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What if…? The Watcher Broke His Oath? Episode 9
756 Plays4 years ago
J Scotty was calling by the Watcher once more to fulfilled disclosed secrets, so our hero Andrew stepped up once more to breakdown the season finale of Marvel Studios animated finale of What If...?
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Transcript
Introduction and Preview of Mississippi's Adventures
00:00:00
Speaker
You're invited to take a vacation from everybody else's vacation to a place where you can explore cypress swamps and magical gardens and see a 65-foot waterfall that once powered an old mill that you can walk through today. Or just float along the cool rushing waters of an old-fashioned swimming hole. See the places and plan your journey at visitmississippi.org slash outdoor adventure. Mississippi. Wanderers Welcome.
Podcast Episode Introduction
00:00:32
Speaker
On this episode of Animation Deliberation, we are talking about WHAT IF, Season 1, Episode 9. It has a name. Oh my god, what is the name of the episode? What if the Watcher broke his oath? Yeah, what he said. Right after these ads, he had no control over.
00:00:52
Speaker
One, two, three, four, it's animation deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of a favorite action animated series. Yeah. Yeah. All right, everybody. Welcome to another episode of animation deliberation. I am your host, Suher Ali. Jay Scottie once more has been called for the watcher. Um, I just stopped asking what he's doing at this point, but returning.
Guest Introduction and Previous Topics
00:01:19
Speaker
is our friend Andrew, who is a animation enthusiast, as I saw on the title of the episode that he came on last time. And I think that's a much better word than fanatic. Welcome back, Andrew. Well, thank you. I appreciate the rotating titles. I know it will never live up to J. Scottie's titles that he has off with the Watcher there, but
00:01:40
Speaker
Which apparently seems to evolve every week, so we don't even know what this week's title is. Just gonna let him grant himself that when he gets back. At this point, I think he just might be a watcher. He's just getting promoted all the way to the top of the ranks here. Ooh. So, like, when we see his eyes in the horizon, does he actually have glasses over them? Now, that's a site I would like to see another t-shirt idea for you, just J. Scottie as the watcher. We gotta give the goatee, too. Oh, yes. The full look.
00:02:08
Speaker
Welcome back. Andrew got to come back on to fill in for me last time because I am very behind and haven't seen all of Star Wars visions yet so if you guys want the instant reaction for that make sure you check it out. I'm sure he did a great job. Hopefully I won't need to take that back after I see it and actually listen to the episode but from my understanding he did a great job so be sure to check that out and hopefully we'll
00:02:34
Speaker
We'll have some more in-depth thoughts of that once I get around to watching it because I'm behind. Yeah, I mean it's a great show and we actually went fairly in-depth. I would call it more of an overview than an instant reaction. We went for a good hour and a half there just about to start with. Oh geez. Yeah, we did the whole thing. I got three episodes in. It's been entertaining so far.
What If Season 1 Narrative and Connections
00:03:02
Speaker
sneak peek number one still my favorite out of the three out of the first three that sounds about right yeah cool all right so let's flip to the the other at the disney animation which is what if this is the last episode of season one uh we finally had like our first set of cohesive episodes uh i like to think of it as this was
00:03:26
Speaker
the animated rushed equivalent of phase one of the MCU where everybody kind of got their own stories to kind of develop some character, develop some scenarios, set up the scene, and then these last two episodes really put it all together where these characters don't necessarily need to interact with each other at all in the future, but the option to expand their stories is definitely there as well. What were your thoughts on this episode and kind of the whole scenario as a whole?
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was really good. A great way to bring the characters together and I was not expecting for them to connect every single one of the episodes. I assumed it was just a normal anthology series. We were going to go week to week and nothing was going to connect. So it was awesome to, like you said, kind of.
00:04:10
Speaker
cap it off with a little phase one Avengers style or I guess Guardians of the Multiverse style big fight movie. My headcanon of the whole show now at this point is just the Watcher wanted to tell the story of the Guardians of the Multiverse. But before he could do that, he had to tell all of these individual stories to us, which was why he was doing it from a storyteller perspective at first.
00:04:33
Speaker
And then it became first person at the end. It was him kind of being our narrator of this entire, you know, multiversal event. And I thought it was really well done. They put a nice bow on it in the Marvel fashion. I wouldn't trust a lot of other shows to have, you know, taken their anthology and made it perfectly continuitous, but Marvel does good in Feige We Trust.
Comparing Episodes 8 and 9
00:04:56
Speaker
You know, I thought it was interesting. I was actually taking a peek at the credits. I think I saw Feige's name in it.
00:05:02
Speaker
I believe he's been in the credits on every episode at the beginning. I know it says executive producer Kevin Feige in the opening crawl, but I don't know how much of a hand he actually had in it or not. Yeah, I was kind of glancing through and when I saw a producer, I was like, okay, Feige's name's about to pop up and I thought something else, but again, I could have just missed it. So when I was talking to Jay Scottie about this yesterday, there's
00:05:32
Speaker
chatting. I came to the conclusion that I liked Episode 8 more than 9 for the same reason that I like Infinity War more than Endgame. Because of the nature of Infinity War where it's like I'm not sure how many people saw the ending coming of like the heroes losing
00:05:57
Speaker
And I feel like that was kind of the same vibe that I got that I wasn't expecting to watch an episode thinking that the watcher was going to get infiltrated and he's actually going to need another episode to fix this because everything else had been leaving us with cliffhangers, right? Which we got a lot of continuations to those cliffhangers too in this episode, which I thought was interesting. But as much as I loved this episode, the action and everything was insane. I felt the stakes were higher in episode eight.
