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Blade II
153 Plays4 years ago
Our black superhero spotlight ends on a high note when we watch Guillermo Del Toro's pitch-perfect Blade II. There's not a lot we don't discuss, from the wonderful direction to the performances with special emphasis on Snipes, Perlman, and Kristofferson, and why Marvel can't seem to make Blade work in the comics. All this, plus we talk about the ongoing saga of the Joss Whedon abuse allegations and Gina Carano being fired.
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Transcript
Introduction and Audible Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey Derek, guess what? Hit me with it. We just got a promotion with Audible. Audible, fantastic. I love Audible. Do you know what the cool thing about this deal is? What's that? If our listeners go to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod, they get a free trial with Audible. And do you know what they get with that?
00:00:22
Speaker
What do they get with that? Tell me. They get one free audiobook of their choice and they get two free Audible Originals, which is special content that Audible makes available free for all its subscribers. Are you kidding me? That deal is so good I may go myself and sign them. Do you think they let you keep the books after you're done?
00:00:43
Speaker
No, you're not gonna tell me they let you keep the books after you're done. Yes, in fact, you can go sign up for a trial and you can cancel before the trial ends and you get to keep the books you've already downloaded.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I don't see how you can beat that with a stick. Exactly, yeah. And you get lots of great books, especially for fans of the show. You can listen to Super Gods by Grant Morrison, which is all about how the superhero comics have changed and evolved over time. Or you can check out Marvel Comics, The Untold Story. Which is a terrific book. I have that both in hardcover and I listened to that on Audible myself in my car while traveling back and forth.
00:01:21
Speaker
And there's also another similar book that's called Slugfest, which is about like the wars between Marvel and DC Comics. Oh, okay. So that's another one you got to check out too. So yeah, head on over to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod and start your free trial right now. You got one free audio book and two free audible originals, and you can keep them even if you cancel before it's over.
00:01:57
Speaker
Verlaine, priest, snowman, trooper, and Reinhardt. Hey, um, me and the gang were wondering
00:02:27
Speaker
What's that? Can you blush? Here we go, Poppy. Well, I get it. I see now. You've been training for two years to take me out. And now here I am. So exciting, isn't it?
00:03:01
Speaker
Here I am, ready in front of you. Adolf here gets the first shot. Come on, what are you looking at her for? You need permission? Or maybe you need a little bit of incentive. Okay, now you're helping me with that. What's the matter? You missed that? It's okay, I could do it again. Stop it, Reinhardt, stop it! Come on! What, you need a manual? Fucking do it! Do it, come on!
00:03:35
Speaker
Now you got explosive device stuck to the back of your hand. Silver nitrate. Drink to go off if anybody tampers with it. I'll have to detonate it with me. And you, you so much as look at me. From now on, we work as a unit. You've been taking orders from me.
Weather Challenges and Movie Watching
00:04:06
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Constantine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How you doing today, Derek?
00:04:15
Speaker
I'm doing quite well. Thank you very much. Getting ready for yet another Snowpocalypse to hit New York area. We're going to get hit with snow tomorrow and Friday. And of course, I'm going to use this as an excuse to just stay home and watch movies, which is what I do every time there's snow.
00:04:36
Speaker
yeah we were talking about uh we got our every year cargo team I guess like one day when there's like a good layer of snow on everything and that day is is today so when I was taking out the garbage I saw like just snow everywhere um although
00:04:52
Speaker
And like we're talking about before we started recording, in Chicago where I'm from, it's no big deal, right? We deal with like six inches of snow daily, but here, you know, half an inch of snow like shuts down everything, because they're just not used to it.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, and as you said, before we started recording, I was telling you what was going on in Texas and some of the other Southern states. And my prayers to all of the people in Texas because they are getting slammed down now with this brutal cold and snow that they're not used to. So, God bless them and my prayers are with you guys.
00:05:35
Speaker
I got a lot of writer friends that are in Texas, as well as relatives. My wife has a cousin that lives in Texas. Oh, okay. I got one buddy in Texas who posts something on Facebook saying that they've been out of power for like two days and he had to start up his car to charge his phone basically, so he could have ready an emergency.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah. People are now, they say now people, because they've run out of wood for their fireplace, they're cutting up their furniture. Holy shit. The burn. That's how bad it is. Yeah. That's how bad it's gotten. Yeah. And it's all because they had to, because Texas had to privatize the power grid and then to save money, they decided not to winterize the pipes and everything.
00:06:17
Speaker
And for all of you people out there who kept on saying, man, I can't wait till 2021 gets here. It's here. How do you like it so far?
00:06:31
Speaker
You know, like, everybody, you know, Barry Ensign 43. I was just looking at people, and people were acting like, okay, when they flipped that switch and the ball dropped, it was like they thought that 2020, everything was going to magically get better, all at once, with the changing of the year.
00:06:48
Speaker
How do you know it's not going to get worse? Yeah, yeah, I was always kind of worried about because everybody thought 2016 was the worst year ever. And then we had 2020. And so I'm just like, I don't know if we should. I'm pretty sure things could get worse. It could always get worse. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I just didn't understand this magical thinking that people had that once we turn that corner, once we went into a new year, that all of a sudden things were going to go well, we just got to put 2020 behind us.
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, more than that we gotta do. You know, and I couldn't wrap my head around that, thank you. So yeah, I mean, 2021 has its trials and tribulations. So we'll see how it goes. Listen, we're still here. Yes, we're still here. And you watched the new WandaVision last week? Episode six, yeah. Absolutely.
00:07:47
Speaker
Absolutely. Are you kidding me? I was sitting there, I was sitting there with a big shit-eating grin on my face. Just seeing them in their original costumes. That was great. Yeah, that was a real hoot. And the fact that they didn't, they didn't go all out the costumes like, you know, Vision is wearing yellow shorts with his.
00:08:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, no matter how janky the costumes were, it was still a hoot seeing them. But I also love the explanations they had for him, right? Visions like he's a Mexican wrestler and why does a Sokovian fortune teller? Yeah. I mean, and she looked the closest to the comic book. Oh, yeah. Exactly like Tommy books. I mean, so yeah, I mean, a Sokovian fortune teller. Yeah. Oh, it was, um,
00:08:34
Speaker
Let's just say that it was an interesting episode in that, especially when it got to the end and we see that Wanda's increasing size of, you know, her influence. The hex, as they call it. Yeah. So, I mean, how far is this going to go or it's over? And they said that the last three episodes are going to be hour long episodes. Yes. Yeah. That's the, so we're recording this on Wednesday for you, Thursday for me. So tomorrow is going to be the, um,
00:09:04
Speaker
Well, tomorrow for me, I get to wait, it's gonna be the first of the hour long episodes. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I heard a lot of people whining and moaning and complaining about WandaVision, you know, especially like the first couple episodes.
00:09:19
Speaker
The longer you watch it, the more you see that there is a definite plan behind this whole series that is playing out. And you're looking at it and you say, okay, now this is making more and more and more sense. Because at the beginning, and I don't understand people,
00:09:36
Speaker
They said, well, it didn't make any sense. Well, it wasn't supposed to make sense at the beginning. It's like if you're watching a movie and you walk out after 10 minutes in the movie, of course, the story is not going to make any sense because you're leaving right at the beginning of it.
WandaVision's Strategic Storytelling
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, so, I mean, I heard a lot of that. People say, well, it didn't make any sense to me. So, well, I don't understand. Again, like I had said previously before,
00:10:05
Speaker
The premise of this show was very clearly laid out for people. So there was enough time for you, if you didn't understand the concept behind the sitcoms and everything, there was enough time for you to do your homework so that you could understand what was going on. Well, the thing also I don't get is a lot of these people
00:10:22
Speaker
are comic book fans. So they're used to serialized storytelling. They're used to a story unfolding over the course of several issues. And I don't understand why they can't now apply that same logic to a TV series, because that's exactly what it is. It's a comic book. It's a multi-part comic book story arc. Yeah. And I think that had a lot to do with it, too, in that a lot of people
00:10:47
Speaker
I hear a lot of complaining that people said, well, why can't they just, you know, give us the whole thing at one time? You know, because now people that's out, you know, that's what they used to, they want to binge watch everything at one time. And they're not used to this weekly, you know, for me, like I said earlier in another episode, you know, I like it myself because it gives me something to look forward to, you know.
00:11:11
Speaker
I'm both frustrated and enjoying it because like when it ends I'm like no no I want more I want more but then it is also nice to have that anticipation build over the week and also to have like people dice have time to like dissect and really truly digest the episode well see that's the whole thing you you you actually have time to digest what you you know digest and taking what you're watching instead of just going to the next one right away and right away and right away and you right and some people
00:11:41
Speaker
missed that rush of being able to binge watch the whole thing and then they get on the internet and spoil it for everybody. Oh, I've seen the whole thing. I know how it is. This is how it is. Believe it or not, well, I know you believe it, but some of you watching this may not believe it, but there's a lot of perverted people out there. There are.
00:12:05
Speaker
So, I mean, I had told the story like the first Avengers movie, the Thanos reveal was spoiled for me because some asshole wanted to go on a comment section and just post and just spoil it right out of nowhere.
00:12:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, small souls that have no compassion for that fellow man. Yeah, exactly. I mean, really, me personally, I'm not, spoilers don't, you know, spoilers don't bother me, but I do respect the fact that it does bother a lot of people. So, you know, that's why I got, okay, I will not spoil stuff for you, but I mean, people tell me all the time,
00:12:41
Speaker
You don't mind it being, well, no, because most of the time, most of the stuff I watch anyway, I can pretty much tell how it's gonna turn out anyhow. I've seen this stuff, I've been watching this stuff all my life. Believe me, a lot of stuff that I watch in movies and TVs, yeah, about 40, 45 minutes into it, you can pretty much tell. Okay, I see where this is going.
00:13:04
Speaker
Doesn't really bother me. And trailers. Don't let me get started with trailers. I don't believe that there's a trailer for a movie I haven't seen in the past 15 years that hasn't spoiled the movie. Well, I'll correct you on that. The Avengers Endgame trailer. Because that only took footage from the first 20 minutes of the movie. OK. OK.
00:13:27
Speaker
Um, but, um, but yeah, watching this latest stuff. So the big theory that everyone's got going around is that, um, Mephisto is involved in this and Pietro is really Mephisto. And they're citing things like, you know, the references to like, when he calls, when he calls the kids demon spawn and like how his hair is spiked up, like, like is almost as if it's horns and all that kind of stuff. And I'm starting to think that all the Mephisto Easter eggs are
00:13:58
Speaker
are just red herrings. The red herring, yeah. Let me tell you. Because it's starting to seem too obvious for it to be a Mephisto. Yeah. You know what really threw me for a loop though, when Vision brought Agnes back to her real personality. Yeah, yeah. And she wasn't Agatha Hartness. Yeah, yeah.
00:14:18
Speaker
I said, whoa, I said, okay. Well, that's been taken out of the equation now because that was the main fan theory that everybody had, that she was Agatha Harkness. Then he did that thing that he does and he brought it back to herself. And it turns out that that's not her, unless of course, you know,
00:14:40
Speaker
It's another personality she's got layered on that, but I'm not getting that deep. I'm just going with, I'm just going with, okay, she's not Agatha Hart. Well, did she say her name in that?
