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The 2024 State of Marvel with ‘X Men 97’ and ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’
45 Plays1 year ago
First they talk about how X Men 97 makes an exemplary water cooler show (2:05) and its origins as a Saturday morning cartoon (04:50). They discuss what makes X Men eternal (11:07), and how was previously portrayed onscreen (12:55) in the early 2000s. Then, they delve into the cast list (16:21), the pacing (19:21), and they touch on intertextuality (25:47) within the show. After, they remark on the show’s best episode mid-season (27:20), what makes great action (29:38) and dive deep on Wolverine (31:11), Magneto (32:51), and the rest of the show’s villains (39:19) before giving it a final review (51:08). Next, they get into the blockbuster hit, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ (54:41) with the state of Marvel in 2024. They touch on what makes the multiverse a challenge (01:02:42), the film’s tone & purpose (01:09:34), specific moments & spoilers (01:13:04), and go deeper on Disney’s obsession with intertextuality (01:15:48). Niv touches on the movie’s first abandoned concept (01:25:51), and they grapple with the film’s tonal mismatch (01:28:42), before bringing it back to its place as the last movie in a trilogy (1:33:53). They give credence to the film’s villain (01:36:06), align the character into the future of the MCU (01:40:16), and close out the conversation in the most chaotic way possible (01:44:48).
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Transcript
Welcome and Introductions
00:00:05
Speaker
Happy summer, everyone. Welcome to Zeitgeist, the show where we talk about all the latest TV and movies while we listen to the latest music. Joining me for this escapade today in the Marvel Cinematic Universe here in what Deadpool calls a low point is my co-host and lovely friend Nibel Boz. How you doing today, man?
Episode Preview: Marvel, X-Men 97, Deadpool
00:00:30
Speaker
pretty good pretty good glad to be back on this pod and ready to get through the summer there's a lot to go through dude for real we are at a high point for zeitgeist because we are talking about a ton of stuff in these next couple of months let me lay down the slate for you guys real quick a little sneak preview.
00:00:50
Speaker
of what's coming up. We've got a comic book edition today. We're talking about X-Men 97. We're talking about Deadpool and Wolverine because we have a video game nerd on the podcast. Our next episode is going to be video game themed. More on that at the end of you guys stick around. We'll talk more about
Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool's Pop Culture Impact
00:01:08
Speaker
that.
00:01:08
Speaker
we are going later in we're going to be doing an actor highlight later in we're going to be doing some throwbacks to earlier in the summer we're going to be talking about some of our highest performing actors coming up throughout this year and of course today we are talking about one of the seminal actors in the second half ah ryan reynolds is deadpool and of course deadpool is one of the mainstays in terms of our culture right now. And Brian Reynolds and Sean Levy, similarly, are a dream team.
X-Men 97: Recognition and Quality
00:01:41
Speaker
But even before all of that, we are talking about a show that I think is beloved by fans, but maybe otherwise little known in the culture. I'm glad that we're talking about it on Zeitgeist because my stance is this should be in the Zeitgeist. I don't know if it is all the way, maybe in some circles, but I haven't heard enough being talking about with X-Men 97. And I thought this show was really good. And I'm curious, Niv, talk to me about your stance on the show, why you brought it to me as something to be talked about. Ultimately, it is what you just said. It is a very good show. And I think when you watch a very good show, you should market it to everybody you know, right? That's just the nature of the game. But more interestingly, when I was watching it, I mean, you know my stance on animation. I think we've talked about it ad nauseam where I'm like, I watch everything, but whatever I watch, it needs to be the same caliber. as everything I watch. Because when I watch animated shows, I'm like, this needs to be equal to or better than a live action show that I'm watching. And X-Men 97 feels like that. It feels like a cartoon that you know is equal to like a show like Game of Thrones. Because the whole Game of Thrones like idea was that it was like ah a water cooler show that you could come up to someone at a water cooler and just talk about the show. you know It's something that you united people and their hype for it.
00:03:06
Speaker
And I think X-Men 97 has the very same qualities. It is a water cooler show. It's just not enough people know about it, which is a shame because I think the main reason not a lot of people know about it is because it is a continuation of a show from the 90s and it's a cartoon. I think that's the thing. Like not a lot of people are willing to watch it because it's a cartoon.
00:03:28
Speaker
Absolutely true. And I think its existence as a cartoon makes it not only as good as live action, but in certain sections, I think it supersedes what we have been able to do with live action. Because when you look at an action sequence that is so intricate as some of the action sequences that take place, whether it be the midpoint of the show, which I think is so spectacular in X-Men 97,
00:03:53
Speaker
or even towards the front or the back where there are two absolutely spectacular sequences that kind of parallel one another. And in all three of these sequences, I see a level of intricacy and care that is simply unmatched.
00:04:10
Speaker
when you create a live action spectacle, unless you are being as choreographic in your approach as humanly possible. If you're treating your actors like dancers, maybe you're getting half of the way there. But even with something like John Wick, where it is very choreographed heavy, it's still human and people. And when you get these animated characters, you get such a flow and rhythm and movement that is completely unlike what you can do in live action. And I think that X-Men 97 works to its advantages ultimately. And I think in large part because it refines and builds a limitation to
Nostalgia and 90s Animated Marvel Shows
00:04:50
Speaker
the show. And I also want to talk about sort of what is this show? First of all, what's the 97? Let's get back to basics of what we do best on this podcast. It's a direct continuation of the original X-Men animated program from 1992, Fox.
00:05:04
Speaker
and Have you seen this show? Yeah, yeah, I have. I've seen like a few episodes of that show. My show I used to watch in that same universe was the Spider-Man animated series, because back then there was like an MCU version of the Marvel universe, but in like animated TV shows.
00:05:22
Speaker
So it was X-Men, the animated series, Fantastic Four, the animated series, and Spider-Man, the animated series. I think like a few others that were shorter, but those were like the main three that I remember. And I specifically watched like from start to end the Spider-Man animated series from 1994 to 1998. But, you know, like I said, it was like a shared universe. So you would see some of the characters like the X-Men pop in Spider-Man like once in a while. which was interesting. like As a kid, I was like, oh, that's cool. like Who are these strange characters? Mutants, what are those things? Because that was my introduction to the Marvel universe at large, all these Marvel characters. I was truly like a 90s kid ah watching all these series together and being really drawn to those characters, especially Spider-Man, because what a great introduction, if not like the flagship character of Marvel.
00:06:14
Speaker
I think Spider-Man, the animated series, was probably the biggest standout just because Spider-Man has always been the standout of Marvel. And Kim and Batman, I think, were where I came from, too. Like, in terms of animated series. Now, when it came to comics and when it came to live-action movies, that was where I actually was an X-Men kid. And I really didn't do a lot of superhero comics in general growing up.
00:06:39
Speaker
But I did follow a lot of X-Men trades and I went to backwards a little bit. So I read some uncanny X-Men. I had a couple volumes of that ready to go. I believe I even dabbled in one or two Ultimate X-Men. But in general, it was like very classic X-Men, the 60s comics that I made my bread and butter and I read and reread and reread.
00:07:06
Speaker
a lot of those series and it's amazing how the ethos of X-Men was so substantial right away and I think that's what makes I think X-Men to this day is something that still resonates with me so much and why I think this show is so incredible and has so much potential that it is realizing because the concepts Embedded in the show of alienation and of humanity in ah spite of that alienation feels so vital to so many different generations.
Magneto: A Complex Villain
00:07:42
Speaker
I mean, obviously there are real life metaphors that it continually draws from.
00:07:47
Speaker
The clearest one being Magneto, who in real life time survived the Holocaust and he himself has built this grudge against humanity because they are capable of so much hate. And he, in turn, I think, internalizes a lot of that hate and brings it in himself and externalizes it in real ways too of course. I mean that's his character but at the same time that makes him as a villain much more human and much more relatable and in certain cases I think can make him transcend villainhood to being almost anti-hero-like which is really kind of weird and
00:08:24
Speaker
It throws you back a little bit, especially as a kid and even more so when you're creating kids cartoons. Now, what I really like about this show is that it attempts to bring the story back to looking more like a comic book and looking really a lot like an emulation of the original show. And it's emulating a style that no longer really exists with the tools of digital formation, right? Because they're still using 3D emulation to create this 2D environment.
00:08:53
Speaker
And it looks less digital than the show that succeeded the original X-Men from 96, right? X-Men 97 is the name of the show because it came after the show that was canceled in 96. But X-Men Evolution is the show that came after X-Men after it ended in 96. And that show feels very digital and feels very CG and has a new level to it. And I've seen an episode or two of that.
00:09:18
Speaker
I think it's interesting how this is a emulation. It is meaning to evoke a Saturday morning cartoon, but avoiding the broadness and avoiding the goofiness that can be so reminiscent of like the old school Saturday morning cartoons and feels so in line with what the 90s wanted the Saturday morning cartoon to be. And in some cases, I think they were able to hit that, right? I mean, certain episodes of things like I think of Batman, the animated series is the obvious choice. That's one that I can call as a touchstone because that's one I think I've seen the most of of all of these superhero animated programs of an era. that one has a level of understanding of what adult material can look like for kids but i also feel like it doesn't often become adult ah do and expa ninety seven i think is unbound by those limitations and in turn i think it becomes much more rich and engaging and it is ultimately like primetime tv would you say that's right does it feel like more like a saturday morning cartoon do you or does it feel like more like Primetime. Prestige TV. I think it's combined. I think, especially because we've talked about other animated shows on this podcast, right? Scavengers Reign, Primal, Blue Eyed Samurai. All of them are cartoons, but they all feel like Primetime TV. I think with X-Men 97, it's a weirder distinction, right? Because it was a Saturday morning cartoon. And I think that we've added modern day like themes, not themes, but more techniques and sensibilities into it. We've modernized it, right? Even though like it is, it feels retro. We have still modernized it. It's like taking an old car, keeping like the hood on but giving all like the tunes and gadgets you would find in like a modern car on the inside. It's the same thing. So it does feel like a Saturday morning cartoon, but when you look at it on a deep level, it feels primetime. It generates the same water cooler effect I just mentioned in Game of Thrones, because it feels like not prestige television, but blockbuster television.
X-Men's Themes of Oppression and Identity
00:11:33
Speaker
I think certain episodes do feel prestige because it it tackles like really serious themes. Again, like racism or genocide and stuff like that. But it's still doing it in like the purview of exploring it within a comic book because the X-Men have always explored those themes. I mean, who created the X-Men, like in terms of like artists? It was Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They are the ones who created a Magneto. They're the ones who created the X-Men. And those are two Jewish guys. I feel like it's always been interesting to me because Stan Lee also created so many ah of the other characters like Captain America and the Hulk. and Iron Man and all that stuff. But he only created his true Jewish characters were X-Men or within the X-Men universe. It was Shadowcat and, of course, Magneto ultimately connects to themes that Jews have sort of understood for millennia, sort of like that hatred, that racism.
