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What If...? Thor Was An Only Child? Ep 7
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The Crown Party Princes of Animation are here to celebrate the latest episode of Marvel Studios What If...?! Let's boogie!
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
On
Introduction to Episode Seven: Thor as an Only Child
00:00:01
Speaker
this entry of animation deliberation, it's party time. That's right, we're talking what if episode seven, what if Thor was an only child? And we'll get right into that after these interruptions to the party. These party poopers have to come in and try to sell some stuff, so stand by.
00:00:17
Speaker
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00:00:45
Speaker
Hey
September Giveaway Announcement
00:00:45
Speaker
listeners, I've got an exciting giveaway to tell you about. For the month of September, the Stranded Panda Network is doing a raffle to give away your choice of a Nintendo Switch or an Oculus Quest.
00:00:54
Speaker
All you have to do is leave a positive 5-star review on any Strandepanda podcast on Apple Podcasts. Each review counts as a raffle, so when you're done enjoying this episode of Animation Deliberation, take a moment to check out some awesome shows like Marvel Cinematic Universe Podcasts, Superhero Ethics, Source Pages, Binge Ensemble, and more. To see all our shows and rules for the raffle, check out Strandepanda.com slash Contest. Now back to the show!
Energetic and Comedic Tone of the Episode
00:01:31
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. One, two, three, it's time for animation deliberation. A conversation and a celebration.
00:01:41
Speaker
of our favorite action animated series. Yeah.
00:02:04
Speaker
doing good, doing good. Likewise, life, life has energy levels a little bit low, but it's great to have a great series like this and a great fellow like yourself to get those energy levels up and talk about a fantastic party episode. What are your overall impressions, my friend?
00:02:22
Speaker
Man, after the three or four depressing episodes that we had, it was nice having one that was so energetic and pumped up. I didn't know what to think going into this episode. And when it started off, I was like, what is about to happen? And it was a great balance of starting off with just like nothing but comedy. Like the whole Vegas montage was hilarious. All the people coming in just had me cracking up. But the fact that we had
00:02:52
Speaker
some answers to a question that's been asking of who would win in a fight between Carol Danvers and Thor. Like we got to see a little taste of that and we got lots of good action. We got a good brawl and overall it was a really fun episode. It might be my favorite, if not top three. Wow. Interesting, interesting. It just really threw me off and I loved it a lot more than I thought I would.
00:03:19
Speaker
Oh, awesome.
Comparison to Other MCU Comedic Moments
00:03:20
Speaker
Awesome. I'm really glad to hear that. I don't know where it lands in terms of like rankings as far as all the episodes go, because it really is just like so tonally divergent. It feels like of its own class almost. And it just really, really embraced the comedy. And like, I almost want to compare it to other MCU entries like Ant-Man and Guardians 2 and Ragnarok in terms of the humor. And I feel like a lot of that's there, but it's
00:03:47
Speaker
It's almost even more tongue-in-cheek than any of those. It's just like joke after joke after joke after joke. In that way, it almost kind of reminded me of Modoc a little bit. I think the general consensus is that this lands a little bit better than Modoc, but just in terms of the number of jokes, yeah. I mean, in regards to the three movies you just mentioned, like my main issue with Ragnarok was that the serious tones got washed out by comedy.
00:04:16
Speaker
I think I liked this a lot more because it knew it meant to be comedy. It stayed consistent with that vibe where it's like with things like Guardians 2 and Ragnarok whenever something intense would happen like somebody would have like a silly one-liner that kind of like killed the mood so it's like the stakes and the intensity didn't feel as high as it should have.
00:04:39
Speaker
Whereas this, it's like the intent was comedy and they maintain that throughout.
Favorite Cameos and Frigga's Fear
00:04:43
Speaker
There wasn't ups and downs and ups and downs. It was, it knew what it was doing and it did a good job at it. Yeah, that's, that's a fair point. I think outside of obviously the final scene that we'll, we'll definitely get into the highest moment of tension in like the entire episode is when Thor is running around trying to fix everything while Frigga's, which is just hilarious and it's in its own way.
00:05:07
Speaker
Brother from another mother. Everyone's terrified of her. I loved it. Oh, yeah. When he calls upon the power of the All Father to basically have that voice that speaks to everyone, he's like, my mother's coming and they're all like, Frigga.
