The Geekbox: Episode 689

Hello and welcome to episode 689 of the Geek Box, your every other week podcast where we talk about whatever it is we want, because it's our podcast. This is the episode for the week of whatever that... How do I not know numbers? July 7th, 2025. I'm your host, Ryan Scott. You said July 27th? Did I say July? No, I said July 7th, 2025. Your hearing's all messed up. Brain worms. You need to go see RFK about that. With me is Ryan Higgins. He keeps interrupting me.

We are four minutes from Superman embargo release. Ryan, are you ready? Are you ready for it? Well, that one review got lifted or got leaked, and he said it sucked. But also, I went through all the things that guy wrote in the past, and he didn't like a bunch of... He didn't like sinners either, so that's really questionable.

Sinners is definitely on the list to watch. Oh, you haven't seen it? No, no, no. It's really good. Do you know what it is? Do you know what it's about? No, nothing about it. Oh, stay that way. It's better if you just don't know. Yeah. Nice. I'm eager to hear what you think of that, actually. I would talk about it in the context of, but I can't say what it is or it would spoil the whole thing. No, it's on our list to watch. Yeah, I know nothing about it. Other than people seem to like it.

yeah it's very good uh you were saying you saw a couple you said you said you saw what was it what was it you said you said quote The years, the biggest movie of 2025. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, Velocipastor, and you were like, no. So I'm curious what this movie is.

Well, I'll start. Today we went to the Alamo Draft House that just opened here in Santa Clara. Okay. To see Destroy All Monsters, classic Godzilla movie. Have you been to the Alamo Draft House? Because we've never been to one. I never have. Yeah, so this one opened here. Oh, so this is like the old classic. Okay. Yeah, yeah. 1968. Yeah, this is one of the original Godzilla movies. So...

They opened two draft houses. They've had one in San Francisco for a long time. It's not the original, obviously, but it's one of the earlier ones, the one in San Francisco. Oh, it's not the original Alamo Drafthouse? I wonder where that's at. Yeah, it's not the first one, but it's an early one. I assume near the Alamo? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Could be. I don't know. Alamo, Tennessee. That's it. Paris, Florida. Yes, exactly. But...

So they opened one in Mountain View and opened one here in Santa Clara, San Jose border at Valley Fair, the big mall here. And this one has a multi-year deal with Toho, the makers of Godzilla. to be themed out so they have all their posters or Godzilla. you know, like retro Godzilla posters and international posters. And they, like all the, they have like all these movie characters around the logo and it's all the Godzilla monsters here. That's supposed to be like some big, like, like.

There's something else that was supposed to be there that we didn't see, but we'll be back. I'll look at it some other time. But yeah, this is the first week that they're doing some movies here, so we went in and, yeah, you know, it's... you get the food during the theater and they have like a half an hour, like a little pre, uh, like a little pre show that you can watch where they, you know,

it's some funny clips about Godzilla some goofing on it but some actual like you know they really try to talk about the movies too show a bunch of trailers from Godzilla toys and movies and So it's pretty cool. You know, they're not quite ready as some, you know, food service was a little slow and messed up a few times. And so, you know, it's just open there.

This is the first week, so they're kind of getting everything, you know, prepped. Working out all the bugs? Yeah, I'm not. I wasn't too. That's kind of what I was expecting. Yeah, Draft House, their big thing is... They have shows for kids and families. No cell phone usage, period. They actually kill you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One warning and then you get kicked out.

You know, no talking, blah, blah, blah. They actually have like ushers and, you know, that are actively there. You know, I'm sure plenty of people use their cell phones or in these movies stealthily and, you know. If they don't catch them or if you're not complaining, they're not going to do anything. But I expect if you're going there, you probably have a little bit of a better idea of what's expected. Yeah. And yeah, obviously.

uh, the food service and drinks are being part of it. So it's good to show up early and get your food service or get your food ordered. So you're not trying to do it while the movie started. I don't know that I would go here for regular movies. Um, the, Ordering foods is a little distracting. Like the first half of the movie, this really kind of ushers running around all over the place trying to get food out. Maybe they get a little quicker and stealthier about it.

As they level up, but to start, yeah, they're... Well, I would also maybe kind of grain of salt because Sony owns them now. Yeah. Right. They're not like they're not like all super independent as heck. When we were we were leaving the two guys next to us, they said they were from the San Francisco one and they said a bunch of their staff had been brought down to these ones. I would hope that they're trying to, you know...

keep the quality up on these, because it sort of defeats the entire purpose if it's just not a fucking shitty movie theater, right? They're going to be like, no, you know what the kids want today? A second screen experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kill yourself. So, hopefully... In a video game. Yeah, of course. For legal jokery. It was a nice theater. Yeah, but...

I don't know that I'd like it as much if I was watching a brand new movie. Just because it was a little distracting. I mean, it seems like the kind of place you would want to go for some classic. It seems like that's what... That's what I think of when I think that's the kind of stuff they show, right? I mean, they show brand new movies too. They show a ton of movies. But it's like, I feel like the older stuff is, yeah, it's a little more of a reason to go there.

You said they have a deal with Toho. Yeah, for a couple years. Like specifically for Godzilla stuff or just Toho in general? Well, I'm assuming it's just Godzilla, but it says Toho. I mean, they have a deal with Toho. But I believe it's to be Godzilla themed. Oh. Because you know what they could do with Toho if they have a deal? What's that? Anything worth watching just about that was made by Akira Kurosawa was produced.

Through Toho. Yeah, Toho does more, but I think this is specifically for the Godzilla franchises. Get some Seven Samurai in there. I'm sure they'll play all that stuff here. Valleyfair, Leon was commenting, they've really turned it into one of the big Japanese malls, kind of the way they have them. In Japan, when we were there, we were like, wow, this actually feels kind of what Valleyfair has turned into more than just like an 80s American mall. They're styled a little differently.

Valleyfair seems to be pushing further in that direction. And obviously doing something with Godzilla in tow goes right into that. Yeah, there's a Hello Kitty cafe that's opening up there. There's lots of... So is that mall still thriving? Yeah. Yeah, Valley Fairs. Yeah. Huh.

that's crazy like mostly you think malls and it's like oh most malls just struggle or die valley fair is like the has been the big mall around here for a long time um as all the other malls have died because they seem to actually care and put money into it, you know, and it's not just like an wrecked. And they have a lot of upscale stuff in there. I mean, it doesn't help that all the other malls in the area had weird embezzling problems. Yeah, they made, you know, they put like a lot of...

money into it. They completely expanded on it. Santana Row is the big shopping area across the outdoor shopping mall across the street. So between those two, yeah, that is a massively popular shopping district. It's kind of the only one down here. When we went to Japan, I mean, there'd be these everywhere. We'd see these kind of setups.

pretty regularly around major train stations and bigger touristy areas. And it feels like this is as close as we get to something like that. And it definitely seems like they're kind of modeling him. themselves after how they do in Japan and Asia and, you know, the Philippines and China. They all have kind of these big mall setups that just are a little different than how we've done them here.