00:12:27
Speaker
he just attached it to mutants. He hasn't done that with any of his other characters, because that's not what sells. But I think the reason the X-Men stand the test of time, and they continue to be successful, is because ingrained in the mythos of the X-Men are true and very prevalent themes that are hard to look at, especially in a world of comic books and heroism. Because the mutants are heroes, but they are heroes that everybody hates.
00:12:55
Speaker
and the mutant are ultimately a people oppressed and you can look at it from various vantage points and plenty of directors have i look at it from the context of the film medium because that's the one i'm most familiar with but a film that is Otherwise, maybe not the strongest, but in X-Men 3, The Last Stand, Ratner equates the concepts of isolation and these concepts, these broad concepts that you're talking about, these really personal, deeper meanings.
Evolution of Comic Book Movies
00:13:30
Speaker
into themes of homophobia and things that were very prevalent right on the precipice of what would become the Obama administration and times of serious change and overhaul socially. And we saw a lot of that early anxieties present in a superhero movie and not just a superhero movie, but a pre Iron Man superhero movie. And I think that's so essential and important to talk about.
00:13:59
Speaker
especially in retrospect, talking about the zeitgeist. I think we entered a special period of time when comic book movies were changing. Because if we're talking about actual like zeitgeist and the history of this specific zeitgeist within the X-Men universe, the animated show ended in 97. And that's when comic book films ah started changing right or comic book properties in terms of adaptations.
00:14:24
Speaker
Because in 1998, Blade with Wesley Snipes came out. And then in 2000, X-Men, the Hugh Jackman, Bryan Singer X-Men came out. That was the shift between the Richard Donner and Tim Burton projects, right? Because back then, in that era, comic book heroes were just comic book heroes. There was action, but it was very much, it felt like a comic book film. Whereas starting from Blade and then pushed even further with X-Men, these films started feeling like action film, specifically action summer blockbuster films.
Nostalgic Revivals: X-Men 97 and Deadpool
00:14:58
Speaker
Well, and Fox, particularly, were the ones who first took chances on these people in these properties, whether it be Blade, whether it be
00:15:09
Speaker
Daredevil, whether it be X-Men, all of these movies were not cheap to produce. All of these movies had money and budgets, and we still remember the marketing campaigns. I mean, I remember the marketing campaign for Daredevil years and years and years later. As a young person, I remember Daredevil. I remember seeing him on the Cheez-Its box.
00:15:33
Speaker
This is something that they invested time and money into at Fox, and clearly it paid off in major ways. But I think it required that level of emotional investment. We're taking something retro and sort of remarketing it to modern day. And we're doing that for both projects. We're talking about both in X-Men 97 and Deadpool and Wolverine, because you're taking essentially two things that hold a lot of nostalgia and you're just bringing it back, not to get a quick buck, so to speak, but you're doing it just to restart something, right? Because I feel like both projects do a really good job of wiping the slate clean to try something new again. And I think that's the big triumph of both these projects.
00:16:20
Speaker
Bridging the old and the new, I believe there are some return cast members. And niv would you mind leading us in on this because sure I am blithely unaware of this landscape. Yeah, I think the cast list in itself is very interesting because usually in projects like these, especially like modern projects like these, you've got high level TV actors to voice these characters.
00:16:46
Speaker
but That wasn't the case with this project. they actually The main sort of voice actors are like seasoned voice actors like Ray Chase and Jennifer Hale. We've done a myriad of projects from animated shows to anime to video games. like These are like well-rounded and well-respected voice actors, but by no means would people know their names.
00:17:07
Speaker
Right. And also it's important to mention a lot of the actors were recast from the original show, but not all, like Cal Dodd and Lenore Zahn, who play Wolverine and Rogue respectively were brought back, but they still needed to audition. I think that was the thing. Like this was a project that was very much a love letter to the past, but it still went through sort of like the bolts and and nuts of like, okay, we're doing this again. We want to do this right. And we're going to audition everyone, even if they did the parts back. then Which I respect, but at the same time, you know, I'm glad that Kaldod and Lenorzan in particular are doing these characters again because they also have very distinctive voices that really carry the show and really carry the vibe of the show. Especially because Wolverine in particular was considered like the main character of the animated show, the original animated show. Another talent that's like interesting in this is Ross Marquandt, who like ah got sort of his acting chops in The Walking Dead. But since then has been in a ton of Marvel projects, mostly as a voice actor, like in Infinity War, he voiced a Red Skull. And in the animated show, what if he voiced like Ultron, who was like the main villain of like that first season.
00:18:19
Speaker
Here he voices like Professor x Xavier, you know, so it's interesting because I feel like Ross Marquand has become the Marvel equivalent to Pixar's like John Ratzenberger, who appears in almost every Pixar film to date. I feel like Ross Marquand appears in almost every like Marvel animated series to date.
X-Men 97: Drama and Character Arcs
00:18:41
Speaker
I thought you would appreciate that, Jordan. I do appreciate that.
00:18:44
Speaker
And finally, the main villain of the show, Bastion, is voiced by pretty prominent like TV actor, Dio James. He's been in that new Gentleman show on Netflix. He's been like in the film series Divergent. He was like the main guy in that film series. and And one of the sexiest people to date on White Lotus.
00:19:06
Speaker
ah Right, right. That was his big thing, White Lotus. His most recent like big thing was White Lotus. He's done like his own array of voice acting recently. His biggest project was Castlevania on Netflix as well. I know what's the biggest project for him in my heart.
00:19:21
Speaker
And I also know that to me, the true villain of this show is Mojo, the TV executive gone rogue mid-season. Not to confuse with the actual character of Rogue, but Mojo. Okay, this is my yeah awkward attempt to try to cycle back to the concept of high and low art all in the midst of X-Men 97.
00:19:48
Speaker
What I think is superlative about this show is that we have these side plots that feel like a Saturday morning cartoon with Mojo and with characters like at the very top of the show.
00:20:05
Speaker
They brought in this new, younger character, Sunspot, who then is closely tied with the other mutant Jubilee. And Jubilee and Sunspot get to have a little mini-arc, and that feels, I would say, pretty standard, like, line item TV. But then you have other plots, which are, like,
00:20:31
Speaker
as dense and intricate and maybe a little melodramatic. I mean, there's certainly the Jean Grey plot feels, I would say almost melodramatic, but so soapy. I mean, obviously soapy, but also like there is there is a level of drama to it that is so intoxicating. And then you have other stuff, just like I think the small amount of stuff that Wolverine gets is great. Gambit.
00:20:58
Speaker
You know, Beast is also a great a character speaking of who doesn't get enough. I mean, he was beautifully played in another callback to X-Men 3. They brought Beast in for one movie in X-Men 3, and I thought they did a great job. I understand that Beast did play some part in the X-Men first class world, baby.
00:21:22
Speaker
That's something I did not watch, but I love Nicholas Holt. And I'm glad that he got to be a part of that project. And I'm happy that Beast got the credit he deserved. He was one of the original X-Men. He was alongside like Jean Grey and Cyclops. I mean, you see like that picture, that portrait of the original X-Men a lot in like X-Men 97. But yeah, I think what you're getting at is that the show has a lot of highs and lows. And I don't mean that in like a negative way. I just mean there's a lot going on. And the show is 10 episodes. I feel like every episode, something like massive happens that feels almost unrelated to the previous episode because there's always like a new crisis that the team has to deal with. And it ultimately does build up to a much larger sort of plot. So it doesn't sort of like meander to somewhere else. It does have a lead-up. That lead-up is just subtle. So it feels like you're going through a lot. You know, it it feels like almost like a soap opera world where there was another twist and you're like, oh my God, this came from nowhere.
Storytelling and Pacing in X-Men 97
00:22:25
Speaker
But then, like I said, in the final three episodes, it all starts to click, but it still feels not rushed, but it feels overwhelming. That's the one true negative I can pin to X-Men 97. The show feels very overwhelming.
00:22:39
Speaker
Well, sure, but also I think that the content in itself isn't necessarily the epitome of strength 100% of the time. I don't think that every single element of the show is so incredibly salient that that it would be a perfect show in a longer format than it's given, which is half hour content. I think what's amazing about this show is the pacing. And the pacing makes the show to me because it packs an hour's worth of content into 30 minutes, which is what you were getting at. And that was what is magnificent about the show.
00:23:19
Speaker
I think that is what saves a lot of the weaker elements of the show. I was talking about Mojo like as if he was the greatest part. I was joking. I think that that particular episode is maybe the weakest of the episodes in so far as it doesn't do anything for the larger narrative of the program. Mojo is a throwback. It's one of the few episodes that particular one you're talking about, which is Mottendo. It is a very clear reference to the original series. It feels like a draw. Yeah, it feels like the weakest because it sort of comes out of nowhere and it doesn't truly relate to anything at large, but it's world building. This very rich world that is a continuation, right? That's the whole thing that X-Men 97 is. It is a continuation and a revival of a show that came before it. So if anything, like it's just like saying, okay, we are not a remake. We are very much like a new season of this show. So any of the old characters come back any of those old worlds come back and I didn't bring it up to make fun of it to be clear I brought it up for a specific reason and that is to showcase what I think is missing in larger TV in a world of eight-hour programming in a world where you are so driven by serialization that nothing seeps through the cracks and A show like X-Men 97 makes a case for a filler episode in these eight to ten episode seasons wherein previously you wouldn't think that there is any filler. And the fact of the matter is, Nintendo isn't filler to my eye either. I think it is an important palate cleanser because what comes after it is absolutely as vital as what comes before.
00:25:05
Speaker
without Montendo and the life death, half of the life death arc that Storm goes through in this season. I think that between these two episodes, wherein you are largely getting smaller character stories, single contained stories, things that feel very small and things that build character and things that make a difference, but make small difference in a way that we don't usually see in prestige TV, you have this absolutely incredible incredible 22 to 30 minutes of TV that is unmatched and that is episode 5 remember it which I think is one of the Greatest pieces of TV this year. Yeah before we truly dive into that I really want to actually validate what you just said about like Montana because I think it is something that is important to dive a little deeper on before we head into remember it and That episode really represents the issue with both X-Men 97 and Deadpool and Wolverine. It's something that requires almost homework, right? Because it's a direct reference to something in the past that you wouldn't have watched. And it's hard to connect with them unless you have prior knowledge, unless you do like actual homework and watch the original like arcs from the sort of 92 to 97 show. And I think that's just the poor nature of this cinematic universe game, that if you miss even like one nugget, you become
Themes of Oppression in X-Men 97
00:26:31
Speaker
sort of lost. But if you actually know everything, it feels rewarding. And connecting it to Remember It because I feel like that's the real meat of what we should talk about with 97. Remember It is such like a wonderful episode because you didn't need to do any homework to get it.
