Eden
00:10-00:14
Welcome back to the Middle of Culture. I'm one of your hosts, Eden.

Peter
00:14-00:16
And I am your other host, Peter.

Eden
00:16-00:24
But I'm really mid century Eden, you see We're going to be talking about mid-century retrofuturism later on in our program. Hey, Peter, how you doing?

Peter
00:25-00:45
I am I'm doing all right. It has been a busy couple of weeks between you know going to Boise For summer champs and just reminded, I'm sure it is not like carmping, but sleeping like hotel beds just kind of suck.

Eden
00:45-00:49
Here's the thing basically any bed that's not your bed sucks.

Peter
00:49-01:23
It's true. It is true. And the first night, even though I set the thing down, the the thermostat down, it was still quite warm. And so quite pissed off the next day I went to Target and bought a fan so at the very least I could point a fan at myself. And then the the second night Gareth realized he wanted to To shave himself because he had his 50-free the next day. And so at like 10:30, he's in there with just the water running while he's shaving. And I was I had thoughts of, you know, of murdering a child, but I did not.

Eden
01:23-01:37
You know, I know this isn't your style, but what I would have done is I would have said, Have fun, buddy, I'm going to the hotel bar Call me when you're done. And I would have gone and had a drink or two.

Peter
01:36-01:40
Well, so I was in a Hampton Inn, so there was no hotel bar.

Eden
01:40-01:48
Well, I would have found the closest bar, and I would have driven there and had a drink or two. I would have said Give me two green tea shots, please.

Peter
01:45-01:57
No, because see, once we hit nine thirty, my one and only desire Is to go to sleep.

Eden
01:57-02:09
Look, I get it. I'm the same way. I am absolutely and comfortably the exact same way. But if that was the circumstance, I would have said bye, I'll find a way to keep myself busy elsewhere.

Peter
02:10-02:26
Yeah, it was all good. It was all good. But other than that, you know, hanging in there, just work, listen, Gareth. Lis was in Texas last week, and now they are both in California this week for zones. He swam his 100 free today, knocked another second off his personal best. So he's.

Eden
02:26-02:28
Wow.

Peter
02:27-02:33
Swimming hard, doing well, and I'm just working because somebody's got to pay for it all.

Eden
02:33-02:37
That's that's how the cookie crumbles, you know.

Peter
02:36-02:37
But how are you?

Eden
02:38-02:58
I am doing pretty okay. I am surviving. We we made it through the uh the corn sweats heat wave. It was a rough one. I think I mentioned last time and it stayed true for the last two weeks, real feel of between 105 and 115 basically every day for the last couple of weeks.

Peter
02:58-02:59
It's awful.

Eden
02:59-03:07
Inhuman. It's inhuman. People shouldn't live in a place where it's this hot. And the thing is, we've done it to ourselves by planting all this corn.

Peter
03:03-03:26
So yeah. Liz was down in Texas in kind of the Houston and then was down in like Galveston area. And she went to an outdoor concert, and I think she said, I don't remember, it was over 100 degrees. And the way she described it is She just she became a puddle as she was at this concert.

Eden
03:26-03:26
Yeah.

Peter
03:27-03:38
Just sh a constant river of sweat running down her back. And so I it's been hot here, but it's a as they say, it's a dry heat.

Eden
03:32-03:33
Uhhuh.

Peter
03:38-03:42
So I would believe it.

Eden
03:38-03:53
Well, it's a very wet heat here, thanks to the corn. But It broke today. It's nice outside. You are not going to have to, at least at this point, the last two times we've recorded, the AC has just been going the whole time.

Peter
03:53-03:54
Oh, yeah, don't blame you.

Eden
03:53-03:56
But the AC is off right now.

Peter
03:57-04:03
Wow, that's impressive.

Eden
03:57-04:03
We are at homeostasis at 74 degrees in here right now. So I'm feeling pretty fine.

Peter
04:03-04:04
That's good.

Eden
04:03-04:38
That is genuinely like every day by 8 or 9, the AC turns on and it is on all day until 10 p. m. Basically, every day when it's that hot. It's miserable. And, like, you can tell, like, we have dogs. You let your dogs out into the yard. And then. If you do not immediately close the doors behind them and go sweat out there with them until they're ready to come in and then let them in one by one and immediately close the door behind them. Temperature will raise two to five degrees just in the house from having the door open for 15 minutes while the dogs go out to piss.

Peter
04:38-04:45
That's awful. That's a Yeah, yeah.

Eden
04:39-04:48
It's not, it's not normal. It's bad. It's real bad. But what are you going to do? Anyway, what you been up to? What you been checking out? Anything fun?

Peter
04:49-04:51
Not really.

Eden
04:49-04:52
Nothing, not a mucho?

Peter
04:51-05:42
So well I did watch again, watching a little bit more of Taskmaster, but with Alyssa gone all last week, I was trying to not watch too much without her. So I did not watch any of that. I have not been playing any video games because every time I think about it, I get distracted. And honestly, what it is, is I think about The energy needed to choose what game to play and then get into it, because I'm not really in the middle of anything yet, is a little too much right now. So I don't. I will say a couple of things. I am reading a book called Tiny Experiments by Anne Laurel Kunf. She I don't remember if I mentioned that. I don't think I had started it when we talked last time.

Eden
05:40-05:42
I don't think you have, no.

Peter
05:42-06:31
She has a very interesting story, and it resonated with me. And I'll give you a little background. This is just in the introduction, and I think you'll probably understand why it resonated with me. So she was a Google engineer. She was hired straight out of college. You know, she had done well. She pushed herself. Got a good job at Google, was quickly moving up in the ranks, and then all of a sudden had just her arm. Like, I think it went either numb and was swollen or something. And she went and got checked out and found out that she had a fairly big blood clot in her arm. They recommended immediate clot removal surgery so that it didn't go to her lungs. And her response was, I got a big project at work I need to finish up first. Can we do it next week instead?

Eden
06:31-06:32
Oh God.