00:14:52
Speaker
No, but- So it could be Agatha Harkness, just when I feel like- But she acted like a regular ordinar, but wouldn't she revert back to being Agatha if she was, you know, if Vision had snapped it back to her? Yeah, but that's what we're thinking. It's the Marvel version, the comics version of Agatha Harkness, instead of an MCU reinvention, you know, like they did with Justin Hammer or something like that. Fair enough. I'll go with that. Because, you know, she was dressed up as a witch, I noticed.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, she will. You're right, exactly. That was nothing. She was dressed up like a witch. The thing with Pietro's hair, I didn't think it looked like horns. I just figured that was the closest that they could come to that weird thing that he had in the comic book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the first thing I thought too. Yeah, that was like the closest they could come to it. Because I don't know what that thing was supposed to be in the comic book. But you know what I think it might be instead? Nightmare.
00:15:48
Speaker
because Nightmare is supposed to be the villain in the second Doctor Strange movie and WandaVision is supposed to lead into Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness. So I'm leaning, I think it might more be, Nightmare might be a more logical choice in that instance. Okay. I mean, whoever it is,
00:16:11
Speaker
It's definitely magic based. Somebody is magic based. So yeah, so we're talking about Mephisto, we're talking about Nightmare, we're talking about, you know, any one of a dozen different magical entities that Wanda has come into contact with in the comic books. But who haven't really shown up yet?
00:16:35
Speaker
in the MCU, which has been mostly like super science until we got to Dr. Frange. Then we got to Dr. Frange. Okay, now we got the magical element.
00:16:48
Speaker
That's all coming in, which is, like you said, we got WandaVision, which is definitely dealing with magic. Then we got Dr. Strange, which is going to of course be magic and the multiverse and everything like that. And we got the Spider-Man, which is also going to deal with the multiverse. So yeah, magic is going to play a very big part in this next phase of the MCU, I think rather than the...
00:17:14
Speaker
The more the more sci fi type stuff. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And the right in the first, you know, era, you know, it was all heavily super science and stuff like that and very technological based. Seemed like they're going for more magical. Yeah, because, you know, they've also got, you know, Shang-Chi and and the
00:17:34
Speaker
and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I think that's the subtitle. And that Mandarin, their take on the Mandarin seems to be much more rooted in like magic and mysticism than it does in sci-fi. Exactly, exactly. Or at the very least, science posing as magic, because that's kind of what the Mandarin shtick always was, right? Because he was using alien technology, but it was always kind of portrayed as like almost like a mystic type of thing.
00:18:02
Speaker
Well, even Dr. Strange, there was a... It's been a while since I saw the movie, folks. If I got this wrong, excuse me.
00:18:11
Speaker
But it's like, I seem to recall the conversation between Dr. Strange and Wong, and Wong is saying to him, well, yeah, it's magic, but it's just another way of tapping into the same energies that science does. We just do it in a different way. So that's always been like the out that magic has had that is that, yeah, okay, you call it science, we call it magic, but it's tapping into the same primal energies of the universe, just in different ways to accomplish different ends.
00:18:41
Speaker
Right. Well, like, if you think back to Thor, his conversation with Jane Foster, when he says, you know, your ancestors call it magic, you call it science, but I come from a place where they're one and the same. Right, exactly. And we saw in the Thor movies that they were technologically advanced. Right. You know, race. So, yeah, so, you know, I'm, listen,
00:19:03
Speaker
I've said before I say it again, I'm perfectly content. I'm not like a lot of people. I'm not second guessing them. I'm not trying to get ahead of them and figure out what they're doing. I am perfectly content with the direction that the MCU is going with their TV series so far, WandaVision. If the
New Comic Series Excitement
00:19:21
Speaker
rest of them are the same quality as this, I'm on board. Same here, same here.
00:19:26
Speaker
So anyway, there's some interesting news that came out, which this is I'm really excited about. We're getting a new pair of comic books coming out.
00:19:35
Speaker
One of them is called Batman 89, the other one's called Superman 78, which we're getting comic books, one comic book series picking up after Batman returns, and the other one picking up after either Superman or Superman 2, because it's not really made clear, because all they do is they say that it's in specifying Richard Donner's Superman.
00:19:58
Speaker
I saw when you posted somewhere on Facebook gave me a good laugh. Thank you. You just, who were you just saying here, just keep my fucking wild. Yeah. I mean, come on. Yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
I spend so much of my money on comicsology. And it's just like, when I saw that, I'm just like, you know, just fucking take the damn thing already. Exactly. I mean, you know, just, you know, just give them the credit card and say, you know what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just link it directly to my bank account and just keep sending me the comics. Exactly. You know, what's the point? You know, what's the point?
00:20:31
Speaker
But yeah, I'm so psyched by this, because you remember a few years ago, there was an artist who, and a writer and artist, they'd made a pitch to DC about a Batman 89 series, and DC passed on it. And then they announced this, first thing I checked is who's the art team, and it looks like the same artist is doing this one, so that's good.
00:20:53
Speaker
And it looks really cool so far. He posted up some of his character designs and stuff like that online. So it looks like there's gonna be things like they're gonna be bringing back the Michelle Pfeiffer version of Catwoman. We're probably gonna see Billy Dee Williams' version of Two-Face. And they mentioned a new Robin's that'll probably be like the Marlon Wayans version of Robin that we almost saw in Batman Returns.
00:21:21
Speaker
Mm hmm. It's gonna be I'm sorry. Vicky Vale. Vicky Vale. Yeah, we could see Vicky Vale come back as well. And one of the sketches they had like a Joker gang too. So could see because I remember I remember way back when they were still going to be doing a fifth Batman movie that Clooney was supposed to return in and Joel Schumacher was supposed to return in the villain was going to be Harley Quinn in that one.
00:21:46
Speaker
But she wasn't going to be a Joker's love interest. Instead, she was going to be the Joker's daughter. Oh, OK. So that's something that could potentially happen as well if they want to go back to that, even though that technically wasn't burden, but still. If there is one flaw, one mistake that they made,
00:22:09
Speaker
Tim Burton made with that Batman, but he figured that that was the only Batman movie he was going to make. It was when he killed off the Joker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I said he thought that was the only movie he was going to make. Right. And that was also the thing at the time with, you know, action movies is you kill off the bad guy dies at the end. Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't work, but it doesn't. Well,
00:22:40
Speaker
Listen, I love Batman too much to argue against it. Moving right along. Yeah, so Batman 89, Superman 78, I'm really looking forward to the, and Batman 89, the Batman screenwriter, Sam Ham, is gonna be writing it. Excuse me, I always wonder what happened to him. He had done some comic book work here and there, I think. And then the artist is Joe,
00:23:08
Speaker
I hope I'm pronouncing this right, Kenans. And so they're gonna be, he's also done Dial H for hero. And then for Superman, it's going to be Rob Venditti who's written Hawkman and Wilfredo Torres who was the artist on Batman 66. Okay.
00:23:33
Speaker
Now here's the thing, I don't know, this is why I'm not sure how, where they're picking up because they say Lois Lane doesn't yet know Clark Kent is secretly Superman. Now that could easily be taking place after Lester's Superman II with the amnesiacus, or it could be taking place after Donner's cut of Superman II, where they had the, where they reused the flying through time thing. So I'll be interested to see, I would, the way I would do it is I would,
00:24:01
Speaker
I would start the series when he drops Lois off at her apartment. And so kind of like retell the ending of Donner's Superman II, except cut before he flies back and tries to reverse time. Because I thought that was actually a good ending when he leaves her on the apartment there and just flies off and she has this kind of like melancholy comment about it. And I thought that was a good, I thought that was actually a really good ending for it.
00:24:29
Speaker
But obviously that's not what they're gonna do. But still, I'm really looking forward to this. The artwork looks amazing. It very much feels like you're back in those worlds. Yeah, I saw...
00:24:43
Speaker
some of the artwork for Batman. And I said, okay, okay. They know what they're doing. I have confidence in them. Okay, they know what they're doing with this. Okay. I didn't see any of the Superman ones. Yeah, there's not a whole lot. They just, I think it's just the cover for the Superman one. Yeah, it's just a tease, but it's enough to give you confidence. When you can look at it and you can recognizably say, okay, that's not exactly Christopher Reeve, but because artists,
00:25:12
Speaker
who does the Batman, he gets Michael Keaton more than got the Superman gets Christopher Reeve. But give him time, give him time, he'll grow into it. Well, you know what's interesting too is I wonder if we could see like a crossover between these two in some way as well, because there have been tons of memes over the years. Like, you know, imagine if there was like a Justice League back in the day with like, you know, the Christopher Reeve Superman and the Michael Keaton Batman and the Linda Carter woman and the
00:25:43
Speaker
What's his name from the flash? John Wesley ship. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we there's a chance we could see something like that. That would be pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, it could even start a whole thing where they could do like a whole line of comic books.
00:25:59
Speaker
you know, based on, you know, the movie, you know, and just, you know, follow up on and have more stories set in those universe. Yeah. Well, that's what they did with, you know, Wonder Woman 77 and Batman 66, which were both, you know, very well received. So, cause they, cause, cause I believe they even did one where a Wonder Woman teams up with the Bionic Woman.
00:26:19
Speaker
I think so. Yeah, they did. And Charlie's Angels. Right, right. Yeah. I think Batman 66, they teamed up with the British Avengers as well. The British Avengers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. John Steed and Mrs. Peele. They did that. Right. I think they did a few other crossovers as well. They may have done a Green Hornet one as well. I know they did one of the two. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, they had to do Green Hornet.
00:26:40
Speaker
it had to be. Yeah. So yeah, this looks, I'm totally psyched about this. I've been ever since that Batman 89 project was revealed, and it was also revealed that DC passed on it. I was so pissed off. And like, every time I see someone talking about, you know, the Batman movie, the 89 movies, I'm just like, man, I wish we could have gotten that comic book. Because there's so much that there was so much things that we could even you know, we talked about the Burton Batman movies. And yeah, they've got their issues. But
00:27:10
Speaker
Like those were my first introduction to superhero basically was, you know, the Superman and the Batman movies back in the day. Yeah, exactly. And there's a reason why people still talk about those movies because you don't hear people talk so much about Man of Steel. Right. Or you don't even hear people talk so much about Christopher Nolan and movies. But people still talking about the Burton movies and they're still talking about the Donna movies. There is a reason for that.
00:27:38
Speaker
Well, I think part of that is just the age that comes with it, because I remember when the Nolan movies were coming out, nobody wanted to talk about the Burton movies. So I think there is that nostalgia effect, because the people like me, who we grew up with, the Donner and the Superman movies, now we're in our 30s, we're in our 40s, so we're looking back at that time. So it might be the same thing if you go like,
00:28:05
Speaker
10, 20 years from now, you'll see people doing the same thing about the Nolan movies. Okay, here's why I don't think that's gonna happen because the Nolan movies are too rooted in a specific time and place. Okay.
00:28:21
Speaker
You know, you look at Tim Burton, okay, his Batman movies. You look at Richard Dunn, even though it's New York standing in for Metropolis, it's still not definite as to exactly what time or place this is happening. Because, you know, they start off first in the 1930s,
00:28:40
Speaker
with the curtain opening up and everything like that. And then we go with the Krypton, then we go, but there's never specific gear mentioned and people are dressed in various different styles of dress. So, you know, and it's the same thing with the Tim Burton dress.