00:26:47
Speaker
you could have honestly like started the show with that moment and it would have hit just as hard because really like what carries that episode so much is its theme and it's the theme of the Axemen which is hey we are people that are oppressed and this is the weight of that oppression.
00:27:06
Speaker
In X-Men 97, the first half of the season feels like it's driven by ah distinct personalities across the board and it really showcases how great X-Men is as an ensemble cast and uses see a number of storylines all coalescing into what I believe is truly the zenith of the show which is episode five which culminates in a moment that resonates equally to or superior to in my mind any Avengers movie and in fact what I find to be most appealing about this particular moment in the show is that it escalates the conflict into a place where we
00:27:50
Speaker
have a strong and clear and concise emotional grounding. And because of this, there is a mix of personal conflict, there is a mix of fearic victory, of redemption, of true pure heroism, and it combines high drama in this critical moment in the show that becomes so essential to the rest of the season that it is, I think, one of the high moments in any, any, any Avengers property, not just in the animated programming, but in the entirety of the MCU to date.
00:28:30
Speaker
And what I love about this particular episode speaks to what I love about the larger program is the way that the show translates spectacle from a comic book perspective. I mean, you get the splash pages and comic books for those uninformed. A splash page is usually a single page illustration in the middle of a comic book. Typically, you get the comic book panels partitioned. into, you know, four, six, maybe nine different panels on a page. A splash page is usually a single piece of image that usually is a big moment in the story. I felt like the entire episode felt like a splash page to me in the best way possible. And um throughout the season, we do see how physical conflict can highlight character development and maintain high stakes, and that moves
00:29:20
Speaker
super well throughout the um season into some seriously interesting moments in the finale that I think truly speak to the legacy of X-Men over the course of now over 50 years of time.
00:29:35
Speaker
And ultimately, what violence really is, I think, and tell me if you agree with me here. In musical theater, they say that music happens, singing happens when the characters no longer have the words to speak. I think a great action scene happens when the characters have nothing more to say. And that's a mistake that I see in action storytelling nowadays, time and time and time again, where people continue to throw quips as they're fighting. And to me, I find that to be a missed opportunity because if they are quipping, they ought not to be fighting. If they are fighting, that is a sign that words have no longer served
Ensemble Focus and Character Diversity
00:30:14
Speaker
their purpose. What do you think about that?
00:30:16
Speaker
No, I agree. I think that a lot of stories waste the idea that violence is a last resort and it should be like a last resort because a lot of characters in storytelling, they don't necessarily want to fight. They feel like they need to fight. And I think those are the best action scenes.
00:30:33
Speaker
there are because ultimately it's the motivation that pushes a character to do something versus it forces a character to do something because the story requires them to. That makes it more believable when a character is like pushed to a corner and he's like, all right, I have nothing else I can do. No words, no other peaceful actions I can do, just violence.
00:30:55
Speaker
You know, and there is no one who I think exemplifies that more than one of the two major characters of this show. So X-Men 97 makes a particularly interesting choice in who it highlights and who it chooses not to highlight, right? There are certain characters that we remember and love through our program that just don't really get much screen time. One big one that I can talk about without and going into real spoiler territory is Wolverine.
00:31:25
Speaker
Wolverine is present throughout the show like any other cast member, but I feel like he gets pretty slim moments relative to the rest of the cast. But I think that also speaks to a commitment to the comics and a commitment to bringing the ensemble nature of X-Men back to X-Men. And it's easy to feel like, especially in the, like, singer stories, that Wolverine is the star of the show and everybody else is just secondary.
00:31:53
Speaker
Wolverine was the main character of the original X-Men animated series. The story very much focused on him. So I think it was a deliberate choice to try to expand it, to try to focus on these other characters. Because Wolverine does have like strong moments in the show, like particularly in the finale. But I think it was, like I said, it it wasn't just like a deliberate choice, I think.
00:32:14
Speaker
You know, given the amount of episodes they had, they were like, all right, these are the amount of characters we have. These are the amount of episodes we have. It's best to focus on every single character as if they are Wolverine. Since Wolverine had so much content to him than the original. But we were also touching on Grey morality certainly Wolverine exemplifies that but instead of taking the easy choice I feel like they focus very strongly on a character that often is I mean treated as a villain because that is ultimately what he is in the context of this larger program which is of course Magneto
00:32:51
Speaker
And obviously, one of the major tension points in not just this series, but in all X-Men properties is x Xavier versus Magneto. So in case you've been living under a rock or you're tuning into this podcast midway through, x Xavier runs the school, right? Magneto, on the other hand, has his own strategy. He has his own way of operating. He is one side of the coin. Xavier is the other. And in this show, we get to see Magneto really take on a new role.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a famous example that because x Xavier wants peace, because he wants to live in coexistence with human beings, he is treated like Martin Luther King, who was famous of like, I want African Americans to coexist with white Americans.
00:33:39
Speaker
And throughout you know history, Magneto has been compared to Malcolm X because you know he was a person that was like, no, we need to use violence to get our rights. We need to show strength. We need to show power. And that's how Magneto views it as well. He's like, all right, we mutants you know have suffered enough from oppression. And the only way people will be able to stop oppressing us is if we fight back.
00:34:02
Speaker
And of course that has to do very understandably and very, very empathetically due to the fact that he is a survivor of the Holocaust. He survived the ultimate oppression and he essentially transitioned into another form of extreme oppression because he's a mutant. Not only is he a Jew, but he's also a mutant.
00:34:21
Speaker
I think Magneto is one of the main reasons why I find the entire property so interesting inherently, because Magneto is one of, I think to me, one of the most sympathetic villains in any history, and comic book history particularly, because he's hated on both sides. The public hates him, right? You just said he's the Malcolm X of superheroes, and on the other hand, the X-Men also view him largely negatively.
00:34:50
Speaker
particularly people like Wolverine really, really dislikes him. People who are really, I think, mentally divisive often find him to be particularly distasteful, although there are certain people in the X-Men who are more sympathetic to Magneto, and I think that's explored a little bit throughout the show. What's interesting about Magneto in this series too is that by episode two, he has almost redeemed himself. He's attempting to redeem himself in the public eye and he's actually trying to do his best to put himself in Xavier's shoes and almost become a hero.
00:35:23
Speaker
So you see, I think in this show, him acting more heroically than he has historically ever in the history of the X-Men comic books. And what is the fascinating line that the show rides is not that not once does he sacrifice his ideals, sacrifice his mentality, sacrifice what he believes in order to achieve these goals.
Magneto's Ideals and Historical Parallels
00:35:47
Speaker
He is simply someone who is now ready to go toe to toe with the public, to go toe to toe with the real world and to embrace the real world while still being as critical as he's ever been. And that is what I find so fascinating about the show. Particularly in a world now where we exist in a space of magnanimous change where we are as a public starting to become more aggressive about the changes that we want to see sometimes for the positive sometimes for the negative I mean every party in the
00:36:24
Speaker
current election right now is looking to make major changes and some of them may be to the detriment of those podcasting or those in the audience. Now to keep politics aside, I think what is truly fascinating about Magneto is that he has such a liberal tint and he is ultimately an anarcho-revolutionist. He's interested in major social change. He's interested in, I mean, socialism, right? i And if you look at the utopian aspects midway through the show, Magneto, his ideal is a socialist utopia of mutants. He wants a ah mutant, you know, community. He wants, like,
00:37:06
Speaker
a nation where mutants not only get to coexist with each other, but they're also safeguarded, which is funny being Israeli. I mean, that was the whole like Zionist ideal to create a country where Jews would not feel oppressed, which feels very true. to today's politics, crazy enough. But that's the thing. you know like There have been many times throughout history where terrorists and revolutionaries were not that different. I mean, the only difference between them is the way history views them as victors or losers, so to speak.
00:37:36
Speaker
because Nelson Mandela and Gandhi were both considered terrorists by the dominant governments of their time. You know, the South African apartheid government and the British government that was ruling over India, which made sense because they were against the regimes and trying to fight for their own rights. Same with, you know, American revolutionaries, George Washington and the independence war. The British empire viewed those revolutionaries as terrorists. We only view them as revolutionaries. and as heroes because they won the war. If England would have won, the independence war history might have looked probably very, very different. The interesting about Magneto in this sort of show is that every time we see Magneto in every other property, he is that revolutionary, he is that terrorist. He's someone that goes against the authoritarian regimes that he feels oppresses him and very much
00:38:28
Speaker
do, in fact, oppress him, and he fights back. But I think x Xavier always served the role of a politician, trying to actually bridge the gaps between a lot of things and create stability around that. And I think the big motivation for Magneto is that he finally understands that, that in order to make something lasting, he can't keep blowing something up. He can't keep destroying something. He needs to build something. He needs to actually bridge the gaps between things And he sort of serves as a politician. He's transitioning from a revolutionary to a politician in the show. And of course, that is not something he's used to. And the fact that the show shows that not only makes it really interesting, but it shows a lot of humanity.
00:39:12
Speaker
and growth to a character we see as a villain, but in reality is just a person with really strong ideas. The thing that I find the most strong about the show and I want to talk about this from both sides of that coin is the way that people in the show react to the events happening.
00:39:29
Speaker
and how the event's happening, obviously deep in character movement. One of my favorite characters throughout the course of this show, to keep it general, is Rogue. I think that Rogue has a really interesting arc in the show, and her arc is largely informed by the set piece moments, and that we continue to touch base with her character in really smart ways as time goes on, but she isn't the face of the show in the same way that Scott Summers, aka Cyclops,
00:39:56
Speaker
or in Jean Grey who takes on a really sizable role in this particular
Jean Grey and Moral Complexity
00:40:03
Speaker
program. She has really the biggest, most external force of the show and in some ways I think that having Cyclops and Jean as the forward motion of the show does make sense, but they are also largely the centerpieces where the show operates around and These people are meant to be a little generic, I think, in relativity to other characters like Rogue, like Wolverine, who have very particular personalities, especially Wolverine, who speaks in a very specific way. There's smaller characters that we don't get a lot of time with, like Beast or Morph characters that I think are larger in comics than in often in
00:40:50
Speaker
other programming, but are, I think, really essential. Now, the really biggest thing that I love about the program is how we see the heroes have to directly look at their own morality in the eye throughout time. And obviously, the villains themselves still aren't particularly morally great in my eyes.
