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Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
254 Plays8 months ago
The best multiverse movie in recent memory didn't come from either of the two cinematic universes playing with the multiverse. Instead, it came in the form of Everything Everywhere All At Once. Frank Martin returns to break down this entertaining look at the multiverse.
Visit Frank's website to learn more about his writing.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
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Transcript
The Metaphorical 'Everything Bagel' and Nihilism
00:00:15
Speaker
I got bored one day when I put everything on a bagel. Everything on my hopes and dreams, my old report cards, every breed of dog, every last personal ad on Craigslist. Sesame, poppy seed, salt. And it collapsed in on itself.
00:00:45
Speaker
Because you see, when you really put everything on a bagel, it becomes this. Come on. Come on, come on. The truth. What is the truth? Nothing matters. Oh, Joy. You don't believe that?
00:01:15
Speaker
Feels nice, doesn't it? If nothing matters, then all the pain and guilt you feel for making nothing of your life... goes away. Sucked... into...
Technical Challenges and Sound Quality
00:01:44
Speaker
Hey guys, before we get started, I just want to let you know that we had a little bit of issue with this recording session. There were some weird clicks that were coming up in Zencaster. So at about 10 to 12 minutes into the conversation, we ended up switching from Zencaster, which is my usual recording place to Zoom, which I'm always, has much better quality, but I'm always a little bit nervous using since it's through work.
00:02:10
Speaker
But anyway, so that's the reason why there's a difference in sound quality during the episode. Otherwise, hope you enjoy this conversation. Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast.
Frank Martin's Writing Projects and Children's Horror
00:02:20
Speaker
I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming back a returning guest, and that is Frank Martin. Frank, how you doing today? I'm doing fabulous. Thank you for having me on again. Well, thanks for coming on. This is also the first episode we're recording of 2024. So happy new year to everybody out there. Although by the time you listen to this, it'll be
00:02:39
Speaker
March, according to the way I've got the schedule laid out so far. But before we get started about the movie and all that fun stuff, Frank, why don't you remind people a little bit about who you are and what you do. My name is Frank Martin. I'm a writer of all genres, all mediums. I write novels, short stories. I'm currently neck deep in comic books, so I'm a lover of basically stories in all their forms.
00:03:07
Speaker
Hey, great. What do you got? What are you working on right now or anything you got coming out in the near future that you want to talk about? Well, I have six launches throughout the year. This is January. So my first one is going to be where the nightmares are. It's like a kids horror spin on where the wild things are. And hopefully by the time you're listening to this, it was great success. Awesome. Cool, cool. Okay, and
00:03:35
Speaker
You know, we have already talked before we had you on the show before about, you know, talking about your history with superheroes. So we don't need to go into all that again. But what are you interested in now? What what's kind of grabbing your interest these days?
Multiverse Stories: Star Trek, Rick and Morty, and More
00:03:46
Speaker
You know, it's it's very strange because I am currently going back and forth between Star Trek Discovery, the first season and Rick and Morty, both of which deal heavily with alternate universes. So it's kind of ironic that we're going to be talking about
00:04:03
Speaker
a big alternate universe movie today. And they both have connections to this movie as well. So we are going to be talking about everything everywhere all at once today. And Michelle Yeoh, obviously she was on Star Trek Discovery and she's also the main actress in this movie. But also the directors, when they had had this idea
00:04:51
Speaker
They were worried about this movie being unfavorably compared to Rick and Morty because there are a lot of similar type of ideas. They both deal with multiverse type stuff, some similar types of humor as well in some instances. So they were kind of concerned about that to begin with. When I was watching it, I did draw a comparison, but it wasn't the content that drew the comparison of the multiverse. It was more along the lines of the characterization
00:05:19
Speaker
of the way people approach multiverse because there's certain sequences where the concept or the idea of the multiverse is so vast that it can't help but allow someone to feel despair because of it or become nihilistic because of it, which is exactly what happens to Rick. He's a scientist, he faces this multiverse and he immediately thinks that nothing matters because of it. And Michelle Yeoh's character goes through a period
00:05:48
Speaker
where she feels that same way. She does experience everything everywhere all at once and it just makes her down, which I was like, that is how Rick feels all the time. And it was, I thought, that's the comparison I drew. It wasn't the multiverse or the humor or the tone. It was that characterization. I was like, this is a live action Rick. This is how he feels constantly.
00:06:12
Speaker
Okay, that's interesting. I've actually never seen Rick and Morty, so I can't compare it. I can't judge that part of it. But yeah, the nihilistic aspect that comes through both in what Evelyn experiences and also what Jobu experiences, definitely a big part of this movie. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. For my part- I'm five seasons into Rick and Morty right now. I think I have two seasons left before I'm all caught up.
00:06:41
Speaker
I'm going to feel void. I love that show. So when I'm all done, it's kind of like, what am I going to do with my life now? Because this show is so great. But let's get into the movie.
'Monarch' and Godzilla Mythos
00:06:51
Speaker
Well, before we get into that, for me, the things I've been interested in, I just started watching Monarch. And I'm about four episodes into that. Binge, the first four episodes, just stayed up all late and watching them all once. I just could not get enough of it. I'm looking forward to watching the next batch of episodes pretty soon.
00:07:11
Speaker
And the other thing is I caught up on some new comics recently. I am catching up on, I think it's volume four of the Superman son of Kal-El series and really digging that. I just read, finished reading the dark crisis event as well. So I'm trying to get caught up on a bunch of stuff that I just picked up from DC these days. I've been watching Monarch too. I think I'm about three or four episodes in. I love it too. I think it's great addition
00:07:39
Speaker
to the Godzilla mythos without directly, you know, Godzilla's in it, but he's not like the star or the focus, which I think is smart. And you must have a different perspective on it living in Japan. So it's like a completely different kind of angle for you. A little bit. There's definitely some, like my whole thing with God's, the whole thing with the monarch films and stuff is
00:08:06
Speaker
I was never really interested in the characters in those movies. I always thought outside of, outside of Saidizawa in the first two movies, he was the only character that I really kind of enjoyed. And also the brief bit we got from, oh, what's his name? Lincoln, not his name, but Brian Cranston. His character, the little bit we get of him too. I was interested in him too. I was kind of disappointed he died so early in the first one. And I was really disappointed when Saidizawa died in the second one.
00:08:33
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it was, the characters were like the most boring part of those movies for me. Whereas in the, and I have not seen, I've only seen, of the Japanese Godzilla movies, I've only seen the first one and Shin Godzilla. So I have not seen most of them, but what I loved about those is the characters and those and the political themes of it, um, which become very blatant once you know a little bit about Japanese history and politics. Uh,
00:08:58
Speaker
So it's, but with the the Monarch films, what interested me most was just the spectacle of it, like the big monsters and all that. And I love King of the Monsters because it was just like nonstop spectacle for that reason. And I was a little disappointed with Godzilla versus Kong because I didn't feel it had that same amount of spectacle. But what I really like about this show that's really kind of impressed me is how well done the characters really are.