This seems to be working here. Obviously, big Asian population in San Jose. That was cool. I've seen a big Godzilla movie on a big, big screen. It was nice. But the big movie of the year, no, it's not Superman. No, it's not Jurassic World 7? Jurassic Park 7? Yeah, I believe this is the seventh Jurassic Park movie. Not Fantastic Four, so the actual biggest movie of the year. I saw there was somebody who was like, well...

We've made the worst Jurassic Park sequel for the sixth time. We've gotten exceedingly good at it. Not far from the truth, I'm going to assume. Most of them are pretty bad. I'm sure it's a movie. I literally never heard of this movie until yesterday. Probably told you about it a million times. Of course, now that I've... seen it i've seen it more you know people mention it more regularly and it has horrible almost a

Name as bad as Velocipastor. Velocipastor, yeah. Sharknado? No, no, no, no, no. This is an actual brand new movie. Mavalanchula? An actual brand new movie that just came out.

and will likely be one of the biggest movies of the year. And that is K-pop Demon Hunters. on netflix and i'm not joking oh that probably will be one of the biggest movies of the year just based on that name and i'm not and i'm not right i'm not i'm not making that up uh it's an animated movie from sony um

It's not the worst movie I've ever seen in my entire life. Can they put that on the box? They should, because that is high praise coming from someone like me. K-pop demon hunter. Yeah. I mean... It's a little frozen. It's a little Sailor Moon magical girl. It's... Those movies are going to be very, very popular. I mean, it already is, but I...

Look at this. I'm looking at the Catholics. They got Jin and Son from Lost reunited, man. Excellent. That sounds great. And Ken Jeong. Yeah. And the guy who played one of those G.I. Joes. The guy who played Storm Shadow, I think. Oh, is that? I don't know. I think. Like, it starts off pretty dumb. And it's the same animation style as Spider-Verse.

And I think that turtles movie kind of used it to didn't meet mayhem. Yeah. Didn't that use that same kind of. It looks like... That movie looks very kind of claymation-y. That's what... It's kind of like with weird... With weird missing frames in the animation. It sort of feels like, I don't want to say like, it's not like quite Gumby or Wallace and Grom. No, no, no. Did you see Spider-Verse? Did you see Spider-Verse? I saw the Ninja Turtles movie. Okay.

I think the animation is kind of similar because I knew you'd seen Turtles. I really liked that movie. Yeah. Which I had some problems with the animation in the first. The second one didn't bother me quite as much, but the first one kind of made me a little nauseous. But it's... Yeah, it's pretty fun. I think this is going to find a big, big audience. It feels like... Oh, you think the K-pop movie is going to find a big audience? It could be.

The first 10 minutes, I'm like, this is going to be fucking stupid. But they actually do some interesting stuff with the characters. And there is... Some more depth than it comes off from the posters and the opening couple kind of couple of scenes, because it seems very vapid at first. And it actually gets a little darker than I maybe expected. So I appreciated it. Right. It's soundtrack charted at number three on the U.S. Billboard 200. So yeah, it's going to be a successful movie. Yeah.

But I mean, this will find an audience. This is going to find a big audience for people that... I've seen plenty of movies that people are like, this is the greatest movie I've ever seen. I'm like, that was a fucking giant pile of shit. Like, this actually, I'm like, okay, it's not for me, but it's pretty decent. So... Yeah, it's... I get a little... I get a little weird, like sort of fake anime stuff.

There's a lot of stuff influenced by anime, which is totally fine. What about Netflix's Voltron? Well, right, right. There's a lot of stuff that's sort of... What about Netflix's Castlevania? That's exactly one of the shows, right? Yeah, my favorite anime. Yeah, Warren Ellis, that classic manga writer. Classic, yeah.

This has like 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, right? Yeah, yeah. But it's a Netflix movie, so usually that means it has 8,000,000,000,000,000 views, and no one ever mentions it or talks about it, and it evaporates from the public. conscious in milliseconds apparently came out june 20th and this is the first time i've ever heard yeah yeah i never heard of it i never heard of it but i i i think it's gonna continue to find an audience all right

Yeah, it's, you know, like I said, it's not the deepest story. You see all the twists and turns coming, but you do a pretty good job with it, and the music's pretty catchy, and some of the characters are pretty funny. Yeah. If it was like, you know, God, like, you know.

Sometimes things are like, if you pulled back 10%, 20% on this, you probably would have had a better movie. It's like, oh, you just kind of turned everything up to 11 and it just doesn't work. It works. It probably works for other people who are not. Sure, sure. This feels like they go right to that edge, but they know when to actually have a serious moment and turn down the dial, which did not...

seemed to be the case in the first and like the opening scene. So I was like, Oh, this is going to be annoying, but, but this is actually pretty decent. Hmm. Okay. I just high praise coming from me. So you recommend it? I do. You'll know if you'll like it. I do not see you liking it, maybe. It does not seem like your type of movie. Alright, you love Sailor Moon.

Okay. Leanne loves Sailor Moon. I like Sailor Moon. Yeah, Sailor Moon. I love Buffy. This has a little Buffy in it. This has a little of that in it. seems like it's maybe something that overlaps with the dork stuff that we... Yeah. You'll know the tropes. All the characters are, you know... Yeah. Yeah, they sure are. And they also, it's, I don't even know if they even rate these movies. I don't know. Do movies have ratings anymore? I won't pay attention. I don't know.

It's not sexy, quote unquote, but I feel like if Disney pitched this, they would have turned that way down. This, they like... It's PG. It's rated PG, right? The guys were treated more sexy. But I feel like, yeah, if this was Pixar, it would have been, you know, like a two on the... you know, romance, love, sexiness, you know, scale. This feels a couple of degrees higher than that. So again, it's all right. Yeah. I was like, okay, they're actually like,

acknowledging that romance exists and, and, and people can like other people. Like it's, I feel like a lot of movies don't have it. Like kids movies try to avoid that. Yeah. It's very, I don't know. What did Toby say? Did you hear when we were talking? Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are both about men who kiss women who are in comas. He was like, yeah, this is like a palate cleanser from kind of just what Disney and Pixar have been doing the last number of years. Just kind of this real just...

The same, the same thing and just, you know, just kind of miss after miss after miss after miss. And I've been pretty out of the Disney. animated movies for a while now. So this is a nice surprise. You're 46, Ryan. They don't make movies for you anymore. Well, it doesn't seem like they make movies for anyone right now. That's a bigger problem.

They make movies for people who want to look at their phone. That is an unfortunate. Yeah. People are just not. not paying attention and that's yeah man i see i gotta tell you i see some of the dumbest stuff you know you know what subreddit um I go to and I browse where I see some of the dumbest stuff. What's that? It's the severance subreddit. Some of the people who are like...

I just discovered this obvious thing. There was somebody, you remember, you remember in set spoilers for severance. Okay. The first season of severance, you remember the last episode of season two. They go to the birthing cabin so he can go through the severance barrier and talk to them. Okay. Right? Remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember this. I do. I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Somebody was like...

