X-Men (2000)

Strap yourselves in, fellow geeks, as Dakota and Anthony commemorate their 77th episode of Project Geekology with a rousing throwback to the game-changing "X-Men" movie from 2000. We're not just talking about Hugh Jackman's claws and charisma as Wolverine; we delve into the film's monumental impact on the superhero genre and our own geeky paths. Our nostalgia doesn't end there, though—we also tip our hats to "Blade," the unsung hero that blazed the trail before "X-Men," and then pivot to our fresh take on Amazon Prime's Fallout series. Trust us, we're just getting started on unpacking the treasure chest of hidden gems like the remastered "Star Ocean" and anticipating the animated continuation in "X-Men '97."

Change gears with us as we geek out over the binge-worthy nature of the Fallout series, debating the pros and cons of Amazon's full-season drop compared to the weekly episode buzz that keeps us talking. Anthony shares his strategy for stretching out the Fallout goodness, while we also shine a light on the overlooked "Star Ocean" in a galaxy dominated by JRPG giants. Then, it's back to the future—or is it the past?—as we revel in the seamless link between the beloved '90s animated series and the upcoming "X-Men '97."

The episode wraps with a heartfelt reflection on the profound societal and cinematic contributions of the "X-Men" films, which resonate with themes of diversity and struggle. We honor Jackman's legacy as Wolverine, mull over the influence of the ensemble cast, and consider the anticipation for mutants' leap into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As we look forward to Deadpool's return and Wolverine slashing his way into the MCU, we celebrate the enduring legacy of the "X-Men" and their role in sculpting the superhero landscape. So come for the geekery, stay for the camaraderie—it's all here in this episode of Project Geekology.

Twitter handles:
Project Geekology: https://twitter.com/pgeekology
Anthony's Twitter: https://twitter.com/odysseyswow
Dakota's Twitter: https://twitter.com/geekritique_dak

Instagram:
https://instagram.com/projectgeekology?igshid=1v0sits7ipq9y

Geekritique (Dakota):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBwciIqOoHwIx_uXtYTSEbA

Twitch (Anthony):
https://www.twitch.tv/odysseywow

Music:
Eric Godlow Beats: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRpkcYps82PdSo0tK5rEIPA

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome one and all to Project Geekology, episode 77. And, you know, considering it's episode 77, I think it's appropriate that we discuss something that's, you know, really intrinsically geeky, something that's dear to our hearts. Star Wars, the original 1977 film by George Lucas, is not what we're going to be covering. We're actually going to be covering something entirely different X-Men, the film that came out in 2000. I don't know where I was going with that intro, but here we are. My name is Dakota, I'm one half of your host and I'm joined, as always, with Anthony. We really got to get these intros down pat. I don't know. We've been going on like some crazy side quests with our intros alone.

Speaker 2: 0:46

And I our intros alone, and I gotta admit, I think some people are starting to think that we're crazy. I mean, you know, that's just on par for project ecology. We love to go on our tangents and our intros. You know, that's just a theory, a film theory.

Speaker 1: 0:54

All right, we're gonna be covering x-men, the 2000 film by brian singer that starred, I guess, the. The biggest actor in the cast, or the main character, rather, is Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, and it's really what kind of started the current boom in Marvel and superhero films in general in the 21st century. So I think it's a hugely influential film. Obviously it wasn't the first in the lineup. We had Blade a couple years earlier. That kind of kicked that off. But back then a lot of people didn't really know blade as a comic book character, so he was kind of just like a vampire slayer. It wasn't really known as a comic book movie that and blade was definitely.

Speaker 2: 1:38

it didn't feel comic booky, it was very brutal and just really crazy. I mean action, horror, yeah, absolutely. I mean I would love to cover at least the first one eventually down the line, because it is an interesting film.

Speaker 1: 1:54

And supposedly they've been in the works for years but they're supposedly making a Blade movie under the Marvel Studios umbrella, so that'll be interesting once it finally comes to fruition. But when it comes to X-Men 2000, that was the movie that really, you know audience realized this is specifically based on a superhero genre. I mean, prior to this, you had the X-Men animated series, which we'll touch upon a little bit later on down the line, and you know people were familiar with most of the characters because it was the primary X-Men that showed up in this movie. And, yeah, I'm excited to talk about it because this was a huge movie for me in terms of just getting me into comic books and getting me to love the genre. So, before we do any of that, before we touch on any Brotherhood of mutants and dna and anything like that, anthony, what have you been up to?

Speaker 2: 2:48

scum of the earth well, you know I have been up to other brotherhood related stuff, but you know, before I I uh hop onto that you know I watched, I watched x-men. It was actually really awesome. You know, going back, going back to that and watching that, you know I felt I agree with you, it was one of those. It was a crucial film for me because you know, this was before Spider-Man came out, so that really like solidified my love of of different comic book characters. You know, I had read a little bit of comic books but it was definitely after that point where my my love of comics upticked and then the Spider-Man movies just kind of enhanced that. And yeah, man, it's, it's been. It was really, really cool.

Speaker 2: 3:34

Going back to that, and as far as you know, the brotherhood stuff I'm talking about the brotherhood of steel, so as of recording, so on april 10th they released the fallout series on amazon prime. It was supposed to come out in the 12th, but they're like, yeah, you know, let's just release it early, which you know. Hey, look, if you're confident enough to release your show a little bit earlier, hey, I, I applaud you for it. And they were ready, man, let me tell you I haven't finished it yet. I'm a few episodes in, but this adaptation is freaking phenomenal. It's so good it is.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I've only seen. I've only seen the first episode, but I knew where you were going immediately, like when you were talking about dna or before we were even recording it was. I was joking with anthony about like dna being mutants and the scum of the earth, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And he's just like actually I have something else to talk about and I knew immediately he was talking about Fallout.

Speaker 2: 4:33

I thought it was Persona.

Speaker 1: 4:34

Well, you had to name drop Persona, didn't you? I've just learned to cringe inside whenever Persona is name dropped. No, I'm kidding, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 4:44

I'm just going to say it until you start playing them. You know Dang, All right.