Peter
06:32-10:21
And then afterwards, she realized how fucked up that was. And she quit her job. She quit her job and she started doing a bunch of other things. She tried and You know, kind of got a startup going and the startup business did a little bit okay, and then it failed. And now and started writing online and actually got quite a big following and has developed what she calls NESS Labs. And it's uh she went back to school and she got a degree in I think like I don't remember if it was neurobiology or if it's some something, you know, like neuroscience related, and now has this other This other whole change to her career. And the reason it resonated with me is She talks about, and the argument she makes is that the human brain wants to explore, it wants to experiment, it wants to create. And far too often that's you know, modern society and let's just be honest, especially this late stage capitalism that we live in does not really encourage or even allow for that in many cases. And I think so far, again, I'm not too far into it because I've been actually kind of trying to take it slow and really read a little bit and then do a lot of self-reflection But she really makes this case that, hey, you know what? That's part of what we need to be happy: the freedom to explore, to create, to experiment, and to fail. and be able to fail safely so that then we can decide to try something new and learn from it. And I have found it quite I don't know if inspiring is the right word, but I think it might be. I found it very interesting. And it came at a time when, and this is all I'm going to say about this, I am working on a secret project. That is personal. I mean, it's something that I will be sharing once it's ready to go. But I've been working on this secret project and It was something that I thought of and I thought I really need to do this. And I couldn't quite answer the question: why did I feel so driven to take on this additional, this extra project, this extra work? And it was as I was reading that introduction to this book that it just all crystallized for me and it became very clear As to why I needed to be doing this thing that I am in the process of undertaking. So it was kind of exciting, and it's been it was Refreshing and almost reassuring to have that clarity of thought and understand, oh, okay, I see now where this is coming from. And so that's been fun, and I will hopefully, in the nearish future, have something to share about what I'm working on And then, honestly, no real new music that's come out other than, and it wasn't even new, on a whim. So we're in Boise. I'm of course awake, but then Gareth's alarm goes off. And Gareth's alarm is just the most horrendous, hideous, like Filthy, it's like, so it is, I think it is a song from the Doom 2016 soundtrack that has been remixed, redone, and it is like Extra industrial, but also like fuzzy and like stat, like it is just, it is this, it is offensive. But I still was like, cool, that's a you know what? Doom 2016, that was kind of a fun soundtrack. And then I thought to myself, huh. I wonder if Doom the Dark Ages has a good soundtrack. And the answer to that question is: fuck yes, it does. Doom the Dark Ages has a great soundtrack, and some atmospheric tracks, but a lot of just Not quite.

Eden
10:14-10:18
Oh, yeah. That's good.

Peter
10:21-10:52
I mean, it's a different, it was done by a different group, so it doesn't sound exactly like Mick Gordon But it's been a lot of fun, and that's honestly been most of my music listening the last week, week and a half, is this this instrumental Kind of, you know, soundtrack-y, but also some metal and some atmospheric, just a fun mix of music to listen to. So that's honestly That's kind of it. A little bit of reading and some listening to music, and that's that's what I've been up to. What about you?

Eden
10:52-11:08
Um, I've been up to a fair amount of stuff. Um I have been reading a lot. I read I have we talked about how weird Japanese fantasy novels are? Have we talked about that on this podcast?

Peter
11:07-11:12
We have not, but it would not surprise me to hear that that's the case.

Eden
11:12-13:50
Well, it's not that they're weird, it's that there is a particular lens through which every single Japanese fantasy novel that's like set in like a sword and sorcery like like high fantasy Tolkien or or Game of Thrones or any of that bullshit like vaguely European evil church Because you always got to have a church, and it's always, it's always going to be evil. You know, like real life. But, like, you know, any one of these. Are all weird in this one particular way. And I finally put my finger on it as I was reading one of those. I read the first volume of a series called The Hero Killing Bride. Which is about this nun who is actually an assassin for the church because the gods don't exist. And so she is sent out by the cardinals who are actually in charge of things and do they all just pretend God exi these gods exist. And she is sent out to be like a baby faced nun that is actually just like a a murderer. Like she goes out and takes care of Inconvenient things on behalf of the church. And her assignment now is to go kill the hero, the person who is fighting against the demon hordes and who cannot be pierced by human blade. And she's like, okay, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. But basically, she is sent to seduce the hero and therefore get him to drop his guard and then slay him as necessary. Two problems. She doesn't really want to seduce anyone. And number two, the hero is a woman in disguise. She is a woman who is living in disguise as a man in order to not cause. Societal tumult because again, it's based on vaguely medievally European sort of things. And we all know how they react to lady warriors. We've all seen Jean d'Arc. We know how this goes. You get killed. Anyway, it was pretty okay. But thankfully, it did not do the thing that many of them do, which is, oh, it's an Isakai situation. One of these people is from our world or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Isakai bullshit, because everything's isekai nowadays. But it does still fall into the particular trap that every single one of these falls into. And I've put my finger, like I said, on exactly what I think it is. And that is that this type of fantasy did not exist in Japan until Dragon Quest came out.

Peter
13:50-13:51
Ah, okay.

Eden
13:51-16:50
And consequently, because why does Dragon Quest exist? Dragon Quest exists because a bunch of Japanese teens and 20-somethings played Ultima, and they were like, oh, damn, we should do this ourselves. And then they made a game. And so, because that tradition that we grew up in, that we were like inculcated in, reading Tolkien. Reading these fairy tales and then reading all of the derivatives of Tolkien that were coming out in the 70s and 80s. Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, all these sorts of guys who are like picking up the tools that Tolkien had laid out and doing their own epic fantasy stories or whatever. It's more organic feeling to us. Like, this is like a cultural milieu. That's what Tolkien was trying to do. He was trying to create From whole cloth, a cultural milieu that is an alternative background to the society in which we live. And that's all pretend and he made it up, and that's cool. But like, that was his goal, right? But in Japan, every single one of these stories is filtered, if not explicitly, Implicitly through the logic of video games. So every time they need to cast a spell They do like video game ass video game things and say something like stats up, stat boost. And it's like, motherfucker, that's not what you would say in a that that is not some Gandalf ass shit. Like that is some real. Basic stuff to say in a fight. Gandalf was out here saying, You shall not pass. Not StatBoost plus plus minus minus. Like, come on, guys But, like, they always say spells with names like that. And they have to like do an in, or like one of the other series that I read, the Roll Over and Die series that I read the first two or three books of. There was a spell you could cast to see how powerful other people were, and it basically would bring up their stat sheet with like numbers on it, and it would be like You know, strength 1,000, agility, 1,500. Like, that's some video game shit. That's not the spell you cast shows you their character sheet so you can see how strong they are. And I couldn't figure out why every one of these had this weird, like, superficially sort of layer. Like, okay, the ones that are isekais of, like, I woke up in my favorite video game. Okay, well, you're in the video game. So, yeah, of course, things are video game-esque. But like Rollover and Die or Hero Killing Bride, they're not those. There's no isakai going on there. So why is it still this weird digital Like layer on top of it. And I realized it's because every single one of these is filtered through the lens of video games because they do not have the decades of cultural background that led to the creation of those video games. It was. 15, 20 year olds playing Ultima and going, shit, let's do that.

Peter
16:50-16:50
Hmm.

Eden
16:50-16:59
And then that built a whole, and then from Dragon Quest, we get Magicka, we get Final Fantasy, we get all of these other things.

Peter
16:51-16:52
That makes sense.