I've binge watched this whole season. And I thought I was wondering like how practical it would be if they just, if, if they put severance chips and women and they use this. this birthing cabin to get, to go in and then their, their innies give birth and they don't have to experience it. And it's like, this was like a major plot point that was explored over like four episodes. Like they weren't.

coy about it this was like a a critical flaw point of the show that's exactly what they were doing and it's like what if were you watching you know and so i I don't understand how people go through life like this because I pay attention to the things I watch. And so, and this is obviously one of the most intensive, like you really need to pay attention to this show.

I guess even for the most obvious things are hitting you over the head with, but you know, when that's the audience and they're like, we got to make movies for these. This level of viewer? Well... You saw that Netflix thing. It was really recent where it's like, oh, Netflix is handed down an edict to showrunners. Characters on screen and shows need to announce what they're doing so people who aren't watching the movie can follow it. It's like that level.

Who are you making this for? It's weird. After I heard that, you kind of notice it. You start paying attention? Yeah. Yeah. And like, I've noticed that a couple of times where I'm like, what's the Futurama? You don't just say what you feel. What else you say? The robot devil? Characters can't just say how they feel. That makes me feel angry. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't know. It's a weird time we're living through. Yeah, I...

It's like, that seems like the equivalent, you know, like you'll be playing a video game, like some action video game, you'll be shooting some guys or whatever, and they'll be like, oh no, I gotta reload! Cover me. You know, like it's the equivalent of that. Do you hate games when it's like, hmm, there should be a chest around here. Hmm. And there's a ladder up there. Oh.

I wonder if I could find my way over there. Does that bother you? You know, well, sometimes it really depends on what it is. Okay. It really depends on the context of what's going on in the game because there's sometimes where... the game needs to there. That's like light tutorialization kind of, it's like onboarding. It's making sure you don't early. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, there'll be times when I'll advise clients.

that they need to do a few more little things like that. A lot of times there are ways to get that message across without that. It depends. You can do a lot with the visual design and how you color things in games that can avoid the obvious. I should go here. narration but sometimes games need that sort of does does why can't metroid crawl is that just like the does that just sum up all of game design or it's like

That's just trolling. No, but it's like... That's trolling. No, but I mean, you know people have been like, I walked to the right, I don't know what to do, I turned this game off. I mean, maybe if you're, if you're that dumb, I don't know. I don't, I don't really know. That's a, that's a, well, right. I mean, that's an excellent example of instructive design. That specific.

part where you go right because you're you go it's a video game i go right by then if you play video games you you know that and then you go i can't i don't know how to get through here let's go see if i miss anything and then you go to the left you go ah I found the thing. Now I can go through here. So, yeah, I mean, if you're going to give up right there, I don't know what to tell you.

Especially in 1987. We wouldn't give up because it was the one game our parents rented us for the summer and it was the only thing we had to play. We'd play through. Now kids are like, I got 9,000 other things I could do. Now, it's not Metroid you give up on. Let me tell you, it's Kid Icarus you give up on. That's the game. The first two levels of that game are the hardest levels in the game. And it gets easier. Everyone...

100% that game that I did not give up on, because I'm like, oh, it's the one game I play. It's Flick and Icarus. And this game's hard to shit. Yeah. But it's hard, and then it gets easier. Yeah. So... I just think of that because those both came out at the same time. But, um, sometimes game, you need to find ways to give players a little push. Yeah. A lot of times I prefer if like.

there's like a little maybe a little slight camera shift or something like that you know you know how like in tomb raider you'll get into a level it'll like kind of pan up and she'll be like oh and you'll be like how do i get up there that's where i have to get and then you know, the old Tomb Raider games. And then you have to, you know, to explore, to figure out what you can do. But then you have Nathan Drake coming in being like, oh, there's a ladder over there. So I don't know.

Some people need that, Ryan. No, it's fine. It's fine. I need it all the time. We were talking earlier before the podcast. Leanne's playing Blue Prince. I didn't get... blueprints blue prints uh-huh blueprints it's a little play on work yeah um uh and i'm like yeah i she's up till two o'clock in the morning playing this game and i'm like i

that disease is just not for me. I don't like puzzles. I'm like, yeah, I'll help you figure out this one. Then I'm like, okay, I'm done. That's it. That's it. Wait till she gets to the root trees are dead. There's a good puzzle. You would hate that game. She would be like, it's super. into it yeah yeah um how did we get here oh yeah we were talking about the k-pop demon hunters and netflix announcing everything to the audience in the kitchen

Weeby, but not real weeby. I don't really watch a lot of Netflix stuff. There's not a lot of, you know, Cobra Kai ended. And the only other Netflix thing I'm really hot for that it's ending this year is Stranger Things. So now I'm going to be watching the last season of Stranger Things being like, are they announcing what they're doing the whole time? Yeah, there's going to be 12 spinoffs.

I hope not. Speaking of 12 spinoffs, we finished Squid Game the second and third season, but it's the second season. They just split it in half. Did you watch? I have still not seen Squid Game. Okay, season one is fantastic. New seasons. Is it like a case where they didn't need another season? I mean, they did. They set something up at the end that, you know, it would make sense if they come back and do more.

But they kind of don't do what they set up. They sort of just... They kind of... I don't know. Like... Just do this show again. Okay. And they kind of ask some questions that don't answer them. And it's weird. It was like the squid game stuff is cool, but the. The rest of the plot for the season was like, it's all right. And then I do know, like, I mean, I guess big spoilers for the end. I won't. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't want to know. I know it's like a.

It's like a Battle Royale kind of thing. There is another show coming. Okay. Made by American creators. Oh. Here we go again, screwing everything up. Right, right, right. So... you're like, this is too popular. They're not just going to end it here. Oh, it's not related? It's like the American version or something? No, it is in the same... appears to be. I assume they're going to have it in the same universe. While the Korean version is done, there is now another version. A new season.

With new characters. When you make the American version. Of the thing that was good. It's always bad. Well look. I know we have The Office. Okay, The Office is like one rare case. Sometimes, sometimes. But it's like, did you really need to remake Train to Busan? Just watch Train to Busan. It's fantastic. It's like the best zombie movie ever made. What you know is going to happen with the American version is they're going to have like...

Every episode is going to have like a random person. The background is actually some big A-list actor who they come in for one episode and then kill them off. Right. And you're like, first, first squid game. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, uh, kind of a bunch of big names and, you know. the main character will be, you know, someone random, probably someone famous. And it was like, uh, I don't know. Just gonna, yeah. Huh.

Not looking forward to it. I don't know. It'll be all right. But game season one is awesome. Like really fucking good. Yeah. So yeah, a little light down with season two. It's something I've eyed and been like, maybe I should watch that. No, you'll burn through it so fast. It's very, very good. They do a good job, too, of having kind of pretty good cliffhanger endings. You know, to be fair, the things you tell me this about, you're always right about. You would like Squid Game.

watch the first season? No, no. Just for the big violence. Just for the crazy... After you watch Final Destination and watch Squid Game, it's a lot of, you know... Oh, man. Final Destination is just the best. Is it like that kind of... level of crazy oh it can yeah yeah yeah oh maybe i will see there's some things where like um what was it the um oh man i need to watch the rehearsal

That's the other one. I haven't watched the new season of the rehearsal. That's very good. But I remember you being like, you watched the rehearsal, and then I was like, came back and be like, have you guys heard of this show called The Rehearsal? It's so good. Okay.

i will keep it in mind maybe maybe see i'm gonna be i'm gonna be like you i'm gonna be like i gotta get ready for my buffy rewatch that's what i gotta do i gotta get ready for the show you're gonna rewatch Buffy and Angel before the new show. I'm planning on it. Nice. Yeah. Do you know that Buffy is like, really? Have I talked about this? It's hard to watch that show correctly.