00:09:21
Speaker
So I've been really enjoying it for that too. I agree. I think my favorite part is when they have the fake, not the fake, but the false Godzilla warning in Japan. And everyone's like, oh, let's go into the subway now. And she's like having a panic attack. I thought that was, it's cool that they ground this world and where these monsters are just an everyday occurrence. I thought that was really well done.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, and from that, you know, when you're talking about from the perspective of being in Japan, that's true. Like we get like earthquake warnings and tsunami warnings and all that kind of stuff all the time. It's like, okay, it's just something that happens. You know, you learn to live with this stuff, basically. And whereas someone who is not used to that here, the first time they see one of those alerts, or if they're here on vacation or something, they're gonna freak the hell out. So I thought it was a very true to life experience with that. And even with the cab driver who talks about how, oh, San Francisco, it was just all CGI.
00:10:12
Speaker
I love the they had a Godzilla sign like this is the Godzilla shelter. Like this is just where you go when Godzilla. Yeah, so let's go ahead and segue then into the movie.
Delayed Viewing of 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'
00:10:27
Speaker
Like we said, we were talking about everything everywhere all at once from the year came out in 2022 came out in Yeah.
00:10:37
Speaker
I didn't see it until this past the past summer of 2023, though, because it did not come out here in Japan until. I think it came out here in the fall is when it was released here, and I actually managed to my family and I went back to the States in the summer and I picked it up on Blu-ray while it was there, because it was like a target for like 10 bucks or something like that. So so I was so I was watching it here in Japan when we got back while it was just coming out in the theater for everybody else.
00:11:07
Speaker
And, um, and everybody was talking about, you know, how amazing this movie is for like the, for like, you know, up until I saw it for like six months, I was hearing nothing but how great this movie was. And in a year where we have, in an era, I guess, where we have so much multiverse stuff going on, that was all, you know, we had Dr. Strange, the Multiverse of Madness, we have Loki, um, you know, the whole multiverse saga, Quantomania, all that kind of stuff.
Multiverse Exploration: Marvel vs. 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'
00:11:33
Speaker
It's, um,
00:11:35
Speaker
This was definitely like the best example of the multiverse I've seen on screen in a long time. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to draw comparisons to Rick and Morty because you haven't seen it. But Rick and Morty does a great job of the multiverse in that. And I really, when I see multiverse stuff, I think of, you know, the Jet Li movie, The One, you know,
00:12:00
Speaker
And so it's the concept of the multiverse directly conflicts with the premise of the one, because it's supposed to be an infinite multiverse. It's supposed to go on forever, all permutations. So the idea of somebody killing all versions so that you're the last one left kind of seems impossible. It just doesn't make sense. And Ricky Morty really takes it to an extreme where there's every single type of multiverse you could think of. There's a multiverse where there are crab versions of us and bird versions of us.
00:12:30
Speaker
versions of us were whatever. So I always thought that it's impossible to do that in live action because it's too ridiculous. But they tackle it really in this show, in this movie. They really, they go so crazy with it that they even have a multiverse where they're just rocks. It was really, yeah, even though I think Ricky Morty is still the pinnacle of that concept manifest, as far as live action is concerned, I don't think you could get closer than what this movie was.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, this does a really good job of playing with that, the absurdities that you can go to with the multiverse, because most people's experience with the multiverse, you know, you probably think of, like I said, the recent Marvel movies and the multiverse saga, or, you know, DC stuff on TV that they've been doing. If you're, if you're fans of the comics too, right, you're very clued into that stuff as well from way back. But it's,
00:13:25
Speaker
It never really, and there's some fun stuff they do with it. Like I'm not gonna say that I hate those things they've done, but I don't feel like they've really kind of done the concept. I feel like they, Marvel Comics or DC Comics, what they do is they have a story idea and then they use the multiverse as a tool to execute that story idea. It's not like they take the concept of the multiverse and then wanna explore that to its fullest potential. You know, they kind of put the,
00:13:52
Speaker
the cart before the horse in that regards as far as the multiverse goes they never really wanna take that concept and stretch it to its max they always wanna use it to accomplish some mission or some goal the only thing I can think of that really does that
00:14:07
Speaker
is the Spider-Verse crossover event in the comics. That was great. They threw so many Spider-Men in there. They took them from all across Marvel's history, and they executed it pretty well. I was happy with the way they did it in the comics. But other than that, it's kind of like, we have this alternate version of Iron Man. Let's create a new universe and call it the multiverse to do it. And I'm like, that's not really how it works, scientifically speaking or theoretically speaking.
00:14:37
Speaker
And it's like DC when they said, we wanna create our 52 worlds. I'm like, it's not an infinite multiverse if you have exactly 52 of them that coincides with your famous numbers. So, but I was glad the way they approached it in this movie. Okay, so what were some of the things that really kind of jumped out to you about this movie?
Craftsmanship in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once'
00:14:59
Speaker
You know what I kept thinking when I was watching it?
00:15:04
Speaker
I kept thinking, I don't know if this is a good movie, but it's a really well made movie.
00:15:12
Speaker
You know what, they put a lot of effort, a lot of focus into their cinematography. The acting is top notch. The dialogue is great. They put a lot of thought into the absurdity and the comedy and the fight scenes. I'm not sure if it all gels together well to make what I would call a good movie, but whatever they did, they were experts doing it. If that makes any sense.
00:15:35
Speaker
You know, one of the things that really impressed me, and I didn't realize this until I read the trivia, was that all the VFX for this movie was done by nine people, including the two directors. And most of that VFX was done by a core group of five. None of them had any training about this. They'd all taught themselves how to do it with online tutorials that they found for free. So I thought that was really kind of, it's really amazing to see like how much you can do just with,
00:16:05
Speaker
with online tutorials these days. You know what? It's very funny you say that because first off, the movie gives off a very heavy Matrix vibe. There's tons and tons of like Matrix references or homages. Whether purposeful or not, it has a super duper Matrix vibe to it. But I also get that low tech sci-fi feel like 12 Monkeys to it.
00:16:29
Speaker
So it's weird that it's just a ragtag group of BFX guys that are coming together and doing all the special effects for this movie. Because that's what it kind of feels like in an essence, when they're in the back of the van and they put that weird headset on with the glasses. That's kind of what it feels like when they're putting all the special effects together. So it's kind of, it tracks. Yeah. And it's funny because when,
00:16:52
Speaker
I'm comparing this in my head as I'm watching it to Multiverse of Madness, which is the other big multiverse movie that came out within a similar frame of time. I think that actually came out a year before, if I'm not mistaken.
