Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse w/ Co-Director Kemp Powers

Warning. This podcast contains spoilers for Spider Man Across the Spiders and some minor spoilers four Into the Spider Verse. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosie Knight and welcome next Revision the crook Good Media Podcast. We dive deep to your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.

In this episode, in the Airlock, we're traveling across the Spider Us.

We've seen it, it's incredible.

We will be talking about it, and in the Hive Mind we will be interviewing one of the Across the Spider Us co directors, Kemp Powers, in an absolutely delightful chat. And our note out comes from Amy on the YA series The Lunar Chronicles.

Coming up a non spoiler and then spoiler discussion of Across the Spider Verse. We're setting out of the air locked to talk about Spider Man Across the Spider Verse reniv R Non spoiler reaction. Then we're going to dig into the plot and what we thought of the movie. Here we go. Here's the non spoiler reaction. Absolute masterpiece.

Five modern classic changes the game again. One of the things I wrote this on my lab box review was like which I usually just write jokes on there, but I wrote like a three paragraph review. It's absolutely delicious to me that every studio is basically spent in the last five years trying to copy what they did and into the Spider Verse, and then across the Spider Verse came out and did something completely different, Like animation wise,

Yeah, I think you said the exactly the right thing. If you loved the first movie, that combination of high flying action, really funny, legitimately funny jokes, and a incredibly moving story with crazy high stakes. Considering you're looking, you're watching an animated Spider Man film. It's all there again, just heightened and in a different way. The emotional beats

How crazy is that?

Like you you bring up such a good point immediately, like ten points like jumped to my mind. There are visual moments, There are quiet moments that still just absolutely change your perception of mad movie can be and what a kid's movie can be. This is a movie that respects kids so deeply, and respects this audience, and respects comic books and comic creators, which is something we talk about with Kemp Powers in our chat. It's moving on

It's unbelievable.

I could never believe that they were going to top the first movie, but I think they did it.

It is amazing. See it. We have discovered from our from co director Kemp Powers, who we just interviewed and you're gonna hear his voice later, that it's only available in Imax the first week.

It's yes, because then we have it's Transformers and then the Flash. So if you want to see it in Imax, go see a iMX this week and then come back and listen to our conversation with all the spoilers.

Absolutely see it in Imax because it will melt your eyeballs.

It is.

You just feel like you're in the film.

You feel like you're in the film, you feel like you're in a comic book, you feel like you're in a computer. You feel like you're in Miles's universe and Gwen's universe and everyone else's universe.

It's unbelievable.

Go see it.

Go see it.

Stay tuned for the spoiler film discussion of Across the Spiders. Spoilers. Spoiler spoiler spoolers. Okay, wow, oh my god, wow.

What a film.

Well, let me so when I saw Into the Spider verse.

What happens when we don't exist anymore? What happens to the people I love when they loss on?

How does my family feel about me? What would it feel like if they reject me? Those are like fundamental questions that you will think about for the rest of your life, and this movie lands those questions in a way that makes the Steaks so incredibly powerful. You know, like the first movie spoiler movie, Yeah, the Miles's Universe, Peter Parker, Spider Man dies like in the first ten minutes, and that does so much to set up the stakes of this movie, Like, you don't know what will happen.

It's like Drew Barrymo being killed at the beginning of Scream. You never expect it. This is your hero, It's Spider Man.

There isn't something necessarily like that in this movie, But the steaks are so much more powerful one because you care about these characters already built in from seeing the first movie, and then they just do such a good job of fleshing out the interior life of teenage Miles Morales and teenage Gwen Stacy and it's magical. And then you marry that with some of the most experimental and

It feels like a film that truly understands the possibilities of the multiverse. Now we already may feel like we are saturated in multiverse storytelling. This is something I was thinking about a lot this morning. Even as people who love the multiverse, who've been invested in it since we first read Crisis on Infinite Earths, right like now, a lot of people are like, oh, the multiverse, you know this the Flash TV series just finished that was about

Strangely, Multiverse Man is.

Arguably this Masma movie from the story that we have heard about. The Flash also has similar storylines to what the Flash would be doing.

But I will tell you something.

This makes you feel like millions of universes exist and you are visiting them. It understands every single universe would look different, People would look different in each universe. There are infinite possibilities, which means one universe can be hand drawn, one universe is watercolored. One universe looks just kind of exactly the same, but it's animated a slightly different frame rate. And now is I'm not even teasing the visual impact

You know, it strikes me listening to you say that. I think one of the things that makes the multiverse so lived in in this movie is that very smartly, this film makes the multiverse a thing that's keeping miles away from his friend Gwen missus Miles, Miles missus Gwen, and they can't be in the same place because of the multiverse and all these canonical rules around how Spider

And not just with somebody who you might have a crush on, like Gwen, but somebody who was your mentor, like Peter Where's Peter b Parker Bin Miles has had to do this himself.

But we meet Miles here some one of the things I know people will be really excited to see.

He's competent, he can do it. He is Brooklyn Spider Man. There is no question anymore. He's not a scrawny kid, you know, he's a teenager. And I mean, the funniest thing is I think if we did our classic recap style thing where we really it, actually this is what happens. Miles Morales is in Brooklyn in his universe. Gwen Stacy comes to visit him from her universe, but she's not in her universe anymore because she's joined like an elite team of.

Spider people and she's on a mission. She's keeping that she.

Can't stay in her universe because her dad has rejected her right. And then you go to Nueva York. You meet Miguel uh you know O'Hara, Spider Man twenty ninety nine, and there he leads this elite force of Spider people, and they want Miles to do something unthinkable, so unthinkable.

I don't even think it's worth us mentioning in the spoiler conversation, you know.

And the funniest thing is that's really the plot of the movie, but actually there's just so much more to it. Like this is a movie if you love Easter eggs and you love crossovers, and you've been wondering when will Miles Morale is Animated crossover with the MCU, when will it cross over with the Sony Verus. You are going to get those joyous moments here that make you feel like all these universes exist. I will also say, now, this is a spoiler, but it's just a nerdy spoiler.

That we love.