Do you know this? No, Buffy? It's not streaming anywhere? Well, it is. Is it all weird? I think it's on Hulu, but okay. Sorry if I've talked about this before. Is it all weird like miscut? Well, they broke it by nine. Yes, they broke it because so when that show aired, you know, aired from 1997 to 2003. Right. Back before. There were everybody HD. Right. And it was so, you know, full screen four by three and it was shot that way. And they, they intended to be viewed that way. And.

It was in season, I think season four, where they started protecting for widescreen, right? So if it was ever in widescreen, you didn't see a bunch of like boom mics and men, whatever, standing there. um and but but it was always meant to be shown in full frame and um you know the dvds came out at the time and they were correct right uh but when the u.s dvds came out

They never had any of the previously on Buffy, the vampire slayer bits, which were important. Okay. They were, they were, there was actually like one on the hundredth episode that led right into the episode. It's weird without it. But on the European DVDs, they did have that. But also, seasons four and up were widescreen. It was the widescreen versions. In the European DVDs?

in the year on the european dvds okay right so it's this mix of like the u.s version has this but not this the european version has this but not this but when they put it on netflix it might be on hulu or something now they Just use HD 16 by nine versions of everything. And also they screwed up the color timing for the show. It's like completely broken. And which at Buffy, any or any show that really takes place predominantly at night, it's kind of important to get that right.

And so there'll be scenes where like, it's supposed to be midnight and it's like, it's the sun is out. You can just see why angels just standing in the sun. What, what are you doing? Weird. And so there's no like the best versions available to watch that show. are still just the DVDs that came out between 2002 and 2004. There's never been a proper HD upgrade that doesn't do what I'm describing. They've never had a... Any kind of HD release that you could, like DVDs are just it.

Buffy has so fan base. I guarantee you someone people have done people have done like like like AI up res and things like that. There are people who have taken the European DVDs and slowed them down to where the frame rate is, the NTSC frame rate, and cut off the... The widescreen. So it's just the letter, you know, just the, just the full screen. And so people have like, like Frankenstein this together, but it's like for a show that.

is so you know just what it is it's baffling they've never done like a proper re-release you know hd yeah so that show it i've discovered this and going oh i sure you watch buffy that oh this is actually a pain in the ass to watch yeah what why is this so i don't know but uh Maybe I'll try to fit some Squid Game into whatever my rewatch is. So, yeah. We'll see. I hope the new one doesn't suck. How many episodes of Squid Game? It's short, right? Yeah. Alright, cool. Well, that's great. Good talk.

What else have you been doing? I'll do some research for you. I'm sure someone's done good versions of Buffy. I've done a lot of research. I've found the best versions I can. let's put it that i have my dvds over here too so yeah well that's great what else what else is going on nothing

Nothing. Just getting ready to see what happens when... Let's see what happens to Superman. That's what I'm waiting for. Well, didn't the embargo go up? Well, we were. I'm looking. What's it look like, Ryan? I did. This is breaking news. I did kind of poke around a little bit. Yeah, what are they saying?

What are the people saying about Superman? See, I think there's just the social media reactions from... Oh, that's all stupid. ...published, but... I mean, people that have, you know, people that are on the internet that are, you know.

The full reviews are not allowed, but this is their social media post. Okay. You know, when you look at Rotten Tomatoes, I don't look at Rotten Tomatoes because I have... taste um being how when you look at rotten tomatoes you see all the people like the certified people and there's like all the people below it that are like aren't the certified people and you're like who the fuck are any of these people yeah well these are the people that have their social media

reactions up before the full reviews are up. Got it, got it. Best Superman movie to date. I love James Gunn's Superman. I love Superman. Superman soars. Superman soars. So it's all positive. Although the pacing is a little bit messy. I think it did its job. It's a perfect superhero movie. Triumph for the new DC Universe. I mean, people were saying this stuff about Justice League. Big smile on my face made me so damn happy. It is 100% positive. So, that's good.

We'll see when the actual reviews hit. Cool. You know, there was a DC... category on jeopardy tonight presented by james gunn nice nice so and he and he and he talked about one of the one of the ones was about suicide squad oh yeah and somebody rang in they're like what is suicide squad and they didn't give it to them well they were like That's a different movie. It's The Suicide Squad. Boom. Wow. Yeah. I'm... What the hell was I going to say?

I got to give it to James Gunn and DC and Warner Brothers. They have marketed this movie in a way I have not seen a comic book movie marketed maybe ever. This shit is everywhere. This is how movies used to be, right? You'd be like, oh, it's Jurassic Park. You go eat your Jurassic Park McDonald's meal and you get your shorts. No, Batman. Batman 89. Batman was everywhere.

Right, Batman, you went to McDonald's, you got your Batman glass. Right, exactly. And Alfred's like, sir, you have to get your Happy Meal. And there's a commercial. Yeah, I mean, movies used to do this. They... I don't think any movie has ever been marketed as crazily as Batman was in 1989. No, but that was insane. There's pop-ups all over the place. There's a bunch of international cities are having these big...

like Superman displays and they're putting up like props and replicas. And they have like, I remember it was in France. I remember it was, I have like, they have like a Superman, like mannequin, like, like they, they installed this whole, like. thing with him flying above one of the buildings there. They're doing all these promotions with fucking everything. It's pretty unreal. I have not seen a promotion like this in probably my entire time of seeing, you know, post MCU, you know.

the last 25, the last 20 years, right? I can't, Avengers didn't have this type of promotion. Spider-Man didn't have this type of promotion. It's pretty unreal. So that's good. And, you know, whether the movie is good or not. Whether the movie... I have long given up caring if movies review well or if they make money because it's so... Hollywood math is so meaningless. If I enjoy the movie, great. I have no interest in fighting with people on the internet about a movie being bad or good anymore.

If nothing else, they succeeded in getting word out that this movie exists. So that's awesome. Hopefully it translates to a big box office. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I hope it's good. Yeah. Yeah. Are you good to see it? Are you? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm I'm OK to see it. Yes. Cool. it's the first superhero movie i've been like really genuinely excited to see in a very long time well since the suicide squad nice right um which i guess was like

Four years ago at this point. But yeah. There has never. I'm going to say something controversial. There has never been a truly great Superman movie. Oh, fucking hard to disagree. Hard to disagree. The original Superman was good. It's... The original Superman with Christopher Reeve was good. That's the best one there's been. It's fine. It's fine. I've always thought that movie's fine. It's good. It's not like, oh my god, it's the greatest thing ever. It's fine. So, Superman...

