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Iron Man
161 Plays4 years ago
With our big fiftieth episode just around the corner, we chose to watch the movie that started the MCU and helped reinvigorate the superhero genre—2008's Iron Man! Looking back, we reflect on how much of a surprise some of the casting choices were and how nobody expected Iron Man to be the lynchpin of the Marvel Universe.
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Transcript
Introduction & Audible Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, Derek, guess what? Hit me with it. We just got a promotion with Audible. Audible, fantastic. I love Audible. Do you know what the cool thing about this deal is? What's that? If our listeners go to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod, they get a free trial with Audible. And do you know what they get with that?
00:00:22
Speaker
What do they get with that? Tell me. They get one free audiobook of their choice and they get two free Audible Originals, which is special content that Audible makes available free for all its subscribers. Are you kidding me? That deal is so good I may go myself and sign them. Do you think they let you keep the books after you're done?
00:00:42
Speaker
No, you're not gonna tell me they let you keep the books after you're done. Yes, in fact, you can go sign up for a trial and you can cancel before the trial ends and you get to keep the books you've already downloaded.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I don't see how you can beat that with a stick. Exactly, yeah. And you can, lots of great books, especially for fans of the show. You can listen to Supergods by Grant Morrison, which is all about like how the superhero comics have changed and evolved over time. Or you can check out Marvel Comics, The Untold Story. Which is a terrific book. I have that both in hardcover and I listened to that on Audible myself in my car while traveling back and forth.
00:01:21
Speaker
And there's also another similar book that's called slugfest, which is about like the wars between Marvel and DC Comics. Oh, okay. So that's another one you got to check out too. So yeah, head on over to audibletrial.com slash super cinema pod and start your free trial right now. You got one free audio book and two free audible originals and you can keep them even if you cancel before it's over.
Famous Movie Quotes: 'I am Iron Man'
00:02:03
Speaker
Been a while since I was in front of you. I figure I'll stick to the cards this time.
00:02:10
Speaker
There's been speculation that I was involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and the rooftop. I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared despite the fact that you might type it out? I know that it's confusing. It is one thing to question the official story and another thing entirely to make wild accusations or insinuate that I'm a superhero. I never said you were a superhero. Didn't? Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic.
00:02:41
Speaker
I'm just not the hero type, clearly, with this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I've made, largely public. Truth is, I am Iron Man.
Meet the Hosts & Movie Talk
00:03:15
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Senate Files Podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Coxentine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How you doing today, Derek? I'm doing quite well, thank you. I spent a nice relaxing day doing absolutely nothing. I watched
00:03:34
Speaker
Dr. Strangelove, don't ask me why. Oh, nice. Why Dr. Strangelove, I watched my brand spanking new Blu-ray of Popeye, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall. That's a movie that I didn't even know existed until you told me about it. I've had the DVD for like years, but for some reason the movie has never been on Blu-ray until now. Okay. So I got the Blu-ray
00:04:01
Speaker
And it looks fantastic and I heartily recommend Popeye to anybody who's not seen it, we will probably cover it here at one time or another, because yeah by you know i'm going to kind of stretch it and consider Popeye kind of in that superhero category.
00:04:21
Speaker
Well, we've had bigger stretches, I think. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of like a superhero movie because, you know, I guess, but it's just simply, it's one of my favorite movies of all time, you know, really. I actually got a funny Popeye related story. So it just just happened the other day. So, you know, we just moved and
00:04:43
Speaker
After everything was done and we had to empty out the refrigerator before we moved so so now we got to like do grocery shopping for everything again, so. I tell my wife coach know I tell her you know okay anything you want me to get from grocery store and she's you know listening off some things and then she's like oh. Popeye and i'm like popeye what are you talking about.
00:05:03
Speaker
And then she uses the Japanese word for spinach. And I'm like, oh, you mean spinach? She's like, oh, it's not called Popeye. And I'm like, no, it's not called Popeye. Popeye's a character. She was in the ballpark, though. She was in the ballpark, yeah. She knew what she meant. She knew what she meant, yeah. I'm just like, no, that's not what it's called. But yeah, so it was a lot of fun to
Gaming and Pop Culture Discussion
00:05:31
Speaker
watch. Like I said, one of my favorite movies.
00:05:35
Speaker
And of course I watched the movie we're gonna be talking about in a little while, Iron Man. Yeah, I watched that too. I watched that just last night. I also finished playing the Spider-Man Miles Morales game on my PS4. How is that? That's a lot of fun. It doesn't feel like a full game, right? It's not in a bad way, but it's not as long as the first Spider-Man game was.
00:06:04
Speaker
which I actually think is kind of a benefit because some of these games, like when they're trying to fill it with content and it's just like, it's just so much repetition and padding. Like I was playing Assassin's Creed Origins and it's a cool game, but it's just like, the map is so huge. And while it's cool to be able to traverse that, there are just so many missions and side missions and stuff that are just
00:06:31
Speaker
variations on the same thing you've done a thousand times already. So just like, there's a lot of stuff. I'm just like, I don't care about completing it anymore. Yeah. Okay. I hear you. I was looking at some YouTube video and it looks like a very cinematic game. The Spiderman game? Yeah, the Spiderman game. Oh yeah. Yeah, totally. It very much feels like a continuation of the first, like a spin-off of the first, I should say. But yeah, the like,
00:07:01
Speaker
there's nothing that it feels like, the feeling of being able to web swing through New York, it's just, it's amazing in that game. Like they did such a good job on both that and the first Spider-Man PS4 game. Okay. And I also found a blast from the past too, because they had a, you know, PlayStation had a Black Friday sale. And I missed out on a lot of the Black Friday sales, because we were preparing for the move and stuff, but
00:07:31
Speaker
But one of the things I got to do was I did get to pick up the Ghostbusters game that was on PS3 and Xbox 360. Did you ever play that game? No. Oh, you should play it. It's basically like an unofficial Ghostbusters 3. Like they had the original cast come in and do the voices of it. And it's just, it very much captures the feel of Ghostbusters. And so I was just, yeah, yeah. So you should check out, and it was, it was cross platform.
00:08:00
Speaker
and they recently remastered it. So you should check out, you know, see if you can find it on your Xbox One. Oh yeah. Well, I'm probably sure I can because they, you know, they,
00:08:13
Speaker
there's a ton of games, like, I mean, you know, for the Xbox 360, you know, I could just go on, you know, the Xbox section or the Microsoft store and, you know, download, you know, I've downloaded a couple of Xbox 360 games that I had already. So I said, oh, okay, I don't have to go out and I don't have to buy the physical disc anymore. So, which is cool, you know, yeah. In fact, I believe that was like the, one of the last things he had done, Harold Rayness.
00:08:43
Speaker
Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, it was like when he wrote it, he and Dan Aykroyd wrote, wrote the script to the game. And see, yeah, it was that and a movie called year one, those are the last two things that Harold Remus was in before he died. So, so yeah, it's really, really great game. I'm just replaying it again. It's a lot of fun.
00:09:08
Speaker
And so that's been a lot of fun just getting back into that. And otherwise, that's about it. Just been trying to decompress and relax before I got to start jumping back into writing and working and all that.
Streaming vs. Theatrical Releases Debate
00:09:22
Speaker
OK, cool. But yeah, so I didn't really check out any news this week. How about you? Well, the only bit of news that I think that maybe we might want to talk about that is really
00:09:38
Speaker
Took everybody by surprise I think was the news yesterday that Warner Brothers is going to be releasing their entire slate of movie releases for next year, not only theatrically but the same day it'll be available on HBO Max. Yeah, I read about that and I think I love that idea. Right.
00:10:04
Speaker
That is one way to guarantee that I will get by an HBO Max subscription, is if you're gonna have these movies coming out the same day, and I can just watch them on HBO Max for 15 bucks a month instead of spending 20 bucks per movie, hell yeah, I'm gonna take that deal.
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And apparently what it is, is that the same day the movie, it's going to be released in theaters. But it's also like, take for instance, because next year we're going to have King Kong versus Godzilla. You know, Kong versus Godzilla. So it's going to be released to theaters.
00:10:40
Speaker
but also that same day, you can watch it on HBO Max and it'll be on HBO. It'll be available on HBO Max for a month. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, but hey, listen, I'm with you. And of course you hear these people, you know, I was talking to some people yesterday and of course you have people that talk about, well, uh, I still want to go to the theaters. There's nothing like going to the theaters. Well, yeah, that's fine. If you want to go to the theaters, fine. Go to the theaters. Some of us, you know, we don't want to go to the theater. Maybe we don't
00:11:11
Speaker
And still, you know what, and I'm like this, we still don't know how this thing with the COVID is gonna shake out.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yes. You know, you know, people go, oh, but the vaccine, the vaccine, listen, they just released the vaccine. We don't know how effective it's going to be, you know, until they actually start giving it to people, you know. So, I mean, there's no guarantee we're all going to be rushing to go back to the movie theaters next summer. So I, so listen,
00:11:40
Speaker
I'm all for choice. If you can give me a choice of going to the theater or staying home, I think that it's a win-win situation all around. Yeah. And like you said, people who want to see in the movie theaters, they can still go see, because I mean, like they have re-releases of movies that are in the theaters and they still clean up, right? Because there are some things that people want the theatrical experience for.
Casting and Directing News in TV and Film
00:12:06
Speaker
Right, exactly. And you know, there are some movies that if they were to be re-released in the theaters, I would go see them like every time they put 2001 back in the theaters, I usually end up going to seeing it. If they, you know, movies like The Godfather, you know, yeah, I'll go back and see that.
00:12:25
Speaker
in the theater, you know, Jaws, if they put that back in the theater, I'll go back. You know, there are certain movies I'll go back and see, but, you know, I mean, listen, I've had 40 years of going to the movie theaters, you know.
00:12:39
Speaker
I mean, let's face it, I'm over it by now. I can stay home and watch movies for the rest of my life and it would bother me. So yeah, but I think that HBO Max, it's a very small, true move on their part business wise, because there's a lot of people that I know that they're saying, okay, well now they are going to subscribe to HBO Max. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I'm one of them. Like I was, I was down to do the, at least the free trial for Wonder Woman 84.
00:13:05
Speaker
But, you know, now I'm gonna be, I'm all in with that. Cause we can all walk right away. So a few other just brief headlines I'm looking at. David Ramsey is coming back to Arrowverse. He's gonna be directing a bunch of stuff. You know, he's played John Diggle and Arrow. And if you remember the end of Arrow, he, you know, his character and his family, they ended up moving to Metropolis. He's gonna be,
00:13:35
Speaker
he's gonna be directing some episodes of Superman and Lois and Supergirl. He's also going to be appearing in several episodes of Superman and Lois, Supergirl the Flash and Batwoman. And also- Oh, he'll probably be the Green Lantern. Well, yeah. He's also gonna be in Legend of Tomorrow, but he's not gonna be playing John Diggle in that. And so there's speculation that he's gonna be Green Lantern in that. He hasn't said anything about, because it ended with him finding the Green Lantern ring. Right, yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
And also this is really interesting. So you mentioned Godzilla versus Kong. So the director of Kong, Skull Island, which I love that movie. Oh yeah. Terrific movie. Terrific movie. He's apparently doing a Metal Gear Solid movie. Oh, okay. And they just cast Oster Isaac as a solid snake in that.
00:14:35
Speaker
That sounds awesome. I've never played the game, but I have friends of mine who are absolutely obsessed with that game and all of its versions and iterations. And they're always trying to get me to play it, but I suck at first-person shooter games. Well, they're not first-person shooter. It's like a third-person stealth game. I suck at those two. Okay.
00:15:03
Speaker
Metal Gear Solid is good. After that, you know, the Kojima kind of, Hideo Kojima, who was the director of those games, he kind of got, he Nolanized himself. He fell into the Nolan trap, right? Where he fell in love with himself and started to buy his own press. And it's just like, when I played, I played Metal Gear Solid 4, like several months back. And it's like, I swear to God, like 75% cut scenes.
00:15:35
Speaker
And she's like, you know, I'm not here to watch a movie, I'm here to play a damn game. Right, yeah. I was just about to say, so essentially you're watching a movie. Basically, yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
Okay, well, you know, I don't know. See, to me, video games should, you know, be a nice little mix of, I mean, the two. There should be enough game to keep you interested, but there's enough for the cut scenes and everything like that. Like, you also get a nice little cinematic experience, but one shouldn't overshadow the other. Like you said, you know, if he was going to put that many cuts in, well, then why don't you just go ahead and just make a movie? Just make an animated movie and get it over with.