They reference the MCU directly here, and they call it a correct name, the nineteen ninety nine to nine Universe one nine nine ninety nine Kevin Faggey. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. And they complain about Stephen Strange, they can plain about him messing with the multiverse. You know, there is a connectivity here that feels exciting, but it

I mean, you want him to be in the whole movie when he leaves, for it's the perfect time for him to leave the movie and the perfect time he waves in a moral the perfect way for him to leave because he is a total rebel, punk against the Green kind of character who like looks at every kind of rule sideways. And you get that because this movie is and its predecessor is so brilliant at show don't tell storytelling, but you just get that in the moment you meet him, and it's like, man, I wanted him

It is in his world, right do you sleep over there?

And I love the way that again, like we talk about this respecting kids, respecting your audience. A kid who was ten when Into the Spider Verse came out is fifteen.

Now can you imagine getting to watch Into the.

Spider Verse and then grow up and see Miles maturing Sea Miles in these situations and who doesn't love a love triangle?

And you know, kem Powers was talking.

In our chat about this, this great idea of Spider Punk needs to be so cool that he makes Miles look uncol which is like an almost impossible feet after the first movie. But the way that they represent him again, this is something that's so exciting and comes to life so deeply on screen. But Spider Punk is brought to life essentially as a zine. He's constantly collarge. She changes color.

The way that his guitarist sits on his back is like someone cut a guitar out of an advertise and.

It didn't cut around the edges.

Yeah, and didn't cut around the edges and glued it onto it.

And sometimes he's got newsprint over his face. That's just one example of the ambition that they are telling this story with, and it never takes away from it.

I'm sure that for some people.

It will feel overwhelming or it won't necessarily feel as clean as the original, But to me, it was such an unbelievable experience to see.

These characters brought to life.

And obviously the funniest thing about this movie is one of the things people most excited about is all these different Spider people, right, and that is great, And they have some really truly weird Spider people in this movie. You have like Spider, you have a werewolf Spider Man, you have Websling, a Spider Man and his whore. You have one of the coolest newer Spider people, a Spider Uk who's like a young Muslim woman. There's all different Spider people and you get to experience them.

PlayStation four, PlayStation multiple.

Honors, May I just say, and like, it is such a cool.

Space to experience all these little easter eggs and fun stuff, but it never it only is ever additive.

Yes, it's just the right amount. And the other thing that's just incredible about this movie, and I'll say this again. You'll hear me say this to camp is it's two hours plus two ten to twenty to twenty. It feels like a ninety minute movie.

So it goes past so quickly, it never lags. You are thrown into this world wholesale.

And you speak about this on the when they chat, but it's so true, like even as you know, a thirty four year old woman watching this movie whose job it is to know about this stuff, this is part one, this is a this is going into this we knew, but like you get to the end and it leaves you on this unbelievable cliffhanger, unbelieve unbelievable, and you get this great soaring moment of Gwen kind of putting together this band of heroes, and I went, oh my god, it's it's gonna finish.

When it's when it ended, When the when the credits came on, right after that scene, people were like, come on. There was like multiple people in the theater just went on and it was like, that doesn't happen in assigning.

It keeps you wanting more.

And it's a classic old school serialized style Cliff I had too, like the old Batman and Robin episodes where they would show one after the other. This is not a like, oh, there's a post credit scene that teases what happened next.

This is a oh, you were going to want more? And the first thing.

Every five minutes, me and Chris.

It was me and Chris, my friend Joel, Valerie Nick, we were all there and the first thing everyone does get out the phone, like when does it come out?

Like when is it? When is it? Is it April? Is it March?

I believe it's March the next one, but like, it is that great? And there is so much here that will inspire people, that will get people excited, that will make another generation of people want to become comic book fans, want to become Spider Man fans. And it also is this incredibly complex meta text on the nature of comic book can.

And rules of comic conventions and the way character.

It can be.

And I actually hilariously think it's coming at a really incredible time. If you've been an incredible timing, I should say if you've been keeping up with comic book news recently, there has been a huge amount of controversy about the choice to kill Kamala Khan in the current Amazing Spider Man comic book. Now, as we Know and as Kemp powers, we'll talk about characters come back, and there are many reasons.

They'll be on the bench for a year, if six months, because.

She's got a movie coming out. Yeah, let's be real.

In the movies, she's a mutant. In the comic, she's an inhuman. We could imagine something might change there. But something very interesting about that choice is it happens in the pages of Amazing Spider Man. And some people have gone through and they've looked Kamala's barely on fifteen pages through the whole series. But that is a book where historically they kill people for emotional impact. They kill a woman, a young woman, they kill Gwen Stacy, or they kill

This is incredible.

And then they put that in and you go, oh, wait a minute, this is like, this isn't even you haven't even gotten to the meat of what this story is actually trying to say.

Is unbelievable.

I think it's I mean, I thought that uh Into the Spider Verse was the best Spider period, but there's no question I think you have to Across is better in the way that a sequel should be better.

In the rare way I'm saying, look, I put this, I put this out there, ready, masterpiece.

I agree.

I think this movie is so good I have to see it a few more times. I think it's in contention for like one of the best superhero movies ever.

It's clearly not the best.

I think it's clearly I think these two movies are clearly among the very very very best, like in the top echelon of comic book movies ever made easily easily and normally.

The movies that feel most like they were adapted from a comic Boo, this is not oh, this is a character who was in a comic book. How do we make it grounded? Let's militarize the suit, Let's give them like an army background.

This is oh. You like comics? Do you want to see a movie that feels like you're reading a comic book.

It translates what for me was the magic of comics when I first started picking them up, which is like, anything can happen. You can see any Yes, you can see a guy a planet, you know, you could see a planet that you could just see anything. And this movie conveys that kind of energy, that magical moment of like, I know story, I don't know what I'm gonna see next. Yes, I have no idea.

I mean, this movie is so good that we haven't even talked about one of the standout sequences, which is the introduction of Pav like Spider Man India and when they go to his universe and you get to see him and he's this incredible charming He's the happy, go lucky everything goes right for him, and it is so much fun. The animation is so brilliant, Like if you want to show someone a ten minute sequence of what makes Spider Verse movies, it's that.

