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Justice League
156 Plays4 years ago
After spending many digressions in past episodes talking about it, we finally sit down and watch Justice League. Despite being a movie that pretty much satisfied no one, there are still things we found to like—such as (most) of the cast and the action scenes. But we also go into the things where it missed the mark.
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Transcript
Introduction and Promotions
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, Derek, guess what? Hit me with it. We just got a promotion with Audible. Audible, fantastic. I love Audible. Do you know what the cool thing about this deal is? What's that? If our listeners go to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod, they get a free trial with Audible. And do you know what they get with that?
00:00:22
Speaker
What do they get with that? Tell me. They get one free audiobook of their choice and they get two free Audible Originals, which is special content that Audible makes available free for all its subscribers. Are you kidding me? That deal is so good I may go myself and sign them. Do you think they let you keep the books after you're done?
00:00:42
Speaker
No, you're not gonna tell me they let you keep the books after you're done. Yes, in fact, you can go sign up for a trial and you can cancel before the trial ends and you get to keep the books you've already downloaded.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I don't see how you can beat that with a stick. Exactly, yeah. And you can, lots of great books, especially for fans of the show. You can listen to Super Gods by Grant Morrison, which is all about like how the superhero comics have changed and evolved over 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 super cinema pod and start your free trial right now. You got one free audio book and two free audible originals and you can keep them even if you cancel before it's over.
00:02:04
Speaker
We are not enough. Each of us in our own way is held back, and I promise you Steppenwolf is not out there talking about ethics. He's trying to burn down the world. The way we're gonna stop him is by using his power, this power, against him. I agree. I don't like the idea of reintegrating with the Mother Box. But I was running the numbers while you were being an asshole, and there is a high probability that we can bring him back.
00:02:32
Speaker
Right, right, but we mean bring him back in like a, yay, he's back way, not in like a pet cemetery scenario. He'll lose something when he die. Even Superman. Maybe not his mind. Maybe his soul. I'll have a contingency plan for that. If he wakes up and you're the first thing he sees, you'll need one.
Host Introductions and Personal Updates
00:02:59
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, Derek? I am doing quite well. Thank you. I had an appointment with the eye doctor today. Oh, how'd it go? Oh, very well. He checked me out. It was in relation to those other health issues I was telling you about. He checked out my eyes and
00:03:26
Speaker
He said, yeah, other than the fact that you're blind as a bat, he said, there's nothing wrong with, yeah, I've got something like 6200 vision, something like that. But he said, yeah, he said, your eyes are fine. Okay, cool. Yeah.
00:03:39
Speaker
So yeah, I'm doing pretty good. You know what, I actually, cause we got a new, a router for our house here, for our internet. And so we were able to, yeah. So finally I could set up my VPN so that it works on different devices for different things. So, which means I can actually use Amazon Prime Japan, which I've been subscribed to for like two years, but I never been able to watch anything on there. And
TV Shows Discussion: 'The Boys' and 'The Mandalorian'
00:04:02
Speaker
And so I started watching The Boys and I just finished the first season not too long ago. I'm not sure. Have you seen it yet? No, I have not. It is really good. Like I've read some of the books. But it is. Yeah, it's really, really solid work. I'm really enjoying it. I just I'm just about to start season two, actually. And then
00:04:27
Speaker
And also the Mandalorian's back, so I'm all caught up on that, watch the first two episodes so far. Yeah, I'm just waiting, because I think that this Friday is going to be like the third episode of the second season. I'm just waiting, you know, I mean, I have patience, I can do that. I'm waiting until the whole thing is up there and then I'm just going to binge watch.
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, I thought about waiting too, but then I checked out Disney Plus and I'm like, eh, I'm gonna watch it. But yeah, it's like first two episodes so far, really, really strong. And then apparently Baby Yoda's got a bit of a murderous streak in him.
00:05:06
Speaker
Apparently, so from what I hear this last episode, you know, like most babies, he'll put anything in his mouth. Like, yeah, he's working on this, you know, I mean, it's not that spoilery, but he's on this mission where he's got to protect this, like, frog woman or something, and she's trying to transport her eggs, which are like the last of her family's line. Baby Yoda, like, eats like two or three of them.
00:05:30
Speaker
Good for him. I watched him eat this. And there's another scene where he, because he gets into them during the ship has this problem, Mando comes down. He sees Yoda standing over, eating one of the eggs. And then Mando's like, how many of those did you eat? And then Yoda just kind of looks around. Yeah, like, oh, me? What? It still amazes me that here it was.
00:06:00
Speaker
This show comes on Disney Plus and everybody just like kind of, yeah, well, Disney, they just tried to, you know, and people weren't expecting much of it because of course, The Rise of Skywalker was coming out the same month that The Mandalorian, you know, made his big debut. And as it turns out that everybody hated The Rise of Skywalker and loved The Mandalorian. Yeah.
00:06:28
Speaker
you know, that turned out to be the big Star Wars event of the year. Easily. I mean, no, there's no question about it for me. I mean, Mandalorian is easily like one of the best things that has come out of Star Wars pretty much since probably, I don't know, in a very long time. Like it's easily like the best thing of, I mean, I would watch the Mandalorian over like the original Star Wars.
00:06:52
Speaker
Really? Oh, yeah, like, I mean, Empire is still like the gold standard, but I think Mandalorian is way up there. Because you know, it, it does what a lot what Star Wars should have been doing all this time, right? It's got you've got this whole big universe, this whole mythology
'The Mandalorian' vs 'The Rise of Skywalker'
00:07:08
Speaker
built up around it. But you just keep focusing on this one bloodline. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of, you know, the Mandalorian is exactly what
00:07:19
Speaker
I think Star Wars started out to be a western slash samurai movie in Spain. Yes. That's what it was. And it kind of got away from that. Like you said, it got caught up in the whole thing with the sky walkers and everything like that, you know, which I always say, you know,
00:07:40
Speaker
the whole universe would have been better one. They'd never heard of the Skywalker family. So it's the only thing that's come in and just fucked up everything. Yeah. Yeah. They do it. And it's all it's all Qui-Gon's fault. Like if he did nothing, that kid would have stayed there on Tatooine and died there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, Skywalker's the number school of everything. But but yeah, like the Mandalorian actually takes advantage, like you said, of this whole universe. And and it goes back
00:08:08
Speaker
to that you know spaghetti western vibe. Yes, yeah that I think works very well for this thing, I mean let's face it, this is a lone wolf and cub. It is. You know they may and know what I'm glad they make no secret about you know I I mean.
00:08:24
Speaker
I don't like it when creators, you know, they try to be coy and say, well, no, it's not really that because we're brilliant. No, they were right in front of it. Yeah. This is Long Wolf and Cuff in outer space. In fact, I was totally, in fact, I wasn't really that interested in the Mandalorian at first, right? Cause I'm not a big Star Wars guy. It's like, I like the movies and, but like Boba Fett, I never really got the appeal. So, so I didn't really care too much about someone who looks like Boba Fett and,
00:08:52
Speaker
So I didn't really, I wasn't too excited about it, but then when everyone started talking about it and they started talking about how it's basically lone wolf and cub in space. I'm like, Oh, now I got to see this. Bingo. See, there you go. It got you. Somebody who has no, no real, you know, commitment to story. Unlike me, like who, who, you know, like I saw
00:09:15
Speaker
I saw the original Star Wars back in 1977 when it opened. So I've been a Star Wars and I was in my senior year of high school. So I've been a Star Wars fan most of my life. So, you know, I have like a commitment to it, but somebody like you who don't see, and they got you into it by saying, oh yeah, well, there's no wolf in cover now the space. And you said, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:40
Speaker
So yeah, that really made me want to see it. And then I got hooked after that. After that, I was definitely all in on that.
DC Universe Speculations and News
00:09:50
Speaker
So got a little bit of news today. Apparently, it looks like there's going to be a Martian manhunter in Snyder's Justice League. Really? Yeah, because I mean, he hasn't said much, but he
00:10:10
Speaker
It's been mentioned before, but, and then he did, he was doing a live stream video with the nerd queens and he showed a design on his phone. So yeah, it looks like he didn't really say anything else. He just said, this is still just a drawing. So, but yeah, so this, because apparently last year Snyder said that Martian Manhunter was,
00:10:37
Speaker
was actually in Man of Steel. He was actually the general that was played by Henry Lennox. Yeah, yeah. And so it looks like this was his plan, or I don't know if it was his plan all along, but now he's got this four hours to play with, so now he's gonna reveal that. I'm not sure what kind of role he'll play in the movie or anything like that. All we have is the design and assume that Lennox is gonna be playing John Jones.
00:11:07
Speaker
Which to me, and you know, we're talking about Justice League today, so we'll get into this more when we talk about the movie, because I've always been, like for me, Martian Manhunter is Mr. Justice League, right? I mean, he's like the key character in that lineup. He's been, up until recently, he's been in every single lineup of the team.
00:11:27
Speaker
right yeah and he's always been he's always been one of my favorite characters yeah he's always been you know uh to me he's like okay we um when people talk about
00:11:39
Speaker
uh say okay Captain America they always say okay well he's like he's the Avengers he's the heart and soul of the Avengers he's Mr Avengers and I say well no for me it's Hawkeye. I feel kind of the same way about Martian Manhunter when you talk about the Justice League I think a Martian Manhunter is being the heart and soul of the Justice League.
00:11:58
Speaker
Cause as you point, so actively point out, he's been a virtually every incarnation of the team. Yeah. And no other, and there's no other member of the team that can say that. And, um, what was, I think it was when, uh, Kevin McGuire was, uh, drawing it and, uh, he was leading the team. Yeah. Yeah. He's led the team on, uh, a few different occasions, I think.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, he and and I think and I always thought it was weird when I first started because I first came in with.
