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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Rebroadcast)
166 Plays3 years ago
We're on hiatus until after the New Year, but to celebrate Spider-Man: No Way Home, listen to our spotlight on the first multiversal Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse!
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Transcript
Exciting Audible Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, Derek, guess what? Hit me with it. We just got a promotion with Audible. Audible, fantastic. I love Audible. Do you know what the cool thing about this deal is? What's that? If our listeners go to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod, they get a free trial with Audible. And do you know what they get with that?
00:00:22
Speaker
What do they get with that? Tell me. They get one free audiobook of their choice and they get two free Audible Originals, which is special content that Audible makes available free for all its subscribers. Are you kidding me? That deal is so good I may go myself and sign them. Do you think they let you keep the books after you're done?
00:00:42
Speaker
No, you're not gonna tell me they let you keep the books after you're done. Yes, in fact, you can go sign up for a trial and you can cancel before the trial ends and you get to keep the books you've already downloaded.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I don't see how you can beat that with a stick. Exactly, yeah. And you can, lots of great books, especially for fans of the show. You can listen to Super Gods by Grant Morrison, which is all about like how the superhero comics have changed and evolved over
Moving Plans and Marriage Insights
00:01:10
Speaker
time. Or you can check out Marvel Comics, The Untold Story. Which is a terrific book. I have that both in hardcover and I listened to that on Audible myself in my car while traveling back and forth.
00:01:21
Speaker
And there's also another similar book that's called Slugfest, which is about like the wars between Marvel and DC Comics. Oh, okay. So that's another one you got to check out too. So yeah, head on over to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod and start your free trial right now. You got one free audio book and two free audible originals and you can keep them even if you cancel before it's over.
00:02:18
Speaker
I took you longer than that. I see this spark in you. It's amazing. Whatever you choose to do with it, you'll be great. Our family doesn't run from things. You're the best of both.
00:02:49
Speaker
That's all it is, Miles. A leap of faith. Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Constantine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How are you doing today, Derek? Oh, I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing fine. Today was a beautiful day in Brooklyn. Sunshine, mild, uh,
00:03:18
Speaker
Early autumn temperatures, Patricia and I managed to get out and take some sun, ride around, do some errands. So in the words of the disgraced ice cube, today was a good day. Good, good. So it looks like there's a pretty good stuff going on over here. We're actually looking at, we had an appointment to look at some new places on Monday, so.
00:03:43
Speaker
So yeah, we're hopefully gonna be moving into a little bit of a bigger place. So the nice thing about that is I'll actually get my own office instead of having to split it with my wife in our bedroom. Always a good thing. You know what? I have found that the basis of any good marriage is that she has her space where she can go to and you can have your space. Yeah. You can go to. It's not good to be on top of each other.
00:04:09
Speaker
constantly. Patricia and I, we have a lot of friends that, well, we don't have them anymore because we got rid of them.
Spider-Man Movie Rumors and Speculations
00:04:17
Speaker
No, seriously, we did because they found it very unusual that when we're home, Patricia and I really don't spend a lot of time together when we're home. Usually I'm downstairs
00:04:30
Speaker
either writing or reading or doing what I'm doing. And then we'll get together to have lunch. And then she goes back in her room. I go back downstairs. And then in the evening, we have dinner and we watch a movie or a show together and everything like that. But what it is is that we're not constantly up under each other all day long. Yeah, yeah.
00:04:51
Speaker
We got a similar arrangement, even though we've got a limited space. Because my work schedule is erratic. Sometimes I work in the morning, sometimes I work in the afternoon, sometimes I work at night. So I actually do have downtime during the day when she's not here. So I got the whole place to myself.
00:05:15
Speaker
And if I'm working at night when she's home, then, you know, obviously she's got the TV alter herself and that stuff. And then, you know, usually about like eight or nine o'clock, she goes into the bedroom and, you know, plays on her phone or, you know, or goes to sleep early. And then I got the time to use the TV for her to just sit there and read comics or whatever in the main room all I want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you.
00:05:40
Speaker
Well, I don't know about anybody else, but this is how our marriage works. And this wise lasted 30 plus years is that, you know, you have that stage where you're like teenagers, you want to do everything together and you want to eat together and do everything together and everything. But then after a while you realize it's healthy to develop your own separate interests.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, be able to go do your separate interests and then come back together again as a couple, because now you genuinely missed each other because you've been away doing, you know, like me I've, I've been off in the Wild West or, you know, in 1930s.
00:06:17
Speaker
you know, whatever or some crazy place in my head. And it's good for me now. I come back to share reality with her. Yeah. Yeah. And we do that. Yeah, exactly. We do that too. And also I drive for most days, I'll drive her to work and pick her up too. So we get, we spend time talking in the car together on the way home and the way to work and that kind of stuff. And, um, and, and yeah, when we're home, like, you know, we all pretty much always eat dinner together and, you know, we watch like a TV show or a movie or something, and then she goes off, does her thing. And I do my thing.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, me, I find it weird couples that have to be up under each other all the time, but like I said, everybody works out their own marriage or relationship the way that it works for them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same way. Like I could not, I would not be able to be in a relationship with someone like that who wanted to do everything together. I lose my freaking mind. Oh, no. Oh, no. No. Yeah. Yeah. No. That would result in, you know, a murder suicide at the end.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, seriously, I mean, really, I like don't you have something to do? Yeah. So and anyway, let's see what else is new going on? Oh, ties into today. Apparently, did you hear the rumor about the latest rumor about Spiderman three?
00:07:39
Speaker
What, there's another rumor? There's another rumor that, well, it's been talked about for a while, but now it looks like it might be getting closer to happening. This thing is getting hot. It's like almost every day now there's a new rumor going on. Well, because we got the announcement earlier that, you know, Jamie Foxx would be back to playing Electro, and then that Benedict Cumberbatch would be cameoing as Dr. Strange in the third Spider-Man movie.
00:08:04
Speaker
That was the last one I heard. Right. And so we were speculating, you know, in our last episode, you know, maybe this means that they're going to be doing a Spider-Verse movie. And now it looks like they're going to get the latest rumor is that Toby McGuire and Andrew Garfield are likely to come back and to come back as Peter Parker in the third Spider-Man movie.
00:08:27
Speaker
You know what, I kind of like that. Because I don't know, maybe it's just me. I find it kind of weird that Dr. Strange would take over the mentor role that Tony Stark had in the MCU. Because Peter Parker is basically a technologically orientated guy. And if it was somebody else that was going to mentor him, I could even see somebody like Bruce Banner or somebody you know. Banner I could definitely see, especially the MCU's version of Banner.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah, you know, like some kind of, you know, technological background. Dr. Strange is, it's a weird, but if it's just for this movie, yeah, of course I'm, you know, I can go for it. That's why, that's why I think it lends more creatives to the Spider-Verse idea because it would, you're right, in a normal setting, it wouldn't make much sense for Dr. Strange to be mentoring Peter Parker, but
00:09:19
Speaker
if you're looking at it and he's mentoring Peter Parker because he's got to help him figure out the multiverse that makes more sense. Exactly right so yeah I mean you know listen and you know me you know me I am a wait and see type of guy because like you said we hear these rumors now these rumors are coming
00:09:40
Speaker
fast and hot and heavy. And there's a lot of people out there in the internet that have nothing better to do with their time all day long than come up with these. Oh, I mean, that's what we got this coverage entire business model.
00:09:57
Speaker
Oh, please. I had to tell my wife, because she was posting links to it. And I said, could you stop doing that? I said, those guys wouldn't know if water was wet. I wouldn't believe them. Yeah. So Sony has released a statement. They said it's not confirmed, but they wouldn't say anything more than that. So it's not an outright denial, but it just means that if it is going to happen, they're talking about it.
00:10:24
Speaker
Well, they're being cautious. And so somebody is actually signed on the dotted line. But I mean, we are still in the middle of a pandemic. And I'm sure that that factors into how they're going to proceed. You know what, Beau? If they do a live action Spider-Verse, like my whole thing is the one casting, you know what casting I definitely would, you got to have in there for me? Who's that? Is Emma Stone as Spider-Gwen.
00:10:55
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was thinking about this last night too, because, you know, a bunch of our old buddies from our fanfic days, they started up a Discord server. So been catching up with a bunch of people and talking comics and movies and that stuff on there. And we were talking about this idea, this Spider
Fanfic Community and Spider-Verse Movie
00:11:15
Speaker
-Verse, live action Spider-Verse movie last night. And it got me thinking, do you remember who played Flash Thompson in the first Spider-Man movie?
00:11:24
Speaker
Was it Chris Pine? No, not Chris Pine. It was Joe Manganiello. You know, he played Deathstroke in the cameo at the end of Justice League. Oh, okay, yeah, okay. Now, I'm thinking, yeah, I was thinking about something completely else. Excuse me, okay. Manganiello, that's how it's pronounced. Right, that guy. Terrible names, yeah. But yeah, so he played Flash Thompson in the original Spider-Man movie.
00:11:52
Speaker
And you know what I think would be cool to see is, you remember in the comics when Tom Flash was working for the government and they gave him the Venom symbiote? You give, you have him play that version of Flash when he's merged with Venom. I think that would be badass. Yeah, he, they was Agent Venom, right? That's what they're called. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That would be like, that'd be another thing that would never, probably never happen, but it's something I'd love to see.
00:12:19
Speaker
because they established in the last Spider-Man movie that, what is it? The J. Jonah Jameson version from the Sony movies is in the MCU. Well, it's not the same version. It's just the same, it's the same actor, but it's not the same character because this time the Daily Bugle in the MCU is like an info war style internet channel. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I saw it.
00:12:47
Speaker
when in preparation for watching this movie, I watched this and I also watched that, Spider-Man Far From Home, because I had seen that. And that was like the little teaser at the end of the thing. I was like, oh shit, J. Jonah Jameson. Did I see Far From Home?
00:13:09
Speaker
I don't know, I saw far from home here in Japan, I think. But when I saw that, they had J.K. Simmons up there as J. Jonah Jameson on that big screen TV in Times Square. I lost my shit. Oh yeah. They kept a good lid on that. They sure did, because I didn't hear anything about it. And I said, oh my God. I said, man, that can't, because to me,
00:13:33
Speaker
When you want to talk about perfect casting, I honestly can't. The only other character, the only other person that I could have seen playing that role would have been Stan Lee himself. Yes, yeah. Because I always got the impression that J. Jonah Jameson was like Stan Lee poking fun at himself. I could definitely see that. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, making him into an Info War style guy, that was just genius.