00:05:25
Speaker
It's like everyone knows Frigga. Yeah. And the episode, in addition to being just chock full of jokes, it was also chock full of cameos. Did you have any particular favorite cameos there?
00:05:41
Speaker
Surtur flirting with the Statue of Liberty was probably my favorite. Yeah, that's great. That's great. We both like fire. Let's heat things up here, Shelly. And then he had to like mow her arm back on, just blow her a kiss or whatever it was at the end.
00:05:57
Speaker
Right, right. Everything about that was so funny and somewhat comfortable. Yeah, yeah. And then I don't know if this was intentional or not, and I know there's a little bit of an age difference between us, and I tend to be a little bit of an old soul, especially when it comes to music and not, but I couldn't help but notice the number of musical references in this episode. We had the White Snake
00:06:19
Speaker
reference where Carol called Thor White Snake, which is
Animation Highlights: Thor vs. Carol
00:06:21
Speaker
you know, an 80s hair, hair metal band, which is pretty on the nose. But there were a couple of other ones like the Grandmaster when he's with Topaz, he says we got a ride like the wind. For my purposes, I'm just going to call that a Christopher Cross reference. He's kind of the quintessential yacht rock artist from the 80s there. And then the other one that you may catch a little bit more
00:06:44
Speaker
But when Thor was like saying that the party's over, he says, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. I don't know if you know that song by semisonic closing time, but I was just like, I couldn't help but think it was a reference there. Gotcha. Yeah, it may have been one of those things that like I've heard, but never knew the name of or something like that. Okay, okay. But the line definitely stood out. Okay, cool, cool.
00:07:06
Speaker
I was afraid I might have been reaching a little bit. And in all fairness to the listeners, like I said, I am in the middle of a move right now. So it was one of those things where I was just kind of like, man, I need to take a break. And I was just kind of like half there trying to watch the episode knowing that I needed a record. But it actually like it sparked enough energy for me to like wake up and laugh and be like, oh man, like I really needed that. So I may have missed out on some like obvious references here and there, but did OK.
00:07:33
Speaker
Overall enjoyed this episode. I mean gave that spark that I needed. Uh, did you have a favorite cameo or pop-up appearance?
00:07:41
Speaker
It's tough because there were so many good ones. It's tough not to go with Howard the Duck though. He's made his second appearance in the series, but I felt like this one was so much more impactful where Darcy's kind of naysaying him in the beginning, but then they end up getting married and eventually she comes swaddling back to him. So that was... It isn't Mrs. Duck. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That one's pretty great. And it's tough not to love Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster. The DJ Grandmaster.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah, release the phone. Drax. So I do think the voice actor, it's not Dave Batista, it's Frank Tatascore. And I think he's doing a great job. But again, we've talked about like the renders and the 3D models for these characters. I love the inclusion of Drax again, but I thought the red tattoos, like they almost went overboard.
00:08:35
Speaker
Like I felt like it was almost like covering his entire skin. So that just stuck out to me a little bit. Any standouts as far as the animation in this episode went for you? I mean, I think the fight between Thor and Carol was kind of a visual feast for the eyes, right? Yeah, I think Drax was kind of like a little more comic book accurate with how red everything was.
00:08:58
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. But yeah, the scene that I was going to mention was specifically in the desert when they really started going toe to toe because we actually had like some decent choreography and that with the movement of their punches and the way he was swinging and this and that. But then when they were fighting in the clouds and you could see the thunderstorm, it was it was almost like a Dragon Ball Z scene done better.
00:09:23
Speaker
Mm hmm. Because it was just like, you know, faster than any mere mortal can see. But it was interesting that both of them were holding back throughout that fight because we hear the dialogue between Carol Danvers saying that like one of her punches like 10 nukes, but she didn't want to like harm anybody. But because Thor hasn't lost his father the way that he did in Ragnarok, like he hasn't developed like his full potential in harnessing his abilities yet.