00:16:15
Speaker
And there are several parts when I was playing that game. I'm like, you could have made this an interactive sequence here. So I don't know why you're not, but whatever. All right. The only other thing, I'm just kind of scanning the headlines here. And the only other thing that I really wanted to quickly mention is Ava DuVernay is apparently getting deeper into the DC universe because, you know, she's directing a new God's movie. She's apparently adapting
00:16:40
Speaker
Vertigo series, DMZ into an HBO Max series, and now she's going to be doing something for the Arrowverse on CW. She's going to be creating a show based on a new character who just premiered in the comics like about a year ago or so, and that's Naomi, which is created by Brian Bendis and David Walker and Jamal Campbell. And the Adventures of
00:17:05
Speaker
an American teenage girl who happens her way into a multiverse full of outrageous superheroes after a cataclysmic event. But as she navigates, investigates the origins of this multiverse, she begins to learn more about these heroes, discovering they may not be what they seem. So, like, I've never read this comic, I've never seen this character, but that seems like a pretty cool, and something unique for the
HBO Max's Strategy for DC Fans
00:17:27
Speaker
CW. And, you know, if in the post-crisis world, it's the perfect time to have something, a character who's exploring that.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think that we, I don't think that we have seen like, cause I know that people have been crying about, oh yeah, well they're canceling all of the CW shows and they're not going to be doing superheroes anymore. I think they're still going to be doing it, but they're going to be doing like stuff like this, like that's not really,
00:17:59
Speaker
you know, stuff that a lot of people really don't know about or haven't heard about. I think like the more popular superheroes, we're gonna see them show up on HBO Max. Yeah, yeah. I think you're right. And I'm fine with that. I think that's a really cool idea. And that theory does fly when you think about what we talked about last week with them doing a Wonder Girl series. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, so, and of course now, I mean, you know, with the thing that we're talking about,
00:18:29
Speaker
that, you know, they're going to be releasing the movie. So you're going to have a whole explosion of people that are going to be signing up to HBO Max. So they're going to need content.
TV Show Reviews: Mandalorian and Supernatural
00:18:39
Speaker
And they've already got the DC superhero fans on board. Right. Because, you know, everybody who is following Doom Patrol.
00:18:46
Speaker
you know um what's the other one the titans titans yeah yeah right and all those other shows and harley quinn and everything you know i mean they're already on board already because i know some people that said that they had no interest in hbo max until dc universe you know they moved all that stuff there and then they said okay well i'm signing up now yeah yeah
00:19:09
Speaker
So, yeah, so HBO Max is really, I mean, we were talking about it last week, we were talking about, okay, well, who's going to survive the streaming wars and everything like that. To me, it was HBO Max is like jump, like right to the front of the line, really. Yeah, yeah. With this move that they're making, yeah. And, oh, and I also started watching, I started to catch up on Mandalorian season two now, and also
00:19:36
Speaker
the last episodes of Supernatural are finally up on Netflix. So I'm starting to catch up on those too. You're not a big Star Wars fan though, are you? Not really, but I do love the Mandalorian because like, like we said before, I like, I like the world of Star Wars more than, um, I'm just, I was just so done with the Skywalker stuff.
Star Wars Discussions and Predictions
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah. Like the Skywalker saga, even when I was a kid, like never really did much for me. I never really cared much about Luke. I was always more like, you know,
00:20:03
Speaker
I wanna see more about Han and Chewie. I wanna follow them on adventures. I don't care about Luke. I mean, I don't know why they haven't found the guy that was in the solo movies and say, listen, you wanna come to Disney Plus and do a solo? I mean, you know. Oh yeah, definitely. Do a series of either movies, you know, do you wanna do more movies or do you wanna do a weekly solo TV series? You know what?
00:20:31
Speaker
I saw on Twitter that you know our friend demand who from demand was demand does podcast. Oh yeah yeah he mentioned he he mentioned one of your lines is hope, if I want conflict i'll.
00:20:45
Speaker
I'll go to a Klan barbecue with two white women on my arms. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking about the Derekisms that come out of this show. My favorite one is still, when you were talking about you'd push an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to get a Zack Snyder question movie. Absolutely. I'd push an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to get a solo TV series. Yeah, or Orlando Calrissian. Well, that's actually happening.
00:21:11
Speaker
That is happening. Okay. I believe that's happening. There was something about, at least there was rumors that something was happening. I'm not sure if it's been confirmed or not. I know. I know. I heard that Kenobi is supposed to be starting back up with you and McGregor. Yes. Kenobi is going to be starting back up. Um, and, uh, Oh crap. What was his name? Uh, Donald Glover. Yeah. He's coming back to, he's coming back to do Lando, which I am totally on board for that. He was the best part of solo.
00:21:39
Speaker
Oh, I mean, you know, the only thing I didn't like about that is that they had him cheating at cards, which Lando was too good, you know, to cheat at cards. Okay. But, you know, but other than that, you know, it was like, it was really weird because he was not doing an impression of Billy Dee Williams, but you could, I could see, echoes of Billy Dee Williams and what he was doing. Yeah, he really made that character his own.
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah solo was so you know what solo is like one of those movies and I say this about movies every once in a while it's going to be one of these movies that in 10-15 years people are going to look back at it and say well what was wrong with people back then that they didn't like this movie? Oh definitely yeah I totally agree with that.
00:22:23
Speaker
You know, like Speed Racer. OK. OK. Now everybody loves Speed Racer. When I told people 10 years ago that this was a masterpiece, people thought I was crazy. Now everybody's in love with Speed Racer. Same thing with Harley Quinn. You know, everybody hated it. Now it's kind of like turning around. People are saying, oh, you know something? This is a good movie. You know? And I said, well, I told you this was a good movie. But I don't get it. You know? People are like that.
00:22:52
Speaker
So what are you going to do? But yeah, solo was absolutely nothing wrong with solo. I loved it right from the side. Yeah, there are some things.
00:23:02
Speaker
differently that they could have done. I thought it was a mistake that to have all of the major events in Han Solo's life be compressed into one movie. Theoretically, we should have got the Kessel Run in the third movie. It should have been three
Iron Man: Marvel's Gamble and Success Story
00:23:19
Speaker
movies. It should have been a trilogy. Right. And I had mentioned this before. One of my biggest issues with it was
00:23:26
Speaker
his heroic turn at the end of the movie, because that kind of undermines where he is at the start of, at the beginning of Star Wars. Yeah, I would have liked to see him more, you know, save that heroic turn for Star Wars and show, you're basically trying to show how he gets from whatever the planet that he was on and how he meets Chewie and how he gets to the Cantina and Mos Eisley. So, but you got to keep, stay consistent to that characterization at the start of Mos Eisley when he's,
00:23:56
Speaker
you know, when he's still this rogue guy who can't be trusted and who shoots first. Well, see, they could have did that if they had stuck with their original plan, because my understanding is that is originally that's what it was going to be. Solo was going to be, was supposed to be the start of a trilogy of Han Solo movies. But when, because the original directors were fired or they quit or something happened, that Ron Howard was brought on board and that necessitated a lot of reshooting and,
00:24:25
Speaker
and they changed it to the script and there was even changes in actors and stuff like that so I guess during that process that's when it got compressed and said okay well we're going to do everything in one movie and you know because I guess they didn't think that you know
00:24:41
Speaker
there was much of a chance of a sequel. I don't know why, because even though people will tell you that the movie was a flop, it still made a shitload of money. It made a lot of money. The thing was, it didn't make as much as they would have liked for it to make.
00:25:00
Speaker
All right, so anyway, let's move on to today's pick. And this is kind of our prologue to our big 50th episode. We talk about Avengers and that's the movie that started at all. And that's Iron Man, 2008. Now this movie was, this was a Hail Mary for Marvel because back when Marvel was looking to get to make Iron Man, it's make their own movies.
00:25:30
Speaker
they were still struggling with their bankruptcy that happened in the mid-90s. And this was kind of like their last ditch effort to kind of get out of it. So they basically threw all their money into this movie in hopes that, you know what, if this doesn't do big, then we're kind of screwed.
00:25:50
Speaker
Okay. And it did big, like it did really well. Oh, gosh. This is like a little movie that took it. Well, okay, well, it wasn't a little movie, but I think what it was was that it took everybody by surprise. Well, it's such an unconventional movie, what was happening behind the scenes, because first off, you get Jon Favreau to write and direct it, right?
00:26:14
Speaker
Jon Favreau, like there's nothing really in his background that make you think he can handle like a superhero movie that's like also part techno thriller and part espionage thriller, right? Right. There's nothing like he's, you know, most people probably at this point probably knew him more as an actor from movies like, you know, Swingers. You're right. And, you know, and he was also in Daredevil, we talked about.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, but people knew him more. I think they thought of him basically like with like comedies. Yes, exactly. And, and he was hooked up with Vince Vaughn at the time and you know they was hanging out together so I think that people looked at him and you know. Yeah, you wouldn't think that there was anything in this background.
00:27:02
Speaker
that would lead him to do a movie like this, until you find out that he was a lifelong Marvel maniac. Yeah, I mean, but looking at his background, like he directed Made, he directed Elf, he directed Zathura, and it's like none of that would make you think, oh yeah, this is the guy for Iron Man.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, previous to this, if you had told me Jon Favreau was going to be doing it, I would have said, yeah, well, matter of fact, I did when I found out that he had directed it. I said, well, you know, but I liked the guy. I'd seen him in interviews and stuff like that. And I did like Elf, even though I'm not big on Christmas movies. Every Christmas season, I do watch Elf. It's a good movie.
00:27:45
Speaker
You know, for the most part, I like him as an actor. But I mean, you know, I mean, when this came along, it was wow. Talk about a game changer. Yeah. And also continue with the unconventional aspects of this movie, the the casting of Robert Downey Jr. Like nobody expected that. Nobody expected like Downey at this point, he was just coming out of like his
00:28:14
Speaker
Cause he went through, you know, people who were younger, man, I remember, but Downey went through like a long battle with, uh, with drug addiction. And he was like in and out of prison. He was in and out of rehab. And it was just like, he kept like everything, you know, he, he kept, you know, basically screwing up his life and not like, even when he seemed to be getting clean, like he was doing Allie McBeal for a while. Yeah. And then he, he went back into, he got the, he got addicted to drugs and got arrested and he got written off the show after that.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And when and when he came back on Ally McBeal, he had to sign like all kinds of stuff that you know he was going to show up, you know sober and, and what I'm
00:28:56
Speaker
There was one time, you know, and for people who always, you know, who always down on Mel Gibson and stuff like that and talk about, oh, Mel Gibson is a horrible human being. Robert Downey Jr. gives Mel Gibson a lot of credit because one time when he was in rehab and everything like that, he said, everybody in Hollywood had written them off except for Mel Gibson. He said, Mel Gibson came to see him in the hospital or rehab or wherever he was. He came to see him and if he didn't come see him,
00:29:25
Speaker
He called them. And when it came time for him to come out of rehab and he couldn't find work, Mel Gibson was actually going to do the singing detective and he was going to do the lead role, but he gave it to Robert Downey Jr. Oh, okay. So he could work. Yeah. He gave it to him so he could work. Yeah. So Robert Downey Jr. And you know what? Everybody always liked him. He was a likable actor. Everybody really loved him.
00:29:55
Speaker
He was well-known in Hollywood. His father is a director who directed one of the funniest movies ever made, Putney Swope. You know, if you've never seen it, people, it's on YouTube. After you listen to this, go to YouTube and find Putney Swope and watch it. That's directed by Robert Downey, Sr., and he also directed another movie. I think it's called Greaser's Palace.
00:30:21
Speaker
But just, yeah, just look up Robert Downey Sr. But his father was a well-known director. He was known in Hollywood. Everybody liked him. It was just with the drugs and the booze. He couldn't seem to kick that until, bam, Iron Man.
Iron Man's Script Development and Improvisation
00:30:37
Speaker
It was right before this. He started to come out. This is when he was, he got cleaned before this. It was in 2003. In an interview with Empire Magazine, he actually thanked Burger King for helping him become a straight edge.