Speaker 1: 4:47

Well, I guess you got to keep bringing it up. Yeah, no, I did watch the first episode last night and I'm actually excited to jump into the second episode, basically right after we record.

Speaker 2: 4:59

Yeah, I'm going to continue watching when we finish recording. Have you played any of the Fallout?

Speaker 1: 5:04

games? I haven't. I mean I've seen gameplay, I've watched people play it, so I know the basic mechanics of it, but I've never actually like dive into any of the story or lore to the extent that I would necessarily like recognize everything that they're showing me on screen right now. But I mean, I knew about, you know, know, I know a decent amount where I'm following pretty right, pretty easily and I'm able to, like, you know, my wife has never played it at all, so she's like asking me questions and I'm like, oh, I think it's because of this, you know so yeah, yeah, it's so.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I've been in the world of fallout for quite some time. I missed out on the first couple. I didn't really I think they were. Those were mostly on pc and I wasn't really heavy into PC at the time. But when I hopped onto the Fallout bandwagon it was Fallout 3. And that's what kind of ushered forth Fallout into the modern age, how the games are now. And so obviously I hopped onto Fallout 4 when that came out, and then Fallout 76, which is the mmo version of that. And so, honestly, dude, like every time there was some sort of reference or something from the games, I was absolutely able, like I was able to pick it up right away. And, like you know, when they come up with like the stem pack, I was like, okay, there goes a stem pack, there's some dude that pulled out this thing that I I recognize as it's called psycho in the game and it's pretty much like this super shot of adrenaline that makes you kind of like crazy.

Speaker 1: 6:28

I did like how they incorporated those video game elements into an otherwise non-RPG world, because that's something that you kind of lose when you jump from a video game to an adaptation.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Right.

Speaker 1: 6:45

I'm trying to think of correlations, but little stuff. Like you know, in fantasy games there's always like some sort of mana potion To like boost your magic level, or an HP potion to like raise your health back up to par before you get into another battle. When you like actually get into narrative driven like books or films or anything like that, that doesn't really exist. Those potions are generally never used in any real capacity. So I was really impressed just by that little little effort, you know right to use those elements to either.

Speaker 1: 7:23

You know, like you said, it was a site. What was it called?

Speaker 2: 7:25

psycho psycho. Yeah, it was that inhaler that. Hello, this is future anthony, so I am adding this in after the recording. So I was wrong about psycho. Psycho is an injectable in the game. The inhaler is actually called jet. Sorry for the false news just kind of went massive. I know we're talking a little bit of spoilers, um, but we're not gonna talk too in depth about the, the story. But you know, I would say, for the most part, this fallout show is like it feels like you're watching the game seriously like, and the thing about fallout is that it's a type of game that's like perfect for an adaptation because you don't have to follow a specific storyline. Each game is different and so that means that each vault dweller that ends up leaving the vault, they're going to have a different experience. Everybody's going to have a different experience in the game. So essentially, this is like seeing somebody else's experience in the world of Fallout. You know the Commonwealth, but question.

Speaker 1: 8:26

So this show isn't adapting necessarily any specific Fallout story, Right, Correct? It's just set in the world and you're following this. You know this vault dweller, as she, you know, enters the world and looks for her father basically Correct and, like each game, your character kind of has their own thing going.

Speaker 2: 8:45

Like fallout 4, you're looking for your son that was abducted when you're like in cryo sleep, but then you come out of cryo sleep because these raiders come in and kidnap your son and then they put you back into cryo sleep. So like the whole raiders going into vaults and all that stuff, like this is all stuff that like happens in the games and it's dude. Let me tell you, this adaptation, like I mean down to the power armor for the brotherhood of steel, looks fantastic, like it's dude. I am so, I'm so happy because, dude, I wasn't sure like, because I'm gonna be honest, like with you, I've kind of gone back after being disillusioned for a long time to, you know, make another attempt at watching the Halo show, right, and so I've gotten a little bit further.

Speaker 2: 9:34

And you know, man, like the thing is when it comes to adapting something to the screen and taking liberties, I feel like there's certain rules that they're like unwritten rules or unspoken. You know they're not really spoken, but they're known. You know there's elements that you got to keep in the game or that you have to keep in the show, like master chief never takes off his helmet, at least in in the view of the audience. You know he does take off his helmet in, like the first game, but you don't see his face. They did the same, like the mystery behind master chief is gone in the show. You know there's look, the action is really cool, like they have some really good action sequences. There's some aspects of it that are a bit enjoyable, but I would say I enjoy the Avatar the Last Airbender adaptation way more than I do with the Halo adaptation. Really Okay, I know that we're going crazy with adaptations, but dude, this Fallout one they did so good, everyone loves it.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Yeah, everyone loves it. You're hard hard pressed to find a bad review on it, and actually I haven't seen a bad review on it and and it's geared for everybody, dude, it's because I was a post-apocalyptic.

Speaker 2: 10:45

A post-apocalyptic world is something that a lot of people can, you know, find, you know they can enjoy. So you know, to watch people, you know they like mad max. Just, I mean, look at mad max, the one that came out in like 2015. That one was reviewed so high. Like people like post-apocalyptic stuff, and so they did it. I feel like they set up the show. It's like a new storyline. You don't have to worry about playing any of the games to really understand the world. They explain certain things to you about this world and they show you. You know a bit of the world's, you know previous and they give you glimpses of it, you know through flashbacks and stuff. But this is like honestly perfect for fans of the series and people who haven't messed with fallout or people who aren't gamers, but you know they like stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 11:31

You know they're geeks, but they're not video game geeks, you know yeah, yeah, so I'd love to cover the show um, in general, you want, you want to do it next week 100.

Speaker 2: 11:40

All right like dude.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Yes next week we're covering fallout that the amazon show. I'm excited about that actually I am too so this is only possible because amazon has released all what is it? 10 episodes online at the same time. Eight episodes.

Speaker 2: 11:55

I think it's eight, it's eight.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Okay, so they've released all eight episodes and they're long episodes Some of them are well over an hour long but from what I've heard, it's super well just paced. They don't waste any of the time. All the time that they do, a lot is set aside for, you know know, building out the world and just fleshing everything out, and I'm really excited about that.