00:28:57
Speaker
It, okay, it could be the 1940s. It could even be the 1950s and 90s. There's a timelessness, I guess that's what I'm trying to say to these movies that allowed them to transcend and like every different generation can pick up on it. Whereas you have like, you know, well, first of all, Man Steel is just too damn depressing. But, you know, like the Christopher Nolan movies
00:29:24
Speaker
Okay, when I look at those movies, I don't see Gotham City. I see Chicago. I'm sorry, I see Chicago. It's too real. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. It's too real. I'll agree with you on the Burton movies. Those definitely feel like they're set in a fantasy world, right?
00:29:45
Speaker
you know, it's the clothing styles, the architecture, the different styles of cars. It definitely does have a timeless feel to it. Superman, I feel is a little bit more rooted in the late 70s New York. I think it's a little bit more obvious that you're looking at a real place. Okay. But otherwise, but I would definitely agree with the Burton movies and you're right. Yeah, the Nolan movies definitely feel like they're in a specific time and place as well.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they're too rooted. Although, like you said, time may very well prove me wrong because like you said, we always go through these cycles where movies get rediscovered, like every, you know, like 10, 20 years, you know, revisit these movies and say, oh, this is a masterpiece. What happened? Nobody saw it, you know. Well, yeah, a lot of people saw it, you know. Right. Well, especially with streaming services and everything, it's a lot easier to rediscover those things.
00:30:43
Speaker
I mean, you know, which is the good thing about streaming services? And after nothing is lost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we can see it. We can see everything. Yeah. All right. Some other movie news we got
Joss Whedon Controversy Discussion
00:30:58
Speaker
before we jump in. So we had two really big pieces of news, two really big controversies over the past week. One is the Josh Whedon stuff. It does not look like it's dying down. It looks like it's heating up.
00:31:12
Speaker
A lot of other people have come out. David Boreanaz came out in support of Charisma Carpenter. Marty Noxon was one of the writers on Buffy. She came out in support and Anthony Stewart Head said that he was absolutely gutted when he heard about this because he said he had no idea this was going on but he completely supports them and believes them.
00:31:37
Speaker
Eliza Dushku, who played Faith. She also came out in support of it. Amy Acker, who was Fred and Illyria, an angel. She said that, you know, her experience was good and professional and she didn't encounter any of this, but that she totally, you know, believes everybody else who says that they did experience this. But the most shocking one was Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Dawn. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:32:04
Speaker
She elaborated on her initial statement and she said that there was a rule on the set of Buffy that Whedon could not be alone in the room with her. And she wouldn't say any more than that, but that is- Well, she doesn't, listen, she doesn't have to. Yeah, that is disturbing. Listen, that says it all. Once you tell me that you as an underage
00:32:32
Speaker
And it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, you know, you're underage and you're not allowed to be alone with the guy who created the show that you're in and everything like that. Yeah, you need to say nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. I got it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, this is not dying down. Whedon still hasn't responded. I don't know if he ever will respond. Cause you know, when we had a,
00:33:00
Speaker
Because we've had some people try to respond to these allegations. They just ended up making it worse. Well, that's why he's not going to do it. Yeah. And folks, before you jump on me, I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that there is no upside to him. And he understands. There's no upside at this point to him responding. Yeah. Because now he responds. They come back with more stuff. They come back. And in our current climate, this society that we have now,
00:33:30
Speaker
there's a good chance, matter of fact, there's an excellent chance it'll go away if he just stays quiet and doesn't respond to it. And what will happen is that the media will find something else to latch on to. And by this time next month, it could be forgotten. I mean, don't get me wrong, I hope it's not.
00:33:53
Speaker
I hope it's not, but I'm just saying, given the culture that we live in and the climate that we live in, you and I have seen plenty of stories like this that was a big thing for about a week or two and everything like that. And then, you know, like two, three weeks later, people say, huh, what? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I feel like this feels kind of more like a Kevin Spacey type thing. Cause like now Kevin Spacey, he's, you know, he's not working anymore. So no. And so this feels like more like one of those kinds of things. Mm-hmm.
00:34:24
Speaker
So, I mean, what we'll see, I could be wrong, but I think it might, the ramifications, like the media may not be talking about, but I think the ramifications for Whedon especially will last longer. And I think people are gonna remember this, especially because of how influential Buffy is and how gutted so many Buffy fans feel right now by this. So I think those memories are not gonna go away anytime soon. I mean, first of all, let me say one thing.
00:34:53
Speaker
I never trusted the cat anyway, because anybody that works that hard at presenting himself as being a champion of feminism and he's like, yo, bro, you're working too hard at it, you know? And that's how you always came across to me. Yes, man, credibly imaginative and all that other stuff and talented and stuff like that.
00:35:14
Speaker
But there was certain aspects of his work in regards to women that I kind of looked at and I said, remember the episode of Buffy where he had to do nothing but screw her boyfriend all episode long? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was kind of, you know. Well, also when you look at season six when the villains were the trio who were like these really pervy, you know, rapist guys. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know,
00:35:47
Speaker
We say this now and we look at it. But I've always have been of the opinion that if you look at the work of any artist, you will see clues as to their behavior.
00:36:02
Speaker
When Woody Allen made Manhattan, I said, didn't y'all folks, honestly, y'all didn't think he honestly, you know, felt that way that it was okay for a 50-year-old man in that relationship with a 17-year-old girl? If he didn't think it wasn't all right, he wouldn't have put it in his movie, you know? Yeah, and you look back at, you know, Buffy, Xander especially is such a cringy character.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, he's just such a terrible character. And so when they announced they were gonna do the Buffy reboot comic, Boom Studios, my first thought is like, what are they gonna do with Xander? How are they gonna handle him? Remember when they tried to toughen them up? Oh yeah, yeah. You know, we lost eye and everything like that and they tried to toughen them up and everything like that. But yeah, Xander always felt like a stand-in for Whedon. Yeah, yeah. And he was just such a creepy character, in retrospect.
00:36:54
Speaker
I mean, I mean, if you look at it, there was always clues, but people didn't see it because they were just enjoying the show. Right. Well, I mean, it was it was it was groundbreaking for the time. So in retrospect, it's a lot easier to see that stuff. Yeah. Well, hindsight, 20, 20, vision, of course. Now, of course, we're all saying, oh, yeah, we saw it all the time. Oh, yeah. No, people didn't see it at the time. I know that. But I mean, it's
00:37:23
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. I just, again, this is a situation where, and I know like a lot of Buffy fans, you know, yeah, they're heartbroken over and everything like that. And they're saying, well, this means I can't ever watch Buffy anymore. I said, why not? Why can't you watch Buffy? You know, I mean, don't, I mean,
00:37:50
Speaker
A lot of other people, the people that are coming forward now, they spent years out of their life doing this work. And their work should not be discounted because of this one man, it shouldn't. If you enjoyed watching those characters and watching those actors and those performances,
00:38:10
Speaker
Go ahead and continue. I mean, I don't know. I don't understand this mentality that people say, well, it's ruined for me now, now that I know. Well, he's a human being like everybody else. I mean, it's an unfortunate reality that a lot of the art that is made that we enjoy, TV, movies, comedy books,
00:38:37
Speaker
you know, music, whatever. A lot of that art was created by some pretty shitty people. Yeah, you gotta, I think a big thing is- I mean, let's be honest. You gotta kind of weigh, it's really a personal thing. You gotta weigh like- Yeah.
00:38:52
Speaker
you know, how much does your distaste for this person outweigh your enjoyment of the art? And you really gotta, and that's really gotta be like something that's gonna come down to each individual person. Like for me- Which is what I, yeah. I mean, you know, which is what I always say, you know. I mean, people didn't wanna make out like you're a horrible person. Right. Because you could still listen to James Brown, you know, even though James Brown was a white beater and everything like that, you know. Well, how can you listen to his music? Well, I've been listening to his music ever since I was 10 years old.
00:39:21
Speaker
Plus James Brown is also, he's dead, isn't he? So that's another thing too. Yeah, exactly. Me not listening to James Brown music is not going to affect any other thing except as a personal choice for me. It made me feel better. But that's about it. But I digress. You hit the nail on the head. It comes down to it's a personal choice. Yeah, yeah.
00:39:48
Speaker
everybody has to make that personal choice for them. And they should not be ostracized because of that choice. Yeah, like with what Bob Kane, perfect example. The guy was a total asshole. He was a total bastard. He treated, cheated people out of rights, stole people's artwork, but nobody's going to stop reading Batman. Bingo.
00:40:23
Speaker
But when it comes to Whedon, I think the character. I wouldn't buy it. But if the movie comics still came out, I would buy them. That's kind of what I'm going with here. Yeah. I mean, Batman, like you said, has grown beyond Bob Kane. Yeah.
00:40:47
Speaker
And I think that, you know, in that same way, Buffy has probably already grown beyond Joss Whedon. I think that if there's ever like a reboot, anything like that, his name will not be attached to it other than created by Joss Whedon. And you know, that's it. But he won't be writing any scripts or he won't be a showrunner or anything like that. Or they just may pull, honestly, they just may pull Alan Moore and just keep his name off it completely.
00:41:14
Speaker
There you go. I mean, that may be something they have to, because that was Alan Moore's choice. So I'm not sure if they'd be able to get away with that or not, but I could definitely see that happening. And I'm pretty sure that Joss Whedon says, listen, why don't you keep on sending me checks? I don't appreciate it. Now, the other big controversy was about Gina Carano being fired from Lucasfilm.
Gina Carano's Firing from Disney
00:41:40
Speaker
And here's the thing I don't get. Like everybody's saying like, oh, this is, no, it's not. Like, okay, if you work in McDonald's and you greet every person who comes to that counter with, good morning, motherfucker. Can I take your fucking order, you fat piece of shit?
00:41:59
Speaker
They're going to be fired before lunchtime. And that's free speech. You can call the customers, you know, good morning, motherfucker. You can say that. But when you get fired, because at the time you said that,
00:42:19
Speaker
You were wearing McDonald's uniform. You were standing behind McDonald's counter. And as far as that customer is concerned, you are a representative of the company.
00:42:32
Speaker
Which you are. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're a manager or if you're flipping burgers, anything like that. When you punch in that clock and you put on that uniform, you're a representative of the company. Yeah. And Gina Carano, this is not like it came out of nowhere. This is building for months and months and months. And she was warned. She was warned, yeah. She was taking it in the office and she would say, listen, you got to tone that shit down. Yeah. And it's Disney, right?
00:43:01
Speaker
fuck around and find out. She fucked around and she found out. Listen, know what? There is a long line of people that were far more talented than her.
00:43:15
Speaker
fan of hers, you know, I like I did. I like Nina Karam that she made an excellent action movie called haywire. You know, I love that loves her on the Mandalorian. But there's a lot of other people more talented than her that are live to regret fucking around with the mouse. Yeah. Okay. You just don't mess with the mouse. You don't, you know, and especially when you were taken into office, and they told her, they said, listen,
00:43:43
Speaker
you believe whatever you want to believe, but while you're working for us, you have to tone that down. And supposedly they gave her a statement and said, listen, we'd like you to read this or whatever like that. And she decided to put principle over paycheck. Okay, fine. Okay, well, Ms. Karama, your services are no longer needed. Goodbye. Although funny thing about, you mentioned her in Haywire, do you know her voice, because her acting was so terrible in that movie, they had to overdub her voice.
