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Fan Request: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
132 Plays10 months ago
With Oscar Season right around the corner, join Satsunami and Andrew as they discuss one of the more visually compelling films of 2023: Across the Spider-Verse. But with it's rather divisive ending, does this film deserve to take home the Oscar for Best Animation? Or is this one cobweb that deserves to be swept away? Let's waste no time in swinging into the world of Across the Spider-Verse!
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Review it Yourself
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Transcript
Introduction and Focus on Spider-Man
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to this very special fan-requested episode of Chatsunami. My name's Satsunami and joining me today is another other than the web-slunging anomaly himself, Andrew. Andrew, welcome back. Bring me podcasts of Spider-Man. Not gonna lie, I did get a fright when you slammed your fist. Yeah, how are you doing tonight? I'm good, thank you. Winter is slowly coming to an end over in Canada and I'm excited to talk about today's topic.
00:00:44
Speaker
The winter cannot end soon enough. As we're recording, I'm listening out and hoping that the rain kind of simmers down. So in order to brighten up your days off with listeners today, we are indeed going to be talking about a subject that is a wee bit brighter because Oscar season is right around the corner and of course Andrew you'd approach me saying yeah we should probably do anything.
00:01:06
Speaker
episode on it.
Exploring Spider-Verse and Initial Impressions
00:01:08
Speaker
We are going to be looking at one of the animated nominees and that is indeed Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse which was voted by the lovely Mandalorian listeners who are awesome and definitely follow us on x slash twitter at ChatsunamiPod wink wink. If you haven't checked us out there before then please do but yeah I am quite excited because as of recording this episode I have just seen this film. Out of curiosity what
00:01:36
Speaker
What is your experience Andrew, and I'm going to turn it on you because I'm just terrible like that, but what is your experience with this particular set of films? Because Into the Spider-Verse came out in 2018, it was critically acclaimed. Yeah, what's your history with this? It's an interesting one because I did see Into the Spider-Verse at the cinema
00:01:58
Speaker
I liked it. I liked it a lot. I thought it was very unique, very interesting. Wasn't blown away by it at the time. I think there was a lot of hype around it, a lot of interest in it. It really wasn't my kind of thing. I didn't quite vibe with the animation. I didn't really get into like the music scene because it wasn't really kind of my interest in music. And like, I didn't really know at all about Miles Morales as a character. So it was all very new to me. I didn't really jump into it initially. I did enjoy it though. I did enjoy it, but not as much. I think many others did.
00:02:25
Speaker
On subsequent viewings, I got more invested in it, I got more interested in it, and I learned more about the background of it, the symbolism in it, and I got really, really invested, intrigued by that movie. So when the newest one, Across the Spider-Verse, came out in 2013, last year, I was very excited to go see it. I had heard lots of exciting things about the film.
00:02:47
Speaker
and so I went to go see it at the cinema by myself because my partner was not interested in it at the time and so I went by myself which I've not done very often with movies but I wanted to go and see this one and thought wow this is incredible I'll get more into it later into the episode but I was really kind of blown away by it and so I insisted that my partner and her sister who was a huge Spider-Man fan come and see it with me again they both for the first time me for the second and
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, so I've seen it twice at the cinema now. I've not seen it since, but I've got very invested in it. I'm very excited for the third one, which I don't actually know if that's have a confirmed date yet, but I'm very excited for the third film coming out. So yeah, that's kind of my history
Viewing Experience and Film Trends
00:03:24
Speaker
with it. What about yourself? Well, I was talking to you about this before we came on, but my first exposure to this film was actually someone in my work
00:03:34
Speaker
This was a pretty COVID date right enough. I was sitting in the office and there was a guy who was working behind me. He was a massive nerd. You know, lovely guy but still a massive nerd and that's coming from me. And I remember he started talking to his team about this amazing film that you'd seen and how amazing Into the Spiderverse was and everything and, you know, I heard him. I thought, alright, that's cool.
00:04:00
Speaker
And then I went about my day and never really gave it much thought. But then, of course, the reviews started coming in. People were saying, oh, it's amazing and everything. And again, I was really slow to the uptake. I was like, yeah, I don't know. I'll watch it when it comes out in streaming services. And of course, it came out all night.
00:04:18
Speaker
one of the same Netflix or one of these ones. And I thought, you know what, I've got nothing better to do that day. I'll check it out. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. I thought, wow, this is actually surprisingly a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I didn't think, again, it was amazing or
00:04:34
Speaker
mind-blowing but I thought it was quite interesting the way they took the story, the way they took the art direction as well because that is of course something that we will be touching on but that was one of the most striking things about this film, just purely the fact
00:04:49
Speaker
that it was a film that was really artistically different but again when the sequel came out I saw all the trailers for it, I saw people raving about it but as I said I didn't really watch it until literally the day of recording because I thought you know what I'll cave in, I'll go get a copy and I watched it. There's a lot to love about this film but I can understand why a lot of people have been saying that the cinema experience would have been a whole lot
00:05:19
Speaker
better but there is one controversial thing that I think a lot of people draw to this film which I know we'll definitely get on to later but it's more to do with the ending of this film. Do you know what I'm getting at here?
00:05:35
Speaker
Yes, I think I understand what you mean. And I can appreciate that. But I think that I mean, you can make the argument about lots of movies that we do love. So I think I think is a harsh one to make. I think people's anger over that is maybe I'm getting into something we can discuss in more detail later. But potentially, their anger over that is more to do with the fact that they enjoyed the movie, and they wanted a conclusion to it. And they felt like, oh, I wanted to see pay off an ending that they didn't get. I assume that's what you were referring to.
00:05:59
Speaker
Oh yeah, 100% the part one, part two phenomenon as it were. I don't really know why this has become a big thing and again we will get into it soon but I don't know why it's become a thing because you know you've got your Dune part one, part two, you had your Mission Impossible part one, part two before they dropped the part two, part one thing. You had the Fast and Furious Dune the part one, part two so it's definitely a trend of the time as it were.
00:06:28
Speaker
but see without any further ado, will we just web-zip into this film and see what all the fuss is about? Yeah, I think we'll swing in and can't think of a good pun for that, Spider-Man. So, whipping my way downtown, we will be right back from this podcast multi-verse, as it were, right after these messages.
Promotions and Spider-Man Knowledge
00:06:48
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and journal interests. Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises.
00:07:07
Speaker
Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all big podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:07:29
Speaker
First impressions can take only six seconds to make, but if you're neurodivergent, those quick judgments about you can be misleading. Because of most people's ignorance around learning disabilities, people think it means you're intellectually incapable. I'm not Rain Man. Every autistic person isn't Rain Man. I thought I was talking to people who understood just like they had ADHD, but they did not. They freaked out and were like, well, if you've got Tourette's, if it's going to be a problem, then we can just fire you and get someone else.