He's very good in that role. Superman, the motion picture, is just classic cinema, one of the greatest films ever made in American cinema history. It's good. Superman 2 is my personal favorite. Superman 2 is... It's fine. So fucking good. I remember when Superman throws his ass at it. I do. I do. I love it. I love everything about Superman, too. Yeah. Um, it is my personal favorite and men of steel is great. And I just, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. Okay.

Man of Steel is my Joker origin. So like, I've never pretended that it's not. Man of Steel is phenomenal. It, you know, just didn't seem to register with people the way. I think they expected, which I'm a little surprised by, but, you know. hopefully the new one does right it seems you know you know what my my major thing about the original superman is is i just don't like i don't especially i'm not i'm not crazy for like corny like

land developer lex luther like that version of him is just i've never liked it i want to see him in his power suit being scary that was before that existed that's your problem

The power suit? Yeah, that was just pre-Crisis. Yeah, that was a... What the hell is the power suit? Am I like, Thanos is a rip-off? Uh... dark sides of rip off of fanos actually am i doing that right now so he he gets that suit and i mean i know the issue i just i'm looking to see up what year that was because you know my my for my initial When I think of Lex Luthor, the first thing I always think of is that superpowers toy. Yeah. With the green, you know, that's Lex Luthor to me.

So Superman was 78, which means there were probably 76. Let's see if I can find a Superman comic from 1976. Because he still would have... Yeah, because... Lex Luthor in the 76 is 100% in his superpowers, or sorry, his superfriends, purple. This cake-stealing outfit. Yes, the purple top and the green pants. That is Lex Luthor. The armor, he doesn't get until way later. Okay, well, maybe I just have my timelines mixed up.

Yeah. It's a real crisis on Infinite Earth now. Yeah. I'm just trying to find out. I mean, I know the issue and I'm just trying to find out what year it was published. Dork. You're not going to trust... I do not trust Google's... You shouldn't trust Google's anything. Google's search. That's why I'm pulling up the actual issue here. Yeah. Action 544, which was 1984, I want to say. Oh. 1983. March 1983. So that was...

Okay. That sounds like that's around because I think the superpowers figures start coming out in 84. And what else happens in that issue? In what? Do you know what else happens in that issue? So Lex gets his power armor, right? Okay. Who else changes in that issue? Brainiac? Brainiac. That's when Brainiac becomes a robot. That's also the superpower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why. Yeah, yeah. It's that issue. It's that same issue.

Okay, so that's what they were referencing with the line, the toy line. Okay. Also the really cool Brainiac. I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. I would not be surprised if that was like an edict coming down from the toys. They're like, we're going to make Brainiac a robot. Like, that feels like... And then the comics were like, okay. Different powers at the same time, right? Like...

The Superpowers line, when did those first come out? I think those figures started coming out in 84. Like that specific wave. Yeah, yeah. Because Luther and Brainiac would have been part of it. The bad guys in the first wave were Luther, Brainiac, Penguin, and Joker. And it was those versions, right? Yeah. It would not surprise me if there was a... Yeah, it was 84. If there was a...

Well, I guess that would have been a whole year prior. Maybe. Maybe they did it and then they moved in. And they could have just been doing it. So Jim Shooter passed away last week. I don't know if you know that. He's a former editor-in-chief of Marvel. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. That's a big name. Yeah, yeah. Longtime writer at Legion of Superheroes. We had a big talk on the podcast last week about it. Because he died just a couple hours before we recorded. But he...

because he did the Secret Wars line, right? That was kind of like, they were, you know, Marvel was expanding how much they were tying in with licensing and all their movie tie-in. properties and stuff right and so super secret wars boy i remember those figures too yeah because it was like it was like we're gonna make this event in the comic because of the figure they had a captain america spider-man wolverine um

Captain America's Spider-Man Wolverine. And Iron Man. And the original. And then they had the bad guys. They had Magneto. Doc Ock, Doctor Doom, and Kang. Yeah. That was the first place I ever knew Kang from. Oh, yeah. It was that figure. Yeah. Now all the shields. And those are both, I mean, those are both, you know.

Similar times, right? Both those lines came out around the same time. The superpowers line was way better. Just saying. So it does not surprise me that, yeah, maybe there was some. Huh. Well, in any case. that a lot of my my i don't know problems i don't know superman's fine it's just lex luther was just like if you want to be like really technical The Lutheran Superman was never like that. That was...

That was John Byrne's redesign of him post-crisis in 86 when he relaunched Superman. That's way more like Luther in the Superman movie. In like the new one or the old one? No, in the old one, right? Because Luther was always a mad scientist, right? He was not like this suit and tie... land developer guy. That's not Lex Luthor, but Luthor was a mad scientist. He was like evil Elon Musk. Right, the one that's made in... I mean, that's redundant, but you know what I mean. Yeah, the one...

that John Byrne made, he was like a businessman, right? He was become president and all that stuff later in the comics. Which is what they're doing with this movie. Right. Well, yeah, this is kind of, it seems like it's... It's President Luther in the movie. In the new movie? Yes. Did you see the trailer? Yeah.

Did you miss the part where Lois was like, have you spoken to the president about this? And she's saying that it's like Lex walking onto the screen. It's 100% going to be president Lex Luthor in this movie. Yes. I mean, maybe... That is the version that is in the movie. It's not, but okay. How do you explain that in the trailer? I don't remember that from the trailer.

We'll go watch the trailer. And they make that very clear for people who are, who know that that happened in the comment. It's not though. I mean, it's, it's, it's all like Scorp stuff. And. Unless it's misleading us with that turn of phrase at that moment in the trailer. I don't know. Go rewatch it. I think this is going to be a...

Yeah, it kind of mixed between the scientist Lex Luthor and the businessman Lex Luthor, which obviously now is he's kind of a little bit of both. That's how businessmen are now. They're just crazy, you know. Yeah. Okay, well. So, okay, let's see. Superman. That's Thursday. Hold on, hold on. Superman 1 and 2. We don't have to talk about Superman 3 and 4 because everybody knows those are horrible. Superman Returns. Sorry. It's alright. Yeah.

But it's not amazing. No, it's not. It's obviously tainted by Kevin Spacey now. Yeah, and they do such a bad job with just literally rehashing. the Gene Hackman plot. One of the best scenes in any Superman movie is in that movie, when he saves the plane. That's one of the best scenes in any Superman movie. Oh, when he walks onto the plane and he's like...

statistically speaking, it's still the safest way to travel, right? It's an amazing scene. And the entire saving... The whole rescue. The whole rescue is awesome. Like, it's fantastic. One of the best scenes in any of the Superman movies. But it is... the rest of the movie. It's okay. It's all right. Yeah. There's some weird places. Yeah. So hopefully this is cool.

And I want my Justice League International, baby. Did you see that James Gunn and Zack Snyder were both on the new Rick and Morty episode? Okay. That's weird. Yeah. Why? Marketing for Superman, I guess. It's Warner Brothers.

I love how every people are like, because there's still those people, your people who are like, release the Snyder cut of everything. Zack Snyder. He's God. He's wrong. And they think that like, people are just like, they're going to fight and kill each other. And it's like, those guys are like. friends. It's the dumbest. Those guys are... James Gunn has written Zack Snyder movies, right? Yeah. I...