00:30:51
Speaker
He had this car full of drugs and he got a burger from there that was so disgusting, it made him rethink his life. And he dumped the drugs in the ocean. Okay. Which is why Burger King participated in this movie. Because they helped with marketing and they helped promote the movie. And there's also the scene when he comes back from captivity and he wants a burger and they go to Burger King. And they go to Burger King, yeah.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah. But let me turn off this thing here. There you go. But he was such an un, nobody expected this. And right before this, he did Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. And that was like his, everyone's like, oh, wow, Robert Downey Jr. is back. But this really surprised everybody. And in fact, Paramount was in this movie with Marvel as well. And they were worried about Downey, right?
00:31:50
Speaker
they felt like he could, they were worried about insuring him. Yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, for the longest time, you know, who was it? What's his name? It was the front runner, Tom Cruise. Everybody just knew Tom Cruise was going to do this. Oh, yeah. Tom Cruise was in the running back when they were talking about this movie, when I think it was, who was it? Nick Cassavetes was in. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He was talking about directing it at one point and Tom Cruise was heavily in the run.
00:32:21
Speaker
And, you know, I had always thought that at least before, George Clooney also would have made a really good Tony Stark. Yeah, George Clooney also name was mentioned. Sam Rockwell and Clive Owen were among the actors who were considered for this movie in particular. And Rockwell, you know, ended up playing Justin Hammer in the second movie. Yeah, Sam Rockwell, I can see. He's not one who would have been a very good choice. Yeah.
00:32:49
Speaker
But yeah, they got Rauper Downey Jr. and nobody expected that. And when they made that announcement, everyone's like, really, Downey? And then they thought about it a little bit more and they're like, oh, well, you know, I actually, I kind of see that. It was one of those choice that nobody thought of, but after it was announced, everyone's kind of like, eh, yeah, that kind of makes sense. Yeah, because you know what? Because, okay, Tony Stark is a guy
00:33:17
Speaker
Okay, he's a supremely intelligent asshole. Basically he is. Let's face it. The guy's an asshole. He's a jerk, but he's highly intelligent. He's charming. He's egotistical. And you need somebody who in real life has got a lot of those qualities and can pull it off because you have to make Tony Stark likable even though
00:33:44
Speaker
He's, you know, he lets you know that he's the smartest guy in the room when he walks in the room. And it's hard to make somebody who has that type of egotistical attitude likable. But Robert Downey Jr. can do it. He can pull it off.
00:34:02
Speaker
because he was it in this movie. You know, I was watching it today and I was struck by... Matter of fact, I showed you how long is business. I watched it more. I completely forgot Jeff Bridges was in it, for God's sake. How that happened, I don't know. But, you know, and I'm watching the nuances of his performance as Tony Stark. And there's a lot in there that I didn't see before or didn't pay attention to before that I'm looking at. And I said, yeah, you know what?
00:34:31
Speaker
It seemed like a strange thing at the time to make the character of Tony Stark and Iron Man the linchpin of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But in hindsight now, looking back at it, I don't see any other way that they could have went.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's, well, cause it's really interesting because, you know, Iron Man's never really been a huge character in the comics in terms of popularity. No, no, I, you know what? Iron Man at best is all, you know, everybody thinks of him as a A, you know, lister, but really he's been kind of like been like A minus B plus. Yeah. His comics have never really sold that well. And like, yeah, there have been good stuff in there. And, um, you know, I'm sure, you know,
00:35:13
Speaker
Matt Blexo has listened to this and he's kind of rolling his eyes right now. But it's true. Iron Man was never really the bankable star of the Marvel Universe. You had Spider-Man, you had the Hulk, you had the X-Men. But Iron Man's mostly thought of in connection with the Avengers. And Iron Man's rogues gallery, with the exception of maybe the Mandarin,
00:35:40
Speaker
It's pretty crappy. Like his, you know, his rogues gallery, he gives Superman a run for his money with a, you know, a rogues gallery that doesn't quite live up to the hero. Right. I mean, like he had, he had other armored foes like the titanium man or the crimson dynamo, but then he had guys like the unicorn, the spy master. Right. Yeah. And it's, and it's hard to also, some of those are so rooted in cold war politics, like, you know,
00:36:06
Speaker
Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man. How are you gonna really do those in a post Cold War environment? So that gave John Favreau a lot of trouble trying to figure out how he was gonna do a villain for the movie. The Mandarin was originally supposed to be the villain for this movie. And he didn't really know how to make the Mandarin work in a modern context. Matter of fact, you know what? Okay.
00:36:33
Speaker
Iron Man really didn't get popular until they turned him into a lush.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's basically it. Yeah. Yeah. That's when the character really took off. And, you know, they started doing stories. I mean, there were stories in Newsweek in time for God's sake. Oh, Iron Man is dealing with alcoholism and, you know. And then that's when the character really became popular. And he wasn't even Iron Man. Tony Stark wasn't even Iron Man at the time. Rhodey was Iron Man. Right. Yeah. Rhodey became Iron Man. And then he ended up joining the West Coast Avengers during that time period. Yeah.
00:37:05
Speaker
And also, when they announced that Obadiah Stane was going to be the villain, that was also another kind of surprise because, you know, Stane hadn't been, you know, he died in the comics, you know, like what, like 30 years ago by this point. So, like, everyone's like, who? Which it kind of works for this movie, though. And
00:37:23
Speaker
First off, Jeff Bridges, that was another surprising cast choice, because he's the dude, but he's amazing as Obi in this movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was watching him. And like I said, I completely forgot he was in this movie. And I'm watching. I said, well, how could I forget that he was in this movie? Because he does a really, I mean, Jeff Bridges is a good period. Yes. But again, this is the type of movie
00:37:52
Speaker
you wouldn't expect to see him in. Right. And I think that that's something that runs through, that's a common thread that runs through all of the MCU movies in that we see these actors that we wouldn't expect to see in this type of movie, but because we do and because they're so good at what they do, they elevate the material. Yes. Yeah, exactly. That's a really good way of putting it. Because how many times have we talked about a Marvel movie and we talked about a casting choice for like, you know what, never thought that would have worked.
00:38:21
Speaker
Chris Evans as Captain America is one that instantly comes to mind, right? Like nobody thought about him as a Captain America type. Everybody knew him as Human Torch. Right. And yeah, that trend really started with the casting of Downey and Bridges in this movie. And it really works because in this movie, I was watching it last night, and you know what I realized? It's that if I didn't know
00:38:50
Speaker
stain was a villain in the comic books, I would have been totally shocked that he turned out to be the villain in this movie. Exactly. And I always say this, that usually these types of characters, right from their first scene, they should have a sign around their next scene.
00:39:08
Speaker
you will curse me for my inevitable behavior because they call the graphic that, you know, so, but yeah, if I didn't know that he was, you know, he was a venture, I would never guess that he eventually, he would turn out to be simply because Jeff Bridges is such a good actor. He doesn't project any of that in any of his scenes with Tony Stark. Oh, absolutely not. You don't see any of that. None of it. None of it. Yeah.
Casting Choices in Marvel Films
00:39:33
Speaker
He, he does a really good job of selling that and
00:39:37
Speaker
you watch this movie and you're like, you know, he's frustrated with it, but he seems just like he's, you know, Tony's business partner. Right. He seems more like he's, you know, a personality foil than a villain, especially because you see Raza and the Ten Rings in the background throughout the whole movie. And you keep thinking that, oh, Raza's finding the old armor. He's going to put it on. He's going to fight Iron Man. That's what the movie is leading you to believe. Exactly.
00:40:03
Speaker
So when you see Obadiah's thing show up and he's talking to the guy, it truly is the oh shit moment. Yeah, yeah. Oh shit, you know. And some of the other casting, like I love that Favreau cast himself as Happy Hogan. He doesn't have much to do in this movie, but it's kind of interesting how in the MCU he's now become more of a Spider-Man character. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of interesting. And yeah, I like the fact that he's confident enough
00:40:33
Speaker
as a director that he says, you know what, I'm confident to play this side character, who of course, as the movies go on, he gains in prominence, you know, as a character. Well, I remember there's a, I think there was a scene in Iron Man 3 when he says, you know, I told people I was Iron Man's bodyguard and they laughed at me.
00:40:56
Speaker
I think I remember that. This is always a minor thing with me. I used to say this all the time when me and Tom was doing the other part. Better in the dark. I used to say this all the time. I used to say, I always know if the filmmakers
00:41:17
Speaker
have respect for a property that's adapted from something else if they use the original theme song. And when I heard they used the theme song from the 60s Iron Man cartoon, I said, okay, these guys know what they're doing. Really? They did. Yeah. It's in the casino scene.
00:41:33
Speaker
Oh, OK. Remember when Tony Stark is walking through the casino and we hear that music playing in the background? Oh, OK. That's from the 1960s animated. Tony Stark makes you feel. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. And you hear bits of it, you know, all through the movie here and there. I think at one time it's even his ringtone for his phone or something like that. But yeah, I kind of. It's those little nerdy things like that that make me say, OK,
00:42:04
Speaker
they have a respect for the material and they're paying respect to what came before without drawing art like you. Okay. You didn't know about it. You know, if you don't know about it, it's fine. But for people like me who know about it and say, okay, yeah, I know where that came from. That's a good way to do it because I remember that was something that annoyed me about smallville was all the constant obvious winking at the camera where like they would, it would, there was a, there was a webcam at one time where, um,
00:42:34
Speaker
they were making, they're pointing out all the wiki and like it's seasoned and it shows like all the seasons, season 10. Tom Welling weeps so hard, he breaks his eye. Yeah and see that's one of my particular bugaboos also when people, okay say like there's a book I'm reading and you know like the writer will put in like an easter egg
00:42:59
Speaker
but then he'll draw attention to the fact, okay, but this is it. That's not the point of Easter egg. Right, exactly. The Easter egg is for there to catch for people who know it, but, you know, you're not supposed to draw attention to it. Right.
00:43:14
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, yeah. But them using the theme song from the 60s TV, the animated thing, that was a nice little thing. And I kind of relaxed when I heard that because I said, okay,
00:43:32
Speaker
they're having fun with this movie. You know, they're gonna have fun with, and they do. I mean, there's a lot, even though, you know, this one is a little bit more serious than I remember. You know, I haven't seen it in a while.
Agent Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Role
00:43:46
Speaker
And there was like some scenes in there I was saying, oh, wow, you know, I didn't remember. That's, you know, like, it's kinda, I mean, it doesn't descend into, you know, we're not talking about Bergman level of drama here.
00:43:59
Speaker
But compared to the lightheartedness of later MCU movies, this actually does get kind of deep at times. Well, I think the lightheartedness, it really kind of started when Whedon came on with Avengers. Like, I think that's really when that whole thing came into play, because you look at, you know, we're watching these earlier movies. I mean, I guess some parts of Thor, but for the most part, the first, the original movies in this series, they all play it pretty straight.
00:44:29
Speaker
yeah yeah this is pretty this is a pretty straight movie uh.
00:44:35
Speaker
especially in the scenes where, you know, he's captured by the terrorists, you know, you're actually kind of wondering, okay, well, is he going to get out of this alive? Because, you know, these guys are playing this straight. It's not, you know, cutesy. Because the first time that he says, okay, well, he's not doing it, well, they drag him out and start torturing his ass. Yeah, yeah. When he start, yeah, they ain't playing. They straight up take him out and torture him. Also want to mention, uh,
00:45:03
Speaker
You know, continuing on with the casting, you know, Paul Bettany as Jarvis, which another update, right? They made him artificial intelligence in this movie. Yeah. As opposed to the Avengers Butler, because they wanted to avoid comparisons to Batman. Which obviously makes out a lot of sense. And in fact, Jarvis is an acronym in this movie. It stands for just a rather very intelligent system.
00:45:28
Speaker
No, really. Yeah, yeah. And of course, what we find out later is that Jarvis was a real person, right? Played by James Darcy and Agent Carter and then also appeared in Avengers Endgame. But, and basically like he had kind of raised Tony was what the, was what was the whole thing behind it. So Tony names his AI after Jarvis to kind of honor his memory. And in fact,
00:45:58
Speaker
Paul Bettany said this was like the easiest job he ever had in his life because he'd never seen the film, right? He didn't know anything about the plot. And he said it was the easiest job ever. It was almost like a robbery. He only worked for two hours, got paid a lot of money, then went on vacation with his wife, Jennifer Connolly. Oh, hey. Bingo, there you go. And he said that eventually someone at Marvel must have realized that he was kind of stealing money from them for just coming in to do voice work for two hours. And then they made him vision.