00:07:59
Speaker
I'm Carolyn Keel and I host Beyond Six Seconds, a podcast where neurodivergent people share their lives and advocacy. One of my goals is making autism not something that's scary. I really want to help people understand this proxy a little bit better. Get the real life of threat syndrome out there. Stop thinking we are nothing but a joke. Let's shatter misconceptions and celebrate neurodiversity together. Listen at beyondsixseconds.net or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:08:29
Speaker
You have a choice between saving one person and saving every world. I can do both! You can't run forever, kid!
00:08:59
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Chatsunami. If you want to listen to the second part of this episode, you get- No, I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. We're not gonna two-part you on this. Chatsunami was the red panda all along. It was just me seeing my evil twin, which was just like a raccoon from another dimension.
00:09:17
Speaker
Ah, close enough, but jokes aside, we indeed have a relatively good knowledge on Spider-Man, don't we? Because a couple of months ago, you and I did the Spider-Man month where we talked about a number of topics. I say a couple of months ago, but I feel as if it's longer. I was about to say, a couple of months ago, it was January 2023. Jesus Christ, it's a year ago.
00:09:44
Speaker
No. Oh, time is a flat circle and all that, yeah. But yeah, suffice to say, I wouldn't say we die hard Spider-Man there to know everything about it, but we're relatively knowledgeable. I got like 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 in the Spider-Man trivia, so I think I'm probably an expert.
00:10:00
Speaker
Oh, that's true. That's true. So, any hard-hitting questions, please feel free to contact Andrew at allyourquestionsatchatsanamie.com. Yeah, suffice to say, we know what we're talking about, don't we? Relatively so. I mean, that's pretty much a podcast tagline, isn't it? Chatsanamie Week!
00:10:18
Speaker
I mean, I've had an interest in Spider-Man for a very long time. I know quite a bit about it. As I said, I wasn't really familiar with Miles Morales. I'm sure he has appeared in stuff that I watched, but it must have been a very long time ago that I saw it. I didn't ever play the PlayStation games because I didn't have a PlayStation. I know that the modern PlayStation Spider-Man games have Miles Morales as quite a key character. I don't know if that was after the first Spider-Verse movie though or not.
00:10:44
Speaker
but I wasn't really familiar with the character, so despite my claim as being Spider-Man aficionado, I don't really know that much about the character, so it has been very interesting to see it represented in a very new, well I'd say not a new way for me, in a completely fresh Spider-Man view for me.
00:10:59
Speaker
completely right though. My exposure to the Spider-Man franchise is always through the lines of Peter Parker. You have Peter Parker, you have J. Jonah Jameson, which after that I did like the joke that in every single Spider-Man universe there was a J. Jonah Jameson character that just spoke exactly the same. I thought that was hilarious. Yeah, J.K. Simmons crutches all universes.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah which I thought was just such a brilliant touch in this film but yeah usually it's between him and either Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy because I grew up with the Sam Raimi films as we talked about in our Raimi trilogy retrospective episode on Spider-Man month. Again fantastic month, please go check it out after this episode.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yeah that was my first entry into the series and then I watched the Amazing Spider-Man films but again it was focused on Peter Parker then of course Tom Holland came around and again Peter Parker which you know Peter Parker is the quintessential character for Spider-Man whenever you think of it but at the same time when
00:12:04
Speaker
Into the Spider-Verse came out, they introduced Miles Morales, which I have to say and admit as well, I didn't know as much. I knew he was an alternate version of Spider-Man because he had Miles Morales, Miguel Jarrah, I think Ben Parker's his name. Whoever the Scarlet Spider is, the clone crybaby one in this film. But yeah, I'd seen him kicking around because he had all the alternative skins in other games as well. And I
00:12:32
Speaker
I can't remember because it's something you mentioned there when you talked about the PlayStation 4 game because what's interesting about that is they brought in Spider-Man and they brought in Peter Parker and they do introduce Miles Morales as a side character.
00:12:47
Speaker
And again spoilers, please feel free to skip a couple of seconds ahead but Miles does get bit and they released his own spin-off game as it were. It felt more like an expansion and after a minute I haven't played much of that but it was interesting to see them take Miles Morales and give him more of a focal point.
00:13:07
Speaker
But then, of course, as you said, the Enter the Spider-Verse film came out and the Profile 4 character just shot right up. Everyone was more interested in them. They were more interested in other characters like Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man Noir as well, and the old film Peter Parker.
00:13:24
Speaker
Peter Borger, yeah, Penny Parker is the other one, I think the anime one. And then this film you've got Spider-Man 2099 as well as a whole plethora of other Spider people. So here's a question for you, because I know you of course grew up with the Remi films as well, the Andrew Garfield ones
Character Development: Miles and Gwen
00:13:41
Speaker
and such. Do you think they've done a good job in raising a profile about the Miles Morales character?
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think I've been informed as to who Miles is. You've had that kind of struggle as to him adapting to being a Spider-Man that isn't your standard Spider-Man, I think as well as a huge racial element to that. Seemingly, he's the only Black Spider-Man that we see at least.
00:14:04
Speaker
And so I think that there's certainly an element of him coming into his own and taking on the mantle as Spider-Man, which I know there's a lot of controversy from certain groups on that and on the referral to him as Spider-Man. But I do think I've learned who Miles is. I've learned his power set. I've learned his backstory, kind of getting his origin through all this and where he kind of stands, like his canon events, what they'll be. I think we'll learn more about that in the third one, but.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think that both Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse has told Miles' story very well. I think it's informed us about who the character is. Again, I've not seen apart from these two movies Miles and anything else. So I don't know if he's kind of universally represented in this way or whether this is a more unique telling of his story.
00:14:48
Speaker
because I have to say what I find quite interesting about it is, and I know this is like a major theme in Into the Spider-Verse and especially in Across the Spider-Verse where he is trying to come into his own as Spider-Man and what was kind of laughing at my head was
00:15:07
Speaker
the fact that he has a happier home life compared to Peter Parker whose parents are gone. Uncle Ben's been shot and he's got, you know, obviously except for what happens in the first column with his uncle but, you know, he's still got his parents there and everything but what's even more interesting is the fact that they do develop his character as his own Spider-Man. The fact that although he's got the name Spider-Man in
00:15:33
Speaker
the same time you know it's Miles Morales' Spider-Man. He puts his identity on the character and I think that is in part as well to the voice actor who does an absolutely brilliant job in conveying that emotion, conveying his happiness, sadness, stress and the situations he's thrust into. Honestly, no, I think they do a good job because the reason I'm bringing so much attention to Miles just now is the fact that I feel
00:16:01
Speaker
feel as if he wasn't a strong character, then this would, no pun intended, unravel like a wimp. Because if he wasn't a relatively likable character, then would you feel as invested in this if he was a whiny and not as
00:16:18
Speaker
No, for sure. I mean, I think that goes without saying that he kind of has to be interesting. I mean, that's one of the criticisms of a lot of other Spider-Man adaptations. A lot of people don't like Tom McGuire's Spider-Man because they find him to be quite whiny. A lot of people don't like Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man because they don't feel like he feels realistic.