00:06:26
Speaker
But overall, like the episodes coming together and everything was really cool and really well done. Yeah, I agree with what you were saying. I think you and I are in a very similar boat of we are people that enjoy finales that are.
00:06:40
Speaker
you know, characters talking to each other as opposed to characters fighting one another. So Infinity War has similar stakes as does like WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier. They didn't have big fights. They had big stakes that had to be talked through and understood. And I can kind of agree that I did not see it coming that the Watcher was going to pop back into Dr. Strange's bubble of universe there at the end and say, okay, I need your help. That was really awesome.
00:07:08
Speaker
I like to kind of lump these two episodes together in my head.
Episode Structure and Character Dynamics
00:07:12
Speaker
It almost just feels like a final movie, so to speak. They just have one continuous hour of first act. First act of the arc is the rise of Ultron. Second act is the fall of Owatu. And third act is the Guardians working with Owatu to finish off the final battle. That's kind of how I would like to think of it, because you need all of those parts together. They don't really work on their own as much.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was really, I was really fascinated with the dialogue at the end that Dr. Strange realized that a lot who actually saw that ending, he knew that they were going to end back up in that mirror dimension. I was like, he knew he was going to enter because that's what threw me off in the last episode was a dialog saying that he knew what was going to happen. So that was kind of like my calling of the episode that because I thought he was just like a silent note taker, right? Um,
00:08:09
Speaker
But then I was like, how do you know what's going to happen? But you didn't see this coming. Then I was like, oh, you did see it coming. And it actually was like you like you knew that you had to. I'm really weird when it comes to time travel and multiverse stuff, but that dialogue to kind of tie it back in was just kind of like interesting. Very interesting.
00:08:30
Speaker
It felt very much like Dr. Strange's plan in Infinity War and Endgame. He looked at all the timelines and said, here's what has to happen for us to win. I feel like Iwatu did a similar thing, and that's why he had this specific team of heroes, why he didn't need any of our 616 or MCU timeline, whatever you want to call them. Heroes, he needed these ones specifically because he needed Killmonger to betray them. He needed Thor to
00:08:57
Speaker
shoot stupid lightning and shout a lot. He needed all of those things to fall directly into place in the way that they did. So it felt very similar to the endgame. There's only one way this happens and I can't tell you or it's not going to happen. I'm glad you brought up Killmonger because he was kind of
00:09:16
Speaker
biggest head scratcher for me of like why he was relevant and I guess you did kind of just sum it up and kind of clear that up for me that's like if he wasn't there to contest Zola then Zola probably would have taken over and they would have been in the same boat all over again of a freaky android having all of the stones was that your understanding of it?
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of what I assumed is everyone had a part to play. And that's exactly what Killmonger's was. He knew that he was going to take the Vibranium head, try and get the nanobots, try and get the stones, and do as Killmonger always does, and be in the highest position of power. And without that, we wouldn't have had that amazingly animated scene of them fighting over the stones, kind of Harry Potter style with the colors. Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
So yeah, that was basically his whole purpose was he needs someone to trap them in the sphere because if you just trap some, I'm guessing, if you just trapped Killmonger alone with the stones, he would break out because he has enough power to go through multiverses in the same way that Ultron did. So you need this contesting of no one permanently owns the stones, it's between two powers. Yeah. A sphere and a sphere in an empty universe.
00:10:37
Speaker
It's a pretty crap place to be stuck in. Yeah.
Character Highlights and Favorite Scenes
00:10:40
Speaker
Did you see that meme of we just had a picture of this perfect Ultron that just said like you watch what if and realize like how
00:10:52
Speaker
How humble or how generous like Thanos actually was yes, I did actually see that and I was gonna bring it up It's an amazing thing to think Thanos was actually kind of being nice when he talks about this was my only plan was to take out half the universe He could have done so much more than that. Like it's like hey, I'm content. This is all I wanted I'm just gonna blow them up and just live my farm life. I'm happy Yeah, he could have literally just blown up the universe. He said no, I'm gonna use the powers for quote-unquote good
00:11:22
Speaker
And then Ultron just decimates everything. He's like, I'm bored. Give me something to do. Genocide isn't as fun as it looks. I don't know what to tell you. I wouldn't know. Neither.
00:11:39
Speaker
I did not expect to enjoy the Captain Carter. Wow, I cannot speak today. I did not expect to enjoy the Captain Carter Black Widow relationship as much as I did. And the fact that both of them got to go wild with their shields was so much fun to watch, especially like when one was going high, one was going low, and then both of them like bashed into him. Don't give them the second to think, oh, whoa.