00:17:06
Speaker
And I enjoyed Multiverse of Madness for the most part. I mean, we did an episode on it a while back. It's definitely got flaws, but I'd say it's mid-range Marvel for me. But you look at that movie and the budget it had, and then you look at this movie with the budget it had. And honestly, if you give me the two and you're gonna ask me which one would you rather watch, this one is the more impressive one for me.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah, more. I mean, it's it's definitely a CGI spectacle where they were just like, OK, we're just going to kind of do what we can in practical, but we'll just going to really green screen everything. And this movie doesn't have that same feel to it. They kind of they knew exactly what they needed to shoot. And they were really dedicated with
00:17:53
Speaker
when VFX were going to be used as opposed to Marvel when it's like, we're just going to VFX everything in the background. You know, it definitely has a more onsite feel to it. Yeah, and I mean, another good comparison that is is Guardians of Galaxy 3, because I was very impressed with the CGI and that. And when I had reviewed that movie with, you know, my guest on that time, he mentioned that, you know,
00:18:18
Speaker
James Gunn is someone who goes in, who meticulously plans out when he's gonna use CGI, how he's gonna use it, and he doesn't just shoot on green screen and then just have it there in case he changes his mind. And whereas a lot of the other Marvel movies, like you said, yeah, they just kind of, they'll shoot everything on green screen and then they'll say like, we'll fix it in post afterwards. And that really shows in some cases, whereas this one,
00:18:44
Speaker
similar to Guardians, they really kind of went in and they had to know, here's what we're gonna do, here's how we're gonna do it, and if we screw it up, there's no fixing it in post, basically.
00:18:57
Speaker
I wrote an article about Guardians of the Galaxy 3 with their VFX because VFX is usually looked at as spectacle, you know, fireballs and jumping off of buildings. But the VFX in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was storytelling. You know, you really felt for Rocket and all of his family.
00:19:19
Speaker
And that's all VFX. It's all digital VFX artists. And they made you sense every tear, every emotion in their face. They kind of really went to town drawing on the pathos of those visual effects. And so I was very surprised that they showed the power of what digital effects can do when previously they're just like, oh, big explosions.
00:19:46
Speaker
And in this movie too, they were able to really capitalize that with the VFX in the right spots to draw the most amount of motion in those moments. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Absurd Mechanics of the Multiverse
00:20:01
Speaker
And just like the way they approach the different aspects of the multiverse, like this whole idea of being able to access different versions of yourself, but to make those jumps, depending on the further away it gets from you, the more extreme you have to go with the type of moves you perform. So, you know, they do these weird things. Like, you know, it's like you have to profess your love for Deidre who's coming to kill you. You have to, you know, pull a piece of chewed gum stuck under the table and you have to chew it yourself and just like,
00:20:29
Speaker
all you have to switch your shoes to different feet all these weird little tricks they find out which allows for a lot of great um sight comedy and a lot of comic gags too it's you know what this is i'm not gonna say i had a problem with the movie but the reason i
00:20:47
Speaker
didn't connect with it as much as i did it just it goes in too many different directions tonally which i couldn't i don't know i feel like it's absurdist comedy but it's it's low tech sci-fi and it's a hard hardened character drama and it tries to piece them all together and
00:21:10
Speaker
It just feels like this pinball machine of patchwork of different stuff. And I loved all of them individually. I thought they were great. But when they tried to tie them all together with this very weirdly contrived
00:21:26
Speaker
matrixy way of accessing past alternate versions of yourself. I just thought it was, it was just too weird for me. I mean, I like weird and I really dug watching it and I appreciate it and I had fun, but as a cohesive film,
00:21:44
Speaker
It just didn't work. I mean, it won best Oscar. So it worked for a lot of people, but it was just, it was so all over the place that I was like, I found myself stopping at one point. I'm like, how much do we have left of this an hour?
00:22:01
Speaker
I wonder if part of that is just like familiarity with the different types of styles. Cause it felt like they were drawing on a lot of like, you know, Asian style filmmaking in that aspect and- Definitely, definitely. Well, unless you're here, we talked about, we talked about Zebra Man and there's a lot of that kind of stuff in it. And a lot of that director's movies, or if you look at like, you know,
00:22:25
Speaker
What's the name? Steven Chow from Kung Fu Hustle too. Like there's a lot of that kind of stuff in it. And so I felt that worked very well because I was looking at it as kind of an extension of what a lot of those Asian movies do when it comes to like the sci-fi type stuff.
00:22:42
Speaker
I agree with you. It was like when those parts start, I'm like, okay, this is what this is. And then when it goes into something else, I'm like, this is what this is. And I can identify with those different homages or style types, but it just, it pinballs so much back and forth that I kind of, I felt like I was jumping back and forth between the multiverse myself.
00:23:04
Speaker
I couldn't really find a rhythm as far as what type of film I'm watching at that particular time. You know, when when I watched Superman, I right at the beginning, I'm like, OK, this is what I'm in store for. But this movie, it starts off.
00:23:18
Speaker
It starts off, honestly, I didn't know if it was a foreign film or not, because it starts off the entire conversation is in Chinese in the beginning. And then it jumps back and forth between both languages. I'm like, okay, I guess it's both. And then before I know it, people are turning into confetti. And I'm just like, I felt like I was on drugs the entire time. So I just couldn't like, I felt like I couldn't relax in the type of film that I knew it was going to be because I couldn't,
00:23:46
Speaker
I couldn't settle down. I mean, I was immensely impressed the entire time with what they were doing. I just couldn't be absorbed in it because I was just...
00:23:59
Speaker
For me, that was something I enjoyed about it. I totally get where you're coming from, and it feels very meta in that way, and I kind of put this together when I was reading through the trivia, because Stephanie Hsu, who plays Joy, and also Jobu, she said that playing Jobu was difficult, because the directors told her
00:24:21
Speaker
that the entire approach to this, Jobu's entire approach to this multiverse is basically she thinks this movie is stupid and she's trying to ruin it. That's a good, I agree with that. Yeah, and the directors, and she said that it was difficult for her to play that because she loved the film and she didn't enjoy the fact that she was the one who had to disrupt it.
00:24:44
Speaker
And the director said, no, that means you're onto something because Jobu is the postmodern voice in the back of our heads who can't take anything seriously. And I thought that meta explanation, it kind of worked for me and it kind of explains a lot of it because it is very much this idea of, this is a movie it feels like for a very,
00:25:09
Speaker
Like this feels like a Generation Z movie, right? This type of idea where it's like you don't...
00:25:15
Speaker
You know, there's so much insane stuff going on and you just have to kind of go with it, basically. But you know what? I didn't not enjoy it. I would say like the film critic side of me wanted to to realize, recognize those flaws that I saw in the movie and and criticize it for it. But then the crazy kid side of me was just having a good time the entire time.
00:25:40
Speaker
so i was kind of battling with those two versions of myself while i was watching i had a lot of fun it was so you know what was ridiculous is that. At one point i'm thinking because they use these weird bluetooth devices to connect to different multiverses.
00:25:57
Speaker
And I'm like, this is such a weird mechanism. And they know it's a weird mechanism, but I'm just going to go with it because the movie decided that that's what they're going to do. And then at some point, they graduate from that to just, we're gods that can do anything we want across the entire multiverse. So it was like, even their own rules got thrown out the window at that point. They're just going to do whatever they want to do and try to make it as ridiculously crazy as possible. And so it's just,
00:26:24
Speaker
It was like I couldn't take it seriously as a serious film that won an Oscar that is grounded in some sort of characterization. I just had to embrace the absurdity, even as they were trying to tell a compelling character story at the same time. You know what it felt like?
00:26:43
Speaker
It felt like a kid having playing with his parents' blender and just throwing everything in the fridge into the blender and deciding to swirl it around. It doesn't mean that what's going to come out with is going to be something that's drinkable, but you're going to have a good time doing it.