00:44:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, they hired her strictly because of, you know, like her fighting ability. Yeah. Which, you know, and also she had like a screen presence. Yeah, yeah. She does. Well, yeah, she did. That was, I mean, that's basically what she did in Deadpool, right? And she was mostly there because of her fighting skills and because she had presence in that movie. Yeah, because she didn't have a lot of dollar. No, no, not at all. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and again,
00:44:40
Speaker
People are so quick to say censorship and inhibiting her freedom of speech. No, they didn't do that. She's an employee of the company. And I'm pretty sure that in that contract, which are probably yea thick, somewhere in that contract,
00:44:58
Speaker
that her agent or business manager, whoever represents her lawyer, is some kind of morals kind of clause in there somewhere or something that says, well, if you say something that violates our policy against hate speech or something like that, we can fire you. I'm pretty sure she signed something to that. Oh, yeah, yeah. And after they warned her about it, I'm sure she was probably giving something to sign. Acknowledge that you understand what was said at this meeting.
00:45:24
Speaker
And understand, see me, first of all, folks, y'all can't go by me, because I'm like this. If you take somebody's money, you have a certain obligation to that person. Yeah. And yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know people. Oh, no, no, no, they don't tell me what to do. Well, yeah, you can when you when you're on their time. Yeah. And even when you're on your time,
00:45:47
Speaker
you know, you still have to watch what you say and what you do if you want to continue working for them. It's such a hard concept to know. I mean, and this has been happening in workplaces for years now and people have never been surprised by it. Like me as a teacher, there are certain things I got to be careful of. If like, I can't, like I can't, if I went out and
00:46:10
Speaker
You know, I can't like go out and get like, you know, ridiculously drunk and like, you know, start pissing down in public buildings. Like I'd lose my job and rightly so. Yeah. Thank you. You'll get fired. Yeah. I mean, you know what? I mean, yeah, I don't understand why this is such a hard concept, why they felt that, you know, she was done wrong. No, she was not done wrong. She was in, she is an employee of Disney. Did something that made them look bad, compromised them.
00:46:38
Speaker
She was called in, she was asked to listen. Could you please not do this? Could you, you know, you can say what you want, but, you know, you got to tone this down, you got to tone that down. She chose to look at it like they was, well, they can't tell me what to do. Okay, fine. Well, you know, your services are no longer required. She thought she would, she thought she was so important to the show and to the Rangers of the New Republic series they were doing. And she thought she couldn't be replaced. She thought wrong.
00:47:07
Speaker
And they're already talking about, you know, they're saying that they might recast the character. So obviously she's not irreplaceable. Which they should just recast the character. That's what they use. And okay, there's another thing that boggles my mind when people, you know, talk about, well, only so and so could play that character. No, they can't. It was done all. It used to be done all the time in Hollywood that when an actor
00:47:30
Speaker
Maverick, when James Garner, when, you know, he'd walked off the show and he held out for more money. What they did, they got Jack Kelly and brought him on as, you know, his brother, and they kept filming the show. Yeah. You know, nobody is irreplaceable. I mean, look, they cast, even recently, as we talked about with, when we talked about the first Iron Man movie, they recast Rhodey.
00:47:56
Speaker
and didn't miss a step. Yeah, yeah. Now one more thing and then we can get into the movie is it looks like there's a John Constantine HBO Max series in the works, but, and this, I don't understand why they're
Casting Concerns for New Constantine Series
00:48:11
Speaker
doing this. They're not gonna bring back Matt Ryan. Instead,
00:48:15
Speaker
As the initial report suggests, the producers are looking for a BIPOC actor in his 20s to play the role. And the grid reportedly lists Rogue One and Venom Star Riz Ahmed as someone the production is interested in. And I'm just like, I don't know why they're doing this because Matt Ryan is perfect as John Constantine. He still likes playing the role, obviously.
00:48:41
Speaker
When DC tried to do a younger version of John Conte's team in the comics after the new 52 and they had John Conte as like a guy in this, it didn't work. Like, you know, fans did not, it did not respond to it at all. So I'm like, why are you messing with something that is already has a proven track record? And especially considering that the actor has such a loyal fan base. Matter of fact, he has such a loyal fan base, they had to bring him into the Arrowverse.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah. Remember when he had a show on NBC? Oh yeah. That ran for just, and then got canceled. Then what did they do? They brought, because everybody was saying, oh man, this guy really. They even brought him into the animated stuff because he was so connected to that character that they're like, well, we're not going to recast someone else's in the animated stuff. And.
00:49:27
Speaker
For those of you out there who are watching this, you know my feelings on, you know, race switching characters for seemingly no good reason at all. To me, this is another example. Yes, I said it. It's just so, you know, I mean, there's no reason. In principle,
00:49:49
Speaker
Okay, I just don't see a reason for it. I don't see a reason for it except the fact that, you know, you want to seem like you're trendy and you're hip and you go, see, oh, see how cool we are? You know, now John Constantine, he's personal color now. Why? Yeah, it just, the whole thing just seems like a, I just don't understand why they do this when they've got a perfectly good John Constantine. The actor loves playing the character.
00:50:17
Speaker
and they've got the perfect venue to do him justice in HBO Max.
00:50:22
Speaker
You know what? I probably wouldn't care one way or another if, like you said, we hadn't already got Matt Ryan. Right. Let's just say that we're in an alternate world for a minute where Matt Ryan never played John Constantine. So they bring it into character. Dude, the only other person that's played him is Keanu Reeves. If they were bringing him in as a person of color now, OK, fine. Maybe they want to go in a different direction.
00:50:51
Speaker
Oh, we're talking in like, you know, if Matt Matt Ryan didn't want to play the role anymore, or if we're talking like in the future when he does when he can't play the role anymore. I'd understand it then too. But when you've got the guy, he's perfect. He's the perfect age. He's the perfect look. He's the perfect
00:51:07
Speaker
actor to play this character. He loves playing the character. I don't know why you would do this. It just seems so stupid. And as a matter of fact, he could play John Constantine for the next 40 years if he wanted to. Like you said, he's the right age. Yeah, yeah. He could age into the character. So we could have old John Constantine, you know, 40 years from now. You know, who knows, again,
00:51:32
Speaker
we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe he doesn't want to play the character anymore. Me, I don't think that's the case because everything I've read that he says so far indicates to me that he says that he would be happy playing John Constantine for the rest of his life. Yeah. And he's even been holding out hope for like, when there's been talking, he's like, well, you know, maybe there's a chance we could get, you know, our show could come back on HBO Max or something like this. And then they pulled this. I mean, it's just,
00:52:00
Speaker
It's a disservice to all the work he's put into the character it's a disservice to the fans, and I just don't know. I don't think Warner Bros really thought this through and I think they're probably going to get some backlash from this and they're probably going to pull back on it, at least that's what I hope. You know what, I hope so too, because you know.
00:52:22
Speaker
Matt Ryan, I believe he should be rewarded for sticking with this character and investing so much for himself in this character. Yes. I really do. So I hope that they, you know, somebody wakes up and changes their mind. Yeah, same here.
Blade II and Blade's Origins
00:52:41
Speaker
All right. So I think we've talked on a lot of stuff now, but let's move into our final movie for the Black Superhero Month. And that is my pick, which is Blade 2.
00:52:52
Speaker
in 2002, which was without a doubt, the best of the blade movies. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Matter of fact, I'm going to put myself out on a limb here. I want to say this.
00:53:10
Speaker
This is actually the only Blade movie you have to watch. No, yeah, I'd agree with that too. Like, cause they give you everything you need to know about the backstory between him and Whistler right in the opening credits. So you don't really need any more of it than that. Yeah. I mean, of course you can watch the other two movies. Right. I mean, the first Blade movie is good, but it just, it has not aged well.
00:53:35
Speaker
Like those special effects in that first Blade movie really show their age. And it's not the perfect blend of horror, science fiction, martial arts, that this one is. Yes.
00:53:55
Speaker
A very short list I have of movies that I would consider to be perfect action movies. Hard Boil, Jar Woo, you know, The Killer. Yes. The first Die Hard. Commando, artist, worst of the nigga. You know, Enter the Dragon.
00:54:15
Speaker
Well, Blade 2 is in that class. It is, you know, I watched it last night and I would say to myself, damn, this is like damn near a perfect action movie from start to finish. And one of the things this one has that the other ones don't is it, like we're talking about with Batman 89 earlier, it does have a more timeless feel than those other movies. The first Blade movie is really dated because of the special effects.
00:54:40
Speaker
The third one is really dated because of the whole iPod thing, where she's like, listen to her, which is just like the worst product placement I've ever seen, who goes into a fight listening to, with their ears covered up so they can't hear anything. Thank you. Thank you. It was, and also, okay.
00:55:04
Speaker
I love spy movies that are set in Europe because they seem like they're more serious than ones that are set in America. They're set in cities like Budapest and Prague and Paris. And for some reason they seem to have a little bit more gravitas to it. This one has got that same kind of gravitas because it's set in these European cities that almost look medieval.
00:55:26
Speaker
in a way, which I really liked. I liked the look, but then again, it's directed by Galermo del Toro, who is such a phenomenally gifted visual director. I mean, this movie's visuals are fantastic. They are, they're fantastic. Usually it's a fantastic looking movie. There was also, so here's one of the things that del Toro did is when he got the job for this,
00:55:54
Speaker
What he did is he got like a whole bunch of tapes from the first Blade movie and he watched every single one of the, like the dailies. He went and he went through every single one of those tapes.
00:56:05
Speaker
and dissected everything Stephen Norrington did so that he truly understood this is how Norrington did this, this is how he did that. And then he took all that and he added his own spin to it. So like he really had a lot of reverence for what came before. He's not one of these directors comes in and says like, fuck the other guy, I'm doing my own thing. He gave respect to it and added his own spin to it, which is what you should be doing to it. Well, exactly, yeah. I mean, this movie is like,
00:56:37
Speaker
and insane mashup of like, it's like a hammer horror movie. Yeah. In a way, you know, every time I watch it, I'm more and more reminded. I say, yeah, okay, Gallermo del Torre. And if you ever, if you've ever seen one of his later movies called Crimson Peak, watch that movie. That movie along with Sleepy Hollow is like the best hammer horror movies hammer never made, but
00:57:02
Speaker
This one, Blade 2, also reminds me a lot. There's a lot of hammer touches that I see in it, especially with the gore and the violence and everything like that, which is one of the great things about this movie is that it's a grisly, nasty vampire movie, and it's not a shame to be a grisly, nasty vampire. Right, right.
00:57:26
Speaker
I know it's interesting too, is I didn't realize this, but I'm just looking at it now. But Thomas Creshman plays Damaskinos, the villain in this movie. And they do him up so... He also played Baron Von Strucker in Age of Ultron. Oh, okay. I knew the name was familiar. And I'm looking at the cast list, I'm like, that name sounds really familiar. I looked him up and I'm like, oh yeah, he played Baron Strucker.