00:12:31
Speaker
was, it was Morrison's run. That was my first real introduction to the Justice League. And I couldn't understand why the Martian Manhunter was there, right? Because I'm like, oh, you got all these, because I didn't know anything about the history. I'm like, well, you got all the other characters. They're like, you know, DC's big, you know, big six solo heroes. They've all got their own, you know, their own titles and all that. And then you got Martian Manhunter, who's never been able to really sustain a title for any length of time. So it didn't make much sense to me. And then after I started reading it, I'm like, oh, I get it now. I get it now.
00:13:01
Speaker
And so it always, it always pissed me off when they did the new 52 relaunch and then, you know, the just sleep movie and they took Martian manhunter out and they replaced him with cyborg.
00:13:15
Speaker
Because like to me, it's just not the Justice League if you don't have Martian Manhunter now. Yeah, yeah, Martian Man, you know, and yeah, I, I understand why they put Cyborg in there. But yeah, I grew up with the Martian Manhunter always be, you know, everybody else came and went as they
00:13:34
Speaker
you know, please, but, you know, the Martian Manhunter was always there. Yeah, yeah. You know, he was always a mainstay. And, you know, I always saw him as being the guy that everybody on the team, even Batman, they went to him when they needed some advice. Right. You know, guidance or wisdom or, you know, whatever, you know, that was the guy that everybody went to. He was like the grandfather of the team.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. There are a few other things that have been, not a whole lot of news, like just like everything in the middle of all this, you know, you know the pandemic stuff, nobody's really, and with all the craziness going on with the elections and all that stuff, like nobody's really talking a whole lot.
00:14:21
Speaker
But it looks like Peacemaker is going to, you know, the spinoff from, or I think it's going to be a prequel with John Cena playing Peacemaker and HBO Max. They've just added Chris Conrad is going to be playing Vigilante.
00:14:40
Speaker
And so he's gonna be appearing in the show as well. So they're gonna have a- Oh, so this is a prequel? I think it, I believe it's a prequel, yeah. Oh, okay. Cause you know what my theory was. My theory was I was saying, you know something? This is all just an elaborate hoax to cover up the fact that he's gonna die.
00:14:56
Speaker
Oh, I see, I see. Because I figure, yeah, in the movie, you know, so that, you know, we would all see it and say, oh, well, they're gonna give him his own series, but then he's not gonna get killed in the movie. Then we go to the movie and see it, and we see him get, you know, eaten by a bionic shark or something like that. We say, oh, shit, I thought he was gonna get his own show. Okay. No, yeah, yeah, it says, well, details about Peacemaker are being kept under wraps. The series will explore the origins of the character.
00:15:20
Speaker
Okay. Okay. So you know, so you can still get killed. You know what I think they're probably you know what, here's what I would do. And this, I would I would have done it wanted first I would have this.
00:15:34
Speaker
release this prequel series, right? And then I would have put the prequel out first. And then depending on how people respond to it, like if they like it, if they don't like it, then you have two scenes in the Suicide Squad movie. You've got one where Peacemaker dies, one where he lives. And if the series does well, then you keep him alive and you continue the series off from the modern day then.
00:16:00
Speaker
And if it doesn't do so well, if it's not that response isn't that great, then you kill them off in the movie. That's what I would do.
00:16:09
Speaker
Um, see what else. So, uh, also about the flash movie, uh, Brandon Ralph was asked that if he would, um, if he would come back as Superman again in, uh, the flash point movie. And he was doing an interview with the geek house show when he said, he's like, well, it's always a possibility. And he said, you know, they're bringing back Michael Keaton and some other people from past DC projects. So he's, he's on board to play Superman again. So that's Ed, you know what?
00:16:37
Speaker
If Warner Brothers is looking at this and they don't think, well, yeah, let's put Brandon Routh as Superman in the movie. They don't do that. I don't know what's wrong with them. You know what? I don't think that they don't have a problem doing it. I think it's him himself, Henry Cavill. I don't think he wants to commit himself completely to doing any projects as far as Superman goes. Because I do believe he's going to hold out for James Bond.
00:17:06
Speaker
Right. Well, that's what I'm saying. So bring in Brandon Routh for the Flashpoint then. Yeah. What's that guy's name? Not Brandon Routh. The other guy. Oh, Tyler Hoekland. No, Henry Cavill. That's what I'm thinking about. Oh, I thought you were talking about the one from the TV show. That wasn't a Tyler... Hoekland, yeah. Right. Okay.
00:17:28
Speaker
In fact, there's a bit of news of him too. They teased a, there was a set photo of him in Superman and Lois and it looks like he's got a slightly altered costume. It's just a really blurry like set photo, but it looks kind of like the, you know, it's got, it looks kind of like the new 52 costume with the red belt and everything. Yeah. So yeah, that looks like what they're going with for this one.
00:17:53
Speaker
And another piece of news, this is like the last thing we're gonna talk, well, two other things. First, I don't know why they did this, but you know this movie that Ryan Reynolds is doing called Free Guy, right?
Movie Delays and Pandemic Effects
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I saw the trailer for it and then I said, oh shit, I gotta see this. That looks so much fun. It still does. It's been delayed indefinitely. Oh, give me a break. I know.
00:18:18
Speaker
Oh God, I'm just so annoyed with this stuff. Cause it's already been laid twice and now it's just like, they don't know when they're going to. I'm just like, just put it on VOD. Yeah. I mean, really, I mean, seriously. Yeah.
00:18:35
Speaker
just get, you know, just sell it to Netflix or like you said, VOD or Amazon Prime or something and get it over with. I'm waiting, I'm surprised they haven't had, you know, what you gonna call it on there yet, because I'm actually wanna see the damn thing now. You know, what is it? The mutants, you know? Oh, new mutants, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I actually wanna see, they should just put all of this stuff on, like I said, and I've been saying,
00:19:02
Speaker
They should either do one or two things, either just release this stuff to some streaming platform, or just hold it for next year. Yeah. And just stop, you know, jerking us around with multiple dates. Well, it's going to come out next month. Well, no, it's not going to come out next month. It was going to come out tomorrow. No, it's going to come out Christmas. No, you know, listen, I don't care what you do.
00:19:22
Speaker
just make a decision and stick with it. Yeah, yeah. And Wonder Woman 84, another one that's been, you know, pushed around a lot, which leaves, forgive me, I got to make the bad joke. Okay. We're all waiting for Godot. Good one.
00:19:44
Speaker
I thought of that like last week. I'm like, I gotta remember to say that on the show. Absolutely. Listen, hey, you know what? How often would you get to use that? Well, you know what? I'm going to be, trust me, I'm in a bad joke training for when my kid's born. Oh, absolutely.
00:20:02
Speaker
Okay, so Wonder Woman 84, that's still set for Christmas. I believe so, but you know, like we talked about last week that, who knows, because even like the head Warner Brothers is like, well, we hope. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and you know what, I can understand, you know what, I'm not insensitive.
00:20:20
Speaker
Totally insensitive to the movie theaters, even though they got more money than God. You know, I'm not totally insensitive and yeah they, you know, they want people to go to the theater and see it on the big screen and you know whatever but
00:20:37
Speaker
I don't know. The thing is, is that at this point, we still do not know when it's going to be safe to go back to movie theaters. We really don't. I mean, I don't care what anybody says. There was an announcement yesterday that Pfizer, they had a vaccine that was 90% accurate. But then there were other stories that were coming out that they were saying they did not know the potency of
00:21:01
Speaker
this vaccine. Right. So far, it's only they've only confirmed that it's it's it's effective for like up to seven days. Right. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, so what? So now I got to go back to my doctor every seven days and get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So we still do not know we don't and I don't know movie theater. Yeah. OK, I understand the studio is going to get the maximum return on their investment. But sometimes you just got to bite the bullet and say, well, you know what?
00:21:31
Speaker
Because they threw him in the towel with, what is it, that movie by Christopher Nolan. Oh, really? Yeah, Tenet. They say, oh, OK. Oh, yeah. They just finally decided to release it. Yeah, yeah. They just said, Noah, OK, we're going to push out the Blu-ray and put it on VOD and just call it a day. Yeah.
Exploring 'WandaVision'
00:21:58
Speaker
And so anyway, that, oh, one more thing. I read a little bit of news on WandaVision and apparently the first episode leads heavily into the sitcom vibe. Like they even filmed it in front of a studio audience. Did Van Dyke?
00:22:15
Speaker
was kind of a consultant on how they did sitcoms back. Really? Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I read a story about that today. They said, yeah, they was asking Dick Van Dyke, OK, well, how did you do this? And how did you shoot this? And how do we do this? And how do we do that? Yeah. But yeah, I heard that, too, that they did the whole 50. Yeah, they had a whole studio audience and everything. Yeah, yeah. So I'm so excited for that. That looks like it's going to be so much fun. Paul Bettany said that, you know, listen,
00:22:44
Speaker
He said, who knew I was so good at situation comedies? He said, I may have another career. Oh, I believe it. I mean, Paul Bettany had this kind of weird, quirky kind of, his humor in Civil War was really good, right? Like when he walks through the wall and he's kind of like, but I just, the door was open. I could definitely see him doing really well in the sitcom setting.
00:23:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things that don't excite me anymore, but WandaVision, yeah, I'm excited for that. I really want to see what they're going to do with that. Yeah, same here. OK, so now, the elephant in the room, the movie that we haven't talked about yet, but we've been kind of dancing around for
'Justice League' Controversies and Critiques
00:23:27
Speaker
a while. And I figured, let's get it out of the way. And that's Justice League. Justice League is probably the one movie that
00:23:37
Speaker
We haven't reviewed as of yet, but we've talked about the most. Yes, I think that's definitely true.
00:23:44
Speaker
We've talked about it and dance about it every episode we've done, especially when we talk about DC movies. But we have actually talked about, we haven't actually devoted an episode to it yet. So yeah, you're right. I mean, because this movie had just like such a clusterfuck of an origin story, right? Because they did Man of Steel.