Eden
16:59-18:37
But they are primarily through this vision of the video game as a lens. And so I think that is the real like sticking point with many of these books that otherwise I think I would like a lot more. But there is this weird superficiality to it. Because of that kind of digital layer that doesn't need to, especially doesn't need to be there if it's not, I got isekai to my favorite video game and got turned into a slime. Reincarnated as a sword, or whatever those dumb ones are that are always, I got put in the world of a video game. But anyway, that was a thought that I had, and I think is really weird. The other thing that is worth mentioning, two other things worth mentioning. I mentioned previously that I had been reading City by Keichi Arawi, which is the follow-up to Nichijo. I finished it. It's incredible. It's better than Nichijo against all odds. The TV show is also extremely good, remains extremely good. Two more episodes are out since the last time we recorded. It's still a banger. Episode four ended with a cliffhanger saying to be continued, and I know what's going to happen because I've read the book and I'm very excited. The other thing I will mention: I have been looking for games to play, looking for things to do. And I was in a Discord the other day, and you know, we were talking about Star Wars as one does in a Discord that has a Star Wars channel And one of my friends in that Star Wars disc or in that Discord said, Hey, I found Star Wars Galaxies Restoration. Does anyone want to come play Star Wars Galaxies with me? Peter, did you ever play Star Wars Galaxies? I can't imagine you did because it was probably right in your med school era.

Peter
18:37-18:45
Correct. It was one of those things that I always wished I could, but I didn't have the time nor any money to pay anything. And no. So I never did.

Eden
18:45-25:03
Yeah. I was always in the same boat, and it seemed really cool, but I didn't really have a computer that could play it, nor the time, nor did I want to spend $15 on a subscription, all these sorts of things kept me from ever playing it. But I had always heard that it was like this pre-wow MMO. And I was really interested in that idea. Star Wars Galaxy's Restoration is a fan project that exists that apparently Lucasfilms does not care about, which is great. We love to see it. And you can just go play Star Wars Galaxies for free. Like they ask for a donation. They're like, hey, we would love if you would donate, because we do have server costs They're not huge. Like, their monthly goal is like $2,500 from all of their players. So, it's not like this is super expensive to run this thing But you could just go play galaxies. And they have like found the sweet spot because I don't know how much you ever knew about galaxies. But it like because it was a pre-WoW MMO, it feels very different than post-WoW MMOs did. It might have come out after WoW did, but design-wise, it's very different. Everything that took its inspiration from WoW, like Final Fantasy XIV, like Guild Wars, like Star Wars the Old Republic, they all, you are a hero in that. Like, you are the great hero. You are like going on these big adventures, and sure, there's crafting, sure, there's gathering, all those things are happening on the side, but fundamentally, you are a hero. And this is most epitomized in Final Fantasy XIV, where you are the warrior of light. Literally, I think textually, the most powerful being in that universe by the end of that game. Like by a country mile. Which that's all fine and dandy. I like that game quite a bit. I haven't played it in six or eight months, but I have a lot of fondness for it. I'll go back to it someday, probably. Star Wars Galaxies. And Star Wars, the Old Republic is that way too. You boot it up. You are a Jedi who eventually becomes like on the Jedi Council if you're a consular, or like the most powerful Jedi Knight if you're a knight. Or you end up as the hand of the Emperor as a Sith warrior, or on the Dark Council if you are a Sith Inquisitor. Like, that's the kind of game those are. But Galaxies was the kind of game where it was like What do you want to do? There's a simulated society here, and we need people to do everything. There was no. Market that was done by the game when it first launched. Everything that you could purchase had to be crafted by another player So, if you wanted new outfits, you had to find someone who had leveled up crafting and gathered the materials and then was selling on the market board for however much they wanted to sell it Or, if you wanted a new gun, you had to find a smith who made that gun, or you wanted new armor, all those sorts of things. But that means that you could decide what you wanted to do. Oh, you want to become a chef? Make food that's good for when people go into combat and they need to be stronger? Cool. Go be a chef. You want to be an entertainer? You want to just go play your Your uh slitter hook. I don't remember what it's called. When you start the game, you start with one of the weird um Like flutey looking things that the Bith Jiz players play in the cantina. And you can just go and just equip it and then type start music, and you'll just start playing music. And people can tip you, and you can take jobs to go to different cantinas and just like dance or play music. It is weird. It is really weird. But you can build ships, and it's really kit bashy where you're finding new parts for the ships. You can see it all on your ship as you're building it out. But then, because it is still a Star Wars game. Maybe, not for everyone, but for some people, maybe one day you are put in a precarious Situation. It seems like your back is against the wall. You know, this happened to my friend the other day, and they were in a 1v4 battle against some TIE fighters. And it was breaking bad for them. And then the force touched them. And suddenly, they were able to fight in a way they had never been able to fight before. And then after that was over, they had a quest in their invent or in their quest log that was like, What's the deal with that? What just happened to you? Did you just feel the force? And so, for this friend of mine, the potential to become a Jedi has opened up. You have to work at that. You have to find people who can train you. You have to work on developing your skills. You have to find a lightsaber crystal somewhere. It is a very they're very rare drops. But if you want a lightsaber, you have to craft your own lightsaber, which means you have to find all the pieces of it yourself. And that is so cool to me. Because when you play Star Wars, The Old Republic, you get to level 10, you beat the starter planet And you make your lightsaber. And then it's like, cool, I'm a Jedi. I'm a Jedi now. I'm a level 10 Jedi. I got two. I got two skills. Yee-haw! Now I'm going to go do another 300 hours of story, but I'm already a Jedi. In this game, my friend is a smuggler. They have a ship that they smuggle things from planet to planet. And then shit broke bad. They were getting chased by the empire. And now their mind is open. And they have to decide if they want to become a Jedi or not. And that is so cool to me. So, I started playing. I'm having a fun time. I think I'm going to start a new character. I made the mistake of playing as an Athorian, because, and this is the thing I really appreciate about this: that Star Wars the Old Republic does not give you. Old Republic, specifically, because it's a row, it has a game that has romances. You got to have kissable lips, baby, because we got to put you in these cutscenes to kiss on some lips. So you got to have kissable lips.

Peter
25:02-25:03
Gotcha.

Eden
25:03-25:27
So you can't play as a Biff or an Athorian or a what the whatever the hell Greedo's species is. I can't think of it right now Rhodian, uh, Bothen. You can't play as any of those in Star Wars the Old Republic. You can in Galaxies. You can play in a Thorian, aka you know, Hammerhead from the Cantina scene at the start of Star Wars.

Peter
25:24-25:25
Hammerhead, yeah.

Eden
25:28-26:07
I started as an authorian. Their mouths are on the side of their head. They have two mouths, and it's on the side of their head. And then the trunk comes up, the hammerhead trunk. They're weird. Obviously, romance is not a problem. Ain't nobody kissing on those things. So they could do weird things when it came to what species you could play as. But. The Athorians can't wear any of the fashions. They have very limited, because of their very large trunk-like bodies. Very limited fashion options. So I think I'm going to restart and I'm going to be a basic bitch and probably be a Twi'lek.

Peter
26:07-26:09
Ah, there you go.

Eden
26:09-26:13
But if I'm a Twi'lek, I can wear every outfit in the game.

Peter
26:13-26:14
And that's very important.

Eden
26:13-26:36
So we'll see. We'll see. I may start a new character. I may just keep playing as an Athorian. We'll see how important the fashions are to me. But I'm having a delightful time. And it's free and it plays like a song and it's really weird and really crunchy and not like it feels like a game from 2004, which is what it is. And I'm having a delightful time.