And it's the feeling of scale too, Like it's epic in scale. You know, we saw it on Imax, so I think that helps. But you feel like, holy shit, these characters are swinging in front of massive skyscrapers, trying.

To in front of thousands of people in traffic.

It just is incredible the scale. The other scene that just took my breath away was, you know, Gwena rives in Miles's universe, unbknownst to him on a secret mission and is like, let's see what you got. How have you leveled up your powers? And they just go on this run across the city, and it's like it makes you It's that feeling again of being a kid and picking up a comic book and being like, I wish I could do that, Yeah.

And you feel like you're getting to do it.

And that also leads to one of the moments that I think is so astounding visually where they end up on the top of a toll.

Building, yeah, the Williamsburg Life Insurance Yeah.

And then essentially walks around the side of the building to the underneath and webs herself so she can sit on the bottom of the building upside down. But the scope and scale it gives you like wobbly knees when you're watching it, you feel like you're up there with her. The way that they use camera angles in this movie to showcase the landscapes, the work, like Kemp said, the thousand plus people who worked on this movie for four years to make it come to life, you feel every

I love we talk about this with camp, how this movie and its predecessor poked fun at its characters in really great ways. It does that with the Spot, where it's like, this guy's a villain of the week. I mean in the comics, literally literally, this is a throwaway first three pages.

Of it.

Weird, like you know, that is a character where you're just like, who came up with that? Oh no, And it's like, you know, two of the greatest, like al Milgrim and Herb Trimpy, like, but it's this weird, negative space, fun, strange, throwaway character and that is exactly what the movie knows. So Miles treats him that way and that ends up.

Causing more chaos than you can imagine.

I also love that the movie is so in conversation with the audience, not just as comic book readers but say you've never read.

A comic, which I don't believe.

If you watched the first movie, I assume you probably were inspired to read a comic, But say you didn't. There will be moments you remember, Remember when Miles hit a guy with a bagel and they put a sound effect, but you just said iconic became like a huge meme, became such a memorable moment that ends up becoming a cannon altering event for Miles and for the spot and for the people involved. There is so much fun to be

One more emotional beat that really stuck with me because it just rang so true, and it's part of why this movie's just great and it feels so lived in and real is. It gave you a depiction of that really like landmark life event that I think everybody has, which is the moment that a parent lets you break the rules. That is the moment when a parent is like, Okay, I see that you really want this thing, and I understand who you are I think as a person.

And I feel like we've had a connection.

And you know what, go ahead.

I'm going to show you the trust.

Yeah, go ahead. Like, I know I grounded you, but you're ungrounded, right. I know, I know your dad or your mom said this, but I'm saying this, go do it. And that is like such a huge moment in every kid's life. And it gives you that moment in this movie and it just gives you chills.

It's so good that ability to balance the family aspects that made this movie so beloved in the first film, and to extrapolate and expand the universe in this completely wild way. I mean, we get an entire lego sequence that you will learn a very cool fact about from Kemp when you listen.

So stay tuned. But like, that is one of the funniest moments in the movie.

It wasn't even in it until after the trailer was out.

I'm going to posit this.

I know we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast who even if they haven't seen it, they still listen to the spoilers. I'm going to say, don't listen to this next book.

I need to get it out there. I need to get out there extra spoilers. Do not listen. This is about the last five minutes of the movie.

People who haven't seen the movie in the room, put your fingers, earmuffs your ears.

But like I have to say it, so the movie.

The movie ends by Miles attempting to get back to his own universe, and I think it's going to be an empire level ending for a lot of kids because he ends up in the wrong universe because of a spider that bit him. He meets an oult universe version of himself who is in that universe the Prower. It is one of the most heart wrenching, incredible, brilliant choices that absolutely gut punched me. They did a great job, but the trailers and did't see it coming. I have to posit a theory.

This is what I mean.

I'm here to reassure your kids. I'm here to reassure you, and I'm here to tell you that that is not what you think it's going to be. I think in that universe, Spider Man was never supposed to exist because Miles would always have been the Prower, and the Prowler is not a villain. The Parallel is a vigilante that they need, and I think that that is not going to be the villainous expectation. In the comics, the Prowler is more of an anti hero vigilante who has a

But I had to put it out there because I know.

I had to text my sister and I said, warn my nephew that the ending's going to scare him. But I can explain what's going to happen because I don't believe it's as clear cut as people.

I love that take, and we're gonna have to wait till March to find out if you're right. Up next, stay tuned for Kemp Powers.

Welcome to the Hive Mind, where we explore a topic in more detail with an expert guest. This episode we are thrilled to welcome are truly great Across the Spider Verse expert co director Kemp Powers, playwright, writer, and as we just mentioned, co director of the unbelievable New Across the Spider Verse. Now warning, this does contain spoilers. I would say they are quite vague, but if you want to stay fully spoiler free, I would skip this until you've seen the movie.

Go see it. Go see it on the biggest screen possible.

Kemp Power's welcome next re Vision.

Thank you for having me. Good to be here. I'm a little tired, but I'm going to give it my best.

So the premiere was last night.

It was, and then there was the after party.

Oh man, Well, so I hope y'all really parted. Yeah, because across the Spider Verse is a masterpiece.

I know, it was absolutely no question. We would just it blew our minds.

I'm so happy to hear that.

I mean, we you work in these bubbles for so many years and you kind of come out of your cave. And I was talking to another one of the I was talking to the to the writer, like we got we were getting drunk, and it was just like at a certain point, you don't even know what's good or bad. Yeah, I just hope that it is, but you just you're you're so passionate about it, you know what I mean.

It is incredible, and I mean, and so in the in the most positive way. People were like not mad when it was over, but like it had propelled everyone to the end with such rapidity. I didn't even know how much time it's passed. And when it gets to the break where you realize it's over, it was just like, what, I'm ready to sit here for another couple hours. It's so energetic, so visceral. It shouldn't be as funny and as an emotion as emotional as it is, and it's

It's beautiful, and I mean, of course, I mean, I know when you have a I mean, even though we told everyone in your first yeah three, you know when you when you decide to have a cliffhanger, it's going to be divisive, and that's okay. It's okay for some people to love it, it's okay for some people to not be cool about it, but without spoiling the ending, I was a big believer in that ending because of the idea of introducing a new problem.