00:12:06
Speaker
I did a lot of squealing happily during this episode in the same way that I did, you know, in the theater during Infinity War and Endgame of just like, wait, this is actually happening. This is awesome. The shield bashing was one of them, you know, the entirety of, again, Thor shouting and shooting lightning was great when zombie Wanda just showed up. Like, yes, I thought she was underutilized. I thought she was underutilized. I wanted to see her actually destroy one of the stones and then
00:12:35
Speaker
uh star lord come in and steal the other one you know like slowly start picking them off yeah i mean sticky fingers so when she just went er and her hair just dropped i was like no come on uh that was
00:12:48
Speaker
they did a lot of it felt like fanservice but it was fun fanservice like i was just excited and here for all of it but on the topic of you talking about the black widow and uh captain carter relationship that opening being the lumarian star and her taking the steps of uh captain america the winter soldier the movie not the tv show um them taking those first steps was just
00:13:14
Speaker
awesome in building this character be more of what I want to see giving her the grayed out stealth suit and then them poking fun of oh do you want to date someone in the same way that she was poking yeah cap it was it was beautiful all the way through it was so that's that's my favorite movie in the MCU
00:13:36
Speaker
are you and i just the same zu hair seems like it because that is also i would argue my favorite movie of uh all of the mcu as well yeah so that's my favorite and when it started off it was just kind of like all right we're gonna put this fantastic scene we don't need to give you the action scene afterwards but because we love you we're going to animate a fantastic
00:14:00
Speaker
fight sequence with Captain Carter. And I loved every second of it just as much as I loved that infiltration scene from the movie itself. It was so good. The only con was that Batroc did not need to talk at all and him just going, oh, I'm too fast. And just little comments like that. I'm like, shut up. Like, please just kick him in the jar or something right now. So he stops talking.
00:14:24
Speaker
So those little comments were just kind of annoying me, but then the whole like made you look Just cracked me up to she just like what are you scared? It's like no like turn around and you see on Patrick's face like I'm not gonna fall for that I'm not turning around to look at the giant baby in the sky
00:14:40
Speaker
I really wanted him to fall for it though. That would have just been the extra little bit. Um, I think the reason that he talked though is because they brought, um, I, I do not know how to pronounce his first name, but St. Pierre, the actual actor back to voice him. So, well, that bothers me because in both of his appearances, he spoke French. Why would he be speaking English in this? Like just have him speak French again. Didn't he speak English in Falcon and the Winter Soldier?
00:15:11
Speaker
Did he? I thought he was yelling on the phone in French a couple times. I mean, he spoke both. And the gentleman is French, which is why I don't know how to pronounce his first name. I'm guessing it's not George as it's spelled. It is George with a French accent. And I didn't want to offensively do that either, which is why I'm... No, I'll take the heed for it. I know that was an awful accent. Oh, that was an attempt at a French accent?
00:15:38
Speaker
Moving on. That wasn't a joke. I'm sorry. Anyhow, anyways, love that whole action sequence. I got so just I got so into it that I didn't even think that she was talking about the watcher like hovering over and all that, but it was cool how he was.
00:15:56
Speaker
Step-by-step interacting with everyone until he got to Thor which is like hey calm down listen to me He's still yelling
00:16:11
Speaker
And that was the mirror of the scene in Ragnarok, where he's going through the Willy Wonka tunnel to your imagination and just ends up yelling in front of the whole crowd of people. It was the exact same cut away. But then when it stopped, he was just like, oh, I'm in a pub like he's just so happy. He was and he got ale and beer and he continued to do the classic Thor. I'm done with a drink. Let me throw my cup down for this movie. And we got the Doctor Strange like just making a beer come up out of nowhere.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yep, I was disappointed it didn't keep refilling. Yeah, that's what I was waiting for just to. But they probably needed him to, like, keep up with the conversation a little bit. And for the longest time or the longest time being. However long it's been since the trailer for this first came out, I was like, what is it about him that doesn't look like our Thor and it was the lack of facial hair? I don't know why I just connected with me today. I was like, Oh, you are weird in this one.
00:17:13
Speaker
Like his armor is different, but he doesn't have a beard either. I was like, that's what it was. How did we not notice this? That's especially an end game. Like one of the highlights was the braided beard. And then I was like, oh, there's just no beard at all beard at all. Yeah. Because I was almost going to say he's got like a pointed chin and a long face. It's because we don't usually see his chin. I don't know if it's because he's like less mature than our Thor or whatnot. They just like gave him more of a baby face. Yeah. I mean.
00:17:43
Speaker
That could very well be it. Or maybe the beard doesn't smell like lavender so we had to shave it off. I had a date! I was going to shower! That line! So specific! We just now have fun Thor. Since Ragnarok they said we're gonna have as much fun as we can with this character and it's great. I guess it typically smells like ass Guardian.
00:18:19
Speaker
processing it took you what like what do I do in that moment like are you gonna have to bleep that out am I gonna be laughing at nothing what's no well we're keeping as is we're keeping it in okay I like me it in enjoy yeah oh we do not bleep out a good play on words
00:18:42
Speaker
Don't think you should be bleeping out any of our great jokes. I don't know what to tell you quote unquote great jokes We're having fun I think if you take out Like after lots of thinking I think if you take out these last two episodes The Thor episode may actually be my favorite overall Yes
00:19:05
Speaker
I definitely think these two episodes brought the show to great heights. A little behind the scenes, as soon as I finished the finale, I texted Zuhair and said, okay, now I wanna know what you think about this show as a whole in comparison to the others. Because I think as an anthology, it's okay, you enjoy some episodes, you don't. I think with this culmination of a finale putting it all together, it brings this show to really new heights. But I agree, without it, the Thor episode is up there.