00:09:53
Speaker
So this was really a nerf down version of both of them. Yeah, yeah. She's clearly holding back. And then I do think in addition to the points you bring up about him not being necessarily as hardened, the warrior that he is that we see in our version with the MCU, I do think he's kind of like almost seeing it as a bit of a sport. Like he's laughing going on, even when he have that hilarious montage where she gets like three or four good punches on him and is like,
00:10:22
Speaker
his exclaims of pain are just like increasingly exaggerated and hilarious. He's just like, all right. He shakes it off and he's ready to go. But yeah, I agree with you when they flew up into the clouds as well right before he kind of like threw her down and put Mjolnir on top of her, just like seeing the clouds like light up with their different color power sets. Like you get to see some of her binary colors like shining through the cloudscape as well as his lightning, just really cool stuff.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, I just enjoyed the sequence. Maria Hill was really interesting too. For the listeners, I don't know if I've ever said this before, but I never read comic books growing up, but I loved Earth's Mightiest Heroes. So Maria Hill, whenever she was in charge, she was a boss.
00:11:11
Speaker
people did not like getting on her bad side. And I feel like the Maria Hill that we've had in the MCU, as much as I love Colby Smulders, huge Hi, I Met Your Mother fan, I feel like she's just kind of like, like the perfect number two, like whatever Nick Fury says, she just does. She didn't really have that assertive attitude. But like, she conveyed that attitude a lot stronger in this than I've ever seen her like in the live action stuff, like her presence and her commanding voice and stuff like that was really well done in this.
Maria Hill's Portrayal and Role
00:11:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Even like when Colson like questioned her like the one time and she just like put him right in his place. Yeah. I do love the comparisons to Earth's Might's Heroes because I even though this was like clearly the Colby Smulders like
00:11:58
Speaker
sword I'm looking for. The model was based off of Colby Smulders and Colby Smulders did the voice. I did feel like the haircut was almost like... Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That short kind of bob looked exactly like it did in the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. So yeah, great call there. Cool. I'm glad you noticed that too then. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, Ooh, they went more with the original Lookmar.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And it is cool just to see her like have a little bit more of an edge there. And to see somebody that's just not as much as Darcy was just so enamored with Captain Marvel, it was it was kind of cool to see somebody like Maria Hill that's just not impressed at all. Yeah. And she had that like savageness of like, yeah, let's just drop the nukes.
00:12:44
Speaker
Oh, right, right. Yeah. And I love Frank Grillo. So him recurring his role as crossbones so often throughout the series has been really nice to see. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Always nice to see Rumblo. And he was so disappointed when he didn't get to drop those nukes. So maybe he might get the chance with some of the revelations we got at the end of the episode here.
The Watcher's Comedic Presence
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. So I do think it's worth noting that Owatu,
00:13:14
Speaker
We talk about the tone of this episode, how different it was. And I know you don't listen to the instant reactions before we record, but we did kind of on the instant reaction there, we made some comparisons just in terms of the tone of feeling so different that we kind of likened it to the zombies episode.
00:13:35
Speaker
And I feel like that rings true even when you think about like Oatu's level of participation. Like we've seen him slowly become more and more present like throughout the episodes. Like he appears more and more in the backgrounds and stuff like that. But I feel like in this episode, he like, he was there at the beginning and then he's gone until the end. Which I mean. Did he not have some dialogue at one point in the middle? Not that I can recall.
00:14:06
Speaker
I thought there was at one point, but yeah, he was a little more scarce than this one. Oh, you know what? Maybe you're right. Maybe it was like the potentially the, maybe the transition from like the, the night of the party to when we, when we, um, transition to the hotel in the morning where, where shield is basically.
00:14:25
Speaker
barging in on jane foster maybe i feel like i was i remember specifically like they had that shot that i love so much where he's in the horizon and only his eyes are glowing the silhouette and stuff like that but then i remember some dialogue and then it like cuts closer to him and he like turns towards the light in his face starts to show a little more than he had more dialogue was that not in the middle
00:14:48
Speaker
that's uh so i i remember which part you're you're referring to particularly as well because it was kind of cool to watch the camera like swing around to the front of his face and then kind of go up to where he was looking towards that was at the beginning of the episode and uh because yeah he set up the the question there and it was cool really cool to see as he was describing the scenario here it was the first time we got to see like a different art style it was almost like the concept art like oil paintings of like
00:15:16
Speaker
Thor and Loki in their childhood and like Loki opening the ancient cask of winters on Thor and whatnot. I really love that style. I would kind of be open to seeing a whole series done in that style. It's probably pretty painstaking to get that level of detail, but I enjoyed it. Short series, that's fine. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:37
Speaker
But yeah, obviously with the subject of a lot to there, he is pretty absent through most of the proceedings as a, as pretty jokey and lighthearted, but there at the end, he's saying, you know, on Asgard and on earth, children say the same thing. They live happily ever after. Wait, what? Yeah, his shock was interesting. And that was kind of the reminder that like, he actually doesn't know everything he's watching as everybody else is watching too. He's just a really good, like in the corner note taker.