00:14:04
Speaker
I absolutely love that. But yeah, that cameo. I have to admit, like I said, and which I will no doubt get into in here before Pete would be, you know, cause during the course of this episode, I'm sure people will be demanding that you get a new co-host. But that was a Spider-Man movie that I enjoyed. Matter of fact, I enjoyed Far From Home more than the previous one. Yeah, I liked it a lot too. I thought it was, I think, yeah, Homecoming. Yeah, I think I enjoyed it more than Homecoming as well.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't care for homecoming was, yeah. I loved homecoming, but I do agree that far from home was better.
00:14:43
Speaker
Homecoming, you know what? Okay, I'm sitting there watching Homecoming, right? And I'm watching it, and I'm watching all of these great scenes with Michael Keaton as the vulture scavenging alien technology to pull off crimes and do mercenary shit and whatnot. And you got a shield, you know, is warning him off and everything. And I'm sitting there saying, okay, that's the movie I want to see.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. There is a lot of potential in that. And just like the way they reinvented Vulture like that was amazing. Oh, exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm sitting here saying, and it's Michael Keaton, which was brilliant. And I'm saying, OK. And then we find out that he's a family guy. He's this crazy supervillain, not even the crazy supervillain, who has one of the best motivations to be a supervillain. Yeah.
00:15:32
Speaker
You know, and I just dig the idea that he's going all over the country scavenging all this alien technology that's been left around and building all it. And, you know, he's retrofitting it and doing all this crazy stuff with it. And Shield is out there. They kind of know what he's doing. Okay, well, if they know what he's doing, why aren't they shutting him down? And they got to deal with him going on the side. And I'm sitting here saying, you know what? That's the movie I really want to see. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:59
Speaker
I mean, I do love Homecoming, but you're right. I would love to see that movie, too. And, you know, in in another world, like if I could have seen that being a plot of like Iron Man 4.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the vulture is still there. He's still, you know, they didn't kill him off. He's still out. He's still alive. So who knows? Yeah. All right. So anyway, but that's a good segue into what we're talking about today, which is Into the Spider-Verse,
Praise for 'Into the Spider-Verse'
00:16:29
Speaker
which was my pick. And this movie, God, this movie made all the money and it made everybody happy.
00:16:38
Speaker
I do not know one person who had a bad thing to say about this movie. This movie made so much money. God came to Disney Marvel for a long time. Can you speak, can you spare some change. That's how much I mean, you know,
00:16:58
Speaker
You wouldn't think that it would be possible for a movie to make that much money. No, no. I mean, it made $90 million budget, $375.5 million on an animated movie. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about an animated movie. If it was a live action one, I could say, OK, yeah, yeah. But an animated movie making that much money, that meant that not only a shitload of people went to see it, but a shitload of people went back to see it and brought somebody else with them.
00:17:27
Speaker
And if they didn't pay for their ticket, that person paid for their ticket. Yeah. I had to wait to see this because it wasn't out in theaters here in Japan at first. And everybody was talking about it in the West. And when it did come out to theaters here, it was already, it was only in a dubbed version because it's animated movies. So it's mostly considered to be for kids. So they didn't have a subtitled version. So you couldn't see it with the original audio in the theater.
00:17:56
Speaker
And so then I had to wait until it came onto iTunes. So then when I finally saw it on iTunes, man, even with all the hype, because I was nervous, because you know how when something gets hyped up and everyone's telling you for months how amazing it is, you finally watch it and you're like, eh, it's not that, it's okay, but it's not as good as everyone said. Exactly. This was not the case, right? Even after months of hearing people hype this up, it still blew me away.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, and as I told you, I'm not that much of a Spider-Man fan. So I really had zero interest in seeing this. And especially after all the hype that I heard from people,
00:18:36
Speaker
And I said, well, of course, Spider-Man fans, you know, they don't care, you know, they're hyped. But then I talked to other people who really weren't into superhero movies, who really weren't into Spider-Man, who really weren't in animated movies, and like they had taken like their nephew or
00:18:54
Speaker
you know, they went with some kids on like some trip or something like that and they saw it and they flipped over it. Yeah. So now I said, okay, now I gotta pay attention. Cause people that I know who have no connection to this stuff at all are telling me how fantastic this movie is. Sat down from Netflix and watched it. And I said, you know what? This is the spider. If I had seen this movie at the right age when I was 12 years old, I would probably be wearing a Spider-Man t-shirt right now instead of a Captain America one.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, so now the genesis of this, it goes all the way back to the around like 2008 2009 or so when they were they were talking about
00:19:35
Speaker
you know, Sony wanted to reboot the Spider-Man movies and someone, I think it was Mark Bernardin wrote an article saying like, there's no reason Peter Parker can't be black. And he was saying, you know, he grew up in a working class neighborhood in Queens, you know, his parents are dead. He's just being raised by his aunt. He's like, that's a, that's a story that could easily apply to, to a black kid as well as a white kid. And
00:20:01
Speaker
like anything, whenever you talk about race and comic book characters, it broke the internet in half. But then there was talk, like, because Donald Glover, who was in community at the time, he was expressing interest. He's like, look, I love Spider-Man. I love comic books. I would love to be able to play Peter Parker in a movie.
00:20:25
Speaker
And so that started this whole campaign where people like, they should cast Donald Glover as Spider-Man. And then Marvel and Brian Bendis were looking at this. And at the time they were planning this big crossover in their ultimate comic book universe called Ultimatum. And they had an opportunity to do something big. And they thought, well, you know what? We've already got Peter Parker in the main universe.
00:20:51
Speaker
why don't we kill him in the ultimate universe and replace him with this young black kid? And that's how Miles Morales was created. And he came in and, you know, huge positive reception. Everybody loved the guy. And then after that, he eventually ended up coming. He was one of the few things from the ultimate universe that ended up making up the jump over to the main universe.
00:21:17
Speaker
And then eventually, you know, he ends up in, into the Spider-Verse and becomes the main character in this movie. And you know what? I'm glad you touched upon that because as you well know, that's one of the bugaboos that I have. And I think that's the main reason why I fell in love with this movie so much is because of Miles Morales. And here's why.
00:21:43
Speaker
When people talk about, okay, first of all, let me just say flat out folks and Perry, this is where you may have to find a new co-host. I am not a fan at all of race switching. I do not go for this thing with, well, let's make Batman black or let's make Superman black or let's make you better. I don't go for it because there are plenty of black heroes out there who were created as black heroes.
00:22:11
Speaker
who if work and time and energy and attention from comic book fans who pride themselves up the wazoo that they are so woke and they love diversity and all of this other BS that they love to espouse, if they supported those characters, yes, they would be as popular as Superman and Batman and whatever. Now,
00:22:34
Speaker
That is not to say that Batman can't be black. Of course Batman can be black. Bruce Wayne can't be black, though. Right. Create a new character, a black one, who, you know, for whatever reason, takes over being
00:22:50
Speaker
Batman, same thing with Superman. Yes, you can't have a black Superman. He just can't be Kyle L for Krypton. In fact, they do have a black Superman in the Earth 2. When DC did the New 52, they had an Earth 2 book with basically that version of the Justice Society. And they had a black Superman double checking on his name.
00:23:18
Speaker
Well, they did too. They did, there's one character, there was Calvin Ellis who was kind of like, this was from an alternate universe Superman where all the like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, all of them were black. And Calvin Ellis was basically president of the United States and looked suspiciously like another black president that we may have heard of before. Yeah, suspiciously. But again, they created a new character.
00:23:49
Speaker
In my mind, okay, of course you can have a different Spider-Man. You have as many guys calling Spider-Man as you want. What I object to, strenuously, is that you just give Peter Parker a deep, darn tan and say, okay, well now Peter Parker's black. No, Peter Parker is his own character. Let him have his own character and his own identity. And you create another person
00:24:13
Speaker
who inherits the role of Spider-Man and let us see him as he becomes Spider-Man, same way we saw Peter Parker. And that's what they did in this movie. They gave you this African-American Latino kid who has a whole totally different vibe from Peter Parker because he has a family, first of all.
00:24:33
Speaker
You know, he lives, you know, in our time now. Peter Parker, you know, was a product of the 1960s, really, you know. But you have this character who has interests and thoughts of a young man of today. Yeah. And we see him interact with- Also, just as a- Well, go ahead. Just wanted to quickly mention that the other guy that I was thinking about, the black Superman, is Val Zod was his name.
00:25:02
Speaker
He was in the Earth 2 comic books. That sounds familiar. Yeah, yeah. So just wanted to throw that out there. Anyway, sorry to interrupt your... No, no, no, no. Please interrupt me because I was pontificating. Basically, all I'm just saying is that, yeah, you can have a... Like when they did like, okay, Iron Man, Jim Rhodes, he took the suit for a while and he was Iron Man. Or Green Lantern, you've had John Stewart.
00:25:29
Speaker
Right, you didn't make Hal Jordan, you didn't just wake up one day and say, okay, bam, Hal Jordan is black now. No, they created John Stewart, who ultimately, and I think probably became way more popular than Hal Jordan. Oh, I think, yeah, I think that's definitely the case. I mean, you have, and I remember, I think it was pretty sure Neil Adams was the one who was, he was complaining about this when they did,
00:25:55
Speaker
uh when they cast Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan he said you've had a generation of kids that grew up watching Justice League on TV with John Stewart as Green Lantern so why now that you're making a Green Lantern movie would you not make it about John Stewart? Yeah yeah exactly exactly my point you have a whole you have a whole generation that for them
00:26:19
Speaker
you say Greenland and they said, oh yeah, John Stewart. They don't say how Jordan, you know, how Jordan is like old time is like me. They go back and that's oh, oh, or even going back even further, Alan Stewart. Yeah. Which is why one reason that I like this idea that they say that HBO Max is going to be doing a Green Lantern series and they're going to be focusing on all the different Green Lanterns. It's not gonna be about just one.
00:26:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think Kyle Rayner, or not Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner is gonna be like the main star, but they're gonna have a lot of, but it is gonna be more of an ensemble cast.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, which is the beauty of that concept. I mean, the Green Lantern concept, because you can have anybody be a Green Lantern, as long as they get a Green Lantern ring and they're Green Lantern. Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking here. Here are all the characters, speaking of, all the characters confirmed for the Green Lantern Corps series. It's, there's Alan Scott is going to be in it. Jessica Cruz, who's a newer Green Lantern. Simon Bass also, huh?
00:27:26
Speaker
Oh, because you were thinking of John Stewart. Oh, okay. So you just kind of mixed them up that way. Yeah, Freudian thing. Yeah, I do that all the time. So Jessica Cruz, Alan Scott, Simon Baz, Guy Gardner, Sinestro, Kilowog, and my boy Kyle's not on there. I don't know why.
00:27:49
Speaker
Really? I'm surprised because I think that right behind, I find that if you talk to a comic book fan of a certain age, you're either going to get Kyle Rayner or Jon Stewart. That's what they're going to say. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. People from my generation. I mean, like Kyle Rayner was our Green Lantern.
00:28:06
Speaker
Right. No, every generation has its own Greenland, which is how it should be, just like every generation deserves its own Spider-Man. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Which is one reason why I enjoyed this movie so much, because, yeah, this doesn't take away from the Spider-Man that I grew up with.
00:28:24
Speaker
You know, he's still there, but this is a new Spider-Man for a new generation, which is how it should be. Yeah. These characters should be reinvented and reinterpreted for new generations that come along. And the nice thing about, oh, well, first, before I get into that, I wanted to, because you were talking about how you don't like the race switching of characters. So what did you feel about Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury? That didn't bother me.
00:28:48
Speaker
OK. No, it didn't bother me because it was clearly stated this is the Nick Fury of another universe. OK. So in another universe, you know, the ultimate universe, there's no reason. And also, since I knew it was going to be like, you know, the whole MCU thing and stuff like that. Well, see, that's the movies. That's a separate. That's a separate thing. OK. You know, so it really didn't bother me.
00:29:15
Speaker
at all that because, you know, Marvel has done jerked around the Nick Fury character so much anyway that I lost interest in him, period. But no, but you know, if you say to me, okay, this is Nick Fury, but he's Nick Fury from an alternate world, a different dimension or whatever, oh, okay, well then there's no reason why he couldn't be, you know,
00:29:45
Speaker
female, you know, I mean, like a female Nick Fury. Yeah. I mean, what I object to is when you take the core character. Okay. Again, like if you take like Bruce Wayne and you say, okay, well, bam, now Bruce Wayne is black. Well, you're invalidating 60 years of that character's history now.
00:30:04
Speaker
By saying that he's by now if they say he was asked Eskimo if he said he was that's why I like the idea of when they briefly did the Batman incorporated thing. Yeah. Where Bruce Wayne was pretty much franchising out the Batman identity to guys all over the world.
00:30:21
Speaker
and that's how we actually got a we got a black batman we got a batwing out of that. Exactly so now you could have okay say you want to do okay let's do a mexican batman okay you got one there's a mexican guy goes to Bruce Wayne and said listen i want to be batman in mexico fine here's your union card here's your suit here's your instruction book
00:30:42
Speaker
Bah. But to me, that's how you do it. You create a new character and give that character their own history, their own life, their own supporting cast. You build that character from the ground up. To me, it is the height of laziness when you have a character that has been established for all of these years. And really, all you're doing is that you're just capitalizing on the popularity of that character as it is. Right.
00:31:09
Speaker
To me, really, that's all you're doing. When you just say, OK, well, now there's so and so. Well, wait a minute. How did they get that way? Did they just wake up? Well, we're just going to forget everything that happened to this character before. Instead of doing the work, like I said, that Bendis did, making Miles Morales his own character.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah. And to me, that's how you do it. And I know a lot of people probably listen to this or, you know, every time they hear the name Bendis, they start feeling their lunch come up. But you know what? The guy's done some stuff I absolutely hate. I will never in my life understand what Marvel was thinking when they gave him the Avengers and gave it to him for so long.
00:31:58
Speaker
He's done some good stuff. Like his Spider-Man work, his ultimate Spider-Man work was really great. And the stuff he did with Miles Morales, you know, perfect. Perfect setup for the character. Amazing work developing him, building up his world and all that. And yeah, you know, I got nothing for praise for him for Miles Morales. And also some other stuff like Jessica Jones as well. He's responsible for that. Yeah, Jessica Jones, yeah. You know what? Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
You know what? I'm not his biggest fan in the world, but you know what? 72, one about the guy. The guy sure as shit ain't lazy. No, definitely not. He puts in the work. He just doesn't take a character and say, okay, bam. Now they're black. Yeah. No, he doesn't do that. He puts in the work and we're talking about work of years. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:44
Speaker
And this was, he's a unique Spider-Man, right? They didn't just basically take Peter Parker's basic background and just slap it on to Miles Morales, right? I mean, he's got a unique backstory, a unique upbringing. He's got, you know, his parents are both still alive. He's got a Puerto Rican mother, a black father who's a policeman. He's got this ne'er-do-well uncle who he kind of looks up to. He gets into this,
00:33:11
Speaker
this charter school through a lottery system. So it's a very different kind of world from the one Peter Parker comes from, even though they're both in New York. Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about. This is a brand new character that we have with a whole different dynamic. OK, you take Peter Parker and you wake up one morning and you say, OK, well, he's black. OK, but what has fundamentally changed about the character that we knew?
00:33:42
Speaker
That's like the same thing as, you know, I don't know. I can't even come up with an appropriate metaphor without resorting to profanity. No, really, because I find it offensive when people, and black people are guilty of this too. They say, oh, why don't you make James Bond black? No, you don't make James Bond. Well, why can't James Bond be black? James Bond can't be black because he's James Bond.
00:34:11
Speaker
If you want a British black super spy, then create a black British super spy. Yeah, yeah.
00:34:18
Speaker
You know, and I don't know, it's a subject I realized that it's just me folks. And, you know, you just have to realize that that's just me. I know a lot of people don't see it as being a big thing where they say, well, this is necessary in order for, you know, the character to grow and develop and everything. No, it's not. It's just you just wanted to slap a fresh coat of paint and sand off the serial numbers and claim it's brand new.
00:34:46
Speaker
Your hijack of the car is what you're doing. You're committing grand theft auto. Really, that's all you're doing. Instead of you going in the garage and building yourself a brand new car, you're just stealing an old car, giving a new coat of paint, you know, filing off the numbers and then presenting it to the world. You take it out to the showroom. Oh, here you go. I got a brand new car. No, you don't.
00:35:12
Speaker
you have a card that you stole. Right, exactly. Yeah. No, you make some really good points there. And like, I think there, I don't, I don't mind it as much if they, you know, if they cast
00:35:25
Speaker
if they change a character's ethnicity when they're adapting it to a movie or whatnot, especially if that ethnicity is not integral to that character. Like you said with Bruce Wayne, that's a prime example, right? You can't have Bruce Wayne coming from generations of money as a black man in America unless you completely change around if you sit in a completely alternate version of American history.
00:35:47
Speaker
Right. You've got, there is a whole other dynamic that goes along with Bruce Wayne being black. And yet, there is no reason why Bruce Wayne can't be black, but you just can't just erase everything we know about the character. You have to build him up from the ground up. And if you're going to do that,
00:36:06
Speaker
then why not go the extra two or three steps and just create a brand new character? It takes over being Batman. It's not that hard. What really isn't? If you call yourself a writer and if you have sufficient talent and imagination and are willing to just put your butt down in the seat and do the work, you can do it. Yeah.
'Into the Spider-Verse' Movie Analysis
00:36:30
Speaker
All right. So let's jump into the movie now.
00:36:33
Speaker
I will be submitting my resignation at the end of this episode. No, no, no you're not going anywhere.
00:36:39
Speaker
All right, so anyway, so first off the movie, I love the opening of the movie, right? It opens up with Chris Pine as Peter Parker and saying like, I'm the one, the only Spider-Man and he talks and like all the merchandising stuff he's done. He's got his own cereal, he did his own Christmas album. I want that Christmas album. I think that they might sell it. I think they have it because they had some of the tracks playing over the credits.
00:37:09
Speaker
In fact, one of the songs that ends with like, I don't know why I agreed to do this. And also, but also they have all these things from the spider from the the radio movies, right? They've got like the the iconic kiss and all that they've got. And they even got the dance scene from Spider-Man three. Oh, yeah, they've got that they got they got the original Spider-Man logo from the 1960s cartoon.
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And they said, you know, he's like, I got an awesome theme song and they spell and they play the original Spider-Man theme song. Mm hmm. Yeah, it was all that. It was it was so much fun. Just like just watching that alone. Right. As soon as you see that, you know, you're in that from that opening, it just grabs you and it doesn't. Yeah, it's just the whole tone. I mean, you know, for the movie, like you said, if that opening doesn't grab you, then, you know, turn it off and I don't know. Go watch. I don't know. The Dark Knight Returns.
00:38:01
Speaker
I mean, if you're not laughing and just having a good time as you watch that, as you watch that intro, I'm sorry, but you got to get a sense of humor. Because, you know, you got to find out who took the fun out of your life because that is just, it just totally sets the perfect tone. It tells you exactly what you're going to get from this movie. And it's just so well done, so brilliant. And this is one of the most
00:38:29
Speaker
I gotta put this. This is one of the most superhero movies I've seen in recent years. It's just pure superhero shit. It really is. It doesn't slow down for a minute to explain a damn thing in this movie, but you don't care.
00:38:49
Speaker
Okay, it's the thing that most of the concepts that are in this movie, if this movie had been made like 20 years ago, they would have stopped the movie in this track every couple of minutes. Oh, hell yeah. This movie would never even gotten made 20 years ago. I mean, the producers would be like, what? You're gonna have how many Spider-Man characters in this movie? No, you can't do that. You can't have alternate realities. People aren't gonna understand that, right? Right. But they just went full on with this and they're like, and Sony's like, go for it, do it.
00:39:16
Speaker
Well see, now we've got a generation that's a lot more hip. You've got people that grew up watching what? What was that show? Sliders. So if you've seen Sliders, you're familiar with the concept of alternate worlds and all that kind of stuff.
00:39:32
Speaker
you know, treats his audience says, okay, the people that's watching this are smart, hip, they've got 20 to 30 years of pop culture behind them. So they're gonna get all of this stuff. So we can just concentrate on just pure story, which is what they do. And more recently, right? I mean, you had the flash TV show, which introduced the concept of the multiverse in live action superhero stories, which at the time, I remember when they had that,
00:40:00
Speaker
they had that the end of the splashes first season and you see Jay Garrick's helmet there and you're like oh the multiverse exists right and then when they when they announced and I thought that was just going to be it right it was just going to be that little teaser and they were never going to touch it but then they announced yeah season two we're going into the multiverse like
00:40:24
Speaker
I never thought I would see that on a TV show. Well, like we said in our episode, did we ever think that we were going to see crisis on Infinite Earth? Hell no. Yeah. On TV, no one. On Live Action TV, yeah. Yeah, on a live action weekly TV show, even.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah. But again, that just shows you how mainstream superheroes are now that, yeah, they say, you know what? We don't have to explain none of this shit to these people. They'll get it. Yeah. Come a long way from the days of Nicholas Hammond's rope webbing. Oh, Lord, have mercy.
00:41:00
Speaker
I was hoping that they would have given him like a voice in here or we would have seen- You know what, I was gonna say, if they do end up doing this live action Spider-Verse movie, dig up Nicholas Hammond, see what he's doing and have him come in as an old Peter Parker.
00:41:14
Speaker
He was in the last Quentin Tarantino movie, believe it or not. Really? He was. Yes, he was. He was in one supportive time on Hollywood. He was the director of the TV show that the Leonardo DiCaprio character was trying to get on. Yeah. Yeah. And that was Nicholas Hammond. Wow. Yeah. I'm just looking up his picture now. He looks just like a TV anchor.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, look at his picture. He looks like a guy who should be anchoring the nightly news or something. Yeah, I'm trying to think because the director that he's playing is one that was fairly well known back in the 60s. But he wasn't just playing like just some director. He was actually playing like a character, a guy that really lived a real life, a director of Westerns and TV shows back then.
00:42:04
Speaker
If I recall, but yeah, that was Nicholas Hammond. And I didn't realize that that was him until I got home and I wrote my review of the movie. I said, wait a minute, Nicholas Hammond. Is that the Nicholas Hammond? And I said, oh shit, of course now I got to go out and buy the Blu-ray so I can look at it just for that scene again. Which I probably did. Yeah, so yeah, that'd be cool. Bring him back and bring the Japanese Spider-Man too as well.
00:42:33
Speaker
I'm trying to remember the guy, the actor's name for that because he was awesome. The guy who did that. I've never seen it, but see, again, we see that. Yeah, that they did fool around with other Spider-Man. Oh, that was Shinji Toto was his name. Okay.
00:42:57
Speaker
It was, it's so over the top, right? It's like, you know, when you think of like the Japanese superhero TV shows, right? Like the Power Ranger, the stuff that Power Rangers came from. It started with Spider-Man.
00:43:14
Speaker
Oh, okay. And so it's like, oh, like Spider-Man's got a, he's, it's got nothing to, the only thing he has in common with the Marvel character is the costume. Everything else is different, right? He's like the guy who becomes Spider-Man. He ends up getting his powers from an alien from the planet Spider. He has his own spaceship. He has his own giant robot and he identifies himself as the Emissary of Hell.
00:43:41
Speaker
So I'm guessing that this character was the inspiration for the Japanese girl in this one, Genji, the one who's got the spider robot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.
00:43:53
Speaker
She was partly, yeah, well, I mean, that was inspired by anime in general as well too, right? Oh, okay. The idea of, you know, you got this little girl who's riding around in a giant, in a giant Mac and all that kind of stuff. So that, yeah, that's like very animated. Well, all of that also, it comes from the Spider-Verse comic book that Dan Slott did. So he created, I'm pretty sure he created a lot of these characters. Because again, now see, I would see a movie with her, with just her. Oh yeah, yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Oh, I know she was created by Gerard Way.
00:44:26
Speaker
because it cracked me up in that scene where they're sneaking into the banquet hall where the kingpin is giving this speech. And she's up underneath the table and they show a cutaway view of her. She's munching on candy and popcorn in the robot. And she's driving the robot. And she's all squished up inside this spider robot. She's driving. I said, oh my God, that's fantastic. There's a spider verse comic. It's like edge of spider verse. So if you ever find that,
00:44:55
Speaker
you know, you find it on Comixology, like everything. But Edge of Spider-Verse, I'm pretty sure it's all collected in a trade. And they've got, like, stories with the origins of, like, Penny Parker, Spider-Gwen, and all these other characters. So that's, if you want to know more about her and where she came to be, then that's something you might want to check out. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. That in the guy... Oh, man.
00:45:25
Speaker
Oh, what's his name? Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage as Spider-Man more. As Spider-Man more. Now see, again, I want to see a movie with this guy. Voice by Nicholas Cage. You know what? If you're going to do Into the Spider-Verse in live action, get Nicholas Cage to play this character in live action. Oh, he was hilarious. Didn't have a lot to do, but what he did was totally off the chain. His intro was amazing, right? When they were like, we're like,
00:45:53
Speaker
They're like, why is it? How is his coat blowing? We're underground. We're in a basement. There's no wind in here. And why is he in black and white? And he's like, the wind follows me wherever I go. And it smells like rain. And they look at each other and say, what? But I love that he's obsessed with the Rubik's Cube. I said, why is he in black and white? I love that he's obsessed with the Rubik's Cube.
00:46:19
Speaker
Oh, oh yeah, well he takes it back with him. Yeah, he takes it back in the credits. You see him showing it off at like a 1930s style convention or whatever. Yeah, well, everything is still in black and white in his world. And that's the only thing of any color. Again, that's fantastic. And you also have Peter B. Parker, played by Jake Johnson.
00:46:44
Speaker
is they described him as, Lord and Miller envisioned him as Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid if Mr. Miyagi didn't know anything. Well, you know what? This character, I like them a lot because
00:47:05
Speaker
Okay, he's a Peter Parker slash Spider-Man who's kind of let himself go to pot and kind of allowed himself to be disillusioned a little bit. But in the course of the movie, as things go on, we see flashes and elements of the Spider-Man that he once was. Yeah. It's still there. He just hasn't been that man for a while. He's allowed himself to forgot the great lesson that of course all Spider-Men or women or pigs
00:47:34
Speaker
must learn with great power comes great responsibility. And you know what I really like about him is that he is such a realistic version of if someone had gone through all the crap that spiderman goes through. Yes, because, you know, how could you know obviously it makes so much right his marriage falls apart.
00:47:53
Speaker
He has trouble holding down a job because he's always running off to be Spider-Man. His personal life is in shambles. And it's just like the weight of all that finally gets to him. That is so realistic. And it's just, it's amazing that Spider-Man in the comic books hasn't become this guy. Yeah. And what I like, you know, like I said, that he just, you know, it's not like he doesn't turn into this alcoholic mess, which is what they usually do with character life. No, he's just like, say, you know what? Fuck it.
00:48:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You know, basically that's his attitude. I mean, when we first meet him, you know, you know, why am I knocking myself out for all this? Nothing I do makes a difference, you know? Yeah. So what am I doing? I'm just going to lay here and eat pizza and, you know, watch Jerry Springer. Yeah. Which to me is a terribly realistic attitude for most superheroes to have. Oh, it is. It's totally realistic. It makes so much sense that he would be in this state.
00:48:52
Speaker
And also, you know what, I just got to say that I think it's great that they were able to get Chris Pine to come in just for this like one little short bit as the main universe Spider-Man. And oh, wait a minute, but how much of a shock was it to you to find? Because me, okay, I'm thinking that, okay, this was the Spider-Man. And then you find out, well, no, he's not the Spider-Man. Wait a minute, he's got blonde hair. Yeah, yeah, I was surprised by that.
00:49:23
Speaker
That was also a nice little nod to Ben Riley, Peter Parker's clone who ends up dyeing his hair blonde to make himself look different and it becomes Spider-Man as well.
00:49:35
Speaker
You know, that's who I thought it was. That's who I did too, yeah. Cause I said, oh, well this is, oh, I said, oh, okay. So now this is 616 Marvel Earth. This is, you know, Miles Earth 636 or whatever. And, you know, the Peter B Parker, who I found out that in, you know, actual Marvel continuity, that actually is his middle initial. Yeah, Peter Benjamin Parker. Benjamin. Yeah.
00:50:01
Speaker
Yeah, Benjamin Parker. So, and then if I, okay, that's our Spider-Man. Yeah. And I was like, oh, okay. Now I see where they're going. I had to do a little, you know, double clutching to kind of catch up. And I said, which is one thing that I like, because I don't like to be ahead of a movie. I like watching a movie that makes me play catch up. Yeah, yeah. And also that my favorite character in the movie, Hailee Steinfield as Gwen Stacy, Spider-Woman.
00:50:31
Speaker
Like she is like, ever since that character appeared in the comics, she's been a favorite of mine. And seeing her in this and, you know, Hailey Steinfield does such an amazing job. She captures that character perfectly. The only one who could do better is Emma Stone. No wonder they didn't get her. Well, she's busy all the time, so. I mean, they were able to get Chris Pine and Mahershala Ali.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they got a lot of people. I mean, Zoe Kravitz had that brief cameo as Mary Jane Watson. Pimeko Glenn was Penny Parker. No, let me ask you something, because you're more familiar with this movie than I am.
00:51:16
Speaker
Okay, was that actually Stanley's voice? Because they do have a pretty extended Stanley cameo in here. That was Stanley, yeah. Okay, so that was his official last cameo. No, no, his official last cameo was in Captain Marvel. Okay, all right. Yeah, Captain Marvel was his official last cameo. I'm pretty sure anyway. But yeah, but that was Stanley and this movie came out shortly after he died.
00:51:46
Speaker
I believe. Oh, okay. And they, oh, and that scene when Miles comes in to buy the costume and Stan says we were friends, right? That kills me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you don't choke up on that part, you just ain't got no heart. I'm sorry, yeah. I'm serious that we were friends. Oh man.
00:52:16
Speaker
And also the line about how, and he said, and you know, Miles asked him, you know, what if it doesn't fit? And he says, oh, it always fits eventually. Yeah, yeah. And, sorry, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, you know,
00:52:34
Speaker
Like I said, I'm not crazy about Spider-Man, but you know what? Even I got to admit, there are certain truths about Spider-Man that are so simple yet profound. When, I mean, you know, like Fences, when Stan Lee said, well, yeah, eventually the suit will fit. Yeah. And you know what he means. You have to grow into it. You have to find out what kind of Spider-Man you're going to be.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah, you know, but it will fit and that's a lot. That's something that you can apply to your real world life. Just like, you know, um, with great power come great responsibility, which is a phrase that is quoted by, you know, heads of state without even knowing where it actually comes from. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but it, but you want to talk about,
00:53:24
Speaker
or a life-affirming statement that you can use in your life. Hey, that's it. Yeah. And something else about this movie, like...
00:53:35
Speaker
I am not really a fan of hip-hop music. There's some stuff I like, but in general, I'm just not really a fan. But I love the music in this. I love it when they find music that fits the movie. And even though I'm not a hip-hop fan, I loved how well the hip-hop music fit this movie.
00:53:55
Speaker
Well, would you consider this to be a hip-hop superhero movie? Oh, definitely. Definitely. I think so, yeah. Yeah. It may be the first hip-hop superhero movie. Yeah, you might be right. I'm having trouble arguing. Yeah, I think I'm having trouble thinking of anything else that might fit that bill. But yeah, I think definitely. There's so much of at least what little I know of hip-hop culture. You can see it reflected in this movie. Yeah. I mean, this is like...
00:54:24
Speaker
Oh man, this is like one of the most, okay, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, this is probably the most comic book looking animated movie I've ever seen. You know what? I was thinking the exact same thing when I was watching. Cause last week we were talking about Hulk and how Ang Lee was trying to make it feel like a comic book come to life. This really does feel like a comic book come to life.
00:54:47
Speaker
It actually does. This is the closest that I have seen on screen. And I was watching this, as a matter of fact, I've seen this twice in preparation for this. Cause we were supposed to do this last week and we didn't for reasons that are none of your business folks. And I was watching it again. And that's what struck me as how you look at it and yet, you know, and I'm pausing it and I said, yeah, that looks like a panel from a comic book. That looks like a panel from a comic book.
00:55:14
Speaker
Well, they do those, the transitions that Ang Lee invented in Hulk, they do the same thing, right? The panel and panel, the moving panels and all that. And then they enhance it, right? They've got the captions, they got the sound effects. Yeah, yeah. They got pages flipping, right?
00:55:32
Speaker
Go ahead. I just love it. I love the little sound effects, right? The little caption boxes. Like when he gets the powers, he's like, why am I hearing this voice in my head, right? And then the whip sound effect, right? When they're swinging through, right? You can see the whip coming each time. It's just so low. They took and- You know what? Somebody had to animate all those little things. That shows you how committed they were to this idea.
00:56:01
Speaker
You want to know how committed they were in the scenes where they had the collider that's working and the energy. They had freaking Kirby dots. Yeah. Yeah. The Kirby crackle.
00:56:13
Speaker
Oh my God. Just the thought that I would see Kirby Krakow in an animated movie. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, these people were committed. They weren't half as in it with this thing. No, no, no. You can tell this was made by people who loved the comics. This was made by people. You know what?
00:56:34
Speaker
I could feel the energy while I'm watching this one. It's like they say, you know something? We may not get another chance to do this again. So we're going to put everything into this one. Yes. Yeah. Just in case, just in case we don't get another chance to do this again, because they did every, they did everything right. As far as I know with my limited knowledge of Spider-Man, they did everything right. Yeah. And I love how they worked in the,
00:57:04
Speaker
the spray paint into Miles designing his own costume at the end. That was such a brilliant touch. Because that's not in the comics. In the comics, he gets his costume from S.H.I.E.L.D. He's running around in the store-bought Spider-Man costume.
00:57:22
Speaker
Cause in the ultimate comic books, Nick Fury was kind of acting as sort of a mentor to Peter Parker, right? He had hoped that, you know, one day Peter Parker, when he turned 18, he would be able to graduate into the ultimate, which was that version of the Avengers. And so he had kind of, he had devoted a lot of effort into, you know, keeping an eye out for Peter Parker. And so then when you got this, after Peter Parker died, and then you got this new kid running around as Spider-Man, Nick Fury wanted to know what the fuck's up.
00:57:54
Speaker
So he goes, he sees that the kid is actually helping out and he's doing good. He's got the same sense of right and wrong that Peter Parker did. So he says to him, he gives him a new costume, which is the black and red costume we see. And the web surers and all that and basically tells him, don't fuck it up.
00:58:17
Speaker
a good motivational speaker. But see, in this, you know, they don't do that. Instead, he takes...
00:58:29
Speaker
Chris Pines, Peter Parker, one of his costumes, and he spray paints it black and then spray paints his symbol on it, which is, you know, it's tying it back to the relationship he had with his uncle, Aaron, who, and this is another thing that they threw in there, which was so, right, because he has his own story about losing his uncle, but it's a very different kind of story. Yeah. And, but all, but they do retain that whole dead old Spider-Man curse, where if,
00:59:00
Speaker
If you want to be a supervillain, be friends with Peter Parker. Yeah. So we still have that here where, you know, Miles' first supervillain he faces off with is his own uncle. Yeah. But now that you mentioned, yeah, that did not occur to me. But yeah, you're right. He loses his uncle too. And that also, that's like the defining
00:59:25
Speaker
right thing you know that's like the you know that's what makes spider-man spider-man i guess you have to lose your uncle but you have to lose someone you have to lose someone right yeah because the spider going in her universe she lost peter right yeah yeah she lost peter and um you find out uh spider-man nor he lost his uncle benjamin uh for penny parker was her father
00:59:51
Speaker
And yeah, they all have their own stories of loss. Even Spider-Ham, though we never find out what his is. Well, he's too busy explaining how we can float when he smells pie. I love that they threw Spider-Ham in there. Yeah, voice by John Mulaney.
01:00:12
Speaker
the audacity of the movie to just you know in all of this other seriousness going on and you know goofiness and everything like that it's like okay you think we can't get any more goofier okay throw spider ham in there why why the hell not yeah and then when they're out when his roommate sees them all in the ceiling and he goes he's like can animals talk in this dimension because i don't want to freak him out
01:00:39
Speaker
And speaking of which, by going back to Oliver, how bad is it that they made Aunt May out for Pennyworth? I was going to mention that. This is my favorite version of Aunt May ever.
01:00:52
Speaker
Lily Tomlin voicing her and she's just, I love that they go to the backyard and they go to the shed and Peter's like, oh yeah, we had this, you know, this small shed in the back where I kept all my Spider-Man gear. It's not that big, but then she opens it up in this whole underground back cave basically.
01:01:11
Speaker
With the spider mobile, the spider mobile yeah the spider bug yeah I love that. Yeah, it's a whole back it was a spider cave spider cave yeah yeah so apparently that universe's version of spider man was also Batman as well. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:27
Speaker
You got all these vehicles, Aunt May's his Alfred. I loved that. That was so cool. Oh, that was, I think, you know what? This is the version of Aunt May that should be in every Spider-Man movie from now on. Yeah. And then when, when Miles comes back and she's just sitting there sipping her tea and she's like, well, it took you long enough.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, and I like how she takes everything in stride when they're on the lawn outside and she comes outside, okay, well, come on in. And Peter is saying, don't just freak you out. Well, you're from an alternate dimension, right? It's like, come on in. Oh, what, you thought you was the only one that found your way here? I love when they do that stuff. When people aren't surprised by all the weirdness that's going on around them, they just accept it. I love it when they do that.
01:02:10
Speaker
Yeah, because you know what? You figure that after a certain amount of time when you have been exposed to this stuff, you stop being weirded out by it. You know, you just say, oh, okay. Because you know what? Even Miles figures it out after a few minutes. He says, oh, okay, well, you're not Peter Parker from this dimension. Your hair is like this. You're doing this. You're blah, blah, blah. Oh, you must be from an alternate dimension.
01:02:35
Speaker
And Peter says, wait a minute. That's not a guess you figured that out. He said, well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, going back, OK, I'm going to go way back now. I'm going to jump in the way back machine for a minute. It was episode of Better in the Dark that Tom and I did, where we were speculating on that people who are in horror movies live in a universe where there is no such thing as horror movies. Yeah. Because when they run across a dead body,
01:03:04
Speaker
that has no blood and two bite marks in his neck. They, you know, spent all this time trying to figure out what it is. And I said to Tom, well, me and you found out we saw a shit. It's a vampire. Yeah, yeah. I'll go get the steak. You go get the holy water. You know, we'll catch this mother. But, you know,
01:03:21
Speaker
Like people in like science fiction movies must live in a movie where there must live in a universe where there are no science fiction movies because otherwise you wouldn't be freaked out by this stuff. You know what always kills me is zombie movies and TV shows. Like almost every single zombie movie or TV show, it exists in a world where nobody has ever heard of the concept of zombies.
01:03:45
Speaker
They, okay, the Walking Dead TV show, they actually said that that actually is the case. Yeah. That's why they never called zombies in there because there was no George Romero never lived in that universe. There's no zombie movies. I guess 80 never existed in that universe too. I guess 80 never existed in that universe either.
01:04:08
Speaker
Well, that's a whole nother story. Oh, okay. But, but, but all I'm just saying is that I'm glad that they acknowledge the fact that, okay, this is a world, just assume nobody's seen a, you know, there aren't no zombie movies. Yeah. So, okay. So now I understand why people, they see our animated corpse shuffling towards them. They don't immediately pick up a bat and bash his brains out. Oh, zombie. Bam. Okay.
01:04:34
Speaker
Yeah. But that's the one thing I like about this movie that when they meet Aunt May, she's not, matter of fact, she's more touched than anything, seeing Peter, you know, back to life. Yes, yeah. And I think the only movie I can think of off the top of my head that where the characters actually knew what zombies were was Zombieland. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the only one I could think of.
01:05:02
Speaker
That's the only one I could think of, Zombieland. This is all, oh, zombies. Oh, give me a gun. Bam. Shoot them in the head. Okay. Now, going back to this movie,
01:05:15
Speaker
So I got a question for you because the characters Miles Morales raised in Brooklyn. Now you being a Brooklyn guy yourself, did that speak to you in any sort of different way? Is there anything you noticed about him or about his upbringing or anything that struck you as quintessentially Brooklyn or anything like that?
Miles Morales' Character and Background
01:05:38
Speaker
Not really, except for the fact that I grew up around a lot of kids that were Black and Latino. I realize that for some people, that might seem like an incredibly exotic thing, but no, it's not. Like I said, when I was growing up, I went to elementary school.
01:05:59
Speaker
with kids that were, you know, half black, half Latino. It's, by all means, it's not an unusual, exotic thing that some people would make it out to be.
01:06:13
Speaker
I just took Miles as being from Brooklyn because now of course Brooklyn is the hip place to be. So everybody's from Brooklyn now. I mean, they retcon Steve Rogers. Cause originally he came from Hell's Kitchen or something like that. Well now he comes from Brooklyn. Yeah.
01:06:31
Speaker
You know, so that's just how I took it to as a nod to, you know, Brooklyn, because, you know, this is a new fresh hip Spider-Man. So, of course, he's going to live in the place now that's new and fresh and hip. You know, believe me, listen, I come from a generation where
01:06:54
Speaker
Okay, once upon a time, you could not give a person a house in Brooklyn. They would not take it. I mean, I was watching, before we started recording, I told you I was watching the Fierce City documentary series on Netflix, which is all about the mob in the 70s and New York in the 80s. And yeah, they talk about Brooklyn a lot in there. Believe me, Brooklyn was like, okay, you remember the movie Escape from New York? Yeah.
01:07:23
Speaker
That was Brooklyn. Yeah, that actually was Brooklyn. And I'm not exaggerating, folks. And all the people now that listen to this, that lived back in Brooklyn in the 70s and 80s, they're nodding their heads too. But now, of course, Brooklyn is the new, fresh,
01:07:42
Speaker
hip happened in place where everybody in their brother wants to live here now. So I just thought that, yeah, it seems natural you have a new fresh hip, Spider-Man. So he lives in a place that's new, fresh in him.
01:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, oh no, I was cool with that. Listen, anytime I see Brooklyn gets mentioned in a movie or a movie or TV show or anything like that, I'm in there. I say, good, cool. It's about time we got our due. I tell you who I did like in this movie a lot that they changed. And like I said, usually I'm not up for this type of race or even gender switching, but I like the female Dr. Octopus a lot. Oh, okay, yeah. Olivia Octavius.
01:08:26
Speaker
played by Catherine Hahn. Oh, okay. Well, there was actually a female Dr. Octopus in the comics, but she was a successor. Okay. Well, like I said, this is like an alternate world version. Right. So yeah, we go. But I mean, I like, you know, she had the
01:08:48
Speaker
Okay, she had the arms, but they weren't like those archaic metal arms. They were, you know, I mean, she had an upgrade. This is Dr. Octopus that is considerably upgraded. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in the comics, it was Carolyn Trainer was Lady Octopus. They eventually started calling her and she was one of Octavius's students. Oh, okay. And she took up his identity after one of the many times he died in the comics.
01:09:15
Speaker
But you know what, I like Dr. Octavius. Dr. Octavius is just like one of those super villains I can't find it in me to hate because he's so, you know, he's a fat man wearing glasses, a bad beetle haircut, and four mechanical arms. And yet this guy had the guts to go out there and say that he could take over the world. Yeah, yeah.
01:09:37
Speaker
You have to admire that, that confidence. You have to. Yeah. Well, I love when she tells a, you know, she says, you know, my name's Olivia Octavius. And then and then Peter's like, Oh, shit, here we go. Yeah, yeah.
01:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, no, because you know what, as goofy as he's been, and again, okay, we go back to why we like this guy so much. Yeah, he's goofy, but you know what, he's not that goofy that he realizes that in any universe, Dr. Octopus presents a true menace. Yeah. And a true danger. He understands that. Yeah. You know, so he, so yeah, he's,
01:10:15
Speaker
He may be a little bit off of his game, but as we see, as the movie goes on further and further, he gets back to the Spider-Man that he once was. Yeah, yeah. And they also have Lee Schreiber as the kingpin. Yeah, it was one thing I liked about the kingpin and one thing I didn't like about the kingpin. Okay. Which one do you want me to start with? Dealer's choice. Okay.
01:10:43
Speaker
Okay. I realized this is an animated movie and that, yeah, things are exaggerated, but I mean, come on. Oh, the size. How does this guy, how does this guy get through doors? You know what? I liked it because it's like Bill Sinkevich's Kingpin.
01:11:00
Speaker
yeah okay okay thank you that's why i liked it yeah i was trying to think where did i say where have i seen this type of kingpin before because i thank you okay yeah because you look at uh kingpin and um pretty sure was an electro assassin yeah ah damn okay that's like that is the kingpin that is bill sign cabbage's kingpin so uh
01:11:26
Speaker
I withdraw my complaint, yes I do. You have corrected me, sir, thank you. So like I initially had the same idea, but then I heard someone mention it and then I looked it up and I'm like, oh, okay, now I see what they were doing.
01:11:44
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Now, yeah. And now that you've explained what, okay, I get what they were doing. I go with it. Now the thing that I liked about the kingpin, he's got this collider that he can go to, you know, alternate dimensions and multiple realities and everything like that. And thank God he's not, he doesn't want it to take over the world. He just wants to get his family back. Yes. Yeah.
Kingpin's Motivation and Family Dynamics
01:12:07
Speaker
You know, I mean, say what you want about the guy.
01:12:12
Speaker
Okay, I don't like how you're going about it, but you know what? I gotta say, I understand why you're doing it. Yeah. Which to me is, I mean, when you can present a villain that he's doing all these horrible things and he's causing death and destruction and everything like that, yeah, okay, yeah, but you know what? I can see why he's doing it, you know? Because who am I to say that if I wasn't in that same position, I wouldn't do it too?
01:12:40
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. To bring back the people that I love. Yeah. And yeah, he's got, this is one of those cases where the villains got a really strong motivation. And you totally understand why he's doing what he's doing.
01:12:57
Speaker
And yeah, because I mean, you know, like you, I am sick unto death of, you know, take over the world plots and stuff like that, you know, every once in a while when I like to see him. And of course, that plays into the, you know, the whole family theme of the movie, because we have these various spider characters who become a sort of family.
01:13:19
Speaker
you know, during the course of the movie. And we have Aunt May, who's also part of this extended family. And then we have Miles and his relationship with his family, you know? Yeah, I was going to bring that up, too. Like, I loved the relationship between him and his father and him and his Uncle Aaron. Like, those relationships are so real. And like, I could really feel like those relationships were really well thought out and really well developed.
01:13:49
Speaker
Yeah, and you know what, it's a pleasure for once to see a movie where you know the kid, he is an a brat, and him and his father yelling and screaming each other, you know, just because you have disagreements with people doesn't mean that you're snapping and barking and biting at each other all the time. Right, you know.
01:14:06
Speaker
which of Miles and his father don't do it, you know, and I love the scene where after he gets, you know, his super power, his spider powers, and of course, like any kid, he runs back home and he says, I don't want to go back to that school. And the mother can see he's obviously. Yeah, yeah. And he's the father. So now, of course, he falls into the automatic role that fathers do. Take notes, Perry, you're going to need it.
01:14:29
Speaker
you know that he's got to be you know the authority figure you know where you're going back to that school and I don't want and the mother says no you know you know let him stay and she makes him pause and takes a look at him yeah yeah and then he sees how freaked out he is and he says oh okay and he backs off yeah
01:14:47
Speaker
And you know what, to me, that scene rang very true because I can remember times as a kid when things freaked me out and I was in similar situations. And that's exactly how my mother and father played it, played the scene out. Yeah, and I love just
01:15:03
Speaker
Jefferson's character in general, I just love his, he's not a typical authoritarian dad figure you might see in a role as small as his is, right? Because he doesn't have a whole lot to do in this movie, but they still give him this really engaging personality, right? Like when they're in the car and Miles is like, don't cops run red lights? He's like, well, yeah, some do, but not your old man. And he's like bragging about it.
01:15:32
Speaker
And actually, I think not to get political, because we don't get political on this show, but I do think that in the times that we're having now in the United States, that the portrayal of a police officer, a black police officer as a responsible,
01:15:54
Speaker
father who cares about his son and just wants the best for him because they do have a little back and forth about the school because mom doesn't want to go to school but you know father wants him to do because like any father he wants a better life for his son he's not he's not sending him to school to punish him for anything and miles understands that you know it's not like the thing where he acts like a bratty kid oh i hate that school and everything he understands and he tries to find ways to get out of it right like he like he takes he
01:16:23
Speaker
purposely chooses all the wrong answers on the test, and the teacher's like, the only way you could have gotten a zero is if you knew all the right answers and chose the wrong ones. Which, you know what, it's kind of smart, thinking on the part of the teacher. Yeah, yeah. She figured it out. She said, yeah, the only way you could have got all the wrong answers, you had no right ones. Yeah. Oh, shit.
01:16:46
Speaker
I said, that's some Sherlock Holmes level thinking there. And also going back to his father, I loved when he dropped him off at school and he says, I love you, Miles. And Miles was like, yeah, yeah. And then he gets on the loudspeaker and he says, we have to say it back. And Miles was like, ah, yeah. It's a nice little sitcom moment that's
01:17:13
Speaker
you know, dropped into the movie that never forgets that it's supposed, I mean, okay, we do have our heavy moments, you know, that are in the movie, but it also, there's like, I like how they have the scene where
01:17:30
Speaker
They're on their way to Queens and Miles and Gwen, you know, they're talking because they got the chip and they got to find a way to repair it. And, you know, they think that, you know, Peter is just, you know, being a dick and he's in the back because he doesn't want to be bothered with them. And they're talking and then we cut to Peter and we see that he's actually been lying there all the time. He's awake, he's smiling. Yeah. And you get the, and you say, oh, okay. He went back there deliberately so the kids could talk, be kids.
01:17:57
Speaker
And I don't have to be, you know, I can't say enough. I love how smart this movie is. Yes, yeah.
01:18:06
Speaker
And something else stood out to me when I was rewatching it. And just that scene when Jefferson makes Miles say, I love you too. And Miles feels all ashamed by it. And his dad just has that smile. He's like, that's a copy. And it was just, it's partly refreshing that you've got this, because that's the thing about guys. We're taught that you're not supposed to use the L word.
01:18:35
Speaker
Oh yeah. You're not supposed to, especially not with another guy, even if it's your father, right? You use that with your wife, but that's it. Otherwise you don't really say that word. And it's just like that whole idea that men are only really allowed to emotions, right? We're allowed to laugh or we're allowed to be angry and that's it. Yeah. Yeah. And so I thought it was, and having his, like, so not only is it a funny sitcom moment, like you said, but it's also,
01:19:05
Speaker
kind of a progressive moment too for this police officer father to do that. Oh,
Emotional and Progressive Themes in the Film
01:19:13
Speaker
well, yeah. Well, listen, especially because they're black. I mean, me and my father didn't say that we loved each other until I think I was like in my thirties to believe it or not.
01:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, same thing with me and my dad. Yeah. Because you know what? I grew up with the notion, as most people in my generation did, people didn't go around saying I love you. You know, families didn't go around saying I love you. I love you is what you did. You know, your father put food on the table. Your mother made sure that you didn't, you know, get killed in the street. And she fed you and everything like that. And they put a roof over your head and bought you clothes. And that was love.
01:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, they didn't have to say it. And you said, I love you by going to school, respecting them and not getting killed in the street. And that's what it was. And yeah, for these characters in here to say, I love you. Yeah, that is
01:20:06
Speaker
Very progressive. And thank you for pointing that out. It is. It's very progressive. And it's not something that I've seen this movie a few times. And it's not something I ever noticed until this last time when I'm watching it. And I think it was on my mind because I had been teaching something in my class about one of the stories we were reading and talking about this idea about men and how little we're allowed to express emotions. And so then when I saw that scene this last time, it just jumped out at me in a way it didn't before.
01:20:36
Speaker
Well, yeah, but you know what? It's a new age, thank God. And I said, this is a new mouth for a new generation. And I'm glad that that's one of the things that he's able to represent. And that being more open with your feelings and simply just being able to say, I love you. If I told you how much money
01:20:59
Speaker
cost me in counseling to get to the point where I could say it, you'd scream, jump out a window, but that's another story. But yeah, movies, reinventions of characters like this for new generations should, as I said earlier, should represent that generation. And I think that Miles does an excellent job of being a Spider-Man
01:21:27
Speaker
for this generation. And this is a movie that the filmmakers, I mean, I don't say this about a lot of movies, but like the first time I saw this, I said, well, this is going to be a classic. This is a movie that 50 years from now, grandfathers are going to be sitting down with their grandsons and watching. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah.
01:21:47
Speaker
And it's also a testament, like that part and just like the other stuff we've been, like everything we've been talking about is just, you look at this movie and on the surface, it just seems like, you know, oh, it's a fun movie. It's a fun kids animated movie, right? But there are all these other different layers to it. And it's so complex. And it's such a testament to Lord and Miller's skill, to how they're able to craft all this stuff and put all these different layers and
01:22:14
Speaker
complexities of relationships and morality and motivations into this one movie, but give it the veneer of looking like it's just a simple fun kids movie. Yeah, yeah and I mean that is the brilliance of this movie, which you know we have been saying all along in this exploration we've been taking through superhero movies,
01:22:35
Speaker
90% of the time, superhero movies aren't about what you're seeing on the screen. It's not about a guy in a costume beating up another guy in a costume. There's something up under there. And there's a lot going on up under this movie if you're paying attention to it. Yeah. And this is a movie that rewards those repeat viewings. Because like I said, I've watched this several times. It wasn't until this last time that I picked up on the I love you thing.
01:23:03
Speaker
Oh, definitely. Yeah. I mean, I've seen this movie what now this is, this makes three times that I see. Yeah. And every time I watch it, I see something new in it, you know, you know, whether, because generally I'm focused on different things. Like I'm focused on the animation style, which again is breathtaking in that I can truly say it is an animation style. I haven't seen before. Yes. Yeah. It reminds me in some ways of the, um,
01:23:31
Speaker
It's not exactly the same, because that was 2D, this is 3D animation, but in some ways it's a little bit, which I think may have been intentional. There are parts of it that is reminiscent of the spectacular Spider-Man TV show from a few years ago, which if you haven't seen it, it is the best Spider-Man animated TV show that's ever been out, or best Spider-Man TV show, basically. Really? Yeah, it's really good.
01:23:58
Speaker
But, and there's some similar, like they've also got like the kind of like the exaggerated proportions and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of that kind of taken over from it. But yeah, just in general, like this is, it is, but it's also its own thing. It's not ripping off that style. It is still also its own unique thing. And just like the, if you put all the Spider-Man characters into silhouette, you could easily pick them out.
01:24:25
Speaker
They've all got very distinctive body types and very distinctive appearances and shapes. As a matter of fact, you know, I was looking at the scene
01:24:36
Speaker
where all of the, okay, all of the spider characters are in, you know, the spider cave. And if you look at each and every one of these characters, they look like they are all drawn in different animated styles. Yeah, yeah. The anime girl, she looks like anime. Noir, he looks like, you know, he was drawn from a comic book from the 1930s. Spider-Gwen is very crisp and clean and, you know,
01:25:08
Speaker
The only two characters that look the same is Peter Parker and Orton May, which, you know, as they should. But even him and Miles, they look different from each other. They don't look quite like the same animation style. Yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, Spider-Ham looks like he's out of a Looney Tunes cartoon. Well, yeah, he looks like an escaped Disney, you know. And let's see. Oh, and, you know, we got to talk about
01:25:37
Speaker
you know, Aaron Davis, you know, Marjala Ali's character and the Prowler. Like I, this is another one of those examples of just like really great character development. Cause he's, when he finds out that it's Miles under the mask and then like, it just, he's got this completely, and he, and he starts questioning what he's been doing with himself, right? It's just like, it, you could see it just like, and this is a credit both to Ali's voice acting and also the animation. Like you can see those emotions on his face.
01:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's... Okay, again, this is one of those characters that tugs at your heartstrings because in a very short amount of time, we see the closeness and the relationship between these two characters. In this type of movie, which is why I love this type of movie, in that it doesn't waste a whole bunch of time, you know,
01:26:33
Speaker
telling us about how much these characters love each other. If your uncle takes you out in the middle of the night to an abandoned subway yard to write graffiti, to me that says, oh, I need to know about your relationship right then and there. I don't need you to tell me a single word. I already know the type of bond that they have. And I think it was brilliant of them, they go that word again, for them to have that scene in there.
01:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, and also they've got the scene when they're in the apartment and he's teaching him about the shoulder touch. Yeah. That's another one of those movements. It speaks so much volumes about the closeness they have and how it's just such a different relationship from the relationship he has with his father.
01:27:19
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, actually, their relationship is more like a little brother, big brother relationship than, you know, their nephew and uncle. That's what I was thinking. I'm feeling that his uncle was more like his big brother. Yeah, yeah. And it makes you, it hits you even more because not only has Miles lost his uncle, but he's also, you know, basically lost his best friend.
01:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have because in the comics, yeah, in the comics he does, like his roommate, Gank, is his best friend in the comics. And he's a very big part of the character's life. In fact, when they introduced Ned in the Spider-Man movies, that's basically the relationship between Miles and Gank in the comics.
01:28:10
Speaker
And you know what? I'm glad they didn't go that way in this movie, because that's what I was thinking of when I saw that guy in this movie. I said, well, this is just the same guy from the other, you know, the live action movie, you know? But I see that kind of downplayed his role a little bit. Well, what they did was, like, because that's what it was like in the Miles comics, right? It was Miles, and they had that relationship. And then the Spider-Man Homecoming stole that relationship and gave it to Peter and Ned.
01:28:36
Speaker
Okay. But it's also smart they didn't go that route in this movie, not only because of, you know, the homecoming connection, but also because then it makes the bond between him and Aaron so much stronger. Because you don't really see him with any other friends other than his uncle.
01:28:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah, exactly. And you know, when he's got to talk about something, his uncle, that's the first guy that he goes to. He doesn't go to his father, which again, going back to what you said, that tells us what we need to know about the relationship between him, his father, and his uncle. It's not like a real complicated relationship, but it does have his dips and bumps.
01:29:22
Speaker
Yeah. That's in the road. And you can, which is what I always tell people, you can do characterization in, even in the most action intensive movie like this one, this one has, but if you know what you're doing, you can have the characterization in there, even in the scene when, which had me laughing so much, I had to pause the movie, where Peter is completely unconscious and he's being dragged by the train and Miles is trying to keep him from getting killed.
01:29:55
Speaker
Well, something else I was thinking about, and this is also another example of that characterization, was because the whole Peter Parker Spider-Man story is all about, right, tragedy comes to him because he's been running from his responsibility, right, because he lets the crook run away, and he's been using his power selfishly. The movie does the same thing with Miles, but in a very different way, right, because
01:30:20
Speaker
Cause I'm thinking back to when you were talking about the subway scene when he's there with Aaron and their spray painting, how he spray paints no expectations on the wall and how, like his dad, his mom, his teachers, they expect him to succeed at this school. And he just, he's trying to run away from that responsibility. And- You know what? I never noticed that until, yeah, you're right. That is what he surveyed, but no expectations. Yeah.
01:30:48
Speaker
And then eventually it comes back to bite him in the ass, right? Because then his uncle ends up dying, not because his uncle's doing the same thing, right? He's running from responsibility, you know, running around, you know, being a criminal. And that comes back and then hits them. So they pay the price for that lack of responsibility, but it's a very different way than Peter and his uncle Beth.
01:31:17
Speaker
Which, again, is a good life lesson that the movie teaches you, that you cannot run away from your responsibilities. That there
Visual and Animation Style
01:31:25
Speaker
are consequences to running away from, you know, to not living up to the responsibilities. You know, and know it, it doesn't matter if you've accepted them or if they've been put upon you. You know, you can't run away from them. Which is one of the reasons why Miles' powers keep giving out. Yeah, yeah.
01:31:45
Speaker
I love that scene when Peter's telling all the other Spider-Man what Miles can do. He's like, he can turn invisible. Go show him. He's like, I can't do it on command. He can't do it on command. You know what? He's still so upbeat. He said, OK, well, do the electro thingy. He says, OK, he can't do it on command. But that's all right. It's OK.
01:32:13
Speaker
We're all together in this. I say, you know what, that is so frigging cool. But it all goes back to that whole thing about, and the running from responsibility, right? That's what's affected Peter too, right? Because that's why it's all gone to shit because he couldn't accept the responsibility of being a husband and you know,
01:32:35
Speaker
having those discussions about, you know, should we have kids, should we not have kids, right? And he ran away from the responsibility of that. And that's why he's become the way he's become. And he ends up learning that lesson himself when he sees
01:32:51
Speaker
this universe is Mary Jane. And that awesome, that see that it's so funny, but it's also so profound, right? When she thinks he's one of the waiters and she asked him for bread. He's like, I am so sorry that I didn't give you the bread that you deserved. You know, that scene, again, I gotta go back to how smart this movie is. You watch that scene and you're mostly conflicted because you want to laugh.
01:33:19
Speaker
You wanna laugh, but yet you want him to be with her so much that you don't wanna laugh, but you gotta laugh. I mean, yeah, there's a whole bunch, and you know what? We gotta give the guy that does the voice work of- Jake Jobs heater. Yeah, I mean, that guy, I mean, all the voice work in here is excellent, but there's a lot he has to convey.
01:33:47
Speaker
And a lot he does with his voice and that combined with the animation in that I mean it's. What we have here is actual. You know.
01:34:01
Speaker
How can I put, it's a performance. It is, you know, it's that perfect melding of animation with the voice character to give us a honest Academy Award performance. Yes. You know, that's what it is. It's a performance. It's not just, it's not just a guy coming to a booth and sitting there and just reading lines. No, no, they, they really put the effort into, they, they, they act their asses off in this movie.
01:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, he's given this character life is what I'm trying to say. And it has so many great moments, like that moment when he has the costume on and he's on the side of the building and he's remembering the leap of faith speech and he just, like the way he springs off and the camera inverts. So it looks like he's falling up. Like that's such, oh man, it was just such a amazing visual style in this movie.
01:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, and I could think of no better way to show us the audience that there's been a shift in his perception. That's why we see- Yes, yes, yes, perfect. What it is, what we are seeing is the visual representation of Miles having a shift in how he perceives everything.
01:35:24
Speaker
now and also his life you know yeah the fact that he's wearing these like hip-hop influenced clothes right like the hoodie and and the shorts and all that it's it's it's spoke so much volumes about what this spider-man represents now yeah it's a total yeah it's a total inversion yeah you know yeah you know
01:35:46
Speaker
And that was pretty much, I mean, that visually signified what we kind of knew throughout this whole movie is like, this is a hip hop Spider-Man. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it tells me so much that these filmmakers, how much they understand the visual style of what you're doing visually in this movie. And I think that that's probably why we're gushing over this movie and why we love it so much is because there is so much conveyed visually. Yes.
01:36:17
Speaker
in there. I mean like the same wall the spider people are up on the roof.
01:36:23
Speaker
And they're going back and forth. I can't imagine how long it must have took them to animate that thing. Oh, well, what is it? Six different characters, all looking like they're in six different animation styles. But yet, the funny thing is how they're all moving like one big spider, you know? And they're synchronized. And there's not no hesitation that they go across, which, again, is a subtle visual reminder that they bonded into a family now because they're all moving as one.
01:36:51
Speaker
Yes. You know what? I love it when visual filmmakers know when to let the visuals do the work and when to let the dialogue do the work. Yes. Also, did you see the post-credit scene?
01:37:11
Speaker
uh oh yeah though spider-man 2099 yeah spider-man 2099 who's played by uh Oscar Isaac and confronted the 1960s spider-man they keep pointing at each other in that goofy animated style that they had back there you can only move one arm at a time oh that was brilliant
01:37:32
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And listen, I love any homage or any reference to the 1960s Spider-Man, which, you know, I mean, for me, and I'm dating myself, that's my Spider-Man because
01:37:48
Speaker
I am old enough to actually remember getting up on Saturday mornings to watch it when it was first broadcast. And I loved it even that shitty second season where Spider-Man did nothing but swing around Manhattan for 20 minutes of the episode. Yeah, the second season was kind of...
01:38:12
Speaker
We have to do episode in 1960, Spider-Man, what do you say? Oh, that'll be interesting. Well, have you ever seen it? I've seen parts of it, right? Because it's, I mean, it's all on Disney Plus now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but yeah, it's, I don't, yeah, that's, it's just one of those things that, and I re-watch the 90s Spider-Man animated series and
01:38:41
Speaker
It's so funny how these things do not age because that was plagued with problems. Like the sensors were so terrified of everything after the parent backlash from the violence of Power Rangers. So it was like, you know, they would get notes like, when Spider-Man lands on the roof, he can't harm any pigeons. Just shit like that. Really? And yeah, like,
01:39:07
Speaker
Morbius was it. He was a vampire character, but he couldn't suck blood through his fangs. He had to do it through these little mouths on his hands. And they couldn't say he drank blood. They had to say he absorbed plasma. And it was just ridiculous.
01:39:27
Speaker
Okay. Well, listen, it was a different time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, no, but you know, the 1960s, I mean, that's just like something for pure nostalgia. Right, right. Because, you know, of the, I mean, of the style of the animation. If most people remember it for anything, it's for two reasons, because of the jazz music that was used, and of course, I mean, you know, the theme song.
01:39:56
Speaker
Right. And the fact that it's memed all over the place now, like almost every 90% of Spider-Man memes use images from that show. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what? It's it's something that is now passed into our pop so pervasive in our pop culture that a lot of
Personal Connections to Spider-Man
01:40:14
Speaker
people use it. Don't even realize where it's coming from. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anything else to say about Into the Spider-Verse?
01:40:22
Speaker
Only that, you know, and I guess I should explain here now why, cause I know I keep telling, I keep saying this to people who are like, why do you keep saying that? You know, that I'm not really a Spider-Man fan. I really wasn't growing up as a kid, read comic books. My thing was, you know me by now folks, my thing was Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk. If I walked into the corner store and there were two comic books up there, if one was,
01:40:51
Speaker
The Flash and Spider-Man, I would take Spider-Man. But if it was Thor or Iron Man and Spider-Man, I would take E. He just didn't resonate for me as he did for other characters. Although I do recognize that
01:41:11
Speaker
Just because of who he is and what he represents, he's an extremely important character in Marvel history. It's just that he just didn't turn my crank. That's right. So I've never gotten to the whole Spider-Man thing, even though most of my friends were. And most people I know,
01:41:34
Speaker
If they know anything about comic books or superheroes, it comes from three characters, Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. Yeah, definitely. You know, that's it. You know, he is just as popular as those characters. Yeah. And I've seen like the live action movies and some of them I liked, some of them I didn't for various reasons. I won't go into them now, which I will when we eventually get into those movies. So when you said, let's watch this movie, however, this one says,
01:42:05
Speaker
I had seen it already because, like I said, everybody had told me about it. And as I said earlier on, if I had seen this movie at the right age, I think that I would be a Spider-Man fan instead of a Thor or a Hulk or whatever, simply because this movie does such an outstanding way of presenting
01:42:34
Speaker
Spider-Man just not only as these characters, but as a concept. Because Spider-Man is also a concept. He's an idea, again, that with great power comes great responsibility. This movie does an excellent job of presenting
01:42:51
Speaker
not only the original Spider-Man, but a new Spider-Man and other Spider people who embody that concept and tells us why Spider-Man is so important. And I will shut up now. No, I think you said it perfectly. I mean, it does such a good job of showing what Spider-Man is at
01:43:14
Speaker
his core, no matter which Spider-Man it is. And it shows how each of these characters embody those qualities in different ways. And it's just, I mean, there's so much in this movie, right? It's such a well-made movie and it's just so much fun, right? It's got these really profound moments, but it never stops being fun.
01:43:39
Speaker
And exactly. I mean, you know, this never forgets it's a superhero movie. Right. So it's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be entertaining on some level. Yes, we can deal with all of this deep heavy, you know, issues and stuff like that. But we can also have fun. You know what I mean?
01:43:59
Speaker
If I was going to give somebody, if somebody asked me, okay, well, my kid has never seen superhero movies, you know, pick out five, you know, that I should give him to watch. This would be in that five. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely would. In fact, I mean, the kids who are people who are kids now and they've got, and they're watching this movie. And I know some people and some friends of mine, you know, they said like, you know, my kid,
01:44:28
Speaker
watches this movie like every day, right? Because this is a movie that they are never going to outgrow. No, absolutely not. Yeah, because it works on so many different levels that this is going to be a movie that they keep watching throughout their entire lives and then they introduce to their kids and their grandkids. Because you know what? This is the type of movie
01:44:52
Speaker
that at different times in your life, like for instance, okay, Superman, the movie. Superman, the movie speaks to you in different ways at different times of your life. This movie does the same thing. At different times of your life, this movie is gonna speak to you in different ways.
Future Plans and Audience Engagement
01:45:11
Speaker
Matter of fact, this is the movie that you,
01:45:13
Speaker
will remember watching when you're a kid, when you're six or seven years old and then you're 20 years old or 25 and you come home from work and you're pissed off and your boss is on your back and you know, all of this other shit has happened. This is the movie that you put on. Yeah, yeah. To remind yourself of how you felt, you know, and put yourself back in that mood that, okay, I enjoy life again. Yeah, absolutely.
01:45:37
Speaker
OK, so I think that's a perfect note to end about Spider-Verse. So that means it's your pick for next week. So what's next? Well, OK, since we talked about it so much the last time, I thought that we'd go ahead and jump right into the next one. We did the Ang Lee Hulk. So I don't think we talked enough about it. The Incredible Hulk.
01:46:07
Speaker
Okay, cool. So I knew it and I figured that, you know, and, and also I did get a couple of people they asked me this Oh, well are you gonna do another movie too and I said well I hadn't really thought about I said but, you know, yeah that would seem to be a logical, you know,
01:46:22
Speaker
follow up. Okay, cool. So make sure to join us next time. We'll be talking about The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton. And yeah, you're right. It is a perfect time to talk about it because after Ang Lee's Hulk is so fresh in our memories, it is a good time to also go back and look at the Ed Norton Hulk.
01:46:40
Speaker
Yeah, because I don't want to get too far away, you know, like, you know, I don't want to get too far away before we jump back to that and we, you know, tie the two together because we did some of that in the Ang Lee episode but the incredible whole Ed Norton's performance is worthy of, you know, its own hour where we talk about it. Absolutely. You know, and his version of Bruce Banner.
01:47:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And judging, and it's also good because, you know, we're in, that's going to be what episode 43 is going to be that is going to be the next one. And then looking at the polls so far, it's looking like Avengers will be our number 50 episodes, then we can jump straight into Mark Ruffalo as, as, as to, you know, and we'll still have these other two fresh in our minds.
01:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so Avengers is still leading, huh? Yeah, that's what the people are saying so far. So if you don't want Avengers to be in the lead, then head on over to the Superhero Cinephiles group and make sure you vote in that poll and pick a movie you want better.
01:47:48
Speaker
I could talk about Avengers for three hours. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Easily. I could talk about it. I love that movie. Hell yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's it for this episode of Superhero Cinephiles. Remember to follow us on Twitter, SuperCinemapod.
01:48:03
Speaker
patreon.com or you can just toss us a donation through paypal if you go through the website superherocinephiles.com please make sure leave us a review on itunes or apple podcasts or wherever you you listen to this show because
01:48:19
Speaker
Every single review you gives us, it helps boost us up in the rankings and then that they show us to more people. So help us grow the show by, you know, leaving us a review, telling other people about it, sharing links. And yeah, and we will see you next time when we're talking about the Incredible Hulk. Talk to you later. Thank you very much for once again listening and to our rantings and ravings, mine especially. Good night and God bless.
01:48:52
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com, or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
01:49:12
Speaker
If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners. You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of pheasantudios.com.