Every now and again, I'll see someone post about some media thing that some dumb Snyder Cut person's saying. Those people are just the worst. And they're like, we're going to boycott. We're going to. All right. Go for it. Have fun. They somehow have a way of turning up everywhere. What are you doing? What do you even want at this point? They want all these actors that are not...

Oh, they want the Snyder version of Superman. Everything. Yeah. They want nothing else to exist except that. I don't think those actors want that. Like, they don't... This isn't how any of this works. No. No, no.

They're going to be like release the Snyder cut of James Gunn's Superman. Actually, if you want to keep going, this actually is a good segue. I was going to say because I feel like boycotts and petitioners never work so inform me because i refuse to pay attention oh what this stop killing games thing what is the deal with this i tried to read up on it and i'm like I know the broad strokes of it. So this is a petition. It's called Stop Killing Games. And it's a group of...

Angry gamers. It's European-based. It's EU. So that's important context. And they've gathered like, I think they're past a million signatures on it at this point, which is why it's making news and it's so significant, whatever. That's like some threshold you have to pass for your online petition to get taken seriously or something. But their whole thing is they're trying to encourage legislation to bind game developers from, like, shutting down their games. And, like...

an online game that's the bombs and they shut it down. It's like, Oh, we can't play that anymore. Or, or, um, more pertinently, I think where it has more of a point is like, um, single-player games that have like some kind of online check that

Then they decide to just turn off. You can't you can't play these games anymore, even though it would make sense to just make it playable. You know, it's just a single player game. Sure. Because they didn't want it because they had to take the store down or whatever it was. So they just shut the game down. and so it is it broadly as people who they're like keep developers from being able to turn off their games make this last forever which you know

I understand that, you know, I understand where they're coming from, where it's like, you know, we don't want to lose this. We don't want this to become just vaporware. you want to preserve these things even if maybe it's not the greatest thing still preserving it for its own sake is important but but also it's like you're not these these companies are going to do They're going to, they're not going to pour resources into like.

things that aren't making the money. And they're not going to just like release tools to the public so the public can sort it out because that's just not how anything works. Single player games should not have an online check. If they do. I mean, welcome to the last many years for a lot of things. Yeah, it can have an online check as an option if there's online aspects of it. So I'm playing like Splatoon 3, right?

Splatoon 3, you can play the single-player version offline. When you have to do the multiplayer stuff, obviously you have to connect to the internet. But I can be offline and play the single-player stuff. So I have no problem with that. When Splatoon 3 goes down... As long as I can still play the single player content, no problem. If you have to be online to play single player content, again, I 100% agree with that. But any game with online capability or an app...

like they're just never going to keep this stuff up. It's impossible. So if a game closes, I could see there being like a three month minimum. with no money required if like if they shut down an MMO Like they're required to stop charging the subscription fees and give you a 90-day notice or something. Yeah, I could see something like that. Or like, you know, oh, if we have to close, we have to then refund the last like 30 days of, you know, in-game.

There are already a lot of situations where a company will announce, okay, we're sunsetting this game, and they won't just happen the next day. Yeah, yeah. But I think, like, God, how many literally millions of mobile games have just fucking vanished, right? How many random PC games? I don't think you can legislate that. I agree with part of that and part of that in principle, but...

Yeah, it seems like a... But it's kind of a tall hill to climb. I saw some of it where people were like, yeah, they were complaining about, yeah, if it's an online game, give us... give us a version we can run and edit. I'm not going to do that. There's isolated cases where like...

a game will get reverse engineered or there'll be some kind of unofficial support, like City of Heroes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of, like, City of Heroes fan servers. That game is still, like, quote-unquote alive and well. Sometimes the company is like, yeah, 100%, go for it. And but but you can't count on that happening. And it's just I don't I don't think like legislating that is like a requirement. I don't think I don't think you're going to get that.

And I know there was like pushback from the European, like the video game lobbying group, basically being like, no. Yeah, of course. You know? And so. Yeah, the list was like. Every video game company. Well, it's like the European version of the ESA, right? When you look at the member list, it's just the same thing. But... Yeah, the other day this came up because like somebody had seen that Ubisoft had changed their like end user license agreement to be like, if we.

this game that you've bought this license for. If we inform you that it's been terminated and the game's going, going offline, whatever you have to like destroy, destroy all your copies.

you know you saw that i did see that and it's like and well right but but but but looking and i mean i'm just speculating but looking at it and just knowing the timing of it like oh this is just probably them essentially like reacting providing themselves cover for this stuff this is their reaction to that so they can say you agreed to this if it ever comes up you like you know you you you can't make it because you agreed to this. So.

Yeah, but in what world can a company enforce that you must destroy the physical product that you bought from us? That's ridiculous. No, no, but it's so they can point to it and go, but this is what you agreed to. So you shouldn't even have that game. So you can't make this argument. So you should throw this at the court. You know, that's what it's for. I'm speculating. I cannot imagine a court would agree to that, though.

And that feels like... I mean, it's a lot of unenforceable stuff. That's a step too far. That's what lawyers get paid for. I'm not like mocking anybody who... is all about game preservation and has reasonable like, well, yeah, you know, you should enable us to keep playing this game in perpetuity where it's not, if it's not like some MMO or whatever. Sure. Yeah. You know, that's good, but I don't.

think you can count on every developer to do that and you can't count on legislation to bind in any first player game if it has enough of a fandom people dump the roms people people kill the cop your protection they find ways to get Oh, yeah. Always. Yeah. If you're sitting here telling me, you know, and I think we had this conversation before, like, oh, it should be my right that I can back up my copies of my new Switch 2 games. I disagree with that.

Switch 1, I also disagree with that. They're still selling Switch 1 games. PS4, I disagree with that. Once it gets into the gray area of older games. You want ROMs for every PS3 game and earlier? Go for it. They're not. make them anymore. They're done. You want Xbox 360 games? Once the system is retired, that's your... That's your threshold. Wii U, go for it. You want to throw every Wii U game on your... People have. People have done that, for sure.

And I feel like most companies, while they will never publicly say they're fine with it, they're not going to fight that. They're not going to fight Wii U modding or 360 modding, right? They'll fight ROM sites. Right, but that's different because they're also providing modern ROMs. I mean, Nintendo has had... It's illegal to make unauthorized backup copies of this game warnings since the NES. You know, so that's nothing new. That's, that's always been their stance on, on that.

You as the customer will never get in any sort of trouble for downloading this stuff. Not in any, you know, I mean, unless you're. You get in trouble for providing it. Correct. I don't know what you would do. People stream.

games all the time for stuff that they're running on emulators. I don't even know what you would have to do as the downloader, but the person running the site for profit that provides... the the the ROMs they're the ones they go at the distributors right or the what are the keys the what do they call those the the like

like the iso unlock keys or whatever like the encryption encryption keys yeah like that is a little bit of a different story but you know that was what got those guys in trouble for that switch yeah keep that stuff yeah off Public sites, keep it on the down low and share it. Keep spreading the tapes, as they said. Keep circulating the tapes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, just... Don't make any money off of it. It's the dumbest thing.