00:41:12
Speaker
A lot of characters can be really truly antagonistic, true villains. Bolivar Trask portrayed as a true villain amongst an increasing competition from other worse villains, some of whom just have like straight up like villain bad guy names, you know? Not names that you would find at your local CVS. And Marvel has these names all the time. We have a very famous example coming up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Doom. There was another man who is a similarly villainous name who comes in in the later half of the show. mr sinister Yes, thank you. But some characters like Mojo and Deathbird, these characters are antagonistic due to their pride, antagonistic due to their mindset, but they're not entirely villainous in actual conceit. And I think that we get this larger range of moral gray area, which brings me to my next point.
00:42:01
Speaker
which is that there is a mix of the show A-plot, which is kind of driving through. And by A-plot, I'm using that very loosely because there is obviously multiple plots within this larger, I would say, serialized plot versus some one-off storylines that are peppered throughout the middle half of the season. I'm a little curious now, obviously, I talked about how I really liked the mojo plot. How did all of these resonate for you as a whole? Did you find that any of them were digressive? Or where do you find that they were all very largely additive? They were largely additive, right? Because there was so much happening in each episode. and
00:42:40
Speaker
and in such a short period of time, but each thing that was happening would add to the next episode and ultimately culminate into like an incredible finale, right? Even though all of these things felt very, very separated from each other initially. Like the whole Jean Grey storyline, it felt so soapy that I was like, how can it possibly add anything later in the season? And it did. Even like the whole like Magneto arc, it was always the central arc of the season. But obviously we didn't know how it would end up, especially because there is like that mid-season twist in the middle. We'd both remember it and what happens after we remember it.
00:43:18
Speaker
So I think ultimately it was additive, but I stand by what I said. It still felt overwhelming because there was so much going on that it wasn't necessarily hard to keep track of, but it was hard to... The best way I can describe it is that it's hard to watch this entire show in one sitting. I think you need to digest it. You need to digest each episode after you watch it to be like, all right, I am ready for the next one.
00:43:42
Speaker
It is nice to be able to digest it. I will say, actually funny that you said that I took several weeks off. Luckily, because we have such a large gap between when X-Men 97 came out, which was closer to the edge of the spring season, ending out to a about mid-May, I believe was when the finale started to hit and the release of Deadpool and Wolverine, which is what we're actually talking about in the second half of the episode at a moment.
00:44:11
Speaker
I will say that I did start to feel a little bit of a pull downwards in terms of energy right as six was starting to hit, and as soon as seven happened, I could feel the energy ramping up. Now, that being said, and I've already spoken a little bit about this, I think that without these lows, you can't get the highs and you need to have the quiet in order for the storm to hit that
Character Psychology and Emotional Moments
00:44:32
Speaker
much harder. In this case, maybe literally. Now, the The biggest thing for me, though, even despite this small critique, because I like to be able to bring in something, is that throughout these smaller moments, you get such brilliant action in psychology.
00:44:52
Speaker
where they're like, wow, I have this tremendous responsibility now, and it means that I have to choose this path, that I have a path of heroism. But heroism seems to be sort of the boundary that they are attempting to mangle with. In X-Men, the characters don't ever feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders like a hero the same way that an Avenger might, that a capital A Avenger might.
00:45:20
Speaker
In this show it feels like the mutants truly just feel isolated due to their otherness and that is what they have to grapple with consistently. And so that character psychology feels so much more grounded and so much more human and it becomes additive right and i think that ultimately is the thing that grounds something like gene gray's plot with madeline you know which is so crucial crucial crucial for the show now in this way people who surround i'm gene and this being one of them,
00:45:58
Speaker
As time moves on there is you know major moments in climax where new characters begin to be introduced throughout the second half and we slow down enough to introduce these characters but never slow down long enough.
00:46:13
Speaker
that we are really truly able to land an emotional moment until the exact moment when the climax just like drifts upwards it's beautiful it's almost musical and we get the exact pathos at the exact moment that we need it and i think that is x-men 97's biggest strength is that it has no open air to wait for
X-Men in the MCU: Challenges and Future
00:46:39
Speaker
something. Everything happens orchestrated exactly in the place that the creators intended. It is a difficult thing to do. I think it is also a replicable thing to do based on the way that they structure this program. And I think they can do it again. And I'm excited to see what that would be for a second season.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think what you said ah just now about the X-Men otherness. I think that's important to point out, especially in the larger world of both the MCU and other Marvel characters, because to me that always never made sense. I'll be honest. I'll be honest about that. And I don't think that X-Men 97 is able to create a convincing argument around that. Unlike the Fox movies or even X-Men Evolution, that animated show. Because X-Men 97 and the MCU represent the fact that this is a world filled with superheroes. People who have superhuman abilities.
00:47:32
Speaker
and yet the only people who are truly ostracized and oppressed are the mutants, who also serve as superheroes and who are also born with superhuman abilities. But unlike, say, Captain America or the Hulk or Iron Man, they are in fact like punished for it. They are punished for being gifted.
00:47:50
Speaker
And I think that that's actually one of the few flaws I think X-Men 97 has because I sat there and I was like, huh, I'm seeing other Marvel characters in this show and they're very much treated like heroes. Why aren't the X-Men treated like heroes? And I feel like Fox was actually able to do that very well because the X-Men like the Fox movies because X-Men felt very contained. that actually leads to a bigger question. Even like Deadpool and Wolverine that we're about to get into, it felt pretty well-contained, even if it had like branches in different universes. right And so I'm actually very curious to see, moving forward with X-Men 97 and X-Men in live action, how they will actually be incorporated in the MCU that is already filled to the very brim with gifted and superhuman people.
00:48:41
Speaker
That is a curious point and the answer may just be that they don't. I mean it looks like we may be moving to a place where by the time the expan are introduced that they'll sort of just like reset this whole project of the MCU and kind of just wrap it all up. You know I mean it seems like they're starting and ending in around the same kind of territory it seems like they've got several actors that they'll be bringing back for the final few movies one of whom has been officially announced as dr doom robert downey jr now an academy award winner so he has done his artsy thing and now he is back
00:49:21
Speaker
as making millions. Where he became famous again, I was going to say became famous, but he was a brat pack kid. You know, I think he was in a Saint almost fire. He was like one of the seminal 80s actors and then, of course, dipped into addiction and found his way back to stardom and is all the stronger for it. Obviously, you know, he's been very public about how his wife helped him through this.
00:49:47
Speaker
particular tough period in his life and now he is making tons of money and he's not blowing it on anything. I think that's an incredible, incredible thing for an actor to do. It's hard to make that kind of money and still be a decent rational person and that really makes me respect Robert Downey Jr. as an actor that much more. Now he was obviously pulled out of kind of nowhere. People in the studios didn't want to work with him because he was considered a black mark. He had a lot of bad reputation from his time with addiction. And throughout the time, Feige has been incredible at pulling people out of essentially nowhere. Simu Liu was pulled out of nowhere. you know There's a lot of other social gomez
00:50:32
Speaker
in the MCU pulled out of nowhere. And this has happened time and time again. Of course, they obviously did cast some pretty famous people in places like the Fantastic Four, so they certainly are still utilizing star power. But I think that what would be most interesting to me in X-Men isn't even, are they going to hang out with Captain America?
00:50:51
Speaker
My biggest question is, how are they going to treat casting? How are they going to recast Wolverine? Because as we'll talk about in just a moment, one of the biggest challenges in incorporating X-Men into a cinematic universe is trying to shed the past. And ultimately, of course, Deadpool and Wolverine opts not to shed the past and instead embraces the past. And in fact, embraces, in some ways, the larger metanarrative of the whole project at large. That said, I'm giving a two thumbs up to X-Men 97. I'm very excited to see where the project moves forward. Niv, before we get to some music, is there a particular project that you feel needs to have an adaptation similar to X-Men 97, whether it be a comic book or otherwise? Well, it's funny because you just hit thumbs up, which means like we've moved for more numbers. We keep playing around with our scoring system here. I would give X-Men 97 a two thumbs up as well. For me, I think it's like a nine. Again, only because like it's overwhelming. It's like an amazing show. It is a must-see show. It is a water cooler show.
00:51:56
Speaker
It feels very much like a show that is equal to any prestige live-action show out there right now. And you should watch it, so 9 out of 10. But in terms of like the next show that should be adaptation, and I don't think it will anytime soon, but it is Spider-Man the animated series. The show that was also part of the X-Men animated series world, but for me that's like the seminal thing. That's to me like the Marvel version of Batman, the anime theory. So I would want to see that adapted in the same way of X-Men 97.
00:52:26
Speaker
I think I would love to see a Star Wars show made in this particular style. I think that that would be really cool. They've been making Star Wars comics for quite some time and I do think that it would be nice to kind of retrench and ground a story in something that is a little bit lower stakes for a company that is often just pooling money on top of things.
00:52:49
Speaker
And i think that a lot of the star wars content has been a little bit too risk averse and that's i think largely because of big casts and huge budgets and casting a bunch of really solid voice actors to come in and clock their hours is i think a great way to be able to.
00:53:05
Speaker
make some interesting risks. I think that X-Men 97 is a great platform for some
Deadpool and Wolverine: Anticipation and Hype
00:53:10
Speaker
risks. I thought that they were going to go in a really really really weird direction in the last couple minutes of the show because X-Men has had some obscenely weird arcs throughout its many many years of comic book runs and I'm still hoping, I'm still holding out hope that they're going to start building their base in other countries because they have some pretty wild globetrotting escapades as the times progress. That said, speaking of escapades, no escapade this year has been better publicized already than Deadpool and Wolverine. But nonetheless, we have to give our two cents and talk about how the narrative of the show has embedded itself in everyone's lives once again. So we are going to listen to some music quickly and then we are going to be coming back to talk about Deadpool and Wolverine. Stay tuned.
00:54:07
Speaker
Hi there, listener. I know you are not hearing music right now. That's because we actually do a legal form of music streaming that you can find exclusively on our homepage, which is Mixcloud. So if you are interested in listening to a playlist that I personally curate for every single episode, then I would highly recommend you take a trip to Mixcloud and finish the episode starting exactly here where you left off and listen to that playlist and then dive into the second half.
00:54:34
Speaker
That said, if you choose not to do so, here's the second half right now.
00:54:41
Speaker
And we're back! Now we are talking about Deadpool. Deadpool and Wolverine. This is currently the only Marvel movie coming here in 2024, and based on the fact that we have already passed both Comic-Con and the D23 Summit, it is now the only Marvel movie coming here in 2024.
00:55:05
Speaker
It's definitely an interesting slowdown from the Marvel machine and from Bob Iger who recently ah replaced a different Bob as the CEO of the Disney company and it's a pivot I would say from their largely huge glut of programming that being said.