00:16:36
Speaker
to the character. A lot of people don't like Tom Holland's Spider-Man because they don't feel like he does things himself. They think he's at the whim of technology and what he's given by the likes of Iron Man. I don't necessarily agree with any or all of those points, but those are kind of things that are leveled against other adaptations of Spider-Man. And so it is interesting that this is probably the most likable
00:16:58
Speaker
Spider-Man of the three. I think it's the least controversial thing to say that he is a likeable character. A lot of people might not like his title as Spider-Man, but he's a likeable character and I don't really hear anything against that. I don't know if you think differently, if you've heard anything different to that, but I think that he kind of represents himself quite well. You do feel an emotional attachment to what is happening in his life. Yeah, I have to say, I don't think I've heard too much
00:17:23
Speaker
in terms of people who have said oh we don't like him because you know he's whiny or he's an annoying character. Purely on a character analysis I've really not heard many people criticize him. I think that's quite indicative of the whole series because I don't think there's too many characters that you could look at in this film and say oh god they're annoying or roll your eyes at.
00:17:49
Speaker
maybe one or two background characters, but even then that's like a real stretch. To have a multiverse story that stands out in years where I get into slightly controversial territory here with the Marvel fans, the multiverse seems to be the latest trend that they're going through right now. You had it with Spider-Man Far From Home,
00:18:11
Speaker
You of course had it in the first Into the Spider-Verse, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Quantum Mania. So it's something that I think a lot of fans were starting to get a little bit tired of, the whole multiverse thing. And especially when you have to get all these characters together.
00:18:28
Speaker
you have to make sure that they're somewhat endearing. You know, you can't just have a bunch of references mushed together and be like, oh look it's 1960s Spider-Man or oh look it's Japanese Spider-Man. It has to be somewhat coherent and granted there are some moments where it gets a little bit overwhelming in that regard but for the
00:18:49
Speaker
four cast of characters which is something interesting actually because this film doesn't start out with Miles Morales, it starts out with Glenn Stacy or rather Spider Glenn narrating her origin story and things and I'm going to be honest I really like
00:19:06
Speaker
Gwen's character. I think she is a really good addition to the film. But it is quite interesting to start off from her point of view. Like, I'm just wondering what you thought of that when you first went into this. I was really surprised that they did that, and I was pleasantly surprised. It worked so well that you got that bit more background to Gwen. The title is Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. It isn't Miles Morales Across the Spider-Verse.
00:19:29
Speaker
It covers Spider-Man, Spider-Woman across each edition. So you're seeing different perspectives. You've already been introduced to Gwen in the previous film. She is one of the only recurring people from the previous one that kind of came across from the multiverse because you don't have Spider-Man.
00:19:44
Speaker
Spider-Pig, Penny Parker or Spider-Man Noir until the very, very end of the movie. But you do get Gwen, you get Miles and you get Peter B. Parker, who's now a dad. And so getting Gwen's perspective is really interesting. And I'm just touching on what you said earlier about the multiverse thing being the hot thing in Hollywood and superhero movies, especially. I don't know that that was necessarily the case pre-Into the Spider-Verse.
00:20:09
Speaker
I don't think there have been many, if any, multiverse superhero movies until that point. You can correct me if I'm wrong on that. Definitely not Google or not. I'll say that I think Across the Spider-Verse does this even better than Into the Spider-Verse. What is interesting is that the representation of multiverse in these movies, because it's animated, they represent that as different animation styles.
00:20:31
Speaker
And so, whereas in Spider-Man No Way Home, you had three Spider-Men from different universes come together and like there were certainly differences to them. Some of them had different costumes or that kind of stuff, but they were fundamentally just three dudes. Whereas in Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse, you're seeing different animation styles, like on screen together clashing with each other and vibing with each other. Some are more interesting than others, but you have characters we'll talk about later, but like Hobie, who's Spider-Punk.
00:21:00
Speaker
and his constantly changing animation style. And you have Penny Parker and Into the Spyverse, like an anime version. You have Spyman Noir, as the name implies, a black and white noir, very old school looking animation. Base animation from Miles' universe is just sort of very vibrant with colors. So you're getting this beautiful kind of collaboration of different universes together.
Animation Styles and Artistic Influence
00:21:22
Speaker
which is so interesting, especially when you compare it to what, for example, the MCU or the DCEU have done with Multiverse and how uninteresting it is tended to be. Just thinking back to, for example, the Multiverse of Madness, because I quickly looked up when the Multiverse was first introduced, and don't get me wrong, I think these are future pasts for the X-Men film. And again, it's not linked to this, but they
00:21:51
Speaker
technically did a kind of multiverse thing, very briefly mind you, but that wasn't really the trend of the time. So it's like it's not the first series to tackle this kind of thing, but according to the wonderful Google who please sponsor us, they were saying that the first introduction of a multiverse theory was Doctor Strange 2016, and it wasn't really until 2021 that they started their multiverse art.
00:22:20
Speaker
with No Way Home, Quantum Mania, that kind of thing. So yeah, you're right, the Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse predates these tropes, but touching on something you said there because you said how it looks so uninteresting, the one that comes to mind is the multiverse of madness where, although it's a cool idea, you get different characters from different dimensions like Captain Carter and Charles Xavier,
00:22:46
Speaker
At the end of the day it's still people in the same room with different costumes. It wasn't anything too visually interesting. I think there's maybe one point in that film that I watched I thought, oh this is cool when they're jumping through dimensions and things are changing but see other than that.
00:23:03
Speaker
I was about to bring up exactly that. There's a point where they kind of stop repeatedly falling through universes and you're like, Oh, I wish they were to stop at this universe for a bit and just have a bit more time there. But because obviously that's going to be very expensive to do. They don't do that. They just go, Oh, and we're in a universe. It's kind of like ours, but a bit funky. They have pizza balls.
00:23:21
Speaker
It reminds me of, you know that episode in The Simpsons, The Treehouse of Horror where Omar travels in time with the toaster and he goes to the different futures because he stepped in a bug or something. But that's what it feels like, you're exactly right. Because by the end of that episode, spoilers again, that Omar goes to a world that is nearly identical to his but they have lizard tongues or something like that and Omar shrugs and he goes, eh, close enough.
00:23:46
Speaker
It's like nothing's different except that one minor thing. That's how a lot of these other films feel, like there's very minimal differences with what they're trying to portray. Whereas this film, and before we go on to the other characters, should we talk about the animation? Because what you were saying there about the different
00:24:06
Speaker
lashes of animation for the different characters. I mean you have a Lego universe which I thought was hilarious. I joked before but you've even got the 1960s Spider-Man swinging in to try and save the day and I thought that was hilarious because it's when Miles is trying to escape and he's like don't worry I'll stop him and he's like oh my back and he just flies right in front of him which I thought okay that's pretty funny and of course as you said for Spider-Pants
00:24:32
Speaker
There's more of a kind of newspaper-esque art style. What's interesting with Spider-Punk is that there's no consistency in his art style. And so it's supposed to be kind of like a representation of the character himself, never showing any consistency, that you can't really peg him down as to being one thing. The art style is constantly changing and slightly altering and all that kind of thing. And his guitar is like framed at different frames per second than the rest of his body. Lots of different little aspects to him that's really interesting in terms of how they animated him.