Peter
26:36-26:38
That's awesome. Very cool.

Eden
26:38-26:46
All right, should we move on to oh well, should we move on to the main event? Should we go back to the retro futurist nineteen sixties? What do you think, Peter?

Peter
26:44-26:47
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Eden
26:46-27:31
All right. Well, dear listeners, you might imagine, wow, why is he talking in this mid-century accent and talking about the retrofuturist 1960s? Well, listeners, that's because we are doing it again. We are spoiling a brand new movie. Because another big movie came out this last week, and that is Fantastic Four First Steps. So we're going to start with a basic discussion. You're welcome to stick through that shouldn't be spoilery, dear listeners And then after a bit, we'll probably start a spoiler section. So feel free, if you haven't seen it yet and don't want to spoil yourself, to stop the podcast at that point. But we do want to have some basic conversation about it before that gets going. So, Peter, how did you find Fantastic Four First Steps?

Peter
27:27-27:44
Mhm. So No, here's the thing, I don't know why I'm nervous to say it, I really, really liked this movie.

Eden
27:34-27:46
You didn't like this movie, did you? That's because it's good.

Peter
27:46-27:50
I really liked this movie.

Eden
27:49-28:34
That's because it's really good. I am excited to talk to you about the things that it does and Superman also did some of this to a certain extent, but there are specific things that Fantastic Four First Steps does that feel. Out of touch with the regular superhero film and the superhero as an agent in the world of pop culture that I think are quietly revolutionary. Because this is fundamentally a utopian film. And that is not what most superhero stories are. And I think that that plays out. And I think that that is part of what makes it really sing to me. So tell me more. You liked it a lot. Tell me more about this.

Peter
28:34-28:43
I liked it a lot. So um First of all, I thought they absolutely nailed the aesthetic.

Eden
28:43-28:52
Oh, I've never wanted to live inside of a set more, uh of a Marvel movie, 'cause most of the time Marvel movie sets look like garbage.

Peter
28:48-28:56
Oh, yeah. No, this yeah, it looks so cool.

Eden
28:52-29:00
But this one I was like, I would like to live there. I love the mid-century modern aesthetic. I love it.

Peter
29:00-30:06
It looks so cool. And again, without getting spoilery, I am so, I mean, just from the gecko between the look and between the fact that we didn't. Bullshit with some real extended origin story. They respected people enough to go, either you know the Fantastic Four, or now look, let's be honest I don't really know the Fantastic Four. Of course, I know who they are because I'm alive. But have I ever read Fantastic Four? No. Did I think that they were kind of dopey when I was younger? Yes. Do here's my here are my touchstones for Fantastic Four. I watched the what 2005 movie When I was in medical school, because I pirated it and I was bored, and golly, let's. I'm just going to leave it at that. And then I played a lot of Marvel Heroes, which was a Diablo sort of like 3D isometric action RPG.

Eden
30:05-30:06
Oh, yeah, I did too.

Peter
30:07-30:45
I played a crap ton of that. I loved that game. And after I figured out how to combine her powers, I realized that Sue Storm was one of the better characters in that game. That's it. There is my fantastic for knowledge. Other than, yeah, I know who they are, and I know Everything I needed to know. They gave me in that quick little, you know, sort of mock newsy, here's what we're going to do. It was, I love the fact that we zip through that really fast. And then when we're actually introduced to the characters, they've been at this for years.

Eden
30:44-30:47
Yep. I really liked that.

Peter
30:47-32:30
This is an established team That they know each other. They've known each other. Obviously, they knew each other before. It's a whole family thing. So I like the fact that we sidestep all that. I liked the characterization of the characters. I loved that Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards, we get Fairly little stretchy. And honestly, the most stretchy we get from him is fucking body horror shit. But he's he his thing they focus on is why they always talk about he's the smartest man in the world And that's Reid. Reed, everything he does. He's not trying to figure it out with some superpower other than he's smart. And they focus on that. I loved that again, I remember from watching the old Fantastic Four that Johnny Storm played by Chris Evans. Was a douche. He was a cocky, arrogant, obnoxious. I didn't like his character at all. I liked the This Johnny Storm Still has a little bit of that kind of arrogance, and he's not nearly as serious as Reed, but he's competent and he's a good, he's decent, he's a good, he's smart, he's he's good, he He cares about the family. He's not just You know, a Playboy womanizer. Yeah, does he say he likes women? Uh-huh. Is he is his interest piqued by the shiny naked alien lady? You better believe it is. But he's not some lecherous But but right, but he's not some lecherous, obnoxious, whatever character.

Eden
32:24-32:26
Who's wouldn't be?

Peter
32:30-35:24
And I love the fact that Ben Grimm. Ben Grimm is the thing, and people know him and they love him, and he doesn't, he's not moping the entire Stinking movie. He knows who he is, and he just acts it. He owns it, and it's great, and people like him, and he likes people. we don't have this incredibly sad sack hiding with a hat over his eyes to hide himself while he spies on his wife or something from the shadows because uh it was just It was refreshing to see the way they portrayed these characters, the way they gave them. I thought Individually, a lot more agency than they had in that previous portrayal. They and just and then, like I say, I getting back to this similar to how we talked about with Thunderbolts, and I won't spoil the ending. My biggest complaint, the thing we liked best at least me, maybe not we, but the the thing that made Thunderbolts So enjoyable was how they solved the problem, was not punch harder. My biggest disappointment with Superman, as much as I enjoyed the movie, go listen to the episode, but that The majority of the final conflict is literally punching yourself harder. And I was so glad that, again, won't get into spoilers, but they weren't going to try and punch Galactus. They knew they couldn't. So that was never part of the solution. And I enjoyed that because, again, it feels like we've got these two Marvel movies in a row. where the solution to the problem is not just hit. And it's so refreshing to see People being allowed to or doing it themselves, but having that freedom to go, let's be true to these characters. but let's tell stories that are more interesting and I think for me more human because the truth of the matter is we are all going to experience conflict in our lives. We all do on a daily basis to varying degrees. And for hopefully us as mature adults, the solution is never, or at the very least, almost never, punch harder. The solution is be better in some way, and I found that so refreshing I think that's why I came out of there and I was so just really, I was super hyped. And I'll be honest, and I don't know why, I was nervous because I was afraid I was going to really, really like it, and you were going to really, really not like And then I was going to come like going, oh, maybe I shouldn't have liked this so much, but I really, really like this movie.

Eden
35:24-35:34
And see, I thought it was going to go the other way around. I thought that when you texted me and you were like, you know, on like Sunday or whatever, and you were you would Confirmed our recording time.

Peter
35:32-35:32
Yeah.

Eden
35:34-35:38
You were like, I'm eager to discuss this. I was like, oh no, he hated it.

Peter
35:38-35:42
Oh no, I am so looking forward to watching this movie again.