00:57:50
Speaker
And it's just like the makeup job they do on him is unbelievable in this movie. Oh, he's unrecognizable. Yeah. Yeah. And Norman Reedus is in this one. Norman Reedus? This one? Yeah, pre-Walking Dead Norman Reedus. Yeah, this is like one of his early roles. This was, yeah, back when this came out, he was only really known for Boondock Saints. Yeah. Yeah. And he's good. Oh, I like him in this movie. He's a lot of fun in this movie. And I like the- He's nice and sleazy. Yes, yeah, yeah.
00:58:19
Speaker
And, um, I know it's funny watching it, you know, watching it again, now that you know that he's the guy who betrays blade in the end and watching again, you can, you can see the hints, like he's always trying to convince blade that, Hey, something's off with Whistler, right? He's always trying to put him on Whistler. And like, when, um, when Whistler leaves his post and he goes like, Hey, he left his post, you know, he ran off and we don't know what happened to him. And,
00:58:47
Speaker
Then you see other things like when the blood pack is kind of like bullying Scud and Blade joins in, like when they're doing the autopsy and they're like, you know, Scud do that. And he's like, I don't want to do that. And he's like, Blade, come on. And then Blade just calls him a sissy. And he also tells Whistler that lie, you know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And he realized this at first, but then he stepped, and then he stepped out of frame and you see Norman Reedus is there.
00:59:14
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Which is the tip off that pays off later on when Blade reveals that he knew all along. Yeah, yeah. And all this time, you think, like when he gives that, the first time you watch this movie, you think he's given that line to Whistler as a warning. Right. Really, he's kind of, he's kind of cluing him in on something. Yeah. And then at the end,
00:59:38
Speaker
And that great scene when, you know, you know, Scud thinks he's, he's all bad ass. He's like, Oh, I had you trick the whole time. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Motherfucker. I knew you were turned the whole time. It just blows the ass on him. It just blows his ass away. But also that's a great
00:59:58
Speaker
bit that's in there because Blade is not just a mindless vampire killing machine. He thinks very strategically. He just doesn't come across that way. Yeah. Well, that's what I liked about this movie compared to the first and the third ones is it does show him as being more strategic.
01:00:17
Speaker
Exactly. That's why I like this mood there. He's thinking. He's thinking, he's looking, he's observing, he's processing all the time. So even when we think that he doesn't know what's going on or maybe he, yeah, he knows what's going on. He's just biding his time until they reveal themselves. And then he can say, oh, well, this is where you slipped up because I knew you were doing this shit all along and here you go.
01:00:49
Speaker
But in the first and third movies, they don't have that at all with the character. Like in his first one, in both those ones, he is basically like a mindless vampire killer. Yes, which is why I like this one. Like I said, this one, you know,
01:01:03
Speaker
out of all three, if somebody was going to tell me, okay, well, which one should I actually watch? I'd give them this one before I give them the first one. I said, go ahead, just watch this one. And then if you want to go back and watch the, you know, which is the order, I think they should be watching it. Watch blade two, then watch blade, and then watch blade three. No, I'd say don't watch blade three. You know what? I figured this way. If you watch the first two, then, you know, why not go ahead and watch the other one?
01:01:32
Speaker
But again, I stress it is not necessary. Well, something else that this movie did that I think the first and the third one also dropped the ball on is the science fiction angle, right? Because the whole, David Goyer, when he was writing the script, the whole concept, he's like, you know, we're approaching vampires as a science fiction concept, not as a fantasy concept, right? But then in the first movie, you've got this whole shit with the blood god and these ancient prophecies, which completely undermined the sci-fi angle.
01:02:01
Speaker
yeah and then the third one you've got Dracula coming back to life and like you know again it's like this stuff dealing with prophecy and all that and both of those they completely undermine the whole idea of making vampires a sci-fi concept this one it sticks with that concept from beginning to end and it works it works yeah and it works because
01:02:22
Speaker
Halfway through the movie, you buy vampires as being like this other offshoot of humanity, which, and I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to get this in here. I also like how in this movie, we stick with the vampire world and the vampire culture.
01:02:37
Speaker
We, you know, you don't know what's going on in the human world. And remember, there's only two truly human characters that's in the movie. Right. It's good. And the guy with the glasses that works for him. Oh yeah, true. Because yeah, I guess, because Whistler was changed back. So you can make an argument for that. Yeah. Well, we'll throw Whistler in there. But I mean,
01:02:58
Speaker
We don't have a ton, my point being is that we don't have a ton of human characters running around. These vampire characters in a vampire world and the vampire culture. And that's what we're dealing with. And when we stick with that, solid, you know. Del Toro does a good job of letting the vampires have their own personalities. Cause in the other movies, they don't really have a whole lot of personalities, right? It's just, you've got the bad guy who's usually
01:03:27
Speaker
some kind of combination of, is like a charismatic evil character, right? You had Stephen Dorff in the first Blade movie, and then you had Parker Posey in the third one. And then he's got the wise cracking evil henchmen, and that's it, right? They don't really have any personalities beyond that. In this one, the characters have distinct personalities. Like I was surprised at how much, for example, I like the character of Assad. Yeah, yeah.
01:04:00
Speaker
Matter of fact, you know what? I could have went with a whole prequel spin-off movie about those characters. Yes. I was thinking the same thing as I was watching them. Like, you know what? You know, forget the Night Salkers from Blade Trinity, because outside of Ryan Reynolds, they were just basically, there was nothing interesting about him whatsoever. But I could have watched the whole spin-off about the Blood Pack.
01:04:22
Speaker
Oh, no. Oh, without a doubt. Especially, I mean, because, you know, we, you know, we really didn't get to know a lot of them as much as I would have liked to. Right. You know, you got Donnie Yen in there for God's sake. And, you know, he really didn't have a lot to do.
01:04:37
Speaker
I liked, what was that guy's name? The big guy that got turned light hammer. Light hammer, yeah. And his girlfriend. Yeah, a priest. I mean, these were all, visually they were outstanding characters, which of course Del Toro, he gave them all their distinctive visual look. And when you see them together in a group when Blade meets them for the first time, it looks like a panel out of a comic book. It does, yeah. You know, the way that they grouped together, you know, and of course, Ron Perlman.
01:05:04
Speaker
Yes. Talking shit from start to finish. Oh, man. You know, but yeah, I love, I love that shot when we, when Blade is introduced to him in the first set, because I'm looking at it and I pause it. I said, yeah, that looks exactly like a panel from a comic. Well, the nice thing too, they do that the other movies is they give each character has their own distinctive look. So like, you're not going to mistake any of these characters for any of the others. Oh, no.
01:05:31
Speaker
And also just a quick comment about Donnie Yen's costume that he wears as a snowman, is if you notice on the armor, he's got like this kind of cross symbol on the armor. And I didn't realize this until I watched it just last night, but that's the symbol of Kagoshima, where I live here in Japan. Really? Yeah, and like Donnie Yen's a Chinese actor, but he's dressed in samurai armor. And so the thing is, now it could just be coincidence, I don't know,
01:06:02
Speaker
The way I like to think is cause Kagoshima was the last stand of the samurai in Japan. So that scene, that symbol on it makes me think like he's got a backstory. Like one of those samurai. Yeah, that gives it now a whole nother interesting subtext to the character. Yeah.
01:06:24
Speaker
Fascinating. I like that. And I thought it was just me at first. I was just seeing things that weren't there. But I asked my wife, and she's from Kago Shinigaman, and she's like, oh, yeah, it is. She didn't even say, oh, it's a little bit off. And she's like, no, that's the symbol. No, that's the symbol. Yeah, so now we know that's not by accident. Somebody put it there deliberately and put it there for a reason. Now, it could just be they just found it somewhere when they were doing research on samurai designs and they thought it looked cool. But that's just the backstory I chose to give them.
01:06:54
Speaker
I, I prefer to think that somebody put it on, you know. Um, so you mentioned, uh, Ron from, I want to talk a little bit more about him because he's just, this was the, I think this is the, because like I had seen beauty in the beast when I was a kid. Right. But.
01:07:13
Speaker
didn't really have a whole, like it's very vague memories of watching it like on Saturday afternoon or something like that, right? And I certainly don't remember much about it. I remember that they had like this underground community. I remember, and I didn't know until afterwards it was Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman, right? So when I watched this movie, I'm watching Ron Perlman and this is like the first movie I've seen Ron Perlman in. And God damn, if he doesn't steal every single scene he's in.
01:07:43
Speaker
You know what? Ron Perlman is one of those actors that he can't help himself. Yeah. That's how good he is. Whenever he's on the screen, he steals that scene. He steals that scene. I remember I wrote a review of a movie I saw him in a couple of months ago, a Bass Reeves movie. Oh, right, right, yeah. And Ron Perlman, he's in that movie. And to give him his credit, he doesn't try to steal
01:08:12
Speaker
scenes from the guy that's supposed to be the star. Cause that guy's the star in Ron Perlman. He's a professional and you know, but he can't help himself. Cause he, Ron Perlman actually fills the screen when he's on there. Yes. And he knows, he knows how to deliver a line and he knows, you know, because hip and blade have, have some great back and forth with each other through the whole movie, you know, they have some great lines back and forth.
01:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, I love the, I love at the end though, when he says, you know, like my daddy said right before he killed my mom, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. He's like, he also said that Blade just grabs the sword, he has to do it. They have seen there inside the club and they're looking for these,
01:09:02
Speaker
mutant vampires, the reapers, and Ron Perlman, he's hiding behind somebody and he's got the gun and he's got the laser sight pointed at Blaze's chest and he said, oh, it would be so easy.
01:09:18
Speaker
And the guy with him says, look down. He looks down at his nuts and there's a red guy standing across there with his gun like that. He grins at him. I put him in his back and he said, I said, y'all guys having a lot of fun messing with you. Way too much fun messing with each other. And that's a nice point you make too, is that not only does this movie show like Blade
01:09:43
Speaker
being more strategic, but it also shows like he's got like a lighter sense. He's got like a sense of humor. He's got, he's got a, you know, he's got attachments to character, right? He cares about other people. You don't see that at all in the first and the third movies. There's three or four times in this movie, he actually smiles. Yeah, yeah. He actually allows us to smile. We see him form an attachment.
01:10:07
Speaker
with, uh, what's the name? Lisa? Nisa. Nisa, yeah. You know, the, uh, you know, the daughter of the king vampire, whatnot. And their relation doesn't go the way that you think it's going to go, which is one thing I appreciated about that. It doesn't go the way that if you've seen it for the first time, you, you say to yourself, okay, well, I can see where this is going, but it doesn't go that way.
01:10:32
Speaker
Yeah. Which to me said, okay, this movie is not afraid to be, like I said, it's not afraid to be grisly and mean and nasty and, you know, take its characters to their logical conclusion in this story.
01:10:49
Speaker
You know, because it's a it's a very grim dark story and it's and it's not afraid to be a grim dark. It's not supposed to be cuddly and sweet. Oh, you know, I didn't realize this, but the the actress who plays Nisa, it's Lenore Varela and she played. Oh, that was my paper showing just went off for no reason.
01:11:14
Speaker
probably something, still a little bit in there, it just got triggered. But she was in Arrested Development. She played Job's girlfriend, Marta. So that was what, because every time I see her in Arrested Development, I'm like, she looks so familiar, but and now I know why, because she was in this movie.