00:24:10
Speaker
Man of Steel did really well. And then they, and by that point, like Man of Steel came out in what, 2013, I think it was? Somewhere thereabouts. Yeah, yeah. So it came out, it was, I remember, yeah, because it was the same summer as Iron Man 3 and Logan, or not Logan, the Wolverine. And I do remember because that summer I was real, my expectation was that Iron Man 3 was going to be the, my favorite movie of the summer. Man of Steel was going to be a close second and the Wolverine was going to be a distant third.
00:24:41
Speaker
And it ended up being almost complete inversion of that list in reality. The Wolverine was far and away the best movie I saw that summer. And then I go back and forth over which I hate more, Man of Steel or Iron Man 3. Oh, God. Would you say, and I don't know, I've had this discussion with some other people, would you say that Justice League is by far the most controversial superhero movie?
00:25:10
Speaker
Um, I, I think so. I was wondering about that myself. Yeah. I think it, I think so. I, well, it's, I don't know. Yeah. I was going to say, I was going to say maybe Batman V Superman, but, but now I think about like almost everybody hates Batman V Superman.
00:25:36
Speaker
Right. Like the only people who don't hate it are the Snyder fans. Yeah, everybody hates it. And I mean, this is a movie that we're still talking about and is in line for what really I call, they're giving it a whole damn thing, a facelift.
00:25:52
Speaker
Yeah, and representing it as well like a four hour mini series now on HBO Max is going to be for their reshooting scenes they're doing all this other there's all the contention, you know behind the scenes with them bringing in another director to finish the movie and stuff like that you know, I mean, this is a movie that
00:26:09
Speaker
I honestly can't think of another movie offhand that has been as polarizing in recent years as Justice League. Yeah, I think you're right on that because Justice League, it's a movie that didn't please anybody really.
00:26:24
Speaker
Like it was like, even people, people who hated Batman V Superman, you know, like me, it's like, well, Justice League is a definite improvement over that, but it doesn't, it still got a lot of problems with it. And then, you know, obviously the Snyder fans all hated it because Snyder wasn't, because Snyder got left production. So, so yeah, it's, it's, it's, yeah, I think, I think you're proud and it's, it's generated all this controversy since after. So yeah, I think you're right. I think I'll go along with that. Um,
00:26:54
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, and so they it came after Man of Steel did well. And at this point, right, Marvel's already on a become a juggernaut because this is post Avengers now.
00:27:05
Speaker
And the DC's like, well, we gotta catch up. They rush ahead, Batman V Superman, and they put like all the Justice League characters in that. And then we get, and then like right after that, we're gonna get like a Justice League trilogy. And then after Batman V Superman tanked, it became like, oh no, it's not gonna be a trilogy. It's gonna be parts one and two. And then that downgraded again. It's like, oh, it's just gonna be one movie. And oh yeah, now Zack Snyder can't do it anymore.
00:27:34
Speaker
And it was just a case of like trying to run before you could walk. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Because as I've said before in other episodes, the problem with Warner Brothers DC has always been that they've been trying to play catch up. They came out of the gate late. They didn't hear the bell. And by the time they realized
00:28:05
Speaker
what a financial juggernaut superhero movies were thanks to the MCU.
00:28:14
Speaker
they just felt like they just had to like do anything they could to try to chase, especially where the Avengers made a billion bucks in what, like two weeks? You know, I mean, you know, the suits at Warner Brothers went crazy. They said, okay, well, we got to get us some of that money. And mainly debt. So, Justice League is not, okay. First of all, I should say to y'all folks out there, if you didn't like me before, you're not going to like me now because I'm not going to trash this movie.
00:28:43
Speaker
And let me say something for a lot of y'all out there, hypocrites, because y'all profess to hate this movie so much, but there's some of y'all that have the Blu-ray and the D.V. and you've seen it multiple times. I know myself, people, that they profess to hate this movie so much. I said, well, how many times have you seen it? Oh, about 20 times. Why would you act something that many times that you say that you hate?
00:29:05
Speaker
Okay, so there's a lot of hypocrisy involved in this movie. So folks- Well, I mean, you got that. There's a lot of hypocrisy with superhero fans in general, I've noticed. I mean, cause you and I know people who, and I'll confess, I was guilty of this too. People who were, when it was just comic books, there were people who would continue buying the comic book, even if they hated what was being done in the pages. Yeah.
00:29:32
Speaker
And so yeah, that's just like kind of a carry over from that, I see it as. If for no other reason that they could bitch, moan and whine about how much they hated it. Oh yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'm not gonna waste anybody's time. So if y'all decide y'all wanna go listen to another podcast, I wanna tell you right now. I don't hate the movie. There's a lot of it I don't like.
00:29:59
Speaker
Yeah. But on the other hand, there's a lot of it I do like. It is not a totally worthless movie. More than anything else, and like I said, I watched it today. And usually when I watch it, I'm sitting there and I'm just saying, oh, damn, if they had just did this, or if they had done, or if they took a little bit more time with that, or if they had tweaked this and everything like that.
00:30:22
Speaker
there are elements of a great superhero movie in this. This could have been The Avengers. It could have been. Yeah. If they had taken it, if they had taken, as the song says, if they had taken their time and did it right. Yeah. I mean, there's a, there is a lot of good, even with, um, Cavill's stupid CGI lip, like he plays a much better Superman in this movie. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:30:46
Speaker
after he comes back like the the scene when he's um he's with Lois and you know and she's like oh you smell good he just kind of like quips did I not before yeah yeah and then there's a genuine warmth and humanity to his Superman and Clark Kent in this movie that we don't get in Man of Steel or uh Superman versus Batman V Superman or whatever yeah Batman yeah yeah yeah there's a genuine warmth
00:31:13
Speaker
in this character and I'm glad that you pointed out that scene with Lois Lane because to me that's one of the major strengths of this movie in that we have so many great conversations between the characters.
00:31:29
Speaker
you know, all throughout the movie. The first one is when Aquaman and Bruce Wayne are discussing crime-fighting techniques. Yes, yeah. You know, he's, oh, so you mean you really dress up like a bat? And yeah, well, I did it for 20 years and everything like that. And I said, well, of course, what else would superheroes talk about?
Character Interactions in 'Justice League'
00:31:46
Speaker
You know?
00:31:46
Speaker
Isn't that, there's the scene, my favorite scene in the movie is when it's Bruce Wayne and Alfred, they're in the plane and they're going around the country, you know, trying to, you know, like assemble a team and everything like that. And they sit down and Alfred says, you know, one misses the days when all you had to worry about was exploded. Wind up penguins, yeah. Yeah, you know, and I don't know. To me, that just tickles the hell out of me because when he said that,
00:32:15
Speaker
I briefly saw Michael Keaton and Michael Gao. They've got a they've got a lot of that same dynamic. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah. Next to, I mean, Jeremy, I just, you know, they've had really good luck casting out for it. I'll say that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:32:31
Speaker
They may, you know what, they may not have got it right with Bruce Wayne all the time, but they've got it right with Alfred. Every single time, like you have, you know. Every single time. Jeremy Irons, and Jeremy Irons brings such a, such a, he brings such a British drollness.
00:32:47
Speaker
to the whole relationship between, and never lets us forget that Alfred is the one person that could talk shit to Bruce and get away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do like this line about, you know, shall I fly over and pass her a note? Will you be Bruce's teammate, check yes or no?
00:33:09
Speaker
Like I said, you know, such great care. When is Bruce and Diana there by the lake? And you know, they're walking and she's telling him the history of, you know, these mother boxes and everything like that. And they're just walking and talking. There's a lot of scenes in here, a lot of great scenes where it's just two characters, they take a moment out of the action to just sit and just have a conversation. And you don't see that in a lot of superhero movies.
00:33:35
Speaker
No and it's just having a conversation. Yeah and I'm pretty sure those scenes were mostly added by Whedon because that's not really Snyder's forte. Yeah yeah I'm pretty yeah. But yeah they and yeah and you know what that's another point too is just the cast in this movie is it's it's a really well cast movie.
00:33:56
Speaker
I mean, almost all the Justice League is really well represented by their actors, right? I mean, you got, you know, Ben Affleck has really grown into his own as Batman here in Bruce Wayne, right? He's a much more, because in BVS, you know, he was much more broken down, right? He was much more Frank Miller Batman. This felt more like, you know, Denny O'Neill Batman. Yeah. And let me point out something for a lot of people that criticize Ben Affleck as Batman.
00:34:25
Speaker
Watch this movie again. This is the first Batman movie where we really see Batman's capability as a thinker and strategic planner. He's not just pounding the piss out of people or overcoming them through superior firepower. He's actually making plans and he's strategizing and
00:34:51
Speaker
He's just acting more on a intellectual level than any other Batman I think that I've seen since Michael Keaton. Yes, definitely. And that's good. That's important in this movie more than anything because you got to have a reason for Batman to be there.
00:35:08
Speaker
among all these, like, gods. Bingo. Again, I mean, he's up here fighting, you know, uh, you know, oh, he's up here fighting parademons and monsters and Steppenwolf and everything like that, you know, and he is so clearly, you know, out of his league. Mm-hmm. You know, so, yeah, so there's gotta be a reason why Batman is there. Yes. And that's the reason, because he's the thinker. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
And just like his interactions with all the cast, it works really well. Like I love when he's with Arthur in the bat cave and he's saying, can you put out like a feeler? And then Arthur's looking at him kind of like giving him like the side eye. And then Bruce is like, wait, wait, wait, you do really talk to fish, don't you?