Eden
35:42-37:23
Yeah, everything you said, I feel similarly. I think that there is a, as I mentioned earlier, a utopian feel to this film that is out of step with most superhero cinema and specifically cinema, but also the superhero as a whole, which largely is like the superhero as a concept is often about Upholding the status quo, right? Like they are fighting to protect their city. They're fighting to protect the planet But they are not fighting to better the city or better the planet. They are about reinforcing the status quo. Part of that is due to the continual, as we have talked about before. Second act problem of a superhero: in that you have seen their origin, you cannot see the end because I need to publish another one of these comics and/or another one of these movies in another few months or years. So there is perpetually this feeling of being stuck in the second act, which tends to a level of status quo because you can't Make any huge substantive changes that might need to be undone by your next installment or things like that. But Because of certain things that I think, I don't think this is too much of a spoiler. I think anyone who's following the MCU is going to know this. Because this happens in a different universe, they can take it in a different direction. And I really appreciated that. So, should we get into the spoiler zone?

Peter
37:23-37:36
You know, the last thing I want to say before we get into the spoiler zone is I I realized I talked about all Three of them, the three of the four, I did not talk about Sue Storm. Golly, Vanessa Kirby just killed it.

Eden
37:33-37:34
He's great.

Peter
37:36-38:05
She was so good. And she does a great job of Of being kind of the real leader of the group. She absolutely is. And there were just, there were these moments where I don't know. She was amazing. I do not want to skip over saying that that she's probably, I think she was my favorite character of the movie.

Eden
38:06-38:11
It's written for her. Like, it is a again, we'll get into it in the spoiler section.

Peter
38:07-38:08
Yeah.

Eden
38:11-38:22
It is a showcase for, like. Why does Sue Storm matter? This movie went in asking that question and made sure to answer it, and I think answer it effectively.

Peter
38:22-38:31
Yeah, so that was it. I just wanted to make sure that I did not give her short shrift because she really was the heart and the star of the movie.

Eden
38:30-42:38
I agree. All right, so spoiler zone. I'll do a quick recap. Of the film. It is a retrofuturist 1960s. We don't know what time period it is. We don't know if it's actually the 60s or if it is like a. Fallout situation where the 2170s is identical to the 1950s. Don't worry about it. We don't know what the situation is here, but we do know it's a retrofuturist 60s. As you said, there's a quick like flashback TV show montage of, well, these are the fantastic four who we all love. They've been around for four years. How's how they got their superpowers? And we find out how they became superheroes and the effects that them being superheroes have had on the planet. Like it has revolutionized science because Reed Richards is intelligent and invents all these things, and everyone trusts him because he's so smart. And they're like, Yeah, well, he's Reed Richards. Sue Storm is like, you know what? The world needs to work together more. So I am going to invent the United Nations. And she invents the United Nations. That works this time. And like brings heralds an era of peace and prosperity for the globe. So again, there's this utopianism to it of like, and We can get into whether it's kind of an objectivist, slightly Randian feeling utopianism. That's sort of baked into the premise of the Fantastic Four, which is why I personally think the Incredibles movies suck so much because. They are leaning into that objectivist version of, like, these are people with incredible powers. So, of course, they can and should do incredible things, and therefore, there should be no restrictions upon them. Like, You know, I have problems with that idea, and but that is baked into the idea of the Fantastic Four. This movie largely elides that in that the whole world is pretty happy about the work that they're doing until they're suddenly not here in the middle of it. Things are going pretty well. They're getting weird transmissions through deep space that they keep recording onto big golden records. But things seem to be largely good and and you know Sue and Reed find out that Sue is pregnant. They apparently had been trying for years, had decided it was not possible, had kind of given up. On, like, you know, concertedly trying, and then she ends up being pregnant. And so they're understandably very excited Reed is understandably very freaked out about it because he's like, What is? I don't know. I know what the cosmic rays did to us. I don't know what it, what, if anything, it might do to our child. So he's concerned on that level. Like, is our kid going to be okay? But he's also like, now I have to baby proof everything. And it starts small with baby proofing their home. And then he starts baby proofing the world. Like, he decides he needs to make this world as safe as possible for his child, which, again, is the sort of thing you can do when you're the smartest man on the planet Suddenly, out of nowhere, everything seems to be going fine, and then this woman on this surfboard shows up and says Galactus is coming to eat your planet. There's nothing you can do to stop it. So be grateful for the time that you have been granted. Hug your loved ones and prepare for the end. And then zoom off back to space. Understandably, Reed Richards is like, I have a child on the way. I'm not going to let you eat this planet. And he cares about the other people too, but that is functionally the lens through which Reed's behavior in the first part of the film works. And so they're able to track her energy signature to where they think that she is located. And so they use their futuristic vessel to go through space. They have like an FTL drive that they like Click their ship into and then decouple it, which is the dopest shit in the world.

Peter
42:38-42:39
Oh, it's so cool.

Eden
42:38-42:39
Don't get it twisted.

Peter
42:39-42:40
It's so cool.

Eden
42:40-42:54
What's there's a reason why The Jedi Starfighter from episode two is the coolest. And that is because you got to go get in the ring. You got to hook into the ring, and then you can go faster than light.

Peter
42:52-42:54
Yeah, you gotta dock into the FTL part.

Eden
42:55-43:49
And so they do that. They fly out there. There is a huge planet-sized engine that they get sucked into where they meet Galactus. And Galactus explains. I have I have an insatiable, overwhelming hunger, and I must feed however that little baby growing inside of you. He's got a power and he can take that hunger away from me. So you give me that kid. I'll spare your planet. And understandably, they're like, uh, no. And so they escape. While they're trying to escape, and the Silver Surfer is trying to follow them, there's a series of mishaps. They're able to thwart her. And during that point, is when, of course. Sue goes into labor. And so she has the baby while they are in zero G deep space, gives birth to Franklin, who is their child.

Peter
43:49-44:07
I just I I just have to say, I think the escape from Galactus and then the Silver Surfer Is one of the coolest scenes I maybe have ever seen.

Eden
43:50-43:52
And then it takes them because, go ahead.

Peter
44:07-44:14
Like they get close to a neutrino star that they say is basically a black hole, the gravity well.

Eden
44:08-44:09
It's real fun.

Peter
44:15-44:37
They're like, and this is another thing. And again, I could come back to it, but I got to say it while I'm thinking about it. The Silver Surfer, having never really read the comics, it always seems a little odd. Why are you surfing through space? But the way. She uses the surfboard in so many different scenes, like actually is surfing is just chef's kiss.

Eden
44:37-44:39
It's it's real cool.

Peter
44:37-45:11
Like, she is She is surfing on this like stars energy and all the detritus that is being pulled into this black hole. And, like, you know, she's like cutting into this. And it was just that scene. I was. Between, we've got that's what's going on outside. We've got Sue having the baby on the inside, we've got all of this stuff happening. Boy, that I mean, that scene for me was just an absolute highlight. And it was exciting, and it felt like it had stakes, even though we know it doesn't really have stakes because there's no way anything bad's happening to them this early in the movie.

Eden
45:03-45:03
Yeah.