01:11:35
Speaker
And she she was excellent. I love how at the end, you really can honestly see she does a very good job of selling the pain in anguish when she realizes what her father has become. Yeah, yeah. You know, she's worshiped him
01:11:52
Speaker
a whole life and everything like that. But when she realizes, you know, exactly how much of a, I mean, she knew he was a monster. Well, dad's a monster, but hey, you know, nobody's perfect. But when she realized exactly what kind of a monster he is, it's like she just says, you know what, I'm willing to let all this just burn down, you know, because this shouldn't exist.
01:12:15
Speaker
If this is how we have to live, if this is what we need to do to survive, then we shouldn't survive. Yeah, yeah. And also Chris Christopherson, right? Coming back as Whistler, which is like one of the best characters to ever come out of any of these movies. One of the best characters made for a superhero movie that did not first appear in the comics.
01:12:41
Speaker
and who is probably, along with Jimmy Carter and Sam Elliott, the toughest white man on the planet, because he spends a good 50, the last half of the movie pretty much is getting his ass kicked. The last half is just one character after another just beating the shit out of him. And you know what I love is like he never, nothing ever phases him.
01:13:06
Speaker
He just takes in the stride and like, you know, I figured that when he was turned into a vampire, he must've got some of that, you know, I don't know, physical toughness. I just prefer to believe that he's just a tough old white man. Yeah, yeah. Well, because he's just got no time for any of the bullshit, right? Like, I love the line when
01:13:30
Speaker
Blade talks about how they got to go hunting in the daylight, and Whistler's like, you better stock up on your sunscreen, Buttercup. And Chupa's like, you're about one cut hair away from hillbilly heaven. And it's like, each time. And then without missing a beat, Kristofferson just smiles like I love it when you talk dirty to me. Yeah, he likes that shit. You know what? That was pretty good. And that cat is amazing. You got one cut hair away from hillbilly heaven. Oh.
01:14:00
Speaker
Oh, these people do, these people do not like each other. No, no. And also like when, that scene when he's with Reinhardt at the end, Reinhardt's got him prisoner, he's handcuffed, Reinhardt's got blade sword and everything. And you know, Reinhardt's trying to be all intimidating threat. And it's Ron Perlman. So of course, he's a big guy. He looks scary. Most people wouldn't be intimidated by him, but Chris Christoffson, he's just like, nope, do your worst chicken shit.
01:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't intimidate him at all. Like you said, he's one of the best characters that was not, you know, that's not from the comic book. But again, and okay, here's where I pissed off people. The Blade character, as we see him in the movies,
01:14:47
Speaker
That is just a creation of Wesley Snipes. He's got absolutely nothing to do with the Marvel Comics character as he was presented in Tomb of Dracula. To be honest, folks, was a relatively minor character. He wasn't like a major character.
01:15:06
Speaker
And he was only notable because he was black, you know, and he was half human, half vampire. And not the same type of half human half vampire like he is in the movies. No, he's not. The only thing, the only superpower he got from the vampire bite was that he's immune to vampirism. And he's immune to the bite, right. Everything else, the whole thing with the day walker and everything like that. That was all Wesley Snipes. Yes.
01:15:33
Speaker
Which is why when people are, and I get into arguments with people like this, arguments with people all the time, where they would tell me, well, if it wasn't for the Blade movies, there would be no MCU. Well, no, that's not the case because the Blade movies were not packaged as Marvel superhero movies. They were not sold as Marvel superhero movies. They were sold as Wesley Snipes action movies.
01:15:59
Speaker
Matter of fact, most people had no idea that the character was a Marvel character. Unless you're anal like me and you sit and watch the end credits, because at the end credits they put on there, that blade was created by Marvel. But who pays attention to end credits? Yeah, yeah. I think this movie was the, no, maybe not.
01:16:28
Speaker
I think it was the third one was they first because I, I was thinking, um, I got to double check. Anyway, keep talking. I'm going to double check something on this. Yeah. So, I mean, uh, for people to insist that, Oh yeah. Well, the MCU, uh,
01:16:46
Speaker
they wouldn't have existed, you know, without the Blade movies. No, such is not the case. Such is not the case. Because it's so obvious, especially in this one, Blade II, this is a movie that exists in its own world. Yes. In its own universe where it's humans and vampires. Yeah. You know, there's no superheroes. Right, exactly.
01:17:09
Speaker
You know, there's no superheroes. There's absolutely no connection to the Marvel universe at large. You don't hear Blade. Now, if Blade named Dr. Strange or something like that, then I would say, oh, OK, well, that's going to. But no, he wouldn't. Wesley Snipes is a comic book fan, probably read Tomb of Dracula, saw this character in there and say, you know something, I can do something with that. Yeah.
01:17:32
Speaker
And that's what he did. And he made this character so successful that Marvel probably forgot about the Blade that they had the comic books. And they said, okay, well, this is Blade from now on. Well, that's basically what happened. That's exactly what happened because what I was looking for is I was looking to see if they had the Marvel flipping pages logo at the beginning of this, but they don't. So yeah, that was what I was trying to think. I think in Blade Trinity, they had it though. But
01:17:59
Speaker
But yeah, because when the first movie came out, Marvel had at first tried to use that to bring out a new Blade miniseries, except they use the comic book Blade. So it's, you know, with the green goggles and the wooden daggers and everything in the brown coat. Yeah, wooden daggers for Pete's sake. And so nobody, so I remember as a kid, right, watching the first Blade movie and then going and buying the first issue, the Blade comic, being like, what the hell is this guy? Yeah.
01:18:29
Speaker
Because it was nothing like what I knew. They had another tie-in comic. It was a one-shot. It was like Crescent City Blues. But it was so tied into the Blade continuity. Like, you know, what happened at the end of Nightstalkers? What happened at the end of his solo series? So it's like, I had no idea what the hell was going on with it.
01:18:47
Speaker
It wasn't until a few years after that that Marvel started bringing Blade back in other comic books and they established it. And all of a sudden he starts looking more like Wesley Snipes. And they did a storyline where Blade was bitten by a mutated version of Morbius. And then Morbius's mutated blood had interacted with the vampire gene that Blade had and it made him a daywalker.
01:19:15
Speaker
Oh, okay. Well, they had to come through. Yeah, they come up with this kind of explanation. And just now, since then, he's just always been a daywalker. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because nobody's gonna remember that. Right. Well, because things do is like blade in the comics, you could correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure in the tumor Dracula, he never even he used the wooden daggers what he was most known for, but he didn't use like a gun at all.
01:19:37
Speaker
No, no, no, no. He used just wooden daggers. Did he have a sword back then? No, he had a bandolero of wooden daggers. And that's what he used. And for those of you who have never read it before and don't know anything about it, I strongly advise that you go to Comixology, who really needs to give us a sponsorship.
Marvel's Tomb of Dracula and Blade's Evolution
01:20:00
Speaker
for all the good things we say about them and find yourself too madrachula, which in my humble opinion, is find it horror comic book that was produced during the 1970s. You know what's funny? You mentioned that I got an email today from someone at Amazon, you know, asking us if we'd be interested in promoting Amazon music of all things. I'm like, you know what? We talked about Comixology more than anything else on this show. Maybe you should ask us to support Comixology instead.
01:20:28
Speaker
No, no, wait a minute. Let's not be too hasty. What are they going to give us? Oh, I was just like, you know, it's one of those, you know, click things where if someone signs up based on our ads, then they. But yeah, but yeah, but find yourself Tumor Dracula. That was, I am proud to say that I have a complete run of Tumor Dracula. And I'm pretty sure it's all collected in the epic collections that Marvel has.
01:20:58
Speaker
Because to me, that Tomb of Dracula, Howard the Duck, and Master of Kung Fu were like the best comics that Marvel produced in the 1970s. Yeah, those are the best. Yeah, so I'm pretty sure all the Tomb of Dracula stuff is available as the, I'm looking it up right now. Yeah, and it's well worth, well worth, Marvel, Wolfman, Gene Colan, excellent stuff.
01:21:23
Speaker
And this is back in the day, folks, when creators stayed on the comic book longer than six or seven issues. These guys were on the book, practically for, you know, the entire run, up to them with Dracula. So it looks like it's not all collected, but they do have, they have up to issue 54 collected. Okay. So I'm not sure, how long did it go on for? Oh, it ran full.
01:21:54
Speaker
What's the exact numbering? I'm trying to think now. 70, 70 issues. 70 issues? Yeah. Okay. See, I was going to say, I was going to say 85. The number 85 came in my mind, but okay. Since you're looking at the screen, you'll know about it. Yeah. In fact, um, Wolfman had planned to go onto 72, but then Jim Shooter retroactively cut two issues after the artwork had been completed for,
01:22:23
Speaker
three issues so then they just had to like pull the plug on it. Because I believe because I believe Gene Coler was on the book from start to finish but I don't believe Marv Wolfman was the original writer. I believe he came on later on. No yeah Marv Wolfman came on with issue seven. Yeah he came on later on but after that he
01:22:44
Speaker
But after that, he was with it through, you know, the end. So they've got it up to, like I said, they've got it up to 54 collected in the Tomb of Dracula complete collection. So they'll have probably, there'll probably be one more collection coming out soon then. But getting back to the point, the point is that I was saying that, you know, Blade would pop up,
01:23:08
Speaker
carry on cranky, you know, Dracula slapped him down, say, you know, because Dracula didn't take him seriously at all.
01:23:16
Speaker
you know, he would get into arguments, you know, with old man Harker, you know, oh yeah, well, you got to kill these thinking vamps, you know, you can't reason with them and everything like that. So yeah, so a lot of people, when the movies came out, did not have an awareness of Blade as being a Marvel character. No, the only thing is if you were watching the 90s Spider-Man,
01:23:39
Speaker
animated series. You would know from that because Blade guest starred in a bunch of episodes in that. But other than that, like he had no real presence, not really a presence at the comics at the time, because he had been in, after Tomb of Dracula, he was pretty much sat on the shelf until they did the Nightstalker series in the early 90s. Yeah. And then as part of the Midnight Sun's thing. And then that, when the Nightstalkers ended, then he had his own limited series, his own, was supposed to be an ongoing series, but that only lasted until like,
01:24:08
Speaker
issue nine or 10, I think. And again, it was one of those things where it was cut early, because it just, Blade has never done too terribly well in comics, even since these movies came out, because they haven't been able to really, they haven't, because I think part of the reason is just because the movies work so well on the action. And it's just so hard to really convey that in the same way in the comics. And also because in the movies,
01:24:37
Speaker
Blade has more of a personality than in the comic book. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he, I mean, Blade actually has a personality. Like you said so accurately, we see he has relationships and stuff like that. For all of his hard, his hardness and, you know, his cold-bloodedness, he spends two years looking for Whistler. Yes. And I noticed something here I didn't notice before, but there are several scenes when like you could see like,
01:25:03
Speaker
you can see that in his facial movements and all that, that he does have genuine affection for Whistler. And it's funny because Wesley Snipes is not the greatest actor, but he's a better actor than I think people would give him credit for. But he is the thing.
