Project Geekology
Embark on an epic journey with Anthony and Dakota as they delve into the vast realms of geek culture, from cherished classics to cutting-edge creations. Join us for an exhilarating adventure of exploration and nostalgia, as we unearth hidden gems and reminisce about the moments that have shaped us. Welcome to the ultimate celebration of all things geeky!
Project Geekology
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
As we unlock the 81st episode, Anthony and Dakota discuss about the significance of 1981 and how Pyro and Mystique were introduced to the world that year. Anthony's bubbling with excitement for his first convention since last summer. Our conversation unfurls into a spirited discussion about the missed opportunities of "X-Men: The Last Stand," and we promise to bring you Anthony's fresh tales from the OtakuFest in our next gathering.
Venturing across galaxies and timelines, we grapple with the Star Wars saga's intricate chronology and the X-Men series' convoluted history. Sifting through the dense narrative threads of each franchise, Dakota proposes the creation of a visually compelling Star Wars timeline for fans to grasp the epic scope of its universe. Back with the mutants, we express our admiration for the layered storytelling in "X-Men: The Last Stand," despite its pitfalls, and reveal our desire to celebrate the nuances of these superhero epics.
The curtains close with a spotlight on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the pioneer behind its success, Kevin Feige. We reminisce over the impact of his early work and the creative twists in character arcs, such as the Rogue-Bobby-Kitty love triangle. Before bidding farewell, we underscore the significance of those sneaky post-credit scenes, teasing a particular one that adds intrigue to the X-Men lore. So, plug in your headphones and let us be your guides in this geeky odyssey—ratings and reviews are, as always, immensely appreciated.
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Twitch (Anthony):
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Welcome back to Project Geekology, episode 81. I'm one half of your host, dakota, and I'm joined, as always, with Anthony and okay, so we've been on a roll lately of like trying to like pinpoint the episode title number or the episode number within, you know, like our show and whatever we're covering this week. So I looked up what X-Men characters came out in 1981 just to see if there was any crossover. And there is two characters that pop up in this movie, semi-big characters, actually some pretty big characters were created and introduced to the world in 1981. I don't think you know, obviously, which ones they are, because I didn't know, but can you guess?
Speaker 2:like make two guests. Okay, I'll make a swing for the fences angel.
Speaker 1:No, we think pyro yes, pyro is was introduced in 1981. Good, good guess, and another one that I didn't expect.
Speaker 2:Mystique, mystique was also introduced in january of 1991.
Speaker 1:So nice, very cool. We have some synergy with our episode number. But you know we're covering x-men the last stand. I called it x-men 3, the last 10, less you know when. When in last week's episode it's not actually called x-men 3, the last time it's just x-men the last stand. And this will not be our last stand as a podcast. You know this isn't our last episode. We do plan to have an 80 second episode. So that's, that's exciting and I'm excited about that. But this is a fun one because it's kind of a movie that a lot of people have forgotten about yes, it's also not of the three x-men films.
Speaker 2:It's not as favorable as the first two, the, the second one being the one that that people like the most yeah and the first one.
Speaker 2:You always gotta love the first one because I mean it introduces x-men to the, to the large screen, and does a really solid job in bringing a lot of these characters to life, and it really builds a lot on on that in the second one, and so some of that is lost a little bit in the third one. But I will say that, after watching the third one, honestly this is my first time seeing it in like years it's been so long, decade or so for yeah, same, same here.
Speaker 2:like I think the last time I seen it was again was maybe a few years after it had come out and I seen it. I probably saw it again and then after that that was it, I feel, and we'll talk more about it. But I feel like this movie, there is a lot to like about it. I feel like there is actually a foundation of a solid film there, but there there was some wonky execution that really kind of messed it up. But I I do think that, like their bones are there. You can see there's some strong foundation there, but it just doesn't land, so we'll get.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, and yeah, actually, like I think I do remember the last time I watched it it was pretty much like when I began dating my my now wife she hadn't seen most of the movies that I had grown up to love. So none of the Lord of the Rings movies, none of the Star Wars movies, none of the X-Men movies, and there was a bunch of others. But I remember the X-Men trilogy this one, specifically, was one of the trilogies that really was foundational and, like you should probably watch these, just because it kind of explains Just my love of the X-Men and all that a little bit. And I remember I think that was the last time I put it on.
Speaker 2:So you actually saw it more recent than I did.