00:16:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So what did you think about this figure that emerged from this?
Ultron with Infinity Stones: A New Threat?
00:16:14
Speaker
I'm gonna call it a multiversal portal. Just we could call it that. Yeah, seeing all of the Ultron's coming out was insane. And then like when I was looking at this little recap articles, and we were saying that it's a Ultron version of The Vision. And him like holding the Infinity Stones and all that was like, oh crap, like, where's the sequel to this episode? I want to see this fight go down.
00:16:37
Speaker
Well, it seems like it's a cliffhanger. I like it. Is this what What If is building up to all along? Or is this the next episode we're going to get? I think it's going to be a next season type thing. Ooh. Hmm. I feel like they're seeing the fan reactions on how they're responding to these episodes and seeing which ones they want to pursue sequels for and which ones they're just going to be like, well, no one really reacted to that. You think?
00:17:07
Speaker
That's my, that's my theory. I wonder, I don't know about that just because I know animation takes so long to do. I feel like it has to be planned out a little bit more. So maybe, maybe that's in the cards for season three, season four stuff, but I feel like they have to be pretty far along with season two to like say definitively.
00:17:27
Speaker
Captain Carter is going to be there, but yeah, I guess as far as, you know, seeing this, this emerging threat here, this like ultimate version of Ultron that seemingly has gotten to take control of that, that adamantium vision body.
00:17:40
Speaker
I think he's gonna be a threat in this season, if not the final episode. We still have, just going off the promotional material, he made an appearance on the poster as well as the Gamora with the Thanos armor and the double sword. So I'm wondering, is that Gamora actually gonna be a villain? Or is she gonna be the ultimate foil for this version of Ultron?
00:18:11
Speaker
Or are we going to see her actually flip at some point, like start off as a villain and switch to a good guy? Oh, okay. Or vice versa, because we kind of saw her do that in the MCU already. And that's what, what if does so, so well as does the other thing. That'd
Speculating on Gamora's Future Role
00:18:28
Speaker
be kind of cool. So like, what if she didn't betray Thanos, but like took over his role instead?
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, basically what if she took that seat of power and had all of his resources at her disposal, and either way you look at it, whether or not she's being evil or being good at that time, she could flip-flop at one point or another. The other theory I have out there, and I know this is gonna get kind of in the weeds, especially for people that aren't as familiar with the comics, but one of the things that was completely ignored in the MCU when it comes to the Infinity Saga
00:19:07
Speaker
is the character of Adam Warlock. We've got him teased in the Guardians of the Galaxy but he never showed up and he was an integral part of the Infinity Saga in the comics and he actually has this turn where he becomes two versions of himself. He's got Adam Warlock and then he becomes an evil version of himself, the Magus. And I almost kind of wonder if this version of Ultron is going to be like their take on the Magus and then like Gamora is almost going to be
00:19:35
Speaker
like the good Thanos that has to take out the Magus, but it's all pretty speculative. Yeah. I can't think of any more theories. So if you guys can be sure to email us at animation deliberation podcast at gmail.com. Yeah, definitely love to get some feedback there.