Speaker 2: 12:16

So let's definitely cover that next week well you saw that the showrunner is one of the nolan bros yes, jonathan nolan.

Speaker 1: 12:22

Yeah, so that's that's kind of cool. I mean, that's that's a, that's a pretty big name attached to this.

Speaker 2: 12:26

So I absolutely love that. I know, I know that we're gonna talk I mean, we're gonna talk more in depth, but I, I just I absolutely love that. You know. It's just like you can tell that there's so much care, respect for this ip, you know, and they could take liberties.

Speaker 2: 12:42

you could take liberties at a show like this and you would be none the wiser. You know there's certain aspects. Obviously you want to keep in, but, dude, you could do whatever you want within the world of Fallout, and they've already done so many nods. You've watched the first episode. Like you know, the raiders with, like the arm, the like shoulder pieces and stuff, they look like raiders, you know. So, yeah, dude, like I'm actually super stoked to cover this. Dude, I'll be talking, I'll talk your ear off about Fallout and all the references that they make, and you know I can't wait to actually finish it.

Speaker 2: 13:14

You know, I'm trying to savor it. I'm not going too crazy, I'm not. I'm not binging it all in one day. So, given it, you know, having until next week will give me enough time for that yeah, a couple episodes a day keeps the doctor away, keeps the psychos away.

Speaker 1: 13:28

Anyway, what I will ask you. You know, while we're on the topic, this being able to as of recording this, it is april 11th and the show came out yesterday, april 10th, like late last night. Do you think that it's a bad thing for amazon to have released all of this at once? I mean, it is allowing us to cover it and like, really quickly and just, you know, experience it as a whole. But then you know you also have shows that get talked about for weeks and weeks and weeks, right as HBO does, as Disney Plus does. They all have that you know, like typical streaming schedule that you know normal TV tends to follow as well. So how do you feel about the streaming release of, you know, stuff like amazon and netflix?

Speaker 2: 14:13

so I was actually surprised that they dropped all the episodes at once, but I do kind of see where they're coming from. This show almost feels like one long continuous movie, whereas you know how a lot of shows they feel kind of serialized or they set them up kind of episodic, but this one feels like you could just continue watching it. You know like I feel like the episodes kind of flow and you know the next episode flows in very well into the next one, so it doesn't feel like you're fading to black or and you're having this huge cut, you know right, right, right, awesome, all right, so we'll talk more about this next week.

Speaker 1: 14:52

If you're interested in hearing our discussion of Fallout, depending on when you're listening to this episode, it is the literal next episode that we're covering. So if you're listening to this a little bit later, you can definitely listen to our Fallout review right now. But yeah, for the rest of you who are listening week in, week out, you're going to have to wait exactly one week.

Speaker 2: 15:11

I am so sorry guys, I see you doing the the pit boy thumbs up yeah, anyway, what have you been up to other than fallout well? You know purse? No, it's kidding, I was gonna say persona I.

Speaker 2: 15:26

I've actually been playing through the first star ocean game, but like, okay yeah, yeah, the first but, like the first, like they had like remade it and so I'm playing they remade it and they had put it onto psp and then they made like a remaster of the psp one and they put it onto, like the consoles, and so I've been playing the remaster of that and it's been pretty cool. I'm I'm like really surprised that this is one of the series that kind of passed me by. I knew of it, I knew existed, but I really never played it. But, dude, there are so many different series like they're. You know, obviously there's final fantasy, you have star ocean, you have fantasy star.

Speaker 2: 16:07

I always confuse star ocean and fantasy star, like. So, like, dude, I didn't know which game was which and like I wasn't. You know, they both seem like similar games, but it's been really cool, like playing this game, though it really is one of those. It's a gem that that I would say that a lot of people don't really talk much about, because, I mean, have you heard really anybody talk about star ocean at all in your life?

Speaker 1: 16:32

I mean, I've seen footage of you know it's one of those games you used to pass by like a hundred times at GameStop. But it's one of those just classic JRPGs, right?

Speaker 2: 16:41

Yeah, absolutely, I definitely put it up there with you know, maybe it's not as famous as Final Fantasy, but the story is absolutely just. You know, out of this world I enjoyed lot, awesome, awesome, cool man. But, yeah, man, how about you man, we, I had my gush over fallout, you know, alluding to it with the brotherhood all right, all right, but how about you?

Speaker 1: 17:04

I'm gonna I'm gonna gush about two things. I was actually gonna gush about fallout, so thank you for, you know, saving that I had to.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Man, I'm a gamer here, not that you're not the gamer, but I play solitaire on occasion I play phone gotcha games I have chess on my phone.

Speaker 1: 17:25

I'm just messing with you guys. What was I gonna say? Dude x-men 97, have you watched any of it yet?

Speaker 2: 17:33

not yet, man. It's because I really I want to. I want to go back and I want to watch the original. It's been so long, though you said that it kind of flows in after the original right, so it's a year after the original right, so I want to watch the original first what?

Speaker 1: 17:50

what I will say is that the first episode gives you a really good recap of everything that happened that you need to know before, so it's easy to jump in if you haven't seen it before. Jen, my wife has not seen a single episode of the original series. She loves this new series. Nice, you will. You know, fans of the series will get more appreciation out of it than non-fans. Obviously, of course, same with anything but dude, holy crap. Episode 5 is one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen.

Speaker 2: 18:24

Dang. That's crazy. Actually, that's a lot for you to say, that it's nuts Dude.

Speaker 1: 18:31

I sat there with my jaw dropped for two minutes after the episode. I don't want to spoil anything that happens, but, theming-wise, what's really interesting is that the creator of the show wanted the first five episodes to feel like a pre-9-11 world, where there wasn't any worries, or there wasn't as many worries. And then the end of Episode 5, moving forward, is a post-9-11 world, but specifically for mutants, and it's just like holy crap, how did they get away with that? How did Marvel Studios ever allow them to do this? It is absolutely bonkers. It's the best thing Marvel's done in years.