Speaker 1:Probably yeah, even though that was like over a decade ago. This was a while ago, but yeah, anthony, what have you been up to this past week, my friend?
Speaker 2:You know Watching X. Have you been up to this past week, my friend? You know, watching x-men, the last stand, and prepping for as it will as a recording. There's a convention going on this weekend that I'm going to be going to. By the time that this episode comes out, that convention would have already been done. But I'm pretty stoked. I haven't been to a convention since, I think, august of last year. Usually this convention that I'm going to is in January, but they had to shift the dates because they had to shift venues, because it grew in size and outgrew its previous venues. So now they shifted it to May. So you know I'm pretty stoked. It's been. I need a little. It's time for me to take a little bit of time off of work and, you know, go enjoy some geek culture. So I'm pretty stoked. It's time for me to take a little bit of time off of work and go enjoy some geek culture.
Speaker 1:What convention is it Anthony?
Speaker 2:It is called Otaku Fest. It sounds a lot more geared towards anime, but I feel like a lot of these conventions, those types of conventions, really just anybody can go to it. You don't have to be just an anime fan to come and enjoy it, but it's cool. You get to meet a lot of these voice actors and actresses that have been around honestly, like even from from your youth.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I remember my first anime convention. I don't even remember what year that was, it's probably, I think I went in 2006 to the Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Maybe that was you had to be an anime fan to really appreciate that Like that was like-.
Speaker 2:Straight up yeah.
Speaker 1:That was just straight up. Anime, like the closest thing to not being anime, was probably like Final Fantasy like stuff. But yeah, that's cool, man. It is exciting to hear that other conventions are growing in size and yeah, I'm excited to hear what you do and how, how, the, how the trip goes.
Speaker 2:So absolutely yeah, now I'll next time there'll be an update on the next episode and awesome. Yeah, man, you know I showed you recently that I had. I don't think we spoke about it, did we, or I think we? Had no, we had recorded just before my pc case came in yes, how could I forget, dude?
Speaker 1:you guys don't understand how big this pc case is. He put it on his kitchen counter and it's like double the size of my computer. It's nuts, it's, it's just the case and it's a big persona case. But yeah, it looks really cool.
Speaker 2:It's cool yeah, the and those, the panels that the artwork the characters are on. That's tempered glass, dude, really.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's kind of cool?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've never I've never had a pc with tempered glass. It's usually just been like you know, like an acrylic panel or something like that so what?
Speaker 1:I don't think there's any, like you know, actual pros to having tempered glass panels. Right, it's just, it's just cool not, not that I know of.
Speaker 2:I mean that. I didn't really research it. I mostly got it because, like, I mean it's cool. I mean, how many times have we talked about the persona series? I'm like dude, like, why wouldn't I get this case? I saw it. I'm like dude like I'm getting, why wouldn't I get this case? I saw it. I'm like dude, like I'm getting this. And yeah, man, there's probably some pros to it. Maybe heat escapes through it a little bit better than, I don't know, plastic. I'm not too sure. I mean, dude, shoot the way the heat leaks through the windows in the Miami summer. I'm pretty sure the reverse could happen. Well, I don't know. We sure the reverse could happen. Well, I don't know, we'll see because it traps in.
Speaker 1:You know it does trap in heat too, so you're gonna have to get some nice fans in there oh yeah, no, I'm going liquid cooling, so okay, cool cool, awesome. Yeah, I saw the pictures. Have you posted them online for the world to see?
Speaker 2:no, no, I'd rather wait until the rather keep your anonymity. Yes, yes, wait, wait until the full picture, wait until the yeah just wait until, like, the actual final product is finished and I'm hoping to get everything and the pc built, you know, within the next, like you know, month or so. I I should be getting in. I'm gonna start ordering parts soon, so nice, awesome bro excited. But yeah, man, so yeah, no, just just that. And gaming man, always gaming, always be gaming, but you know that you're gaming.
Speaker 1:I have been gaming per yakuza oh yeah, you got that bundle right yeah, yeah, the dude.