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, see, again, another great moment. And you really do talk to fans. And yeah, like you said, Arthur just looking at him like, you know, dude, get the fuck away from me. And then Arthur has that line, you know, the water mostly does the talking, which I'm betting Arthur just said, because he was pissed off that people keep asking him that question. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:17
Speaker
Because the first time I saw that, I'm just like, that line doesn't really make any sense. The water does the talking. And after watching Aquaman and everything, I'm convinced that Arthur just said that because he's sick of people asking him if he could talk to fish. Okay, that's a good point that you make. A lot more of
00:36:38
Speaker
how Aquaman works and how he thinks and everything like that. Actually, when you go back and watch this movie after watching Aquaman, a lot of what he says and what he does makes a lot more sense in this movie. It's like you should have watched that. Okay. It's almost like they should have made Aquaman first. You know, I was thinking the same thing, like rewatching it. It's like it almost works better if Aquaman came first. Yeah. Or at least parts of Aquaman.
00:37:07
Speaker
which in fact is how I tend to, you know, when I usually have my home marathon or watching superhero movies, I do tend to save Justice League for last. And I watch Aquaman and Wonder Woman. And I watch all of those, you know, Batman versus, I watch all of that before I watch, you know, Justice League. And then we also have the, and even though I don't really like him in this movie, I did like the conversations that Bruce has with Barry.
Casting Critiques: Ezra Miller and Others
00:37:35
Speaker
Right? Like Ezra Miller is totally miscast in this movie. He's the one person who just doesn't fit at all. You know, okay. See, I hesitate to use the word annoying when describing his character because I'm the guy who likes Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And everybody hates her because they say she's annoying.
00:38:05
Speaker
Okay, here's what, I think if they had just called Ezra Miller Bart Allen, because that's who he's playing really, he's impulse, he's not Barry Allen. He's not even really Bart Allen, he's like this weird mix of like Bart and Wally, I feel like. Yeah, I think I could have took him a lot better if he had been some other Allen. Yeah, yeah.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, because he's definitely not the Barry Allen that I'm, he's not even the Barry Allen from the TV show. No, no. He's just, he's just this, I don't know what they were thinking when they wrote his character. He's this hyper spastic, you know, insecure, you know, I don't know. I don't know. And you know what? Stephen Amell was right. They should have just cast Grant Gustin.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, really, that's exactly what I would have just did. Just, you know, got him and just stuck him in there. Yeah. Yeah. Because I have no, but you know what?
00:39:12
Speaker
These studios make me so sick with their little petty rivalries between the movie divisions and their TV divisions and their strict policy of keeping them separate and stuff like that, you know, it's so. Oh, I'm not sure if you remember, but back when they were doing the Justice League animated series, like they had a bat embargo where like Justice League, they could use Batman, but they couldn't use any of his villains or any of the other supporting cast members. They couldn't have like Nightwing, they couldn't have Robin, back row.
00:39:41
Speaker
they were able to use a few of the villains early on, but then afterwards, they couldn't use like Joker or Harley Quinn or Rachelle or anything like that. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they had a huge and that's also why, like for a long time, Smallville had wanted to do have Bruce Wayne appear and they were never able to do it because of Warner Brothers. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. Batman is being saved for the movies. You can't use him on TV.
00:40:09
Speaker
And they have all these, they had all these stupid little rules about it. It was really weird. But, and they still do that, right? Like when they started the CW stuff, like at first it was like, you can't have Superman, you can't have Batman, you can't have Wonder Woman. And then Supergirl came out and eventually they were like, okay, we'll let you have Superman one time. And they're like, maybe we'll give you two again. And then eventually they do their own Supergirl. So it's just like, it's so,
00:40:38
Speaker
It's so weird. It's just completely without logic. Yeah. You know, they're like, you know, kids that are hoarding their toys. Exactly. Okay. Well, you know, well, I got my toys over here and you keep your toys over there and our toys aren't going to play together. But yeah, but I mean,
00:40:55
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, I like him as an actor, but he was just miscast for this role. The role wasn't written very well. I don't like that costume. I don't understand why, and people have tried to explain to me, I don't understand why a speedster would put together a costume that has all these fiddly bits hanging on in and all these different plates that are stacked on top of each other and things like that. I know folks, I know.
00:41:23
Speaker
Bruce says, yeah, this is the same material that they use on the space shuttle and how he, well, he runs at super speed. So I guess that's how he stole it. And that's why the costume looks like that. I'm sorry. I don't buy, I'm sorry. I just don't buy it. I don't like the costume. The costume makes no sense. And his characterization,
00:41:51
Speaker
makes no sense. He does get in some good lines. Yeah. I was about to say the same thing. And I do like the scene where he's showing the insecurity where he says to Bruce, he said, listen, you've done this for a lot of you. I've never been in this before. You know, I don't know what to do. And Bruce says, just save one person. Yeah. And you know what to do. And he was, that's a great character moment right there. Cause he saves one person then when he sees he can do that, then he gets everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
I felt the, I was actually gonna make, I was thinking of that line too, like that, because that's such a Batman response, right? You know, just like save one and then you'll know what to do. And also like, and he does have some other like funny little quips here and there. Like I like his line about, when he, even though it makes no sense, right? I do think the brunch line is kind of funny.
00:42:45
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense for Barry to say that. Or like, put it in the context of not understanding people. But it is funny because it's like, what is brunch? You stand in line for an hour for basically lunch. And I'm like, well, he's kind of got a point there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen. Listen, just because it doesn't make any sense doesn't mean he's wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:08
Speaker
And I was like, when he asked Bruce, what's your superpower? And Bruce was like, I'm rich. I'm rich. Yeah. He says that with total confidence. I'm rich. That's the best superpower all, kid. Yeah. And Ray Fisher, he doesn't have a lot to do with this movie. And he's made no secret about why he thinks the reasons for that were. But I kind of liked him as Cyborg. Yeah.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, I have no problem with his performance at Cyborg. And again, okay, you know how I feel about this sort of thing, because I've said this before, I have a problem with anybody, white or black, who makes a lot of money from being in one of these movies. And to me, instead of complaining about how bad,
00:44:04
Speaker
they treated you wanted you should be using you should be using whatever notoriety you got out of being in this movie to advance your career that's what you put your image to me that's what you should be putting your energies into but i'm not in that business so what uh yeah but i
00:44:21
Speaker
I liked his characterization on the side. But of course, he was acting with Joe Morton at any time who plays his father. And Joe Morton is the type of actor that you can't help but be better when you're in a scene with him. And again, the discussion that they have together, they have a scene where Joe Morton, he comes from the lab and he comes back home. And they have this whole discussion about what happened to him and how
00:44:49
Speaker
Cyborg's mother got killed in the accident. And again, it's a nice little character scene. This is a movie that is not afraid to have its characters talk to each other and have conversations about what they're doing and how they feel about what they're doing. For instance, the whole conversation about bringing Superman back to life. That's a great conversation because everybody in there has their own opinion about it.
00:45:16
Speaker
Should they do it? Okay, maybe we can do it, but if we can do it, should we do it? Aquaman says, well, if we bring him back, you know, there could be something of him that's gone. Barry says, listen, this may be some pet cemeteries. That's another great line when Superman comes back and is like, pet cemetary.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah, you know, cyborg he says yeah I think you know, everybody has their own opinion, everybody voices their own opinion, and it says something about their own personality in their response to this that you know yeah it's enough that if, if I recommend Justice League for any reason.
00:45:56
Speaker
besides the outstanding action sequences, because I was watching it, like I said, I was watching it today and I said, wow, you know, these, damn, the action sequences are very good. But it's also for those moments where we have the characters talking to each other. Yeah. Now a few things I want to touch. First off, just a little note, Joe Morton's got to stop messing around with cybernetic technology. Yeah, yeah. That shit never works out for him. No, no.
00:46:25
Speaker
But, but you're right. Like the thing about, okay, so here's the thing about this movie that is, cause you're complete, you're right.
Superman's Resurrection Scene
00:46:32
Speaker
That conversation is really good. And I do like that they all have their own reasons for approaching this. The whole problem is like a lot of the conversation is hinged on the, they accept for a fact that this can be done, right? Like, and I'm just sitting there and I'm thinking, I'm like, how does Bruce even know that this will work?
00:46:52
Speaker
Because he knows nothing really about the mother box. He knows nothing about Kryptonian physiology. So it doesn't make any sense why he'd assume that Superman cells are just lying dormant and this can recharge them. It just feels so out of left field for how they get from point A to point B.
00:47:16
Speaker
Yeah. And Bruce Wayne is not exactly like a leap of faith type of guy. Exactly. To just say, okay, well, you know what? I think it's going to work. So let's go ahead. You know, the Bruce Wayne, I know the Batman, I know wouldn't do it unless he knew 100% it was going to work.
00:47:34
Speaker
That's another thing too right like I kind of feel like Bruce's position, like the Bruce Wayne we know he would be more closer to siding with Diana. Yeah, right like you don't know what kind of stuff you're messing with.
00:47:47
Speaker
Right. Diana would be more like the one. She'd be more willing to take a leap of faith. Yeah. Right. Well, you know, maybe it'll work, you know, if we believe hard enough and if we clap our hands enough and we click our heels together three times and Bruce would be the one saying, we could end up winning in St. Kryptonian. Like Barry said, it could be pet cemetery. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like, yeah, a lot of these, a lot of the conversation is good, but the points of view don't really fit the characters.
00:48:16
Speaker
Okay, fair enough. That's one that's one of the thing. Another thing is this whole movie. Doesn't it kind of feel with the Superman stuff that it's set in a world where that it's a sequel to a very different Batman v Superman.
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, it's not the same one I saw. I know, because you've got the whole world is mourning Superman. They talk about how he was a beacon of hope. And I'm just like, did we watch the same BVS? Because I don't remember any of that in there. I don't remember none of that shit. I remember everybody ready to, you know, burn Superman in effigy. I don't remember anybody looking at him as a beacon of hope. Alien go home. Yeah.
00:48:56
Speaker
And oh my God, he's gonna take over the world one day. Yeah, that's what I remember. Since when did Superman become this shiny beacon of hope now? Yeah, I mean, he was looked at completely. He was treated with nothing but suspicion and disdain in both Man of Steel and BVS. So just, it feels like they jumped over a movie here.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yeah, especially when you look at the timeline, Superman obviously didn't have enough time to build up enough goodwill with the people of the world where they would mourn him like this. And we do see in this movie that the whole world is mourning for him. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, you make a very good point because you say, well, wait a minute.