Speaker 2: 19:10

That's awesome. And are you including the MCU stuff too? Because I mean the MCU has been very just. It's been so shaky after Endgame.

Speaker 1: 19:21

And you know what I've liked more than I haven't when it comes to stuff post Endgame, but it doesn't hit. Like it doesn't hit, yeah, I will. I will say I think losing several of the main cast of characters, whether we, you know, there's certain things that like it feels like an ending that never happened, like it should have been an ending for the mcu, but it wasn't, it just kind of continued and it hasn't had the same vibes after the deaths of tony stark, natasha romanoff, captain america, you know all those characters. But anyway, what I would say is that, even though this isn't MCU particularly like, it's being produced under Marvel Studios with their new animation studio called Marvel Animation.

Speaker 1: 20:05

It's not technically MCU, it's not in that universe, but I could totally see, like if a Secret Wars type project comes up, they can merge certain worlds together like that and I think that would be really interesting, just dynamic as a whole. But I I'm really impressed with it. It's one of the best superhero things I've seen in ages and it's amazing that it's based on a show that was kind of campy in the 90s. You know it had excellent stories, it had excellent episodes, but pound for pound it's so much better than the original. Once you watch it, once you see like the writing that's just inherent throughout the series, you're going to be like, oh wow, like it just feels like an adult version of the original show without getting into any of like the doesn't have to get into like any sex or drugs or anything like that or cursing. It's not like that at all. It's just the themes themselves are just so much more profound and they hit harder and I'm astounded by it yeah, I want to hop onto that.

Speaker 2: 21:04

It's on my list. Oh, I know that you're on your thing, but I kind of forgot to to talk about it. But I've really like been deep diving into dakota, is doing the the vault boy, the vault boy, uh, thumbs up. But um, that anime that I was telling you about called free rent, dude, you have to watch. It's a fantasy anime and it's so true yes all right, I'll check it out.

Speaker 1: 21:30

I just spoke to. Okay, I'll turn around. I'll open up crunchyroll right now.

Speaker 2: 21:34

I'll watch it as we record this if you hear anime in the background, it's dakota watching freerun I'm gonna be asking you frequent questions about, like, what's going on anyway.

Speaker 1: 21:45

The second thing I wanted to talk about is I started the new star wars book that came out this past week by john jackson miller. It's called the, the living force. Okay and dude, it's a really good book.

Speaker 2: 21:56

Oh it's so it's.

Speaker 1: 21:58

It's one year before the Phantom Menace and basically the story follows where in the the High Republic era has ended. You know, all the major like great works of the past era are being kind of like shuttered. Most of the Jedi outposts are less than frequented as they're being congested by the Senate in the core worlds they're in the process of closing a bunch of like Outer Rim and Hutt space area Jedi outposts and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan basically like they start realizing by neglecting, you know, these aspects of space, they've created a sour taste for the Jedi in the general populace, you know. And then the whole book's kind of how, like, the Jedi Order has slowly shifted their focus towards the cosmic force, which is like the future, the bigger picture. They want to macrocosm their reach as Jedi.

Speaker 1: 22:58

But the living force is the day-to-day, the person-to-person, the present side of the force. That's what Qui-Gon always preaches, you know, like be mindful of the living force. That's what he brings attention to the Jedi Council and he's basically like yo, what's up, guys? You guys have totally screwed this up. This whole sector of space has no Jedi in it at all. There's gangs going crazy over there, all these places that used to be Jedi safe havens and like cultural centers, are like crumbling, and so the Jedi Council decides that they're basically gonna go on like a road trip to this corner of the galaxy, and so it follows the entire cast of the jedi council from yoda to mace windu, not a road trip.

Speaker 2: 23:43

I was gonna say, oh, is this another obi-wan and qui-gon story?

Speaker 1: 23:47

it's only briefly, only like the first part of the book, and and then after that it goes chapter by chapter through like Plo Koon Ki-Adi-Mundi Yario Poof Yaddle.

Speaker 2: 23:59

Is it good, though, like you've been enjoying it, it's super solid. Yeah, it's super solid.

Speaker 1: 24:03

It's a big cast, but you know what?

Speaker 2: 24:05

It's kind of a big cast in the same way that Light of the Jedi was a big Jedi is like pretty large and there's there's so much going on in that story but these are characters that you already are more.

Speaker 2: 24:17

You know better than characters in the higher right right, like if they talk about Ki-Adi-Mundi and Yaddle, like I have like a face, at least a visual, a visual that I can focus on Yoda, mace, windu these are characters that I've actually physically seen, whereas I mean, with light of the jedi, you have the cover that you can kind of assume and base some of the characters on. You know, like the wookiee jedi, you're like, okay, well, obviously, this is what that wookiee jedi looks like. And uh, avar, chris, and so and so on and so forth yeah, so I really am enjoying it.

Speaker 1: 24:53

I'm not even halfway through, but it seems like it's going to be a classic for me, just in terms of the scope and the reach of it and it kind of fits perfectly with the overall narrative in the galaxy right now. Because the Jedi did neglect the living side of the Force, they let the Sith basically grow like seed up to become what they were in the Empire. So I'm really enjoying it. I'll keep the Sith basically grow like seed up to become what they were in the empire. So I'm really enjoying it. I'll keep you apprised next week, once I probably haven't finished by then, but awesome Well you also have some homework, though.

Speaker 1: 25:21

I got some homework and we got a whole show to watch guys. Well, you have a whole show to watch, and you know.

Speaker 2: 25:25

And then it's time for you to play through all of one of the fallout games and persona and persona three, four and five and free rent.

Speaker 1: 25:36

Um, anthony, I have a question for you what happens to podcasters when they get struck by lightning?

Speaker 1: 25:41

the same thing that happens to everything else dude, it's true, you don't want to get struck by lightning. Apparently it's really bad guys, let's let's jump into our discussion. We're halfway through our podcast. Let's jump into our discussion of x-men, the original film. That kind of well it did it birthed. It birthed the whole genre of fox x-men films, a number of sequels, several spin-offs, several wolverine films, a new mutants film. There's a whole bunch deadpool and it was actually the deadpool was the reason that we decided that we were going to be covering the X-Men series going forward. Yeah, you'll probably be getting a lot more X-Men related episodes leading up to Deadpool 3, or Deadpool and Wolverine, as it's being dubbed now right we wanted to get a head start on, like just getting back into that world of you.