Speaker 2:I mean all was it? The first seven games for like 40? And the two newest ones, Yakuza Like a Dragon. That one was like 12. And then the brand new one was like 40 something. So I was like man. So I've been playing through that. Those games are pretty cool. I've been enjoying it. I think I had mentioned it before. I think yakuza like a dragon is when the gameplay kind of shifts from a beat-em-up to a turn-based rpg type game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, I've seen gameplay and I'm like this gameplay is like so much different for like, because you're button mashing in this one like and he's like older ones. So, but yeah, no, I've been enjoying them. They're they're really cool games and there's a lot of like, like a really good story. There's a lot of humor. It's real fun. I enjoy the series. I my friend recommended it to me. I had gotten that first bundle and I enjoyed the first one, or yakuza zero, so much I'm like, dude, let me just get all of them while they're on sale. And so, yeah, I'm gonna play through them, probably not in a straight line, you know, because I like to play other games, but you know I'll have them in my backlog.
Speaker 2:So but, yeah, other than that man. What have you been up to you told me a little bit before we got on to recording, but I'm not too sure if you want to reveal that yet uh, yeah, so I?
Speaker 1:I just sent anthony a picture of a working. Am I gonna say the t-word timeline maybe it might blow up, yeah, so I might blow up this episode.
Speaker 1:I am beginning work on a visual timeline for star wars. I don't know in what way it'll manifest at this point and that that's kind of why I'm like tentative to talk about it, just because the Star Wars universe I've talked about this a number of times is so massive it's difficult to put into a singular timeline. So when I create visual timelines for my videos, there's always, you know, like I have footage and all that. But I also have a visual timeline for those of you who don't watch Geek Critique videos that you know. I pinpoint different images onto and I create a visual timeline that you can download and see roughly where you know Captain Marvel takes place as opposed to Iron man and the Incredible Hulk and etc. And I've done that for Marvel, I've done that for James Cameron's Avatar, I've done it for the Monsterverse, I've done it for Frozen.
Speaker 1:The thing with Star Wars is that it's so big that even the longest timeline that I can make within Photoshop doesn't really give me enough room to add everything. And it's not just movies, it's not just TV shows, but there's tons of comics. There's new Star Wars every single week, especially if you're a comic book fan. There's at least three to four different Star Wars titles that come out a month in terms of just comic books. Then you have short stories that appear in the Star Wars Insiders. Then you have video games that come out pretty sporadically but they're huge. You know things. And then, of course, the films, and you know everything that comes out around them.
Speaker 1:So I am testing different ways to manifest a visual timeline and I think I found a cool way to do it. I'm not going to talk too much about it just yet, just because I'm not 100% certain on it, but shrinking it down in size, the format is appealing to me. I think it could potentially be something that's not only a cool downloadable piece for fans, because all of my timelines are available for my fans to download. If I do it right, I could probably even print these you know like, have like an actual printable timeline, because this is kind of I don't know. It could be that you know and I want to do it right, but I don't know how to do that right yet at this point.
Speaker 1:So as far as the Star Wars timeline goes, don't expect a big Star Wars timeline from me just yet. But I want to do incremental entries into the Star Wars canon, maybe a whole video for a single year. Within the canon, you know, there's four or five titles per year. I can kind of stretch that out, talk about the themes of what's going on In that title and slowly plot out these titles Within my visual timeline, and I think that's where I'm going.
Speaker 2:I could see that Like it's going to take something that can be exhaustive, which is like taking the entire Star Wars universe, which is entire star wars universe, which is expansive, and making it manageable right right and yeah, yeah, exactly, and taking pretty much like each era and kind of going over it and slotting whichever media is within that era and you know, talking about that specific timeline and the things that happen in that timeline.
Speaker 2:And then I guess down the line you can have like one major video and and instead of like talking about the minor details, like hey, this era slots here and give like a general description of like you know what happened here and then this era slots here. You know, this is the entire timeline as it stands now you know where, instead of doing it all in one gigantic episode, which I mean honestly, if you were going to do that for a star wars episode, that would be like probably over an hour long well, I mean, my monster verse timeline was an hour long, and that's only for films, you know star wars, is a lot if I do it.
Speaker 1:If I do it the way that I've been making my star wars content recently, it could get pretty crazy pretty quick. If I do it the way I've been doing my timelines recently, like my Monsterverse and my Frozen timelines, I really like pulled that apart and made a narrative that wove throughout each of the stories. If I do that with Star Wars, I could easily see that being like a 10 hour video.
Speaker 2:Dakota is going to be in the background with a cork board, looking insane.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm going gonna be the guy with, like the, the strings attached to different post-it notes yeah, you're gonna look insane like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this, this little, this scene in this episode of clone wars is calling back to this. You know, oh my gosh, dude, that notice notice the boots that darth maul is wearing in this shot, notice this frame of Count Dooku, and then look at this frame this was setting this up for this moment like, oh my gosh, dude, that would be magic.