00:25:01
Speaker
I genuinely thought that the animation in this was absolutely gorgeous at times. I feel as if it probably would have been better if you were watching this on like a bigger screen than the cinema but visually it is very striking. I absolutely loved to see the very beginning where it was Spider-Gwen versus the Vulture. It was like a Vulture from a Da Vinci sketch. I thought that was incredible. The first time I saw that I was like wow this is
00:25:30
Speaker
amazing and as you said the colours are just the vibrant, they are so distinctive. The only drawback I would have with it is maybe that in some points I feel as if they go a little bit too over the top with some action scenes where it's like the very intense
00:25:48
Speaker
colours flashing and things like that, sometimes I feel as if maybe they went a wee bit too far. To quote George Lucas, maybe they went a wee bit too far in a few places, but I wouldn't say overall that detracts from how beautiful this home looks, but I know you have so many thoughts about this.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, the animation, I wouldn't say it carries the movie because I think there's so many good things about the movie, but I think that it sets this film apart from so many others, just due to how unique the animation is and is produced by Sony animations, Sony picture animation, who
00:26:21
Speaker
have the most bizarre filmography because they produce things like Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse, Mitchells vs. The Machines, which is very fun. They produced Cloudy the Chance of Meatballs. But then at the same time, they've also made absolute batshit movies like Surf's Up and The Angry Birds and the Emoji Movie. Oh, classics of cinema.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's a pretty weird studio in terms of what they create. There's some absolutely gorgeous masterpieces there. And like, I want to kind of mention again, Mitchell's Versus Machines, because that is a brilliant movie. If you've not seen that, I really recommend it. And there's a lot of similarities in terms of where the animation group that worked on Spider-Verse also worked on Mitchell's Versus Machines. And Lord and Miller, who wrote Spider-Verse, I'm pretty sure also wrote Mitchell's Versus Machines. Have you seen that movie? No, but as on the watch list, that'll be next week's episode.
00:27:10
Speaker
You should definitely check it out. It came out a couple years ago. I watched it in the early mid-COVID era. Brought a tear to my eye. It was really beautiful. I really liked it. So I highly recommend that. And there's been some absolutely brilliant people that worked on Spider-Verse. You have, as I mentioned, Lord and Miller, the Lord and Christopher Miller, as well as Dave Callahan, who wrote the film. The director is Joachim Dos Santos. I don't know if you're familiar with that name, Satsu, but Joachim Dos Santos was the director for much of Avatar The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.
00:27:36
Speaker
He's already kind of was known to me and elevated my interest in these films when I knew that he was going to be helming them. But just kind of getting back to the animation, it is just so interesting that it was able to sort of use these different styles together. There are some that I don't think work quite as well. I thought that the anime Penny Parker was kind of lazy in terms of just stereotype anime kind of look.
00:27:57
Speaker
I don't know necessarily how you would have done it in a way that didn't look kind of awkward. So I think they did maybe as best they could with that. But I don't think that that necessarily works as well. There are others I don't like as much. I do love what they do in this movie with the watercolour animation that they do a lot for Gwen. They almost like start pouring down the page.
00:28:15
Speaker
in color or down the screen rather. I think that is so interesting. That is what really hooked me. I think my heart like skipped a beat almost of watching that because I was completely in awe of that animation. I love watercolor paintings anyway. So using watercolor in animation, I just was absolutely in love with it. I thought that was so cool. I love what the animation told with regards to the story and how the use of color was used to tell the story. Like in Gwen's kind of moments of real depression and sadness,
00:28:43
Speaker
how they utilised those colours. Some people have speculated that the colours are telling more than what is actually being necessarily suggested. Is there any kind of suggestion of Gwen being trans because of the use of those colours? Very interesting to know if that was intentional, if the character is in fact trans, which would
00:29:02
Speaker
be the first trans superhero to my knowledge but I think that is just absolutely brilliant in terms of how they tell the story and emote with the different art styles, the different animation. What was kind of your take on that? What I found quite interesting and normally I would criticise this in any other film where a lot of the things that they see through the animation is
00:29:23
Speaker
I wouldn't say relatively obvious because I don't want to sound pretentious to be like, oh I knew what they're trying to say, but in especially Gwen's story you see she comes home and she is literally blue, a colour that symbolizes feelings of sorrow, depression, uncertainty, that kind of thing, and then what I find really lovely was when the dad comes in the room and
00:29:46
Speaker
they're talking and she gives them a big hug that her colour returns to normal, that she is brightened up by this moment of respite and things and it's moments like that that do pop out quite a lot but I feel as if it works so well with how they're telling the story because you see a lot of colour shifts and things and I was joking to you because another show that this actually reminded me of was
00:30:13
Speaker
JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, which, well, there aren't as many muscular guys summoning spitties and things to fight in this one. At the same time, they do a very similar thing in their art style where they change the colours depending on the mood. So you've got the neutral colour palette, but then the characters change colour, like their hair changes colour mainly based on what's going on in the situation. So I thought that was really cool.
Villains and Storytelling Critiques
00:30:40
Speaker
And I have to agree with you when you were touching on the
00:30:42
Speaker
you saw Blue and Pink as trying to symbolise them as it were because I remember the discourse that was going around when the film came out and that was one of the things that was like first and foremost there when it was getting talked about so that was quite interesting to see that being brought into the frame but
00:30:59
Speaker
overall I thought that the way they used the animation to tell the story was done absolutely amazing because what it felt like was, again this might be very surface level analysis here, but what it felt like was a bunch of comic books being smushed together and that's what I loved about the animation because as we were talking about earlier, each character has a
00:31:23
Speaker
very distinctive arch style. They come from their own universes. So as I said, Spider-Man 2099, he's got the more futuristic one, Miles Morales is relatively standard, but he had the... I don't even know what you call them, you know, when the onomatopoeia comes out the page, like the
00:31:41
Speaker
whip and the power and the Batman 60 show where it's like boof when they popped up, it definitely felt like a comic book coming to life and the way that they just drew the attention in was really interesting. One particular character that I want to bring attention to in the context of the animation is the villain Spot. So Spot is an interesting character because he is almost like the Mysterio
00:32:08
Speaker
of this film initially. A character who is treated initially as a joke and then he becomes a multiversal threat. I just love how he began this like a throwaway character in the first film. They probably looked back in that film and gone, oh yeah that would be funny if he was the main villain. And I thought that was really well done but he starts off as this relatively pitiful and pathetic
00:32:32
Speaker
want to be criminal, and then he accidentally realises that he can travel the multiverse. And to borrow a phrase from Star Wars, he gets unlimited power. And he goes from being basically this blob of a person. He looks more like Pepsi Man with spots at the beginning. Pepsi Man with chicken pox, as it were, to what is essentially an Eldritch horror.