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, listen, if you got Paul Bettany, you know, why not you? I get, yeah, somebody just said, listen, we're paying him all this money and we're not, I mean, you know, listen, use the guy. Yeah, yeah. And another one, Gwyneth Paltrow, like, this was an interesting thing, her, Pepper and Tony's relationship that, because in the comics, they never get together, right? She's just his loyal assistant. But
00:46:55
Speaker
It's just the chemistry between her and Downey was so strong that you can't not put them together.
00:47:04
Speaker
Matter of fact, I've always said if they ever decide to do a remake of The Thin Man, that's who they should get for Nick and Nora's charts. Because they've got that same type of chemistry that I see in William Powell and Myrna Lloyd. And that type of chemistry is extremely difficult to find.
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, you know, yeah, but it's definitely here. We see a mutual respect a mutual friendship. It's, you know, their banter back and forth they give and take. There's a trust between the two. They communicate a whole lot.
00:47:45
Speaker
You know, just standing there talking back and forth, you know, their body language, the way they relate to each other, the way they talk to each other. We get a whole history of these characters in a very short amount of time. Yeah. And going back to something you said earlier about, you know, Tony Stark having to be a likable asshole.
00:48:05
Speaker
That's tough to do in movies, right? So like, you can do that in a comic book. It's a lot easier to get away with that in a comic book or in a novel, but in a movie, right? You put a character like Tony Stark is in the comics up on screen, everyone's gonna hate him. Yeah, yeah. The whole thing with Tony Stark is that, yeah, okay.
00:48:28
Speaker
He's our main character, so at some point we have to like him. But we also have to show that he's egotistical, he's arrogant, he's somewhat of a jerk, he's somewhat insensitive. And I think that they do that.
00:48:47
Speaker
in a way by showing him constantly working so that we're seeing that his mind is actually operating on a different level. Yes. Than most people. So it's like some of the niceties that most of us are hardwired with. He doesn't have simply because he's got wiring for other stuff. Right. Yeah.
00:49:12
Speaker
you know, that's the way I take it away from him. That's why we look at him and say, yeah, okay, he's an asshole, but we understand why people like him because also because he's not being an asshole just to be an asshole. Yeah. And you need, and Downey is able to really, cause they kind of changed his personality a little bit from the comic books. You know, they make him more sarcastic. They make him funnier in this movie and,
00:49:37
Speaker
you kind of need that when you're doing a character like Tony Stark. Because, and you need someone like Downey who can sell that, right? He's extremely charming. He's very funny, but he's also an asshole. And he's able to play those at different aspects and merge them together perfectly.
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, you know, there's a lot of him that goes into this character, I think, and if you're going to have a character that's going to last through a series of movies, like, I guess they hope they did, I don't
00:50:10
Speaker
I mean, I don't think that they knew how big this was going to take off, but they did have an idea that there was going to be more movies. Yeah, you do have to have a character that his personality undergoes a slight adjustment, let's say, so that we can say, OK, well, I want to follow this guy and see where he goes. I mean, it's a performance that's on the level with Michael Keaton in Batman, the original Batman.
00:50:37
Speaker
you know, Christopher Reeve in the original Superman. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, we're talking about this is a this is I mean, let's face it, for the rest of his life, Robert Downey Jr. is going to be known as Iron Man. I don't care who else plays the part. Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, everybody going to say everybody, oh, yeah, he played Iron Man. You know, it's that type of performance. Yes. Yeah. And he. Yeah, it's just he's able to do that. He's able to inject so much of his own personality into this movie and into this character.
00:51:08
Speaker
and that it's impossible to separate the character from Downey. And let's face it, Robert Downey Jr. simply is a very good actor. He is, yeah. Yes, he's a good actor. Yeah, that was something like everybody, like I think a lot of people had kind of written him off because of, you know, all his, you know,
00:51:29
Speaker
you know, his public failings. I think people have forgotten how long he's been around. If you go back and look at the 80s, his earlier work, he was in a movie with Rodney Dangerfield, you know, back to school. Great movie. Very funny in that movie. A lot of people forget how long he's been around, you know. And I think that they, you know, don't look at his entire body of work and, you know, take that into account when they're talking about the career that he's had.
00:51:57
Speaker
Something else that really helped with this movie is that Downey himself is a fan of the character. Right. He came into this. He was a fan of the character to begin with. And so that really helped a lot. And and it was really interesting with this movie because it was kind of like an independent. It was like a big budget student film. It was described as because they didn't really have a working script. So a lot of the dialogue in this movie is ad-libbed. Hmm.
00:52:27
Speaker
So they basically had the story set out, but they didn't really have the dialogue written. So they were writing pages before they shot. They were ad-libbing on set. And that was one of the things that was difficult for Paltrow, because she didn't know what town he was going to say next. And that was also difficult for Bridges as well, because he said that he likes going into movies. He likes being very prepared.
00:52:55
Speaker
So he likes rehearsing, he likes knowing everything that's going to happen. And it was a little difficult for him at first, but then he kind of relaxed when they told him, think of it as a big budget student film. And then he let him kind of relax and fit more into the role. Now, also, Gotta mentioned another surprise MVP in this movie, and that's Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson. Yeah, yeah.
00:53:22
Speaker
And you know, I saw, I love how each time he comes in, he uses the full name, he introduces the full name of S.H.I.E.L.D. Yeah, he just says the whole thing. Yeah. Prompting Tony Stark at one time to say, you know what, you really gotta get it through with the name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's funny, I remember when I first watched this movie, I didn't realize that he was talking about S.H.I.E.L.D. until like, right, I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
00:53:50
Speaker
Well, that's because that they're using the name that they use now. Now, for me, you know, I'm a fan from SHIELD back when Jim Steranko did it. So to me, SHIELD is always going to be the Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law Division. You know, to me, that other strategic initiative and, you know. Well, that was a change in, so there were, and it changed three times, basically. First, it was the Supreme Headquarters one, and then
00:54:21
Speaker
Then Shieldhead, they like fell apart or something, got torn down and then it was rebuilt. And that's when they had the new name, the strategic one. And then they changed, they tweaked it a little bit for this one because Homeland was not originally part of the acronym. It was originally Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage and Logistics Division Directorate or something like that. And they changed it to Strategic Homeland probably because in a post 9-11 world to make it more similar to
00:54:50
Speaker
you know, Homeland Security. Homeland Security, right, exactly. Right. So, so it makes sense why they did that. But, but yeah, he was kind of a surprising little thing in this movie. And, you know, it's very obvious why he's doing the whole thing, right? Because that's kind of the Easter egg. They're not going to reveal that it's shield until the very end, right? They just want to kind of tease it for people.
00:55:13
Speaker
who are fans of the comic books. But also- Then we get that great moment at the end when he just says, well, just call us S.H.I.E.L.D. Yeah. And I remember I embarrassed Patricia when we started the movie theater, because I jumped up and she said, yes, yes. She said, well, you sit down. People are looking. It's S.H.I.E.L.D., damn it. And
00:55:41
Speaker
Well, and I think there's also an, like, people are like, well, it doesn't really make sense for him to introduce the whole name because, you know, it's been revealed now that they called it shield before Iron Man, like in Captain Marvel, they called it shield, right? And I said, well, there is kind of, it does make sense if you think about Colson's character, like he's a very by the book type of guy. So it makes sense that he'd want to do the whole name. Yeah, and it's a running gag, you know?
00:56:07
Speaker
Much like the Iron Man theme song from the animated thing, it's there for those of us who know what S.H.I.E.L. means. We know what it means. So we're just waiting for him, because I know it's some part in the movie. I said, yeah, he's going to say it.
00:56:27
Speaker
And when he finally says it, I said, yes. Because I knew it was coming. So that's what it's there for. And that's also why they made him an original character, instead of making him one of the veteran SHIELD agents from the comic books. Because I think you mentioned, you were the one who first mentioned, as far as I know, that his character is almost exactly the same as Jasper Sitwell. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I first saw the movie,
00:56:55
Speaker
That was my thing. I said, well, why didn't they just call him Jasper Sitwell? Because, you know, and then when I saw him in succeeding, you know, movies, I was wondering, well, why didn't they just call him Jasper Sitwell? Because basically that's who he is. And then they introduce Jasper Sitwell.
00:57:13
Speaker
who, I don't know who that guy was supposed to be. So I just felt a Jasper Sitwell in name only. But I have come to appreciate the fact that they made Phil Coulson his own character for a lot of reasons. And mainly because of the way that Clark Gregg plays the character. Right. Well, Gregg made the character his own. Like originally he started off as a, and it makes sense why they call him Sitwell in the beginning.
00:57:39
Speaker
or why they wouldn't call him sit well because they wanted to have that surprise aspect of, oh yeah, he's with S.H.I.E.L.D. Right, yeah. Yes. So yeah, I was down for that. But I love how unassuming he is. You know, like he pops up here in the air and he's got this, you know, quirky little smile on his face. And he's very, he's always very polite and very mad. And he said, okay, well, we have to debrief you. And
00:58:06
Speaker
You know, could you come in or can we come see you? Yeah, yeah. And Pepper says, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, we'll make it up. And he's still very OK. Thank you very much. And I'll talk to you later. And because you know what? He's shield. He doesn't have to be tough. Well, and the thing is, like, he's so unassuming and you. Yeah, I was watching this movie and I was watching his performance and he seems like a bureaucrat throughout most of the movie until you get to the end when they're going to arrest Stane.
00:58:34
Speaker
And then she's like, she's like, I don't understand my cards not working. And he just casually gestures to the age of the height of any heads of the little Bob and he puts it on there. And she's like, Oh, what's that? Is that like going to pick the lock? He's like, you should probably just stand back. Yeah. And he's just, he's still very unassuming, very calm. And, you know, he's just, and it just shows you like, Oh, this guy's actually a bad ass.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yes, he's very because when he cut when she comes down the stairs and you see him in the off and the waiting room and he's like we had an appointment you forget he looks kind of flustered when she's like yep right now follow me.
00:59:05
Speaker
And you think, oh, maybe this guy's working for sure. But then that little, it's just a little moment, right? It's just that little brief moment when he, when he had, but that just his confidence and when he gestures to the bottom and puts it on the door, I'm just like, oh, this guy actually can throw it out if he has to. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, I mean, he's got a big stick, but he doesn't have to wave it around. Right, right. Yeah.
00:59:31
Speaker
He's not like, he doesn't have to, he's not like Nick Fury who walks around the long trench coat and eye patch. Oh yeah, well see, yeah, because Nick Fury is making a statement. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, Colson doesn't have to make a statement. Right. He doesn't have to do that, you know. But Nick Fury, yeah, when he comes in, you got to know that, you know, well, this is Nick Fury and I'm the baddest motherfucker on the planet. Yeah.
00:59:57
Speaker
Because, of course, it's Sam Jackson. I mean, can you imagine Sam Jackson playing Colson? No, no, hell no. Yeah, OK. Although that would be kind of interesting to see them switch roles. That would be interesting. We know it's funny because I saw this movie before I saw The West Wing. And then when I was watching The West Wing, I saw Clark Gregg was in there as like the head of the Secret Service. Yeah.
01:00:25
Speaker
And Clark Gregg, too, is another guy who's a comic book fan. He was apparently, I think it was John Favreau's neighbor or something. And when John Favreau told him he was working on Iron Man, you know, Greg was like, oh, can you get me a part? He's like, I love Iron Man. So he's another guy.
01:00:45
Speaker
And he's somebody that's been on like a ton of stuff, but I just like never noticed it. Like I remember one night I was, I don't know, you know, I was just flipping through the channels. I was looking at,
01:00:58
Speaker
There was a sitcom with Julia Louise Dreyfus I'd never watched, The New Adventures of Old Christine. And he was on there. Oh, OK. I said, oh my god. And I started watching it because, well, she was on there. And then I started watching. He was on there. And you know, wasn't it? Juan Sykes was on there. And I said, why have I never heard of this sitcom? It was like I discovered a sitcom from Earth 2 that I'd never heard of with all these people that I liked. That was like me with, um,
01:01:29
Speaker
Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23, I think it was. Oh yeah, yeah. That was another one that was just kind of like this underrated show that was so amazing. And I didn't discover it until years later. Yeah, Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 2B. 2B, that was it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. What's his name from Dawson Creek? He was in there. Yeah, yeah. Oh crap, why am I blanking on his name now?