Yes, so as opposed to like, this is all that's.

Happened, and now we're going to go into It's like, no, at the last minute, let's introduce a new problem so that the audience doesn't necessarily know how it's all going to be figured out. It's not as simple as this person is in a jail cell. So the next movie, we're going to break that person out of a jail.

Yeah.

I wanted to compl you know, I think it's important to kind of complicate it a little bit. Audiences are incredibly smart. We do what we can to try to stay at least a step ahead if we can. And I'm the worst audience member, Like I can't watch movies with family members because I'm so used to story math that I'll sit there and watch a movie and say everything that's going to happen.

Just so, and it's like I'm trying to outsmart me.

I will say I did not.

I have that very same problem because we watched so many movies we write stories ourselves.

I did not see that big new problem coming.

And I actually I loved the Cliffanger, and I think it was more of a case definitely an our screening of people being left wanting more.

Which is a good thing. Like nobody felt cheated. It was more. Everyone I spoke to was like I could have watched another two hours, like I was ready.

So I was.

Speaking outside to a friend of mine, Eric, who's so great. He also loved the movie rights over it noticed and he made a great comparison that made me get thinking. He was like, for a generation of kids, this is going to be their Empire, Like, not only did you come out and you topped the first movie, but it leaves it on this kind of not a downer note, but there's a complex problem that needs to be solved,

Knew, we knew it was going to be darker, and that's.

Okay, Yeah, no, kids can kids have grown up with this.

First Star Wars film I saw in a movie theater because the first Star Wars I was too young, and so Empire was the first time I saw a Star Wars film and like, news flash, Luke got his fucking arm collage. I was just like, oh ship, you know, I'm a little kid, like what's going on?

You know?

And I'm talking in the very beginning when his tantong gets killed and they hang them upside down and Han cuts the thing open and pulls the guts out. This is I'm horrified, and this is the most awesome thing ever. But there were real steaks. And the interesting thing is our film is so much darker to a lot of people, but the first film, like a lot of people.

Got killed, Spider Man dies.

Because the darkness comes from I think real steaks in real menace. I really think that that's and that's a that's a difficult thing I think to accomplish these days, a real sense of steaks. I mean, the wonderful thing that the very comics that inspire us to do this. One of the problems with comics is that there's no stakes.

In nobody you know.

The canon.

So you find out a care and you know it's news now, like the death of Superman. I was one of those people who best selling comic of all I got so many different and three months later, guess Who's Back. So, you know, we were inspired by comics, but this is cinema, and I think we have a different goal. We we we were comic fans ourselves. We want comic fans to to be excited and love it. But we also were filmmakers.

Man.

We want to try to tell a cinematic story that feels emotional, that feels personal and human and and has real stakes, and we feel as they can only be told through cinema. So yeah, we always knew it was going to be more mature. I mean one of the first decisions that was made was aging Miles up, you know, making him less of an adolescent more of a young adult,

You imagine if you were ten when you saw that first movie.

And you're fifteen.

Now that just I imagine that is just one of the most special experiences.

Now, I would hope, so, I would really hope. So.

I mean, of course we do these films for everyone, but the reality is different. People are going to take it different ways. And I have a bit of experience doing this. Soul was a film that a lot of people are like, did you forget kids are out there? And it's like no, because they were like, Okay, let's see all the things kids aren't interested in forty five year old man.

Yes, you know, like they just like ran down the list of things.

That like, kids go don't give a shit about, and we went and made a movie about it, and guess what, kids got it, you know, and kids enjoy it, enjoyed it, and thanks to COVID, they had nothing else to watch on Christmas that year, so they all watched it and took it and actually came away with something.

So I think people, when we say it's for.

Everyone, that doesn't mean that everyone's going to receive it exactly the same way.

And that's okay.

I have friends with little four year olds who would probably be bouncing out of their seats through the first half of this film and that's okay too.

Yeah, you know, for sure. I think people have an idea of what directing a film is like, Well, what is directing an animated film like?

It's complex.

I mean, the main thing about animation is that it's an iterative process. Because of the use of storyboards and scratch, we're able to make version after version after version of the film before we actually animate the thing. So when you're seeing an animated film like Soul or Across the Spider Verse, you're seeing like the thirtieth or forty.

Version of the film.

And that iterative process is what makes it take so long. But with animation you have to kind of it doesn't necessarily you have a script, but you don't necessarily know how it works until you start building it. There are certain things that are similar in certain things that are very different from live action. One of the biggest differences working with the voiceover performers is that people are almost

Wow.

So it was always funny when you realize that cast members as we got closer to opening, didn't know who else was in the movie with characters that they had.

Major scenes with, because they never knew. It was just me and the.

Booth and Phil or Phil Lord and me and Phil and me and Chris and we're in the booth and we're working with these actors, and so you know, you have to act against nothing or act against you know. Some times I'll be their scene partner, but I'm not an actor, so I give them the terrible version of the line and they just work that way. So that's a that's a pretty tremendous difference. Obviously, our sets are all in.

A computer, you know, like rough layout or layout is.

Like basically the equivalent of building your set with animation, because you have the two D storyboards and the board artists really help us get the story solid. But then when it comes time to build it in three D, we go into building the set and you quickly discover the stuff that's been storyboarded doesn't necessarily work in three D. And that's when you because when it's in three D,

Yeah.

I was going to say one of the things that kind of blew everyone away about the original Into the Spider Verse. It really changed the game in the way people treated and approached animated movies. I mean, every other studio is still doing movies that are coming out the beginning of this year that everyone's saying, Oh, they're trying to do Into the Spider of Us or they were impacted by Into Spite of Us.

With Across the Spider Use.

You kind of blow that up and bring in all these different animation styles and go even kind of more ambitious and out of the box and it.