Peter
45:11-45:21
But it still managed to feel like there were stakes to this. I just had to call it out because that was one of the coolest scenes I've seen in a long time.

Eden
45:21-46:54
It's really cool. Then have the baby because they have to jettison the FTL engine because they trick her using that. It takes them a month to fly home. And so they finally get home, and then everyone's like, Hey, the Fantastic Four back, they were surely successful in defeating Galactus, right? And then Reed has to be like, no, we didn't. He's coming. And we're going to have to figure something out. And they're like. Well, what is there any way to stop him? And Reed, being maybe too honest, explains, Well, he asked for our kid, and I'm not going to give him the kid And so everyone understandably goes into absolute utilitarian mode, and they're like, one child for 8 billion people, you son of a bitch, give them the child And that causes a lot of tension as Reed is trying to solve how can we save the world without sacrificing our son. There's a lot of pushback from the people of the earth. And again, from a purely utilitarian perspective, which is a conversation that eventually, you know, Reed has with Sue, where he's like, From a utilitarian and ethical perspective, the solution is to give Galactus Franklin. And then Sue is understandably like, excuse me the fuck very much? And he's like, I would never do that. But like, we have to be honest with ourselves that that is the utilitarian ethical solution.

Peter
46:54-47:02
And there's a there's this she says a thing there, and I'm not going to get it quite right, but honestly, this was one of my favorite lines of the movie.

Eden
46:54-46:57
And she's like, and go ahead.

Peter
47:02-47:10
She says something to him about. You don't understand how sometimes you being you, how much that hurts me.

Eden
47:10-47:10
Yeah.

Peter
47:11-47:30
And I thought it was just a really good way to describe that interplay between the two of them. Succinctly but so powerfully, where he is, he is the smartest man in any room he is in. Everybody else, the rest of the family, they're very smart too. But he is the smartest man.

Eden
47:29-47:30
Very smart.

Peter
47:31-47:57
He's always the smartest. And because of that, he's like I have to think of everything. I have to analyze everything. I have to consider every solution regardless of what it means. And that's where she's just like. You're forgetting your, you're forgetting part of you, and that's us. You're forgetting how much we are a part of who you are. And I thought it was really, again, it was just one of those lines that I was like, oh, that was pretty good.

Eden
47:57-51:32
Yep. And so she goes and she confronts the people who are like, you know, protesting outside of the Fantastic Four Tower And are basically like, I can't, I won't sacrifice our son to save the world, but I also won't sacrifice the world to save our son And like, that basically works as a galvanizing cry for the world of like, no, we're going to save everyone. And this is when, Reed find, and you know, Reed had talked earlier about he just needs a pivot point. He needs a fulcrum point, he needs a lever to pull on, and then he can solve the solution. And that gives him mentally the lever of like. Oh, we just need to. We can't keep him from coming here. What if we're not here when he gets here? And so he earlier in the film had been working on teleportation. And so he. Has the idea, what if we just teleport the planet Earth to the other side of the universe? And because he's the smartest man on the planet, because the Fantastic Four have done good for the world, the whole world is like. I mean, fuck it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Why not? Let's do it. That's the way that's the way we save the world is we build a net of teleporters across the entire globe and just move to another solar system. Okay, let's do it. And so they embark on the largest project in human history, are able to do it, are in the process of powering it up When the silver surfer comes back, destroys all of them but one. She is unable to destroy the last one because Johnny intervenes. Here's where, as you said, we see Johnny's intelligence because he has used. His brain to decode those sounds that they had gotten through a conversation he'd had with the surfer in Galactus' ship. He is able to Decipher some of her language because they're receiving these transmissions from her planet, which was saved by Galactus from Galactus by her sacrificing herself. And so he is able to be like, let me sacrifice myself to stop Galactus. And she's like, no, he wants the child And so then Johnny plays the sounds from all of the other planets that are the sounds of them getting eaten by Galactus And plays it for her, and that is what makes her have her, like, dark moment of the night, like dark moment in the night, where she like Has to come to terms with the choices that she has made. To save her family and save her people, she has doomed billions to death at Galactus' hand. And she, you know, races off into the sky, but did not destroy the last of the bridge devices. So then they're like, well, we got one left. Time to do a stupid idea. What if instead of move the whole planet We somehow shove the kaiju-sized man into the portal and schlep him off to the far end of the universe. Needless to say, we're running out of time, so I'll make it short. They do it. They're successful. There's a series of escalating events They evacuate the city to all of the people in New York are sent to subterranea, which is, of course, as anyone who reads the comics knows, the world that dwells underneath New York, where the mole man is the king. Which, you know, basically that's just there to be like, hey, we're not going to like endanger tons of people and watch them getting smushed by Galactus.

Peter
51:32-51:33
Sure.

Eden
51:32-51:38
Also, it. It saves money on special effects when we don't have to animate all those people.

Peter
51:38-51:39
Oh, a hundred percent.

Eden
51:38-52:56
I understand. I understand why they did this in Superman 2. I get it. It's cheaper. But anyway, through a series of mishaps, they are able to finally get him into the teleporter and save Franklin, even though he tries to take Franklin. At the cost of Sue's life, because Sue uses her like force field powers to basically push him into the teleporter. And that is like and like she gets him in there, she collapses, he starts pulling himself back out of the portal, and that is when the Silver Surfle comes at the last second, slams into him and shoves him back into the portal right as it closes. They obviously run over to Sue. She's dead. Like dead, dead. And so Reed puts Franklin on her chest and is like, they're all crying. And then Franklin's just like, again, this is like a six-month, seven-month-old kid. He's just like he just like shakes his head a little bit. He's like, no. And then mom comes back from the dead because Franklin has the power cosmic, which we will undoubtedly have to deal with in future installments.

Peter
52:56-52:57
Yes, yes, we will.

Eden
52:57-53:54
Because in case you didn't know, dear listeners, Franklin is the most powerful entity in the entire Marvel universe. He is. He has the power cosmic. He can do literally anything. Once he harnesses his powers, he is unbounded and unstoppable. And his goal or his role is to exist until the end of time, billions of years in the future. And end this universe and start another. That is what Franklin exists for. But that means he's super powerful. So it brings his mom back from the dead. And that's how the movie end Is the movie the whole family is back together? They've saved the world. Everything turned out okay. And it's a pretty good movie. So, spoiler thoughts that you have. Like I said, one of the things that impresses me the most is the way that these are constructive heroes. Like, they have an effect on the planet that is demonstrably and unequivocally good.

Peter
53:48-53:49
Yeah.

Eden
53:55-54:42
Because you couldn't do what they did to save the world if they hadn't have done things like had Sioux start the UN. Have diplomatic relations with the mole man after they fought him. And then she was like, No, let's talk like country to country, person to person, and therefore they're able to save the people of New York. From Galactus, because they have a place where they can go. Again, the world is willing to buy into the idea of we'll teleport the whole planet because they know that, like. When these folks offer solutions, they are solutions and they are not just maintaining the status quo. And so there is like a utopian view to this film that I thought was really refreshing.