00:19:33
Speaker
Personally, I might put the T'Challa Star-Lord episode above that. I did really enjoy that one. That one was fun. And you can't beat the classic Captain Carter. Might be hindsight bias because that was the first podcast I got to be on as well. So of course I'm gonna be excited about that one. And it's also, I talked to Jay Scottie about this, about how each, it's hard to set a favorite episode because each episode
00:20:02
Speaker
hits a different genre. Yes. Yes. So it's like it's like somebody presenting your favorite horror movie and your favorite comedy and saying like which one's better. Like it's hard to say that because it really is apples and oranges. And there really aren't too many of these episodes that fit that same genre per se.
Episode Genres and Emotional Impact
00:20:24
Speaker
So I think I mean, I think I love the Star-Lord episode. And that was my favorite. But I think there's like
00:20:32
Speaker
Timing involved to where we had the Star Lord episode and the three just super depressing episodes and then Thor coming in with that comedic vibe Yes, that pic so I may need to watch I may need to watch both of those together And then decide which one I like more. Yeah
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, and you bring up a good point with the sadness of some of the episodes that arguably one of the best episodes from a storytelling perspective is the Doctor Strange episode. I just can't foresee myself watching that a bunch of times and calling it my favorite because it's so heavy every single time that you have to watch Christine go through a dozen lives, it just weighs on you so I can't, oh, this is my favorite, I would watch it a bunch because
00:21:19
Speaker
it's a lot to sit with. So I agree not comparing them is almost better than comparing them for that exact reason of if you want to watch something sad, then I could give you my favorite sad episode. If you want something funny, I could give you my favorite funny episode. But they are getting such different notes. Like the zombies one is just this little ether of horror sitting in the middle. Besides the one scene in this episode where the watcher just popped up in the dark pub. Like, ha, I gotcha.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, the light flicker and he's just there and of course he has to be like huge too. It's not like he's like leveling with them. Yeah, to be bigger than Captain Carter is big. Yeah. I like your little dialogue. When
00:22:02
Speaker
Who was it that said that? Dr. Strange saying that he has Captain America. Yeah, that there actually was a Captain America. And she was like, Oh, I like to see that. It's like all of us enjoy seeing it. You truly aren't missing out. I mean, we've talked at length how much we all myself included would like to see the live action Captain Carter. Yeah. For those exact reasons of it's a possible sight to see. I want to see Haley Atwell do it justice.
00:22:29
Speaker
Even if it's like a little glimpse within Multiverse of Madness or something where they just like pop into a universe and she's just there in the suit. Which I do like the like Captain America's like stealth suit from Winter Soldier is probably like my favorite suit if it's true. So the fact that they actually like took that design onto her outfit as well was really cool. Yeah, it was. It's I
Speculations and Future Theories
00:22:54
Speaker
I want to see where this keeps going because we know that we have Captain Carter appearing in season two by all reports that we've gotten. So hopefully we're going to get more of our favorite scenes from that movie. I don't know if you want to talk about the post credit scene now, but I have mentioned it. Why not? So I'm thinking that's going to be our direct link to season two right there is. Yeah.
00:23:20
Speaker
I don't think it's gonna be the Steve that we know and love inside the crate. I'm guessing it's gonna be Winter Steve or the Shield Stomper, or basically that's gonna be her adversary in the Winter Soldier story that they're trying to tell. Someone put Steve on ice, brainwashed him, and sent him to the future.
00:23:47
Speaker
Cause he's got to be on ice in some capacity if he's younger. So why not just make him the adversary and let those two have to throw down and her have to be like, you know, but I loved you as opposed to you were my best friend. I could almost see the, the comic book run. Uh, I think it was around like civil war two where Steve Rogers was like a double agent and he actually was like captain Hydra.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yes, I don't know a whole lot about comics But I remember that being huge in the headlines of so many means evil so many memes off of that one. Oh my god Yeah, I would maybe go like okay what's going on here So I had to look into it a little bit But it was like yeah Steve Rogers was you know working with shield and he was an Avenger and this and that but it turns out He actually was a Hydra agent
00:24:44
Speaker
and he was brainwashed at some point so something like that would be cool where it's like he gets close to Peggy again kind of infiltrates the government a little bit and then just like wreaks havoc from there from the inside yeah because I mean in that universe arguably Hydra should have died when red skull got swallowed up by the tentacle monsters so someone's got to keep on the legacy and
00:25:07
Speaker
They brainwashed Steve to do it that that would be interesting, but I'm I have high hopes that we get more of Agent Carter, which is awesome Yeah, I mean it wouldn't surprise me if they just did an agent Carter show Or a Captain Carter show at this point. Yes, Captain Carter. Um, no, I don't think it would be the worst idea I think
00:25:31
Speaker
Her and Doctor Strange have probably gotten the most love from the fanbase, myself included, as for all of the characters. I think I actually saw an interview where they said there was talks of a T'Challa Star-Lord show possibly having happened, but obviously that's sadly no longer going to be in the cards, but they were talking about doing spin-offs already, so there is a chance.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, because I feel like they'd had the reserves about casting a voice actor for him. The murder mystery episode kind of reached its conclusion. Sure, you could do something else with zombies, but how much more?