Blew us away.

How does that then come in because you're not just trying to make an animated movie. You're making an animated movie in a way that no one else has really done, where you have multiple different universes that all look asthetically different but still have to fit into this space and tell a human story.

I mean, I give a lot of credit to I mean Justin my co directors came Dos Santos and Justin Thompson. Justin Thompson was actually the production designer in the first into the Spider Verse. And it's just justin being the type of guy he is. He just doesn't want to do the same stuff again. I love you now, it's just not wanting to like, well that was cool, and now let's try something different.

Wouldn't it be cool to do this? Can we do that?

Can we put off the folks at Sony Pictures Image Works like you know, we do a lot of viz dev It's just we want to we we just we just want to try new stuff. And and I wouldn't even say I think it's exciting when people see something done a little bit differently and it opens them up to other possibilities because obviously when Pixar did Toy Story, I mean, look at that transformational change, and to me it got a little maybe too extreme, because all of a sudden it was like, no one can do too

Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

So like, it's not like it ever died. It's not, And that's just it.

It's just opening people up to using different kinds of animation again, but none of it's really gone anywhere because you know, there's different practitioners. It was funny when I was at Pixar one of my favorite Pixar shorts came up there. It was called Kitbull, and it was it was just it was unusual and that it was too d animo, you know. So the director of that particular short decided that even though she could have done it three D, she did it two D, and and I

You know that in the past.

So so that's all it is is that, you know, we want to we we just I hope it just opens people up to understanding that there's different ways you can do animation. But I already think that's happening. I mean Nocchio last year. Yeah, you know, I thought the Lego movie was another leg When Phil and Chris did that, I was so excited, you know that we got got to get a little Lego sequence so.

Much, which wasn't in the film.

I don't know if you guys, oh no, we didn't know that.

That's one of the Okay, when we released our first teaser trailer for this film, someone recreated the entire trailer in the Lego Yeah.

We watched it, watched it. Yeah, I believe a fourteen year old kid.

Yeah, we hired him. He did the Lego sequence in our.

Movie No way. Yeah, that's like the coolest year old kid.

Actually, we went and tracked him down because we were like, we should add a Lego sequence to this film.

You have this guy do it.

And we found out that Preston was fourteen in Canada and we had to work it all out. But yeah, we added that Lego sequence and Preston the same kid who did those our teaser he he actually animated.

That amazing good.

His teaser trailer is yeah, lighting everything, it's ridiculous. The camera moves, it's stupid.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we gave him notes and stuff like that, and honestly, I thought that was like one of my favorite I mean, it was just so funny to us this idea that like Lego Peter Parker, you might not notice it, but the first people, yeah, pops up. And the fact that Miguel says.

You're he's the only one.

He's actually the only Spider person in the movie. Miguel compliments being competent.

Is the Lego and a screening that got such.

A huge everyone.

Was just and of course immediately everyone's like the Lego movie, which, again, like you say, that just totally changed the way people were perceiving what could be done with animation.

Yeah.

One of the things that really struck me watching into this morning, after watching Across last night is above and beyond what we've talked about with the animation is how experimental the backgrounds are, you know, like it could have into is very clean. You know, when you see Miles or Gwen and in an interior setting and the apartment somewhere, and you can really make out the background, it looks,

With Gwen, Gwen's water.

Color and moving around. What what inspired that?

Well, I mean there's different challenges because think the first one, you have these different animation styles, but they all come to one set, and that's Miles's universe. So that's all you have to really keep in consideration. With this one, you have not just the characters from those universes, but coming to different universes, and we have to think through does a character look exactly the same in every universe, because there's actually subtle differences in how Miles looks in

So it was always meant to be this watercolor mood ring and look like.

A painting, and it was. It was one of the most challenging things to execute. But that's what that's what vizdev that's what visual development is for. You know, you spend a year just like experimenting with how we're going to make this look and how we're going to make it work. And and you know, knock Wood, you hope that when it's all said and done, people are positive about it. And then I mean the even bigger decision is to open the film with that, because it's such

Little bit later.

And I think that opening action, like the opening sequence is so stunning because immediately you realize this is a different game. Like you said, I mean, there's moments, little things logically that I feel a lot of animated movies wouldn't do, Like when Gwen's hair changes color.

Because of the.

Color, there's a lot of people who say, oh, well, why would her hair change color?

Like how does that? But the atmosphere is so there, and then.

You get an unbelievable fight sequence that's like just mind blowing.

But one of the other things that I just.

Really I guess you guys have to balance that we haven't really seen them before. You get to play not only in these different animated universes, we get to see these different cool worlds, but you get to bring in the and we will put a big spoiler warning on this and it will come out after the film is out, but like you get to bring in these live action elements too.

What is it like to then balance.

That because we, i mean, what is it Roger Rabbit the last time we really got to see like animation and live action together. So what was it like to get to not only just tease those moments and do throwbacks, but to even bring a live action character into the animated world.

It's interesting because one of the you don't want to overdo it. That's one of the key things is that, like, you know, we had a lot of different ideas for live action things, and you know, we would storyboard them. The storyboards of the live action stuff was great because we did it south Park style where it'd be like a cutout would like the flapy mouth, and it's like, oh, you know, it was just really it was hilarious seeing all these floppy mouth yeah versions, but but then we just realized it.

Was diminishing returns.

So it was again this is I can talk about the film this is coming out.

It will come out.

On Friday, okay, and we will put spoiler.

But like, you know, when we decide to have a live action character in there, I mean, it creates its believe it or not, it creates its own challenges.

Because we have to like build a costume for.

The character and then like figure out a way to make it not look terrible existing in the animated world, right, And but it's also like you just want to have the best impact, I guess, and also make it something surprising. You know, there's the thing that people expect, and it's like, well, if everyone expects it, do we really want to do you know this person or that person or this character. And it's like, you know, we can't help but get a little.

Bit metas sometimes.

So you know, we were just you know, thinking about like, well, what's a character from the live action that you know people wouldn't expect to see and you know, just again it's it's Lord Miller Man like it's we want to make each other laugh, and honestly we do.