00:55:24
Speaker
Now, Niv, how do you feel about this particular new wave of Marvel considering I would say you're the one more bought in to the whole Marvel experience? I feel like you have a particular point of view. You enjoyed watching Infinity War in a way that I can't say I follow.
00:55:41
Speaker
How exactly are you feeling about this particular new phase and how do you feel specifically about maybe how marvel is going to be moving into twenty twenty five now that we've seen Deadpool and Wolverine first of all I don't think I would describe myself as bought in I compare Marvel to like McDonald's or fast food sometimes you just have a hankering for it It's not good for you to consume it all the time, but sometimes it's okay to order and like a happy meal or whatever. Because you know there's nostalgia to it, it is like fun, but it isn't really fulfilling. Most of it isn't, anyway. And that's how I would describe the Marvel universe, especially at this state, at phase four and phase five.
00:56:25
Speaker
But that's the unfortunate thing, I think. Phase 4 and Phase 5 and Phase 6, this new era of Marvel, has a lot of potential. It draws on the ideas of the multiverse, so...
00:56:37
Speaker
realistically, like the sky's the limit when it comes to imagination, because you should be able to do
Marvel's Multiverse Era
00:56:41
Speaker
anything. All storytelling conventions in the past, like especially like with the Infinity Saga phase one, phase two, and phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, had like a specific trajectory. right Act one, act two, act three type of storytelling, where the characters were slowly coming together to fight like this big threat.
00:56:59
Speaker
But here, in Phase 4, Phase 5, Phase 6, it's the same sort of trajectory, right? The group is supposed to come together to fight off this greater evil. But that hasn't really been the focus, like it was in the past. Here, the focus is, let's see how many cool cameos we could put in these films. Let's see how many projects we can do at once, how many big properties and small properties we can adapt and cash in on whether it be like She-Hulk or Moon Knight or even the Agatha Harkness show that's coming out soon or you know combining doing the Marvels but having like the TV character Miss Marvel star in it as well and a character from WandaVision. You know, they're very much trying to build this really big and vibrant cinematic universe, having like a bunch more names and than they did in the past, because for her, any actor now, being part of a Marvel movie is like a must, or it feels like a must. There is like this pressure that you need to do it. And some high-level actors have escaped that pressure. Paul Mescal is the one I can think of right now, whose voice like, I don't really want to be in a Marvel movie. It feels antithetical to what being an actor is. At this phase of the game, I kind of agree with him. Well, it's a little overextended and kind of gauche, kind of almost too cheesy. If you're an actor who wants to be taken seriously, it almost starts to feel at this point in the game like it might be the flash in the pan and you don't want to date yourself by being the next iconic Marvel character.
00:58:37
Speaker
Because then what do you do next? I mean, you see this time and time and time again. People like Robert Downey Jr. is going back to his role because he came back as Iron Man and people like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pratt. And I think I've run out of Chris's. All of them have a deep bench in Marvel that is now unescapable and is bigger than anything that has come before.
00:59:07
Speaker
Well, that's the thing because now, especially with this trajectory, right, these phases, it gives them an excuse to come back because they can come back as new characters or like old characters they portrayed in the past and outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and bring them to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It just feels like Easter eggs. That's the best way I can describe this entire phase. It's driven by Easter eggs. It's driven by these fanservicey acts that Marvel wants to do because they think like that's what the fans want. But what the fans really want is just like a good story. They just want a good story. And I feel like most of the stories in these new phases have not been good. I think there have been some exceptions, like Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings, which was one of the first projects that started these new phases. One we both enjoyed was Spider-Man, No Way Home.
00:59:56
Speaker
Well, there's a point to it. I think there's a level of No Way Home that I found enjoyable, but I think that Watts is by and large very competent, and he's got some good projects coming up this year that are non-Marvel that I'm very excited about. But here's why I think the Marvel project has failed overall, is that you just talked about sort of the way that they broke the limits, that now it is a limitless ethos of multiverse, right? And ought we live without limits in story? Like, is that what we need for story? I mean, the man with a thousand faces, Joseph Campbell, dictated that there is in fact only one story that matters. and that if you follow that story at Infinitum, that you can find new and exciting concepts therein. And I don't disagree with that. I think that there is something about trope that feels very common and very grounded and very human that people are drawn to. And that's why I know people in the real world who just watch the Hallmark Christmas movies 365 days a year.
01:01:05
Speaker
Like, there is a wide scope of people who all they want is the same formula sent over to them again and again and again. And Marvel itself is thriving on the concept of formula, even though it attempts to be something ah beyond that. Its formula is the thing that always falls back on, and it's almost always the thing that can assure it, you know? And that's what's wild about this whole situation. is that it attempts to sort of break the mold and in turn just retreats in practice further back into itself. And that is what I find to be a missed opportunity in the sort of Marvel project. now i hate to be a naysayer in these conversations and throughout this conversation and the next episode we will have to be naysayers somewhat because you know the fact of the matter is Deadpool and Wolverine has a lot of good things to it but I also do think that it is endemic of a larger problem in
01:02:06
Speaker
movies right now. And I think that when we move past it, like you will have all of these creatives working in a way that doesn't feel as confined to corporate assets. And that's the thing that I think as a creative frustrates me the most. And it's the thing that I have to come on a public platform like this one to speak on is that it feels like it is truly an platform of assets and not a platform of stories or like you said, you know, something that is more meaningful.
01:02:42
Speaker
our entire message in this podcast is dissecting the zeitgeist. right Unfortunately, the zeitgeist of our moment, the crowning jewel of the zeitgeist of our moment, is the multiverse. There have been so many multiversal stories and we've even covered them, we've talked about them, we've talked about like Rick and Morty ushering it and everything everywhere all at once, like giving it a certain amount of prestige.
01:03:08
Speaker
Right, but has it gotten better since then? Have we seen it go further? I mean, how many multiverse stories have existed since then? And sure, I liked No Way Home, but I thought it was a brilliant case of, and this is where I get to throw my takes in. I haven't heard anyone else on the internet say this. It is a case for a redemption. It is a case for
Deadpool's Unique Comedy and Cultural Impact
01:03:30
Speaker
villains becoming good and it is, I believe, furthermore, politically more interesting than anything that the MCU has done because it serves as an argument towards prison abolition in a way that I haven't seen any project to do no matter how leftist.
01:03:47
Speaker
And that made me very, very happy to see something that is so corporately invested also have this underlying focus on leftism. And so as many cameos as you can throw into a movie, if you have an important thing to say in the end, that's why I would be invested.
01:04:07
Speaker
And while I think Deadpool and Wolverine has a lot of brilliance under it, I think that there's brilliant people working on it. And I think brilliant people on the highest level. It still falls short for me because it doesn't serve to a larger purpose.
01:04:22
Speaker
There have been three major MCU projects that have dealt directly with the multiverse. The first one was No Way Home, which I think we can agree is the best use of it. The second one was Doctor Strange, the Multiverse of Madness, which was directed by Sam Raimi. I think it's the worst example, personally. I did not think it it made good use of the multiverse at all.
01:04:44
Speaker
And the third one is, of course, Deadpool and Wolverine, which I find is the middle example. I think it has brilliance in it, but I think it stops short from truly being brilliant, like reaching like a no way home level. And it's because it very much focuses on being a romp.
01:05:00
Speaker
And I think to its benefit, because there's a ah moment in the film where Ryan Reynolds, and that's the fun thing about Deadpool, like he talks to the audience. He very much refers to the audience and actual events that you know we know of. And he's like, yeah, Marvel is at a bit of a low point, but that's okay. We're here to change that. And Deadpool and Wolverine doesn't focus on necessarily saying something novel or something poignant or something thematic. It instead focuses on being a reset, on being something fun. And I can appreciate that, especially after the downpour of really bad projects that Marvel has given us lately.
01:05:39
Speaker
Right. And I don't know anything about that. I don't consume things that would attempt to make me angry. That's just not how I consume media. But I agree. I thought you were actually going to say it's great that and then you were going to say something about how it's Ryan Reynolds because the whole movie feels like it's just Ryan Reynolds doing stand up, basically. Ryan Reynolds plays one character and that's himself. It just so happens that Deadpool is a very similar person to him.
01:06:06
Speaker
And so is Sean Levy. And I think what is brilliant about this movie is that it's a dream team. You've got Sean Levy, and you've got Ryan Reynolds, and they share a brain. And that's why I think this movie works, and I think that's why this movie is enjoyable. And I think it's also a pretty good finale to the Deadpool franchise.
01:06:24
Speaker
a franchise that has, I think, similarly had weak villains. Now, the first villain was the weakest, I think, of the three. The second movie had a slightly better villain, but I think a slightly worse plot, because it, like, tries to do the lone wolf and cub thing, it tries to meld the... X-Men universe in there and to be honest, it's not bad, but I think I'm with Jeremy Johns in the like when he has a middle of the range movie. He's a great critic. I love this man. He has been on YouTube for as long as YouTube has been a platform.
01:07:00
Speaker
He says, you know, I'm going to forget about it in T minus already forgot. That is how I think a lot of MCU movies fall for me. I don't hate them. I don't love them. I think they are fine and I have already forgotten about them. The MCU movie we've covered on this podcast, in fact, was Black Panther 2, a movie that I truly cannot remember a single thing about other than that they took a lot of time in the middle section to focus on Julie Louis Dreyfus for some reason. I don't understand why and I don't remember why, but I do remember that it ah was a weird pacing. And to Deadpool and Wolverine's credit, if you want to give it a reset, great, this is paced well. I'm glad. You know, I think if a bad movie is paced well, then it's ah a good movie. And I'll talk about that in the next episode. That's not referring to Deadpool and Wolverine. I think it's Deadpool and Wolverine is a completely fine movie, but I also think it has some of the best jokes in the Deadpool franchise. So, you know, if you're gonna talk about being a comedy, is it a good comedy? It's a good comedy. Is it a good comic book movie? I don't know and I don't really think I have much skin in the game there. But I also think that, like, it introduces an elevated dynamic to Deadpool's typical approach because he is a little bit more grounded in, like, his world. Like, I think he actually cares about his friends in a real way this time around. Now, despite the fact that his friend from the original Deadpool movie just, like, left the movie due to behind-the-scenes things, but, like, that guy's gone. I think is Miller? Something Miller. I don't know. Tim... Yeah, and the second movie, TJ Miller. Yeah, Weasel. He played Weasel. He was effectively like Deadpool's sidekick for the first and second film. Karen, Sony's character, the Pender, also serves like a similar role. And I think that's a thing. TJ Miller was fired from Deadpool 3. I mean, he didn't come back to Deadpool 3 because he
01:08:56
Speaker
They're not so great things in his real life. It's also why he had like issues with his TV show, Silicon Valley, made by Mike Judge. But I think it's interesting that we talk about sidekicks because realistically, this movie is about two superheroes coming together and they're essentially each other's sidekicks.