00:27:03
Speaker
Let's talk about some of those performances, though, because that was what really impressed me, especially, you know, I mean, Michelle Yo, she's, you know, she's in the class of her own to begin with, like, saying that she does a great job in a movie is not going to be a surprise to anyone. The only surprise that took her this long to win an Oscar for something.
00:27:21
Speaker
But what really impressed me was Ki Hui Kuan. I was not expecting the level of performance that we got from him in this movie. He was just on fire in every single scene. Every single version of Wayman was completely distinct and very unique. And he knocked it out of the park with every single version of those characters he tried on.
00:27:47
Speaker
This was an extremely difficult movie to act in. It bounces back and forth between characters so many times. This movie doesn't work if they don't give convincing performances. If you have bad actors, they're not going to pull off this movie. And it goes for every single one of them.
00:28:09
Speaker
There is in the beginning of the movie before the hijinks really start when they go into the IRS office. They both they both go into the elevator with the grandfather, or I should say the father.
00:28:23
Speaker
And there's this moment in the elevator where they're just standing there waiting for it to load. And I've already seen a bunch of scenes with them. I don't know how 20 minutes worth of movie. And I'm like, these are three phenomenal actors. And the movie hasn't even started yet. And I'm sure it's only going to get more ridiculous from here. So I was watching with my wife. I kind of told her, I'm like, these people are at the top of their game. And this is going to be a treat.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, this is this was definitely an acting tour de force from beginning to end.
Performance Highlights and Meta References
00:28:56
Speaker
Mm hmm. They also do some meta stuff with each one of these actors, too. Like, obviously, Michelle, you know, the whole other universe where she's a martial arts action movie star. They even use, you know, footage of her from walking the red carpet at like Crazy Rich Asians and other stuff. I know it is.
00:29:12
Speaker
Um, that one's obvious but also, you know, James Hong who plays Gong Gong he he kind of revert he's mostly playing this you know cantankerous old grandpa, but then he reversed this megalomite maniacal, you know, scheming type evil guy and he's, you know, which very much
00:29:31
Speaker
thinking back to Big Trouble in Little China, you've got He-He Kwan, and once, in one part, he's actually, the words he's shouting to Evelyn, like when he's saying like, snap out of it and all that, it's like exactly word for word what he shouted to Harrison Ford in Temple of Doom.
00:29:49
Speaker
Doesn't he use like a whip? Doesn't he try to use the- Yes, that's right. He also uses, he uses the- Fanny pack? He uses the Fanny pack fight scene. Fanny pack who I call it. That was like one of, that was my favorite action scene in the whole movie.
00:30:05
Speaker
yeah that's you know what it is this movie it's not a serious movie because so the matrix at some point it's a ridiculous movie too but it tries to be somewhat serious or grounded when they're in the matrix this movie if this were real life
00:30:22
Speaker
Police officers would have been on this scene much, much quicker. So at that point, I'm just like, all right, this is pure fantasy right here. But he goes into an absurd fight scene where they just let it go. And at that moment, I was like, OK, this movie is going to be a ride because it tries to be real. But at the same time, it knows that it's not. So it doesn't try. It's a very bizarre. It's just a bizarre movie.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, but I think one of the things that really works about it is, again,
Family Dynamics in the Multiverse
00:30:54
Speaker
the fact that they lean into that absurdity so much, and whereas a lot of movies, they try to make the absurdity make sense, right? Like Multiverse of Madness had that, where they're trying to make this whole idea of the multiverse make sense, and it doesn't make sense. It's something that just is inherently insane.
00:31:14
Speaker
So they're just like all the multiverse stuff is going back to what you're saying about using it as a tool for something else. They are basically using the multiverse as a tool. All this absurdity they're using to tell this story about this mother and daughter that are having difficulty connecting over generations. And something else I noticed in the trivia is
00:31:36
Speaker
when she's speaking to Gong Gong, James Hong's character, she's speaking to him in Cantonese, but when she's speaking to Waymond, she's speaking to him in Mandarin. And when she's speaking to Joy, it's like this mix of Mandarin and broken English. And they also make the point about Joy's Chinese is not very good to begin with. So
00:32:02
Speaker
there's these communication barriers that are set up between all the characters as a result of that too which is also another nice little way of using language kind of in a way that not as not as obvious as it was in like um uh inglorious bastards but where they really played with the idea of differences in language and communication being
00:32:24
Speaker
being a big part of how these conflicts develop. I thought that was a really interesting thing that they did, too. It is really interesting. It's almost like each characters are in their own different multiverse that they have exactly. Yeah. Tell their own use their language to communicate with each other, because when you talk to somebody from a different universe, it's almost like you're speaking a different language at some point, as we saw in the first scene when
00:32:48
Speaker
when she gets, when they're in the elevator and she gets retrofitted with all that stuff. That was the point when I knew that the movie had abandoned logic because he puts the Bluetooth on her, right? She doesn't- No, he puts it on her, yeah. Yeah. And she, like a normal person would be like, what are you doing? And just take them off.
00:33:07
Speaker
She and but that's the whole point of the movie she needs to have them on so at that point i was like okay we need to abandon a little at least a little bit of logic for now did to make this work. And then i also like that that scene where it plays around with is she crazy or is this really happening it doesn't.
00:33:26
Speaker
It's kind of like and then and then he just drops on her. We're in a multiversal war with a powerful being that's just taking over the mall. It's kind of like, OK, now she's going nuts. But at some point you just have to give way that like, no, this is really the route that this movie is taking. It's really running with this. She's not imagining. And I like how they gradually played into that kind of insanity, insanity mindset.
00:33:53
Speaker
We also, like you had mentioned the cops earlier too. I mean, the end of the movie, everybody seems to have forgotten about the fact that Evelyn and Waymon have just torn the shit out of this IRS office too. I mean, I had spoken about it before, but when you watched it, how much of the matrix did you feel it was coming through?
00:34:16
Speaker
Um, I was clueing into a little bit of it, not probably not as strong though because of just because of how familiar I am with multiverse concepts in general so I mean there's obvious matrix obvious is definitely matrix influence is obviously there.
00:34:34
Speaker
I thought it was essentially matrix for the multiverse at some point. I was like, this is the matrix. That's what it is. It's just they're using the multiverse instead of a computer simulation.
00:34:50
Speaker
Just one of the differences, like the difference of scope and the type of story they're trying to tell, right? The Matrix is trying to tell this story about existentialism and, you know, and using a lot of these no stick themes and all of that. Whereas this, this is a much smaller story. They're both using these very big ideas, but Matrix is using it to tell a big story and everything everywhere all at once is using these big ideas and these big concepts to tell this very small story, this very personal story.
00:35:19
Speaker
I was thinking more along the lines of just mechanisms, how how it's working out. So there. So at one point she's on the phone and she's in the middle of a battle talking to like the command center, the people in the van that are driving. And I'm like, this seems like Neo in The Matrix talking with
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah, the operator seemed exactly the same. And then she's, she's like, I need Kung Fu master, upload me to come. I was like, this is they're using the same mechanism. And it didn't feel like they were copying. It felt like they were directly playing off of it in a ridiculous way. Like they knew exactly what they were doing. And they leaned into the influences.