It's very useful for us.

To do things like do audience testing and stuff like that, and we see the reaction the audience has to it, But that's just proving out what we were.

Already excited by.

Yes, so we're kind of like trying these versions out and it's like, when we're all really tickled and amused, that's kind of where we decide to go with it. But the technical things, I believe it or not, the live action is far from the most difficult technically, where it's just basically like, Okay, let's just make sure it.

Doesn't look stupid.

Yeah, But for the most part, like yeah, yeah, I just want to surprise people if we can.

X ray Vision will be back and we're back. There's some wonderful parallels from across the Spider Verse and into the Spider Verse. The one that jumps to mind is when Miles first encounters Peter alternate universe Peter in into the Spider Verse, he has and tied to a punching bag much in the same way, almost the exact same same setups as Miles finds himself in at the end of the movie. There's different, you know, there's the oh, that's a Banksy guys.

I think that's a vagacy.

How purposeful, how early in the process, I guess I should say, did those ideas come up, like, oh, we know that Miles is going to be tied up, what if he was tied up the same way as Peter was tied up?

In terms of the specificity, I think it's much later in the process. You know, those are you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna.

Build a scene or build a film around a joke.

Yeah, you know what I mean that the story, the story has to work in its simplest, least funny version, right you know, So, I mean the scene with Miles on the bag, that was always the scene in terms of the specificity of like shooting it in a way that it literally mirrors that that that came to when we got to the point where we were getting detailed about it and it was like, oh, let's see, you know, and that's not the only thing. It's like, you know, a certain character turning up the.

Sound y yeah, yeah.

Like perfectly yeah, And we and we we got to that specificity a little bit later, but in its earlier version, the scene that the dialogue wasn't even all locked in and we were just kind of experimenting with it. But but we were always thinking about, like I mean, that was one of my you know, it was one of my favorite little parts in the in the first film, when you know he's Peter's tied to the bag and

But that's not always a case.

Sometimes it's just like like that, like the little Banksy joke.

And I'm not kidding. I think we just added it, maybe just a couple of.

Weeks before we finished, yeah, because at first it was just like everyone was like whoa, and it was just like just put that there.

You know, why not.

We live in this age where there is like a lot of comic book adaptations. But I think the first movie, and especially I think in this movie is you know, I'm Top to eleven. This feels like it is adapting a comic book. It's not just about adapting Miles, who came from a comic book. You know, Bendis Andceelli like created this character. This we have Hobi here, this spider punk, his hornerful visual seeing stealing sid but my favorite no surprises to anyone, but like the way you bring him

Yeah, I mean a lot of it was actually inviting in the artists. Yes, folks like you know, Rick Leonardi, Brian Stealfries. You know, a lot of the look of Jess Drew's character. We brought in Brian Stealfries, not just his comic work, but he does this amazing pin up work, and it was a lot of the pin up work that really inspired the look of Jess Drew. And of

Just you know, comics.

I don't I don't want to get like overly philosophical here, but you know, it's kind of sad when you think about the history of comic books and how these creators, you know, created these amazing things that are now so valuable and just got cut out of everything about monetarily and also creatively, and and it's and it's and it's inspired at least, and sometimes it's just like straight up ripping,

And billson Kevich.

Yeah, so we hire billson Kevich, who actually did what I think is like one of the most amazing posters that I think they're going to be giving out at one of the theaters. So just to be able to engage some of the like artistic the people who made me love comices.

Like billson Kevitch's run on New Mutants.

Of course, you like changed my impression of like what a comic book could be. And and I mean that's

It's a little bit crazy about it, but.

Like it is, no, it is really that's amazing because like so when there's the five X structure with the comic books, right, and when they were coming up at first, I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, that's the Samford Green like nod, it's a knee ter egg, that's a Leonardi not I have. This is a Leonardi piece on my palm. Like but actually then at the end really early credits, you get comic books and they were also Neila Magruder, who was a co creator of Spider By Yes, exactly.

He is everything.

I mean, all of these you know, Metro Wooman's been posting all these Metro so those are all Chris. Chris has done all that stuff, all the all the Metro sonas have all been Chris Anchor and and a lot of our key character designs for the film, you know, have started, you know, with Chris Anka's pencil, and it's I mean, I can't really imagine us having been able to accomplish it without without any of them.

I can't.

That grounding and reverence for the comics allows you to do some really great, uh humorous moments where you poke fun at certain characters. I'm thinking specifically of Scarlet Spider Ben's. It's so good because if you are not aware of the nineties material, it's funny, it's accessible, you're laughing, and if you are aware of it, have you readier mask Rale.

His design was like we were literally saying, like, Okay, how many pouches can we get?

You know what I mean?

I think the casual fan doesn't even notice because his poses are extreme.

And he goes a fick poke.

His legs are doing things that legs can't really do and he's casually doing it, and we just would laugh so hard. But then when we saw it rendered the first time in his style FO Miles of World, it was Honestly, it was one of the first things that kind of took my breath away. We had a three D model and it turned and moved because I just thought it. I was like, oh, I thought I was just looking at a picture from an image, you know,

Yeah, I mean, you obviously love comics. Was there for you, like coming into this project and getting this idea of how many Spider people?

Was that someone you really wanted to see?

Like was there a Spider character or urist or you know, was there's something that you were like I want to bring this into the world, even if it's just for me.

There wasn't any one.

There were just I mean honestly, the ones that I most wanted to see were the ones we put in the film. Yeah, you know, I was goundy. I was really excited about Punk. I was really excited about Pov Pov because we did a pretty extreme redesign of his character so good.

We were talking about, Yeah, I was actually my brilliant friend nick I Shookla is the writer of the New Spider Man in the ecomic, and I was just saying, I just want to see Pav on the pages now because the design you guys did.

Is so cool.

Yeah.

I was really gassed about and you know, there was It took a lot of you know, we brought in a consultant to talk about like certain things, you know, like the Nehrew collar and and what you know he should and then the hairstyles was also a tremendous thing, and then our first design from him. He was younger and and rightfully so someone brought up like issues of like why don't make the dying guy like a Mowgli stereotype, So it was like, you know what let's age this kid.