How many times have we come on here talking about, oh, this new fan project that raised $18 million was sued the minute it went live? Because of course, of course. Somebody comes out and they're like, we're making a new Superman. movie. No, you're not. It's on Kickstarter. Like, okay, guy. Yeah. Let's see how long that lasts. So. It's endless. Oh.

Cool. Yeah. How did we get here? Jeez, what were we talking about? Let's lose his power armor. Now we're talking about video game piracy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stop killing games. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. You do that, guys. What are you typing, Ryan? So far, so good. Hope professional reviews are strong. Has a killer weekend. Are you doing Superman research? Is that what all the typing is? Hollywood Reporter. Here we go.

Is there an after credit scene? I don't believe there is. I think Gunn's been actually pretty public about that. Oh, really? That he wants to not do that and kind of get away from that, which is good. I actually 100% agree. He's got to have...

He's got to have Maxwell Lord walk onto the screen at the end and be like, you think you're the only superhero out there? I'm starting... We're going international. I'm starting a league. I mean, I guess minor spoilers, but do you not know any of this? This is all...

I mean, I know that Sean Gunn is, like, this is public. The Justice League International, they're called the Justice Gang, but the Justice League International are in this movie, and they're in Peacemaker, and he's in Peacemaker. I'm assuming he's in this film. Sean Gunn is playing Maxwell Ford in this movie. Justice League International exists already in this movie. That would be so good. They've got to get Fire and Ice in there. They've got to get Elongated Man. They've got to get Nort.

I hope so. Jeez. Who knocks, does Superman knock Guy Gardner out with one punch in this movie? Do they save that or does it happen in this movie? They can't do it. They lose the impact if it's Superman. It's got to be Batman. Yeah. No need to rush that. No need to rush that. Show all you kids the real one punch. That's what I think of whenever I hear that. Oh. No, I'm hopeful.

Yeah, we'll see. I hope it works out. Hopefully there's a sequel and I get my freaking brain. How has Brainiac never been in a Superman movie? Man, it's a crime that there's never been. A movie with Brainiac. I agree. The one thing. Superman Returns came out. Spoilers for Superman Returns. And he's got like. The kryptonite like. landmass, right? And he throws it out into space at the end.

Remember? I was like, there's the sequel hook. That's Brainiac right there. That's going to come back and it's going to be Brainiac's ship. It's going to be great. I mean, it's been Luther, Luther and Zod. Richard Pryor. Not real character. Yeah. Luther and Zod. Yeah. And it's only ever Luther and Zod. Which is weird, because... Zod's not even, like, an important character. He's not a real... Nobody cares about him except for those movies. So...

Was he invented for the movie? There was like... he feels like he was like a minor character nobody knew and then he was in this movie there was like a there was like a uh yeah he there was a couple there like I want to say he appeared like an egg-fu-ass villain that nobody knows. Did he appear in two comics? I mean, there's a million. Yeah, see, that's what I mean. Yeah, there's a million of these random Kryptonians.

You would think if you've only seen the movie that he's like Superman's biggest villain. I cannot tell you off the top of my head any comic I have ever seen Zod in. Every other issue of Superman was a random Kryptonian villain. came out of the phantom zone that he punts back in there right like that is just they're all generic it's like i mean there was a guy that was like the main kryptonian villain and i'm is it jacks er is that his name

I think it's a Jack's or what's I am doing. I'm doing a little internet research here. Yeah. Yeah. I think Jack's or it's like, uh, uh, he was one of like the big, like, I think he was like one of the Phantom Zone guys that showed up more often. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's all they've done. Oh, I guess Jaxer and Zod were kind of hanging out, so they were there. Yeah, but it is Zod a lot. He's like the only one. Why can't we get Brainiac?

Why can't we get Toy Man? Brain X, a big special effects thing. Toy Man's too goofy. Okay, well, Riddler's too goofy, and they found a way to do him really well in that 2022 Batman movie.

He's scary. Toyman. Toyman is fucking terrifying. Toyman, you go off of like, what? What if there were lots of Chuckies and it was really, and it wasn't stupid like that TV series? Well, there is, again, multiple Toymans. There is, there is. there is the original toy man that's just a fat guy that throws a bunch of toys at superman and they're all like weirdly remote controlled stuff but then there is that like fucking nightmare doll toy man

And that's the one that they, that's the one they use right in the end. Yeah. Yeah. So that, I don't know. I don't know. Again, full movie. But then there was the kid that's like the hacker. Yeah. Yeah. Right. He's got the necks and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's see. Livewire. I know Livewire is an invention of the animated series, right? Livewire is one that's super cool. She'd be a cool Superman villain. I mean...

They've literally never done Bizarro. Bizarro, that's the other one. See, but I don't know if Bizarro... You know, here's the thing about Bizarro. Bizarro on his own is stupid. There is a minor chance Bizarro was in this movie. I don't... But... what i would do with bizarro see the thing about bizarro is he's like he's like this frankenstein like right but but

That's based on a misunderstanding of Frankenstein that got perpetuated through all the movies where he's like, you'll make man. Oh, and he's just like this dumb ogre. Right. And in the novel, he's not like that. Frankenstein is a smart. erudite like he's he he's a complex character and he's philosophically and kind of morally complex but the movies make him just be like this this this dumb thing

So if you took Bizarro and made him into a really cunning, complex character that's the opposite of Superman, that's what you do with Bizarro. Make him based on the original Frankenstein. That's my advice. That's what I would do. Yeah. Yeah. Bizarro. Okay. Lex. Brainiac. Bizarro. Livewire. Parasite. Who else? Parasite. Parasite's all right.

Doomsday. Doomsday. Stupid ass Doomsday. If he doesn't like Doomsday. Doomsday was in Justice League. Yeah, Doomsday is lame. If you want to call that a Superman movie, he is in BVS. I mean, it literally has Superman in the title. But it's also Lex Luthor. Yeah. Right. Mongol. Mongol's neat. I guess, yeah. Wasn't Mongol in the Suicide Squad?

What did you see? One of the ones that got, it was like a female, like, like the second Mongol. Yeah. And she like got killed like in the beginning, right? I forgot about that. Yeah. So they got, they already killed Mongol. In this movie that's in continuity with Superman. Because it's in continuity with Peacemaker. Yeah. Oh, this is good. Oh, I gotta get mixed, mixed Piddle X. Yeah.

Mr. Yeah, there's one. See, it's hard to have. I think Superman is probably one of those characters who, you know, it's like. I always complain about The Flash. The Flash is a great comic book character, but when you transport him into a medium where he's moving around, it's harder to suspend the disbelief for a lot of what could threaten him.