00:49:39
Speaker
Wait a minute, didn't they watch their own movies before they made this one? Yeah, and I guess that's part of the whole, you know, we're trying to shift away from that. Yeah, and again, like I said, this was a movie that they pumped out real quickly. So yeah, they had to make leaps of logic like the one you just pointed out, you know, as far as the characterization goes. And they do it quite a bit in this movie. Yeah. You know, there are quite a few leaps of logic
00:50:09
Speaker
to get us to where we gotta go. Yeah, and one of those, and you know, well, part of the reason they did that is because the producers, the execs at Warner Brothers, if this movie didn't come out on its release date, right, if they had delayed it and waited until Snyder could come back or whatever, or not rushed it into, they would have lost out on their year-end bonuses. But that's really why they're doing here. Oh, okay, well, listen.
00:50:38
Speaker
And also the scene when Superman is resurrected, like this is another example of something that it's just like, there's a lot of good parts in it. There's a lot of good moments in the movie. There are a lot of good character stuff, but the story itself, it just like taking these leaps. Cause Superman comes back and he's like in this rage and he's like, you can understand it with him being, you know,
00:51:01
Speaker
you know, acting out in shock because he's just been resurrected, right? I can understand that. But then when he goes after Batman, and he says, you won't let me die, you won't let me live, he says, can you bleed, right? That whole, and he's speaking in that like very dark, you know, sinister voice. And then it's like, oh, wow, this is Superman is evil. But then it changes right away. And then it's like, no, no, he was just kind of in shock. Because once he sees Lois, he's fine.
00:51:25
Speaker
Right, yeah. First of all, I don't understand the whole thing. Okay, if they had stuck him in a Lazarus pit, I could have understand that because that's what the Lazarus pit does. It makes you crazy for a while. But this thing was designed to work with Kryptonians. So why would he
00:51:45
Speaker
be crazy unless of course it was, you know. I think that's the idea is it's because the mother box being interacted with it as well. But see, once again, this movie itself, okay, going back to what you just said, you know, this is something that should have been discussed and it should have been pointed out. Okay, well, you know what? Due to these two conflicting technologies that weren't meant to work together, now we're forcing them to work together. We don't know what's going to happen.
00:52:16
Speaker
And more than that, like the people behind the scenes, they should have understood, look, what's going to happen is Superman is going to go a little wonky and he's going to start lashing out. But otherwise, it's just like, oh, Superman is in shock. Oh, no, he's evil. Oh, no, he was just it. Just because they just because they just wanted that scene where he he threatens Batman like that with the same way Batman threatened him. Right. And it just feels like they were it's like it's that square peg in a round hole thing. Hmm.
00:52:47
Speaker
It just doesn't, it doesn't quite fit together well. But I will say that that scene when he's fighting off, when Superman's fighting off the Justice League has one of my favorite moments in the movie when Barry's running at super speed and you see, and everything's like in slow motion for him. And then you see Superman's eyes move at normal speed and you're like, oh shit. And he catches about the corner of his eye. He's like, oh, I see you. You ain't slick.
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah, I love that moment. And another thing, and I know we've talked about this before whenever we had one of our random digressions about Justice League, but
00:53:27
Speaker
Has Ezra Miller never ran before? Has he never seen how people run? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen anybody run that weird since Steven Seagal. He's got these weird arm flailing things like, what are you doing? Are you swimming? What is this? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, OK, again, I can't see a runner.
00:53:49
Speaker
putting together a costume that's got all these excess, you know, fiddly bits on it, you know, as I call them. And yeah, when he's running, yeah, it's more like he's trying to swim. It's so weird.
00:54:03
Speaker
It's yeah it's not. I said, wait a minute. Didn't they show you pictures of actual runners. And you know I also don't know why they have him, whether he was blue lightning and said it like it's always you know the flash right it's the trademark the, the red the yellow streak right you've got the yellow, I don't know why the lightning is blue in here just makes no sense.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Like you said, it should be yellow or red. And you know what? Before Flashpoint, someone's got to take Ezra Miller and hook him up clockwork orange style in front of a TV screen and just make him watch Tom Cruise movies nonstop so he can internalize how people look when they run. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:54:46
Speaker
because apparently he's never running his life just going by this movie. I don't know. It's just that I think that, okay, best way that I could put this. We were talking about Iron Fist in one of our episodes. And I said, okay, the problem with Iron Fist is that if you're gonna do a show,
00:55:11
Speaker
where your main character is a master martial artist, then it kind of would help you out if you hire an actual master martial artist to play and teach him how to act. Yeah, yeah. Or the other way to do it is you keep the mask, right? You keep the iron fist mask. So yeah, what's his name can play Danny Rand when he's not fighting. But when you do the fight scenes, you put in a guy who knows how to fight. Right. Okay. If you're going to have a guy playing a super speedster,
00:55:41
Speaker
whose main power is that he runs very fast. Well then, show them videos of who's saying both, you know, a guy who actually does run fast so he can get an idea, okay, this is how the arms are supposed to move, this is how the legs go, you know, the torso turns this way, yeah.
00:55:59
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It is no surprise to me that he actually spends a good deal of this movie falling over himself. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He tripped. If you notice the flash trips a whole lot in this movie over his own feet. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And
00:56:16
Speaker
Let's see. Oh, you know what? I wanted to talk about J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon. Ah, inspired. You know what's so weird, though, is I remember in the lead up to this movie, he was showing pictures of himself training and buffing up for Commissioner Gordon. And then you see him in this movie, and he's wearing a suit the whole time. It's like, what was the point of that? My suspicion is that there probably was a lot more that he did. Maybe, yeah.
00:56:46
Speaker
that we didn't see. But I'm just saying that, you know what? Is there anything that the man can't play? No, no, definitely not. Because you look for some signs of J. Jonah Jameson in this, and it's not there. No, it's completely Jim Gordon. Yeah, he's completely Jim. Matter of fact, he looked like he stepped right out the comic book. I'm scared. That's all shit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was perfect. That was perfect casting there.
00:57:10
Speaker
him and Ben Affleck, they look like, you know, they step right out of a Frank Miller. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I do like that this is another one of those funny moments when he turns around and all the Justice League is gone except for Flash.
Praise for J.K. Simmons and Film's Humor
00:57:27
Speaker
He's like, oh, wow, they really just kind of disappeared. That's rude. Yeah, that's rude. But you know, Jim Gordon should be used to that. But I guess he's not used to it from the other ones as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And I love the line where he says to Batman, he said, well, I'm glad to see that you're learning to play with others. And he's like, it might be temporary.
00:57:56
Speaker
Oh, and then I was just about to mention something I completely lost my train of thought. Well, let me give you a thought, because I definitely want to get your take on this.
Villain Analysis: Steppenwolf
00:58:08
Speaker
As this is in a movie of a whole lot of controversial things, this is probably one of the most controversial, the villain of the movie, Steppenwolf. Oh, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say he's controversial. I'd say he just kind of bland. OK.
00:58:24
Speaker
You go ahead, you give your thoughts on him. No, listen, you know what? I'm trying to figure out what all of the, apparently the problem with Steppenwolf that everybody has is that it was Steppenwolf and it was Darkseid. Yeah, see, I don't care about that. That doesn't bother me. But it's just, he's just such a
00:58:46
Speaker
He just seems like such a bland villain. Like I almost forget Steppenwolf is even in this movie. Like he's got like, sorry, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say that he's a very basic, generic villain. Very generic, very generic. Yeah. That's my real problem with him. He's got nothing that sets him apart, right? Nothing that, he's a pair of demon who talks a lot, basically.
00:59:08
Speaker
Yeah, really. Yeah. He's a parademic with an upgrade. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But he's got no real personality. We don't get any sense of why he's doing this, right? It's just all, he's doing it because he's evil. He's got no ambition. You know, yeah, he has no personality.
00:59:28
Speaker
You know, he just talks about, well, yeah, I'm going to conquer you. I'm going to take over the world. I'm going to, okay, well, why? What are you going to do with the world? Well, I'm going to remake it. Okay. Again, why? What are you going to do with it after you remake it? Basically here's what it is. The justice league needs something to fight. And that's Steppenwolf for better or for worse. Yeah. And you know, I don't know, maybe it'll be better and Snyder's justice league cut, but it just,
00:59:58
Speaker
Because that was just, if you're gonna do a Justice League movie and it's gonna be a done in one thing, then use a villain who's gonna be a done in one villain, right? Don't use someone like Steppenwolf that's gonna lead to a sequel that's never gonna come. But then again, Perry, here's the thing, no.
01:00:19
Speaker
This is my take on it. The movie, you know what, the movie is really just all about seeing these six characters on screen together. Really, that's what it's about. Steppenwolf really doesn't, he really doesn't even matter. No, you're right. And that in a lot of this movie,
01:00:37
Speaker
the ways this movie works, it is because you're seeing those six on screen together. Right. Listen, listen, okay. Who in their right mind does not want to see the first cinematic scene of Batman Superman and Wonder Woman on screen together? Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, just them three. And then you add on the other three and you say, okay,
01:01:00
Speaker
You got it. This movie is mainly just about getting these characters together for future, you know, for whatever future movies that they had planned. Yeah, it is. And Steppenwolf is just a MacGuffin. Yeah. To get them together. Yeah. And I get that. It's just, you know, it's such a disappointment when you compare it to how the Avengers got on screen together.