Up and he gets to be that.

Yeah, but he's he's just tough, he's good at what he does. It was.

It was one of the most challenging parts of the film to do, which I think made it all the more satisfying. But from the redesign of Pav to executing his character and his story which involved I mean true story, an early version of it.

We thought it was.

Getting pretty good and then we got an email from a lot of our animators in India who were just like, this is not good. Like it's not, it's not it's not as good a character. Like we're we're from different parts of India and like one thing we agree on is like this, this could be better.

So and again this is this is the nature of collaboration.

Yeah, we very quickly assembled in all like Indian writer's room, and we invited not just Indian American Indian like Hassamanaj was in the room, like we we brought in a lot of people and showed him the scene and then just got notes and taught and they were just talking about their lives, talking about their culture, and then rewrote the whole thing.

Pav went He was very different he was much younger he he was.

He was kind of like almost like naive, and and we just transformed the character into something that the folks in that room could recognize. So I don't know just of the characters. I didn't know much about Spider Man India and the comic books. I just literally saw a design and I read a little bit about it, and I was like, oh, he gets power, so it's really cool. Came in his uncle's uncle beam like it's like there's always gonna be Peter, you.

Know, parallels.

But but it was like, Okay, I think this is an interesting idea, but we got to like, really, let's try to just do our version of it, because that's the other thing is we don't want to be beholden to any source material, which if you've seen our movie you should know that's a pretty strong The world view we have is that, you know, canon can also be like turned into a noose, and it can it can take all the joy, it can take all the excitement out of anything when you know you set these incredibly

That's going to become the defining version for people who watch these movies.

Oh man, the punk toys, it looks incredible.

When they gave me schwag and like, my son came, I was like, you got some stuff in there, and he was like, where's punk? Then Action figure has like a guitar, and you know, then my daughter came by and she was like, oh, you want to pinch.

She was like, where's punk? They went right for the Spider Punk stuff.

Tell us about the inclusion of punk, because, as we were saying before, Cody Ziggler, great friend of the Pod, was the writer of the ongoing Spider Punk series over at Marvel Comics, and I remember talking with him before he had seen the movie and several weeks back, and he was like, I don't know. They tell me the art style is like incredible, but I haven't seen yet and it truly is startling and great. Tell us about the inclusion of.

Spider Yeah, I mean, I think his design is like the coolest thing in the film. I agree, And there was an earlier version of it where you know, we almost cut Punk out of the film, but wonderfully, as we were working on the story, he became integral to the plot. And then I think that's that's really what's key. And it starts were like, well, this is kind of a cool character, this idea of you know, Miles starting to have feelings for Gwen and being uncertain about this

Make one of them cool. You know.

It's like Miles who's wearing his nikes and his hoodie. We need to make that character look like a dork. Yeah, And the character that makes that character like a dork is Spider Punk.

You know.

He's he's nineteen twenty, he's six foot three inches tall, rail thin, you know, And we always we always use the term, Like when we first brought in Annual and we were talking about the character and it was like, the way we describe him is it's not just that he's cool, he's effortlessly.

Cool and makes him annoying.

You know, he's effort and for there was an early version of the script where everyone kept saying that like it's so effortless, it's so effortless, Like it's so effortless, and Miles was just like, if one more person says effortless, they're gonna scream. But it's the fact that he's effortlessly cool. So you know, we always knew he was gonna be in there, but then we had to make sure it

Without company anymore.

Yeah, and and and you know, we knew there was gonna be a lot of people who were just like, oh.

Man, where's where's Noir?

And where's Henny and and you know, again spoiler, you're gonna but it's like, you gotta take some time to develop. You can't just throw one dimensional characters on top of people, and you you really have to take the time to give these characters a story, give them a motivation, to make people care about them in order for this all to work in the in the bigger story that you're

Seeing them together, you're.

Thinking, Wow, what's it going to be like? You know, Noir interacting with Punk? How fun is that's gonna be?

Yeah, and you get That's one of my favorite lines in the movie that I think sums up the effortlessly cool thing is when he takes his mask off and Miles is like, like.

That's not fair. So you talk kind of about this.

We touched on the idea of this the noose of Cannon and Spider Punk is kind of this great rebel against the Cannon as that is such a fun meta story arc and obviously as create as it come short a place of you guys knowing that as readers and people who love Canon but also have had to sit through Uncle Ben dying fifty thousand times in fifty thousand of us, could you talk about that because when that happened, it sort of exploded the movie onto a different meta level. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a big turn for the film. And and again like this is Look, we can't talk about Miles Morales the character in the world without talking about the negative pushback that to this day you still get for the character about whether he's a legit Spider Man. And it's it's heartbreaking that these are conversations that have to be had.

But you know, it was.

Really you know, when when Miguel says a line like you're not supposed to be Spider Man.

Of course that has a multiples.

You know, and in that moment, he represents every person in the world who questions the existence of this very character in the film and in him. If Miles is going to push back and do something you know different, Like we're having a conversation with our audience. Yeah, you know, we're not trying to lecture anyone.

Yeah, but we want to.

Have a conversation and just like we we feel like Miles in that moment, you know what I mean. So so that those and hopefully if we're successful, someone who doesn't know about any of that can just understand it and appreciate it and be moved on the very simplest level, But if you are privy to the world in which these characters are being discussed, you can also get that that double meaning.

It really amps up the movie. You're absolutely right, because it's in that moment where you understand that Miles has to do what he has to do despite the fact that everybody is telling him not to. Yes, he can't do that. He has to go to the other is.

Our hero and what he's doing is ostensibly very selfish. Yeah, but we have to be on his side.

And it's also it's also a choice that is incredibly relatable, not just to the audience, but to every single Spider Puss and in the Elite Spider Force they would have done the same thing.

They can pretend that Miguel.

Has, you know, So in that way, it's a very interesting choice. And I think the coolest thing is I think a lot of people will probably learn the term canon from this movie and learn it and understand it in that context, and then get to understand and learn retroactively how it impacts comics and the way that we read them.