Speaker 1: 26:31

You know the Fox X-Men stuff and you know I always forget like the story is kind of dumb but it makes a lot of sense. At the same time you have Magneto, who clearly doesn't see the world changing quick enough. You know you have people like Senator Kelly who are very anti-mutant and you know it's a very realistic thing. If there were mutants in the world you would have Senator Kelly's all over the spectrum, right, left and right. So I totally understand where Magneto's coming from the frustration of politics being slow and antagonistic towards his kind. So he devises a way to turn people into mutants. He devises a way to speed up that genetic code inside them that basically turns them into mutants and I think that that's a genius idea.

Speaker 1: 27:23

It's such a simple way to introduce the world of mutants into a live-action film because you don't need a whole lot of information. You just got to know humans hate mutants. There's mutants who care for humans and want to save them and there's mutants who hate humans and want to harm them or end them or change them, and that's basically the the major gist of the first x-men film. You have two major factions. You have Xavier's lot and then you have the Brotherhood of Mutants, which is Magneto's lot.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Not to be confused with the Brotherhood of Steel.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Yes, that we'll be covering next week in a little bit more detail. But, yeah, what are your thoughts on X-Men? I've been blabbing for the past couple of minutes.

Speaker 2: 28:10

Yeah, dakota geez man, like I can't even like get a thought across.

Speaker 1: 28:14

I'm just kidding dude whenever you say something annoying, I'm just gonna give you the fallout thumbs up, the ball boy thumbs up.

Speaker 2: 28:23

So man x-men 2000, you know. I was just thinking how it was crazy. We covered lilo and stitch last week and that was a post 9-11 movie. This is a pre-9-11 movie, yeah, that's there's a couple shots with the twin towers in it and I I had caught those and I'm like man, it's insane how we covered two films that are like pretty much like they're so close and like released, but like that date separates them, kind of it's it divides them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was an interesting.

Speaker 1: 28:55

That's an interesting point. There's nothing. I mean there is terrorism obviously in this with magneto and you know his occupation of liberty island, it's. It's not on the same, you know, like destroying buildings level that lilo and stitch had a couple years later. But yeah, like what spoke to you about this film, you know on a rewatch, that you were surprised by.

Speaker 2: 29:18

You know I forgot how powerful the opening of the film was. Oh yeah, it's so strong with. You know, we have the concentration camps, the concentration camps, world War II era, right right, and you get a young Magneto who happens to be Jewish, and you know him and his family are being separated at the concentration camps and that's where he really starts to. You know, I guess that's where he first started to notice that he had like strength. Maybe he's used his powers before, but like, maybe not at that magnitude.

Speaker 1: 29:50

It didn't seem like he knew what he was doing Right. Magnitude. It didn't seem like he knew what he was doing right. It seems just that he was pulling with all his might and it unlocked something in him that was always there, right. So when it comes to mutants, a lot of them develop it after puberty or during puberty. So you have a character like rogue. Shortly after that point she's a teenager. She's in her room with the boy they kiss. That's when her powers strike. It's just a heightened sense of emotion that, you know, clicks that into place.

Speaker 1: 30:19

So with Magneto in that early scene, which is such a good scene, man, it's such an interesting way to show that it's not necessarily like Buens have just appeared in the year 2000. They've been around for at least 60 years prior to that. You know Right, they've been around since the World War II era stuff. And, yeah, that heartbreak that you feel because they don't hold back, you know Like, this is a concentration camp. Eric is a Jew, his family are Jewish, they're separated. He's crying for his mom, he's in clear distress and he's being held down by like four prison guards, four Nazi guards, and yet he's still pulling through the mud because he's magnetized, his skin has, you know magnetic qualities and he just basically warps the entire game, trying to basically get back to his mom. Yeah, it's, it's a. It's a terrible scene. It's a beautiful scene, but it's a powerful one too.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Right, and that's what I was trying to say is that I'm thinking that I mean, we see how the way that the MCU is now, where they try to make these movies powerful in a sense, but for the most part I mean, let's be real the X-Men movie had there's definitely a lot of campy moments in it, but that's because it was a movie based off of comic books. They're keeping that spirit alive. But the fact that they decided to open up the film with such a serious and powerful scene, really, just like thinking about it, I was like wow, like that's really, it's really insane that they decided to start here. It's really insane that they decided to start here. But it's very relevant because in a way, it's showing Magneto's the beginning of his hate for humans.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Yes, because while it wasn't necessarily the Nazis agenda to go after mutants Correct, it was their agenda to marginalize groups in general. And that is what sets Magneto off, because you, you know, he believes that the world should be equal, or at least he did have that belief at one point. And it's that marginalization of like well, you're a mutant, so you get treated differently, which is exactly what he went through as a jew, yeah that's what I was Exactly Like.

Speaker 2: 32:31

He's pretty much been marginalized his whole life, first as as a Jew and second, eventually, as a mutant, and so, honestly, to tell you the truth, I don't blame him for being disillusioned with the world, because that would eat away at a lot of people like you live. He's lived his entire life having people look at him like he's a monster.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Yeah, no, I totally hear you. And you can kind of take that parallel or that parable of you know, like the mutants versus humans and like how the mutants are discriminated against, blah, blah, blah, and transform that into anything you know, like any marginalized group, any type of people. And that's the amazing thing about X-Men is that it could be understood by so many different people in so many different ways and you could feel it all the same, because everyone has felt marginalized for something you know, some people way more than others, of course, but it's a natural human feeling that everyone can recognize and that's what made the X-Men comics so popular. For years they were the number one selling book and, yeah, it is such a strong Marvel property.

Speaker 1: 33:43

It's amazing that Marvel Studios has had so much success in 15 years. You know they're by far the biggest franchise in terms of movie gross ever, like by such a long shot. It's like they're three times the next highest franchise. But they haven't even tapped mutants yet. You know, like they've hinted at it. They had like hank mccoy in like a post-credits scene of the marvels. They've kind of hinted that maybe miss marvel is a mutant, but as soon as, like the floodgates open with deadpool and wolverine oof.