Peter
54:42-55:46
Agreed. Yeah, and I hadn't quite it hadn't putting it that way hadn't really formed in my head. But as you were saying it, I was like, oh, yeah, that's it. That's one of the things that really stood out. And it was an interesting contrast to Thunderbolts. Because if we go back to Thunderbolts, Thunderbolts is. You know, so much. I mean, the whole thing with the void is that people were living in their worst sorrow, that it was a complete lack of hope and disconnection. Was a central theme to that. And we see the opposite of this: this is literally: this is a family who is working together. and an entire planet who's working together. You mentioned that everybody's like, okay, we'll pool all our resources to build these teleportation devices. But even to the point that they have to voluntarily, the entire world has to voluntarily turn off all their power at certain times to try and conserve power and store it up, save it up.

Eden
55:43-55:44
Uhhuh.

Peter
55:46-55:59
They don't really go into why they have to do that. You can head cannon that part, but it shows this idea that not only are they willing to pool resources, but they are willing to sacrifice.

Eden
55:51-55:59
Sorry. They're willing to make sacrifices for each other.

Peter
55:59-56:00
Correct.

Eden
55:59-56:00
Yeah.

Peter
56:00-56:47
And we see so little of that in anything, including fucking reality right now. But but but that yeah, that was such a refreshing take on it. And again, I loved all of the characters. I thought all of the actors did an amazing job. I liked every single one of them so much. I was so looking forward to seeing them again. That I know it's supposed to be next year, but when it was like the Fantastic Will 4 will return in Avengers Doomsday, I was like, oh, really? I got to wait till then? Cause I'm like, give me I mean, I heard that there was like, I don't know, an extra 20, 25 minutes of this movie that they cut kind of ruthlessly to get it under two hours. And while I was grateful that it wasn't too long, this is one where I was like, oh.

Eden
56:46-56:48
I'm ready for the director's cut.

Peter
56:48-56:53
Yeah, I'm like, give me those, give me the two-hour and 25-minute cut. Come on, Shackman.

Eden
56:53-56:53
Yeah.

Peter
56:53-57:22
Like, I want it. Give me more of these characters and this world. I mean, you talk about Moleman. He comes up, he gets invited, he's into the Fantastic Four Tower, and he's given Reed a little bit of a hard time. And you know that he would do anything for Sue, but he kind of wants them to. Just the interplay between them in these subtle little things. I don't know any comic history, like I said, about these, but in that scene, it was like, oh, he's got a bad for Sue. He wishes that he was with her.

Eden
57:21-57:21
Oh yeah.

Peter
57:22-57:33
And but at the same time, knows that Sue is with Reed and just needs Sue to be like, hey, please. And he's like, okay. Yep. I'll do it.

Eden
57:35-57:45
I thought that Galactus was really good. I the thing the thing about Galactus is It's hard to take him serious.

Peter
57:39-57:40
I did too.

Eden
57:45-57:53
And it still is a little true that it's a little hard to take him serious. He's a goofy-looking dude. Like, his outfit is goofy.

Peter
57:51-57:53
Yeah, yeah.

Eden
57:54-58:23
And one thing that we didn't see here, but is definitely true in the comics, is like Galactus is always whatever size he needs to be. So sometimes he's 20 feet tall and sometimes he's the size of a sometimes he's big enough to eat a planet because like In the comics, he doesn't have like a big planet-eating ship that he gets into, and then the things hook up to his back, and that's where he gets the juice from. He eats the planet. Like, like Unicron style.

Peter
58:21-58:22
Yeah.

Eden
58:23-58:45
He eats the baby. And so sometimes that's the case, but also sometimes he's 15 feet tall because Reed can. Immobilize him for a minute or two by stretching and and and detaining him in that way. So, like, obviously, you weren't going to get that. You weren't going to get him to be big and small and big and small. He was just basically Godzilla-sized and it worked pretty okay.

Peter
58:44-58:50
Yep, yeah, good.

Eden
58:45-58:50
I didn't hate it. Innocent's performance was pretty good.

Peter
58:50-58:51
Yeah.

Eden
58:50-58:55
I thought he brought Gravitas to the role But it was good. I liked it.

Peter
58:55-58:56
I agree.

Eden
58:56-59:00
I thought, yes, like you said, Julia Garner kills it as the Silver Surfer.

Peter
58:59-59:01
Ah, so good.

Eden
59:00-59:01
I thought she was.

Peter
59:01-59:02
So good.

Eden
59:02-59:14
It's a for being a character that's completely CG, and you never actually see her as a person, except for in the like weird flashback scenes. Like, she just kills it. Like, she brings a subtlety to the role.

Peter
59:12-59:21
So much with her eyes Uh-huh.

Eden
59:15-59:26
Yeah. Which again, most of that probably goes to the effects people being able to transmit that performance into this fully CG character, which was impressive.

Peter
59:25-59:26
Uh-huh.

Eden
59:27-59:28
It was really impressive.

Peter
59:28-59:28
Yeah.

Eden
59:31-59:44
I liked how Ben looked. Do I wish Eben Mas Bacharak had done a little graveliness to his voice? Maybe just a little, yeah, okay. Okay, I do. I wish he was a little gravelly.

Peter
59:44-59:45
Sure.

Eden
59:44-59:48
However, he looked great. Looked real good.

Peter
59:46-59:55
Yeah, it did. It did. I loved when, because of the power, he couldn't use the angle grinder to sand his beard down.

Eden
59:49-59:51
I liked it quite a bit.

Peter
59:55-59:56
And so he just like.

Eden
59:56-59:58
That was very funny.

Peter
59:57-01:00:10
He grows the beard out. I thought that was hilarious when he's sitting there angle grinding half his face, and then it was time to shut the power off and boom-boom, power goes out, and he's like, oh. And you know, Johnny's like, dude, just embrace it. And he grows the beard and it looks great.

Eden
01:00:10-01:00:22
He does look great in the beard. That's never happened in the books that I know of. That was cute and fun It doesn't make any sense that he would grow a rock beard. It doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. He looks cool with the beard.

Peter
01:00:22-01:01:20
And again, back to that idea with him where I remember very little, but that one of the things that stuck out for me in that 2005 Fantastic Four is that really Ben is the you know, he's he's he's hiding in the corners, he's ashamed of who he is and he and all this. I love the fact that, you know, Ben's out walking, and all the kids at like the school or something, they're all talking to him, and they're like, Oh, pick up the car. And he picks it up, and he's out there having fun. And that teacher, she comes out and she's like, Hey, you know, and Kind of chats with them, and as things are getting close, he goes and he finds her, and he's just like, Hey, I, you know, I came to see you, and there's no Yeah.