01:01:55
Speaker
That was the first thing that I saw the chick from Jessica Jones. That was the first thing I ever saw.
Terrence Howard's Controversial Exit
01:02:03
Speaker
Kristen Ritter, yeah. Kristen Ritter, yeah. Yeah. I'm looking him up now because it's going to bug me if I don't remember his name.
01:02:14
Speaker
I know you're like. James Van Der Beek. James Van Der Beek, right. Yeah. And he's another one. Like I never really thought of, I never really took him like seriously as an actor, but he also did this in, um, in Jane's House of Bob Strike Back where he makes fun of himself basically. And he does that. He does that throughout this entire movie. And it's so, it's really cool. Like just how, how comfortable he is with just like, you know, making this fictionalized version of himself a lot like, um, uh,
01:02:44
Speaker
I'm blanking on everybody's name today. The guy from How I Met Your Mother and Doogie Howser. Oh. Neil Patrick Harris. Neil Patrick Harris. Right, he did the same thing in the Harold and Kumar movies where he plays the fictionalized version of himself. You know what, you find a lot of these actors, I find that they really like doing that. They really like playing the roles where they can play themselves and they can make fun of themselves. In fact, you know what, I would love to see a sitcom with
01:03:12
Speaker
the fictional James Van Der Beek and the fictional Neil Patrick Harris going on adventures. Oh, my God. But all right. So then also in the casting, there's Terrence Howard, who turns out as James Rhodes, as James Rhodes recast and replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2 and then going forward. And, you know, rewatching this rewatching this movie, I noticed there's a huge difference in the way
01:03:41
Speaker
Howard plays Rhodey and Cheadle plays Rhodey. And I felt that Howard feels more like, what am I trying to say? I don't really buy the friendship between Howard and Downey as much as I do with Cheadle and Downey. Like with Howard, it almost feels like he's exasperated by Stark all the time. And he's like, he doesn't want to put up with him. With Cheadle, he's got some of that exasperation, but you can tell that there is this friendship between them.
01:04:11
Speaker
Well, okay, but be fair, Cheetos had more time to play the character. Turns out it was just in this one movie. And my understanding is that the reason why he didn't come back was because he wanted more money and he didn't want to pay him more money. And apparently he got, there was a thing with Howard got upset with Robert Downey Jr. because he felt that Robert Downey Jr. should've went to bat for him.
01:04:38
Speaker
and ask for more money. And when people ask me this, oh, what do you think about that? I say, well, that's not Robert Downey Jr. job. That's Terrence Howard's agent or business manager job to get him more money. Well, something else too is, because Downey did go to bat for people in, for his co-stars in Avengers. So, so I'm not quite sure if that story is really true because Downey has proven that he will go to bat for people.
01:05:02
Speaker
Well, he had more clout by then, also remember. By the time they got to Avengers, he had, I mean, you know, pretty much Rob Downey Jr. By the time they got to Avengers, pretty much anything that he said, they said, okay, yeah, fine, you can have it. This first movie, he didn't have that type of clout.
01:05:19
Speaker
where he could say, okay, well, give, you know, Terrence Howard, you know, listen, give him more money. And they would have said, yeah, okay, fine. You know, I mean, by the time he got to like Iron Man two or three, yeah, he could have, sure, you know, give the guy more money. I mean, I myself would have liked, because Terrence Howard, another terrific actor. He's a great actor. Like, don't get me wrong, he is a great actor.
01:05:42
Speaker
I would have liked to see how the relationship developed between Tony and Rhodey if he had continued playing it. Because yeah, it's a completely different vibe. Well, Don Cheadle is a completely different actor. Well, not only that, but also even in the beginning of Iron Man 2, when Cheadle comes in to testify at the Senate hearing, even in that moment, I did feel like there was more of
01:06:10
Speaker
a friendship aspect between them because as he's given the testimony and you know he's saying like you know you want like he's trying to explain his testimony in a way that reflects positively on tony and i just wouldn't see cheetos uh not cheetle howard's version doing the same thing like the scene when they're in the plane he's just like you know you know i'm just i'm just your minders just you know he just seems like
01:06:35
Speaker
I don't know just something about it just seems like a lot more antagonistic then then she'll seems right at the beginning. Yeah, I mean like right from the start, it's like you get the impression that he's fed up with Tony's bull. Yeah, you know, go to me, you know, cuz he gets on the plate. Okay, cuz me.
01:06:54
Speaker
If I had written the scene, you know, because, okay, Tony comes on the plane and roadie standing there and he's giving them shit. Yeah. You know, I've been waiting here three hours for you and bye, bye, bye. This and that. And he says, okay, well I'm here now. Okay, let's go. So then they have some dialogue, there's some back and forth. And then we cut to the scene where, you know, the drinking and the stewardesses or on the strip of pole, everything like that.
01:07:17
Speaker
Okay, if I was writing the scene, when Tony comes on the plane, Rody would have had all that shit ready for him already. You know, okay, well, you know, I knew you was gonna take your time, so I figured I might as well just get the party started, you know, before we go anyway. You know, that's why, but I didn't write it, but yeah, but okay, I see where you're going with it, and because Rody seems more like, yeah, in this movie, and it seems like he's like,
01:07:45
Speaker
Okay, because there is a scene where, after Tony has come back after he's escaped from the terrorists and everything like that and he has the press conference, and he says okay well, Stock Industries is not going to make weapons anymore.
01:07:58
Speaker
And the Don Cheadle roadie, you get the impression that he would have went along with it. But the Terrence Howard roadie is on the military side. Right. And he said, listen, you can't do this. You just can't stop making weapons just like that. Because yeah. So yeah, I see where you're going with that. I can see that. Yeah. And it's just like a small thing. It's not like a big thing. And it's not to say that Howard does a bad job.
01:08:25
Speaker
It was just... After he's very good, I like him. Oh, yeah. Well, I like everybody in this movie. There's no performance I can point to and say, okay, well, I really don't like this guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, no. All the casting is really good. I just... I remember when it happened, when they announced that they were changing to Don Cheadle and, you know, seeing Don... I don't know about any more, but I remember back then, people were saying, oh, you know, it was a mistake to replace Howard with
01:08:54
Speaker
uh, Cheetle, but I actually think I prefer Don Cheetle as Rodan. I prefer Don Cheetle anything. I don't know, I've heard once that there's a, Soderbergh has a Don Cheetle rule, which is if you can put Don Cheetle in your movie, you put Don Cheetle in your movie. It doesn't matter what part. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you about, um,
01:09:18
Speaker
What did you think about the updating? Because, of course, originally, Iron Man with his Cold War, the whole setting of him was different because I believe that he was in Indochina or Vietnam or something. Vietnam, yeah. It was during the Vietnam War. And they have updated this considerably to Afghanistan. How did you feel that they handled the updating? Oh, I thought that worked really well. I mean, it makes total sense.
01:09:49
Speaker
I thought it worked really well and they did that in the comics already too because they updated it a few several years back to be the Gulf War instead of Vietnam and then it was adapted and I think it was war analysis extremist run where they updated it again to be like Afghanistan.
01:10:08
Speaker
And it makes total sense, right? That's just one of those things. Although it was kind of weird that you have Ho Yinsen as the same name as the guy, even though he's obviously not, you know, Asian at all. Yeah. Yeah. But, but again, you know what? I liked the fact that they paid homage to the original character, you know, by keeping the name, you know, so I was, so I kind of over, cause yeah, when he said his name of Yinsen, I said, well, he's not Asian.
01:10:36
Speaker
Well, not East Asian anymore. But again, like I said, I looked at that as paying homage to the original character. So yeah, so it didn't bother me that much. No, it didn't bother me at all. It was just something kind of funny I noticed. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. But I'm with you. I thought it would, I thought the updating and because, okay,
01:11:04
Speaker
And this goes back to what I said about some of the deeper aspects that they get into this movie where they touch on terrorism and the fact that Tony Stark has been making these weapons, but he just makes them and he has no idea of what is done with them after he makes them and they go out there in the world. Because the guy shows them that he's got stacks and stacks of all these weapons with his name on it. And they're killing innocent people. And I thought it was a nice little way to
01:11:35
Speaker
update the Tony Stark character himself and because now he's coming face to face with what he's done and what his company has done. Yeah, because unless I'm mistaken in the comics, even after he became Iron Man, he was still developing weapons for a long time, right? Well, he was the guy that he, okay, well, he was the armor of a shield. That's right, yeah. He made all the shield stuff.
01:11:58
Speaker
yeah he was he was doing uh arms manufacturing well into his history in the comics so exactly yeah he you know he didn't he didn't stop making it just because he was armed he kept on making matter he made more of that shit eventually he did stop i do know do know he stopped eventually but yeah eventually he did stop but yeah so um i thought that was very good too and you know kind of surprised me when i was watching this because i know
01:12:22
Speaker
This movie and a lot of other movies get a lot of criticism from some aspects of, from some progressive circles, you know, my people, but because, you know, the military has a whole division in the Pentagon that just liaises with Hollywood and advises on movies. And they like, this Hollywood, this, and it really started with Top Gun, right? Where the military,
01:12:50
Speaker
partners up with these film studios and they say, okay, look, and to save money, they'll say, hey, look, you'll, you want to use, you want to use an aircraft carrier in your movie. Okay. We'll let you use one of ours, but we got to take a look at the script. We got to have, we got to rewrite some stuff and they have a really heavy role in that. And that was the same with this movie too, right? They had a lot of, there was a lot of military cooperation in this movie, but you know, what's interesting is just, you look at Top Gun and it's almost,
01:13:18
Speaker
It's a fun movie, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty much an ad for the Air Force. You want to hear something? I have never seen Top Gun.
Iconic Films and Their Cultural Impact
01:13:28
Speaker
Oh, really? I've seen bits and pieces here and there. It's one of those movies that you know something? I've heard so much about it that I feel like I've seen it. Oh, OK. You ever had a movie like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just heard so much about it and you see.
01:13:43
Speaker
clips here and there and someone that's okay I got to just I don't have to know I've never seen top cut I recommend Washington it's a fun movie and it's who is it uh Tony Scott directed I believe yeah I mean I've never avoided it you know because I do like
01:13:58
Speaker
You know, listen, I'm a big Tom Cruise fan. But every time it comes on TV, I'm either catching the first 15 minutes or the last 15 minutes or something like that, or I'll catch it in the middle or something. I've never sat down and watched the movie from start to finish. Let me put it that way. OK. Yeah, I recommend taking some time and just sitting down and watching, because it's a fun movie. And it's lots of classic lines in that movie, lots of classic bits from that movie.
01:14:28
Speaker
But anyway, it was basically like a two-hour Air Force commercial, like doing the Air Force. And it worked, like it boosted Air Force recruitment, went through the roof after that movie came out.
01:14:41
Speaker
Well, that's the main criticism I've heard. Anytime I have heard any criticism against the movie. That's the one that I hear that people say, well, it's just basically a, you know, propaganda film, you know, for the Air Force. It is. It is. It totally is. Now that being said, and the military has done a lot of stuff like this. They've worked on a lot of movies like that.
Iron Man and the Military-Industrial Complex
01:15:05
Speaker
and so but and they did that with iron man and i remember you know i've heard a lot of criticism from you know like progressive circles about the movie because oh it's so pro-military but i'm watching it last night and i'm like actually
01:15:17
Speaker
they do a lot of critiquing in the military in this movie, in the military industrial complex in general. Yeah, they do. They actually do. And it's kind of done in an almost subtle way, right? So it's not, but like the press conference, when he says, you know, I have become comfortable with assist, I have become part of the system that is comfortable with zero accountability, and you know, the whole double dealing aspect. And Tony's the only one who's like going against this. So I thought there was some, you know,
01:15:47
Speaker
I think the movie is in a subtle way. It is criticizing those things. And it's kind of funny that they took the military's money to basically call them a piece of shit right to their face.