00:19:55
Speaker
Whatever your theories, whatever your thoughts, whatever your pontifications, whatever your deliberations, let us know. Oh man, Hulu's been doing this advertisement for animation domination. And every time they say it, like my head turns over, it's like getting really close to stealing her name there, bud. Yeah, I think that's a Fox thing, right? Animation domination on Sundays.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was a Hulu promotion or Fox FX or something like that. Yeah, they're all owned by Disney anyway. Any any other cameos, jokes, references, expectations for the future you'd like to highlight? Yeah, I can't really think of like what else I've seen in the because I'm trying to like go in as blind as I can. Sure. I can't think of what else from the trailers popped up except for the Gamora episode that makes me go, oh, this we haven't seen this yet.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you there in terms of just like for the sake of the podcast and discussion, I always like to, you know, pose the question about predictions and speculation, but I'm not really that big on it myself. And I've actually found myself like I enjoy the episodes a lot more when I know as little as possible going into them, especially for a show like this. I think it is when you just have a question and you're
00:21:16
Speaker
Changing things up it just and it's something that you're so familiar with like these characters It just makes it that much more rewarding experience when you go in blind Another thing is that like I feel like People aren't enjoying the show as much as the other MCU shows and the one reason that I'm grateful for that is because I don't feel like I have to wake up at the crack of dawn to watch and then go about my day like
Show's Reception and Viewing Experience
00:21:44
Speaker
There's less likely for there to be spoilers on social media throughout the day. Yeah, it's been nice being able to like finish work or whatever and then sit down and actually like peacefully watch it instead of like grogging to the couch like with my blanket like laying back down just to watch it again or watch for the first time. So I do like that. I mean, as much as obviously I want people to like it more, but you know, people think what they think. I personally am enjoying it, but I do like not having to
00:22:14
Speaker
to start my day watching it if I don't have to. I get that, I totally get that. The stakes are a little bit lower, but yeah. But we got a Hawkeye trailer, so we'll be back to that soon.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, there you go. But I say the stakes are lower, but we really don't, we won't know until the end of the series. There's still a very strong likelihood that it might have some lasting and rippling major ramifications in the MCU proper. I do want to bring up a couple of other things. You know, here on Animation Deliberation, we've covered a few series at this point in time, but Darcy had a great little line. I think it was when
00:22:57
Speaker
Jane was mentioning all the other members of Norse mythology. And she's like, you know, if Thor exists and Loki exists, then Frigga and Heimdall and all of them have to exist. And Darcy's response was like, He-Man, who now? Given the fact that we just, you know, covered He-Man and the Masters of the Universe revelation. Definitely appreciated that little nod there. And then I just had a question. He-Man and Mew Mew. Yeah, He-Man and Mew Mew.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yep, yep. Asgard is attorney or vice versa. And then I had a question for you. Do you boom in private or public?
00:23:42
Speaker
So, it was a great little exchange between Loki and Thor when Carol first arrived on the scene and you hear her sonic boom in the background. Loki's like, was that a boom? Did you boom? He's like, I never boom. He's like, you always boom. I only boom in private.
00:24:01
Speaker
I forgot about that dialogue for a second, but when you said boom, I was thinking Young Justice right away. I thought YouTube was like, what are you asking me right now? Your reaction was priceless either way. Good times, good times.
00:24:19
Speaker
Well, I think that's about all I've got on this episode. It was definitely a fun one, a nice change of pace. We've had a lot of heavy emotional toll taking going on here lately. So it was nice, you know, just get a little bit of a palate cleanser and have some fun. Oh, yeah.
00:24:36
Speaker
All right, well, with that being said, I will just remind everyone we do have that review contest that we mentioned at the top of the episode still going. So
Pop Culture References and Review Contest
00:24:46
Speaker
thanks a lot for all the reviews that are coming in. I've been checking those pretty regularly and I've seen some really, really nice ones that are very genuine and go into specifics. So it really warms my heart to see those. And I can't thank you all enough for listening and participating in that.
00:25:02
Speaker
As far as future things go, we do have Star Wars Visions, that series on Disney Plus, kind of snuck up on all of us that just dropped. And a little teaser, I have checked out the first episode, but very soon we will be doing an instant reaction for that. And then when Zuhair and myself have a little bit of time, we're going to do a comprehensive deep dive on that. So look forward to that. Zuhair, do you have anything that you want to mention specifically for the people?
00:25:28
Speaker
Spoiler, I really enjoyed the first two episodes. So it's gonna be fun watching the rest of them. Yeah Yeah, we gotta finish up a young justice stuff. Yeah, we got We have a date for season four. We have a demon slayer date. We have a my hero movie hitting theaters Yeah, lots lots going on that's a dude we're not short of any content right now
00:25:51
Speaker
No we're not, no we're not. Alright, with all that being said, there's a lot out there. I really hope that you keep tuning in. That's T-O-O-N-I-N. Party hard, boob in private, and stay well. And we're out.
00:26:10
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Animation Deliberation Podcast, a proud member of the Strandepanda Network. If you would like to contact us, you can email animationdeliberationpodcast at gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at animationdelib1. For this and other great shows, you can visit Strandepanda.com or join the great community that is the Strandepanda Chat Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash svchat. Tune in next time and remember, stay well.
00:26:40
Speaker
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Speaker
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