00:32:52
Speaker
where his lines are all scratchy and they're not consistent, they're like struggling to hold together. I thought the design at the end, like the adverse, was oh it was so so good. I was looking at him thinking this is such a cool design, even though it is literally just a humanoid shape, it's very basic. Given what you know about the character, they managed to represent his inner turmoil, his uncertainty,
00:33:17
Speaker
to day as it were, as to where he belongs in the world. Because, you know, after the accident, he does say that Miles Morales basically took everything away from him, whether it was intentional or not, he took everything away from him, his life, his entire career. So to turn them into something that is just unrecognizable at the end, I just thought it was absolutely fantastic.
00:33:40
Speaker
And again, it's quite interesting to see that they managed to perfectly balance the comic role with the villain versus what he ends up becoming by the end of it. That was very impressive. It was very interesting because he started out as being a dude in a Dalmatian morph suit, like some sort of Dalmatian slender man, into, as you said, being a very intimidating seeming villain. I was concerned for everyone by the end, whereas I was not the
00:34:04
Speaker
beginning. And they present that in such an interesting way. What you are introduced to him very early on, it's seeming like a just villain of the moment. He's trying to rob a store, Miles stops him, he foils himself because he falls into his own spot in a very comic relief kind of way. And you think like, Oh, that's that I wonder who the actual villain will be. And
00:34:22
Speaker
In many ways, one of the most consistent villain throughout is another Spider-Man, it's Miguel O'Hara. And you kind of feel like he's acting like more of a villain in the movie, but you just have that overarching threat of Spot getting more and more powerful. And as you find out later, targeting Miles to ruin his life in the same way that he felt that his life had been ruined. So the character of Spot is done in such an interesting way. And I can't think of many other examples where the comic relief villain has been able to be almost leveled up.
00:34:50
Speaker
to being someone that is genuinely in-universe frightening, but to the audience just more intimidating and someone to take seriously. And often when they try that, it often just kind of seems a bit dorky, but I think that they did balance that very well in this movie. I would agree. I think that the way they handle Spot is really interesting in terms of how they present him as a villain, as his power set. He's kind of existed within the Marvel comic universe for quite a while, kind of off and on as a Spider-Man villain, sometimes as a Daredevil villain.
00:35:18
Speaker
It reminds me of Mirror Master from the DC Universe as being quite a dorky villain that they've managed to make interesting. Because I have to say it almost reminds me of being very flippant here by calling it the Arkham treatment. But you know how in the Batman Arkham games where
00:35:35
Speaker
they had obviously all the iconic villains that Batman fought, but then they also had the sillier ones, but they still made them quite intimidating. Not Condiment King. And that they had relatively minor villains like the Mad Hatter, which as the name implies, it's the Alice in Wonderland themed one, which you would think, well that's a pretty silly villain, and then you see what he actually does when he's unleashed and it's utterly horrifying.
00:36:02
Speaker
And you know there's a whole bunch there as well. Obviously not the Condiment King as far as I know but there will be a Batman fan who'll come and say, oh no he wasn't. Kicked man. Oh he was in Harley Quinn. Anyway sorry, that's another show. That's why I know him. Condiment King is also in Harley Quinn. I know Condiment King mostly from Lego Batman movie though. But yeah it was interesting to see how they took spot from being a comic relief villain to basically a real threat.
00:36:27
Speaker
Again, going back to something you said at the beginning, we talked about Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness, where he goes to a adjacent Earth from Earth. You know, it's like, it's Earth, but it's not Earth. There were some moments where they go to the
00:36:42
Speaker
the Spider Headquarters, and I felt as if the chase when they were going through it was like, alright, okay, it's just a futuristic city, generic futuristic city, and I'm probably gonna get crucified by the Spider-Man 2099 fans. They're like, no, it's like New New New York.
00:36:58
Speaker
yeah some bits like that you're kind of like I don't know but no overall I felt as if in the most part, going back to the animation briefly, that they did manage to jump between universes relatively well. There were some places I wished they'd stayed more in than others. I would watch the hell out of illegal spider-man films. See when they actually popped up there I'm not gonna lie I was actually flabbergasted
00:37:22
Speaker
but he did that because I was like, oh, they're really going there. Another thing that he did as well, which I thought was interesting, was the introduced live action elements as well. Because I'm pretty sure Andrew Garfield was in this film at one point when they were talking about how each Spider-Man had to have a canon event. It shows both Tobey Maguire and it shows Andrew Garfield as a clip. But you also see Donald Glover, who's in the MCU, and he's supposed to represent the Prowler. And so that was quite cool. It had the live action element to that.
00:37:50
Speaker
Is Cookie going back to what you said about the Lego burst? Do you know the story behind that in terms of who animated that? No. What was that? It was like a 12 year old boy that directed that entire scene. No way. He does Lego stop motion movies on YouTube and they, I don't know who from Sony animation approached him, but they approached him to do that scene. And so that's all stop motion animation that this 12 year old did.
00:38:12
Speaker
Well, that would explain why they use the lines from the Raimi films, because that was something like it. I don't know if you noticed this when you watched it, but when he's walking to the bathroom, you hear Jameson talking about, I don't know, bring me pictures of Spider-Man, but it's clearly J.K. Simmons that's talking, but it doesn't sound like it's new lines.
00:38:32
Speaker
because I mean they use that later on when Miles is trying to escape and he goes by Dr. Octopus and he also says that because there's a lot of references to those films. Spot even saying the power of multiverse dimensions and the palm of my hand and things but no that is really cool. I actually didn't know that about the Lego scene. That is really really cool.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah, which kind of explains why we don't really get more there. It's asking a lot for a 12-year-old who has homework and other stuff to do to also produce this stop-motion scene. Yeah, he's also got a Spider-Man film to make. Come on, chop, chop. Nah, that is really cool. If I'm getting his age wrong, then I do apologise, but my memory is he was either 12 or 13. And if it isn't correct, definitely don't go spreading this episode at all. Sharing it with your friends. Here's a question for you. Before we end on like a high note, I have to bring the mood down a wee bit here.
00:39:21
Speaker
I'm gonna ask you, as a bonafide co-host of Chat Tsunami, was there anything that you didn't like about this film? Because I know we've been really praising this film quite a lot, and this might be heresy to certain members of the fanbase. If I have a criticism of it,
00:39:38
Speaker
I would say for something that's part one of a story, I think it goes on too long. I think that if they wanted to wrap it up into being a part one story, I would have rather it not dragged on. I think part of the frustration that others have, I don't have this as much, but I can certainly understand where they're coming from is that it kind of felt like you've been watching a lot and it was building up to something. And then it cut off and said like, actually, the rest of this is in another movie.
00:40:00
Speaker
And so I can sympathize with the irritation that many have with the ending, largely because I think that the film went on for a long time and then didn't really have that payoff. And you can say that about so many movies. You could say that about Lord of the Rings. You could say that about Star Wars. Like the makers of the movie try to compare the movie to Empire Strikes Back and in terms of what they were trying to do with the ending. It's almost blasphemous to say that for many, but I can kind of understand what they mean by that.