Canon is something that is always and again, I had a lot of experience with it. My first TV job was on Star Trek Discovery, so it just felt like.

Well, Cannon, here's the textbooks.

I've worked on other projects behind the scene that are all a lot of big canon things, and it becomes so rigid and so frustrating, and like we were having a conversation earlier and it was just like so many of the things you feel like you can't live without and you love the most right now. When it first came out, you were suspicious of it and you thought it was stupid, you know what I mean. It's not like people's saw these things that are iconic coming, whether

Wanted to Joker.

People thought, why do we need another Spider Man movie into the Spider Verse. All of this stuff has been greeted with hostility until it. For all the Star Wars, I mean the year that Star Wars The Phantom Menace came out, there was this other little movie called The Matrix that was kind of silly and movie that turned into another thing that people were psychotic and rich and then immediately rigid about So here's all the rules that

Law.

The stuff that becomes cannon and law is we're just kind of like whatever, Man, I'm going home right now, or I'm drunk.

I don't know, did I say that?

Really?

The only words red shoes.

Yeah, we don't know.

This Spider Man was bitten by a pig.

That's really real because it's it's just a bunch of people and we're throwing it and we kind of go back and go, oh man, but that doesn't make sense.

That's too late. Now someone else makes problem.

Yeah, and and and so it's like be careful about don't don't take the fun out of it, don't don't turn it into something where it's the very thing that made us get into comics is that we couldn't get into the elite clubs. You know, we weren't invited into all these spaces. I was a nerd growing up, so that the reaction to that is to then become like elitist and exclusive about about something that makes no sense to me.

Man, Yeah, that makes no, especially when comics is not just accessible because they've always been able to be bought for a couple of dollars or twenty five cents depending on how far. But anyone can make one because all you need is paper and pencil. So in that way, it's like almost impossible to gate keep. Yeah, people still do everyone, you know, co makes off for everyone, just like this movie's for everyone, and people hate that. It terrifies them.

Yeah, they want to feel like, you know, I'm the only one in the world who can enjoy this, and it's like, no, man, you gotta gotta be open to doing things a little a little bit differently.

I must ask Kemp, as the one of the co writers of Soul, you put the Knicks joke in Soul Bring Out. It was like a gut punch when I saw the scene, and it's so incredibly accurate. Tell us about putting that in the movie.

Yeah, well, context is everything, right.

I'm a lifelong Knicks fan and the last time the Knicks won a title was the year I was born, so I haven't been alive.

For a championship Knicks team.

So, and I'm loyal. Hey, I mean, I was sitting in the front row of Nick heat. Like I literally flew to New York just to watch Nick's heat and I and I and I hold to you know, I have I have Clipper season tickets. You know what I mean, because I'm here, But I'm a Knicks die hard, and I don't know.

It's just it felt like the perfect.

Joke, this idea of like, you know what, what if my team's futility has been because of a cosmic prankster who's just been like picking on them. But I will say after Soul came out, it felt like the Knicks started getting better.

And if we can talk basketball for just a.

Minute, please this year's playoffs, man, Like everyone's talking about who can they trade for?

I think this team they have it as is if you just stay with them. You know, everyone wants to get rid of Randall.

I actually love this Knicks squad, man, I really love this thing.

All I know is we got too off a team that's going to the finals.

Yeah, I know, I really.

Like you said, they beat Jimmy Butler, who is currently unbeatable.

The problem with the Knicks is because New York is such a huge market. Even when you have a team, you feel like Okay, it's New York. We got to get a bigger star.

Yeah, you know, and they they never build through the draft.

They always try to, like, you get some talent and then you're like, now, let's get rid of this talent and get a star who's gonna sell tickets. But nothing will sell tickets more than just being good. And the Knicks were good for years. The Ewing years were actually awesome that you know, even the Allan Houston fighting getting into fist fights with Miami years with Latrell's Freewell and Allen Houston, those are pretty good years too, you know. So anyway I can, I can go down a rabbit

Earned that joke.

I'll stand by that joking soul till my dying days.

And I think it's a good joke.

You know people Knicks fans laugh their asses off, and Lakers fans laugh even harder, of course, so but whatever, but I love that joke.

Camp Powers, thank you so much for Yeah, thank you so much.

Great meet you come back any time. Thank you, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Kemp up next ned out in today's nerd out where you tell us what you love them, why, or a theory you're excited share. Amy pictures us on the ya series The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Mayer.

My name is Amy and my nerd out is The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. It's a young adult book series that can be described as fairy tales in space, and it feels like a cross between Sailor Moon and Firefly. It has great characters, type plotting, and is a space opera that is clearly having so much fun being a space opera. In the opening, Cinder is a mechanic in

Thanks Amy.

If you have theories or passions you want to share, hit us up at x ray at crooked dot com. Instructions in the show notes.

Big thank you to Camppowers. What a wonderful interview, hewoye. And that's it for us, Rosie, any plugs.

Go see Across the Spider of Us. Really delightful.

Good.

Lots of comic book.

Creators worked on this movie, and I want them to get residuals.

I want them to do it.

I want them to be living life and enjoying it and having a great time.

And I want you to watch the movie because it's delightful.

Also, go and buy some comics, go read some comics by these brilliant creators, and of course listen to us talking about those comics and the movies on here.

Catch the next episode of Extra Vision on Wednesday, June seventh, where we finish our coverage of Yellow Jackets season two on the Beleaguered Showtime. Now those girls.

Are looking Believe it in that finale and subscribe on YouTube.

But you can now watch full episodes.

Of the show and check out the discord to meet and hang with tons of amazing fans and listeners plus Mia Jason.

Five storrdy x five star. You gotta give them to us. Here's one from Oh Bob Saggat forty for eighty nine, simply the best. I could listen to Jason Rosie talk all day. Oh they're super knowledgeable when it comes to all things comics and just nerd culture in general. Listening to these two is always the highlight of my week. Thank you for keeping everyone saying all the best, Oh Bob Saggat forty forty nine, Thank you, Bob Sagod forty four eighty nine. Extra Vision is a Crooked Media production.

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