00:26:16
Speaker
And then, yeah, you could party another part to the world instead of just Vegas. But overall, I feel like that was that is that is the story that kind of set up more possibilities for future stories.
00:26:29
Speaker
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00:26:56
Speaker
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00:27:22
Speaker
And I guess this is also a good time to segue as we talk about what else is on the horizon into my probably one negative of the show, or rather this episode, was the stunted shoehorn of Gamora.
Character Introductions and Story Impact
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, what was up with the whole skipping an episode thing? So I don't believe this has been 100% confirmed. I know there's an interview with the creator or writer of the show, Brad Winderbaum, I believe is his name, that said due to COVID restrictions, they had to cut this from 10 episodes to nine episodes.
00:27:58
Speaker
And one episode had to be pushed to season two. And he even teased it was going to be a little bit happier for Tony Stark because there was a lot of backlash that Tony Stark was the we killed Kenny of this show of killing him off. So he was like, we had another episode planned where Tony was a big part of it, but we had to push it to season two. I'm guessing that was this episode with Tony Stark and Gamora alongside each other that they had to push off.
00:28:28
Speaker
but at the same time she was still a part of the finale so they still had to include her part of the story so it just felt it felt a little weird to just throw her in there and say yep she's a part of this now you should already know what this stone crusher is and all of the other things that were important about her story it's gonna feel really weird to see it in season two but i believe we're going to at least get some explanation later which i am excited to know why we have Gamora teaming up with
00:28:56
Speaker
Hulkbuster Tony Stark in space with an infinity gauntlet Yeah, I love the The war paint that was all over the Hulkbuster too And it was a very determined Tony Stark to like a ready to fight like let's get at it like That's probably been like the the most no bullshit Tony that we've seen so far and of course when they got a couple seconds of it like no because Gamora didn't even had that much dialogue and
00:29:20
Speaker
and her infinity stone crusher reminded me of the the chest cannon that star lord had in the first guardians that they shot the power stone with oh yes yes it reminded me of that but like that didn't work either like it didn't actually destroy the stone just piss rolling it off even more i was like oh that was a good callback to that yeah
00:29:43
Speaker
And I think also when he was, uh, when the Watcher was giving the introductions, it was Slayer of Thanos was what he called, I think it was Gamora Slayer of Thanos or something along those lines, which has some implications to it. Thanos is not the big bad in a phase four as we're learning. Yeah. It's a pretty sick title. Yeah. Yeah. Thanos has been taken down pretty easily in all these, uh, renditions
Character Portrayals and Speculations
00:30:09
Speaker
of him in the show. He gets sliced in half. He gets turned into a zombie.
00:30:13
Speaker
gets killed by his daughter. He really is just a big softie. Yeah. There's only one universe where he's just a savage warrior. And it happens to be ours. Yep. Oh, sacred timeline.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, The Sacred Timeline is definitely gone now that we've seen so much of this and they have definitely made an effort to show how canon this can be. So yeah, I'm excited. And I stand by it. I watched Shang-Chi in theaters for the third time the other day. And all I could think about was that every time there was a transition scene, I want to see a live action or watch a silhouette just in the horizon. Yeah, and
00:31:03
Speaker
I know that wears Waldo with a lot to Yeah, where's watcher? I know no one could ever live up to Stan Lee, but we're obviously gonna not have Stan Lee cameos anymore Why don't we just throw in some watcher cameos and have him be our new little if you know You know thing for the Marvel fans sitting in the theater Yeah, cuz in the
00:31:24
Speaker
Was it Guardians 2 where there were like speed traveling through the galaxy and Stan Lee was talking to three watchers? Like, did some other fans do it? It's like, oh shit, those were watchers. Yeah. That is definitely something that like we knew what was going on before we ever saw Owatu and got the wonderful Jeffrey Wright to voice him. So now that we have someone already cast, let's do it.
00:31:50
Speaker
I need it. It was so beautifully. You don't even need any dialogue because it was so beautifully done. It was like just the eyes. You see just a little line of the head and a little bit of the cape and him just kind of like peering over. That's all you need. For sure. I know a lot of people wanted a Deadpool cameos every movie where just in the middle of the film, he just starts talking to the audience. It was like, nah, I wasn't a fan of that. I like this a lot more.
00:32:16
Speaker
Oh yeah. Speak of Deadpool, I was almost surprised that they did not use What If as a time to animate in a couple characters that we've recently acquired just to kind of give us a little litmus test somewhere, whether it was Storm or Wolverine or someone just to kind of be a new addition to the Marvel Universe a bit. Galactus was pretty awesome. Well, the Galactus nod, because I feel like that's more of a callback than it actually being Galactus.
00:32:45
Speaker
Cause it was still, um, it was still Ultron vision in that scene. Correct me if I'm wrong. I thought that was actually Galactus. Like they went into a universe and Galactus was like taking a chomp out of a galaxy and they disappeared before he did. No, I thought that was a Ultron vision, maximizing his size and taking a chomp out of it. But with the headpiece and the mandibles, it looked like, um, Galactus.