01:01:28
Speaker
And how not only was that just amazing to see, right? That scene where you see Iron Man, Captain America and Thor all standing on screen together for the first time, right? That's an amazing moment, but it's an earned moment. Or the same thing when you see the rotating shot of the Avengers when they're right in the middle of the Chitauri battle, right? That's an earned moment. The scene here when like you've got the whole league standing up at the end of the battle,
01:01:53
Speaker
It doesn't feel earned. It feels very forced. It feels staged. Exactly. Yeah. It feels like, OK, this is the part where you cheer. And nobody cheered when I went to see it. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't like, like you said, that moment where we first saw Thor Iron Man and Captain America. It was like, people cheered. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people cheered. The other scene that you named when they was in New York, and they were fighting it. People cheered. Yeah. When I went to see this in the theater,
01:02:23
Speaker
nobody cheered because it felt like it was staged, it was forced.
01:02:32
Speaker
an artificial moment designed to evict a response from us. That, as you said, was not earned. Right. Yeah. And that's, that's the main problem. Like it is, it is great to see these scenes of like Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot and all the rest, like really embodying their characters and they do good
Overall Impressions of 'Justice League'
01:02:50
Speaker
work in this. I'm not going to take anything away from them, but it's just the whole thing is just so, is just so staged. And it's just like everything surrounding it just doesn't measure up to the promise. And it's just,
01:03:02
Speaker
It's not a bad movie. It's a disappointing movie. Yeah. Yeah, it's not. I will always argue against people that, oh, it's horrible. It's bad. No, it's not. It's not a bad movie. I watched it today, and I was very entertained. And I haven't seen it in about, like, I would say a good six months. And I would say, yeah, you know what? This ain't bad. There's a lot of good movies.
01:03:30
Speaker
there's a plethora of good moments in this movie. And like I said, I think the action scenes are very well done. I love the action scenes. You know what? And I especially love the little bits. Like for instance, when we see Batman, when he, you know, when he does his little action things, we hear the original Danny Elfman Batman theme. That was another thing I was gonna mention is that, so Whedon replaced, Junkie XL was,
01:03:57
Speaker
Snyder's composer on this. And we didn't replace him with Danny Elfman, which I think was a good idea. Because Danny Elfman, he works in the Batman theme. He works in the Superman theme, the John Williams Superman theme. Yeah. Yeah. When Superman finally comes back and he, yeah, he pounds his shit out of Steppenwolf. We hear the Superman theme. That's okay. Okay. Now somebody knows what they're doing. Yes. Yeah.
01:04:24
Speaker
And, you know, I mean, Danny Elfman, he's, you know, he's one of those got him and John Williams, they defined superhero music, basically. Oh, yeah. Well, oh, yeah. Well, absolutely. I mean, we said this in our episode when we were when we were waxing about, you know,
01:04:46
Speaker
What was it, Superman? What, we spent about what, 20 minutes talking about the Superman theme alone. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, that's like the most iconic superhero theme of all time. And yeah, we talked, I mean, there's not a, we'd mentioned a little bit, but Jason Momoa, it's, this was when we first got his,
01:05:11
Speaker
Like there's a lot of, you know, it's so funny when you watch this compared to watching Aquaman, it feels so much like he's trying to be a badass and he's trying to impress everyone. And then Aquaman, it feels much more natural. You know what I mean? Yeah. And, but I do like the, I do like the line when he's there on the, in the troop carrier and he, he kind of,
01:05:36
Speaker
He praises, he's like, you know, talking about how hot Wonder Woman is and then she kind of wraps the lasso around his ankle and he starts being truthful about how he doesn't want to die. It's kind of fun.
01:05:51
Speaker
They should have, okay, I know that they were trying to make like the flash kind of like the comedy relief of this movie, but it should have been Jason Momoa because he naturally is a funny guy. Yeah, yeah. He can be very funny without even trying. And yeah, you're right. He kind of works a little bit too hard at the whole badass routine in this movie, but I'm willing to overlook it simply for the fact that I just enjoy him as Aquaman so much. Yeah.
01:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, same here. I mean, it's pretty hard to, I mean, I don't know. Okay, you were talking about the casting and we have so many people in this room. I mean, for now, Gal Gadot, I mean, for an entire generation, she's gonna be Wonder Woman. Oh, definitely. It's like Linda Carter was the Wonder Woman for an entire generation. Jason Momoa, for an entire generation, he's gonna be,
01:06:47
Speaker
you know, Aquaman. Yeah, Aquaman, he's gonna be Aquaman. Ben Affleck is not gonna be Flash's generation of the Flash. No, no. They're gonna look at Grant Gustin, but go ahead, Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck, I think that years from now, we're gonna be looking at him as a missed opportunity because I firmly believe based on this movie,
01:07:14
Speaker
Suicide Squad and Batman versus Superman that we could have had the best live action Batman in Ben Affleck. Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. Yeah, I think if he had, see, okay, here's the problem. He never got to have a solo movie as Batman. And also it's just like, he's only allowed these brief flashes of brilliance in each of these movies.
01:07:43
Speaker
Like he's never in, you know, cause the story is forcing him to be something else, right? I mean, I don't even really count Suicide Squad that much cause it's basically just a cameo, but like in Batman V Superman, right? They're trying to force the Dark Knight Returns Batman on him. And then in this one, he's much better. And if you take some of those flashes of brilliance in BVS and you combine it with Justice League and you give him his own movie, yeah, it would have been amazing.
01:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, because undoubtedly the best parts of BVS is with him and Wonder Woman. Or him and Alfred. And him and Alfred, yeah, those are the best parts of the movie. Yes, yeah. You know, and yeah, I just think that is, I mean, for my money, he had the best live action
01:08:32
Speaker
fight scene as Batman I've ever seen in any movie. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, that's the best. Yeah. I mean, wow. That was phenomenal. So I was like, remember last week we were talking about Mark Miller and when I'm reading this stuff, there are sometimes when I read something like Red Son and I just wish I could slap him upside this head and say, why don't you write like that all the time? I feel the same way about Zack Snyder when I see that scene in BVS. I want to smack him up the head and said, why can't you direct like that all the time? Yeah, all the time. Yeah.
01:08:59
Speaker
So I think that that's the only thing that is holding Ben Affleck back from being a truly great Batman and that he never had a solo movie of his own, where we just saw him as Batman doing Batman shit.
01:09:18
Speaker
And interacting and you know having greater interaction with other characters such as Jim Gordon and you know whatever villain they put in in his movie probably Ezra Miller playing the Joker.
01:09:33
Speaker
Fortunately, we are going to see more of Ben Affleck as Batman. So fortunately, this isn't the last outing because he's going to be in the Flash movie. He's doing extra scenes for Snyder's Justice League. So we are going to see more of him as Batman.
01:09:52
Speaker
And we'll see how that works out. Like with Snyder doing Justice League, I'm not sure if that'll be, we'll get more of the Justice League Batman or if we'll get more of the BVS Batman. But Flash should be interesting. I'm probably more looking forward to seeing what he does in Flash. Yeah, especially since the rumors that I've heard here and there is that this is supposed to be the movie that's gonna fix
01:10:22
Speaker
the continuity of the DC films? Yeah, that's the assumption. I'm not going to confirm, but that's the assumption. And it makes sense, because that's what the Flashpoint comics did, right? They created the new 52.
01:10:41
Speaker
Well, I don't know. I don't see any reason why anything needs to be fixed because they already established with the crisis on infinite earth thing that there's all these different earths. But then again, I'm not running things. You know what? Another thing I had about this movie that really kind of
01:11:04
Speaker
annoyed me, is that they, plus the whole thing with the Russian family, that was just, that's one of Whedon's weak points, he wants to focus in on these normal people in the midst of all this, and it just kind of feels tacked on. Yeah, but I mean, there was absolutely no reason for that to be in the movie. No, no. Period.
01:11:27
Speaker
But I will say, I did like when Superman comes back, right? And this is just more of his, the great little flashes of charm that Cavill was allowed to use in this movie, right? Like when he, first off, when he comes back and he hears that other people are in trouble and he says, oh, they're civilians. And then Batman's like, no, no, it's okay, Barry's after. He's like, no, there are too many. Then he flies away. That is Superman. Yeah, that is what should have been in Man of Steel.
01:11:58
Speaker
I mean, you know what?
Henry Cavill's Superman Potential
01:12:00
Speaker
Again, Henry Cavill had the potential to rival the great Christopher Reeve as Superman if he had been given a decent movie to be in. Exactly. Yeah. The man was never given a decent movie to work with and show exactly what he could do as Superman. And we get those flashes in this. And so we do get that great scene where
01:12:27
Speaker
He's where Flash saves the family and then he looks over and he sees Superman carrying the entire tenement. Yeah, he's carrying the entire tenement. To get is such a Superman moment. Yeah, yeah. And also when he's with Cyborg and he says, he's like, when he blow back, he's like, yeah, some, but I think we can survive in Superman. It's like, okay, good, because I kind of like being alive. And after he's like, oh, I wish I was dead.
01:12:55
Speaker
Also the Stinger too, the post credits or the mid credits scene with him and Flash. Like that's just another example of his charm, right? He's just like, he's like, well, you know, if I win, you're off the team. And then Flash like, are you serious?
Character Interactions and DC Races
01:13:09
Speaker
And Superman just kind of like smiles at him. He's like, no. He's like, but you have to take us out to, but Bruce said, you have to take us out to brunch. But that's another, that's another example of those, those character scenes that those little conversations that work really well.
01:13:24
Speaker
And know what? That is also such a great moment for long-time comic book fans who remembers every once in a while DC would have these races between Superman and the Flash to prove who was the fastest. Yeah, is such a great man. Okay, you know what? I'm glad you pointed it out because Ezra Miller did have another great scene where they're digging up the body and him and Cyborg are talking.
01:13:51
Speaker
That scene just feels so, yeah, I remember that scene just feels so weird though. Like they're digging up Superman's body. It just- And they're bonding. Oh yeah. And I mean, they're bonding over digging up Superman's body. Yeah. I don't think I really liked that scene. It just feels so, I understand
Aquaman's Battle Scene Utilization
01:14:12
Speaker
what you're saying. It's like me, I'm just kind of like, this just doesn't be, this feels like something we could have skipped over.