01:16:00
Speaker
Well, actually, you know what? I think that they, that, okay, like you said, they're not ham handed about it, first of all. And they don't take nearly as many swipes at the military as I think that they actually could have. I think they do a pretty good job of saying, okay, well, we understand why the military is necessary, but you have to look at and examine their motives
01:16:28
Speaker
for why they do certain things and why they need certain types of weaponry. Like do we really need
01:16:35
Speaker
this, cause it's this special missile. The Jericho. Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, okay. Does anybody really need a Jericho? No. Really? Not just the terrorists. And I think that you get a little bit of that in there with Tony and saying, well, you know what? Nobody really needs to have, we don't even need to have this. Yeah. You know, not just the terrorists, you know, we've got enough weapons. Why do we need this? Which is why I think that that leads to
01:17:03
Speaker
the whole thing with him constructing the Iron Man suit, because it's not just a physical representation of a shell, because he's been psychologically damaged, you know, by the experience that he's been in. So the Iron Man, so here's where I get into the psychological portion of the program, folks. The Iron Man armor is like a manifestation of the protection he wants to build around him.
01:17:29
Speaker
Yeah. To keep him from that type of harm again. But it's also Tony making a statement about that he believes he's the only one that should have a weapon that powerful. Right. Nobody else should have it. The military shouldn't have it. Anybody should have it. And that is the only way that he can make sure that his other weapons will stay out of the hands of people
01:17:53
Speaker
that ironically, he has to build a better weapon to keep his own weapons out of people's hands. If that makes any sense. No, it makes total sense, yeah. Which is the whole rationale. For me, that's the whole rationale behind him being Iron Man and building the Iron Man armor. Okay, these people have my weapons. In order to keep them out of their hands, I got to build a better weapon. Right, yeah.
01:18:17
Speaker
Well, it's kind of like that old notion. When you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Yeah. And then, of course, we get to later on where Tony, he builds Ultron. Yes, yeah. Where he says, OK, now I got to build an even better weapon than that. Right, yeah. And that's Tony's problem, right? Every problem looks like a nail to him. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
01:18:42
Speaker
And the only way to solve it is ironically for him to build a better much disease. Okay. Well, we don't need, you know, uh, we don't, okay. The world doesn't need weapons and we don't need it, but then he goes ahead and builds a bigger, bigger, better weapon. Well, in, um, in winter soldier to remember, he's the one who's responsible for the, for the new helicopters.
01:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. Because he says, after Stark took a look at her old systems, he upgraded it with repulsor technology. It's like, you know what, Tony, for someone who says that he's done making weapons, you're sure making a lot of weapons still. Well, yeah, OK. Well, this is my point exactly. Because this is how he thinks, like you just said very accurately. OK, his only way to solve a problem is to beat it into submission with a weapon. Right.
01:19:31
Speaker
That's the only way that he can think of to solve a problem. Yeah, yeah. He's got to build a bigger, better weapon. Unfortunately, the weapons that Tony Stokes built have an unfortunate habit of turning around and biting him in the ass, as when Obadiah Stane comes back at him with iron manga armor. Right, yeah. That he himself had built. Right, yeah.
01:19:56
Speaker
And all he basically did was, all Obi basically did was just make it bigger. That's the only thing he really did to it. That's all he really did, just made it bigger. Speaking of, I love the scene when he walks in and he talks to the engineer and he says, look, who later appears in Spider-Man Far From Home as part of Mysterio's crew, right? I like that they kind of tied that in together as well. Yeah.
01:20:21
Speaker
But he says to him, he says, look, Mr. Stain, the technology, what you're asking us to do, it's impossible. We can't do this. And he's like, what are you talking about? It's impossible. Tony Stark did this in a cave with a box of scraps. And the guy's like, well, I'm not Tony Stark. That's a great line, by the way. I know, yeah. He said, what are you talking about? Tony Stark did this in a cave.
01:20:48
Speaker
You can't, you got this whole, you know, look at the billion dollar lab, but you can't, which again, says something goes back to the characterization about Tony Stark and how his brain works. Yeah. You know, and you know, it makes you stop. Yeah. You know something? He's right. The guy did build this in a cave with a, I mean, I mean, Hey, I mean, the guy's a genius. Yeah. He doesn't begin to say it.
01:21:12
Speaker
And it's just like, also something else they did in this movie, which now I don't know about you. I don't know if this has ever been explained in the comic books, but the whole idea of using the, his chest plate keeps his heart beating. That never really made sense to me in the comic books, right? And never like, it never really seemed like, well, how does that actually work? Here it works. They find a way to make it work. It's like, oh, it's an electromagnet. It's keeping the shrapnel from going into his heart. That makes sense.
01:21:40
Speaker
Yeah, the whole the whole chest plate thing in the comics. He was he was wearing what amounted to was a suit of armor under his clothes all the time. Yeah, he had to wear the chest plate all the time. The chest plate all the time. And the idea was that it was keeping the
01:21:59
Speaker
the shrapnel in his chest from going into his heart, but they never really explained how it was doing that. You know what it was? It was a crutch because at that time, all superheroes needed some type of crutch to keep them from being too powerful. It was Tony Starr's kryptonite. Yes.
01:22:23
Speaker
That was the excuse he always made for why he'd never asked Pepper out on a date. He said, well, I can't get into a relationship with her because this shrapnel in my chest may kill me at any time. That's why I was so glad that they updated this to the arc reactor, because it makes so much more sense. OK, so was shrapnel in the comics, too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, I don't think. I don't remember. Maybe I just didn't read the comics enough, but I never really understood that.
01:22:53
Speaker
All I remember was that it keeps his heart beating. And I'm just like, how does that make any sense? I don't get it. Yeah, if I remember right, because it's been a long time since I read those 60s Iron Man comics, but I do believe that it was the same principle that it was shrapnel that was in his
01:23:10
Speaker
chest or in his heart or something like that. But I do know that he had to wear that because occasionally they have a pal where he's in his office and he's got his shirt off and he's got the chest plate plugged into the wall sock. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, they did that every once in a while. Well, also he had to, I remember they also did comic books where he wouldn't fly all the time. So he had like roller skates in his boots.
01:23:37
Speaker
Yeah. And you say like Tony Stark, you see Iron Man roller skating through New York traffic. Yeah, that was one of the more goofier things. Don't do not ask me why Tony Stark would put roller skates on his, but yeah, every once in a while they did that because he would be low on power and he couldn't fly. So he would roller skate. Yeah.
01:24:03
Speaker
Listen, man, it was the 1960s. Just go with it. Yeah, yeah. But you know something?
Modern Relevance of Iron Man's Technology
01:24:10
Speaker
Every once in a while, because I remember even as late as the 1980s, when Bob Layton was drawn, every once in a while, they would break out the roller skates. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In fact, this movie, it does a lot more with the Iron Man technology as possibilities. And it makes you realize that Iron Man is really a character.
01:24:32
Speaker
that, you know, as far as the concept of the armor goes and all that, it's more suited for these days than it was for the 1960s, right? Because it makes more sense now with the computer systems and the AI and all that, it makes more sense in a more of a modern context. Because back then, all it was was it was just, it was like in a walking tank, basically. Back then, okay.
01:24:55
Speaker
And that's an excellent point you make, because back then, OK, we're talking about the 1960s when Iron Man was science fiction back then. Like you said, with the technology that we have now, Iron Man as a character is a lot more plausible with all the different stuff that we have now and the computer systems, the alloys that we've come up with, the way technology has advanced to
01:25:25
Speaker
The point where we can do, yeah, Iron Man is a lot, you know, it's a lot more plausible as a character. Wow. Yeah. And, you know what, watching this movie again, this has a, it's kind of weird, Stane's motivation in the third act, right? It kind of falls apart. It's kind of like the abomination in The Incredible Hulk, where we said, like, well, he doesn't really have a reason to want to tear up Harlem.
01:25:52
Speaker
stain doesn't really have a reason to want to start going on this rampage through California. Like his whole thing is he wants to use this, this armor to make money. So it's not really, he wants to sell it to the military. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, really actually. Okay. If the movie will consistent with
01:26:15
Speaker
OK, if the movie was consistent, as far as his character goes, he would have just simply sold the suit to the mill. He would call up Rodi and said, listen, Tony won't give you a suit of armor, but I got one. Yeah, yeah. Come and take a look at it. And, you know, OK. And then the movie would be over. But in the best tradition of these types of movies, Tony has to confront his mirror image in the form of Overdyed Spain, who is wearing his
01:26:44
Speaker
hit the armor that he wore when he was captured. So in a way by destroying that armor, you know, that's the last vestiges of the trauma he has when he was held captive by the terrorists. And of course, you know, Overdyed Stain is his link to the past as far as making weapons go. So we got to get rid of him too, you know.
01:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just it's just a weird. But it doesn't make a bit. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. No, yeah. Like, as far as like, Tony's character growth and his arc, you're right, that does that fits perfectly well, especially the whole thing about him having to almost destroy his past self. Yeah. But as far as Obadiah's character goes, it doesn't make a lick of sense.
Villain Critique in Iron Man
01:27:38
Speaker
is these two important elements of his past merged into one. Yeah, yeah. That he's got to get rid of in order to move on with the rest of his life. But yeah, but Obadiah, yeah, because Obadiah said, like you said, he's a businessman. All it is is that we just need a big fight at the end of the movie. But yeah, Obadiah, I mean, I figured that the guy was just gonna take the suit off and say, okay, well, but now, but see, but since we've already,
01:28:04
Speaker
established that he was in league with the terrorists to kill Tony in first place. Well, okay. Well, now he's not just a businessman. He's, you know,
01:28:16
Speaker
uh he's been proven to be the villain of the piece so of course now we gotta get rid of him. Also I like the updating they did to the Mandarin in this um with well at least where it was originally going and where it will probably go back again once Shang-Chi comes out uh but you know this whole idea of you know him being the head of this you know basically like Marvel's League of Assassins that's basically what he what he is
01:28:43
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And you know, when I first saw the movie and I heard the name of the organization, the Ten Rings, and then I saw that guy and he was standing on the cliff playing with the ring, I said, oh, that's the Mandarin. Well, he's not. Yeah, that's, I remember some people thought he was the Mandarin. He was going to be like the modern version of the Mandarin. But he wasn't, right? The Mandarin still out there. He was just one of the Mandarin's agents.
01:29:11
Speaker
which is good because he gets killed off in this movie really easily. But I do also like the whole, because they're taking, you're wondering how are they going to make the Mandarin, which is a Chinese concept, and apply it to a Middle Eastern setting. And they do that thing where Yinsen says that these people come from all over the world. They speak all these different languages. There are people from all different parts of the world that are part of this organization.
01:29:38
Speaker
And I thought that was a really good way to do it and to kind of like, it's a really good, it's a really cool way they start to build up the mandarins, the idea of the mandarin and his legacy here, which, you know, they kind of shit the bed on with Iron Man 3, but, you know, then they righted the ship, so. So I'm really, I'm looking forward to seeing how they work that in because it seems like what they're doing is they're,
01:30:07
Speaker
they're building up the Mandarin to be kind of like a mix between the comic version and also like taking in some aspects of Marvel's take on Fu Manchu and also like, you know, Raish Al Ghul or some of some of that. So I like this kind of new composite version of the Mandarin they're starting to create.
01:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, I know, people seem to, well, okay, first of all, I should just say that I'm one of those that really, because when I saw the movie, I never thought that, what's his name? The actor who played, I never thought he was a real Mandarin in the first place. Oh, really? No, I never thought he was a real Mandarin. Okay, well, we can get to that when we talk about Iron Man 3 eventually. Yeah, so I mean, I don't know, but,
01:30:58
Speaker
I just never got the impression that, yeah, okay, well, this is the real guy. I mean, you know, in the first place, I mean, cause I know Iron Man three, there's a lot of people, including a good friend van. He, you know, Iron Man fans, they hate that movie with passion. Yeah. That is when I do my marathon of all the Marvel movies, that's the only one that I don't watch. Really? Yes.
Marvel's Post-Credit Scene Tradition
01:31:23
Speaker
Yeah. I do. Iron Man three is the only Marvel movie I do not like.
01:31:27
Speaker
There's a lot of other things about Iron Man 3 I don't like, but the Mandarin really isn't one that bought. But like you said, we'll get to that eventually down the road. I'll say yes. Yeah, but there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of other things in there that bought Iron Man 3. But anyway, also, Nick Fury popping up at the end. This started the Marvel trend of the post-credit scene.
01:31:51
Speaker
Now my understanding is that that was, that was like an afterthought. It was. Yeah. Okay. Elaborate. Because, all right. So what happened was, uh, cause they had asked, you know, Sam Jackson to, if he would let them use his likeness for Nick Fury and the ultimate comic books. And, you know, he agreed to let them have it, you know, no charge or anything like, as far as I know, no charge.