00:33:17
Speaker
Because if that was Galactus, I think I already kind of freaked out because I have experience with Galactus from, you know, the different video games and animated series that he has been a part of. And I'm just kind of waiting to get that on screen appearance. I think Galactus will be fantastic to see once that reaches the MCU, but I don't
00:33:38
Speaker
I don't believe it. I think you're right. Well, there you go. Crushing my hopes and dreams once more in another episode. It's what I do all too well. I don't know why you keep bringing me back here. I guess it's better than. You know, besides the Easter eggs and the eagle eyed things that I apparently notice such as that. Boo. I know, I know. Man, it looks a lot like him, but I see the I see the Mind Stone up top.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah. This voice actor did a really good job. It was James Spader impression. Like, I feel like obviously his voice would have been a lot better, but it did really good impression.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yes, Ross Marquand, he does a fantastic job in almost everything he does. He was our Red Skull in the Captain Carter episode as well as in Infinity War. He's done plenty of voice acting for Red Skull and Ultron actually in a number of the Marvel video games.
00:34:41
Speaker
He was pretty in his element when he did it, and I feel like this episode was his best coming of the Ultron voice. It felt a little bit more off in episode 8, and I feel like he really got it better in episode 9 here. Good for him. Yeah. Besides that, I think most of the cast of this episode was the original cast, though.
Voice Acting and Continuity Praise
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like in the opening sequence, like the names, they try to have it one at a time. I feel like it was going by so much faster just because they're trying to get so many in. Frank Grillo was his role. You said Bad Truck had the original voice. Yes. Oh, it was Cynthia K. McWilliams as Gamora. That was not. I can't remember her name. Zoey Zoldano. Zoey Zoldano. Thank you.
00:35:35
Speaker
And Lake Bell reprised her role as Black Widow. And... Fantastic job. I love her version of it. She adds so much more emotion to the character, you know? Yes, it's so sassy and perfect and, you know, the double call-out of, I have the sword, or I have the shield, you have the sword, and her having some sassy remark, whether, well, it's an arrow or knives. We like wordplay here, you know? It was...
00:36:01
Speaker
She just had the perfect sass that I could see Black Widow needing.
00:36:08
Speaker
I, it wasn't on purpose necessarily in my head, but I really liked the scene right at the end where they dropped Widow in the new universe to give her a fresh life. And Fury had the line, you're not my widow, but it feels like you have her spirit. It felt very, we don't have Scarlett Johansson, but you have the spirit of Scarlett Johansson. You brought spirit to this character. Again, not necessarily intentional, but was just,
00:36:38
Speaker
It was a really nice scene. I really I like that. I like that. And you got to see Captain America and Captain Marvel as kind of like the only two Avengers just doing their thing. Yeah, that was another one of those. I did not expect all of the eight episodes to be involved, but I still found a way to bring in that little world where the Avengers fell and just Nick. I was like, oh, I guess I'm not going to tie in like zombies in episode three. Those are pretty good standalone things, and then they just
00:37:07
Speaker
dumped literally dumped a bunch of zombies on them and just tied it up at the perfect bow by throwing in episode three. Well done, Marvel. And that's exactly why I said Marvel does it better than I think a lot of other people can do with anthology series. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:27
Speaker
I kind of want to know the ramifications of the Watcher dropping her in another universe though. He seemed very against too much meddling, but already just, I mean, he already broke his oath once. What's a couple more times of breaking the oath, I guess. Yeah. He probably just trusts that she's the perfect spy can just be like, no, I survived all along. I was just faking it to do this and do that and lure him and blah, blah, blah, you know.
00:37:51
Speaker
Spy things. Yeah, that is true.
Concerns and Appreciations in What If
00:37:54
Speaker
On that note, I was actually surprised that there was not a Men in Black style mind wipe before he sent them out to their university. Yeah, I was expecting that too.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, it felt like he was going to say, like, we can't let this get out that I exist and that the multiverse exists and that you guys can transcend universes. So we're going to do a little mind wipe. You guys won't remember this. It didn't technically happen, which is how a lot of shows usually get away with. I don't want to say sloppy continuity, but continuity that's all over the place like that. And, you know, they trusted that these characters were going to go back and just keep living their lives because then how do you explain the
00:38:34
Speaker
the universe with Killmonger, because they just broke into the palace to try to arrest him and try him or whatever. It's like now he just doesn't exist there anymore. He just disappeared. I mean, I'm gonna say that that universe is probably better off for it. Yeah, but there probably will be a manhunt and some confusion for a while. But yeah, there definitely are ramifications to the Watcher interfering and
00:39:01
Speaker
We've broken the multiverse up how many times in phase four? Let's just keep hammering away. As long as there's sacred timelines, okay. Do you think that he killed T'Chaka? Because at the beginning, when Pepper and Shuri were about to break in, he was just standing over the broken throne. I didn't want to think about that.
00:39:24
Speaker
Kind of crossed my mind right away. I can refer to the favor of just breaking your brain. If I had to guess, I'm going to say that the answer is yes.
00:39:35
Speaker
just because it seems like Shuri let the secret out and knowing to King Tachaka, he's going to try and probably peacefully arrest Killmonger for his crimes. And when he inevitably doesn't go peacefully, Killmonger is going to do what Killmonger does and take out the highest point of power so he can keep rising. And that was a full war zone that we saw with military helicopters and everything flying around. So unfortunately, I think Killmonger just continued on his rampage.