Speaker 2: 34:16

I cannot wait for them to incorporate mutants into the wider mcu and the cool thing about mutants is that it's not mutants are they're, they're people. But they have this they have something in their genetics that shift, like you said, when once they hit around puberty. And it does make it a lot more relatable because, you know, there's different things about our bodies that are found out all the time. And so with a lot of these characters there are a lot of these other characters in the MCU they're either injected with some sort of serum, hit with like gamma rays, they have something happen to them. You know a lot of them. You know they're using super powered suits, but a lot of these people are like everyday people that didn't really ask for this. You know, I mean, some of the mcu people might have not asked for their powers. I mean, I guess, in a way, technically we did, we did get mutes, did we? What are you asking? I don't know. I'm trying to think. Well, I mean, we have had the scarlet witch and I quicksilver I mean.

Speaker 1: 35:25

So that's kind of a difficult distinguishing line and they've gone back and forth with it, not only in the comics but like what that means in the actual marvel studios, because those characters in this universe are not the son and daughter of Magneto. Yeah, that's true. The way that they got away with using characters like Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver is that they were original members of the Avengers team, like in the comics. So they were allowed to use those characters and they kind of hinted that they were mutants. But they couldn't use the word for legal purposes until fox was bought, basically by disney. So we shall see what happens with that. But yeah, it hasn't officially been even to the mcu until, I guess very soon, right?

Speaker 2: 36:12

well, I mean, you know with the nods to it, with multiverse of madness. I mean we had Professor X, but nothing in a full-on movie capacity. But it was more of, like you said, a scene here, a scene there, but very brief.

Speaker 1: 36:30

Yes, nods, easter eggs, cameos, stuff like that. That's what we've had so far. We haven't really dived into what it means to be mutant in the mcu or how they're going to introduce that right, right, they like they haven't defined it within the mcu yeah, but it's defined pretty well here.

Speaker 1: 36:47

It's just a group of people who, for whatever reason, are now suddenly have a range of abilities that they have been able to tap into. I like how it follows rogue and wolverine's relationship throughout the movie. It's a short movie too it's literally an hour and a half.

Speaker 2: 37:04

Yeah, I forgot how movies back then were very short, very snappy, yeah, but it's fine.

Speaker 1: 37:13

It works with what it's got pretty well. I do think that it wouldn't be accepted as well nowadays because it does feel very quick. Some of the like jumps don't feel as earned as they did necessarily back then. One jump in particular is when so after rogue gets stabbed by wolverine and she steals wolverine's powers, but nobody in the mansion sees, you know, the fact that she was stabbed. They only saw that she stole Wolverine's healing abilities. It looked like she attacked Wolverine. It didn't look like there was an accident with her getting stabbed. So that scene it jumps like. The next day you have Bobby or Iceman telling her you got to get out of here. Everyone's talking about how you've tried to attack another person. You can't do that here and it turns out to be Mystique. It's a very rash decision for her to just up and go without talking to anyone. You know, like in a modern I think in the MCU or you know modern storytelling. They would have more reason to just up and leave, you know but that's one of those.

Speaker 2: 38:19

they would have more reason to just up and leave, you know. But oh no, that's one of those. I think, my so. So I think my. My rationale for it would be in this movie she's a teenager, bro, teenagers don't need a reason to do nothing. Dude, you slight them in one way. You tell them one thing.

Speaker 1: 38:32

You're like all right, I'm out, like I'm telling, if you're talking about somebody, and I'm even talking like maybe before 25, like 25 and younger, you definitely know you're right.

Speaker 2: 38:43

You're right, but the older you get, you definitely need to like you got, to throw down the deets but considering that you, you're onto something actually because you know previously she was literally a runaway. She was trying to go randomly right right yeah, from louisiana too, like how did you get?

Speaker 1: 39:04

there girl she she, she traveled far man. And then and then she turned right around to go down to westchester, new york yeah, I was a little confused by that woods yeah, my neck of the woods I'm in, I'm in westchester. What's funny is that like they kind of treat westchester as like a specific section or like a town of new york, but westchester is massive, like it could be anywhere.

Speaker 2: 39:29

But anyway, let's not hang out on that too long, right? Well, I mean, dude, let's talk about this casting.

Speaker 2: 39:35

Dude, this casting is freaking insane and they all came to bat for each and every one of their characters, every single one of them you have Ian McKellen as Magneto dude, let me tell you, first and foremost, he's especially during that time he was one of my favorite actors because he was knocking it out of the park as Magneto, he was killing it as gandalf. I'm like this guy is just you, you also have. Well, I think he was he knighted, he's, he's a sir, right, I know, patrick stewart.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Stewart, I believe, so I can check. Yeah, it is sir patrick stewart. I don't know if he was a sir at that point, but he is a sir, so let's call him a sir, and ian mckellen is also so.

Speaker 2: 40:17

Yeah, I was going to say I think Ian McKellen also is Dude. Just them alone. They're already known. They're both in their 60s at this point, so they've had a long and successful career. You had Patrick Stewart. He was in Sir Patrick Stewart. He was really well known in the Star Trek community, along with a whole bunch of other things.

Speaker 1: 40:40

And what's so great about Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart is that they play off each other so well Like I can't possibly think of a better Magneto-Xevious counterpart.

Speaker 2: 40:53

And it's so believable that, like you, wouldn't believe that they've been friends for so long.

Speaker 1: 40:58

They had that dynamic, that chemistry they had that frenemies yes, that frenemies, vibe and I, like you, know their first interaction in the movie. You know they're at a senate hearing and you have charles asking magneto why he's here and he goes. Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer? And basically it's hope. You know, like char Charles or was it Magneto that said hope, basically, yeah, basically like hope that something would change.

Speaker 2: 41:27

Right. He was like what are you doing up in my head, what are you searching for in my head? And right.

Speaker 1: 41:33

Hope, that's what it was. And then, at the very end of the movie, they're playing a chess match while you know Magneto's in his plastic prison and you know Magneto asks like what are you doing here? Like why are you still humoring me after all this? And basically, like hope, that's what I've been doing. I'm trying to see if my friend's still there.

Speaker 2: 41:52

Right, they're frenemies, but there's this like caring Like you can tell, oh, like caring like you can tell, yeah, there's a, there's a mutual respect and there's a mutual caring because of their, their long history with one another and they're on two opposite sides of the spectrum, the political spectrum.

Speaker 1: 42:09

when it comes to mutants, you know like they both have what they believe is the right path forward, but they both go about it entirely differently. And because this is through the eyes of the X-Men, and they're the far less extreme group among the mutants that they showcase, they're the good guys, and Magneto and his brotherhood are the bad guys.

Speaker 1: 42:29

Right but outside of Sir Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, you have Halle Berry as Storm Right, she kills it who was a huge name at the time. I actually don't know that she kills it. I don't know that she was a perfect cast for Storm Personally, but she fits the role, the reason why I say that she kills it.

Speaker 2: 42:48

I don't know. I feel like she, because she killed Toad. Well, she, I don't know, I felt like she slotted in that role pretty well.

Speaker 1: 43:01

It slotted in that role pretty well. It felt natural. It felt like it did feel natural. It felt like a natural place for her to be. So you have her as storm. You have, obviously you have hugh jackman as dude.

Speaker 2: 43:09

Uh wolverine hugh jackman. Like embodied that character. It is so hard to imagine anybody else in that role. Dude, like it's he's one of those characters, like he's one of those actors that's performed, a specific character that's very hard to imagine, and like there hasn't been any other like Wolverine. Like you know we've had.

Speaker 1: 43:31

What's crazy, though? What's crazy is that, like before this movie, many people couldn't see him as wolverine because he doesn't have the physicality that wolverine necessarily embodies. Wolverine's a very squat and stocky character, gruff looking, whereas hugh jackman is a little on the taller side, a little skinnier and also a handsome guy, you know so, but he was able to embody the character, bring life into the role, and he's made. I mean, wolverine was always a top five comic book character, right, like in general he got the demeanor down pack.

Speaker 2: 44:06

He did definitely demeanor, yes, and the acting, yes, he totally nailed it. I mean, aside from maybe the height, but the physicality, he did like he had some muscle to him. Yeah, like he really killed it. Man like that role is, I'm excited to see him in this upcoming deadpool movie, but we also have what's the actress that plays rogue, anna paquin. And so again, yeah, she. I feel like after this film I had started to see her in a lot.

Speaker 1: 44:36

She was her big role after this was True Blood.

Speaker 2: 44:39

Yes. After the it was very shortly after right, like I think what? Maybe a couple years?

Speaker 1: 44:45

Yeah, a couple years. It was early 2000s, yeah, or you know the 2010s era, but yeah, yeah, she got huge after this. James Marsden has been in literally everything.

Speaker 2: 45:00

Yeah, he's been in a lot Dude, he's literally in this show called Jury Duty.

Speaker 1: 45:04

Yes, I have seen that I have seen that.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Have you seen that show? I have. It's so ridiculous, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 45:12

If you're an Office fan, you will love this show. We also had Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, which is a super good role. Jean Grey, which super good role like just a fantastic Jean Grey casting and a pairing with Hugh Jackman and James Marsden. I think she did a really fantastic role. Absolutely what else you had yeah, I mean we don't have to go through the entire cast, but it is an amazing cast. You know, like everyone brought their A game and that's just the the x-men team. You have mystique and toad and saber tooth on the brotherhood of mutants side and it's such a fun movie.

Speaker 2: 45:44

man, yeah, yeah, for what it is it was one of those movies that you know, dude, I got it. I wanted it on dvd. You know that that was something that my parents had got me. You know when it eventually came out on the dvd, because I remember seeing it in theaters and dude absolutely loving it, and then you know watching it several times on dvd, like it was and it was for me, a huge, a hugely influential movie in my life in terms of it's the one that got me into collecting comic books for a good couple.

Speaker 1: 46:18

You know, when I first started reading comic books, most of the books that I read were X-Men related, were X-Men comics, uncanny X-Men, yeah, and that line. And you know, back then it wasn't easy to just pick up trade paperbacks. It was just like random issues that I would have and I had no idea who any of these characters were. Who's Psylocke, who's Cable, who's this? Yeah, I had no idea. I was just in love with the world and the world building. This movie introduced me just to that concept of what a mutant is and what their plight is, and that's all it needed to do, because it created this entire genre of movies moving forward that I'm I'm really excited to dive deeper into.

Speaker 2: 47:03

So you know, like after we cover fallout, I really do want to keep going forward with the x-men movies maybe cover some of the wolverine movies and deadpool movies in the lead up to deadpool 3 oh, absolutely, I think that would be a great idea, and I mean x2 is to me arguably the best of the three x-men movie, or the three beginning x-men movies yeah, I would say that too.

Speaker 1: 47:26

They did a really good job of, like you know, setting up the ball for the next movie with, like, the mystery behind wolverine's lack of knowledge of his past. You know they, they have the moment where you, you know, you have Jean Grey trying to read his memories and it's just a blur of like experimentation on him and you're just like, oh, what's going on with this guy, why can't he remember? And then at the end of the movie, you have Charles kind of tell him like yeah, you have Charles kind of tell him like you should probably go check this place out.

Speaker 2: 48:04

This is what I've been able to uncover. Yeah, dude, I would say that these earlier comic book movies I mean we touched a little bit upon Blade and these X-Men movies were so crucial really to like. So, how we built like we eventually built up to the MCU man, because this was really like testing the waters of the reception of comic book movies and people absolutely love these movies. You got these, you got the spider-man movies, we got a few hulk movies that kind of sprinkled in. Even though that first hulk movie wasn't spectacular, it was still like, okay, you know, like people are interested. Just maybe they got the ball rolling. Yeah, right, right, so you know, and x-men was a huge part of that what's interesting?

Speaker 1: 48:39

interesting is that, like you know, we think of superhero movies as these huge big budget Hollywood spectacle movies and while this might have been like a more pricier movie, it by far pales in comparison to the budget that we see nowadays $200, $300 million for a movie. This was a 75 million dollar movie. Like it was made on a budget. This was probably not expected to go anywhere, but like I said insane.

Speaker 2: 49:07

Like could you imagine, would they have even been able to pull that off nowadays, with 75 million?

Speaker 1: 49:13

no, and the big reason being is like inflation yeah, yeah they would probably have like to make the movie that they want nowadays would probably be closer to that, or the $75 million equivalent to nowadays, yeah, so like $100 million, $120 million. That would probably be where that would sit right now.

Speaker 2: 49:31

That's probably a lot, but even then that would still be very hard.

Speaker 1: 49:36

Yeah, to make something of this quality and to get actors like Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. Yeah, it's a crazy number. Yeah, dude.

Speaker 2: 49:43

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen within a $75 million budget, like nowadays, they would take up like half of that. I know it's true.

Speaker 1: 49:56

But yeah no. Dude like I was super stoked and this is the movie that this was Kevin Feige's first production. Oh really.

Speaker 2: 50:05

Yeah, See that I didn't know.

Speaker 1: 50:07

I didn't catch that. There's a fantastic book. I don't know if I mentioned it on the podcast. I might have. Let me see if I can pull it up in my yeah, okay, so title details.

Speaker 1: 50:20

You can't really see it from here, but anyway, it's called the reign of the mcu by oh, I think I remember you talking about that actually joanna robinson, dave gonzalez and a couple other people. It is basically like it goes through the entire history of, like the founding of marvel studios, all the troubles that they face, going through, you know, casting certain characters. It's literally it's the best biography of a movie studio ever and it doesn't hold back any punches. You know, like it digs deep. But what's cool about it is it starts in the Fox days. It starts in actually like the 70s and 80s and like how, you know, marvel got onto TV with the X-Men animated series and all that. So it goes into all of that.

Speaker 1: 51:00

But a big portion of it is how a young Kevin Feige was really adamant about getting into Hollywood and just any position, and so that was his first movie and during the production of that movie he would give the producers notes. I don't think this character would do this. I think this character would do that, and it was because he was a comic book fan, or he became a comic book fan, like he was willing to do the homework that other people wouldn't, and that's that's where he. That's where he got where he is now, and I think that that's an awesome legacy, you know.

Speaker 2: 51:33

So anyway, yeah, man, I was super stoked about, you know, heading into this film because I know I know eventually we would get to these earlier comic book movies. I mean, we already did with Spider-Man. But I feel like we would just be. It would be a disservice to our podcast and our fans if we didn't cover a movie like this Because, dude, like I mean, you and I were like it was our younger days, those are our years of molding, Like what molded us.

Speaker 2: 52:01

And you know it was stuff like this, stuff like Star Wars. You know, around this time we had the Lord of the Rings movies coming out. You know this stuff like really molded me into the nerd that I am. It's so crazy. Like you know, we're these young kids and we're watching stuff like Lord of the Rings, like I mean, like it might not sound insane, but like just think about how high fantasy that is, and like we might've not have understood everything that was going on, but we actually genuinely love these movies.

Speaker 1: 52:32

Yeah, yeah, no, we, we were lucky, our generation was really lucky when it came to, you know, just quintessential stories being told through the film medium. You know, like, when you think of just the fantasy, fantasy genre in general, then, as opposed to now, you had stuff like Lord of the Rings, you had stuff like Harry Potter and, on the superhero side, spider-man, x-men, you had the Star Wars films coming up. Yeah, those are all just hugely influential movies for that era and, yeah, I think that shaped both of us in just such a huge way and it's definitely Did I say something annoying?

Speaker 2: 53:11

No, no.

Speaker 1: 53:12

I keep randomly just giving Anthony the thumbs up.

Speaker 2: 53:14

Dakota just keeps on giving me the ball boy thumbs up. Dakota just keeps on giving me the ball boy thumbs up. But yeah, no, I agree that those earlier films really helped shape the movie landscape as far as you know. Comic book movies fantasy, sci-fi, whatever.

Speaker 2: 53:32

Yeah, man, it was really awesome going back to watch this. I can't wait to cover X2. And yeah, it's been 24 years since this movie came out. If you're a comic book fan and have yet to watch the X-Men movies and you've listened to this podcast, I still recommend to go watch the X-Men movies because they're awesome and they're kind of like a relic of the time, because it feels very much so early 2000. So it was very nostalgic in that kind of way too.

Speaker 1: 53:59

Yeah, no, I I agree, and I I know people who are actual x-men fans who just haven't seen any of the fox movies because it was before their time. So, yes, watch, I highly recommend it. I highly recommend it. You know, this was kind of just like a overview review. We haven't really even touched upon any of the major themes or any like any plot points or anything like that. So I would recommend just giving this a go. It's a great entry point into the world of the Fox X-Men movies and I would say that there's as many hits as there are misses with the Fox films, but the highs are high and the lows aren't terrible, so it's worth it.

Speaker 1: 54:38

Guys, thank you so much. Wolverine Origins looking at you. Guys, thank you so much for listening to us here for our 77th episode of Project Geekology. If you like what you've heard, please be sure to give us a five-star review on whatever podcast application you're listening to us on, and please be sure to follow us on our socials. It'll all be linked in the show notes down below. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 2: 55:01

And share us with your friends.

Speaker 1: 55:03

Yes, Figure out how many friends you have. Find a way to copy this message into each of their inboxes or text message or, you know, mailboxes Whatever means of you know, like discussion, you use to get in touch with your friends. Figure out a way to incorporate Project Geekology and hit send all Because we appreciate it and hit send all Especially in a business setting.

Speaker 2: 55:28

Yeah, plug us into a work email send, all send to your entire organization.

Speaker 1: 55:33

Yeah, guys, you can check us out on our socials in the show notes, and we will see you next week for Fallout.

Speaker 2: 55:39

Yes, so get your Stimpaks and Radaway prepared for a great discussion on Fallout. Bye guys, bye.