01:25:19
Speaker
He understands the character. Yes. And he doesn't say a lot as Blade. If you notice when he says it, when he says stuff, he says stuff that's to the point and he means, there's not a lot of nuance in what Blade says. Like I love the, my favorite line of movie is when he's in the tunnel and he's fighting off the reapers and everything like that. He says, you have absolutely no idea who you're fucking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what? That's Blade in a nutshell.
01:25:44
Speaker
He gets it. That's it. People do not understand who they're talking with. And he gets the character so that, like you said, through his body language, his looks, various things. He communicates an awful lot about what the character is thinking and feeling. Because when he talks, like I said, there's not a lot of leeway here and there. Blake says exactly what he means and what he means.
01:26:11
Speaker
So, to me that's more, I can imagine that he was probably sat down with the screenplay, with Goya's screenplay, and there was all these lines of dialogue, and he just said, shh, shh. Probably, well, like, Del Toro apparently said, like, there was a lot of stuff in Goya's screenplay that he didn't really like, and there was a lot of dialogue that was just terrible in it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know what? That's the thing about it. You have to understand,
01:26:36
Speaker
Your character, you as a writer, you and us, we both understand it. If you understand the character, that's it. You can sell the character. And that's exactly what Wesley Snipes does in this movie. From start to finish, he is Blade. He sells the character.
01:26:57
Speaker
And that's what I said, even though Snipes isn't a great actor, he's a better actor than I think a lot of people would give him credit for. Oh, yeah. And I think he does show that in this movie. And he's not just doing the punchy, punchy, run, run thing. He is trying to convey some genuine emotions in subtle ways. And I think that the edit mostly comes across pretty well. Yeah. Oh, listen, I would count this among
01:27:28
Speaker
His performances. Well of course his performance in New Jack City is like number one, but this is like his top five performances. You know, this is like number two or three.
01:27:41
Speaker
Like I said, this is such a superior action movie. First of all, it helps that he's an outstanding martial artist. So we can see actually doing the martial arts, you know, but it's such a, I mean, the blend of the action, the martial arts, the science fiction, the horror elements and everything like that, it's all put together so well. And he stands at the center of it and he realizes that
01:28:05
Speaker
that he can stand at the center by not saying a lot and letting all the other characters orbit around him. And he just provides that center for us to focus on. And that's why he doesn't have to say a lot because we're always wondering what Blade is gonna do next. So we're like, okay, what's he gonna do? What's he gonna do? What's he gonna do? We're not thinking, what's he gonna say next? Well, what's Blade gonna do next? Yeah, yeah.
01:28:34
Speaker
That's the key to his performance is that we want to see what he's going to do next. You know what I think? One of the reasons now that I'm thinking why Blade comic books haven't really done so well in the attempts they've made since then, unless he's been in a supporting character, right? Like he was in Captain Britain in MI 13. He's appearing in Jason Aaron's Avengers run now. And he works in those books, but he hasn't worked in a solo series. I think it's part of the reasons because they don't have Whistler in the comics.
01:29:03
Speaker
He doesn't have anyone to interact with. Yeah, well, remember the Punisher, they gave him a sidekick eventually, microchip. Microchip, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they venture games, because unless you have somebody for Blade to play off of, and somebody who can verbalize the things he can't, which is what Whistler does, Whistler verbalize the things like when he goes on, and he says, well,
01:29:31
Speaker
know that they're gonna fuck you the first chance they get when they're talking about the alliance between the vampires and a blade because for those of you who haven't seen the movie the thrust of the plot is that you have these mutant vampires called reapers and they're like super vampires yeah uh garlic doesn't affect them silver doesn't affect them and they have like these honking huge mandibles that open up and
01:29:54
Speaker
thingies spring out and suck your blood but they're after humans and vampires yeah so the king vampire sends his minions to blade saying listen we need to form a truce because they're coming after us and after they finish with us then they're going to come after the humans so so uh yeah so they've decided to form this alliance um
01:30:18
Speaker
Where was that going? There's this one scene when after they meet with the vampires in the here, Damaskinos' proposal, they go back to the base and Scud's like, what do you think? And Blade's like, well, you know, it'll give us a chance to go deeper in a world we've never been before. And Whistler knows something's obvious. Like, what do you really think? And then Blade's like, they're going to fuck us the first chance they get.
01:30:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But Whistler can't, but see, Scud can't approach him like that, like Whistler can. Whistler can say things to him. It's like Alfred. Yes, yeah. And Batman. Alfred is the one person that can say shit to Bruce Wayne and Batman that nobody else can say. Yeah, yeah.
01:30:55
Speaker
And Whistler is the same way. He can say things to him. And also, he can pick up on what Blake's thinking, right? Because when he tells Scott, oh, they'll let us go deeper into the world and never get. And Whistler knows he's putting out an act there. Yeah. Right? That's why he says, well, what do you really think? Yeah. It's a nice relationship that they have. And like you said, first of all, it's hard to replicate the charisma and action
01:31:24
Speaker
of the Wesley Snipes blade in a comic book. I mean, you know, you just can't do it. And if you're not a writer that's not willing to put, see me, if I was gonna write a blade comic book, I would sit down and watch this movie about 50 more times. And then I'd sit down before I even attempted to start writing. Second of all, like you said, Whistler would have to be in it. Yes, yeah.
01:31:46
Speaker
You know, that's it. I mean, boom, those are the two things. And it's so surprising they haven't done that yet in the comic books. Because like, I mean, you know, you got Harley Quinn who debuted in the animated series. They brought her in the comic books. Phil Coulson debuted in the MCU, brought him into the comic books. I don't know why they haven't done it with a lot of the characters from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. They got comic book counterparts.
01:32:10
Speaker
For some reason, now we're going on, what? So Whistler was in, 98 was the first played movie, 97, 98, something like that. So we're going on over 20 years and they still haven't thought, hmm, maybe we should put Whistler in the comic books. Listen, who knows? Who knows?
01:32:33
Speaker
how these people arrive at the decision that they make. To me, you, it seems like a no brainer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It seems like a no brainer, but what can I say? But anyway.
01:32:46
Speaker
Any other things to mention? Oh, I did want to mention that I did like the little nod to the comic books here, where he pulls out the daggers and he starts fighting with the pair of daggers in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good touch. I like the little touch where, yeah, it comes off as a little bit too, ah.
01:33:08
Speaker
What's the phrase I'm looking for? I'm trying to think of where Blade is going, you know, for the final fight and everything like that. And Whistle throws them to somebody. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, that's such an action movie moment. Who wears sunglasses to fight? But, you know, listen, I don't want everything in their movie so far. So why would I go along with that? You know what else do I like? Is the handguns he has, how they got like these blades on the end too?
01:33:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They don't really seem to use too much, but I would have liked to see a scene where like, you know, some vampires getting too close and he just swipes them and cuts their throat like that. And swipes them and cuts them with the name. Yeah, those guns, they have that great action sequence in the beginning where he'd fight with the guys that's on the motorcycle.
01:33:52
Speaker
he's running through the building and he's shooting them with the silver bullets and they're just disintegrating uh you know del toro is a fantastic action director oh my god and he seamlessly because there's a lot of cgi used in these action sequences but he seamlessly mixes cgi with um wire work and it works really like that that fight scene in the when asada nisa come to
01:34:14
Speaker
come to meet him right and they start they get in the fight and del toro does a smart thing because he knows the cgi is not advanced to to fool people so we set it against these bright floodlights so it looks like just two silhouettes jumping around
01:34:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like you said, very smart of him to do that, because that way he can disguise the CGI. Yeah. And even still, like he even said in the commentary, he said that that CGI, that one of the moments at the end of the CGI scene, he says it always makes him cringe, because he can see the CGI in it. Even against that backdrop, he can still see it.
01:34:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah, well, I mean, yeah, well, of course you can see it, but, you know, as long as you don't tell anybody. You know what else I think was really cool as I was watching this is I think this is the first superhero movie that had characters move like they would in a comic book, right? Like in that first scene when Assad and Nisa are infiltrating the warehouse and they're like flipping around in the rafters and everything like that. You never really saw that in a live action superhero movie before this.
01:35:22
Speaker
There's a lot, there's a lot of comic book stuff in this movie. And, you know, like I said before, I mean, you know, with the scene where we first, you know, see the blood pack. If you freeze a lot of these scenes in here, that's what they look like. They do look like panels in a comic book. Oh yeah. Together. Yeah. A lot of them look like panels in a comic book. Well, that was, that was Del Toro's intention. Like he said, he wanted this movie to be like a fusion of,
01:35:48
Speaker
uh anime and american comic books and i think he does a really good job in like mixing those two worlds together he well he pulled it off in spectacular fashion like i said i i don't consider a whole lot of action movies to be perfect action movies but yeah blade two comes as close to being a perfect action movie like i just love the mix of everything that's thrown in here and it's a movie where you really feel
01:36:17
Speaker
like there's emotional stakes that's in this movie for these characters. Like I said, I watched it last night. I hadn't seen it in a while. And I was on the edge of my seat. I still was on the edge of my sidewalk. I said, wow. Because everybody's double crossing each other. Everybody's got shifting loyalties. You never know which way. As a matter of fact, it's been so long since I had forgotten that what's his name was actually working for the vampires. So I said, oh, shit. Yeah, that's right. He was working for the vampire guy.
01:36:46
Speaker
So, yeah, this is an outstanding movie. Yeah. And also interesting thing about Nomac, right, played by Luke Goss, the head of the the lead reaper, the carrier, is that character was actually originally supposed to be Morbius in the first drafts. No fooling. Yeah, it was supposed to be Morbius and then Marvel said, like, I think we'd rather say Morbius for his own franchise. So then they rewrote it and they changed it to the to Reapers and changed him to Nomac.
01:37:16
Speaker
Now, see, now, if it had been Morbius, we could have said, okay, this is MCU movie because we've got another character from MCU in there, you know? Yeah, yeah. But for me,
Future of Blade in the MCU
01:37:29
Speaker
You know what? Blade to me is like the X-Men. As you know, I've always said many times in the past that I like the movie X-Men because I think that whole concept works a lot better when it's just humans and X-Men and not 10,000 other superheroes running around. I like Blade because I think that concept works much better when it's just humans and vampires.
01:37:55
Speaker
and you don't have a whole bunch of other super characters getting all up in the mix and everything like that. But apparently I'm in the minor of Norton.
01:38:06
Speaker
Excuse me, the minority, because they are bringing Blade back, played by, what's his name? Marshaala Ali? Yeah, yeah, he's gonna be starring in a new Blade movie, which has got one of the writers from the Watchmen TV series is gonna be working on, isn't he? Right, yeah. And Jared Leto had said recently that there's a very good chance that Morbius and Blade could cross over at some point. Right. So we might actually get to see a Blade versus Morbius fight in live action.
01:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, so apparently they all want to bring him into the MCU.
01:38:44
Speaker
But like I said, I'm going to stand by my word. I've trusted what they've done so far. So I'm going to wait and see how it turns out. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Strangely enough, I'm not completely soloed by Charlotte Ali. Oh, really? And Blade. You know what? I really wish they had just brought Wesley Snipes back. I really do. Yeah, you know what? They could have too, because he's- Yeah.
01:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I like the choice of Marshala Ali, but we'll have to, it'll be interesting to watch because I did like him and I liked him a lot in Luke Cage and I liked him a lot in House of Cards. So I'm interested to see what he'll do with it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,
01:39:32
Speaker
I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, I like him as an actor. I just wish that they had, and my understanding was that Wesley Snipes had went to them and had pitched the concept where, you know, the movie would be about Blade and his daughter. Well, I think that came from the, that came from the comic book, because there was a comic book, I get it, I don't, well, I don't know who, where this idea originated from, but there was a comic book
01:40:00
Speaker
a Blade comic book in development that we've had, his daughter coming in, he would be like mentoring her and she would be like the new Blade. And it was, his daughter was Fallon Gray was her name. Well, Blade would be Whistler. Right. And his daughter would be the new Blade. Yes, that was the pitch behind the comic book. I'm looking forward, looking through, see,
01:40:28
Speaker
Now this was back in 2015 was this was first coming out there. And it was would have been written by Tim Seeley, who wrote the the death of Wolverine, and then apparently that was also tying into rumors the same time about
01:40:46
Speaker
uh Snipes meeting with Marvel and because this is around the time I don't know if this is when Marvel got the rights back to Blade or what but but Wesley Snipes was meeting a lot with Marvel at the time and then you had these this comic book that was supposed to be coming out but both of them ended up falling through the comic never materialized I think they only got as far as like some character sketches and that was it because um Wesley Snipes also wanted to do Black Panther
01:41:16
Speaker
Yes, that was his, in fact, if you read interviews back from the time, he was planning to do Black Panther after he did Blade. That was his dream project. As a matter of fact, he did Blade primarily to get the clout so that he could get Black Panther. Exactly, yeah. And then I think at one point, because they were talking about, no, no, no, that was, because Tim Story wanted to do
01:41:40
Speaker
If his third Fantastic Four movie would have happened, he was going to introduce the Black Panther in that, but I think he wanted Jimon Hanso to play him. Oh, okay. Yeah, I can see that. Good choice. Well, I mean, he did the voice in the Black Panthers, the animated series that Reginald Huggland did. Exactly, yeah.
01:42:02
Speaker
So yeah, here's the images. So if you're on YouTube, you can see this as well, and you'll be able to see it as well, Derek. I'm gonna show the designs that were done for the Fallon Gray character who was gonna be Blade's daughter. So this was, these were some of the character concepts and designs they did. This was like a proposed, this is like an advertisement they had done for it. And these are like some concepts they did for Blade as well.
01:42:30
Speaker
giving him like a larger sword and like bringing back some of the older fashion. And this artwork was by, Logan Faber was the artist who was doing this. Go back down a little bit. Oh, sorry. No, there's something I wanted to, there's something that I wanted to point out. Okay, does he play right there? Yeah. That's the exact colors that he wore in the comic book. Yeah, yeah, the one in the far right here. So that was- To the Dracula. Yeah, yeah.
01:42:59
Speaker
That's it right there, except it switched around. The jacket was green and the pairs were brown. If I remember right, I think it might've been, but it's the colors. I know definitely. Yeah, it is definitely the colors. Yeah, those are definitely the colors from the Tomb of Dracula version. Yeah, okay, so that's cool. I like that. Yeah, that would have been cool to see. This was in, so yeah, this article is from, I don't think it's dated.
01:43:31
Speaker
I'm not seeing a date, but the other one I found was back in 2015. So this is something that was supposed to happen, but it never, I don't know what happened to it. I don't know how it fell through. If anyone watching or listening to this knows why, you know, feel free to drop us a line and let us know. But yeah, that was a proposed way to bring Blade back into the fold. I'm not sure if this was before or after he started appearing in the Captain Britain and MI13 series, but that Blade or
01:43:59
Speaker
I know I know it was obviously way before he started appearing in Jason Aaron's. Oh, you know, it might have also been around this time I think he was appearing in the mighty Avengers title that Al Ewing if I'm not mistaken was doing, and I think maybe it was just like you know the characters being used other places and so that's why this proposal didn't actually materialize.
01:44:18
Speaker
And since we are talking about, we're wrapping this up, I presume, but since we're talking about the other incarnations of Blade or whatnot, there was a Blade TV series.
Blade TV Series Reception
01:44:29
Speaker
Yes, Blade the series starring on Spike TV. Huh? Spike TV. Right, it was Spike TV then. I thought it was TNT, but yeah, you're right. TNT came later with Spike TV. It was with the wrap of Sticky Fingers. Yeah.
01:44:47
Speaker
as Blade and it was terrible. I actually liked it. I liked it. I didn't have a problem with it. It wasn't as good. Well, you know, it was better than Blade Trinity and it had some good stuff in it. Yeah, Kirk Jones, Sticky Fingers played the character.
01:45:11
Speaker
He was okay, but yeah, he'd never quite found a groove with it. But I did like a lot of the supporting cast, especially... Well, the supporting cast was the stars of... Blaine was the supporting character. Yeah. Shen, his new weaponsmith, played by Nelson Lee. He was a character I really enjoyed on that show.
01:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, blade. This was a series where blade was because the whole premise of the series that it was a police officer that was acting as his spy in the, you know, the vampire clans. And he sent her in there to infiltrate.
01:45:52
Speaker
You know, so she was the character that we actually follow. Yeah, you know, it wasn't it wasn't a but which is why I said it was terrible because I'm silly that way. I think if you call the series blade then I should see blade doing all of this stuff and not, you know, these other characters, but that's just me, but
01:46:12
Speaker
but it is worth looking for if you've never seen it before because it goes more into like the vampire world and how these clans run things and the hierarchy of the vampire royalty and all that kind of stuff. So if you're into that kind of stuff, yeah, you're not gonna get the high octane action. You also get Richard Roundtree isn't it too. He appears as Blade's father.
01:46:40
Speaker
And Larry Poindexter, who would later... Oh, no, maybe not... No, no, I was thinking of something different there. Yeah, I enjoyed it enough. It had... Randy Quaid was in it as well. He had a brief part in it. And it was... Jeff Johns was one of the writers on the show as well. And he had...
01:47:05
Speaker
There were attempts to, they brought in some more characters from the comics. Like they dealt a little bit, if you've read the Blade comic books, you may have known that he had had a past with some vampire like gangsters. And this went into some, this had some of those characters appear, like Stepan Razor was one of them. And I can't remember the other one. They had also hinted at Moon Knight coming in. And cause they had mentioned Mark Spector in one episode. Cause when they're, I think it's when,
01:47:36
Speaker
What's her name goes to is learning about Krista is going to learn more about the vampire world. She meets with this professor who had known Whistler and everything and gives tells her about blades backstory. And there's some quip about made about werewolves. He says, no, werewolf is that's the specialty of my, my colleague Mark Spector or something like that. Okay. And apparently Jeff Johnson said like if they had done a season two, they would have tried to introduce moon knight. Hmm. Okay.
01:48:05
Speaker
So it was, I enjoyed it enough. It's, you know, it's definitely not the same production values that you get in like Blade 2, but I think, you know, writing wise and, you know, Kirk Jones, he does the best he can, but he's not as good as Wesley Snipes. But overall, I think it's entertaining enough. It was a worthy effort. And I think it was, yeah, it's worth a watch, I'd say.
01:48:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's worth a watch. I mean, don't listen to me when I said it was terrible in the sense that I just didn't appreciate Blade not being the main character. But if you were to, for those of you watching and listening to this, if you're at all interested, yeah, by all means, you know, check it out. Seek it out, check it out, let us know what you think.
01:48:49
Speaker
Yeah, all right. So that brings us to the end of our episode on Blade 2 and the end of our Black Superhero Month. Although there's a postscript to this because we appeared about last month, we did an interview with the women over at Pop DNA Podcasts and they're doing a special this month on Black Panther. So they've had two episodes out already and their last episode I believe is gonna be coming out
01:49:18
Speaker
this weekend for us. So that's like the, that'll be like Saturday, the 20th. But by the time you guys listen to this, cause we're coming out after it, it'll probably already be available. So pop DNA podcast, check that out. We had a great time, you know, talking with the women there and, you know, you know, being, they're great interviewers and just listen to their podcast in general. They, they got some really great insights into a lot of different pop culture stuff.
01:49:44
Speaker
Yeah, I've been listening to some of the episodes and they're really good. And they have a lot of fun. Yes, they do, yeah. Which is why I love listening to podcasts where people are obviously having fun doing it and their podcast is a lot of fun indeed. Okay, so I picked Blade 2. That means we're tossing it back to you for returning to our regularly scheduled program. Keeping us in suspense.
01:50:12
Speaker
No, I just had to. I know, I know. My allergies have been acting up today. Okay, I've been meaning to watch this movie for the longest time. And I keep putting it off and keep putting off, keep putting off. But I figured that
01:50:31
Speaker
If I put it on the docket for us to do next week, that will force me to sit down and watch it. And also this is my way to make up for making you watch. Steel. Steel. So my pick for next week is the animated movie Batman Ninja. Oh, okay. Cool.
01:50:50
Speaker
So that'll be fun to talk about then. Well, I figured that, you know what, it's about time for us to start digging into the wealth of stuff that's on HBO Max. Yeah, yeah. And I was looking, you know, last, what's the last name I made for it? I was looking for something else. And I saw Batman Ninja was on there. And I said, you know what, I keep saying I'm going to watch this. I keep saying I'm going to watch.
01:51:12
Speaker
Damn it. Now I'm going to watch it. Now I have to watch it because we're going to do it next week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I watched it before and I've seen it with, um, cause we got it from the rental store here in Japan. So I watched it with the original Japanese language. So, but now I think I'm going to go and watch it on HBO max with the English dub. Okay.
01:51:32
Speaker
kind of see how the two compare. So yeah, that'll be fun. So join us next week when we're talking Batman Ninja. Until then, SuperheroCinephiles.com is our website. You can support the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, wherever you get the show. Leave us some comments, leave us some reviews, recommend us to your friends so that we can get more people listening. And then if you, Twitter and Instagram, SuperCinemapod on both of those, and you can join our Facebook group, SuperheroCinephiles.
01:52:02
Speaker
Okay, very good. You get better at this all the time. I want to extend my personal thank you for all of you who have been listening to this, you know, these black superhero movies. I hope that if you've never heard any of them before or, you know, maybe you'll be persuaded to revisit them with a new light. But in any case, thank you very much. I appreciate you allowing me to hijack this month. Anytime. Although, you know, I think the
01:52:32
Speaker
You might have to apologize for Steele a few more times, though. And also, let me tell some of y'all out there, some of y'all my so-called writer friends who sent me emails about that Steele episode. If you were as eloquent in your prose as you are in those emails, tell me more books. Oh, oh, oh, now I want to say you know big words.
01:53:02
Speaker
Okay. All right. Okay. Well, that does it for us. Thanks for watching. Stay warm out there because, you know, we got these blizzards hidden everywhere apparently. So stay warm, stay safe, try to stay indoors as much as possible. And we will talk to you next week when we talk about Batman Ninja. Okay. Good night. God bless.
01:53:23
Speaker
You have been listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. Join our Facebook group by searching for Superhero Cinephiles, where you can interact with us and other superhero fans. If you'd like to support the show, you can become a regular supporter at Patreon or make a one-time donation through PayPal, both of which can be found at our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com.
01:53:45
Speaker
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