01:09:15
Speaker
But more broadly, the film is pretty funny. A movie that is a drama that is mediocre is easy to have it slide through. But a comedy that is difficult to watch is really difficult to watch because if you can't laugh, then what's the point? You just mentioned that it was funny and we just talked about limits. I think the thing about Deadpool and Wolverine And this is very much encapsulating everything I just said about this phase being without limits or feeling without limits and that usually being a bad thing. This is the one example that it feels like it's a good thing because the film feels unhinged.
01:09:56
Speaker
the comedy feels unhinged and it actually adds to the story. So the story feeling like it has no limits constantly surprises you in like a good way because it connects thematically to the characters that are pushing the story forward.
01:10:11
Speaker
And this is why I think even though Deadpool and Wolverine is not necessarily poignant, like it is a shot in the arm for this universe because it's very much does a convincing arguments of like, look, we've been trying to go without limits for a while. We've sort of failed at it. But look at when we actually are able to do it sort of correctly when that earns us.
01:10:32
Speaker
The answer is it earns us a billion dollars. But the other thing I was going to say is that you mentioned the whole like litmus test of something being memorable. You know, something doesn't need to be consistently good to be memorable, like even though Deadpool and Wolverine is not going to win any awards. for sure, but there is something to be said that it grabs your attention in the very beginning with that NSYNC song. It's one of the best moments in any film I've ever seen and it's because it's just so stupid. It's just so ridiculously stupid and it just falls in line with what that as just like a fun romp. It's a meme machine. The whole movie is meant to generate memes. That opening montage is meant to be memed. I mean, it's no accident that the whole movie is now streaming on TikTok. Like, it's a meme generator. Now, I think I would agree in the sense that it's sort of found a new way to break cinema and is finding a way to like hinge the meta-commentary of the larger filmic world with the actual, like, physical, like, the the story of Deadpool.
Resurrecting Past Properties
01:11:45
Speaker
in the sense that like Deadpool and Wolverine are bringing back to life the Fox properties by making a movie about the Fox properties being brought back to life. Like this is such a deep bench of meta commentary to the point where I find it a little frustrating.
01:12:02
Speaker
But the metatext aside, it is an entertaining movie. It is also like any multiverse movie in the Marvel world. It is limited by its own strictures. I think there are a lot of structures in place in this movie that do limit it. The one example that I think breaks that is the opening credits where they do find the perfect joke in the movie. I mean, as a joke machine to like find like the most inappropriate thing to do. And that's how they start the movie. And I think that is a great way to set up this kind of thing because there was so much on the line, there was so much at stake, and they poured their money into it. I mean, there's this cost a lot of money too, so good thing it made a lot of money. Despite the fact that most of the movie takes place in nondescript wasteland, where the rest of the money went, it seems into
01:12:55
Speaker
into the 20th century logo in the wasteland, building that 20th century logo, and also the amount of cameos. Well, before we get into it, there is something to be said that there is the themes because the movie, as you said, starts in like a specific way. It starts out with Deadpool digging for like Wolverine's body to make sure he's ah alive because his version of Wolverine dies in the movie Logan, directed by James Manicold. which is considered by many to be one of the best superhero films ever made, and that is relentlessly joked about and commented on in this movie, to the point where Deadpool feels incredibly jealous and that pushes his character development in this film. Again, meta, meta, meta. But there and again, yeah, the meta commentary is like Deadpool and the rest of the world have seen the movie Logan and are interested in Logan as a movie, despite the fact that they are also in the world of the movie Logan.
01:13:58
Speaker
Everything has just become this like cyclone of, stay tuned for Twisters by the way, this cyclone of like meta text and commentary. and Have you read this comic book? Have you seen this person? Do you know who this actor is who played this character in this iteration of this version of of a famous Marvel property? and There's gonna be a new version of that Marvel property coming very soon, too. We get into this Fox multiverse, and all of a sudden, you get one of these characters who's like, I am the only version of this character. Meanwhile, there is actively a version of that character in development. But that's the joke. But, you know, as I said, in the start of that movie, Deadpool is digging up a corpse and using it to the point where he's desecrating it. That's the whole theme here, that
01:14:48
Speaker
Deadpool as a movie is digging up all these old obscure properties that were all under Fox at one point. Would it be like, I guess that we're into spoiler territory now. Let's do a quick wee wee. Okay. Two seconds, two seconds for the people to leave. All right, get out. If you don't want to get spoiled on Deadpool and Wolverine, also it's on TikTok. Go.
01:15:10
Speaker
whether it be Blade, or Electra, or even Gambit, or things that, you know, even were just in development, like Gambit was in development, it was never a movie. Yeah, let's start with Gambit here, the best of the bunch. Okay, to me, like, Deadpool and Wolverine is like, one and a half stars, and then Gambit adds like, another one and a half stars. Like, Gambit is the movie to me. I love- Oh my god, that's ridiculous. Loved having Gambit. No!
01:15:40
Speaker
No, man. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. i that was Channing Tatum as Gambit is a whole movie to me. You just talked about like the amount of homework, and I'm going to call it homework, the amount of homework you need to do in order to actually get... Oh, it's homework.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, and actually to to get like the most you can from this movie, because we should definitely talk about, for people who don't know, like before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even a thing, Fox had its own universe starring like the X-Men, but they also were in charge of other properties. They made like a Daredevil movie starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner as Electra. They made Blade, which is about like this vampire hunter samurai starring Wesley Snipes.
01:16:22
Speaker
And also Ryan Reynolds in one of the Blade movies. And there was also like in development, because they owned these characters, in development they were trying to make a movie starring the X-Men gambit, starring the actor Channing Tatum. What's crazy is I didn't know that. Yeah, I knew that. I knew that for a very long time because it was such a high-level project, I think almost for a full decade.
01:16:45
Speaker
And they just couldn't make it happen. It was constantly in development hell. And Channing Tatum really, really wanted this project to happen to the point where he was, I think, one of the producers or the executive producers. He was really hands on the project. And then when it finally moved, Fox was bought out by Disney and all those properties went to them. That project was dead. But Ryan Reynolds being like one of the few turnovers from those projects,
01:17:12
Speaker
was like, okay, I'm aware of this project, starring Channing Tatum. This is a great way to bring him back. And for people who read Wikipedia, that will make them so happy. I was one of those people because I was just kind of like, I knew this existed. I researched these things. This is interesting to me. So when I saw it, I was like, oh, well, this makes me feel happy. But for everybody else, and Channing Tatum says this in the movie, he was like, you know, nobody knew I was existed, but I definitely existed.
01:17:41
Speaker
was like Yeah man, you definitely tried to make this project happen and now you've made it happen in the most weird way possible. I'm just glad that this movie doesn't require you to understand that. I think that Deadpool as a movie is well known, but I also think that Daredevil was well known enough.
01:18:02
Speaker
And I think that like the X-Men movies were well known enough that I consider them to be kind of canon, especially for anyone who would listen to this podcast. But I think something that might not be canon is unmade movies and things like how the X-Men first class moving into Apocalypse and Days of Future Past and then there was another movie that happened after that. That whole saga was supposed to be the new cinematic universe for X-Men and that X-Men Origins Wolverine was supposed to kick off a trilogy of X-Men Origins films, but that X-Men Origins film ended up getting repurposed into X-Men First Class instead, because that X-Men Origins movie by with Wolverine didn't really work as well as it ought to have. And it was happening in parallel in 2008 alongside Iron Man, and one took the road less traveled and it made all the difference.
01:18:53
Speaker
the other took a very sort of general corporate approach and X-Men Origins Wolverine pretty much just flopped in every way possible. But it did lead to Wolverine getting his own trilogy. And that's the point of it, right? X-Men Origins Wolverine was the first of that Wolverine trilogy that went on to the Wolverine and then Logan, movies that completely focused on the character of Wolverine. Well, I think everything focused on the character of Wolverine because Wolverine was the most prominent character. We've talked about this in the first half. Yeah, we did. We did. He was the main character of that entire cinematic universe. What I'm saying is, is that it focused on movies on him outside of the X-Men.
01:19:35
Speaker
other than a few exceptions like Professor x Xavier. But those three movies and even Days of Future Past was really a movie that combined both the original, let's call it the original timeline, and the reboot timeline. It combined both to essentially showcase like for that universe in particular, it was basically the Infinity War endgame of that
Fox's Influence on Comic Book Films
01:19:57
Speaker
universe. universe, right? Because it combined both sort of casts together, both the Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, to Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy, who both portrayed Magneto and Professor Xavier, respectively. Well, and I think there was a joke in a Deadpool movie that was like, McAvoy or Stewart. And and I think that's kind of how I distinctified it in my brain too, is like, is it the Stewart world or is it the McAvoy world? and
01:20:22
Speaker
I always followed the Stuart world. I didn't really know the McAvoy world. I never saw days of... I saw part of Days of Future Past. I think I didn't watch much of First Class. I certainly didn't watch a whole lot of Dark Phoenix. Yeah, but that's what I mean. like Fox very much was spearheading the comic book universe before Disney was. They were creating like things that Disney took inspiration from and then they built off from. right They had already like a cinematic universe and they were building yeah But Disney saw they were like, okay, there are some limitations because they're very much within one type of world, which is the X-Men world and respective properties that are connected to the X-Men world. But Disney was like, okay, we have Iron Man. We have the Avengers. We have Captain America. We can expand this and make it even bigger and more organic. That's the thing Fox was constantly trying to churn out with what little they had to make good products. And they did. They actually made a bunch of good products with what they had. An even bigger example is what Sony's trying to do with their Spider-Man universe, which is even more limited, right? Because they're just using Spider-Man villains to make movies, whether it be Morbius or Kraven, the Hunter, or Venom being the best example of the bunch. And good luck to them on that.
01:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, but that's what I mean. like When you are pigeonholed with your properties, you're just going to try to milk it as much as you can. and That's what Deadpool is doing. It's trying to honor the incredible legacy that Fox did generate. i mean Again, they were the pre-Disney Marvel machine that we had in our world, but then they were overtaken by the Disney Marvel machine. But there were a bunch of actors and movies that made like a massive difference. We talked about this in our previous segment with X-Men 97. Blade itself was the change in the game. Blade, when it came out in 1998, presented a more stylized, more action-heavy
01:22:10
Speaker
type of comic book movie that changed the entire makeup of what comic book movies were. And that led into Daredevil and that eventually led it to Spider-Man that Sony did, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. And also more importantly, like in 2000, the movie X-Men by Bryan Singer really pushed it. And that's sort of what we're covering today. Like the fact that Hugh Jackman's Wolverine has been essentially Dad Generation's Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, and he very much functions that way still. I feel like you just said that Robert Downey Jr. can't escape the Marvel Disney machine because he's so integral to the Marvel Disney machine. I think you can take it a step further and say Hugh Jackman can't escape that machine either. At least Hugh Jackman has Broadway. You know what I mean? Robert Downey Jr. just won like an Academy Award. Let's be real here.
01:23:00
Speaker
Robert Downey Jr. is in fact, I think, doing okay. You know, I think in relativity to Hugh Jackman. Yes, absolutely. It is kind of funny how he got his Academy Award and then immediately came back to the Marvel franchise.
Deadpool and Wolverine's Dynamic
01:23:12
Speaker
Money. In any case, speaking of money, it's the highest earning R rated movie to date. I think it's past the Joker now.
01:23:19
Speaker
I think, let's talk about what's effective about this movie because I've been pretty hard on Deadpool and Wolverine and because it is a corporate franchise, I probably will be harder on it than I've been in past. But I think that there are a lot of positives about it. I think it's a very funny movie. I think it's the funniest Deadpool movie today.
01:23:36
Speaker
I also think it's really good at being an R-rated movie in a world where these R-rated movies in the Disney canon are not very common. It is, from the jump, a very R-rated film. It takes its point to eliminate an entire legion of TV soldiers in the opening credits of the movie, and it's ah rather gory in that disposal and continues to be so throughout the movie. I mean, effectively, the whole movie is like a buddy cop movie, which we haven't said yet.
01:24:05
Speaker
The whole point of it is that, like, Deadpool and Wolverine are teamed up as a buddy cop, and they regularly fight each other by stabbing each other with lethal blows. I don't think either one of these characters really, like, Deadpool understands that Wolverine is invincible, but I don't think Wolverine understands that Deadpool is invincible, and Wolverine just routinely tries to kill Deadpool in a way that I'm like, oh goodness, that's sort of, like, harsh. I think he does understand it because at one point he says like in the movie Wolverine threatens to cut off Deadpool's head which effectively like it wouldn't kill him but it would make him immobile it would make him like paralyzed essentially and Deadpool understands that which is why he's like begs him routinely don't chop my head off.
01:24:44
Speaker
It does add to the comedy that they're both like invincible. Also, it's important to say Deadpool 1 and Deadpool 2 were under the Fox banner. They were one of the two final projects that Fox did, but they were R-rated films. Disney at the time hadn't made any R-rated films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I don't think they ever made an R-rated film. No. Not that I can think of off the top of my head. No, absolutely not. Like when that franchise was part of the package, when they bought Fox, they were really studying what they should do with Deadpool to the point where Deadpool 2 came out with like a PG-13 version called Once Upon a Deadpool. It failed miserably. It got like really bad reviews. And Disney really studied that and they were like, okay, if we bring Deadpool into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we should keep it R-rated. And it's true. Like, obviously, if it wasn't R-rated, it wouldn't be Deadpool. And the fact that Deadpool and Wolverine try to mercilessly kill each other just adds to the absurdity and the comedy of it. It adds to the tone. But it's also important to state that originally the idea, and I'm glad you mentioned this movie was a body comedy, the original idea for the movie was actually to make it like a Russian-on style structure. Akira Kurosawa's multiple perspective
01:26:00
Speaker
russian movie which is a movie about unreliable narrators and another movie i can think of that does a similar sort of setup with brian singers the usual suspect which is a movie that starts off like looking at something in the past and then taking it back all the way to the present a bit of it is like still in that movie with the whole like and sync.
01:26:20
Speaker
opening because Deadpool is in the middle of the story like telling us how he got there but then the movie still goes on. I think having something as prestigious as Rashomon serve as a structure would have actually deflated a lot of the movie because it doesn't try to be anything prestigious. It doesn't try to be anything poignant.
01:26:37
Speaker
Like I said, it just focuses on resetting audience expectations of what a Marvel movie should be, which is just like a fun summer romp. And the fact that they brought both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman to star in this film like adds a lot of gravitas to that because at their very core,
01:26:54
Speaker
These characters are action heroes. But in that regard, even though they both have moments of poignancy, especially like you said, Deadpool has arrived to the end of his story. It's like a great Capra 2 story, movie story, because he's very much in tune to who he actually is and what he actually wants, which is to be surrounded by people he loves and people who love him.
01:27:15
Speaker
But for Wolverine, it's like it's different because he's not the Wolverine we know. He's a different Wolverine plucked from a different universe that is dragged by Deadpool. But at the same time, because we ourselves have had a bunch of emotional connection to previous iterations of Wolverine, he's the most like prominent character in that universe. In fact, in the Axman universe at large, that there's a certain attachment to him in terms of understanding an emotional core And I think that that's what the film instinctively understands, that Wolverine serves as like an emotional core for this film. So they spend like an enormous amount of time trying to make us connect to a character that we don't really know of interpersonally, but we know externally. Because again, we understand who Wolverine is on a large level, on a macro level, but we don't really understand who this particular Wolverine is on a micro level.
01:28:09
Speaker
Also, Wolverine metatextually is someone that we already embrace and love. You talked about this X-Men Wolverine trilogy, like it was one cohesive plot, but I mean the fact of the matter is, THE Wolverine is ah sort of a soft reboot of X-Men Origins Wolverine, and Logan doesn't really connect to either one of those movies in a meaningful way. And then Deadpool recasts the character that's in the Wolverine and just completely flippantly. So like this whole world is already so messy. That said, I want to give full credit to Hugh Jackman, who is an incredible asset to this movie, and he does a brilliant job in creating a new version of Wolverine.
01:28:54
Speaker
he feels like another Wolverine. And I think that is amazing and a major, major boon to the quality of the end product here. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we see in this film, like a bunch of versions, I mean, to its detriment and to its triumph, we see a bunch of versions of Wolverine until we get to that specific Wolverine. And we see a lot of versions of Deadpool in this film as well, especially at the very end.
01:29:19
Speaker
This film, like its greatest triumph is that it understands what it is. This film in particular is like, we are a metatextual buddy comedy. That's the exact description of what it is. No word did I say this is a metatextual buddy cop comedy that's also a comic book adaptation. It almost forgets that it isn't comic book adaptation because it doesn't necessarily try to be one, which I know is crazy because the amount of cameos, comic book cameos that are in this film, it doesn't do it any true lip service.
01:29:46
Speaker
Like, those characters feel so different from their comic book counterparts at that point that it feels like it doesn't necessarily try to honor any of them. Like, we just mentioned some. Blade and Electra, played by Wesley Snipes and Jennifer Gardner, don't necessarily feel like they're Blade 1998 and Daredevil counterparts. They feel very different.
01:30:07
Speaker
They're very much like, oh, we're just in this wasteland trying to survive. We're just like these outsiders that nobody cares about. And I feel like that's more true because it's more metatextual than it is about adapting them correctly. Well, and the film struggles continually with trying to achieve so many goals at once.
01:30:23
Speaker
It wants to be a traditional Marvel movie, it wants to be a satire, it wants to respect the Fox legacy, but it also takes one of the Fox characters and treats them like
Deadpool's Character Growth
01:30:35
Speaker
a joke. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. It indulges in many of the problems it ah satirizes.
01:30:42
Speaker
I think a key point here is I was reading during Mooney's review in Polygon talking about Deadpool and Wolverine and how it kind of falls short in a lot of the things that Deadpool the original, the Fox films were able to do. Now it is an R rated movie, but it's a different R rated movie. I mean, think Mooney ah particularly notes that the film's edginess is less sharp compared to its predecessors. You can give lip service to certain adult activities, but you can't show those adult activities.
01:31:11
Speaker
And it gets to a point where Deadpool himself jokes about the fact that he can make reference to it. He can say every word but the word, you know, and it it becomes a point where I don't know, like it it works. I think it works in the film, but it also like isn't good for art. The fact that like this franchise got swallowed up by a corporate giant and now effectively is different. I mean, the biggest thing is the tonal shift in how Deadpool interacts with the Avengers. He reveres the Avengers. He reveres everything. He's Deadpool as a character, I think, betrays the Deadpool of 1 and 2 because he is reverent in a way that is completely unlike a Deadpool prior. And that is interesting. He doesn't want to be part of the X-Men in the first and second films. He actually avoids it. He doesn't want to be part of a team. And then he makes his own team in Deadpool 2 and gets them all killed. And he's like, well, this is what I was saying. I don't want to be part of a team. And then in 3, he's like, well, maybe I should be part of a team. And the best team out there is the Avengers. And then he tries to be part of them. They're like, well, you're not good enough. You're not a team player. So I think it just adds to the comedy that he's like, well, maybe I'm not a team player. But then
01:32:26
Speaker
He discovers he has a team of his own, which are his friends. It's what he actually wants. It's just not a superhero team. It's not like a superhero organization. But you're right, that edginess gets delved out because a lot of the things that Deadpool does, you know, gets sort of stopped short. Because the only true R-rated things we see in this film is violence. But there are a lot more R-rated things we could be seeing. They're just not happening in this film. And I agree, I've read other reviews out there that say that Deadpool does everything but showcase the hardcore stuff that the first two films did to its detriment. But at the same time, I'm like, no, that's not necessarily true because it's trying to stay not just true to one cinematic universe, it's trying to stay true to two cinematic universes.
01:33:13
Speaker
both Fox and Disney. And managing both is having your cake and eating it too. I mean, it's an impossible job for anybody to have. And I've watched plenty of Avengers movies where I'm like, yes, they did this. I'm I'm guess somebody is glad that they did do this. But should they have done this? Is there a reason why you need to have 85 heroes in one movie?
01:33:36
Speaker
Is there a reason why ah your movie needs to have eight or nine main characters? Like, is this even serviceable? Is this even this is where I'm like, I just want Joseph Campbell back. I just need the simple trite stuff. I don't need all of this. Bring back Joseph Campbell.