01:14:21
Speaker
Gray Robin Superman's body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But okay, so one thing, though, is that you've got Aquaman on the team, and you're, you know, you're the writer, you're the director, you can set this final battle anywhere you want. And you've got Aquaman, you should set it on the coastline, so you can see some Aquaman do some really badass shit.
01:14:43
Speaker
that was one thing that I felt was like another missed opportunity right like have like a bunch of parademons coming through the air and Aquaman summons up like a giant shark to jump out and by and and attack them. Yeah but you yeah but you know what it's easy to just have him surfing on the back of a parademon. It is and I'm just saying it's like which is which was a cool scene but
01:15:08
Speaker
it does just feel like a missed opportunity and a lack of creativity to not put Aquaman in a place where he can really show off what he can do. Yeah, I understand completely which way because if you notice every other member of the team does have opportunity to show off their particular skill set. Right. Except for Aquaman who is basically just a strong guy until Superman shows up. Yeah, yeah.
01:15:36
Speaker
Aquaman is their powerhouse until Superman shows up. And once he shows up, well then of course Aquaman and Wonder Woman to an extent become redundant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another thing too, and maybe it's because I watched this movie so soon after Wonder Woman,
Filming Styles: Jenkins vs Whedon
01:15:54
Speaker
but
01:15:54
Speaker
you can really tell the difference in directing styles between a woman director in Patty Jenkins and a man male director in Josh Whedon when you look at how they photograph Diana in both of those movies. Like it really kind of stood out to me just like the angles they use the the camera placement it seemed a lot more there's a lot I really understood what they talk about when they talk about the male gaze.
01:16:20
Speaker
And there's way more gratuitous butt shots. Yes, lots more and lots more like low angle shots which are border on upskirt shots. Yeah, there's a lot more of that stuff.
01:16:34
Speaker
And it's so, it's not like very obvious, right? But after seeing, like if I hadn't seen Wonder Woman, I probably would not have noticed these things. They probably would not have jumped out at me. But after seeing Wonder Woman and how Patty Jenkins filmed Gal Gadot, it jumped out at me a lot more. I remember it jumped out at me a lot more, especially when I saw it in the theater. Oh, okay. Like over time, maybe it's just because I've gotten used to this movie, because I've seen it enough times. But yeah, in the theater, it definitely became really obvious to me.
01:17:05
Speaker
Well, I noticed that today when I was watching, I was saying, wow, I said, there seems to be an awful lot of shots of her butt in this movie that I remember from before. Yeah, yeah.
01:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, especially there's one scene, she's going to meet Cyborg and he says, okay, and he gives an address, you know what I mean? And she pulls up on the street and she gets out of the car and she's walking up and down the street. And it's more like she's a fashion model on a runway.
01:17:35
Speaker
Yes, yeah, yeah, rather than, you know, she's going for a clandestine meeting with another superhero, you know, because she's like, stopping and turning and posing, and then she stops and then she walks a little bit and then she turns the poses again. And then she said, and I said, Okay, cute RuPaul. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:17:57
Speaker
All right, let's see. And anything else to really talk about with this movie?
Casting Choices: Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor
01:18:02
Speaker
I mean, oh, one more thing, of course, the very, the post-credit scene where you get to see Deathstroke. Oh yeah, which of your favorite, Lex Luthor?
01:18:13
Speaker
You know, I was so excited because they show him in the cell and his back is facing them. I'm like, wait, that's not Jesse Eisenberg. Did they recast Luther? Oh, this is awesome. And then they reveal it to some crazy guy that Jesse Eisenberg is still in. And I'm like, damn it, so close, so close. And let me just say this, you know what?
01:18:31
Speaker
I'm not opposed to Jesse Eisenberg playing Lex Luthor 20 years from now. Yeah. He's just simply too young. I mean, because listen, he's a phenomenal actor. I love him. He is good. But he's just simply too young. That's all that, you know. He's too young. And just the way his character is written is just so... He's much more Mark Zuckerberg than like Walter White, for example.
01:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, okay, again, that's another actor that, okay, that's the guy they should have got to play Lex Luthor. Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. In fact, that's where I'm, I would love to see them like, do another Superman movie, get Henry Cavill and Amy Adams back, get, you know, Lawrence Fishburne back as Perry White, because that's a good casting choice as well, even though they kind of bastardized Perry White and turned him into this weird cynic, right? Who doesn't believe in like,
01:19:31
Speaker
And like the press can really accomplish any can really tell truth or something like that. Yeah, yeah, they they did. They didn't have a good handle on, you know, Perry White, Perry White, Perry White is like the left, he shouldn't be like the last of the great newspaperman. Right. He's rough. And he's, he's a cynical optimist.
01:19:56
Speaker
put it that way because he believes that you know the journalism can can do good in the world. Right exactly you know I yeah I don't go with much as I like Lawrence Fishburne I don't know see me and people are always telling me oh well you know that times change and
01:20:16
Speaker
You know, we should always have characters be fluid and be able to change and go with the times of that. OK, I have nothing against that. Really, as a writer, I appreciate the fact that characters have to grow and change, and they have to mature, and they have to evolve. But there are some core basic things you can keep about a character.
01:20:42
Speaker
Because that makes that character unique. Exactly. Yeah. And if you take that away from that character, like, OK, going back to the whole James Bond thing, I hate to keep going back to that, folks. And I go back to that because I had this argument recently with somebody else where they were talking about, well, they were talking about the girl who's the new 007.
01:21:08
Speaker
in this movie and it gobsmacks me that people when I say to them I said well you do know that 007 is just a number there was a 007 before James Bond. James Bond is the character. 007 is the designation of his number but this person I was talking to was of course was idiot who had never read any of the Ian Fleming novels so he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.
01:21:28
Speaker
So anyway, so I was saying to him, so he said, well, I don't understand. James Bond could be a woman. Why can't you do that? I said, no. I said, when you steal a car and you file off the numbers and you paint the car and you present it as a brand new car, that's grand theft auto. I said, it's the same with a character.
Core Traits of Characters
01:21:54
Speaker
Yeah, definitely not file off the, you know, and you know give it a brand new coat of paint and just say okay this is a brand new character. No, it isn't. Right, then you're just, you're just, you're just, yeah, I agree with you with that. I mean you got to keep those core principles. If you don't, then why are you writing this character, it doesn't make any sense.
01:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And plus, it's not like... Wait a minute. Both you and I, we've had plenty of conversation about this, the bastardization of characters that we've loved, that we have seen, just for the sake of changing the character. There was no good reason behind it, but the writers just did it because they just said, well, I didn't like the way that character was done before. Well, then why did you want to do the character? Yeah, yeah.
01:22:39
Speaker
If you don't like the way they care, if you can't find that core of the character, then you shouldn't be writing that character. And like we said before with Snyder, he said like my whole thing was I wanted to make Superman grown up. Like you don't have to make Superman grown up. Like if you think Superman is a character for everybody, he's not just a character for adults. And sorry, go ahead.
01:23:06
Speaker
No, I was gonna say, you and I, again, something that we've talked about before, that's a large part of the problem with comic books in general and superhero movies in that they insist on making these movies for adults. And, you know, I mean, there's nothing in them, I mean, you know, for younger audiences, you know, that appeals to them. Right. Because they're making these movies for 50-year-old white guys that have been reading them
01:23:34
Speaker
you know, since they were 10 years old. Yeah, yeah. And these guys insist that these characters grow up along with them. Right. I remember it was, I think it was Greg Rucka who said the fact that it's a Superman movie that I can't take my 10 year old nephew or whatever to see is a travesty, right? He's like, Superman should be at the most a PG rating. And he was right. You can't really argue
Superhero Films for Younger Audiences
01:23:58
Speaker
with that. Cause Superman is this character who should be for everybody. It shouldn't be just for adults.
01:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, I, I've told this story many times before. When I went to see Man of Steel, I'm in the lobby, you know, waiting to go into the theater and know all these kids that was, you know, they was excited to see Superman on, you know, it was their first Superman movie. They was going to go see everything like that. Okay, going to the movie.
01:24:21
Speaker
about 45 minutes into the movie, I'm hearing kids snoring or they're asking their parents, you know, can they go home? No, this is boring. And see, that hurt me to my heart because any kid going to see a Superman movie, that should be a magical experience. The kid should fall asleep or be wanting to go home. Yeah, I agree completely.
01:24:42
Speaker
And taking it back to Perry White, that's like the people who say, well, you got to change with the time. Well, even you look at real journalists, they're not all cynical, right? There are journalists, real journalists out there who believe that journalism is important, that it can have an impact and all that. So it's not like it's unrealistic to have Perry White be an optimist about what journalism is capable of.
01:25:06
Speaker
So as a matter of fact, you have Perry White as a counterpoint to the popular opinion. Exactly. Of what journalism is now. In order to show people, OK, this is what journalism once was, and it could be that again. Right. Because we have guys like Perry White, who still believe in the power of true journalism. Perry White is a very important character.
01:25:31
Speaker
in the whole Superman mythos. You know, I've loved them in all of his incarnations. I love the great Caesar's ghost thing. I've always been of the opinion that much like Jim Gordon, he figured out a long time ago that Clark was Superman. He just never said nothing. Yeah. You know, because he's not a stupid guy. Right, right. Yeah. And also, I think also another one you can put in that column is Joe Robertson and Spider-Man.
01:25:59
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Robbie knows Peter's. And in fact, they referenced that in Spider-Man 2. You remember that there's that scene where Robbie says something like, I heard Spider-Man was there and he's kind of given Peter this look. And it's like, oh, he knows what's going on.
01:26:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, he's not a stupid guy. He figured out long ago, but he said, you know what? He's doing good out there. So why should I up to the apple cart? Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and same thing with Superman. That's, you put him in like, because everyone said that about Man of Steel and BBS, right? Oh, well, Superman's not realistic anymore. Well, but then you look at Winter Soldier, right?