Eden
01:01:01-01:02:26
I like that and I like that it's sort of made uh explicit. Yeah, he's Jewish. Because that is an important part of who Ben Grimm is in the comics. Like, when he got married a couple years ago, it was a traditional Jewish wedding, and you saw him smash that glass under his foot. Like. That is an important part of who he is as a character. And I think an important callback to who created this guy. Like, you know, Jack Kirby and Stanley were both Jewish folks themselves And like, that is a tradition that they embraced for this character. And I think that that's cool. I, you talked about how, like, he was always, like, hiding himself and, like, Clearly hated being the thing. That goes back to that very first issue. Like in that very first issue, they get their powers, and Johnny's like, I can fly. I'll call myself the human torch. And Sue's like, well, I can go invisible. So I guess call me invisible girl And then he's like, I've just been turned into a huge monster that looks like shit, so I guess call me the thing And then reads like Then I'm Mr. Fantasy. It's the most tone-death thing you've ever read in your life because it's literally the next panel after he's like, I look like a monster, everyone will always hate me, so call me a thing like Johnny just did. And then he's like, and I'm Mr. Fantastic. I appreciated, I appreciated this version of the film never uses their names.

Peter
01:02:26-01:02:27
Yeah.

Eden
01:02:27-01:02:29
He is not Mr. Fantastic. He's Reed Richards.

Peter
01:02:29-01:02:32
Yep, see Sue Storm.

Eden
01:02:29-01:02:37
She's not the Invisible Woman. She's Sue Storm. And that's great. They are the Fantastic Four, but they don't have the goofy names. I liked that.

Peter
01:02:37-01:03:02
Yeah. No, overall, I was you know, we talked when after Superman. We were worried that Thunderbolts Then Superman, we were worried this was going to be the worst of the three. And I don't know where ultimately I rank it in the very end But I know that after thinking about it more, for me, as much as I like Superman, I like this quite a bit more than Superman.

Eden
01:02:59-01:03:03
I think I did too. And I'm surprised to say that because I did not.

Peter
01:03:02-01:03:03
Yeah.

Eden
01:03:04-01:03:35
And I think part of that is, as a couple of weeks have passed since Superman, I still think it's quite good, but I've kind of cooled on it But in the time since Yeah, yeah, and so I'm curious I'm curious how I'll feel about Fantastic Four in a month But even after just a few days, I'm like, I think it's I think it's aging for me better, like as I sit in it and think about the ideas more Pedro Pascal kills it.

Peter
01:03:14-01:03:31
And I've had time to think about some of the things that didn't quite work for me. And I'm like, oh, okay, yeah. Yes.

Eden
01:03:35-01:03:40
Like, I know people were kind of racist about him being cast and/or just like exhausted about how he's in everything.

Peter
01:03:35-01:03:36
Yeah.

Eden
01:03:40-01:03:54
I'm with you. I'm with you. He's in a lot of things, but he kills it. Whole cast kills it I love that apparently Vanessa Kirby really got into the comics and read like hundreds of issues of Fantastic Four.

Peter
01:03:44-01:03:47
He does. Totally does.

Eden
01:03:54-01:04:36
And she's super into when Sue becomes Malice, the mistress of hate. And so she's like. Next movie, I need to be Malice. And then the three boys are like, What are you talking about? And I guess they're like, Did you see that scene where they're like some journalist is showing them screenshots from Marvel rivals and showing them the different skins? And they pull up the Malvet, the Malice skin from Marvel Rivals, and all there's this scene, like this shot of all three of the men in that cast looking at the screen going, Yo, what? And Vanessa Kirby is just like, yes, give me that outfit. It's so funny.

Peter
01:04:36-01:04:37
I love it.

Eden
01:04:37-01:04:52
It's really, really funny. I don't know that we'll get to Malice. Maybe. We'll see. And it must bear mentioning as we close out here. Uh who cares about the post-credit sequence? Oh, Dr. Duma's there.

Peter
01:04:53-01:04:53
Oh.

Eden
01:04:53-01:04:54
Fucking who cares?

Peter
01:04:54-01:05:30
I can I tell you, you know, as you were getting to the end. I was trying to remember what the post-credit sequence was. I remember the post-post one is just the animated whatever. I kind of forgot that it's that all of a sudden she's reading a story to Franklin. He's, you know, four or five years old, something like that. I think it said another four years had passed. And then all of a sudden she goes to get the book he wants, and something changes, and she comes around, and there's a green cowled person kneeling down, and Franklin is reaching towards his face, and in his hand is the silver mask, Yeah, I kind of forgot about that because it's just like whatever. Who cares?

Eden
01:05:29-01:05:30
Who cares?

Peter
01:05:30-01:05:31
Yep.

Eden
01:05:30-01:05:55
Who cares? I won't. I am fully expecting Avengers Doomsday to be the worst Avengers movie I'm going in expecting I am going in expecting absolute dog shit so that if it's even mildly good, I am happily surpr Because I am expecting the worst Marvel movie from Doomsday.

Peter
01:05:39-01:05:55
No, don't say that. Yep. Yeah.

Eden
01:05:56-01:06:00
Because they're going to try to do another Infinity War, and they hain't earned it.

Peter
01:06:00-01:06:03
No, they haven't.

Eden
01:06:00-01:06:05
They ain't earned it. It's going to be bad, but that's fine.

Peter
01:06:03-01:06:16
But, to be fair, these last two, these last two, well, and again Like, I was so just so glad that between Thunderbolts and this, I'm like, okay, okay, I'm liking this.

Eden
01:06:05-01:06:15
In the meantime, Fantastic Four was good. Yeah.

Peter
01:06:16-01:06:22
So, yeah, fun movie. I'm so glad that you liked it as well because I really did. I really enjoyed it.

Eden
01:06:22-01:07:23
Yeah, I do have to give Thunderbolts the nod for they didn't empty the city before things broke Brad. Here's the thing. I was talking to the comic store today and I was like, it's really good. Superman's also pretty good. But you can see how the backlash to Man of Steel and the final scenes of Man of Steel made everybody go. Oh, we gotta get the people out of these scenes because then people are gonna be like, all this, so much danger. So many people would have died in the situation because that is what happens in Man of Steel. A whole lot of people die because it was two Kryptonians fighting at full strength through a city. So I understand why that is the move now. So, in both Superman and Fantastic Four, they were like, we got to empty the city. And it's also, like I said, I understand it is a cost-cutting measure. But I appreciated that in Sunday balls, not clear that city, that whole city got ate by the void. And if they hadn't fixed things, that whole planet would have got hit by the void.

Peter
01:07:23-01:07:24
Mhm.

Eden
01:07:24-01:07:28
And I appreciated that. Anyway, that's the last thing I'll mention. I still thought it was a really good movie.

Peter
01:07:28-01:07:29
Yep.

Eden
01:07:29-01:07:30
Curious to see more.

Peter
01:07:30-01:07:32
Yeah, definitely.

Eden
01:07:32-01:07:39
The stretching was gross, but not as gross as in the Young Gruffyd movie. It's gross.

Peter
01:07:39-01:07:45
Okay, that's real gross. That's real gross. So

Eden
01:07:43-01:07:52
Anyway, we'll be back in a couple of months or a couple of months, couple of weeks with our next episode. And until then, take care of yoursel