00:40:27
Speaker
I know that so many films, books, other adaptations and media will do this. And they're telling their story. They told it very beautifully. And we've been talking for almost an hour, I guess, on why the film is so brilliant and beautiful. And part of that is because they were able to tell that story.
00:40:44
Speaker
in that timeframe that we've talked about balancing each animation style and character and building up this villain and having a sympathize with Miles. Like that does take quite a while to do, but I can understand the irritation behind the ending because of it being quite a long movie and you don't feel like you've got that payoff. For me, I wasn't as irritated by that because it did just kind of make me excited for the next one.
00:41:07
Speaker
One other thing that you'd probably criticize the movie for is just because of how beautiful it is and the time crunch associated with it is that I have such a deep sympathy for the animators because I know that they were put through quite a lot to get this movie ready and done. And even till almost the last moment, like just before it hit theaters, they were still working on certain aspects of it. I heard that some movie screenings were different from other movie screenings because they created like different versions of the movie that put
00:41:36
Speaker
the animators under even more stress and the editors as well. And so I feel a great sympathy towards them. I have a great appreciation for everyone involved because of how brilliant this movie is. But this is about the trepidation of I hope that this takes a long time to be made because I don't want these animators, editors, other people within the industry to suffer to make this film for us and that I want it to be done well. So I want them to take their time on it. But then you're also balancing out the fact that I was left in a cliffhanger and I want a resolution.
00:42:05
Speaker
And that's kind of where I am with that. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, if you have other negatives you want to kind of bring up. Well, touching on the ending initially, let's get this big spider elephant out of the room first. As I said before, I didn't see this film when it came out, but I definitely heard about the cliffhanger ending and everything, and loads of people complaining that they didn't know it was going to be a part one part
00:42:30
Speaker
2 situation. I can't remember specifically but a lot of people were saying it was almost like false advertising that there were some people who genuinely just were really disappointed. One of my friends actually went to the cinema with someone to see this and he didn't even realise it was a part 1, part 2 situation so by the time the film ended it was like what the hell?
00:42:52
Speaker
why have I been sitting here for about two hours 20 minutes and there's no resolution and it's interesting what you brought up there because she talks about the idea of what a lot of trilogies do. That of course being I think it's like the three act structure for trilogies and I can't remember who came up with this so apologies to any of the media students.
00:43:13
Speaker
in the audience here, but the idea behind it is the first film establishes the world and it tells the story of the heroes rise and then in the second film in the trilogy you get the low point. This is exactly what Empire Strikes Back did where that was the low point of the series where the villains won but there was still that sense of hope at the end that even though things had gone wrong that they still had something to fight for and I think
00:43:42
Speaker
think that's the key difference between the Empire Strikes Back or something similar versus this film because I feel as if if you watch the Empire Strikes Back on its own it gives you a cliffhanger but it's still a good enough film to watch on its own. I mean obviously you have to to get the full conclusion but you wouldn't really have to go and rush to watch what happens next
00:44:07
Speaker
in The Return of the Jedi but for this film it almost feels like see if you were watching The Two Towers for Lord of the Rings and they stopped the film right after the berserker Urukai blew up Helm's Deep like see if they cut it there and then it was like continued in part two. I feel as if that's why people got quite annoyed at this film and I can understand why fans were frustrated
00:44:32
Speaker
at that. I mean personally going into knowing that's what I was gonna get I wasn't as affected as other people may have been but I could see why people might have felt disgruntled and again mirroring your point exactly I totally agree that these animators and it's not just in particular to this film studio it's like a wider issue and a lot of creative industries where these companies want a product out by a certain point they are introducing this
00:45:02
Speaker
crunch culture and they want results fast, they want the film fast. I completely forgot that they released different versions of the film just because of how bad the process was but at the end of the day I do think it's absolutely fantastic what they managed to turn out. I think that the animation is fantastic for the most part but it is just a shame that
00:45:24
Speaker
as a product of this crunch culture. The other thing as well I would say going off on that point about the ending is I felt as if the ending seemed very abrupt. I have to admit this is going to sound really weird but I loved the animation and the credits.
00:45:40
Speaker
I thought that was absolutely brilliant and really well done, but the bit before it where Miles is trapped and everything in the alternate future, which I have to say, that was a plot twist I actually didn't see coming when I was watching it. I was like, oh right, what's wrong about this? Why doesn't she recognize Spider-Man? And then it clicked when obviously they said about Spider-42 and transporting them into the wrong universe. I thought, how
00:46:04
Speaker
that is so clever the way they've done that but at the end see when Gwen basically runs up all the other characters and is like oh I've got all your characters new and old that you love and we're gonna save miles and such and I get what they were going for but you can definitely tell they just crammed that in at the end to set up for the sequel so it almost doesn't feel as if the ending of this film is a conclusive end it feels more like it's just
00:46:33
Speaker
sequel bait as it were that oh we're going to continue this but you have to wait another couple of years which you know we should be willing to wait for a film of this magnitude but yeah I just felt it was kind of rushed at the end and especially as you said for a film that's over two hours long there was absolutely no need to rush the ending as they had I think they should have paced that out a bit
00:46:56
Speaker
better but again that could be for a whole myriad of reasons whether that is because of the pressures of the studio or crunch culture. The only other inner nitpick and again this is something I was saying to you when I was watching the film there was a lot of strange choices about some of the characters especially about spider women or rather I think her name's Jessica Drew in the comics
00:47:21
Speaker
and for anyone who doesn't remember that was the one who at the very beginning she helps Spider-Man 2099 and Spider-Gwen defeat the Vulture but she comes in riding a motorcycle pregnant and I know it's a reference to like a Mother's Day comic or something for the same character but yeah I just I thought I was kind of weird. I know that's a nitpick and I thought her character was good enough but the fact she spent the whole film pregnant and flipping around
00:47:48
Speaker
It just seems strange. I don't want to be critical of saying that people who are pregnant can do things for themselves when they are. Pregnant people can be superheroes too. It's 2024. Well, they can be, but all I'm saying is that baby will come out with vertigo and be like, oh my god.