00:36:02
Speaker
A lot. Yeah. And I think the directors, one of the directors had said like one of the kinds of pitches they gave for this movie when they were like looking for funding was your mom in The Matrix. That would be that's that's definitely a good one, because I also love it how instantly and not only instantly, but innocently she buys into the premise. You know, she's in the in the IRS office when
00:36:29
Speaker
Prime, I forget his name, the Alpha, whatever he... Alpha Wayman, yeah. Alpha, when he comes back, she's like, you're back, you're here! Like, she immediately bought into the idea of he's a multiverse guy, and he's just inhabiting her husband's body. It was like, she wasn't sure at first, and then right away she was just like, okay, I'm sold, I need to go, I need to run with this.
00:36:51
Speaker
And it was very innocent and a little bit childlike too, where she wasn't like, this is insane, what's going on? She was more like, you left me here. They played the tone in very particular scenes just right to make it work.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's a definite strength of it, too, because I remember one of the things that really kind of gets old after a while is the person in these movies who doesn't accept that these things are real, that these things are actually happening, right? Like the
00:37:23
Speaker
the person in like the zombie movie. He was like zombies aren't real, this is or anything like that. And so it is kind of nice to see movies now kind of breaking away from that and just being like the characters are going to accept the premise of the movie and not waste too much time on debating over how realistic it is.
00:37:40
Speaker
I think that's a consequence of making a movie realistic and grounded because denial is a big part of the human experience. So they want to put people in that situation that are going to deny what's happening. But this movie is not a realistic experience and it doesn't try to be. So it doesn't feel any need to do that. And I really appreciated that. It just knew what it wanted and it tried to get there as quickly as possible.
00:38:06
Speaker
without all these we need to make this plausible detour you know he's like no this guy's in the back of a van he's wearing it like a hair net with electrodes and that's how he's traveling the multiverse that's it that's all that's all the rules you need to know we don't have to justify this
00:38:23
Speaker
We'll also notice too, on this second viewing, how they kind of hint that Evelyn is being affected by the multiverse itself when she's trying to explain it to her wayman and her version of joy about the multiverse. And she's saying, it's like Raka Kui. And she's talking about the raccoon from the movie who's a chef. And you're like, are you talking about Ratatouille? And then they lead that into a joke that comes up in the movie where there is this universe where this raccoon is controlling a chef.
00:38:52
Speaker
And you know what? That was a one-off joke that they decided, I guess, just to run with it for as long as possible. It just kept popping up over and over and over again. I mean, same thing with the hot dog fingers, too. Yes, that was a one-off joke that they just kept coming. Not only did they use it, but they used it to tell a compelling character arc for Jamie Lee Curtis' character. It wasn't just a joke. They used that to tell a completely
00:39:21
Speaker
completely separate subplot love story. It was just, it's very, they knew what they were doing writing wise. And I might like, the film critic in me wanted to say it was disjointed, but like the kid in me wants to say like, it doesn't matter if it was disjointed, it was still fun. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of Jamie Lee Curtis, like she's another one who just really, you know, brought her A game in this because I knew she was in it, right? I remember reading that she was in it and
00:39:49
Speaker
Honestly, I did not recognize her at first when they went into the IRS office it took me it was like halfway into that scene when I'm just like, Oh, that's Jamie Lee Curtis. I got that I said it to my wife I said is this Jimmy Lee Curtis and they said yeah and I'm like oh she she has a cameo as the IRS agent she's just and then but then I she was.
00:40:07
Speaker
actually a big supporting role in the movie. I had no idea she was going to keep showing up and no professional wrestling and have a subplot love story. She like turned into a pretty major character. Yeah. And also going to that idea of, you know, language difficulties and language barriers as an IRS agent, the type of English she's speaking is like completely foreign to even native speaking English people.
Absurdity and Realism in IRS Scenes
00:40:33
Speaker
Like I don't understand what she's saying in that scene.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yes, and going back to just absurdity and the fantasy of it all, IRS audits don't work like that. Like you don't go into a cubicle with all of your receipts and they start grilling you one after another. Like that's just not how it works, but they didn't really care about making it realistic or grounded. They wanted to formulate the scenes based on how they want to tell their story, which again, as a writer,
00:41:03
Speaker
who wants to have a purpose for his story, I can appreciate that of them not being distracted by all of these, the pesky realism of trying to create a plot. Well, I mean, again, the fact that she goes to them that night with the cops to arrest them.
00:41:20
Speaker
That is not how that works. I mean, I'm not, I've never been arrested for tax fraud, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work exactly like that. I'm pretty sure there'd be some other steps involved first. And then when she says like, oh, let her go, let her go, I'm like.
00:41:36
Speaker
Why let her go? Oh, because what was the reason? I forgot what the reason was. Because Wayman had convinced her to... Oh, yeah. Because they were getting divorced. Yeah, yeah. And she sympathized with Evelyn because she's like, she's like, yeah, I'm a cold bitch, too. So. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're going to stop from arresting you right now because I heard you're getting divorced today. We'll just we'll let it slide.
00:41:59
Speaker
If there's a realistic drama, you can critique that and criticize it and say that that was dumb. It's a plot hole. It doesn't make sense. But in this movie, you're just like, okay. Just go with it. There's the whole aspect of suspension of disbelief when you get to a point where
00:42:22
Speaker
the movie or the book or whatever pushes it to the point where you don't believe it so much. And where you're able to go along with a certain amount until it gets to the point where it gets too much. This movie just rose you into the deep end with all the absurdity right from the start that when it comes to things like the IRS stuff that we know is not real, we're willing to totally ignore all that. You can't you can't really
00:42:47
Speaker
pick apart this movie of plot holes because because it's just it's plot hole proof because it's so ridiculous because it's so absurd. It's like, what do you mean this movie has plot holes? Of course it has plot holes. We wrote it with plot holes. We made a plot hole and then we built a movie around it. Right. Yeah.
00:43:05
Speaker
Well, I mean, the the whole idea of the bagel, right? It's got a hole right in the center. It's it's it's the black hole bagel that of everything that just absorb like what speech was she what speech was she giving? She was saying, I made a bagel and I put everything on it to the point where it's going to absorb everything and end existence. What?
00:43:26
Speaker
But she delivers the speech so straight up like a Bond villain that it's like, it's just, I don't know. This movie just boggles the mind. Yeah. And that's what makes it work. Like I think about...
00:43:42
Speaker
My favorite example of a plot hole heavy movie is Dark Knight Rises because it's got this big gaping plot hole in the center of it where how does Bruce Wayne who is now broke at this point of the movie get from this prison out in the middle of nowhere back to Gotham which is under martial law disconnected from the rest of the country.
00:44:02
Speaker
never, no explanation in it. That movie's got plot holes, but because that movie tries to brand itself as like, it's a grounded, realistic movie, those plot holes become much more obvious. This movie is so ridiculous that you don't notice any of those plot holes unless you stop to think about it.
00:44:17
Speaker
I was a huge Batman Begins fan, a huge Dark Knight fan. I was not a Dark Knight Rises fan. I hated it. And when I explain it to people, I say, look, if you pay attention to Batman Begins, he has explained every single aspect of this movie. The part when he's in the Batmobile and it's jumping from rooftop to rooftop,
00:44:41
Speaker
You could see the computer in the Tumblr and it has GPS data for all of the buildings telling him which build which roofs can support the Batmobile jumping from rooftop to rooftop. That's how intricate and complex his storytelling is. Now, when you take that movie and you apply that kind of filmmaking and writing to The Dark Knight Rises, it completely falls apart. There's none of that level of details there. So so, yeah, you got to
00:45:11
Speaker
adjust your expectations according to what type of movie it is. For The Dark Knight Rises, my sophistication as far as breaking apart plot holes is pretty high. For this, it's non-existent because it's a rollercoaster ride without a track. And you just got it. You're just on it. You're on it. You don't know where it's going to go. It could go up, down, sideways. It's just going to go, and you're on it. So you just got to roy with it.
00:45:39
Speaker
And another way that they play with these types of expectations or tropes and all that, right, going back to the Matrix comparison where, you know, Neo is the one, and then he ends up graduating this idea where he becomes the...
00:45:55
Speaker
the one, he becomes the one, he's able to use the matrix and all that kind of stuff. It's a genuine progression. Whereas this, she is the one because she is terrible at everything, because she's failed at all these different things she's tried. That makes her perfect to connect to all the other people who have been successful.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yes, that was another one. The one was another Matrix connection. There's even a part in the movie where she stops a whole bunch of bullets from hitting her. There's a whole bunch of Matrix vibes in this. But yeah, that was great. You are special because you are so bad. Because you are so bad. I mean, I thought that was a very...
00:46:32
Speaker
like romantic novel concept that you were so bad because it allows all the other versions of you to be good, which is very heroic and sacrificial in a way that makes her the one, I guess, to be everywhere all at once.
00:46:51
Speaker
And even how they, again, another multiverse of madness reference, whereas that movie he gets this literal third eye, where she puts the googly eye on her forehead. That was great. Thinking about it now, I would love to see a crossover with like, Dr. Manhattan.
00:47:10
Speaker
know one of these one of these beings that experience time and realities differently like he experiences all time at the same time it would be cool to see him interact with someone who experiences all universes all at the same time yeah i thought that that's one of the things i like about in um
00:47:28
Speaker
I know a lot of people didn't like it, but I like Doomsday Clock for how it kind of shows these different, how he's the comparison of Dr. Manhattan, where he's this human who becomes a god and he loses connection to humanity, and contrasting that with Superman, who is this god who lives among human, who cares nothing but humanity.
00:47:49
Speaker
the whole idea of this being this, you know, experiencing all of time at once, experience all the multiverse at once, obviously that would do something to you. That would break you in some way. And I thought that they handled it.
00:48:04
Speaker
I thought it was a very good way of handling that aspect of it. What would someone who actually experiences the multiverse all at one time, what would they think? Because one of the things that, going back to the whole meta idea, one of the things that people always complain about multiverse stories is there are no stakes.
Personal Stakes in Multiverse Narratives
00:48:22
Speaker
infinite possibilities are possible and infinite universes exist, then nothing we do matters. And they've used that as a plot point in this movie. And that's the main villain's whole plot. She's like, nothing matters, so we're just gonna erase everything.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah, I like Doom State Clock 2. I liked part of it. I did not like, they had a whole subplot with like the Superman project or something or another. Yeah, it was very disconnected from the rest of the story I felt. I didn't like that. I liked how they presented Watchmen, they introduced some new characters and also how they,
00:49:01
Speaker
They teased it in the beginning that this is Superman and Dr. Manhattan, but they really didn't get to that until the very end of the book. And I thought that they did that well. They touched upon how Superman, how he changes when Superman arrives at different times, which creates different multiverses.
00:49:20
Speaker
And I thought that that aspect was very well done and I enjoyed it. So there was a lot of criticism to it, I think because it was so delayed. Wasn't it really delayed? It was very delayed. Yeah, I remember I was at first I was reading it month to month and I just gave up and I just waited until the trades came out. And even between that first trade and that second trade was like a gap of like almost a year, I think.
00:49:42
Speaker
It took a long time to get the full story. And then when I we did an episode on it back when I was doing the Patreon show. And when I did that and I reread it all in one sitting and. Like the first half of it, the whole the whole as a sequel to Watchman, I don't think it's as successful. I didn't I felt like the whole the whole the.
00:50:03
Speaker
the two characters they introduced from that universe with the mime character who has these actual invisible weapons. I didn't understand what the logic was, how that connected to Watchmen. So I felt like that stuff was kind of disconnected. But then once we get into the Superman stuff, it completely gave me a new perspective on that. And I thought, once they introduce Superman into the story, it becomes, it makes so much more sense and works so much better. But as a sequel to Watchmen, I think, I don't think it was as strong. It's especially not compared to the HBO series.
00:50:32
Speaker
I like those characters, the Mime and Marionette, and I like the Rorschach, how Malcolm's son- That part, I did like that part, yeah. But you know what it was? I find it weird that DC promotes these big blockbuster titles, and then they're delayed like crazy. They did the same thing with Three Jokers.
00:50:51
Speaker
like yeah yeah it was like it was hot at the moment and then it took so long to come out that people were like yeah free jokers like whatever i mean both those were done by johns i think it's just john says so much stuff he's doing right now they can't keep up um i think for these event type books they should really kind of wait until they have the whole thing assembled before they start soliciting it but
00:51:12
Speaker
but that's another discussion. Especially with Doomsday Clock, the characters change designs halfway through the book, if you notice. I remember at the beginning, Batman's got the oval symbol, because apparently that was supposed to be a new costume, but then stuff at DC changed, so then he goes back to using the silhouette book, so. I wanted to change my outfits in the middle of the big. No, I thought this movie was a little long, too, going back to the movie. Yeah.
00:51:41
Speaker
You know what it was? They wanted to give her, they wanted to round out her character arc with each individual character, which really focused on them giving enough time to everyone, which slowed down the third act tremendously.
Third Act Pacing and Resolution
00:51:58
Speaker
Because it's got a lot of action, it's fast-paced, multiverse stuff.
00:52:03
Speaker
And then it just we have to we have to give each character relationship a nice bow. And it made the third act drag a lot. I thought it could. And in fact, it was originally supposed to be longer because they were they were going to wrap up all the characters, even like the minor characters, they're wrapping up all their stories, too. And that in that third act. And so eventually there was like they said it was like 45 minutes of them climbing the stairs and it got ridiculous.
00:52:30
Speaker
But yeah, I do agree. I think there's definitely some stuff that could have been trimmed out of this to make it a little bit better paced. You know what? Directors cuts are all the rage these days. So it would have been for an Oscar winner, big buzz movie like this, if they had trimmed 25 minutes and they released a movie that was 40 minutes longer, directors cut, it would have been another opportunity to cash in.
00:52:54
Speaker
Another thing people have talked about is kind of like the themes of this and you even have someone like Guillermo del Toro says that this movie will probably be for Generation Z what movies like The Graduate were for his generation like it's going to be a movie that really kind of speaks to that generation and I think you could really see that because you know we talk often about how
00:53:19
Speaker
I remember reminded of a Lewis Black quote where he said that satire and reality have now intersected and now you look at some of the headlines in the onion and you're not sure if they're real or if they're fake these days. And so the world has gotten so absurd and there are all these different
00:53:37
Speaker
you know, different virtual worlds, everything are living in and people are growing up in now. And it really is kind of like people are, Generation Z has kind of grown up in a multiverse themselves. And I think, and how nihilism is a natural response to that, right? It's a natural thing to fall into with, if everything matters, nothing matters. If nothing matters, what's the point? Are you familiar with the birds aren't real movement?
00:54:06
Speaker
Yes, yes. Exactly what it is. 100%. It's a Generation Z movement of we're fed up with this alternate fake news world. So we're just going to conspiracy theory it up and come up with birds aren't real. It's exactly what that is. And you're right. It's
00:54:25
Speaker
Absurdist, absurdism has become kind of the calling card of this younger generation because everything's just been so crazy. I mean, even my parents who are 60, 70 years old are saying, I've never lived in a time period like this.
00:54:44
Speaker
And if you lived in a time period where this is all you know, because you're growing up in it, I can't imagine what you're thinking of. And we're living in a world where our eyes are constantly bombarded with screens of the news everywhere we go. It wasn't like that in the 70s and the 80s, not even in 90s. Now you pick up a phone and
00:55:06
Speaker
everything that's going on, all the craziness is just you're absorbing it constantly. So, yeah, it's kind of that's all our kids are jobo, you know? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, the whole I mean, as you're saying, I was thinking, yeah, we're seeing everything everywhere all at once. Right. We are seeing that is. And that is, you know, you cannot. You can't disconnect at any point, like everything is always intruding on your life in some form or another.
00:55:35
Speaker
I read a quote, I don't know if it's true, so I don't wanna say it's accurate, but I read something in a Fareed Zakaria book. He said that historically speaking right now, we are living in one of the most peaceful times in humanity. It just doesn't feel like that because every crisis from every corner of the globe is on our minds. Like 200 years ago, 300 years ago, if something happened on the other side of the earth, you would never know about it.
00:56:03
Speaker
But now if there's a wildfire in Australia and me living in New York, I'm going to see in the news every day. So because of that, it's created this perception that everything is crazy all at the same time. And humans just aren't wired to live like that. We haven't evolved being in that fight or flight mode constantly. So it's who knows what it's going to be like 20 years from now, what people growing up in this time are going to be like. And, you know, I
00:56:33
Speaker
Sorry. I hope that we, I mean, this movie might, you might be right, or he might be right that this movie is going to inspire a whole new generation of filmmakers. My fear is that out of every 10 movies that get made that were inspired by this, only one of them is going to get it right. You know, there are going to be so many people that try to do something like this. It's just going to fall flat.
00:56:57
Speaker
Yeah. But we had the same thing, too, in the 90s, right? After Pulp Fiction, there was thousands of Tarantino imitators trying to come up with their next version of Pulp Fiction. And most of them were garbage. And so, yeah, we'll see that. But I guess it's just that's just the cycle of filmmaking. You can't really escape it. I mean, but but I.
00:57:18
Speaker
I admire the fact that there are going to be people who are going to try that stuff though. Like I'd rather see people trying to do stuff like this. And yeah, maybe only one will be good, but you know, I'm all right. I would rather see 20
00:57:36
Speaker
low-budget movies trying to do something like this, then five big-budget movies trying to be the next Marvel blockbuster. I've been watching Marvel, even though Marvel's recent, I've been watching Marvel blockbusters since I was a kid. I know that the effects have changed, the style of filming has changed, but the same type of big grandiose storytelling, it's just, it never goes away. It's always gonna be there in some fashion.
00:58:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Independent Film Success and Casting Choices
00:58:07
Speaker
And yeah, if this inspired because, you know, this movie was incredibly successful with, you know, such a, again, small budget, a lot of people were talking about how movies of small budgets can't be made anymore. And, you know, if they do, they're made straight for streaming. But this is a movie that
00:58:27
Speaker
This is the exception. I don't know if you want to say the exception that proves that rule or what, but that you can still have movies like this that don't have big budgets that are that are still very creative and and very entertaining and can find a lot of success. I mean, this has gotten, you know, it's what it's like the most nominated movie of all time or something like that.
00:58:49
Speaker
I have no idea. I mean, there's a lot to nominate about. I could see screenplay editing, sound editing, visual effects, acting. I could see it running the gamut. Yeah. What else? I was just about to say something and you got me distracted by Oscar buzz.
00:59:10
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I, I, I can't remember, can't exactly find where it was ended through different ideas, different notions about us is yeah, this, um, Oh, it says that prior to the 95th Academy Awards. So I don't know what it is now, but this had surpassed Return of the King as the most awarded film of all time.
00:59:32
Speaker
to pass Return of the King. Okay. All right. I'm not, I'm, I'm really, I don't think most people are into the Oscars anymore. I mean, I didn't think I was back in the day, maybe like 10 years ago, I would see what was nominated. Let me try to watch them all. Now I'm just like, Hey, I don't really, I don't. Yeah. I remember back when I was in university, you know, we used to have like Oscar watch parties and stuff like that, but now I'm just like, I,
00:59:54
Speaker
when people were like, oh, the Oscars lesson, I'm like, oh, really? They're still doing that thing? And I look at the movies and I'm like, I have never heard of any of these films. I feel like the movies are just, it's not, I'm going to want to say political in the sense of politics, but I feel like the Oscar process itself is going to political. There are so many movies that are so great, but they're never going to get nominated for anything just because they're not an Oscar type of movie, you know?
01:00:20
Speaker
I mean, Scorsese didn't win an Oscar until it departed, which is insane. Or Denzel Washington being snubbed for Malcolm X, which is, again, another one that was ridiculous. So there's a lot of that. The Oscars are definitely very political.
01:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that's been exposed to a lot of our generation and younger generations. It's just not as hip as, you know what it was? My mother liked to watch Oscars because she liked to see people in fancy dresses. I don't think those people really are that around anymore.
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think I remember that too. A lot of people talking, a lot of the buzz and stuff about who's wearing what and all that. I'm just like, I just, I don't care about any of that stuff. I just wanna know which movies are worth watching. And now the movie side of it is just not the same as it used to be, so. Yeah. Okay, is there anything else you wanted to mention about everything everywhere all at once?
01:01:19
Speaker
Oh, I mean, there's just this movie has a lot going on. So you could talk about it forever. But I think we touched upon the influences, the homages, the absurdity, the tones, the character shifts.
01:01:36
Speaker
It was just, you know what I thought was great? Well, when she said she's gone off the map is when she's on a completely different evolutionary path for humans. It's like, that's the breaking point. When she's in a version of herself that's no longer human, I thought that that was pretty cool, which they were somehow mapping on like a 1990s cell phone. It's just fun. It was just fun the way they did it.
01:02:03
Speaker
Well, it's like when you watch like alien and you see like all these retro, like 1970s style computers all over the ships. That's the great thing about about Star Wars is now they're doing all this stuff in the kind of the original trilogy era. So they have to dumb down the tech in order to make sense for the bat, the old 1960s Batcave with all the the punch card computers and stuff like that.
01:02:29
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. Another thing too, I wanted to mention, I forgot, but Stephanie Shue, who plays, again, who plays Joy, apparently she was not originally up for this role. Originally it was Awkwafina who was being considered for it.
01:02:46
Speaker
That would have been a bad decision. I mean, I would have been curious to see, because I do love Awkwafina, but I don't know if she has the same range that she pulls off in this movie. I don't, I mean, I haven't seen a lot of her work. I thought she was great in Shang-Chi. She was in something else that I saw. She was a voice of someone. Yeah, she did a lot of voice work. She was also in Crazy Rich Asians.
01:03:14
Speaker
Oh, you know what I saw? I saw she did. Have you seen the boys animated series? No, I've watched the boys. I've seen the I've watched the TV show. Yeah, I didn't know there was an animated thing. Yeah, there was an animated series. It's kind of like every episode is like a one off in the boys universe. And she wrote
01:03:34
Speaker
I don't think she directed it, but she wrote a story and she did the main voice of the character who a girl steals Compound V and she drinks it to try to get superpowers. And the superpowers she get is she becomes poop kinetic. She can control poop with her mind.
01:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's about as it would fit very well with this movie about how absurd and ridiculous it is. But it was she was also in the the live action Little Mermaid. She was the voice of of Scuttle, the the bird in that. Oh, I haven't seen that one yet.
01:04:09
Speaker
It was all right. I mean, I thought, I thought her part in it as a Scuttle was actually pretty good, but. But no, but she was great in Shang-Chi. I thought she pulled it. She was great comedic actor. There was just, there was a lot of pathos in range in this. And you know what it was? The girl who, who played Joy did such a great job that it's hard to picture somebody else in the role, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would have been curious. I can't imagine anybody else in the roles.
01:04:39
Speaker
Well, actually the original plot plan for this was not to have Michelle Yeoh. The original script was written for Jackie Chan in that role. And then they decided to switch it to, they thought having a female character would make more sense for the script. Don't they have a little bit of a rivalry going on? Do they? Michelle Yeoh and Jackie Chan. Yeah, I think she said some harsh words about him. I don't want a,
01:05:07
Speaker
I don't want to put anything in my, my foot in my mouth.
01:05:17
Speaker
Michelle Yeoh has been vocal in a criticism of Jackie Chan's chauvinistic comments. Their friendship and shared professional history makes their relationship that much, that more interesting. So I guess they're friends, but she's talked smack about him. I don't know. What do I know? I'm not a historian, but. But yeah, apparently like originally this was written for Jackie Chan. And you know, I think he would have definitely done a good job with those comedic aspects, but as far as like, you know,
01:05:43
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think he has the range that she has. Like she's just, again, she's on another level. I haven't seen a lot of his recent stuff, but I thought The Foreigner was great. I haven't seen that. I thought that was a great movie. I thought he did a great job at that.
01:06:00
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I think in summer, I think this is such a refreshing movie. It was so much fun to watch. And you know how it is, and I've said this a lot on this show and on my other show, but whenever there's a movie that is talked so much up and is hyped so much up, when I eventually get to see it, I end up being disappointed a lot of times, just being like, well, that was not as good as the hype led me to believe it would be. But this one, I thought it completely lived up
01:06:28
Speaker
to the hype that I had read about. I didn't really read a lot about a hype. I mean, I knew that it won an Oscar. It was best picture, right? It won best picture. Yeah.
01:06:40
Speaker
So I knew that, I knew a lot of people liked it. I knew it was about the multiverse. I see that one line that they post memes of all the time when they say, I just wanna do taxes and laundry with you. So I'm pretty much just watching the movie waiting for that line to come up. I actually liked the line more when they're rocks and they just type out dialogue. What does she say?
01:07:06
Speaker
that the more, that the bigger the discovery humans come up with, the more we realize how insignificant we are. I'm paraphrasing. Or yeah, or like the more we realize how, what big pieces of shit we are or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that line was much more impactful and I was like, yeah, absolutely.
01:07:23
Speaker
I agree, too. Yeah, I thought that line was definitely more impactful. I mean, I did love the I just want to do taxes and laundry with you. I did think that was a cute line. But yeah, the the the line from Joy was so much more impactful. It was it was cute. But, you know, it's minimized when you know it's coming. When you when you see people post all the time, it's like you kind of ruined it. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I did not I did not see that line. So I was that came. It was not expected for me at all.
01:07:51
Speaker
But yeah, this one, best picture, best actress, best supporting actress, best supporting actor, best director, best original screenplay. Those are all the top ones. Pretty much. Original score, costumes, yeah. It didn't get best actor.
01:08:08
Speaker
So, yeah. Best actors they got, but not best actors. Yes, because, yeah, OK. But this is pretty much pretty much right, because the there was only the only the best because there was only there was no main actor. Right. Yeah. Ki-hee Kwon was just a supporting actor. So and he won for that. Um.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I the only thing was the screenplay that I would kind of like the if you wanted to win best screenplay, was it nominated? Best original screenplay, yeah. It won? It looks like it, yeah.
01:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I just, it's just, it's so, I don't want to, like something about this movie keeps me from saying it's a quote unquote good movie. I was watching it, maybe because it was too long and I was kind of at the point where I'm like, I want to go to bed. But everything about it, I thought there's so many little cinematography things, like you could tell they storyboarded every single minute of this movie, every single second.
01:09:11
Speaker
because nothing was by chance. And in a movie that this crazy with so many different shots and so much editing, you really just appreciate how much care is taken into every moment that they give to these characters. It's not taken for granted. Absolutely, yeah. So I think that's a pretty good note to end on. So Frank, why don't you tell people where they can find you?
01:09:40
Speaker
My website is frankthewriter.com. You can sign up for my mailing list there if you want to follow along with all of my fun stuff. It's pretty simple.
01:09:49
Speaker
And as for us, we are at superherosinophiles.com is the website, supercinemapod on the socials, which is mostly blue sky and threads these days. And also I've got a comic book out called Paragons of Earth. You can find it at crowdfunder.com slash paragonscomic. That's crowdfundernoe.com slash paragonscomic. By the time you listen to this, it should be available to purchase. So you can go and purchase it through there.
01:10:17
Speaker
Also, you'll find links to it to where you can purchase at other places as well, but please make sure to check that out. If we get enough support, it will determine whether or not we can do a second issue. Thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time.
01:10:38
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Superhero Cinephiles is produced by me, Percival Constantine, with the support of Zencaster. The show is created by myself and the late, great Derek Ferguson, our host, Emeritus. Visit us on the web at SuperheroCinephiles.com to listen to past episodes or find out how you can be a guest yourself. Support the show by visiting our advertiser links or click the Buy Me a Coffee link on the website to make a one-time donation. You can also support us by visiting Crowdfunder.com slash ParagonsComic. That's Crowdfunder with no E,
01:11:07
Speaker
dot com slash paragons comic and help support my superhero comic book paragons of earth we are super cinema pod on both instagram and blue sky so please be sure to follow us we'd also appreciate if you could rate and review the show on apple podcasts and share us with your friends
01:11:41
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.