01:26:43
Speaker
Steve Rogers, Captain America, stands apart in that movie and he stands out even more because of the world that you put his ideals up against.
01:26:53
Speaker
Everybody said, you could not do Superman. Traditionally, the way Superman is presented. They said that would be impossible to do in a movie today. And then what did Marvel did? They made Captain America. Yes, yeah. And they put the lie to that. Because this is Captain America with his traditional values and everything like that. And like you so accurately state, yeah, the fact that they put him in today's world
01:27:23
Speaker
That's the whole conflict with Captain America and the world. Can he hold on to those values and all of the things that make him who he is in this new world that he's placed in where everybody's telling him that everything he believes in doesn't matter anymore. Right. Yeah. And he's telling him, no, it doesn't.
01:27:47
Speaker
Okay. All right. So I think that's basically, um, any, any final things you want to say about justice league? Only that for the five or six of you that are still listening. Okay. You say you hate justice league. Okay. I don't get it. I understand.
01:28:13
Speaker
You know what, I can't even understand it because it's a movie and I don't think I hate a movie as much as a lot of people I know hate this movie. It's not a bad movie, folks. It's a misguided movie. It's trying for something. This is a movie that is trying to run a marathon before it even knows how to walk. Yeah.
01:28:38
Speaker
But that doesn't mean there's a lot of good stuff in this movie to enjoy and like. And I hope that Perry and I have brought some of it out, that when you watch it again. And I do hope you would go back and see it again and look at it through new eyes. Because there's a lot to like about this movie. As I have said ad nauseam, it's got those great little character moments where it's just two characters talking to each other.
01:29:06
Speaker
It's got great action sequences, some of the best action sequences I've seen in a DC cinematic movie. The villain is crap, but yeah, it makes up for it with all of the rich characterization that we see in this movie.
Anticipation for the Snyder Cut
01:29:26
Speaker
This movie, like I said before, basically is just to get these characters together with future movies. That's really all it is. And if you take it on that basis,
01:29:35
Speaker
And really, that's the only basis you should take in on. Yeah, yeah. It's got lots of flaws. I mean, it's, but the cast is good. And that's really the saving grace is the cast is so good. And they've got these, they do have these really great moments together. And yeah, you're right. The action scenes are really good, even though I think the last scene was set in the, without thought to what Aquaman could really be capable of.
01:30:06
Speaker
And yeah, it feels like a rough draft.
01:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's what it doesn't exist. Yeah. Know what? Bingo. It doesn't feel like a completely finished movie. And a large part of that comes from the fact that, you know, as has been well-documented, is that the original director, Zack Snyder, due to family tragedy,
01:30:39
Speaker
he had to, you know, leave off in this movie and it was finished by... Josh Whedon. Yeah, Josh Whedon, yeah. So, all I can say is that after watching it today, I am a little bit more interested in seeing
Critiquing 'Justice League's' Opening Scene
01:30:58
Speaker
this new version of Justice League that's going to be on HBO Max. I believe it's next year. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's got to be next year. We only got, she's almost gone. No, it's coming out in like December of next year, I think. Yeah. But after watching this, yeah, you know what? I'm a little bit more interested in seeing what they do with it, mainly because
01:31:21
Speaker
As I always said, I see the potential in this movie. This movie had a tremendous amount of attention, excuse me, a tremendous amount of potential to be the Avengers. Yes, yeah. You know, it did. And I think as well, but you know what, I don't, I'm of the opinion that I actually think this is an improvement despite it not being, despite it feeling unfinished and like a rough draft. I'd still think that this would have been an improvement over what Snyder would have done.
01:31:53
Speaker
I think a lot of the stuff with like Superman, a lot of the, you know, Batman's growth and change in this movie, I don't think we would get as much of that in Snyder cut, in the Snyder cut. Do you know? Okay. This is how I, okay. This is how I knew I said, Oh, okay. See, he put his foot wrong.
01:32:12
Speaker
right at the start of the movie. When we get the opening credits and he plays that song, what's that song? Oh, uh, Mad World, I think? No. Oh, no. Everybody knows the Leonard Cohen song. Oh, that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody knows, which was such a blatant attempt to try to recreate, you know, The Watchmen, you know. And I said, no, no, no, Zach, you shouldn't have did that.
01:32:38
Speaker
You know, you shouldn't have done that. But that could have been, that could have been a weed and choice though. You think so? I don't know. See, cause you know, it's, it's hard to say because despite, cause Zack Snyder is credited as the only director on this movie.
01:32:58
Speaker
It's hard to say like how much stuff was completely of his was tossed out how much because there's I don't so I don't know. But you're right. It does. It feels like a Snyder thing to do, but it could have also been weed and trying to do what he thinks Snyder would have done.
01:33:15
Speaker
Okay, I'll go with that. But I'm just saying that you are right. It set the wrong tone. I mean, for the movie. To my mind, it should have been more like the opening of, I don't know, Superman, the movie.
01:33:31
Speaker
they should have had a big bombastic theme song and you know credits flying across the screen and stuff like that instead of starting out with this somber dark tone that is you know and like I said it just struck me too and the thing with the guys trying to rob the fruit stand what what why was that in there yeah that was kind of like I guess they're trying to show that
01:33:52
Speaker
you know, the world has become hope. They're trying to emphasize the hopelessness. I am, from a story point of view, I understand what they were trying to do, but it just, it, but it didn't quite, it didn't, they didn't stick the landing. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they're, they're, the whole point that they're trying to start off the movie with this idea of like, hope is dead now that Superman's dead. So I understand it from that perspective, but it just, they don't quite stick the landing very well.
01:34:24
Speaker
And okay, so I think that's about all we got to say on Justice League. You got something else? Two more words. Okay. Diane Lane. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what? It's so funny because she's playing Superman's mom because she was Ben Affleck's love interest in the movie where Ben Affleck played George Reeves. Really? Yeah, yeah, Hollywoodland. I'm pretty sure she was his... Oh, okay.
01:34:52
Speaker
Let me just double check here. I've never seen that movie. You never saw Hollywoodland? I've never seen it. It's okay. It wasn't anything, you know, spectacular, but it was, he did a good job as George Reeves. Yeah, that's where I heard that it was, you know, the life story of George Reeves. Yeah, yeah, she played, Diane Lane played Tony Mannix. Okay. So now we know, now we really know why they fought, you know. Superman found out that Batman fucked his mom. Hey.
01:35:22
Speaker
serious shit man. But you know it is kind of funny though because Diane Lane is only like a few years older than Henry Cavill. Yeah yeah but you know what Diane Lane is in the pantheon of actresses that should have had a far bigger career. Diane Lane is probably number two or three.
01:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. She should have had a way, and I don't know, maybe that's because she didn't want a bigger career. I always kind of feel funny because then I feel like I'm trying to speak for that person where some actors are actually kind of happy not being mega stars or anything like that. But I always felt that she should have had a far bigger career than the one that she had. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
01:36:09
Speaker
All right. Okay. So that does, we got the elephant out of the room. We finished talking about Justice League. And now we'll, hopefully we don't have to talk about it again until the Snyder Cut comes out. And we probably would. We probably would. Let's be honest. We probably would. All rows lead back to Justice League. All rows lead back to Justice League. All right. So that was my pick. That means next pick is yours. So what are we going to watch next?
01:36:37
Speaker
Oh my God, okay.
Upcoming Review: 'Chronicle' and Podcast Engagement
01:36:41
Speaker
Okay, I'm gonna loop back around because we had talked about this movie briefly when we did the Bright Bird.
01:36:52
Speaker
And I was talking about how this movie could very easily fit into the same universe. And it'll give us a chance to talk about, you know, one of the most, who I feel is a misunderstood director. I'm talking about, of course, the movie Chronicle. Okay. Directed by, directed by our good friend, Josh Trank. Yeah. Josh Trank. Yeah.
01:37:17
Speaker
Okay. Sounds cool. So I have to look that up somewhere. Cause that's, that's one of the movies I don't know. And it's not on Netflix. And this is a movie I actually haven't seen before. So this is, this is going to be, yeah, I haven't seen Chronicle. Oh, okay. So, oh, well then I will be even more interested in hearing what you have to think because you've seen Fantastic Four. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Or Fantastic Four or whatever. I don't know what that mess was supposed to be. But anyway, yeah. So
01:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, but I'm interested in, I am even more interested now in hearing what you have to say because you know how I feel about Fantastic Four. I do not credit the failure of that movie to Josh Trank at all. I credit it to whoever hired him.
01:38:03
Speaker
Because I have no idea why somebody after seeing Klimacope would think that he would be the perfect, I can't imagine, you know what, he'd be perfect for Fantastic Four. I really can't, unless the person who hired him had no idea what Fantastic Four was about, which knowing all the things I've heard about movie executives is probably very close to the truth. And that was Fox, so that makes a lot of sense that they just- Yeah, they just didn't know.
01:38:33
Speaker
Okay, um, so I'll have to track that down and I'll be, I'll be watching that and so join us next time, we'll be talking about Chronicle. Until then, head on over to our Facebook group, Facebook.com, Superhero Cinephiles, found us on, find us on Twitter or Instagram, SuperCinemapod on both, and head on over to the website, SuperheroCinephiles.com, you know,
01:38:56
Speaker
you can find links to all the podcast providers there, give us a review, toss us a few bucks through the PayPal donate button, anything that helps us out around here. You just dingy bastards. All right, thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you next week.
01:39:14
Speaker
Yes, thank you. Again, like I always say, Perry and I do not take it for granted that you choose to spend valuable time out of your day listening to our podcasts. It means a lot to us and we hope that we were able to inform as well as entertain. Thank you. God bless and good night. See you next time.
01:39:40
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com, or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
01:39:59
Speaker
If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners. You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of beslionstudios.com.