
The grail Night, the Grail Night from the Last Crusade.
He is somehow the keeper that is waiting for someone to pick up where so he can end and he's a zombie. He's got to eat. I like, that's all I got from this and that's and that's missing. They need to help tell his story better because I know that there's a whole there's a whole answer to all this, It's just not in this movie.
Yeah, So I'm have.
Kind of two minds on this. On the one hand, Kyle, I think you have me convinced to some extent that a first movie could have been really helpful because I don't want an origin story.
But I but no, I don't. I don't either. But it was like when they when they did that montage of like, here's all the bad gys we just defeated, I was like, I would have liked to have seen that.
Please.
Well, yeah, I mean, first of all, I think Momn is just a far more interesting enemy than Glacdus has presented here, Glactus is presented here. It seems like the most boring enemy that the MCU has ever given us, which is so fruct sound like you're supposed to be so much more. But I wanted to see more of Yeah, what is I wanted to see? This movie is all about the break with the relationship we've established, and I think that in Superman it wasn't needed because and granted
this is more what I like. I spent the last couple of months leading up to the Superman movie watching Superman Superman and Lois and watching the earlier movies, and I think there is so much other content that's not in this universe, but that is out there that Roman. So I have seen Superman healing everybody and doing all those things in a way that I haven't seen the Fantastic Four doing the flip.
Side though.
That'll give is that I do think it's possible to both introduce characters and really spend a lot of time showing them as they are before showing the break. And I think it happened in the unfortunately very ignored in his conversation. Third really important, really good superhero movie that came out in July, which is K Pop Demon Hunters, which I think is phenomenal and you haven't watched it.
Definitely do so.
Yeah, it is very much superhero movies, which is not an American superhero movie, but in that they spend in part because they don't they wait till like halfway through the movie to really introduce the Okay, now the public is churning on them. Now they're turning on each other kind of thing. Uh, and we'll mane. You see the
seeds of it, you see it coming. Like I think if they had done something like that, were like there had been some scene like the surfer had appeared but hadn't given the full message, or like we'd seen some and maybe there's not enough time to do that in this movie and that Yeah, maybe it could have been a earlier movie. But I actually I think it's possible they just didn't do because yeah, by the time that
the public was also mad at the Fantastic Four. I think I know what the relationship is, and I think I know what Galactus is, but you're right, we hadn't really gotten into detail about it.
The challenge I think I have with Galactus, and I'm willing to acknowledge this.
This might be a me thing.
I know the comic legacy of Galactus, and if you look at the Galactus trilogy, right, the sort of source material from the sixties, I know that we get galactus backstory, and he talks about it in this movie that he was immortal and there and which was.
A shock to me of like like like hey, I just met you. Yeah, here's where he's right from. Like WHOA, yeah, we're good.
This is the city.
We haven't even told your names yet, You're already.
Giving eternal segment of the of the thing. I get that there exists backstory that that does support the fact that Galactus was a mortal explorer and was co mingled with the sentience of the universe and became Galactus and now just has to feed to sustain his existence. All of that I understand. And yet my Galactus from when I was a lad reading these things contemporaneously, was Galactus was the joker to Batman. Galactus was the inevitability of doom that we must adapt to in order to fight,
and backstory did not matter. And I felt like this movie walks that the edge of trying to define too much when it maybe should have defined less, uh not less so much that you know, what was the Transformer movie where the planets were being eaten by the Unicorn story? But I but something akin to that, because going into this movie, I had no idea how they were going to make Galactus feel real and resonant and were they going to make it something that I was going to
be able to care about. And the challenge was they almost made me care more than I should have for something that should have been omnipresent a moral destruction.
Right, And I think that's great because if a central part of the movie is the Fantastic Four and the world trying to decide what to do about Galactus, I think I think that becomes worse the more they know, if they because if they can like the fact is, they don't sympathize with him. They don't know his motivations, they don't know his origin story. They just know they're going to die. And and I like that because I don't.
I think most moral decisions are not made with full information, and that's worth discussing, and like, in some ways, if they'd framed it like that, I think you could have gotten the explore if it had been Hey, right now, from what we know, there's this terrible ethical choice, but we're explorers.
We want to learn more.
We learn more about Galactus, and that helps us kind of get out of this Kobashi maru of either the baby or everyone and find a third choice.
I think that would have been a fantastic lead to approach it.
There was a torch Wood mini series where a bunch of aliens showed up and they they said, oh, hey, we've got this amazing technology. We can help solve pretty much all your problems. And they and they prove it, like they like, we can do this. All we want is half and they're like, oh, but what do you mean half of your children? We just want half and we will solve all the world's problems. And that escalates over the course of the of the entire world, going
what do we do with this? And they took like six episodes. I think of that too, and it gets into it here they try and resolve the whole thing in like twenty minutes, and I kind of went, well, but there's a lot bigger conversations. For me, it sort of lost it. When they go to Glactus. He says I want the kid and I'll spare your world and
they have that thing. They said, oh, now I'm gonna take care it and I'm gonna make you watch And I was like, wait, no, he's cruel, He's malevolent, right, he just doesn't like Glactus's thing is he doesn't care, Like he literally just doesn't care. He is he is that force of the universe, like, no, I'm I'm just going to eat your planet the end. I am the end. So yeah, when it sort of became like I was like, oh, but no, that's that the just and he just becomes fanos but big.
That's that was the biggest problem right there.
I would say, since we're kind of dancing around it, can I just bring up the ethical question that seemed to be at the center of this, because it does seeven a what we're talking about, it is how it's how it's framed. I don't even be a backstory to my own perspective on this. Uh so we're just scussing. Before we went on the pod. My partner recently had
our baby. I have been a father for exactly two weeks as of today, and one of the hardest moments for me was maybe ninety minutes after our baby was born. Because there's a possible infection, they had to do a bunch of blood draws. They took the baby into another room. I was the only one who went in there with him, and I was kind of holding him while they were doing this, and they weren't doing a very good job, and they were sticking him and not get it, and
he didn't like it, and he was upset. And I am a person deeply committed to nonviolence, and I have never been so close to throwing a punch as I was at age twelve getting bullied. The lizard brain in me was so ready to fight this, and of course that was all I could think about in this movie. But the thing is, I don't think that's a good
part of humanity. I think one of the worst things we do is when our desire to protect, to defend what is ours, our partners, our children, our property, leads us to be willing to like throw away everybody else. And I won't get too political about it, but I think that's a huge Like a lot of the fear mongering is about, like, your children are under attack, so everybody else because we have to protect your children, your parents. I think if the final question is do you give
up your individual child to save humanity? And I would say I also understood it as and this is maybe something that again the comic books were clear on, but here it wasn't.