00:40:06
Speaker
pepper going to war with a skirt and blazer and heels and then this giant like cannon of a gun was like you had no time to change on that flight. Nope. None. Is that your vibranium pantsuit? Like what's going on? Yeah, you honestly think that Shuri would have outfit her or honestly, I feel like they could have just also given us Oh, no, I guess she couldn't have been rescue because there were no suits.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, because there was never an Iron Man. There was never an Iron Man, but I feel like sure he could have done something. It was cool that he was the one to be able to hack into the Ultra Android because he had his project of wanting like
00:40:51
Speaker
hive mind droid that blanketed the world or whatever and he was like, Oh, hey, I'm familiar with this concept. I absolutely love this version of Killmonger almost more than the first version. So I didn't, I wasn't here for that episode. But I will say the episode of Killmonger versus Tony Stark, I was full nerding out the entire time.
00:41:13
Speaker
And I loved it. For those of you who don't know, my background is I am a mechanical engineer. And I remember when the first Iron Man came out, me and all of my friends, like, your goal in life was to just be Tony Stark. Like, you wanted to have that tech. You wanted to have fancy holographic screens that you can, you know, crinkle up like paper and throw into a bin like he did in Iron Man 2.
00:41:35
Speaker
That was our dream. So getting to see this version of Killmonger that went to MIT, that likes anime, that just brought back all of these techie Iron Man vibes I absolutely loved. So this version that is smart enough to hack into Ultron, like I absolutely adore him so much. And yeah, it was some nice continuity that they said, yeah, this is a slightly smarter version so he can do all of these cool things like this. Yeah. And of course, the music forum was on point every time he came up.
00:42:05
Speaker
And you beat me to it. That's exactly what I was going to say, is his music is just... The music in Black Panther in general is arguably the best soundtrack in the MCU. Arguably. Anytime that they layer it in is just wonderful. Arguably, however, I want to know what your answer is then.
00:42:25
Speaker
No, there's just a couple ones that were pretty up there. No, it's not like I have a clear up top. I really like the music in Iron Man 3. I like Shang-Chi's music. Black Panthers was amazing. I'm still super annoyed that the perfect depressing piano tone Avengers theme song that was in the Black Widow trailers never made its way to the movie.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yes, like I feel like the soundtrack and the trailers were much better than like what we actually got in the film. And I was like, wait, I didn't get any of this music. I've been like anxiously waiting to download some of this stuff and like just never happened. Yeah, I mean, that's my one and only con with the MCU in general is their music is.
00:43:11
Speaker
a bit all over the place in terms of themes and stuff like that. And they play the main Avengers theme way too many times, in my opinion. But I digress. It's funny you say that because I was excited to hear it on the Helicarrier scene.
00:43:25
Speaker
it was exciting but it's like you watch back um like end game and how many times they play that main theme it's just oh yeah it was like on loop it was like think about playing the opening star wars fanfare every time something happens in star wars it would get a little redundant that's kind of how i've started to feel about
00:43:50
Speaker
the main Avengers theme, but they're getting better at diversifying. And like you said, it made an amazing scene out of the Helicarrier scene of, you know, the bar is only a metaphor anyway, or the door is only a metaphor. That felt like a weird callback to Westworld, if you've ever seen that, because there's a whole thing with Jeffrey Wright in Westworld in the door, where the door is a metaphor, because I had no other way of understanding why the door was a metaphor besides that. Nope. That's over my head.
00:44:19
Speaker
Well, someone out there is shaking their head yes at me, I hope. I still don't know what my number three spot is.
MCU Shows Ranking and Creative Process
00:44:27
Speaker
It's still Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and then I'm kind of juggling between What If and Loki taking number three. Okay, I feel that. My number one is still WandaVision, and then the other three, I think, are in a toss-up. I agree.
00:44:47
Speaker
If I had to do it right now, it's WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, What If, and Loki, I think is my order. That said, because I know there's a lot of people who absolutely adore Loki, I think Loki has the single best episode out of any of the shows that we've seen, period, because that final episode was just perfection in my opinion. Yeah. But all of Loki's appearances in What If were all gold as well. Yes.
00:45:16
Speaker
Like they let the voice actors just go nuts. Like Chris Hemsworth. I have to imagine he had so much fun in the booth. Oh yeah. The too long Viva Las Vegas. I've never heard that bad cry before. What do you want to attract on an unwanted detention? He's quite good at that.
00:45:45
Speaker
vision's big head like there there is life on this universe so much for preparing
00:45:52
Speaker
I was honestly waiting for a joke when he said there's apparently not enough intelligent life for them to just look at Thor. Specifically showing the science tattoo too. I love that they left that on him because that's the weirdest thing that they animated. It looks like a sticker that they just threw on their drawing. Intentionally bad too.
00:46:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, you know that they were having fun with that. And one thing about this whole show that I have never said that I've meant to say, I absolutely love the concept art at the end of every episode. Oh yeah. Such a nice homage to what these artists are doing. Concept art in general is one of my favorite things. They started doing that with the end of The Mandalorian, I think was the first Disney Plus show that had the concept art.
00:46:40
Speaker
And I just want concept art for everything now because it always looks so cool and so like just creative out of these people. I want to see what they've done. Well, for for every MCU movie, there's like an art of book. So there's an art of Iron Man. There's an art of Endgame. There's an art of Black Panther and all of them are so beautiful because it's Andy Park. Also follow her on Twitter.
00:47:03
Speaker
She's the one who does all the concept art for these characters So when a new movie comes out like she posts the stuff is like I can put it up now So she she works for Marvel Studios. She does all the concept art for these characters and the work is beautiful One of my favorite pieces is probably the concept art for Age of Ultron
00:47:21
Speaker
uh when this when it's like the zombie droids like and they're like in this red pit of like droids attacking them it's super gorgeous and i felt like Hawkeye falling into the pit of ultra and droids was kind of like a callback to that art uh so yeah check out Andy Park i know there's some other names but i just i can't pull it at the top of my head but she does a phenomenal job and it's really great work okay i am
00:47:48
Speaker
as Zuhair can see writing that down right now so I can go and follow that. It is. That's awesome to know. I appreciate so much of it. I really want a I know that they've done the behind the scenes. I can't remember. I think it's Marvel Studios Avengers or not Avengers assembled for all of the other live action shows. They've given us a behind the scenes special.
00:48:12
Speaker
I really want to see a behind the scenes special of What If so that we can just know more about the creative process, more about what these writers did, how they came up with the ideas, whether it was comic based or they just threw around questions. And I want to know what their animation methodology was, you know, whether it was or how much of it was hand drawn, how much of it was computer generated, because I believe they're using different star or different software than what the
00:48:37
Speaker
Star Wars Clone Wars team uses and I know it's all within Disney so I want to know why they're doing these things differently. And I'm sure most of our listeners because this is an animation podcast would enjoy that. So yeah, I just want to see more and I know there's been little snippets of the voice actors like I know there's some video of
00:48:56
Speaker
Now I cannot remember the actor's name for the life of me, Sebastian Stan in the booth, just having so much fun playing Bucky again and shouting and laughing and being like, oh no, wait, I was supposed to be angry and like having to shake off his voice lines. I want to see more of that for all of these characters. So Disney, if you're listening, give us behind the scenes. Yeah, that would be a lot of fun. All right, any last thoughts for what if episode nine?
00:49:28
Speaker
No, I think that was it. I think we gave the show a good, uh, good little send off there for now. I don't know if we know when the next season's coming, but. Yeah, we're definitely not shy of any content. Uh, young justice season four is finally coming out this year. So we're going to finish that up. We got the my hero academia movie. I think the season just ended too.
00:49:56
Speaker
Interesting things. It wasn't as mind-blowing as I thought it would be, but it was definitely a fun season, definitely enjoyable. A lot of stuff building in the future. Demon Slayer starting back up. Yes it is. Not that we're going to get to it anytime soon, but trying ever so hard to catch up on Boruto because there's a bunch of spoilers that keep popping up.
00:50:19
Speaker
on Facebook and apparently the story is just getting berserk and a lot of the original characters have heavy influence on what's happening right now. Boruto is basically the Young Justice of Anime right now and I need to get back into it. It is an amazing time to be a superhero fan or just a fan of all of these mediums because I know anime is slightly different.
00:50:42
Speaker
I'll say it's a great time to be a nerd. I wear that. It's a great time to be a universe building. Show fan. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to keep up with because there's a number of live action shows going on right now that I am behind on for sure. But it's oh, speaking of live action live action.
00:51:04
Speaker
universe building. The last James Bond movie is coming out this weekend and Haley Hobbs, Jay Scottie, and Matt Carroll have been doing coverage of all the Daniel Craig James Bond movie to build up to that on Pinterest Assemble.
00:51:23
Speaker
So go check that out because I need to start watching all the James Bond movies just so I could listen to that and watch the last one because I've only seen two of them and they weren't even like one after the other. So if you're a James Bond fan and a supporter of Panda Podcasts, check that out. That's awesome.
00:51:42
Speaker
Also, thanks to everybody who left Five Star Reviews for the contest. This is super awesome to be able to read through a lot of those. I know some people did it for the contest, but there was a lot who actually gave some awesome feedback on what they thought about the show. And on J. Scott's behalf as well, we greatly appreciate all that, and we will be reading through them soon.
00:52:05
Speaker
Yeah, I read through a bunch and you guys were really great and kind for them. I wasn't just reading through them on my behalf. I was reading through them to see what you had to say about these guys as well. You're really bored for a student. All right. Anything you want to plug? I think I kind of did everything on your behalf.
00:52:26
Speaker
Yeah, you plugged most of it. Like we said at the top of the show, I did get an awesome chance to sit with Jay Scottie and talk about Star Wars visions. So if you haven't listened to that and have seen Star Wars visions, go have a listen. I would definitely recommend it if you're any sort of a fan of Star Wars or of anime, it has a little bit of something for everyone. And we talked about how it has something for everyone.
00:52:48
Speaker
throughout that show so yeah give a listen there and then like I keep joking I'll just keep plugging animation to liberation because whenever you know whenever Awatu calls or whatever our excuses with the next show I'll probably be making my appearances I'm not gonna invite myself but I'm gonna say hopefully showing up for Young Justice
00:53:09
Speaker
Hint, nudge, whatever it ends up being. I'm excited for Young Justice, and I'm also a listener, so I'm going to be along for the ride along with you guys the whole time. All right. Well, appreciate you always coming by. Appreciate all the listeners for making the time to listen to us. Tune in next time, and as always, stay well.
00:53:35
Speaker
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Speaker
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