01:32:15
Speaker
But with the condition that if you ever do a Nick Fury movie, I got to play him. That was, yeah, that's what I've heard as well. So when they were doing Iron Man, and I remember there were lots of rumors at the time about, oh, Sam Jackson was on the set or something like that. But yeah, it was not a rigid, he did not have a contract or anything. I don't think he was even paid for this part. It was just, come in for a day and shoot this scene.
MCU's Unplanned Success and Evolution
01:32:41
Speaker
And it'll be like a cool, and it was, there were two things that, one, it was just like, oh, this is a cool little thing to throw in there in case the movie doesn't do anything, right? So it just kind of hints at, oh, then something else is going to happen later on down the line behind the scenes. But then the other thing was, there's a chance this could actually go somewhere. So they were kind of like, you know, they had no, after Iron Man was successful at the box office, right? After it became this massive success,
01:33:12
Speaker
then Jackson got like an unprecedented like nine picture deal or something with Marvel. Yeah, yeah. And then after that, and this is like we talked about when we talked about Incredible Hulk, right? Because of this, they then went and then they shot a, they went back to Incredible Hulk and they shot the scene with Downey appearing in that movie.
01:33:38
Speaker
but they didn't really have any sort of real plan at the time. And it was just like, oh, well, okay, so, okay, so this works. So now we gotta figure out how we're gonna make this happen.
01:33:48
Speaker
Well, I guess they figured, well, you know what? Let's hint at it and let's see if we get to that point. If we don't get there, but I think that they probably knew based on the success of Iron Man, they said, okay, you know what? We've got something now here. We don't quite know what it is or where we're going to go with this, but now we've got something. Right. Yeah. I mean, they knew, I mean, they knew they had, they had to know that they had something.
01:34:15
Speaker
It was, they were taking a big risk because nothing like this has never been attempted before, right? Like a cinematic universe. There aren't really any, there's not really any template for that. No. The closest, I mean, you've had, you know, movie series, but like, but you never had like this cinematic universe they're trying to set up like this. So it was, they didn't really have any real template for it. So they were, you know, fumbling around in the dark a little bit here.
01:34:43
Speaker
And it's kind of amazing when you see what it's become. Yeah, I mean, the whole thing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is why it's been so hard for other studios to duplicate the success of it, because this was pretty much something that they were figuring out as they went along. Right.
01:35:07
Speaker
you know, they just say, okay, well, we're going to do this movie and then we're going to do, and then, okay, well, we're going to bring in this element and we're going to bring in that element and we're, okay, how about if we do this and how about, and it, and a combination of just, as we said, casting, writing, trusting in the material and not saying, okay, well, this is going to be too corny, or if it is corny, how can we make it less corny? Right.
01:35:35
Speaker
And you know just not being afraid to because you know what I okay one thing that really annoys me okay with people that do superhero movies and.
01:35:49
Speaker
If the character is supposed to be corny or jokey or whatever, okay, that's fine. But they don't trust enough in the material to play it straight. If you're gonna play it straight, if you're gonna do a serious superhero movie, then damn it, then do the serious superhero movie. And don't be afraid of your own material. Iron Man is a movie that is not afraid of its material. Like you said, it's a technical thriller. It's a superhero movie. There's aspects of espionage in there.
Balancing Humor and Seriousness in MCU
01:36:20
Speaker
And they're all played absolutely straight by the actors and the director. And it all works, which is why I think the movie was such a success. Because if, damn it, if the people who make it take it seriously and present it as such, we as the audience, we say, OK, well, we're going to take it seriously too. Yeah.
01:36:41
Speaker
Yeah, and that's really what the, I think that really kind of defines the success of the Marvel universe, the cinematic universe, is they're not afraid to A, take it seriously when they need to, but they're also not afraid to laugh at themselves and how kind of ludicrous some of this stuff is, right? But they don't do it in a way that's mocking the material.
01:37:04
Speaker
Right, yeah. And I mean, listen, let's face it. Yeah, it's ridiculous that you've got a man dressed like the American flag can throw a shield all over the room and have it bounce all over the walls and come back into his hand. But damn, before Chris Evans is doing it, you don't buy it. Right, exactly. You know why? Because you buy this universe as heavy. In this universe, that shit happens. Yes, yeah. You have a big blonde guy with a magic hammer.
01:37:32
Speaker
you know, that can bring down lightning. You know, if you present a cohesive universe with his own rules and say, okay, well, this is how this universe works. It's not our universe. It's another universe. You sit back and you say, oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. Like, um, you know, I remember reading a save the cat, which, you know, is a writing book and it's a, it's a really good, it's a pretty good story structure book. But one of the things that kind of bugged me about it,
01:38:01
Speaker
is he talked about one of the failings of the first Spider-Man movie is that you have two different pieces of unreality where Peter Parker gets bitten by the spider and he gets spider powers but then you have Norman Osborn getting his powers through another type of experiment. He says
01:38:20
Speaker
He's like, what you should do in a movie is you should have these two events be connected because audiences don't buy two different pieces of gobbledygook. And I'm like, well, that's bullshit. Cause clearly they did buy it. Well, of course they do. And obviously, you know, the MCU show that yeah, they do buy it. Cause yeah, we've got Iron Man who's this, you know, this high tech guy. And then we got Dr. Strange who's magic. And we got Thor who's like from an alien race of, you know,
01:38:48
Speaker
science gods. And then we got talking raccoons and all this stuff and now we're getting the turtles and all this stuff, it does fit together.
Acceptance of Superhero Films
01:39:03
Speaker
that it takes place in a different universe. Like I tell people, you know, and I even think I might've put it in one of my dealing stories someplace or something like that, where I just make a casual mention that Mount Rushmore has five heads on it, not four. Oh, okay. Who's the fifth one? Did you ever announce?
01:39:21
Speaker
What? Do you ever reveal who the fifth hat is? No, and I never will. Oh, okay. And trust me, people have asked me for years, oh, who's the fifth? Well, I don't know whoever you wanted to be. Oh, that's not fair. But the whole point I did that was to establish the people, this is a different universe. This isn't our earth.
01:39:40
Speaker
So therefore, whatever I do, if I got like made up countries and technology and shit. Yeah. That's because it's not this work. It's not this earth. Right. Exactly. And people go with it because once you say that, you're telling people, OK, this isn't the earth you know. Oh, OK, fine. So OK, so you got your own rules and shit. OK, I can go for that. That's the thing. Audiences will pretty much go along with anything as long as you are consistent with the rules of your universe. Bingo. Bingo.
01:40:10
Speaker
Bingo. You got to tell them, okay, you can't give them hamburger and tell them a steak. Right. I mean, you know, tell them a steak right from the start. And this is the properties of steak. And this is what steak tastes like. Right, exactly. And they'll go with you. And it's so funny that studios, it's taken studios this long to really catch on to that. Because it's like, you know, but, and then, you know, you see the MCU or what they do on the CW with, and
01:40:40
Speaker
And you see all these, they're like saying like, no, we're doing all this different stuff and we're putting it all together. And audiences go along with it. Like, I think studio executives, they seem to think the audience is dumber than we actually are.
01:40:55
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh, they do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They definitely think people, you know, the audience are, you know, I don't know what they think they are, but, uh, yeah, movie audiences are a lot, they're a lot, they're a lot more sophisticated also than they think they are. Yeah. And, uh,
01:41:15
Speaker
Also, another thing, it just struck me, I think that also the reason why, another reason why the MCU became so popular is that the culture was right at a time for a new movie genre, which we really haven't had in a long time. We haven't had a movie, you know, like back in the 50s and 60s, it was, well, yeah, 50s, 50s, it was the Westerns.
01:41:40
Speaker
you know, that dominated. And then you had the spy craze for a while with James Bond. I think you had that. And then you had the romantic comedies. And then you had the action movie genre. But it had really been a while since we had a new genre that dominated film.
01:41:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that the MCU, as a matter of fact superhero movies period, which is why superhero movies are so dominant now, and yeah I hear people, I hate all these superhero movies. Well, you know,
01:42:12
Speaker
It's something that's going to pass. It's going to run its course. But it's not going to run its course until Hollywood finds something else. Because that's what Hollywood does. They're not going to let go of one thing as long as it's making money. Trust me, when the first couple of superhero movies start flopping, they'll stop making them. Yeah. But George, something else, like that argument, it always bugs me when people make that argument of, oh, there are too many superhero movies. I'm like, well, don't watch them. I mean, it's not like it's the 1960s where
01:42:41
Speaker
There's only, you know, three channels on television. There's only like, you know, so many movies made every year. I mean, Jesus Christ, how much fucking material is there out there now? You can't find something else to watch? I've never heard anybody say that there are too many rom-coms or too many dramas or too many Westerns. I've never heard anybody say that. Yeah. You know, the only reason, okay, the only reason why people
01:43:09
Speaker
say there are too many superhero movies is because these are people who are not familiar with superheroes, which is what I found. Most people that I talk to who don't like superhero movies actually never don't read superhero comics. So my thing is, well, of course you don't like it. You didn't grow up with this kind of stuff.
01:43:30
Speaker
You know, there is no reason why you should. I mean, I cannot tell you how it drives me crazy when people come up to me and tell, well, Aquaman, I don't get Aquaman. And I said, well, did you read Aquaman comics as a kid? No, I didn't read comics. Well, then why should you get it? You know, I don't understand. Stop beating your head against the wall. Yeah, but I want to understand why everybody loves it so much. Well, listen, that's not my purpose here on this planet. You know, to try to make you understand why people love Aquaman.
01:43:59
Speaker
or, you know, Iron Man or Captain America or whatever. It's very simple. If you did not grow up with the love of this material, you're not going to get it. It's just that simple. I can't explain it. I've had people say, well, they don't get Westerns.
01:44:16
Speaker
Well, OK, fine. You don't get Westerns. What do you want me to do about it? Yeah. Well, I don't get it. Well, can't you explain it to me? No, I can't explain it to you. That's not my purpose on this earth. I mean, look, it's just people have different tastes. That's what it comes down to. You don't have to like everything. That's all it is.
01:44:32
Speaker
Most people nowadays, they don't like Black exploitation. I love Black exploitation, but I recognize that Black exploitation was a genre that ran its course. People don't do Black exploitation anymore simply because it ran its course. Once those movies had served their purpose,
01:44:51
Speaker
Hollywood stopped making them. And there's some time in the future, although I don't see that happening for the foreseeable future because now you've got superheroes on television and you've got them in the movies and they're still making money and they're still drawing in audiences. So as long as that happens, we're going to have them. So get used to it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um,
Tony Stark's Character Depth and Obsessions
01:45:15
Speaker
One other thing I wanted to just quickly touch on before we wrap up here is that, you know, I noticed something, I realized something when I was watching it last night and the morning after when Christine wakes up in bed and Tony's not there, you know, you know, Pepper kind of kicks her out of the house. And then
01:45:35
Speaker
And then Tony, what he's doing is he's working on this old car, right? And it's just kind of like his whole hobby is just building stuff and tinkering with stuff all the time. And it's just another aspect of his character, right? It just shows like his mind is always about like, how can I take this apart? How can I figure, how can I make this into something new? How can I figure out how to tinker with stuff? How can I make this better?
01:46:01
Speaker
That's his whole thing that which brings me back to what I said earlier about how his mind works. That's how, that's how his mind works is always, how can I improve this. How can I make this better. How can I, you know, how can I make this faster. Right.
01:46:18
Speaker
It's a constant thing with him. And yeah, you're right, because he done left the poor girl all by herself. What's this movie? You wouldn't see scenes like that in later MCU movies. No. This was setting up a very different kind of Iron Man, because he's the billionaire playboy type. But also, they really foreshadow his alcoholism pretty heavily in this movie.
01:46:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And which would event, like we mentioned earlier, the demon in the bottle story when, you know, he becomes an alcoholic. And that was what they were kind of teasing towards. And then, of course, the movie became such a huge success. You can't have the, you know, the main player, the lead star of your superhero franchise turn into an alcoholic. So. Right.
01:47:09
Speaker
Or, you know, when they have the seniors on the play, where they have the stripper pole. Right, yeah. And you have the stewardesses, you know, and you know what's going to happen. You know, you didn't, you wouldn't, you don't see scenes like that in later MCU movies. No, no, no, not at all. No. And, which makes sense. Like I understand why they didn't go that route. And they did find other ways to work in aspects of the alcoholism, right, without it being actual alcoholism.