01:33:53
Speaker
And I want to kind of wrap all this into some kind of collection here and talk about the franchise broadly Deadpool one two and three. You can talk about the first movie wherein like it was very serviceable. It did a very good job of being Deadpool. It did a very good job of being like this is the Ryan Reynolds movie that so many people were waiting for and it delivered, right? It wasn't groundbreaking. The plot isn't exactly the strongest. The villain certainly isn't memorable, but he is a good villain because Deadpool is able to exact revenge against this villain. And in the second movie, you have more solid comic book characters to rely on. You have Cable, which is a character that a lot of people were waiting for. And he's present in the second movie. I don't remember a whole lot about him. I mean, he's not the most interesting character that Brolin has played in that broader universe, for sure. But, you know, he's there. And certainly that movie builds on Deadpool in a way that is, I think, substantive. And I think that in this movie, you get the best jokes. So I think every movie has something, but also it's enjoyable, but there's an emptiness to it, too. It's a little bit like if you went to a... I feel like it's like a Golden Age musical almost. so interpersonal and so deeply metatextual that it's doing that, but it's also It's... self-enggrandizing in a way. And I don't know if I love that, but I also don't know if it's necessarily built for me. Like is the deep cut pit where like we go into, is it like a flashback or like an alternate universe where like Wolverine is like hung up on a cross?
01:35:34
Speaker
Is that something that I need to know about? Like, does that matter for me? Or is that just going to be something for some random geek? Is everything just going to be for one or two people? And that's it. And like for someone like myself, who I'm like, I like the comics. Fine. I've seen some comics. I'm aware of Dark Phoenix. I've read one of the eight times they brought Dark Phoenix back in the comics. I'm glad to have read those comics when I was growing up. But at the end of the day, it's like maybe the things that I'm most interested in in this movie aren't any of that. And it's Matthew McFady in coming in because I like him from Succession, you know? And like Mr. Paradox is one of the more compelling performances. I think he's one of the more compelling villains in the Marvel universe of sort of like empty villains. And I think
01:36:22
Speaker
Mr. Paradox is the epitome of like, he's middle management, he's not important, he's just sort of there, and he has an evil James Bond, Buster-Ash-Twirl-Or plot, and he does that pretty, you know, serviceably. Pretty you serviceably, yeah. Mr. Paradox in particular is like the inciting incident. He's the one that sucks.
01:36:40
Speaker
Deadpool on his journey of saying, like, look, your world is dying, which also is metatextual because he's trying to say, look, Fox has been bought out by Disney. Your universe is not relevant. You're the only person that's relevant. And the other person that was relevant is dead. Wolverine, he's dead. And again, incredibly metatextual because what he's saying is like, Deadpool, you don't matter. You're allowed to join the Avengers. You're allowed to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But to do that, you need to leave everything behind. That's like a great metatextual. premise that anyone can understand if they've seen like the first two Deadpool movies. But as you said, there's a limitation to that. And it all has to do with tone, right? Like the whole like montage you were referring to with Wolverine on a cross, that's like ah from a famous like comic book cover, or when Wolverine shoots like Deadpool on like a rocking chair. That's like Old Man Wolverine, another version of Wolverine, or where Wolverine has like a patch on his eye. He's called Patch.
01:37:35
Speaker
That's like his alias when he's like ah in Madripoor and gambling. Or my favorite one, Accurately Short King Wolverine. Deadpool meets like a very short version of Wolverine that is comic accurate.
01:37:50
Speaker
That's what I mean. like It's all about tone. It's not meant to be meaningful beyond just adding to what the tone of the movie is, which is a metatextual-like story. and We've talked about that in Nauseam at this point. At the end of the day, even though Deadpool does bite more than it can chew, it does follow like a specific structure of storytelling that I call the Oedipus storytelling. The Oedipus structure, which means back in Greek times, there were three Greek plays about Oedipus, a character called Oedipus.
01:38:18
Speaker
And those three plays are regarded as the rise, the fall, and the redemption of a character. And I feel like the three Deadpool movies do the exact same thing. And Deadpool 1, he rises to the character we know and love and adore. Like he becomes like the hero that he's always wanted to be. And Deadpool 2, he loses a lot of what he loves. And that signifies his fall. Like he realizes that, wait, I am not that perfect. I am not.
01:38:46
Speaker
that amazing i have things i can actually fix about myself and that pool three is about taking all of those things together and redeeming the character because it very much focuses on like that pool not taking center stage but sharing the state. If the three movies were teaching him like what it means to be part of a team, because I feel like that's the ethos of Deadpool's character, that he shouldn't be a lone wolf, I feel like Deadpool 3 really encapsulates that in like a meaningful way. I think this is the only truly meaningful thing that Deadpool 3 does, Deadpool Wolverine.
01:39:19
Speaker
is the fact that it's teaching Deadpool that he
Deadpool's Future in the MCU
01:39:22
Speaker
shouldn't be alone. And like I said, the premise of this film is like convincing Deadpool that he should leave everything he cares about behind in order to feed his own ego, right? And be a lone wolf. Mr. Paradox is essentially saying to him, look, in the past you truly wanted to be alone for your own ego. I'm giving you that opportunity of just jumping ship from this old universe into a new and better universe.
01:39:44
Speaker
And Deadpool is like, no, I went through three films of development. I can't lose what I've already gained. There is a type of structure there that is actually really strong. It just is buried under a lot of jokes and metatextual like I don't want to say garbage because it's not all garbage.
01:40:00
Speaker
metatextual sort of bulk. Like, garbage is maybe overstating it. But think about the wasteland. Think about what the wasteland is. It is literally a garbage heap. That is why I call it metatextual garbage. Kevin Buddy, if you're listening to this, we don't think your franchise is garbage. Hey, speaking of Kevin, future of MCU, future of Deadpool. Deadpool is now been, by the end of the movie, he is now pinned to be Marvel Jesus.
01:40:28
Speaker
He has returned, baby girl. So now we have Deadpool doing the thing that the movie doesn't want him to do, but also kind of does want him to do, which is to enter the Avengers and the MCU and to maybe spearhead Infinity Wars or something. Or what's the other one now? It's the multiverse wars. We're supposed to be the Kang Dynasty. But now it's the Doom generation or whatever.
01:40:54
Speaker
Yeah, Doomsay. It was always gonna be Secret Wars. But yeah, Doomsay and Secret Wars. yeah So now, looking forward, like he is now the trickster of the whole, not just the X-Men world, but now the entire Marvel universe. And so now is he just gonna be fourth wall breaking in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? like Who knows? Do we think that he's gonna be this big in the rest of the movies? like And if so, like, who else is coming into the franchise? Like, I feel like we've got Haley Steinfeld. Like, she's a solid actor. You've got Anthony Mackie and then Mackie is there. Yeah, I don't think Brie Larson is coming back. She doesn't really want to come back. Oh, Miss Marvel. Yeah. Yeah, Ms. Marvel, who is actually, like, beloved by some people, Captain Marvel is not, but then you have a Deadpool. So, like, is Deadpool the leader? Is Deadpool gonna be, like, second to the wizard? So here's the thing that's really confusing about Deadpool 3. It very much focuses on, like, keeping him in the Fox universe. He doesn't jump ship in the end to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He stays and in his own universe. He saves his own universe, like that Fox universe.
01:42:05
Speaker
so I don't know what they're going to do because they're not leading him into it. i mean There is like a scene earlier in the movie that's like a like where Mr. Paradox shows the future to Deadpool and Thor is cradling Deadpool as he's dying. and I read the screenwriter being like, I don't know what that's about. They might use it in the future. They might not. It depends on Marvel, but we don't know anything. So even the writers don't know what's going to happen with Deadpool's character. But the thing is, is that, realistically, I think they will drag Deadpool, they will drag Ryan Reynolds, and they will drag Hugh Jackman, they will also drag Wolverine, into the capper of, like, Doomsday and Secret Wars. Because Secret Wars and the comic comics at least is built that way. It's like a huge battleground where, like, the multiverse sucks people from various universes and pits them against each other. That's what Secret Wars is. And the person who orchestrates that is actually Dr. Doom in the comics. So it feels very right that they've pivoted from Kang to Dr. Doom. But the point is that Secret Wars is thematically a very proper comic book capper to what this these phases are trying to be. But I don't think there is going to be a team. I think there's going to be multiple teams.
01:43:20
Speaker
I think, realistically, there is like the remade Avengers, which is what Anthony Mackie's Captain America Brave New World is going to be about, ushering like a new wave of Avengers, which has been slowly being built on through various different projects, again, Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, all of that. I think there's also a case to be said that there's going to be the young Avengers as well, Hailee Steinfeld as the new Hawkeye.
01:43:45
Speaker
and even like Ant-Man's like daughter Cassie being like the new Ant-Man or whatever, like younger versions of the characters, even Miss Marvel, played by Iman Villani, who you just mentioned. And I think there's also going to be like the Suicide Squad version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Thunderbolts, which is led by Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier and Florence Pugh's Black Widow, and they're are getting their own movie as well. And I think Deadpool and Wolverine will be their own team as well. I don't think there's going to be one cohesive Avenger team because that doesn't exist anymore. The core Avengers are either dead or retired or just off-world because the main ones I can think about are Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow and Hawkeye. Again, all of them are retired or dead except really Thor who's completely doing his own thing. so
01:44:36
Speaker
I don't know what they're gonna do, but it's gonna be like a huge, if you thought Infinity War and Endgame was gonna have like 84 heroes, I think Secret Wars is gonna be an even bigger mess because it's not gonna be a cohesive unit. And they're just gonna have 45 minutes of Julie Louise Dreyfus all over again, not even saying funny things, just wandering around from scene to scene.
01:44:57
Speaker
And on that note, when that happens, me, you, Julie Louise, and everybody, we're all the cast of Veep, Tony Hale, everybody, we're all coming back here on Zeitgeist. It's gonna be the multiverse of Tony Hale.
01:45:13
Speaker
I feel like this particular podcast has been a hinge. I feel like we've just been ranting and ranting and ranting. So on that note, you know, it's early in the morning there. It's late at night here. We're so glad that you've joined us somewhere in the middle. Here we are, stuck in the middle of you. And we're going to be moving on towards video games. We've hit our touchstone again with our MCU conversation after we hit a Black Panther 2 a couple years back. Now we're hitting video games again. Next episode with Fallout, we're talking about Borderlands. And that's going to be a pretty exciting episode in its own right. We've got some highs and lows there as well.
Community Engagement and Outro
01:45:49
Speaker
and now on that note thank you guys for listening i appreciate that you we have support here on this podcast please do tell your friends if you listen to the end of the episode and you do appreciate what we're doing here we do need listeners so we'd love to have your friends here too we'd love to build a community here on zeitgeist i would love to hear from you guys personally feel free to
01:46:10
Speaker
shoot DMs if you like the episode, if you like it. Throw some comments on our Instagram. We're zeitgeistpulp on Instagram. Feel free to follow us there. And we might have more social media presence in the future, but we're starting small and grown big. Now, I'm Jordan Conrad, signing off. And I'm Nivo Boss, signing off. And we're rocking in the free rule. Doo doo doo doo. Bye, bye, bye.