00:48:04
Speaker
No, it was just a strange thing to add in. I mean, this is the film with a spider T-Rex, so it's not a huge leap. I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, that ruined the film for me, because it didn't. Yeah, no, that's really the only other minor negative I would say. But again, that's me mainly n-
00:48:20
Speaker
picking, I feel as if the major gripes I have with this film are towards the end and this kind of abruptness and its desire to basically build up to something more. A bit like what the MCU films have started to do nowadays where a phase four film seems more like they're trying to build up to something new rather than tell their own locked-in cohesive story. There's a couple of things that I think
00:48:45
Speaker
that deserve mentioning that we didn't really speak much about. Like, some of the other characters that were introduced, Pravita Pabrikar, who is like an Indian Spider-Man. He's a Spider-Man that lives in Mumbai, India, and so we kind of get to see this very interesting, futuristic, different version of a Mumbai, and the animation is very, very interesting and beautiful. A lot of the characters had some really kind of good quips, and I think that he in particular had a lot of very good quips, which I was quite happy about, because I think one of the most important aspects of a Spider-Man
00:49:12
Speaker
is that they are witty and bouncing off of people to make jokes really on the fly. And I think that the video Spider-Man did that really, really well. So I think that was really interesting take. I don't know, what did you think of the character and the kind of that universe that we got to see very briefly? Yeah, I thought it was quite interesting, but I have to say I'm not sure whether that was
00:49:30
Speaker
again this is going to put me in the ire of the Spider-Man fans here but I didn't know if he was an existing character before the film or if he was introduced after because I know especially for Jessica Drew they made some changes to her character because I think they combined
00:49:50
Speaker
spider woman together for her character but it was quite interesting to see that they were introducing the wacky side of the franchise but on the flip side they were also embracing that wacky side you know they weren't trying to be overly serious except for one character which of course does Miguel O'Hara but they even point that out and everything which I did think was really interesting.
Spider-Verse Variants and Cultural Impact
00:50:14
Speaker
2004 sorry.
00:50:15
Speaker
Oh, was he an actual character? Yeah, he's existed since 2004, but first appearance was Spider-Man India number one. I don't know if he crossed over to anything else. See, that's the brilliant thing about this film, because it introduces you to parts of the franchise that you never really knew about, or you probably wouldn't have been exposed to, because we're probably surface Spider-Man fans. I don't know if you've got like a shrine to Tobey Maguire in your room right now, but walking out of the studio with your black suit.
00:50:47
Speaker
fully good reasons I'm not only Tom the theme song. We basically get our exposure through the Marvel films, through the Sony films for Spider-Man and you know with the exception of maybe a couple of comics and shows that come out and manage to catch them. I wouldn't say we go in digging deep
00:51:07
Speaker
into the lore unless you know it's prompted by like a silly shower thought or a question but yeah it is interesting to see that this film does draw attention to these characters because I have seen these kind of things see when you play the spider-man games whether it's spider-man for the playstation
00:51:24
Speaker
four when it came out or whether it's the old inter-electro or I kind of remember what the first one was called for the PlayStation one but had Carnage in it and Doc Ock. But you know you got the different Spider-Man suits like you got Punk Spider, he got the one with the Fantastic Four but he had a paper bag over his head but he was in this film as well. He had Spider-Cat of course, he had the T-Rex which after that I'd never heard of in my life. The one that made me chuckle though was with Peter Park's
00:51:53
Speaker
Car, which I thought was hilarious, but there was just so many of them that obviously you can't give them all their own stories to tell when they film like this, especially for a 2 hour 20 film. So I felt for the most part they did focus on the right characters, they obviously focused on Miles, they focused on Glenn. They didn't really focus as much on Miguel, like they did, but then when he disappears, he disappears for a while and then he comes back.
00:52:21
Speaker
One thing I did find funny though was, because I obviously have just seen this film, I saw the memes before I saw this. So you know Miguel's intro music when he punches? Yeah, that's it. See when I heard that, all I thought was all those meme TikToks where it's like
00:52:39
Speaker
I'm sorry, it's a canon event." And I'm like, oh, I know what a canon event is. So the memes helped. When I was doing the research for this, there was a section in the article all about just that TikTok and the influence the film had had on TikTok with the canon event. It was very popular when this film came out, for sure. Yeah, that kind of spoiled it for me a wee bit, whenever he popped up and they had the...
00:53:02
Speaker
The first time I saw it was in the movie, so every time I'd hear it on TikTok, I was like, oh, it's the reference to the movie. So I didn't have that pre-existing kind of notion of it. So I went in and it was still kind of cool. But I think now if I rewatch it or if they reuse it again in the sequel, that'll certainly be in the back of my mind. I do still think that the film's positive far outweigh its negatives. And the kind of motivator for us doing this episode today was its nomination at the Academy Awards in 2024.
00:53:27
Speaker
And so we're debating which of the films we would discuss and we put out a vote to discuss those films. And that's what Spider-Verse ultimately won that. So the nominees on top of Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse are Nimona, Elemental, The Boy and the Heron, and Robot Dreams. And just sort of before you give your compressions of and say what you've seen of those, I've seen all of those but Robot Dreams.
Awards and Recognition for Spider-Verse
00:53:50
Speaker
How many of those have you seen, if any others?
00:53:52
Speaker
Yeah, the only one I've really seen out that list is Elemental, which I have to admit, I watched with my partner and we absolutely loved it. It's an absolutely beautiful film with a lot of great animation. Again, episode for another day, but I really enjoyed that. But that's the only one I've really seen. Nimona has been on my radar for
00:54:12
Speaker
quite a while. I have been targeting that, I still haven't seen it yet but I know that as of today anyway I think that Netflix have uploaded the full film for free on YouTube which I have to admit was quite surprising but at the same time I think that is pretty cool that they managed to do that. I just wish they'd done that for Across the Spider-Verse but that's another story.
00:54:34
Speaker
Yeah, for the other ones, I'm not as savvy about them. It seems like a relatively solid list. From what I've read about these films, it does seem like a very good list. As for where Spider-Man lands in this list, yeah, I would say it's probably deserving. I can't think of really many other animations that have come out recently.
00:54:55
Speaker
that deserve it. I almost feel as if the boy and the heroine, although I've not seen it, that's getting in purely because it's Studio Ghibli. I've heard mixed things about it. Not terrible things. People haven't said, oh it's an awful film, don't watch it. But I've not heard anyone say, oh this is the next Spirited Away or the next.
00:55:13
Speaker
Kiki's delivery service, My Neighbor Totoro, and they film here. So when this episode comes out, of course you are listening to it, in a couple of days the Oscars will be going on, so I'll be interested to see how Across the Spider-Verse fares against all the other films, so yeah.
00:55:30
Speaker
I'm really excited to see whether it is held in high acclaim for, as we said, its animation, its characterization, all of the themes and things that it chooses to approach is really interesting. It's an interesting film. And yeah, good luck to everyone who worked on Across the Spider-Verse, fingers crossed for you. I think of the nominees, I would most like Spider-Verse to win, given that I think I enjoyed it the most. I left the boy in the hair and kind of just be like, that was weird.
00:56:00
Speaker
And I watched a lot of Ghibli love anime movies and TV shows, but I still left the cinema being like, that was a very strange movie I just watched. It was good, it was interesting, but it was just very odd. So I don't think I would hold it to the same esteem, especially as many Ghibli movies and as high as Spider-Verse.
00:56:17
Speaker
I went into Elemental. I knew that it didn't do very well at the box office. I knew that it kind of just felt like another one of those things Disney are doing in the moment. We're just like, what if this was alive? What if this was sentient? And so I kind of went in being like, oh, all right, what's this going to be like? And I, I enjoyed it. The animation was very beautiful. There was a nice enough story, pretty predictable, but nice enough. And it was, it was a fine movie. Again, I don't think it was as good as Spider-Verse.