And so something like the flash TV, you probably get away with it. You get away with the movie because it's only an hour and a half, two hours, whatever. But in a TV series, I've complained about this at length about the flash TV series, how it's just like, it's not realistic the way they depict him and some of the. the things he struggles with the villains not it's just not and i think superman probably has that issue too where it's like

How do you make someone to challenge him? Yeah. Realistically, without being like, they have a kryptonite thing. Sure. Right. But something like something like Livewire would be good because she could be like, oh, speed of light. I'll show you that. I control all the electricity lines. Let's see who moves faster. But there are very few villains. Mr. Mixleplate is like... Eldritch horror. You know? That's, huh?

depending on how they if they want to yeah i mean that's that's the or like brainiacs just like i am like an avatar of kryptonian technology that's the kind of thing you have to have to threaten superman any brainiac really is number two and it's it's crazy yeah

Yeah. God, I was going through the list here just like I spread villains. I didn't even think about this, but of course, dude, fucking dude, why should you use Cyborg Superman in something? I would love a post-Death of Superman era, Cyborg Superman and Eradicator, Steel and Superboy. Oh, you're Superboy in there? Hell yeah. He's so good. I love Cyborg Superman. He's fucking great.

And Steel. Steel's awesome, too. Steel and Superboy, both awesome. They're all awesome. Yeah. I mean, Eradicator's kind of a bit of a dud. But Cyborg Superman, fucking awesome-ass villain. He's such a cool design, too. Oh, it's like a Terminator. I love that look. It's so cool. I would love to see Cyborg Superman. See, that's almost like the cool version of Bizarro. Yeah, it is. In a way, sort of.

That'd be awesome if they bring those guys in. That'd be a long walk. I don't know. I guess they could kill Superman at the end of this movie and then do it. Kill him again. I guess. You don't even need to. You could mix Cyborg Superman and Bizarro into one character. I would not hate that. Whether like, oh, we're trying to clone Superman. It didn't really work.

So we're going to make him a part cyborg and he gets all fucked up. See, what needs to happen in the end is Lex just needs to be like, oh, you're making a league? I'm making a legion. Now you want to give me bizarro, bizarro, like planet bizarro, go to this fucking square earth and hell, now I'm 100% back in.

The modern Bizarro has kind of been like, Luther tries to make a clone of Superman, and it doesn't turn out right, and that's Bizarro. But give me fucking Silver Age-ass Bizarro. I love it. It's so good. That's what I want. God. Well, I guess we'll be talking about it in a couple weeks. Yeah, yeah. See how it goes. Three hour. No, nobody cares about that. Three hour episode will be on the Comic Spiracy on Monday.

And then FF the week, the episode after that. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. The AI movie. Oh, I'm going to send you an article about AI, about people.

People getting AI depression. I'm going to send you an article. You hear about that? The Fantastic Four Four Steps promo campaign is unsettling. I'm going to send this to you. They're talking about how bad all the promotional art is for the Fantastic Four movie. Is it because Mid-Journey made all of it? God. You and I, we have a superpower, Ryan, which is that we don't care about AI. Of course not. We're going to be the ones that undo all the damage that all the people do.

That's what we're going to do. I posted something earlier. I don't know if you saw this. It said weird AI music, and then it said weird owl music. It's like, oh, yeah, there we go. Oh, yeah. Weird owl. Yeah, it's not weird AI.

I mean, these characters, yeah, these Fantastic Four characters just look weird. And I get that they're trying to do this period kind of... This weird dieselpunk kind of... it's just off futurism thing but it's just yeah something just doesn't it doesn't it's it's uncanny in the wrong way yeah and that that's just been like the whole Leitmotif of this movie. And this whole. It feels like the whole thing is artificial. Like super artificial.

Yeah. There's something wrong. God. Like that whole background behind it. You're sending me this picture of, um, well, you see, you don't want me an image and an image of a people.

Well, I don't even know if this is real, but it looks like a People magazine cover with the Fantastic Four on it. But that whole background looks fake. It doesn't look like they were all in the same room. I didn't think too much about this until right now, but the way you just said that, I think that is... is the mistake and we'll see how the movie ends up being but the fantastic four aren't in some weirdo alternate reality retro future world they were in the normal ass world they were

Right. Baxter building may have had some funky stuff in it, but they didn't live in some weird Disney future, you know, 50s future tomorrow world land. Right. Like they were in normal New York City. How are they going to do it in this movie? It looks like it's... Is it going to be some alternate reality? Are they trying to retcon in some fake 1950s or 1960s into the Marvel Universe? No, no, no. Yeah, they're on an alternate Earth. It's in the past on an alternate Earth.

if they're not in the MCU. Okay. Yeah, they've already said this. And it is in the past. Yeah, why don't they just... I don't know. It's so off-putting. Yeah. I know. I agree. I agree. When those first trailers, when those first things came out, I was like, something's just, something just seems off with us. Yeah. Very weird. Well, hopefully Superman is the better movie. We'll see. So far so good.

Well, on that note, on that happy note, I think we're going to leave. So this has been the Geek Box. Thanks for listening. If you like this episode, you can find more at geekbox.net or on the Apple music. Is it Apple music? Apple podcasts. Okay. Or not really music, unless you're a weirdo. You know, Spotify, any of the places you're listening to this, the rest are there. So just go listen to all of them from the start.

And you can support us at patreon.com slash geekbox. Kick us a couple bucks. Help us keep the lights on. Super special thanks to our executive backers, Ben Burkhalter and Mike Z. We appreciate all the support from everyone. And you can follow us on social media. I'm on Blue Sky. I'm at Rydog. And Ryan Higgins is at Ryan Higgins. And he's way more active on it. He's a blue sky man about town. I've given up, Ryan, on you. You're just not ever going to do it, so it's fine.

What? Beyond Blue Sky? No, just social media. I'm all over Reddit, man. It's just you don't know where I am. No, you know what happened? I stopped using Twitter after Elon Musk took over. The day he bought it, I stopped using Twitter. The day it went through. And then I just stopped. And then, you know, I'm on Blue Sky and every... few months i'll say something i've discovered i don't really need that in my life and it's just never i never felt that compelled to really start that particular

Type of doom scrolling again. So. So yeah. But anyway. You can follow me there. Maybe I'll pop up. We'll see. and uh what else what else am i forgetting you should go listen to the con conspiracy which ryan hosts which well he he will probably definitely have a three-hour discussion about superman next week he's not kidding so if you want to hear the hot takes on that go listen to them

Ryan, spoilers, Higgins loved it. He loved it. It's the best movie, greatest movie he's ever seen. Someone obviously does not listen to the Comic Spiracy podcast or our group chats. What? I've been a little concerned. Why? Just... Sure, I am the one defending. When gun misses, it misses pretty hard for me, and... I'm a little concerned about the comedy. We'll see. When has he missed? Guardians 2 and... Guardians 2 and Creature Commandos.

oh it was terrible never saw it was he did he like write and direct that every episode oh really oh okay well most stuff he makes is pretty cool Just generally. Yeah. He made the Superior Dawn of the Dead movie. But he hasn't handled a character like Superman yet. Everything he does is weird. Which fits him. Superman's not weird. So yeah, that's my concern. Guess we'll see. Yeah. Yeah. I have high hopes. All right. Well, I guess we'll go now.

And when we're back again, we'll see, we'll talk about Superman. Yeah. That was about that. All right. That's it. Thanks for listening. And we'll see you next time. Goodbye.