I understood it.
As you give Glacknus the baby, he stops and there's no one else who take It's not that the baby becomes Glacktus two point zero, No more worlds are destroyed. For me, that's absolutely not a question. Of course you give up the baby. Of course you do. It's horrific and terrible and awful. But and here's also where they are the official you know, like if you're a fire, if you're a firefighter and you're a fire and there's ten people in one room you can save or your child,
and the other you're supposed to save the ten. And maybe that's not fair, and maybe that's not that, but that's generally why we don't have people fight fires in neighborhoods that they're in, And especially in the sense of like to me, if if if the governments of the world have said you are our saviors, then that's your responsibility more than it is to one individual soul who's obviously the most important thing in the world to you.
And I really liked Sue's speech about like we need you to not give up on us, but we also won't give up on you.
But it also felt like they were kind of like.
I wish they had wrestled with that more and wrestled more with what is our is our responsibility to each other or to this larger hole and how do we balance that? And and coming to a way of like can we find a third way? But I think the movie was acting as though, of course they won't give up their baby why in the world would they That's not even a question worth discussing.
And for me, I was like, well, hang on, hang on.
I I think more than anyone can understand how the visceral level, why it would be almost impossible.
To do that. But why.
I think if the whole world it had been like we're taking that baby and saving five billion fere people or whatever it is, I wouldn't think they're wrong. If any members of Choptech and Services are listening to this, please don't take me to aby away.
I'll protect my baby, I would say. My only my own response that is that I understand what you're saying.
I'm not sure that every ethical uh test of is under the same context. So it's one thing to say, you know, if a firefighter has the the sworn responsibility to save ten versus the one, yes, regardless of who
the one is, where the ten are right. But in this narrative, if you witnessed a machine that could eat a planet from the inside out, my first thing was is deals are off the table, Like deals are laughable at that point, right, So yeah, we're gonna fight because when faced with global annihilation on a system that we don't even understand.
Yeah, we're going to fight, and I have no issues with that, with that choice.
Well, and I think to be clear, the question is I'm phrasing it that I think the movie won us to talk about but then kind of didn't. Is only if you believe the deal, and you believe, like if you believe that Franklin will just go on to be Glackty's two point. Oh no, no, it's not ethinctly worth it. If you believe that Glackness would be like, cool, I have the baby, but I'm still gonna eat y'all because like you're tasty.
Then yeah, of course it doesn't make any sense.
But that, interestingly is a premise that I didn't walk away understanding the way you did. My understanding was you give me the baby, and I will let earth, this earth survive. I'm gonna go on and I'm gonna keep eating things, and Franklin, because of his cosmic future, is gonna take over my mantle so that I can rest. Eventually those things are gonna continue. So really you're saving You're giving up the baby to save just you Cosmically,
that's the deal, and that's where the deal ends. I also think for a summer blockbuster popcorn movie wrestling with a question of should we really give up the baby? Any harder than they did would have been catastrophe.
For the reason this is what my my main problem with this is that like just to step back from even from the moral question of why does Fantastic four first steps which one's terrible title, uh have to take this on? Well, I say, fantastic maybe four no first steps where of what to wear? No, they had, like clearly in the olpening seat, We've established they have already taken their first steps. This is step four or five.
But there's so much lore to go immediately from like, hey, you're media Fantastic four and now they have a kid, and it's like, but you're skipping all of this stuff, all of this interesting thing why like it was it was it was almost greedy to me of like they wanted so valid to get to like we gotta get Solver served, we gotta get to Glacs, we gotta get to frankly Richer's I'm like, but but you're skipping all of this stuff, this great stuff, to get us to
the point where we care because we never get to see this sustorm the most amazing sustorm we've ever had. We only get to see her as a mom, never get to see her as the invisible woman. Obviously she's a visible girl because the sixties, but the we never get to have her as just like it. She's already matronly by the time we meet her. We never get to see her as just like a regular person and not in the role of mom, you.
Know, like the I mean from the jump too. I mean that we meet her on the toilet with the pregnancy test.
Hey wait, by the way, I'm glad you just mentioned that. Did all of you see the pregnancy test on the counter and think for a second it said Stark, No, it's Stork.
I think it did, but I got to tell you I.
Was at one point Stark industry is pregnancy does? What kind of universe is this?
I mean, Tony doesn't go on to become a superhero, so clearly he just starts making stuff.
I agree with you.
I don't think a summer blockbuster is the time. I mean, I would love a summer blockbuster that you know, uh wrestle these theopathical questions. I'd also love the Jets to win the Super Bowl. I think both of those are equally never gonna happen in my lifetime. I think that, Yeah, but I think that's why, Like, to me, it just felt weird that they pose that question without wrestling out because to me, the other part of it is I definitely didn't get the idea that like he would.
Go on to eat other worlds. I thought this would end his hunger.
But also like, if the idea is, well, it's wrong to just save humanity and some other planet, what about wherever they're teleporting him to, like their planets out, He's going to be hungry, He's going to find some other planet.
It's just not gonna be humanity. So yeah, I yeah, I kind of.
Wish they hadn't brought up that level of ethical nim in a format where obvious it's the wrong place to wrestle with it.
Yeah, when they studs up and they start talking about it, there is a a a fantastic worcenario where Red figures out how to cure glacus Is hunger, and so you get to meet Galactus as a person who as a space god who no longer has this central defining thing and what does that mean that? I was like, Oh, are they doing that I'm like, oh no, they're just going back to that.
Okay, that would have been great maybe because all of you knew more about this, But I've been avoiding spoilers like the plague, especially when I found out that our DJ was coming back as Doomsday. That seems so stupid. I was just not thinking about it for a minute. I thought the way this was setting up was how they get to six one six. We all did because
I thought, what has happened? They send Galactus to there, and then they have to be like, oh, we just sent it to another Earth we have to go through, and now we're gonna end up with Avengers to take on Galactus again.
I thought they were going to teleport Earth to six.
Oh yeah, I thought, or whatever they call it.
Yeah, that's what I thought it originally, like it was gonna something was gonna go wrong in the in classic read fashion, and they would end up in a different universe.
Alas, and I don't think that question is answered even as we connect, and I think we you know, this movie is playing the hits of Fantastic Four, and those hits are Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Doctor Doom. So let's look first at Silver Surfer. This is Julia Garner's Silver Surfer. I actually thought Silver Surfer was a real high point.
I agree with you.
I really enjoyed Julia Garner's take on it. I enjoyed even the flashback montage. I think she did a really nice job kind of portraying the Harold thoughts.
I did not have a problem with Silver Surfer, and I thought that was the high point of the previous two films, The Fox Ones too, when the combination of Doug Jones, you know, one of my favorites, and Laurence Fishburn together, I thought that was that character was fantastically rendering that in a movie that he was in fact, that he was better than the rest of the movie
that was around this too. But to get back to this head, to switch over to from norm Rad to Shalla Bell was a great idea because you get to see the character in a new way. And I thought pretty much everything they did with her worked fantastically and we got to have the her the fact that Johnny was the smart one to do, which was what a great toy that was that we'll come to around to
the four. We haven't really talked about the four. Having Johnny be the one to induce a moral waundry with her, like basically like, hey, you're complicit in the depths of the like that was his big move. I was like, that's a missising, Like honestly, like, even now, what.
A great sub story, what a great subplot, and it and it elevates that character in a way.
You never said it was.
And it was so frustrating that it took so long for her to come back around too, because the whole fight with Galactus, I'm like, come on, come on.
Well, no, they wanted you to forget. They wanted you to forget about her. So the so the moment is even better than what you expected.
She was.
But I love her character and everything about her.
And oddly enough, I'm the ethesist is gonna be the first one to bring up visual effects having her I don't know if this was normal, but having her not only be silver but being fundamentally reflective led to some of the most.
Brilliant shots in the movie.
And to me, the first one was one of the first time is that she's chasing Johnny and he's basically created the circle of fire that she is flying through, and so the flames are.
Reflected in her.
I if you can give me a poster of that, I'd put it up because it was just such a brilliant like, it was such a brilliant visual effect. And also, yeah, I loved what they did with Johnny and her because it I feel like you told me so much about Johnny, because it told me that, yes, he is the party boy, he is all these things, but he's also smarter than that, and he's not a himbo.
He has some real brains to him.
But also why is it that he goes on this journey of like wanting to show that he could figure all this out because the pretty girl rejected him, Like obviously there's a lot more going on there. But also he was trying to hit on the silver Surfer and she had nothing to do with him, and he's like, well, I can learn the language now, And like I thought, there was such a brilliant way of not making him a joke, not making him a Oh here's the three
serious heroes and he just wants to drink beer. They didn't make him like you know that version of the flash that we see so often, He wasn't a party boy.
Was just like yeah, I just thought he was phenomenal in that he.
Went full Barney Sinston Bernie Stinson from of like having to like, I'm gonna do all of this work just to try and get this one girl to like me. Oh.
I feel like if this is a John Hughes movie, he would have been John Cusack right like this is.
It would have been great.
But you all know who that actor is, right where we've last seen.
Him, No Stranger Things, He's yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
Which knocked me off because it's such.
A bridge so different. Yeah, astounding that.
On all the kudos.
That is a different take on him that we've seen in the previous Fantastic Four movies, and there was depth to it, and I love that. I mean now again that you know, creating an entire new uh rubric to come up with a whole new language translation is probably a little bit outside of his intellect, but I'm just gonna ignore that, and that's fine.
It was worth it.
We're talking about about human Torch, and let me just say He's Human Torch was always my favorite of the Fantastic for it.
Oh okay, yeah, for me, it was the thing.
The thing was yours.
Well, and now that now that the thing grows a beard. This is great good uh, but but they there were some bits of shorthand, like the fact that the fire never uh had to worry about his clothes.
It was just a great little bit of short end.
I can't believe in this movie they never said the word unstable molecule right like that was like, that's a fundamental things.
Foundational to the cosmic energy. But since we're talking about the four, let us uh do the rundown, so starting now or I guess second with dad mode Mandalorian Uh.
Pedro Pascal's read Richards, there will come a day when I see Pedro Pascal in a role that I don't instantly fall in love. That day has not yet come. His speech of about how he can't stop thinking about the worst case scenarios was just to for me, like I was the person who when we were like we tried really hard to have this child who took three years.
We almost went to like a lot of medical intervention stuff, and about halfway in the pregnancy, I had to find the right moment to bring up, what are we gonna do if something goes wrong, if there's some terrible choice we have to make, and my partner was like, I don't want to think about that, and I was like, I know, I know, I can't stop thinking about that though. And so I've never identified so much, granted probably because I'm a new father, but like I just thought, and
he made that role believable. He made it believable that he was a leader. But because of his just who he was, not because he was dictatorial or something like that. I believed him being the most brilliant, like incredibly brilliant. Yeah, I just I just thought he was like fantastic in that role.
I would just say it took us what maybe six movies to get to the sweet, vulne honerable core of Tony Stark. It took twenty eight minutes to do it with mister fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah, and that's amazing.
Kudos to Pedro Pascal for this because it's outstanding and the writing, let's not forget the dialogue is what did it?
Oh?
Yeah, I was or another Tony Stark And that really showed me this is not that true character.
This is a very different character.
Yeah, you hire a Paedro Pascal, you get a Pedro Pascal, You get what you pay for. But that was I guess my thing is that it was so in his wheelhouse that it was for me, like it was like, oh, okay, so this is just the Mandalorian and last of us. I mean, like, this is just you're you're just playing the same like where we know that he has this and he was watching on SNL and you see this entire other range that he's not getting to do anymore because these now the Internet, sad Dad, So that's all
he gets to do. And that bummed me out a little bit because Reid is more than that. And I mean there's sort of fundamental things that I think of as being part of Reid's character that aren't in this at all. So I had a hard time sort of connecting it back to sort of the read Richards that I sort of understood, but no shade on his performance.
I'm sure that's what they were that's what they were going for and the idea in the same way that when they established Spider Man in the MCU and had him be a science geek, I was like, Oh, yes, that's what a brilliant take. I never thought of, Like, oh, is that a mechanical arm like that?
That?
I was like, oh what, I never thought of that, but it fits perfectly, and having him as the person who thinks of all the worst things in the world try to fix it absolutely tracks. But it was all this other stuff of like, well, he's not a good husband, like historically not a good husband, not a good leader, like he is constantly distracted and in his own head, and but also has like verbal diarrhea. He just like will talk and talk and talk and talk, and the
idea that he's just the silent, brooding guy. I was like, oh, that doesn't quite line up for me. But it was you know, once again, interpretations of characters and you have to sort of you know, get in head like like, oh, this is what their version of it is, not what it's not about me.
Doesn't make it wrong, doesn't make it wrong. Yeah, yeah, we.
Al's talk for a moment.
But I would have loved to see more of him as the bad teacher, you know, the teacher who is just himself so fascinated by his subject that he cannot fathom and that's cannot reach people who don't get the subjects.
Like we got ten seconds of that.
Yes, yes, that is and that is one hundred percent like built into his character and it like almost never shows up. Vanessa Kirby a Sue Storm. I The thing I regret when you talk about the fact that there was there's a first movie out there that we haven't seen, is that one of my favorite origin like Getting the Powers stories is Siue storms because her powers are crazy
and I think figuring out, what's this? What is this energy that I can make shields and I can influence others and I can be invisible, And here she's already in complete control.
Of everything that she can do.
And I missed the charm of watching her figure it out, and that was something, honestly, I'm going to say, Jessica Alba I think did pretty well in the clumsiness and chaos of figuring out how to be who Storm that said peak dad moment for me was her saying you got to stop writing these tests. You want to see, let's see and just showing the baby inside her own uterus. I thought that was extraordinarily cool. What an incredible visual effects, flat flex and a great emotional beat.
I'm going to tell you, flat out, I think she steals the show. Chalk this up to another one of my coincidences between this and Superman. The female lead for me, was pitch perfect to the character more so than almost everybody else. She is absolutely incredible. The moment where she says where they're having the conversation, when she's having it with Read, when he's talking about I'm manic and you know who I am, and she looks at him and says, again, sometimes who.
You are hurts.
If you're a spouse, if you have a spouse who has to deal with your manicness and you and your chaos. That is one of the most profound pieces of dialogue I've seen in a Marvel movie ever. It is outrageous. And the way she does it, Yo, I can't imagine. There's nobody else I can imagine playing that role in that movie. That is a huge testibatory.
It's phenomenal, especially because I don't want to try this in a group therapy, but I assume all of us may have to subcent these issues.
But for me, especially like yes, that moment.
Hurts, But what hurts far worse is the partner who won't say that. The partner says, no, it's fine, it's fine, and you can see that your manicness or your depression or whatever it is hurting them and you don't know how to stop, and they won't ignow, and so like to me, it felt like such an act of love and of trust her to say that, Yeah, I think I only loved.
He as a character. She was a character I really cared about.
I did not, for a second believe that she was going to die, and so I was very annoyed at that uh moment.
I think mostly what I was feeling, though, was how her character made me feel.
How nineteen sixties this whole thing was to the point where, honestly I felt in a world of Bechtel tests. I thought the Silver Surfer was going to join them by the end, just so she'd had another woman around.
You know, because yeah, it did feel like she got uh.
I've spoken about with Jessica Plumber on my Superherotic show about how like in some of the not so good runs of Fantastic Four, she is very much even if there's not Franklin around, but she's like a mother to her husband and her little brother and to Ben, and
that that's not her best side. And so I agree with you, like seeing her only as pregnant and then mother of a newborn child, what that speech she gives to the crowd about how they need they need to understand that they won't sacrifice the baby, but they also won't Sack provides Earth loved, absolutely loved every moment. To me, that's exactly where like a superhero perspective should be.
And she and then she gets and then she is has long been. It was sort of like like Pete was talking about had long been, just like, oh, she can turn a visible and she can put up a shield, and that was it. And then it was sort of as the thing went on, they went like, well, what if there's no limit to what she actually can do? And so her power has grown and so now she is regarded in the regular comedy as one of the
most powerful people out there. And so to see that on screen she goes toe to toe with a space god and pushes him back. I mean, there's some great interestinct and great acting stuff too, but that is a pure conflict moment, and that with what I was absolutely thrilled about is having her exert her will and push Galactus down the street. That is like whoa wait exactly, And.
I don't want to take away from that at all.
I think it's great sometime for you that you have to do some homework for a movie, But for me, going into it not knowing at all meant utterly nothing.
Because I didn't know.
I like, oh, okay, that's like I mean there, I think, maybe Kyle, you're really making me around if i'd seen a movie about her learning that power and wrestling that power and not thinking that she had that power but among other things, the like you know you can lift a car off your baby, because that's what it does her baby, her family is in danger. That's how she finds that power. I think, Yeah, I love that they
had that. For the people who knew the characters. I wish they'd done more to set it up for.
Yeah, that's that's this is why I felt like there was just a missing movie because the same thing with now would come to the thing like one of my all time favorite characters, and so they they absolutely got. I think they great casting. The effects were amazing. The fact that he actually looked at that and growing the beard with it was just a fun twist too, but fantastic. He was already sort of past all of the stuff that like like Rob was talking about with with Tony
starks Ark. He was pasted all of it and just sort of like, well, this is what my life is. I'm like, but I don't want Ben to suffer. And Ben Grimm is as a nice guy who's affable and everybody gets along with is great, but there also is a sadness to him that they only kind of show with him sadly looking in windows. But that's it, like, you know, like so they sort of I feel like
for Johnny too. Johnny was a himbo who like just was a party boy, like you see the Copper Tone ads U two and then eventually grows and becomes worthy, and so that's where we meet him, and the same thing. Sue as ignored. Obviously she's the way and you know, the housewife has to take care of them all, and then moving into being the most powerful, you know, potentially
of the group. We missed all that, so like we we meet them after all their character arcs are finished, and so it's it's so it's a little bit like, Okay, you're you're having to and that's why I felt bad. I'm like, I feel like everyone has to catch up to what they're doing now and without knowing any of the stuff that came before. And it's the movie stumbles right out of the doing that.
The ben Grim bit is the most interesting one to me because the Ben Grimm transformation is one of great grief. Right, everyone else can pass, right, there is a passing motif. You can choose not to stretch, mister fantastic, You can choose to just be not invisible, you can choose to not be on fire. You cannot choose not to be made of rhyme. Right, but just to ask exactly exactly it is something completely different, and I think missing that that is, that's doing a little bit of short shrift
to future implementations of Ben Grimm. In the movie, we don't have his sad backstory in order to see what he's accomplished to be able to become a hero in doomsday, in wherever he goes from here. And I also I share that regret because that was that's always one of my favorite sort of adaptation stories.
He still gets up and does the job anyway, that's my thing. Like you, he can never go back, he can you can't even buy regular clothes, and yet he still gets up and punches Galactus in the face.
And also Natash she Leone was here one of.
The most powerful moments in the entire movie, for Ben is when they are at the dinner table and she and he realizes that she's pregnant. Let me tell you something, those eyes is one of the most expressive CGI moments ever in the history of CGI. Yes, because if you know the backstory of the characters, you know that's his
moment where he realizes, Oh, I love you. And if case Matthew didn't know that, right, there's a whole backstory to that, and that's the moment where he realizes and now we're done, and now I bury those emotions for the rest of for the rest of my existence. Oh you know, mean he loves her like says he loves yes at some point.
Yeah, oh yeah, that's no, no, no, I understand.
But for those who know that moment, yeah.
Shout out to Hylem or whatever of the fifteen specified companies because it's so subtle and the fact that we can get to that point where a big stone guy silently you can see that read the emotions on his face. I don't know that was pution capture or whatever it was. I took a team, I know, but yeah, that was incredible. Just they would just cut back to him and he just him like waiting for Johnny to catch up, just like okay.
Like right, the fact that we have it in the person of even Moss Backrock, who is a such an incredible performer, and we already know for fans of the Bear, just what incredible range this guy has as a performer, stunning, stunning turns from.
I don't think it was in any way coincidental that they introduce him knowing that background and the first thing he does is taste something in a kitchen and talk about it.
That was like, hey, Bear fans are for you.
Okay, okay, Yeah, And I will say there's one other thing where they made a lot more progress than anything I've ever seen, but I wish they'd gone just a little further. The MCU is been really bad about Jewish representation. You know, we have Megnieto for sure, but uh, you know, Wanda is supposed to be both Jewish and Romani that that's been taken out.
I thought Moonlight Moonlight was really great, but some people were.
Thrilled about it, and so the fact that he goes into a synagogue I thought was a really nice moment.
I didn't love that.
She then says, be good, why are you here, and he says, I'm here for you Because to me that like it does that means he's finding Jewish community, not necessarily that he himself was Jewish. I wish it had been more like, because this is where my community is and you're here something, but still being that explicit about linking him to Judaism I really appreciated, and like, I think this is not unkline. To me, that's not the most important about his character. It's unline everything else you've
talked about. But for me, as a person of Jewish family, like that is something I care about a lot, and I was very happy that that did not get kind of swept on somebody.
Wait a minute, I think you misinterpreted that she says that because he's delayed connecting to her, because what they what the imply is that they have that first that first moment where she comes across the street talks to him and says, well, yeah, come on over, and then they show you where he's not doing that, and it's
implied that months go by. When he shows up, she says that to him because she's begging him to say me, that's actually why she says that it's not it's not an insult, it's a well it took you, it took you long enough.
I get all that.
I'm just saying that I wish they had done just a little more to show that that's not the only reason he's going into a synagongue.
At that moment when everyone's thinking they should die.
I do.
I do wonder what the intention is of of Ben's sort of romantic path going forward, because it's not a significant.
Part of this movie.
It was a Tuesday afternoon for Natasha Leone and uh, and yet Ben Grimm's efforts to find love again our legion. Like, I love the whole concept, the conceit of Ben Grimm finding himself and find being able to be comfortable in a relationship. They've done that before and it's awesome. And I think this movie was already packed full, and we didn't have a lot of Johnny. I mean, Johnny's sort of a romanticizing Silver Surfer is plot, right, Like, that's
that's pot This is not plot. This is a side story, and I don't know that we needed it. I wonder if natashe Leone is going to get a gonna get a run in a later film.
I don't know. It seemed like wasted space to me.
It seems like Kat Deennings has done well for herself after her one, her one Marvel movie and then don't think it's so maybe people like then she'll be back. And it was just because even though I was very obviously n Leone, she was so different than the Oh I forgot. I forgot what a good actress you are. I keep thinking that you're just playing yourself, but no.
She's wonderful. She's wonderful, and yeah, no disrespect to Natati Leone. What I wanted was more or nothing. What we got was just too much of a tease for me, for the nerds looking at you, Kyle, any of your favorite Easter eggs? Like anything that we got in this movie. That felt like, this is fan service, this is a love note.
Well, a couple of things I haven't figured. I don't I haven't watched, Like I'm sure New Rock Stars has a whole breakdown at this point, but apparently the actors from the from the Roger Corman are in it somewhere.
Did you see several times there's there, Yeah, there media there is that what it is yeah, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, and.
There's there's one of the clips when the bubbles come out where people saying thank you Fantastic for us. There the four of them are in one of those shots, in addition a few other voice.
I knew, I knew they were somewhere, but I didn't know exactly where. That was a Herbie. Okay, So, for those who don't know the sixties cartoon, the executives the time thought we can't have show a person on fire because kids might then set themselves on fire to be like the human toy. Which so the human Torch was not allowed to be in the Fantastic four cartoon and
was replaced with a colorful, cute robot named Herbie. And so the fact that they actually have Herbie as a character who very wally, doesn't have a voice, but is very expressive, I thought was a nice way to have him there and actually give him some stuff to do. They give him like plot he's doing he's building the crib, like he's doing all that work. And I love tape. Yes, they swap out and the magnetic tape spinning nice future
classic technology thing timely comics. They do a shot of such what we're meant to think is probably Stanley and Jack Kirby in Timely Comics, which was what Marvel preecessor was with the drawing boards. I'm sure there's probably some original Kirby's sketches in there. If you if we go back and look and then and then come back to it once again, Kirby does not get enough love. Then if you say the end credits, you find out the reason it's called eight to eight is because that is
Jack Kirby's birthday. That is why this is a two eight. So I thought that was a you know, it would be nice if they had done a little bit more like in the movie rather than like making weight through all the other people, to be like, hey, this is the guy who literally created the look for all these characters. But something's better than nothing, and it is progress that
Marvel is making and acknowledging their creators. And it's a big list at the end of people who have made significant runs in Fantasico and done into good job, which I thought was ships that Darsky was really shocked that his name was in it. Yeah, it was, like I was. But so those are my favorites.
If I can jumptory in there.
I thought that was particularly nice because granted, Stanley isn't alive anymore, but for so long, like Stanley was in so many Marvel movies in some way or another, and so and I always have felt that, like it really has felt like Stanley Jack Kirby and so having this movie specifically call out, uh Kirby.
Yeah, and this is the most Kirby thing we've ever seen, Like this is closest to his original design. I mean, Michael check was like to define job, but like his costume was not great.
I heard that Ben Graham is kind of the closest that Kirby has ever come to putting himself into a comic book.
I think that if they had gone any more hard on Kirby fandom, they would have just c ged Kirby for a Canada, which.
I think I would not have hated it, you know, I mean, you know, stan Lee got that mural in was it far from Home or whatever? Like the thing, you know, like I can't have a big Kirby up there.
But how about So we talked briefly about the music. The music is a slam dunk. I think this is ghost score is extraordinary, and I wish, I wish.
We had gotten that movie the Mother. Michael Chikino was the scoring That's.
The movie I wanted for sure, because he was, yeah, you know as a whole that that's the movie I wanted. But I do want to talk about the look of the film, because you know, we're just coming off of Superman, which had color and light, and that was beautiful. This had a kind of color and light. Then I think we're accustomed to this retro sixty thing, these color coded labs and the pastels and the angles and curves. I
think we're really really lovely. I think the visual sequences, the production design, I would die to live in their place. What do you think of the general look and feel of this world?
It's incredible.
The main area in the tower where they work, the three sections, the classroom, how it's color coded, absolutely incredible. You definitely realize though, I think this is the same production designer from Loki, So the TVA has very similar which I thought that was actually great because it's almost like you're starting to connect the threads and I think that's actually good, just incredible. I mean, the times Square, the vehicle design, the rocket like it's just it's a
gorgeous space that you want to actually live in. I will tell you if anybody ever went. I know there's some of the groups that are working like on using some of the three D engines. I would love to just explore this in a in a in a virtual reality.
Zillow had a promotion where you could tour the Baxter building in like on the Vision Pro for example. I think you could get a tour, but I'm not sure. I didn't do it.
I mean, I think the best compliment I can make to The Visual Stylist movie is that I came home and one of the first things I did was one of the closest things I think you can do to tourny the Visual Stylist movie.
I booted up Falling.
Oh yeah, because and I think about it. I think there's a robot like thing that's very much like Herbie in that, and it's those don't play the video game. It's about a post nuclear holocaust kind of world, but where uh it happened in the nineteen sixties, and so everything is kind of like nineteen sixties futuristic and yeah, I just I love that idea. It reminded me a lot about it, and you've seen this kind of dating me. But Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow, that's much
more like nineteen twenties vision of the future. But yeah, our deco incredible stuff. So yeah, I just thought the visual was great. I thought, like, I wanted Galactys to be a lot bigger for him to make sense, But I thought the visuals of him, those eyes were so powerfully done.
Why is goat to say, spaceship? Can I ask you dumb, protestially dumb question. Yeah, she's got to eat, He's got to eat.
Yeah, it's like the ship transforms the planet into the food that sustained a culture. Yeah, that's what it is. He doesn't literally just like you know, like like eat the planet like with his mouth.
So wait, that's a great question. Yeah, so hold on. Two questions.
I have one, what do they do with the ship that's now in orbit of the Earth?
And what happens to Galactus? What does he do?
Is he just like land somewhere on a planet across the universe, chomping on.
A on a daisy field, Like, what's happening?
He landed on the planet that Thanos ended up on at the end, of inf anymore, just like now he's a farmer growing giant mellow.
But I had a lot of questions, a lot of questions.
But none of them will be answered because it's all getting wiped away, is it.
It's the scale of glackness everything else about what should be in the comics, because the way I've heard about him, I always thought he was like big enough to like pop up planet.
No, no, this is I think I think that I'm sure they he should be a little bit bigger. But like this is about right, like in terms of in terms of like like standing and looking up. It was in the his first appearance, which I thought they were going to do, read comes up with something called the Ultimate nulla fire which I keep waiting for to show up in an MCU thing And basically it's a little
click thing. But what it does is it destroys whatever you're looking at and you So that's what Reid stands up to him and goes, okay, look I have this, and you can like you scan it, know what it is. I will kill you and myself. And that's what gets Galactos to be like, okay, Earth off the menu, Like that's the and of course he comes back many times.
But I thought that was a great thing in terms of red being, like I'm willing to absolutely wipe myself from existence, like not just I don't die, like I am stricken from all existence and you will be too. But you know, I'm sure it'll show up at some point.
But he needs the spaceship more as a multi because he did see him like this, you know, interdimensional mortal being. But you can't like just coach through space on your own. He needs the ship to Yeah, I.
Don't think, I mean, I don't think wherever they if he's in open space, but he's still alive, so he's out there, so he doesn't I don't think he ever really like dies dies, but he obviously doesn't have this.
No, and I imagine we're going to come back to him at some point, right.
No, wait, wait wait wait, what do you mean?
Okay, So the next movie is called Avengers Doomsday. The movie after that is called Avenger's Secret Wars. If you follow the due Secret War stuff, all of this is going away. It's all going so this world eight to eight will we'll probably net we'll we'll probably see it. In the opening scene of Doomsday and then it will be wiped from existence, along with six nineteen ninety nine and the Fox Verse and all of it. It's all
going away. So so man, update your resumes, packed up your stuff because it's all going away.
So hold on a second, because you now you raised a great point. They're already talking about they had destroyed the set like they're they're filming on that set right now.
Well, well.
That's it. That's this is my this is my as fan theory, nerd theory. I have no I have no evidence of this. I don't I don't dig into spoilers.
Anything know what doomsday means. But I think that the fact that they're going directly from this into Avengers movies, well, Spider Man, I would love to think there's gonna be a you know, Fantastic four to two and three, but I don't think there's going to be in part because this isn't Chris Evans at the start of his career.
You're not going to get Pedro Pascal to sign a ten movie deal because he's got Star Wars and he's got Last of Us, and he's got Saving Transgender World because he's an amazing advocate.
He's just got like everybody wants to.
He's got to be in Star Trek at some point, like he's got to complete the whole geek thing.
I don't want to get too into like we could have a we can have a separate like fan theory about like what I think is going to happen.
But if they.
Follow, that's all I really want to do right now, Kyle, because you just said it, ok I just want to. I just you don't you honestly don't think that Figian team could find a way to bring Coractice.
Yes, will No, I think Glacus is gone forever. Okay, So all right, so then you know, consider this fan theory essentially if I taking for what I know the MCU and the comic books, what's going to happen in the opening scene of Avengers dooms Day is we're going to meet Doctor Doom, who's going to look a lot like Iron Man Tony Stark, but no one's gonna know that because Tony Stark doesn'ts in this world. He's going to meet Franklin Richards, who can has the power to
literally rewrite reality. He is going to take that power from Franklin Richards and rewrite reality where he is now the supreme Being and rules everything, and that's ruling the multiverse, so it's all going away. So there will be probably at the end of Doomsday will be Doctor Doom wiping everyone from existence and rebooting it with him as God, and Secret Wars will be everyone going hey, wait, this
isn't how reality is supposed to be. As we're going to the opening scene of a maned Secret Wars in twenty twenty eight or whatever it is, will be doom World, and we're because it's already been in the comics, and we're gonna have Doom as supreme being, and everyone will think that it has always been this way. Doom has always been our protector, our ruler, our god. And then the human all the every character from every Marvel movie that Disney owns will come together and start going, hey wait,
I don't think this is actually how it's supposed to be. Uh, And then there will be the revolution, and then at the end of the Avengers Secret Wars, a new universe will be born, which will have Mutants and Spider Man and X Men and all of them in one and Fantastic four in one harmonious timeline. You will never see Loki again.
The Rusas are doing End Game Infinity War again with Tony playing Doctor Doom this time in or and he's the fanos of the two movies, yes.
But but but on an even grander scale, and that he's going to be like trimming off every piece of the multi person. So we're going to have one harmonious timeline of all of the previous Fox and Disney and every movies and animated thing in one and so this eight one eight, eight to eight will no longer exist and the Fantastic Four will always have been part of the MCC There are those.
Of us who think that can't come too soon. I'm so done with Multiverse. If they need to do a billion dollars worth of movie that's from under it.
That that's what we're going to that's what they're going to do.
So so, so what you're saying is that in that post credit scene, he's he's healing, he's healing his.
Face, so when he turns around, he won't be the scar Doctor Doom.
He will be I'm like, wow, you may be right.
Okay, shout out to my nephew Mitchell, because that's this will break his heart to hear this, he's a big Galactus fan.
Wow.
Okay, that's all right.
I don't know if I want to bet that that sounds really.
It's upset.
I mean, it's it's a that's just me pulling from multiple things and putting them all into it because and that's that's the way I would sort of see it structuring.
Here's the deal.
The fact that they were not on that ship that's in the post credit scene of Thunderbolts really threw me.
So because that's what's gonna He's gonna take the power and go and they'll have to chase him because the the what the Sacred Timeline is based in Earth.
Okay, I don't know how I feel about that, but I want to see it. Yeah, I am up for being surprised.
But like all the things that people have told me that make me really excited about doctor Doom.
Yeah, that's when they said the empty chair for Latviia, I was like, oh, which I really wanted to meet Doom and have him like even to be like, hey, read, I see you're going to play the planet not without me, But no.
Hey, I have to I have two quick things I do want to mention. One did anybody feel like the final scene before the credits of them trying to get the baby seat in the car, wait, can I can I honestly make a hot take on that I needed to see more of that kind of humor in the movie or else cut that scene or.
Move it like move it yes for the earlier on.
Yeah, that seemed odd.
Yeah, the family squabbling is fundamental to Fantastic four.
I would just say to you Rob as someone who eight days ago had done that struggle in ninety degree heat with my baby crying, and like I was all trying because yeah, I had not related to a scene in a movie more, and I did love that car nuts.
No, true, I was gonna looking at the screen of going like Rob has the farthest from that, and then Pete and then me and now Matthew right away right.
I will say though that that I accept that, but not in a movie where the main character can teleport things.
I mean, you seem like he would have a better solution to that.
So anyway, it just seemed God, okay, so real quick the whole thing, I will say, did anybody else just get freaked out at the crazy coincidences between this movie and Superman. Both movies celebrate, celebrate the silver Golden Asia comics. The feel female lead steals the show, the public terms on the antagonist, the funny non human sidekick steals some scenes, and black.
Holes saved the day.
Interesting, there's probably more like the sky Hole.
I mean would say the most obvious. The most obvious to me is they're both fundamentally about hope. They're both fundamentally about like to me, the Fantastic Four are. They're not dark and gritty. And I I don't think it's a crazy conspiracy because James Gunn worked with Marvel for a long time before going over there, and I would not you know, I I don't think this was like some secret.
I think probably the people making this movie. We're friends with James Gunn.
We're talking and like, like, it's not that I think that they were like, let's have these two movies be similar. It's that I think they were both recognizing the public is really sick of dark and gritty and wants hope and wants family and wants lightheartedness.
Yeah, so I think you're correct.
The coincidence between them are ridiculous, but I don't think it's coincidence.
I think it's it's both of them responding to.
Everybody's drawing out the same idea. Well, they just happened to yeah, write. Okay, we got to wrap it up, you guys. And you know, this is what we do when it comes time to turn the corner. We visit our friends at letterbox dot com, letterbox dot com slights the next real that's where all of the reviews.
And stars and hearts are corraled. We pick our stars and hearts from that corral and we apply them to the movie. And as you know, there's a limited number of stars and hearts, so you got to make sure you take it from another movie. If you give it to this. That's my only that's my rule. Nobody else is. That's fine, you do you all right, let's see how about let's start with Rob, Rob.
What are you gonna do?
Heart? Of course, of course. And what's what I got?
I got five stars, half stars count h four Okay, it's healthy, healthy.
Good stuff is really good.
Good stuff is really good.
Okay, Matthew, I'm gonna solid three and a half and and my my tagline for that is, I'm really excited to see these characters again.
I'm not super psyched up to watch this movie again.
There you go. I think that's assessment, Kyle.
Yeah, that is well said, and I agree. So heart and three and a half stars for me as well, it's it's I enjoyed it, and there was some unbelievable standout moments for me, and then a lot of choices where I was like, can we just pick up and move can we just move along?
So yeah, Pasically, I'm not gonna say I loved it, but I am going to be I'm surprised that Rob came in with a four. I'm going to be on team Rob. Four stars and a heart. I really enjoyed it. I think it is a one of the better of the crop of Marvel entries right now. And I'm this could have been a disaster. And let me just say the one thing I had not said very true.
That is very true.
That I saw the stretch effects in the trailers and was unmoved. I thought that's going to be the thing that's going to destroy this movie, and it did not. I didn't think about it at all. I thought it was when it was used. It was used defectively and quickly, and they didn't stop and let you look too closely at it until he starts get a Galactus stretches him at the end, and the fabric starts ripping on the suit. That was a great moment and earned and then they
moved on. So I feel like maybe the technology has just caught up with what we needed to make Read Richards actually look cool on screen.
Although I would say I think one of the most brilliant choices was we never saw a zoom in on that moment. We watched Galactus hold him apart from fairly far away.
Yeah, we did.
We get very close, and I thought that was also really important because I don't think we have the technology to make it really look like he's that I thought keeping us fairly far away in that shot.
Just remember this is why Alasta Girl is still the best. Mister Fantastic I was.
I was just so rob What is the best Fantastic Four movie you ever made?
Incredibly incredible? Okay, this has been great, y'all.
Thank you so so much for the quick turn around, for seeing the movie, for being here on the film board, and make sure everybody listening to check out the shows of the Ethical Panda on True Story FM, Superhero Ethics, and Matthew, are you recording shows yet or are you still full on break?
Yeah? So I have been in a hiatus.
We're not gonna start posting things probably again until probably September, although we did do a review of Superman that it will be posting. That is, we're focusing on the ethical cut questions, all the stuff that the cowards weren't willing to wrestle with. I don't know, I've not listened to your recording on it yet, but but yeah, we starting
in September. We'll even hitting the ground running with the Superhero Ethics podcast, the star Wars Universe podcast, Star Wars Generations, and a new parenting podcast coming with myself, Pete Wright and Mandy Capper.
Very exciting. It's very exciting.
One day it will release and we love it.
And then there's a Marvel Movie minute where Pete is trying really hard to get me to like Thoor two.
But we're doing.
It's an able fight.
We are.
We are showing up every week, uh and lost in the dark world. This is a good show to have all of us here, talk us Marvel people, because you know we have movies yet accounted for in the MCU and all we're doing. Me and Matthew, we're the ones who stepped up to keep this show going because you turn decided not to. You couldn't stand thor we did thor so you wouldn't have to do your welcome.
That's all I'm saying.
We're still recovering from our extremists.
You are, You're not wrong, You're not wrong, and we suck.
Let's see Rob.
So Rob is on hiatus himself. While we are not recording Marvel movie minute, I am.
Working on a video series on for LinkedIn called Workplace Treasures that, for those of you who don't know, my workplace is sort.
Of like a pop culture cracker barrel, or at.
Least old cracker barrel, and I am doing a tour of the stories of everything Kyle knows. Actually yes, yeah, I mean like so I'm working on I'm deep in production on excellent. All right, where to come soon?
That sounds really great? And Kyle, what do you want to You've got so many things? What are you going to talk about?
I do have some anythings. But well, before I sort of get to my plugs, I wanted to give some shout outs to people who if they watched this and would like to do some comics. A couple of small recommendations. There was a Thing series written by Dan Slott that was just a solo the Thing, just hanging out and hanging out with his friends and playing poker with Captain America and stuff too. It's it's just a fun great series,
got canceled way too soon. I highly recommend that. And if you want to just jump into Fantastic four, I highly recommend Mark Wade and Mark and Ringo. I can't wear Ringo. They did an incredible run and we lost Ringo way too soon. He died young. But his artwork is incredible. He does some of the most amazing Fantastic
Four art you've seen. And so that is a great jumping on point because it was designed for people who sort of don't kind of know the characters a little bit, but it gets right into it and they at one point they meet God. I mean, it's it's it's an incredible it's it's so much fun, and it's it's such a going through the crazy, crazy world. And also Ryan North just did a recent run on it too. I didn't love it as much as a lot of people
I did, but I love Ryan North. So I recommend checking those those out if you want to just find a jumping on point, because Fantastic four obviously has a huge publishing history. And then for me, I would say, though, what I would talk about was the one I do with Pete. We have a show called Craft and Chaos where we talk about how we can as artists, how we stay inspired when it feels like the world is
on fire. We do that with two other artists, Misty and Ryan Dalton, and we Missy Stinnett and Ryan Dalton. They got to get their full names in there or else they'll come at me in our in our thread. And then we're having a lot of fun and talking about sort of things like writer's block and imposters and also having getting really really silly. So it's a good time.
It's sort of like a campfire hangout, getting together just with other artists just to commiserate as we're all trying to make something in a world that does not want to see or hear what we make.
Love it great plug and I will say all of the shows that I do with you people, I plug those and Headstone. My new show about Legacy and the Things We leave Behind is out and available, and I would love it if you would check it out.
It's just me.
It's just me.
I don't have anybody helping me or doing anything with it. It's just me asking questions of people. And I'm really enjoying it. I hope they are too, the people. Kyle's on it, He's coming up in a stricuture.
If you ever wanted to hear me cry on a podcast, check out Headstone.
Okay, so that's spoiler something to look forward to. And thank you everybody for your time and attention listening to this show. Whether you agreed, disagreed, or just came here to shout at your phone, we appreciate you. If you had fun, don't forget to join the conversation on the discord at true story dot fm, slash Discord. And if you really love what we do, become a supporting member at true story dot fm, slash Join for the perks
AND's it for all of us. Matthew Fox, Rob Kvasco, Kyle Olson, I'm Pete Wright.
Meeting adjourned