00:56:41
Speaker
And then Nimona. Nimona is an odd one where it was an interesting story. There was a lot of queer representation, both in the story, in the casting, in the characters, in the creators of the movie. That was very interesting and represented. It was a medieval story told in a very modern setting. There were like knights and swords and that kind of idea in butt with also like ray guns and that kind of thing. So that was very cool, very interesting. And the animation,
00:57:05
Speaker
The animation sometimes kind of took me out a little bit, but was also very beautiful at the same time. I don't really know what to compare it to. It was unique in many ways and the story was very touching, but I don't think it was as good as Spider-Verse. So of all of those, my vote is Spider-Verse. You mentioned on your kind of impressions of Elemental, if you could pick, what would you pick of those movies?
00:57:27
Speaker
In all seriousness, I think the potential winner might be the boy in the head, and if I'm going by a gut reaction, I don't think, I don't think elemental will win, I think maybe, because that's the thing, you're going against a Studio Ghibli film versus a Disney film, but both of which, ironically enough, aren't considered as a return to forum for either studio, they're both kind of middling. Nimona, I feel as if,
00:57:56
Speaker
there's a lot of people who would like that to be recognized and held up to the same standard as the other films. Cross the Spider-Verse again, I don't know in comparison to the others. Like I feel as if it does a lot of things well but I'm honestly not too sure. All of them have their pros and cons going into the nominees and I know that's the point of the Oscars but it's really hard to tell because I don't think there's any that really stand out as a winner.
00:58:24
Speaker
if that makes sense. There doesn't seem to be one where I think that, you know, one of them is definitely going to win it, that they are going to blow out the competition because as much as I love this film, I don't think it maybe has as good of a lead as some people might think. So just not going off of what you think will win, what do you want to win?
00:58:44
Speaker
of Elemental and Spider-Verse. I mean, you only saw those two, so. Oh, yeah. It's a two-horse race, yeah. Which were you most interested by? Which did you enjoy the most? Which do you think is most deserving? My backside is going to get sowed in the fence here, but I honestly don't know because if it's purely in terms of the story, I would probably give the edge to Elemental. But if it was for an animation, I think
00:59:06
Speaker
I thought Elemental did something quite interesting, and again, I know this is a whole other episode, but it did something quite interesting with the way they portrayed the character and the way that the characters interacted with the rest of the world. It's not the best Disney film out there. I'll admit that right off the bat. I do like that Elemental is an immigrant story. Yeah. That is very interesting in how they kind of represent that in a more fantastical kind of setting.
00:59:31
Speaker
Because that's the thing, though. They could have easily made this film, and that's exactly what the trailers kind of gave off as, oh, look, it's water people, but they go through a fence. Oh, look, it's fire people. But they had this really interesting and quite emotional at times story about, as you said, this group of immigrant elementals who come over. They try to sell life for themselves. They bring over things like prejudices based on the water people and vice versa.
01:00:01
Speaker
thought there was a lot to tell in that story so if it was purely for story elemental definitely. Animation though, again it's a mix because both of them are beautiful but I feel as if Spiderverse did more creative things with the property.
01:00:18
Speaker
So I would probably give it to that. But again, this is me sitting up on my fence. But before we wrap up, what would you say? What would be the one you would want to learn? Spider-Verse, definitely. It's a bit of a cheap one, but the category is best animated feature. And I think that as an animated feature, Spider-Verse trumps all of the others. I think it is beautiful. It tells its story through animation in such a unique way.
01:00:41
Speaker
And I'm also a bit biased to the fact that Disney and Pixar, which are bred to Disney and Ghibli traditionally win the best anime feature category. And so seeing a non-Disney one win would be nice. That's not my sole motivator. I do think that on top of that, Spider-Verse is a better movie, but I think that it would also be an extra suite for someone that isn't this constantly winning studio to win.
01:01:05
Speaker
There's an element of me that fights against that because Elemental was a losing battle of people saying, oh, it's a Disney of full enough. This movie is not doing very well at the box office, all that kind of stuff. When in fact, it was a very good movie. And to my understanding, it actually did quite well internationally, just didn't do very well domestically in the United States. But I don't think
01:01:23
Speaker
that I have enough sympathy for the conglomerate that is Disney for me to be swayed into sort of sympathizing for elemental enough. I would rather it went to Spider-Verse that I think is more deserving. And it's very rare that a superhero property would get Academy recognition. So I think that would be quite an interesting one to win.
01:01:42
Speaker
It's both a good reward for the animated hard work and also potentially lights the fire under them again for the studio for them to get back animating again and get us another Oscar. So there's certainly a mixed element of that, but I do think that Spider-Verse is the best animated feature this year. Well, we're going to find out this Sunday. And I'll see you soon on that note. Thank you Andrew so much for coming on and discussing across the Spider-Verse.
01:02:04
Speaker
No problem. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like this episode is my canon event. It was due to come. It was a shame that we didn't manage to squeeze anything about the Spider-Man movies into our Spider-Man month discussion last year. So it's nice that we could finally kind of cover that. You know, funny enough, that was one of the questions I got behind whether or not we would cover the Spider-Man 2 game. The other question was, are you going to cover it into the Spider-Verse? Which I feel as if one day we could definitely go back and give it the full review that it deserves. But yeah, definitely one day.
01:02:32
Speaker
So before we wrap up and let these lovely listeners go away and watch the Oscars, where can they find some of your other work, Andrew? Well, those who are keen Chatsunami listeners will know that I've been on many episodes over the last couple of years, so they can listen to some of the great catalogue of Chatsunami content.
01:02:50
Speaker
And in addition to that, you can also find both myself and Satsunami on the D&D podcast, Stop, Drop, and Roll Initiative, where myself, Satsunami, wrestler Martin McAllister, and Twitch streamer Robotic Battle Toaster are in an ongoing campaign that you can hear right now, where all good podcasts are hosted. You just look up Stop, Drop, and Roll Initiative, and you will find it. You can also follow that podcast on Twitter or X, at SDRI Pod, and you can find us as part of the Pod Pack Collective.
01:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, it's been fantastic working with you guys on the Stop Dropping Role initiative podcast. It's definitely been a lot of fun to play D&D again and get back into that, but it's also been nice not being the one to organize it, being able to take a step back and let yourself, Martin McAllister, run the show and things. So that is an absolutely fantastic
01:03:41
Speaker
podcast, definitely go check it out. And yeah, as you were saying, if you want to check out our Spider-Man month, as well as any of the other catalog of wonderful episodes we've done together, you can check us out our website, chatsanami.com. I also want to thank our amazing Pandalorian patrons, Robotic BattleToaster and Sonya. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. And one more thing before we wrap up, as you said, we are indeed part of the Podpack Collective, which is a wonderful group
01:04:11
Speaker
of podcasters who are a wonderful group of indie podcasters who have come together to spread positivity and support within the indie podcasting sphere so if you want to find out more information then check us out on the x slash twitter on our handle oddpack collect but until then thank you all so so much for listening to this episode and as always stay safe stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated.