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Spider-Man: No Way Home
218 Plays3 years ago
SPOILER ALERT: This episode includes spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home. If you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled, please make sure you watch the movie before listening to this episode.
Comic writer and novelist Morgan Quaid makes his debut on the show to discuss the live-action version of Spider-Verse with Spider-Man: No Way Home. We talk about the wonderful cast, the thrill of seeing the three live-action Spider-Men onscreen together, and then get into some of the story problems the performances do a great job of covering up.
Visit Morgan Quaid's website to find out more about his books and comics.
Help support the show by buying or renting this movie on Amazon.
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.
This month, we're teaming up with Technically A Conversation, a podcast for curious people by curious people. Head on over to their site to listen to conversations on all sorts of interesting conversations, from urban legends, the supernatural and the occult, science, espionage, and so much more.
Patrons get to listen to episodes before everyone else and they also get access to my exclusive companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. If you want to join in, please consider supporting us through Patreon!
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Transcript
Introduction to Technically a Conversation Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Greetings, we're technically a conversation, a podcast for curious people by curious people. Every week we take turns presenting a new topic and the other host has no idea what the topic will be. We strive to educate in a way that's loose and fun. Our topics are all over the place from light and funny to dark and sometimes spooky.
00:00:22
Speaker
Some of the topics we've covered include urban legends, civil rights activists, vampires, pop culture icons, the supernatural and occult, spies and espionage, science and astronomy, and other weird and random things.
00:00:38
Speaker
If any of these topics interest you, give our podcast a shot. Listen and subscribe at TechnicallyAConversation.com, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.
Humor and Lighthearted Banter
00:00:51
Speaker
Parental advisory, we might use strong language.
00:01:12
Speaker
Okay guys, it could be any minute now. Yep, almost done. You know, Max was like the sweetest guy ever before he fell into a pool of electric eels. That'll do it.
00:01:34
Speaker
Oh, there it goes. You okay? Oh, it's my back. It's kind of stiff from all the swinging, I guess. Oh, yeah. No, I got a middle back thing, too. Really? Yeah. You want me to crack it? Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. All right. You ready? Yeah. That's good. That was it. Wow.
00:02:04
Speaker
That's good. Right? That's better. Yeah. Wow. God, this is so cool. I always wanted brothers. So you, like, make your own web fluid in your body? I'd rather not talk about this. No, I don't mean to... Are you teasing me? No, no, no, no, no. He's not teasing you. It's just that...
00:02:43
Speaker
Does it come out of anywhere else? Only the wrists. You never had a web block? Because I run out of webs all the time. I had to make my own in a lab. And it's a hassle compared to where you go. That sounds like a hassle, yeah. But I did, actually. You said that. I was like, oh, I had a web block. Whoa. Why? Existential crisis stuff. Yeah, I mean, don't get me started on that. Hey.
00:02:51
Speaker
We can't do that, so naturally we're curious as to how your web situation works. That's all.
00:03:04
Speaker
What are, like, some of the craziest villains that you guys have fought? Seems you've met some of them. That's a good question. Yeah, I fought an alien made out of black goo once. Oh, no way. I fought an alien, too, on Earth and in space. Oh. Yeah, he was purple. I want to fight an alien. I'm still, like, that you fought an alien in space.
00:03:26
Speaker
I'm lame. I fought a Russian guy in a rhinoceros machine. Can we wind it back to the I'm lame part? Because you are not. No, thanks. No, yeah, I appreciate it. I'm not saying I'm lame. But just the self-talk. Maybe we should listen to that. You're amazing. Just to take it in for a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can take it in. No, I can take it in. You are amazing. I can take it in. You are amazing. Thank you. Will you say
Morgan Quaid on Speculative Fiction
00:03:49
Speaker
it? No, I kind of needed to hear that. Thank you.
00:03:53
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest to the show, and that is Morgan Quaid. Morgan, how you doing today? Hey, very good, very good. Glad to be here. Well, I'm glad you accepted the invitation. Thanks for coming on. But before we jump into the discussion for today, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm as you can probably tell by the twangy accent Australian. So I'm an Australian writer and musician and composer. Yeah, I write a combination of comics and graphic novels and novels, all that sort of stuff, usually with speculative fiction slash fantasy slash horror.
00:04:35
Speaker
I don't really know what the genre, I should know what the genre is that I write primarily, but yeah, they typically have a fantasy sort of bent. Yeah, and through a couple of indie publishers, and then I self-publish my own stuff every now and then.
00:04:50
Speaker
as well. Yeah, so if you wanting to know more about me, feel free to go to MorganQuaid.com or find me on social media and you'll see I'm not shy about throwing my stuff in everyone's face. And so yeah, you'll see there's lots of stuff coming up. I've got a new book coming out in another couple of weeks called The Seven Hungers. It's book two of the series, kind of an urban fantasy horror sort of thing.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I've got other stuff coming out all the time. So yeah, feel free to get in touch for sure. Awesome. So the seven hungers, is that probably the biggest thing you've been working on so far?
00:05:29
Speaker
It's the biggest novel series I've been working on. So the comics, Shadow's Daughter is probably the last big project that I was working on. So that was nine comics in the series and they did a big Kickstarter campaign for that. That's completed and I'm just getting it all printed. And the publisher that picked that up, Markosia, they're now starting to push out the digital versions of that from next month. So that's a big one on the comic side.
00:05:57
Speaker
on the novel side, The Seven Hunters, it's a series and I'm trying to think through how many are they gonna be in the series and just driving myself at the moment to see how far I can go until the ideas kind of fizzle out. So at the moment I'm enjoying it. So it's kind of, you know, good fun.
00:06:16
Speaker
So as an urban fantasy, and don't worry guys, we'll get to the movie, but I just want to talk a little bit of shop here for a minute. But as an urban fantasy author of novels myself, I'm curious, what did you do first? Did the novel come first or the comics?
00:06:33
Speaker
Always the novels. Yeah, I started writing novels years ago and was trying to go through the traditional route of, you know, get a literary agent and then get a big publisher and all that. So
Challenges in Writing Novels vs. Comics
00:06:45
Speaker
after about 10 years of misery trying that way, I discovered comics and thought, wow, this is amazing. I could, you know, I could build my own thing from scratch. It's kind of just a little step away from film, which would, you know, be amazing.
00:06:58
Speaker
Very expensive is the downside for all the artwork and everything. But yeah, so I started doing it. So I already had a suite of, you know, seven or eight books to draw from to start writing scripts for the comics. But it was always the novels first. Now, over the last two or three years, this is the first time where I've written comics first in some series and then gone the other way and written novels. I'll always tend to do both because why wouldn't you, you know?
00:07:26
Speaker
as much stuff as you can and build out the world and all that sort of stuff. So I'm curious about the seven hungers, especially because you got the books and the and the comics with that. Do they are they like are the is one an adaptation of the other or is it a story continuation or is it just like same characters, but kind of like almost different universe type of thing? Like what's kind of the approach you've done with that?
00:07:51
Speaker
It's usually it's the same central story. And so probably Shadow's Daughter is the better example because that's both. So it was the central story from the novel and there's two comics into that, but they're quite large. They're about 60 odd pages and a bit larger than normal.
00:08:10
Speaker
And then there's another two that will complete that main story arc, which is the novel. But then there are the other seven issues were kind of almost like case files from the main characters early life. Which means you can just sort of flesh out episodes without having to write them into a full novel. Because as you would know, writing a novel is exhausting, even a small novel.
00:08:32
Speaker
It's so much time and effort and then editing and then, you know, it's just, it takes a lot out. Whereas the writing side of comics, I find a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable and flexible and all the rest of it. So it's not quite a soul destroying on the writing front. It's just- Everything comes after. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. It's so funny how, cause I, yeah, I've had that same experience where, you know, I love writing comics, like just getting in there, writing the comics and getting it all out.
00:09:02
Speaker
And I love lettering comics too. I love, you know, going through and doing all that. But it's that part after the writing where you've got to get the team together, get the book put together. That's just, it's so exhausting. Whereas when you're self-publishing, you know, obviously if you're dealing with a publisher, there's a whole different story there. But with novels, it's the complete opposite. Like it's the writing part that's so exhausting. It takes so long. But then after that, the publishing part is just,
00:09:30
Speaker
It's easy. It's so easy. I can get it done in like a week and I've got it on all the platforms. I got the paperbacks. I've got the e-books. It's so simple.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, and that's a big change over the last 10, 15 years because it used to be, I mean, it still is easier at that end with writing a novel, but you just didn't have the print on demand stuff that you have now and trying to get them in all the shops and everything. It's so easy, like you said, and you're exactly right.
00:10:01
Speaker
the easy bits writing the script. Once the script is done, yeah, that's fine. Then you've got to wait for months and months and months for the artwork to get done. You've got to go back and forward and put it all together. And yeah, there's pros and cons. I find it's good to sort of swap between one and the other to keep yourself sane and interested and all the rest of it. Cause like, so I've just finished book three in the first draft of book three and the seven hungers. And I'm starting on book four now.
00:10:26
Speaker
which is a silly thing to do before I've finished editing book three, but you know, we do what we do. And book three was tough. Book one and two pretty much wrote themselves super, you know, easy, a lot of work, but still easy. But the ideas and, you know, things get complicated the further in the storyline you go. And there's things you can't do and things you can do and characters that are dead, not dead and all the rest of it. It was a real struggle, this third one, to get to the point where like, how the hell am I going to end this thing?
00:10:56
Speaker
which is the, again, I find it's the same process with comics, but it is a little bit different. I find with novels, the way I write anyway, you spend the first half of the story complicating the life of the protagonist and making life hell for them and creating problems. And then the second half trying to resolve those problems to some degree, which is really problematic when you haven't planned it out, because you just, I don't know if you have this, but you're sitting there staring in the middle of the book and thinking, how am I gonna do this in a way that's not,
00:11:26
Speaker
just silly, like, you know, and then they woke up and it was all a dream. And everything's fine. Anyway, it's good fun. I shouldn't complain. It's No, yeah, it's I mean, it's, you know, we're not we're not laying bricks or anything. So there's that. Right. That's right. But one other question, and then we'll jump into the movie. But what is
00:11:46
Speaker
What's the crossover audience been like from the novels to the books or the comics and the comics to the novels? Have you had a lot of crossover audience? Have you had a different audience? Because I've been thinking about turning my most popular
00:12:01
Speaker
urban fantasy series, the Luther Cross series and doing some comics with it. And I polled my readers and most of them said that they were not interested in having anything to do with comics. They just wanted novels. So what has your experience been? Have you seen any kind of crossover or has it just been like introduced starting over and introducing it to a brand new audience?
Spider-Man: No Way Home Analysis
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I did exactly the same thing on the opposite side. So I asked the comic supporters that supported my last projects, do you read novels? Would you be interested in this sort of thing? And it was about a 50% that said, yeah, yeah, I'd be keen. I'd be interested. You know, definitely. My sneaking suspicion is, though, the comic readers are not avid
00:12:44
Speaker
readers of novels because it's a time issue and it's and they have a preference for you know sort of artwork and that sort of stuff. So I don't know I'm still experimenting with the as you say trying to combine the two. I have a feeling yeah a lot of the people that love novels are not going to come over to comics anytime soon and probably vice versa. I think it's good in a potentially in a
00:13:08
Speaker
Kickstarter campaign sort of scenario or something like that, uh, crowdfunding campaign to add it as a bonus because you'll get a few people that will think, Oh, that's great. And that, or it might be, you know, spouses or something that, you know, one will prefer novels, one will prefer comics, and you can sort of spread the word that way. But I, I don't, I don't think it's a big cross section, unfortunately, with people that like, like both. Yeah. I just don't think there's many.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, that seems to bear out with what I've seen too, which is both good and bad. On the good side, you don't have to come up with a whole new story. You can just adapt the stuff you've already got written. But on the bad side, then, you know, you don't have that built in audience. So either way, you got something that's right. And all the promotion and everything you have. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. When someone gets like AI promotion services or something like that, I'm signing up.
00:14:03
Speaker
Anyway, so today we're talking about Spider-Man, No Way Home, one that just came out this past December. So I know it's fairly recent. And so if you're one of the 10 people or so who probably hasn't seen it yet or hasn't had it spoiled already, then you might want to stop the podcast, go watch it, and then come back. Because I don't think you could talk about this movie without spoiling it. Yeah, 100%.
00:14:31
Speaker
So and that actually kind of surprised me when we were in our correspondence, because you were actually one of those people who said that you hadn't gotten around to seeing it yet. Yeah, well, I mean, so I mean, we haven't I haven't been out of the house a lot in the last couple of years with the pandemic. I don't tend to go to the movies very often anyway.
00:14:53
Speaker
So yes, I hadn't seen it in the movies, and I've been sort of waiting for it to show up on the subscription services online to get it, you know, because I think we get things a little bit later than some other areas like like the US and stuff, but right. Yeah, so that's why I hadn't I mean, I could have bought it early and watched it early, but purposely sort of waiting for myself because I found
00:15:16
Speaker
I don't know, I don't know what it is, but I found, so I knew that, okay, there are going to be, and spoiler alert as if we haven't already done it. I knew that there was going to be more than one Spider-Man, you know, in this, I knew that there were going to be the past enemies from past movies coming in and all sorts of stuff. It's pretty clear from the trailers, you know, what's going to happen. And then people are talking about it and raving about the movie and all sorts of stuff. But for me, it didn't, it doesn't really spoil the experience. I don't know. I don't need it to be a surprise for me to enjoy the film.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I don't know. So that's why I'm happy to just leave it and watch it when I'm ready and then it goes through it. So I watched it one and a half times in preparation for this. Watched it once all the way through and then I just had a quick little skim through a little while ago just to get my thoughts together.
00:16:06
Speaker
Okay, and so going back, were you a Spider-Man fan from way back when, or what's kind of your association with the character? Yeah, so when I was a kid, I was a big, and I mean young kid, I was a big Spider-Man fan and not at all a comic book fan.
00:16:28
Speaker
So it was all, my exposure was all TV. It was all the cartoons that were on, you know, back in the eighties. And I loved it. So I've got photos of me somewhere dressed in Spider-Man outfit, you know, shooting webs and all this sort of stuff. So, and I can't remember, my memory is terrible with this sort of stuff. So I honestly can't remember what it was about the character or anything. I just, it wasn't Superman. It wasn't Batman. It wasn't anyone like that. It was for some reason, Spider-Man.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, just loved him. But like I said, I never really, I wasn't into comics when I was younger. That's only been a really recent thing that I discovered probably seven or eight years ago.
00:17:10
Speaker
And so consequently, I mean, I have gone back and reread some of the original DC and Marvel stuff, but I'm still not a massive fan of that. Cause I kind of missed it. So it's more the modern stuff and modern indie stuff that I'm into. But yeah, that's pretty much the connection with Spider-Man. And then the movies of, so I've watched every superhero movie and you know, there's always, whether they're good or bad, there's always some good stuff to get out of. So I've watched all the Spider-Man films, obviously, and particularly the newer ones that came out.
00:17:40
Speaker
that I referred to in this film. So it was good, because I wasn't missing anything. I could kind of immediately recognize, yeah, who's from there and all that sort of stuff, which I think is part of the the drawer of this film is, you know, bringing it all together. Oh, yeah, definitely. I think because my wife had only recently seen all the Spider-Man movies because, you know, I kind of
00:18:03
Speaker
dragged her kicking and screaming into becoming a fan of superhero movies, but but we she's seen all the movies now so she saw everything before we went to and we had been in America's when it came out so we're actually able to go see it on opening night. And so she was more or less up to date but probably not as much as like
00:18:25
Speaker
someone like me or possibly even you who's very familiar with those movies and was able to point out like notice all the little little Easter eggs like the, you know, I'm something of a scientist myself line and stuff like that.
00:18:39
Speaker
But yeah, my association with Spider-Man, kind of similar with you, I didn't come in through the comics. I came in through the, for me, it was the 90s animated series. So that was the one that was on Fox, I think it was. That was the one that brought me and made me a fan of the character. But your experience of just kind of like all week, not really knowing how you got into it, that was kind of like me with Superman because
00:19:02
Speaker
I don't know when, I have no memory of the time when I watched the first Superman movie or if it was, you know, the cartoons that they had, it would have had to have been in the 80s then. Or if it was, you know, the old Max Fleischer serials or what it was. But at some point in, before I can remember, I became a Superman fan. So I really remember about it.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's out there in the, in, in the culture and the right. Yeah. And back, back in those days as well, there just wasn't as much. So there was, you would have one long running series for a time and then maybe a break and then another series and then you'd have a movie and then you'd wait a year or two years and then you'd have another, you know, as opposed to now where, you know, every year there's multiple, you know, big blockbusters coming out.
00:19:47
Speaker
with superhero con and then you have that kind of indie superhero style things like the boys and all those sorts of things that have been coming out recently. Right. As well. So this as well as like the TV shows to whenever all that stuff going on too.
00:19:59
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Whereas when we were younger, it was, there were two or three things that would constantly come up, like your Batman, Superman, you know, Spider-Man. And that wasn't much else. So you would kind of latch on, I think, to that. And also, if you're going to a party with friends, you're going to dress as one of them, odds are. Right. Because that's the costumes that are around. That's what you're seeing, you know. Yeah, but same as you, I can't remember.
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah, I remember when I was in an elementary school and wanting a Venom costume. They just didn't exist. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So my grandmother made me a Venom costume with like a not a really good, really kind of like crappy mask type thing. And then I remember going to school and everybody being like, who are you? What are you dressed as? And like now it's completely different.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's a hard, that's a hard one to make though. Venom. Yeah, it was just like, it was just like, you know, paint over the, over a, over a cloth mask or something like that for the time. Yeah. Yeah. Big taste. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was how we could really manage back then. Um, so what did you think of no way home?
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, I liked it. I liked, I particularly liked, I love the start and I love the interaction with the main characters, the sort of the cast and the ensemble and the way that I like, and this is something I think Marvel does particularly well with the movies. I like the way they portray mundane, funny stuff, things that, so sideways conversations between superheroes or
00:21:37
Speaker
you know, the three, the two, two, two boys and one girl, which is the perfect, as we know from Harry Potter, the perfect combination of, you know, heroes, you know, and just the way they interact and talk and talk about, you know, silly little things. And even the,
00:21:52
Speaker
my son was absolutely thought it was hilarious when they're right at the start they're doing the whole dude dude dude dude thing which you know is pretty old hat for me but it was nice to see and it's kind of it resonates you know those sorts of moments and you know and the
00:22:11
Speaker
you know, forgotten which one, the original, the first Peter with the sore back, you know, and the- Oh, Tobey Maguire, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Those sort of things, I mean, I find them really funny. I like the fact that they're in a superhero movie now because I'm just not a fan of,
00:22:29
Speaker
the impenetrable hero whose only struggle is with you know the the morality of what you know i have all the power but should i use it that that's not enough for me i like that the everyday you know sort of sort of stuff um and particularly in this one like i say i love the start because
00:22:48
Speaker
you're immediately in there don't don't give me this don't go back to this you know the beginning and give me preface and all that so just get right into it throw throw the main characters right in the middle of it that's exactly what they did and i love that and then see what kind of uh what happens out of that so yeah so overall i really like it of course i've got you know plot issues and things like that but
00:23:10
Speaker
But I really enjoyed the film then, really. Yeah, I think you really hit on what was my favorite thing about it was just that interaction with all the characters and the scenes with the three Spider-Men, I mean, those are just, it's just, those were just like perfect. I mean, I loved seeing the interact, and I love that it's not this, because there's a tendency when you have,
00:23:33
Speaker
different versions of the same character meeting each other where it's like, oh, they've got to fight. They've got to have some sort of, you know, they've got to be jealous of each other or something like that. There's got to be some animosity. And you'd even see like, then there's potential for that with like Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man, who, you know, he lost his Gwen and then
00:23:53
Speaker
You know, Toby's got his MJ, Tom's got his MJ, and Andrew, he's got no one. So you could definitely see them going down a path where he's like bitter and jealous of them or something like that, but they didn't. And I love that. I love that they're just so happy to know that there's someone else in the multiverse who knows what it's like to be Spider-Man. I thought that was so cool. And it brought me back to, I'm not sure, did you see the Crisis on Infinite Earths TV series they did a few years ago?
00:24:24
Speaker
No, and I think I did. Okay, so that was pretty good. They had all the, they did the multiverse event with all the CW, DC TV shows. And they had, one of the best things about it was you had Brandon Routh coming back as Superman and interacting with Tyler Hochland, Superman. And it was very much the same kind of dynamic where they're not jealous of it. Also Tom Welling came back for a brief scene as well as from Smallville.
00:24:51
Speaker
But it was this great thing where you didn't have them like have this animosity towards each other. It's just like, hey, we're all Superman. That's pretty cool type of type of situation. I really like that they they did that same kind of thing. And I love that kind of like brotherly interaction, especially when you had Toby and Andrew just kind of.
00:25:09
Speaker
you know, conversing with each other and like talking about the lower back thing and just having the discussions about how you make webs in your body. How does that work? And just, I loved all of that. I thought it was hilarious. I almost feel like it felt so natural. And I know there's, you know, they're good actors and they're good writers on this. So it could be a dis, you know, some people say it's a disservice to say this, but it was so natural that I would not be surprised if all that dialogue was just ad-libbed.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's the sign of excellent writing and excellent acting kind of being combined where you don't know. It seems like it's all just, it's vivid and it's real. And yeah, I liked exactly that same point that they didn't go.
00:25:55
Speaker
They were kind of giving us the red herring there a bit. You think, okay, you're going to have the dark Spider-Man that resents what these others have got. And particularly that scene when he catches MJ, you know, just stops her from, but that, you know, and he's kind of like, I'm literally seeing what I've lost and, you know, could I, could I have this for myself? But you could just sense there was none of that. It was more of the, I'm doing this for someone that is like a brother to me.
00:26:21
Speaker
And I love the idea as well, because it suits the Peter Parker character so well that they wouldn't do that, that they wouldn't just, you know, you know, go that way. And also of, you know, every superhero kind of has this thing, or most of them do.
00:26:37
Speaker
But it's this solitude that they have to deal with every single day. And even the fact that the other two Spider-Men, they haven't been revealed. So they still have their secret identity. So they're still alone and struggling with this with loss and all the rest of it. And it was just great to see the camaraderie between the three because they all have been in that same situation and are living it.
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, that was really cool. And I thought it was a good move and it fits the tone of the movie that you can still have action and you can still do all the sort of great stuff without getting what is now the typical trope of the betrayer. You know, we don't need that every time. So that was really cool. Well, so I loved and you mentioned the scene when Andrew saves MJ. God, that...
00:27:26
Speaker
Andrew Garfield's performance in this was so good. Both him and Toby, they're not given a whole lot of material to work with. They're given just the right amount because it's still Tom's movie and the writers and the director, they were going in respecting the fact that this is still Tom Holland's Spider-Man. It's his movie, his story. It's understandable why they weren't given a whole ton to work with.
00:27:51
Speaker
Garfield totally sells at what every inch of what he's given to work with. Like the whole, whole scene when he's talking about how like, you know, I stopped pulling my punches at some point and then just like the heartbreak on his face after he says MJ and he says, are you okay? And she says, yes. And then, and she's looking at she's like, are you okay? And just like that, that was just, I, you know, I loved, I've always loved Andrew Garfield, Spider-Man. And I thought,
00:28:19
Speaker
seeing him get to play, get to revisit that role was just such a treat. I mean, it was great seeing Toby back as well, don't get me wrong, but Andrew Garfield was definitely one that I, he seemed the most at that time as the Spider-Man that I was most familiar with, like with the quipping and all that kind of stuff. He was very much like my Spider-Man growing up.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's the deception of film where you can spend three weeks filming what becomes a 30 second scene. So you forget how much work is done prior to, but each of them
00:29:01
Speaker
And particularly the two Spider-Men that were sort of doing cameos. Every second of time they had, they made the most of it. Every single thing they said, every movement, every eye twitch, everything was just beautifully done.
00:29:19
Speaker
uh not wasted nothing was was waste even the bits where there's you know lulls in conversation they were purposeful it all made sense even i love the bit it's such a silly thing but you know it would happen you know where um
00:29:33
Speaker
Oh, God, what's his name? Spider-Man's friend. Oh, Ned. Yeah. We calls out Peter, Peter, and they will answer, which one? Peter Parker, which one? We're all Peter Parker. You know, it's such a simple thing, but that would happen. And, you know,
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. So I thought they just made the most, very cleverly, of everything from when they turned up. And anyone, you know, we kind of all knew what was going to happen. We knew what was heading. They were telegraphing in there. Yeah, there's going to be a different Spider-Man pop-up very soon. But it was still surprising and great and fun when it happened. And you're right, the depth of emotion that those guys can bring
00:30:15
Speaker
just very quickly, very quickly without any sort of ramp up was really amazing. And Tom Holland I thought was amazing as well. They just, it's...
00:30:26
Speaker
I mean, I don't want to speak out of school, but I don't think you're going to get this in an expendables or in a, it's not as often, I think that you can get three lead characters right next to each other, all being very, and I don't want to use the wanky term, but generous. If I can use that term with each other in terms of acting performance and all the rest of it, they wouldn't, you know, no one was stealing anything. They were all, you know, they just worked so well.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was great. Whereas I think, you know, the tendency sometimes when you get, you know, two or three stars in the one movie is that, you know, one outtries to do the other or whatever, or just doesn't come across as, you know, a bit combative or something. But that would just great, which again, fits perfectly with the Peter Parker personality. That's, I think, what people why people are drawn to that character and they like him. He's younger. He's struggling with things that a lot of heroes struggle with, but he's really struggling with the morality of what he's doing. And
00:31:23
Speaker
you know, all of that sort of stuff. Yeah, it was really cool. Really cool. Yeah, I loved all of that stuff too.
Critique of Dr. Strange and Villain Arcs
00:31:30
Speaker
That scene when Andrew first appears too. So you saw it at home, so you didn't have the theater experience like I did. But one of the things I remember when, as soon as they showed him there, like everyone's just kind of like, oh, oh, is this it? Is this it? And then as soon as he took off his mask, you could not hear a thing in the theater, because everybody was just losing their shit.
00:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's see that's great. Yeah, I did miss that. And I'm the only one in my family that will remember any of the others. My son hasn't seen them yet. So yeah, I was the only one sort of, you know, knowing what was happening, but
00:32:07
Speaker
It was great, it was just well done. And even I think when the portals first opened up, just subtle things like he's facing the wrong way, I think. And then he turns around, he's sort of in darkness and facing the wrong way. I think that's what it was. Just simple things like that. Just such a cool way of doing things. The Ned magic, I'm not sure about. It's one of those things that's like,
00:32:35
Speaker
That's cool. That's really great. That's fun. He's going to have something now, but it's also super convenient. And, you know, those were some of the things I struggled with throughout, you know, at these various points where you think it could have very easily gone very different ways, but you needed it to go this way for the plot to get to the point we were getting to. So,
00:33:01
Speaker
You know, I mean, yeah, that was that was also the problem with Dr. Strange in the movie, too, because when he and Peter have that have that fight. And even my wife commented on this when we were rewatching it the other night. She's like, wow, Dr. Strange is pretty weak in this movie, isn't he?
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah. And bad at spells. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's a very simple thing up front to say, all right, bro, we're going to do a spell. You need to tell me exactly what the parameters of this spell are because I can't go changing it midway. And then he's doing the spell and then, you know,
00:33:36
Speaker
Peter's saying, oh, but what about this? I would need to add this. And I mean, I'm sorry, if you've got kids or if you've been a teacher or anything like that, you just say, no, I'm sorry, bro. I've already started to, you can go and talk to them later. We can fix this some other way, but I'm not going to interrupt this spell, you know, and cause chaos, particularly when you know the stakes. So I think they took the Dr. Strange kind of, um,
00:34:02
Speaker
roguishness and they kind of made it a little bit more like he's clumsy and careless which is a little bit yeah it's like surely he's been doing this long enough that i mean i know he likes to take risks but this isn't so much a risk as a like just tell the teenager no you know like you're already helping him out which is already
00:34:21
Speaker
a pretty big step, you know, no more changes for you. That's it. We're not going to break the universe because you're a bit sad, bro. I'm sorry. That's, that's not the way it's going to work because you want to go to college. Yeah. Or you want your friends to go to college. Well, especially edit, but I mean, it's, and you know, I think it's.
00:34:37
Speaker
It's a testament to how good of an actor Benedict Cumberbatch is because he he makes you believe it all in the moment when you're watching it all. You believe then when you believe his earnestness, you believe his frustration with Peter and his anger at him. And then when you get to the movie and you stop and you think about it, you're like, wait a minute. Some of this stuff just doesn't really quite add up.
00:34:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's a necessary thing for the whole plot to hinge upon, but you're right. In the moment, he just comes across almost like an indulgent parent. Like he knows he probably shouldn't, but he just, this kid's been through a lot and he appreciates the fact that this kid has basically saved the world or helped save the world previously. So like, yep, I'll throw you a bone. I'll do you a favor.
00:35:22
Speaker
But yeah, it just goes a bit too far with the whole, you know, world ending, uh, mistake. And then you get it in a box, which is, that's good. It's in a box now. We're all good, but it's still kind of happened. There's still stuff going that, that threw me a little bit as well. Cause I thought, but hang on, if you've stopped it, then you've stopped it. So.
00:35:43
Speaker
What, you know? Yeah, I couldn't quite understand the logic of needing to bring them all back, like having to go out and capture them all and then reverse the spell because it seemed like if you just reverse the spell, they'd all go back automatically. So that's another thing that seemed, that didn't quite make a lot of sense to me.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah. The, the, um, Pokemon, uh, gambit, if we want to call it that. Yeah. It's a good way of putting a collect all the bad heroes and bring them back. Um, again, I think it was just, uh, I, we need an excuse to bring back all the baddies from the previous movies. Cause we're bringing back the goodies. Uh, and we need to sort of pair them up with each other and all that sort of stuff, which, which is admittedly fun. Um,
00:36:28
Speaker
We need to control them. We need to, you know, get the good friends, the team involved in bringing them in and lots of stuff. But then the biggest thing, and I'm still not sure where I land on it, the biggest issue I had is
00:36:44
Speaker
I get that Peter is good. I get that his Aunt May wants to help people and he's grown up with that and that's his big thing. And I get that there's a psychological component where it seems to be every Spider-Man villain is a mad scientist or a scientist that's gone wrong. So originally tried to help, something went wrong.
00:37:05
Speaker
So they have a disease or they have something wrong with them that's making them evil or even in the case of Octavius, he has the thing on him or in him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is actually making him evil. And so if you can just fix those things, then they'll be sweet and cool and everything will be great.
00:37:24
Speaker
But yeah, I'm just, but you could see from the very start, and it's like, how can Peter Parker not see this from the very start? This is so precarious, this is so dangerous. These people have already killed many, many, many, many people and already villains, and you're wanting to cure them with a machine from stark, which just happens to be in the apartment.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It just it got to a point where it was just a run of conveniences that were very solving, very complex, difficult situations very quickly just to get to the point of, you know, well, they've escaped and it's all gone wrong. And yeah, that whole thing and the whole wanting to cure them and the cure in every case was something sciencey went bad and we can fix it with sciencey going good.
00:38:19
Speaker
you know, so none of those villains have legitimate mental illness that they had before that. None of them are legitimately evil or want world domination or want, you know, it just, it just seemed to be a black and white sort of proposal for all. Oh yeah. Yeah. I feel like they just, they went into this and
00:38:41
Speaker
I think a lot of it was the success of an into the spider verse and I feel like they, yeah, the, you had, you had someone either Sony or either Marvel who was high up and said like look, you know, we got it we can do a live action spider verse movie we can bring back the old villains we can bring back the old spider men and we can put them all together and then
00:38:58
Speaker
From there, they kind of tried to work the story around it. And I'm not knocking this movie in any way. I love this movie. It's so much fun to watch. But there is
00:39:12
Speaker
It's one of those movies that you were having so much fun while you're watching it. And then like I said, like once it's over and you really start thinking about it, you realize a lot of the plot points don't really work so well. And it's clearly something there. Like you said, the string of conveniences and they just have to try to, it's things happen because the story needs them to happen basically.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, and I think you're just spot on as well. It was very clear from the beginning, we want a movie with all the Spider-Man and all of the villains that have appeared in those previous movies.
00:39:45
Speaker
because wouldn't that be awesome and fun and great? And they were correct, absolutely it would. And even as a standalone, I think if you hadn't watched any of the other movies, it's a fun, good movie with a lot of great acting and some really good emotional points and all that sort of stuff in there. And I mean, even at the end, the ultimate for the people I love to be happy, I need them to forget me and I need to basically,
00:40:13
Speaker
be alone, completely alone. And I don't have Aunt May anymore. And I don't have anyone else. So I need to just keep myself in solitude. That's kind of like the crux of the Peter Parker sort of experience right at the end there. And he makes his decision and all the rest of it, which again, I thought was good, even though it
00:40:37
Speaker
It does feel like at the end, it's the kind of, oh, I wake up and it was all a dream. There's that sweeping moment where it's like, well, we're gonna fix everything except you. You're the only one that's not gonna know.
00:40:50
Speaker
But aside from all of that, I did like the moment and the emotion of him doing that and showing love in that way was pretty cool. But yeah, you're right. It's one of those, I mean, honestly, a lot of superhero movies are like that. You don't wanna think too closely about the plot because-
00:41:08
Speaker
you know, those things start to unravel a little bit and you think, you know, and you and I have probably both had this experience multiple times where you're writing your own novel or something and you're thinking, I need this person here. I need something to get this to this situation. And you'll come up with something and sometimes it's great and it really works. And sometimes you just think, ah, you know, people could nitpick and say that it could have gone any other way.
00:41:36
Speaker
And that's when as the writer, you just sort of go, yeah, yeah, no, no, but within the world of the story, that's what happened. It was just a fluke of nature that that, you know, or a circumstance that that happened. But I suppose when you got 50 of those in a row, it's a bit harder to buy. So what'd you think of how they handled the, brought back the villains? What do you think of their performances in this? Because for me, I thought,
00:42:02
Speaker
Willem Dafoe, I thought he did such a, and I'm not saying he did a bad job the first time out, but I think he did such a better job as the Green Goblin this time around. I mean, I thought his performance was just, and one of the things I loved is they got rid of the mask. I always hated that mask in the first movie. And I love that they kind of, and I think what they realized in this movie, which they didn't realize back then is that Willem Dafoe's own face is scarier than any mask you could use.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah, he can contort that thing like no one else. So why the hell would you hide it? You're exactly right. Yeah, I agree. I've never been a fan of the Green Goblin and I think part of it was those initial movies. I don't feel anything towards him positive. I loved William Defoe's,
00:42:56
Speaker
portrayal in this movie. And I loved it because in him, you could see the split sides, you could see the struggling man with no memory of what's happened, knowing that he's done bad things, trying to, you know, turn over a new leaf, but then this underlying creature thing with inside him, you know, that ultimately holds the reins and you know, all that sort of stuff. I thought it was
00:43:18
Speaker
done well with him. I thought Octavius was good when the chip went in and you could see the change. Mind you, any time a thing like a chip going in the back of your neck happens, immediately everyone is thinking, well, how easy is that to knock off? He's going to be putting his hat on a rack or something and it's going to pop out. He's going to bend down to pick up a
00:43:39
Speaker
you know, $10 bill or something, it'll pop out and then he's evil again and then you gotta, you know. But yeah, I thought they were good. I thought it was very different to the Spider-Men appearing. I thought the way that the Spider-Men appeared and interacted was organic and really well done and just so complimentary. I just didn't feel that with all of the villains so much. I felt like they,
00:44:11
Speaker
Yeah, it was just, here's another one, and here's another one, and then, you know, it just didn't seem as to, yeah, I don't know quite what it was, but I thought the performances were great, but it just didn't seem to gel the same as the Spider-Man did. Oh, yeah, definitely. I, you know, I've seen this movie probably like,
00:44:33
Speaker
three or four times now. And for the life of me, I cannot tell you why Sandman switches sides. It just happens because it has to happen. Because it made so much sense when he first appeared and he's helping out, and he's helping out Tom Spider-Man because that's a...
00:44:51
Speaker
organic extension of where he was left off at the end of Spider-Man 3, right? He regretted what he had done. And you get the sense that in the interim between Spider-Man 3 and No Way Home, that him and Toby had come to kind of a reconciliation type of thing. He had maybe gone the hero route, which actually happened in the comics too. Sandman briefly went the hero route in the comics and even joined the Avengers for a time. So you get the sense that that's kind of where they were going. And I thought,
00:45:20
Speaker
I'm blanking on the actor's name, but he did a really good job of selling that too in the beginning. And, but then I don't understand how we get from there to now I'm gonna help all the super villains. Cause it just, I get, he says he wants to go home, but I still don't get why he's, if anything, like he should be trying to find Dr. Strange instead of teaming up with these guys.
00:45:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a product of not having enough time. It's one of those things that you would need time to develop with him, you know, him thinking about, I've got to get back to my, you know, my daughter and my family. I've got to, I don't belong here. This is wrong. But also will, okay, help Peter Parker do what he's got to do then, you know, speed up the process and help him. Yeah. So it didn't, it wasn't a long enough arc. I don't think for him to just suddenly switch over and go, ah, um, uh,
00:46:13
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, it kind of didn't work. And even in the, I don't know what the character's called, but the, you know, Sparky, the- Electro. Electro. When he's, again, played really well, but seeing the arc reactor, you know, you just, you know, he sees a little glimpse of it and you can see he's thirsty for the power and he wants that and, you know, and the little thing, the dial sort of counting up that's gonna cure him, but he's,
00:46:41
Speaker
You know, I don't know. It all felt too quick and too convenient, but the tension was real and it was great and you could see what's going to happen. And it all hinges on Defoe and the Green Goblin who's been kind of, you know, pretending.
00:46:58
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. It was another one of those ones that's like, we just have to very quickly get through this to get to a point, let's just do, which is the same as, and look, you know, no one wants to watch a movie where they spend an hour concocting a solution that's going to fix one of the baddies, you know, no one wants to see that. But
00:47:16
Speaker
you know, the solution to these massive problems seem to be come up with very, very quickly, you know, I'll make this thing and I'll inject it in him and I'll make him good and all the rest of that. Yeah, that was a bit too easy and quick and...
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah, I had a similar reaction to Electro, too, where I thought it was great that Jamie Foxx got another chance to play him, and I thought he did such a better job this time around, as opposed to Amazing Spider-Man 2. And I loved the changes they brought to his character in terms of the visual design. They really even had a version of the Electro mask with the lightning around his head. I thought that was a really good touch, too.
00:47:57
Speaker
or also a nod to his comic origins where they have him using wearing the electrician's gear because he was an electrician in the comics all that kind of stuff those little callbacks were great I loved his his conversation with with Andrew at the end when he talks about how
00:48:13
Speaker
You know, he's like, well, you know, you're from Queens, you help a lot of people. He's like, I just thought you were black. And he's like, there's gotta be a black spider out there somewhere. So I liked a little nod to Miles Morales and all that. But yeah, I don't, again, just like I don't know why Sandman teams up with them. I don't know why Electro agrees to go with Peter and all of them to get fixed. Cause there's no buildup for that at all. It's just, he's just like, okay, I'm going to do this. And his reasoning doesn't make any sense.
00:48:39
Speaker
we get the, and because at that point he doesn't know about the arc reactor. So I think we should have had something
00:48:47
Speaker
You know. Something drawing it. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Something that would have shown like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to go along with this. Also too, Peter's a little bit too trusting of these guys where he's like, he's like, Oh yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to fix you. Like I understand. Cause he can control the arms. Cause it's got the, it's been infected. So you can control what he does, but I don't know why the hell you trust electro and sand man. And especially the lizard, because you know, they go in there and Peter's like, where's Connors? And May's like, Oh, he wanted to wait in the van.
00:49:17
Speaker
Why the fuck would you leave a goddamn 10-6-foot lizard in the truck instead of keeping an eye on him?
00:49:24
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense. So the person, the two people I love most in the world, my girlfriend and my aunt. So I'm going to get all these bad dudes that strange has said you need to keep these guys locked up and we need to send them back. And I'm going to try and cure them in the apartment, which is a safe place that my aunt is at.
00:49:49
Speaker
Why would you, you're inviting harm to the people that you love. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, you could argue, oh, he's young and a bit stupid, but he's been around the, I mean, he's been to space for God's sakes that, you know, something that they point out. He's been around long enough to know how the supervillain thing works. Especially because he was just betrayed by a supervillain in the last movie. Yeah, it should be pretty fresh in his mind what's going on.
00:50:17
Speaker
Yeah. And again, it's this whole, a super villain is someone you can just switch off and make good with it, with a serum or something that you stick in the back of their neck or something. It's just, it's too convenient. And it's, and for, for stories that have a lot more depth with some of the heroes, I think they often miss it with the villains that it's just not, it's not a.
00:50:40
Speaker
not a good enough reason why they're doing what they're doing and so usually I think in the Spider-Man universe the reason they're doing what they're doing is because they got into some crazy science and the crazy science made them go a bit funny in the head and now they're evil but if you can fix what made them evil they'll be sweet again whereas I think there's you know there's surely there's better ways to do villains where they're
00:51:03
Speaker
and they don't have to be evil to be a villain, but they can still be villainous and all the rest of it. Yeah, that was my big problem with the goblin in the first Spider-Man movie is that after he wipes out the rest of the board who were trying to force him out, there doesn't seem to be a reason for him to keep suiting up as the Green Goblin. And it just, he only keeps doing it just because the story needs him to keep doing it.
00:51:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's missing this. And I mean, without skipping movies, you know, the Thanos thing, this entrenched belief that I need to right a wrong and I need to almost like a, you know,
00:51:44
Speaker
ecological kind of fix for the cosmos. There's a reason driving him to do what he wants to do. And even at the end of the other movies where he's finished his work, which yeah, he's finished his work and now he's in a garden and he's just sitting down and he's just taking a breath and he's just
00:52:04
Speaker
So there's this great sense of, I've done it. I don't need to do any more. Whereas you're right. These other characters are like, well, no, I need to actually, my wife always makes this point continually about the bad guys, particularly in, you know, your bond films and those sorts of other, other areas.
00:52:21
Speaker
They have tons of money, they have tons of control, they can do these elaborate, massive things. Why are they not just enjoying life? Like what are they aiming for? They've got everything they could need. Just stop trying to kill people and just live a life of luxury and enjoyment and all the rest of it. Yeah, why don't this, what's driving, I get that there's this drive for control or for,
00:52:46
Speaker
you know, vengeance or something like that. But yeah, just it's got to be more. There's got to be a different, better way of doing other than the Jekyll and Hyde thing, which is essentially what each of these have is is the right. Right. Yeah. And I thought that's a good point. And that happens a lot in in superhero movies in general.
00:53:07
Speaker
And I thought, you're right, Thanos, you know, it was a perfect example of doing it well. I thought also Zemo was a perfect example of doing it well, where he breaks apart the Avengers and then he just surrenders, because he's like, I did what I had to do. I'm done. Yeah, that's it. That's what I achieved what I was going to do. And I thought that.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, and that's, it reminds me of, I'm not sure if you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was on TV. Oh, oh, I watched. You're an urban fantasy author, so there's a very good chance you have. But I remember in the season two ending when Spike teams up with Buffy and she's asking him, why are you helping me? And he says, and he's like, you know, it's tough guy talk, you know, I'm gonna destroy the world. He's like, but I don't actually want to destroy the world. I actually kind of like living in the world.
00:53:54
Speaker
That's exactly right. That's a great point. It's yeah. And I mean, I don't want to.
00:54:02
Speaker
I don't want to get involved in Star Wars because there'll be a lot of anger and stuff. And I love Star Wars and have been a fan since I was a kid and everything. But one of the things that I've always struggled with is it is just too black and white. It is just, you're a goody and you're on the good side of the force. You're a baddy and you let anger control you and all that sort of stuff. And you're on the bad side of the force. And it's just, I mean, I know there's a lot more now and with Mandalorian and all sort of, you know, it's a lot more depth and stuff, which is great.
00:54:30
Speaker
but that's what I struggle with is the, if you're a villain, you're just bad. If you're a goody, you're just good. And I think the movies have done so much to focus on the goodies. The goodies, listen to me, I'm talking like a three year old. The goodies, not the baddies, on the heroes and on their journeys and their struggles and their, you know, even that kind of semi anti-hero thing and all that sort of stuff. But they just haven't done the work on the villain side yet that they've, you know, there's been little hints of it, but there's just, there's,
00:54:59
Speaker
And again, as writers, it's the thing we always struggle with. What is the thing that is driving this evil creature or being or whatever to do what they're doing? It's got to be either survival, control, vengeance, or
Time Manipulation and Storytelling Impact
00:55:12
Speaker
hunger. It's got to be something like that. It's got to be a necessity that drives them. If they have to eat
00:55:20
Speaker
the souls of human children or something to survive. Well, that's a very, I mean, it's ghastly, but it's like, that's, they're doing it to survive. That's it. So yes, they're evil from our perspective, but it's just they're surviving, but they've just got a cracked brain because of super science. And also why hasn't Stark invented a pill yet or some sort of technology that you just ingest and it stops these scientists that are a real problem from going too far. And, you know, mind you, I mean, Tony Stark talked about going too far, but you know,
00:55:50
Speaker
I'm not sure if I trust Tony Stark to do that. No, no, no. It would probably go the other way. But someone has got to have invented something that can, you know, a therapy and a pill or something like that that can help these people work through their issues so that they don't go mad. Well, another thing, too, I think that was one of the issues I had with with May's reasoning, too, because
00:56:12
Speaker
I mean, Peter's got a really good reason for not wanting to help them and just wanting to send them back because this is his mess. He's trying to clean it up. And if he doesn't, the whole universe, the whole multiverse could crack in two. He's got a very good argument for why. And then May's like, no, we have to help them. That's what we do. We help people. I'm like, May, I love you. But you know, it's...
00:56:37
Speaker
We're about to crack the multiverse because we want to try and help a bunch of nutbags.
00:56:43
Speaker
And it's a fit, yeah, and this is the thing that I just don't buy, that it's too much, it's too, it's the whole, oh, the hero that never kills anyone, you know, and wants to stuff, but the villain can kill as many as they want. These guys have already killed many, many people. They're gonna kill more, and yes, if you send them back, they will die at the hands of,
00:57:08
Speaker
Spider-Man, which a is if you want to skip into Doctor Who for a minute that that's that's part of the timeline you can't mess with certain things right six point or whatever you know so so there's all that but also I'm sorry I do not know anyone in May's position any mother aunt sister anything like that in her position that would go
00:57:32
Speaker
Yes, please put me in extreme danger and everyone around me, because these these wackos we really need to, you know, and it's not the case of it's not people that are just struggling with mental illness or that are a bit unhinged or whatever. It's super villains that I have killed and will kill again and are even as they're locked up.
00:57:52
Speaker
in the bottom of the sanctum, they're displaying hate and we want to kill and particularly Sparky McSpark electro. You can see, he's not going to be repentant. He's hungry for what's in this world, for the power that he's seen literally and metaphorically, I suppose. But yeah, that again, it doesn't read true that.
00:58:18
Speaker
it's this whole thing that she's good and she wants to help people, which is great. But that doesn't mean she's stupid. It doesn't mean that she's gonna say, yeah, basically put everyone that I love in harm's way potentially and crack the universe. It's also not really clear how it would really help them or spare their lives because each of them was plucked.
00:58:41
Speaker
pretty much literally from the moment before they died. So I'm not sure how them going back and being like, I'm cured now because most of them died because of circumstance. It wasn't Spider-Man who made a choice to kill them. Like it was, you know, so like it was, you know, the goblin, he was impaled on his own glider when he was trying to kill Spider-Man. What does he come back and say, I'm alive. Oh, look out. And then- And my reflexes have increased. Yeah, yeah. And, or Doc Ock who did reform at the end.
00:59:09
Speaker
of the amazing Spider-Man 2. And then he made the decision to, because you still have the problem of the fission reactors about to go off and destroy the city. So I don't understand how they're gonna be sparing. And Electro, he was like literally at the moment right before he was about to go into oblivion is when he gets pulled into this other universe. So yeah, carrying them doesn't seem to really solve the problem of their imminent deaths.
00:59:38
Speaker
No, and if anything, it's philosophically probably very, very cruel because you are giving them a moment of realization that they are horrible and have done horrible things, but it's all right because they're now they're dying and they're dead, but they just get that moment of emotional torture where they realize they've killed everything that they love. But yeah, you're right. It's nullified because they're going to be dead anyway.
01:00:08
Speaker
which is then complicated because the Spider-Man have been pulled in and yeah, it gets very confusing. But yeah, there's a few points like that where you just think- Well, especially because they've been pulled in from a later point in time, right? So they're not, these villains were pulled in from those movies, like in those moments before they died, but you know, Tony and Andrew, they came in from- Oh, that's right, yeah, but the other two survived. Yeah, and they've come in from this. So what do you do to those timelines now that you've dropped these guys back in and cured them and all that? There's a lot of stuff that just,
01:00:38
Speaker
You're creating more multiverses than what you're doing is what.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not yet. That's right. And that that's the at the heart of it. You're not fixing anything. It's like a surface level fix in this reality. But then as soon as they go back to theirs, it's it's null and void anyway. So what are you saving? The only thing you are doing is putting the people of the current world in jeopardy and potentially going to break everything. Right. And also the the other thing is, I mean, again, Tom Holland sold it so well, but
01:01:12
Speaker
The thing about Spider-Man is the amount of def... Because he's young, the deference that he gives to these older heroes that have been around. I mean, you talk about someone with power and that's done stuff.
01:01:23
Speaker
you know, strange, he's, he's a pretty big dude in the whole scheme of things. So, but all of a sudden in this, it's like, no, no, no, I'm going to go my own way. And I'm going to, you know, I mean that, that takes a, you know, a lot of balls to do that. And he just, he doesn't, I don't know. He, he doesn't strike me as the character that would, you know, remember when, when he's first talking to Stark and it's like, yes, sir. You know, yes, sir. And he's just, you know, like a fan boy with, with, um,
01:01:49
Speaker
Admittedly, he's been through a ton of stuff since then, but I just don't think that he would then, you know. Well, especially because it's not really his decision. He's he's paying deference to someone else in a position of authority. In this case, it's May. And also that it also brings in the problem, the whole idea. And again, I love the how they worked in the power and responsibility speech, but
01:02:13
Speaker
I feel like it's more irresponsible to let these psychopaths run loose while you're trying to cure them, as opposed to having a button that could just send them all back right away.
01:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, keep them locked where they are. That too, yeah. I mean, just keep them locked in the sanctum while you go and look on the cures then, at least. Yeah, and then bring the cures back. Right. And then, you know, I mean, you could even do it, open up a portal and do that nice and quickly if you want to. Well, even if you could just bring the, because it's just that fabricator, which is all in the box to begin with. So you can just bring it over to the sanctum. Bring it down, open up a portal, push it through on wheels, you know, nice and easy.
01:02:46
Speaker
This is the other thing I find. So the only one of the big exceptions to this is Deadpool. The fact that in all of these movies, they only work because it appears that no one in these movies has ever seen a superhero movie or an action movie.
01:03:05
Speaker
that you know so you would know as soon as you see William Defoe come in and he's you know sort of cowering and whimpering and you know you know straight away yes but there is a demon inside you and I cannot trust you even though at the moment you're saying the right thing so you still need to be locked up but I will help you you know whatever
01:03:26
Speaker
Everyone knows that they want it as soon as you see the is that an arc reactor over there? Yeah. Yeah. And you got this power hungry dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's fine. We just leave it there on the coffee table. It's fine. He can look at it. You can tease him with it. I'm sure he's not going to do anything. So it's like none of them have seen that things go wrong when you do. It's like they're just missing that common sense gene or whatever, which is necessary for those mishaps to kind of happen.
01:03:55
Speaker
I also feel that, and this is just kind of another note too, but Rhys Ithans was just really wasted in this movie. Cause he had just, there was no real reason for the lizard to be in this movie at all. He just, and they seem to, he like, Strange finds him right away, puts him in the cage. And he has a few good lines every now and then, like when he's talking to Max, but for the most part, he just has no real purpose in this movie. More than anyone else, he just feels like really tacked on.
01:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, 100% agreed. And my only thing that I thought the reason why he would be there is
01:04:33
Speaker
when the matchup happens at the end and you have the enemies, surely logic would say, he's the weakest, you go for him first. But they don't, they go, I think Sandman first, which is like, this is a dude that is everywhere in his sand and his, you know, whereas you've got a lizard who is admittedly strong and I'll admit my ignorance to knowing more about his, you know, back history and everything.
01:04:56
Speaker
But a lizard dude that is strong, but he's one dude. He can't teleport. He doesn't have multiple arms or anything. So surely three of you can knock him off first. There's also another thing I noticed too because
01:05:11
Speaker
The lizard is the one character that has associations with both Toby and Andrew Spider-Man because in the Toby movies, right, Kirk Connors was his teacher, but he had not transformed into the lizard. So you got this situation where you've got this, I'd see like the only real reason to have him in there is so you can have some sort of interaction with Toby.
01:05:32
Speaker
who's like, wait, wait, wait, you're some sort of acknowledgement. Because that's the only villain that has associations with both of them. Because Norman, even though Norman is in the amazing Spider-Man movies, he dies fairly
Aunt May's Role and Character Significance
01:05:45
Speaker
early on. So Peter never really has any interaction with him. This is the one time when you've got a character who has both those connections and you don't take advantage of it even when the character has nothing else to do. I thought that was kind of a weird choice as well.
01:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, he just seemed like a little bit of extra muscle. Just we need an extra villain, so we'll bring him in, because he's part of the universe, and that was it. Right. Yeah, it's one of... I think you're exactly right. It's a great movie. It was fun. There was so much that was well done. The emotion was great. There were some really good plot points and everything. You just don't want to think through the plot too heavily. Yeah.
01:06:26
Speaker
And there's one more point I wanted to talk about. And that's the power and responsibility speech. Because obviously, that's the Uncle Ben thing. And it was kind of hinted at that Uncle Ben had existed before Civil War. Because there's that speech in Civil War where when Tony asked Peter, why do you do this? And he says, if you can do the things I do, and then you don't. And the bad things happen. They happen because of you.
01:06:52
Speaker
That's basically the, you know, with great power comes great responsibility speech, although a little bit, you know, stretched out because without saying it directly so I and then also in the other movies, right in the first in Homecoming he when Ned asks if may knows and he says no, no, no, she can't know after everything she's been through.
01:07:12
Speaker
this is too much for her. And then in Far From Home, like the suitcase is Ben's suitcase. It has his initials on it. So there have been clear references to Uncle Ben. So I thought it was, what'd you think of that? That decision to give that speech to May instead of Ben?
01:07:29
Speaker
I think it makes perfect sense because of the way that the latest movies have been crafted and that she's the forefront rather than the Uncle Ben and everything's twisted. And you saw that really clearly with the other two Spider-Men and that they all have just slight variations on that same theme. And who is it that dies? Someone important has to die. Who is it that dies? And it's a different person each movie.
01:07:58
Speaker
which it's such a weird moment when you can see they're basically playing on the fact that there's been all of these reboots of Spider-Man over the years and they've had to, you know, change the theme slightly, but not completely. Otherwise all the fans would be up in arms.
01:08:16
Speaker
And that's now all come together in this movie. And you can see that, you know, it's here's the third version of that, which is familiar, but slightly different. I think that probably just didn't have a choice. I think that, you know, they're putting everything on on my so.
01:08:32
Speaker
And of course, you know, she dies and it's the whole thing. And again, just seeing her die, there was a moment not to get nitpicky. She, Green Goblin throws a green grenade or whatever it is.
01:08:48
Speaker
effectively at her face and it blows up and then after and I'm expecting that's it. She's done. She's you know, but no she's standing up. She's recovered. She's fine, but she has a very small wound somewhere in her abdomen. It's gonna gonna kill her.
01:09:03
Speaker
you can't do that with an explosion. Like it's fire and shrapnel and it was right on top of her. That was, it's a small thing, but it's like, come on, man. You at least don't have her standing up afterwards. At least have her lying there. She can't get up. You know, I understand they're not gonna like rip her legs off and say, you know, she's got nothing left. But yeah, that was just a bit funny. But I did all the way through the movies. I've loved her interaction with
01:09:33
Speaker
with Tom and um oh yeah she's of the actors we've gotten so far I think she has definitely been been my favorite iteration of Ant-Man or not even just the actresses just like in any version of like comics you know tv shows whatever she's definitely been my favorite version of Ant-Man.
01:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, just really well done. And their relationship and the finding out that he's Spider-Man and all that, the way that was handled. Oh, wait, no, I will correct myself. Lily Tomlin into the Spider-Verse. That was my favorite anime where she's like his version of Alfred. That was brilliant. That was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. And that brings me to another point where my son was sort of shaking his head as the other Spider-Man came out and just saying,
01:10:19
Speaker
They couldn't do the pig. I mean, that's what he was waiting for, the live action, you know. Spider-Ham. Spider-Pig. But yeah, that didn't happen. Also, we're gonna be wrapping up here, but what'd you think of J.K. Simmons coming back as Jameson and the changes they brought to his character?
01:10:44
Speaker
Remind me which one's Jameson. He's the Daily Bugle guy. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Terrible with names. I thought it was great the way he starts being a wacko with a platform on YouTube.
01:11:02
Speaker
with conspiracy theories and all this sort of and then as the things progress he has his own studio and he's back and you know all that stuff. I thought that was very cool I was a little bit confused because his voice is so recognizable immediately so as soon as I'm hearing the voice before I'm seeing him I know who it is and I'm thinking hang on hang on but but and of course the reference to the bugle and all this sort of stuff.
01:11:25
Speaker
But I thought it was really cool. And I thought he sold it really well, that that kind of authoritative voice that's going to give the truth to the people and pull down these false heroes and all this sort of stuff. And I can't remember.
01:11:43
Speaker
Yeah. Did he sell supplements as well? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I thought it might've been something else I was watching, but yeah. And a great, it's just, it's so true to life to, to, you know, some of the people that are around doing that sort of stuff now. It was just, yeah, it was great. It was really, it was a great choice. Although I, you know, after watching, um, Spider-Man three, cause we did an episode on it, uh, not too long ago. Yeah. I kind of missed the hair piece he had in that, in those movies. That's right. Yeah.
01:12:13
Speaker
Cause I was thinking like I'm watching them and I'm like, it's, it's Jay Jonah, Jonah Jamison's voice. But without that, that flat top, it doesn't quite feel like him. So I remember thinking like, I wish they had brought the flat top back. Yeah. Yeah. That would be, and it would, it would fit with the kind of internet, um, you know, sayer of truth. Exactly.
Excitement Over Cameos and Performances
01:12:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That and a military coat would, would have worked really well.
01:12:39
Speaker
And also we got Tom Hardy's Venom in the post-credits scene. What'd you think of that little nod? Yeah, yeah, that was very cool. Yeah, I mean, Venom's a whole other thing, but yeah, I thought it was cool. I thought that, I mean, obviously, Marvel is very, very good at that with the cinematic stuff. Everything linking, but not feeling too,
01:13:07
Speaker
out of place, you know, it all sort of, it kind of makes sense. And we're used to that. We've been seeing that for years now with, you know, Avengers assembling and all that sort of stuff. So yeah. And I think that's what this movie was. It was almost like a tribute to let's bring all of these things together. Right, right. Yeah. So it makes perfect sense. Yeah. Also, I like that
01:13:33
Speaker
Oh, the Matt Murdock cameo. Charlie Cox coming back is Matt Murdock. That was- Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that. That was so good. And the, you know- So is that, cause I know, cause you know, I know you probably got a lot of this stuff spoiled. Was that something that had been spoiled for you before or did you, or were you completely surprised when you saw that?
01:13:50
Speaker
No, I was completely surprised. No idea that he was going to appear. And I loved the Daredevil TV series. I absolutely loved it. I could talk for days about that. That was so good. So just to see him in that little cameo was amazing. And the fact that he's there in that world as a very good lawyer, giving them sound advice,
01:14:14
Speaker
and then all of a sudden, oh, they realize there's something else going on about this guy, but they don't explore it anymore. Yeah, he just catches the brick and like, I'm just a very good lawyer. I noticed it this time too, that when I saw it this time, I noticed that Peter's hand's also up too, but Matt catches it before him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that was- They were both gonna stop the brick, which is why I think Peter Parker's thinking, this guy's got reflexes like me, that's, and he's blind, you know. Of course he does dude, he's a daredevil.
01:14:42
Speaker
Yeah, no, that was great. I remember I like I knew I knew about all the all these things were going to happen because, you know, some fucking asshole on Twitter had posted a screenshot of Charlie Cox sitting down with with Tom Holland and Aunt May and all them. So I knew he was going to be in there, but still just like when they handled it so perfectly when when the cane slams down and you see him walking out like I freaked out just like everybody else. So I love that moment.
01:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was great. It was so good. And because my son is a bit younger, so he hasn't seen the Daredevil stuff, probably won't for a couple of years. But I was so excited for him. And I said, do you know who that is? Do you know who that is? I was doing the same thing. You know who that is? She's like, who's that? I'm like, it's fucking Daredevil. And they're not, yeah, he's not going to get it until he sees it and sees how good it was. Yeah, that was amazing.
01:15:37
Speaker
All right, anything else you want to say about No Way Home? Any final comments about it? No, I think it was a great film, really well done. I really thoroughly enjoyed it. And it's one of those ones that you just watch and you enjoy and you have fun. And then you just don't want to scrutinize it too much because it was fun.
01:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty much the exact same place. Like I love this movie. It is so much fun, but it is after I watched it, I do just, I'm thinking too much about it and I have to not because it's starting to suck the fun away from it from me. But yeah, it's, and I think that shows just like how good the performances in are in this movie that they can totally make you forget about all the plot contrivances while you're watching the movie.
01:16:28
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. Stellar performance is just really well done, really well put together. Yeah. It was, and you're right. If they were, if the performances weren't great, you would notice those plopholes a lot more. Right. Sure. Right. Okay.
Guest Morgan's Online Presence and Promotions
01:16:43
Speaker
Morgan, you want to tell people where they can find you one more time? People can find me at MorganQuaid.com or social media, or just search for me. I'm pretty well all over the place. So you'll be able to find me pretty quickly.
01:16:56
Speaker
Okay, great. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was a really fun discussion and you're welcome back anytime you want. Cheers. Thanks, dude. That does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephile. Superherocinephiles.com is the website, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram.
01:17:13
Speaker
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01:17:32
Speaker
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01:17:52
Speaker
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01:18:36
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.