01:47:38
Speaker
So like his personal failings, they found other ways to play with that throughout the MCU.
01:47:45
Speaker
Well, they moved, well, you know what? They even kind of like explained, tried, I felt that they like kind of tried to explain it as that was a symptom of the PTSD that he suffered from the invasion, the alien invasion and the Avengers. So I think that they kind of like tried to say, okay, well, this is why Tony was, you know, he drinks a lot.
01:48:09
Speaker
You know, because he suffered from, which, which I felt that that was, uh, that that was a major component of the character going forward from the Avengers that year, that he, instead of getting psychiatric help like he should, you know, yeah, that this was something that affected Tony more than he was willing to let on. Yeah. Yeah.
01:48:31
Speaker
And it also shows in you know in going back into Iron Man three that whole tinkering aspect really comes through there because his whole way of dealing with the PTSD is just building more things. yeah. And then that continues on into.
01:48:45
Speaker
into Age of Ultron when he builds Ultron. He fucks up even more. Bingo. When you stop and really think about it, like we're doing now, there's a lot of interesting psychological subtext that's going on with the character. Yeah, there's a lot. And we can talk about more of that as we go forward in the series.
01:49:11
Speaker
But yeah, and anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say. How about you? Anything else you wanted to add about Iron Man? No, other than I'm pretty sure everybody in the sound of our voices has seen Iron Man. And if you haven't, for whatever reason,
01:49:28
Speaker
um even if you don't like superhero movies I think you should give Iron Man a try because there's a lot of it's not just about a guy in a costume beating up on people this movie says something about the military industrial complex of America it says something about the military uh it's got something to say about terrorism it's got you know and no it's not deep it doesn't go into but however these are things that
01:49:54
Speaker
enrich and enhance the origin of Iron Man. And yeah, it makes it a different type of movie. Like I've said before, you and I have touched on this before, also one of the major strengths of the MCU is that with each individual character, it plays into that particular arena
01:50:17
Speaker
of that character so with Captain America, you know, all we get the espionage. You know the war time thing.
01:50:29
Speaker
What am I thinking of? Like the three days of the Condor, you know what? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, that sort of thing. With Thor, we have, you know, the mythological, sword and sorcery, fantasy type of thing. And with Iron Man, this is what we get. We get the techno thriller. So yeah, so I think also that's what it is. So these movies aren't cookie cutter movies. They're all tailored to the strength of whoever the main character is. Right.
01:50:56
Speaker
Right. You know, like Guardians of the Galaxy is space opera. Ant-Man is like... Right. Right. Pure space opera. Right. Yeah. Ant-Man is like these heist slash comedy films. Right. Exactly. They're lighthearted heists. So if you're a fan of techno thrillers and stuff like that, there's a lot in here for you to like. So if you've never seen Iron Man before, you know, check it out. I mean, listen. Listen, the COVID is still raging around your home anyway.
01:51:26
Speaker
Oh, this movie also started another kind of recent thing because this is something I forgot to mention, but, you know, this they didn't they did away with, you know, Iron Man's secret identity in this movie. Yeah. Which is something like the comics had experimented with that a little bit before this movie. And then later they came out and they use it again. And but and this movie, I think, you know, because I'm like a lot of characters when they kind of out of their secret identities,
01:51:55
Speaker
it doesn't really work because eventually you're gonna have to try to find a way to put that genie back in the bottle. But Iron Man, Captain America, these are characters who don't really need secret identities. And I think that that was a brilliant move that they made because, yeah, okay, we get to the end of the movie and we have Tony Stark the same, okay, yes, okay, I'm Iron Man. It's like he's saying also, okay,
01:52:21
Speaker
there will be no secret identities. And if you think about it in the MCU, there really, there isn't. Nobody has like a secret identity per se. Right, there's Spider-Man and that's about it. And we'll daredevil on TV as well. But otherwise, none of the characters really have a secret identity. No, no. And I mean that really, yeah. I mean, as you said, there's really no reason for the characters to have secret identities.
01:52:49
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of these characters, it works for them. The secret identity thing was, you know, that was just the product of the time. That was something that superheroes all had to have a secret identity. And that was the only reason why Iron Man had one, but he never really needed one. Like, and it does make, you know, it's funny because this came about just because that wasn't originally the plan. Originally, the plan was the cover story that Colson, that Colson gives him.
01:53:17
Speaker
Right? And then while they were filming, Downey just ad-libbed, I am Iron Man. And then they're like, wait a minute, that's actually brilliant. Yeah, it's brilliant. It actually works for the character, because let's face it, Tony Stark is too egotistical to not let everybody know. Exactly what I was going to say, right? He's an arrogant asshole. Of course he's going to tell everybody he's Iron Man.
01:53:43
Speaker
And it makes, and Downey was smart enough to realize that that was, that was who his character was. His character wouldn't hide behind a bodyguard by secret identity. Exactly. You took the words out of my mouth now, because I was saying, see, Downey understood the character. Right. Yeah, no, he's not going to hide.
01:54:03
Speaker
He goes, no, he's going to let everybody know he's out. Of course he is. I mean, because what's the real reason that most superheroes have a secret identity? It's to protect their loved ones from recriminations. But he's already a high profile target. Exactly. That's why. I mean, listen, he's already been captured by terrorists. Yeah, exactly. You know, so I mean, you know what? And matter of fact, by him telling them that he's Iron Man, there's always, well, you know what? Maybe we better leave him alone. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, but Iron Man,
01:54:33
Speaker
This is the movie that kicked off the MCU. And in retrospect now, I mean, yeah, before I would have said, yeah, well, Tony Stark and Iron Man is strange choice to, you know,
01:54:47
Speaker
I mean, you know, kick off the MCU. But now, after seeing this movie again, I could really imagine any other character, any other way they could have started it. Yeah. You know, it's kind of amazing when you, because when you think about this came out in 2008, which was also the same time that The Dark Knight came out. And these two movies together, because the superhero genre was kind of on its last legs at this point. Because, you know, you had,
01:55:15
Speaker
You had Batman Begins, which did well, but Superman Returns didn't really do well. The initial buzz that happened with Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and the first two X-Men movies, that had kind of faded now, because you had a series of kind of lackluster superhero movies, or ones that were at least perceived to be lackluster, right? Like Daredevil, you had Electra, you had Catwoman, you had Hulk.
01:55:37
Speaker
Punisher and all these movies that didn't really hit the mark with audiences and then the and the proven franchises were failing Right. So Superman Returns didn't really invigorate the the franchise the way that they hoped it would spider-man 3 and x-men the last stand were you know total travesties and Yeah, the the genre was kind of dying at this point and then along comes Iron Man and the Dark Knight and they kind of
01:56:05
Speaker
bring it back, they resurrected it, and brought it off life support.
Jon Favreau's Impact on Superhero Genre
01:56:10
Speaker
And I don't think that we can't say enough about John Favreau, who is also now showing us that he kicks ass in all kinds of genre, I mean, because he created The Mandalorian. He created The Mandalorian, which, as I mentioned at the beginning, that's a show that really kind of expands Star Wars, and it expands the universe in a way that
01:56:39
Speaker
which only goes to show, I mean, it shows that John Favre, he understands Star Wars as much as he understands Marvel's Superman. Oh yeah. So I mean, the cat is dangerous, you know? But not only that, but you're right, he's very versatile. Like, you know, like you mentioned before, he directed Elf, which I'm not really a big Christmas movie guy, but that's a funny movie. That's a fun movie. Neither am I. I'm not a Christmas movie person, but yeah, every year I find myself, if Elf is on, yeah, I'm watching Elf.
01:56:56
Speaker
feels very organic and i
01:57:08
Speaker
But also he made kids films with Zathura. He did Zathura. He did The Jungle Book, right? And The Live Action Jungle Book. Yeah, that was a really good, I was surprised how much I enjoyed that movie. Yeah, that was amazing. He also did Lion King, which, you know, a little bit iffy on that one, but still. And then he, you know, and he's done like, like, you know, he did, he directed Maid, and then he did
01:57:37
Speaker
Oh, what was it? Chef. Did you see that movie, Chef? No, but that was a really good little movie he did. Yeah. You check that out if you get a chance. Yeah. John Favreau is. Listen, John Favreau was no joke. And he's a he's a he's not a half bad actor either. No, he's not. He's very good. I mean, the scene that he had in in Endgame with
01:58:01
Speaker
Tony's door. Oh, God. You're going to make me cry. Yeah, I mean, listen, listen, if that scene didn't tug on your heart, then, you know, there's no hope for you. And tying it back to the first movie, right? Just like when you went into cheeseburgers. Yeah. It's like your dad liked cheeseburgers, too. That scene didn't, you didn't feel nothing in that scene, then there's no hope for you. Oh, God. That, that, that, my eyes are watering already just thinking about it again. Yeah.
01:58:31
Speaker
Alright, so yeah, anyway, Iron Man helped Revitalize with the Dark Knight Revitalize superhero genre, because we probably would have seen the end of the superhero genre if not for those two movies. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, it may have limped along for a while, but... Yeah, it was limping around, because you had X-Men Origins came out around the same time as this, I think.
01:58:57
Speaker
and you know didn't really do much and first class they were starting to put into production but Fox was kind of like fumbling around like hey let's just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks but we definitely would not oh and here's where i'm going to get in trouble because i have this argument with people all of a sudden where people will say because i say well no it's an iron man
01:59:22
Speaker
kicked off the MCU. And I would have people that would tell you, well, no, it was Blade. Blade did that.
01:59:30
Speaker
I must respectfully disagree, because Blade was not even marketed as a Marvel superhero movie. No. It was not sold as a Marvel superhero. It was sold as Wesley Snipes' new action movie. Yes, yeah. 90% of the people that went to see Blade didn't even have any idea he was a Marvel character. Including a lot of people who were Marvel fans, probably. Thank you. You know, most people had no idea. You know, matter of fact, Blade was a pretty
02:00:00
Speaker
minor character in the 1972 Madraccula comic. Oh, and he was totally obscure by this point, by that point. Yeah. Because if not for the fact that he appeared in a few episodes of the Spider-Man cartoon, I would not have known he was a Marvel character. Yeah. Most people, when I told them that Blade was a comic book character, they said, really? He said, yeah.
02:00:25
Speaker
I mean, yes, I know why some people, I'm not gonna get into it, but I know why some people want Blade to be, you know, but no, that's a common misconception. Plus, it wasn't part of the MCU either. Right, this is where the MCU started. Yes, yeah. And if Iron Man had flopped, trust me, we would not have the succeeding, what is it, 22 movies that we did, you know, that we yet? Yeah, yeah, and counting.
02:00:54
Speaker
Yeah. And counting. Okay. All right. So that does it for our discussion of Iron Man. Again, if you haven't seen it, I'm kind of wondering where you've been for the past 12 years, but whatever. But anyway, go see it if you haven't seen it. Go see it again if you have seen that. And because next week we're doing, we're doing a bit of a little bit of retooling on the, on the show. We're going to start doing video starting next week in our next episode.
02:01:23
Speaker
So you can start watching us on YouTube. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk, do a commentary on Avengers. So we're gonna, we'll probably both watch the movie like before, just to get all our notes in mind. And then we'll probably, what we'll do is we'll have it playing on as we do the episode on you so that, you know, we don't get any audio coming in. But yeah, we'll play it and we'll comment on the movie as we're watching it. And you can play it along with us and you can listen to our live commentary.
02:01:55
Speaker
Pray for us. That's all I have to say, folks. Just pray for us. I have no idea how this is going. No idea how this is going to turn out. Yeah, it's our big 50th episode. 50 in, wow. But hey, listen, I'm a fan. Listen, the only thing that it can do is that we'll go down in flames, right? Exactly, yeah.
02:02:18
Speaker
Now I listen, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And I think that you guys listening are going to enjoy as much as we are going to enjoy. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Podcast's New Video Format Announcement
02:02:30
Speaker
Okay. So until then you had can head on over to join the superhero cinephiles Facebook group. You can follow us on Twitter or on Instagram, super cinema pod on both of those, you know, follow us on Patreon, also super cinema pod and our website, superhero cinephiles.com.
02:02:47
Speaker
And that does it for this week. We will see you next time when we do a live commentary on Avengers. Good night and God bless and remember test negative, stay positive.
02:03:05
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com, or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
02:03:25
Speaker
If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners. You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of pheasantudios.com.