Speaker 1:I can't, I can't go that crazy, but if I can, if I can do like a macro, look at, you know, like two to three minutes per title. You know I can make something pretty substantial and I can use all that in the future to create a massive Star Wars timeline. You know, like, if I already have all that recorded, if I already have the footage on top of the audio that I recorded, I can just combine it all together eventually. You know, I think that that could be a fun exercise in futility for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be cool.
Speaker 1:So cats out of the bag. I am starting work on a Star Wars timeline Again. I don't know how that's going to manifest. A star wars timeline again I don't know how that's going to manifest. I also don't think that's going to be my primary focus moving forward, unless those video, those smaller videos, become popular yeah, okay, all right, so you know.
Speaker 1:So that's a project that's on the horizon and yeah no definitive release date for it right now yeah, yeah, I, I know I gotta start getting back into my marvel content, especially with daredevil, deadpool and wolverine coming out soon, you're already doing marvel content right now yeah, actually I am, and maybe we should get into it.
Speaker 1:Speaking of let's swing that right back around x-men, the last stand not to be confused with x-men 3, because even though technically it is x-men 3, it's not yes, the x-men movies are so confusing when you actually like think about the different timelines that exist, because there's at least three different timelines, maybe four if you consider like the future, in days of future past that occur and you're all supposed to like remember all the stuff that happened in the other timelines because they kind of intersect or kind of bounce off of each other. But yeah, so we're not going to talk about all that, just because we don't have time for that. What I like about this movie and you know there is a lot to like about it it's not a great movie, but it's a fun movie and it had potential.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but what I like about it is that this is from the era where trilogies were meant to be trilogies. You know, movie franchises at this stage, at this age of hollywood were really only meant to last three movies. So yeah, I noticed that a lot.
Speaker 1:They did that they went all out and they did that with this. They went all out in this final movie. You know they had a lot of ideas. They had a central theme of mankind versus mutants that they kept throughout all three movies, which is really impressive, you know, because that's it's a cohesive trilogy. You know it may not be a great one, but the actual theme that they were going for, you know it played out extremely well over the course of these three movies. And I really appreciate that over the course of these three movies. And I really appreciate that. And you know, when you watch a mcu movie you don't get as grandiose gestures as you do in these earlier marvel movies, like you're not going to have anyone move the golden gate bridge in a marvel movie, like a marvel studios movie and the reason is kind of because it's all connected, it's all connected.
Speaker 1:It needs to have, it needs to make a little bit more sense in terms of real world logic so that this universe can continue. Because at the end of the day, like they killed off three of the biggest characters in the X-Men universe in one movie, you know they pushed themselves into a corner, like story-wise, and I kind of like that. You know it was a clear ending.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know I might be rambling a little bit, but I have this feeling that I like the film because it is an open-ended yeah, and honestly, something that I miss about these earlier just, you know superhero films and in general is that they took risks, man, they got creative and sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't. And you know a lot of the films nowadays are they try to play it safe. You know they try to play it with their cards close to their chest and you know I just feel like a lot of them playing it safe results in something that's not as strong, whereas when they get like a little bit more on the creative side, it's very enjoyable, like Loki. Loki was like absolutely zany, but I loved it, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it opens up more room for spectacle and spectacle is fun. Like I said, you're not going to get anyone moving the entire Golden Gate Bridge, even though it was stupid. You know it's a stupid thing, but you get those huge gestures that are like Hollywood movie, summer blockbuster, just fun, and I like that a lot about this movie and it feels like a summer blockbuster, like that's what those films were.
Speaker 2:You know, when you think of summer blockbuster, you think of movies like that. You think of movies like the Jurassic Park or the Jurassic World films. You know, and honestly I really do miss that. I mean like we would get Marvel movies during the summer, but I felt like as we started to get oversaturated with them, it stopped becoming special like they were when these types of movies were coming out. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, special like they were when these types of movies were coming out. You know, yeah, and I don't know why I've beaten around the bush with this term but stakes, these movies have stakes. You know, scott summers dies pretty unceremoniously, but you know he dies, gene gray dies, and as well as professor x the professor x scene was crazy when I told you last week that that one scene was, what scene was I even talking about in x2 that I thought was one of the best scenes in the x-men, oh, was it the oh, the nightcrawler scene.
Speaker 2:I think the nightcrawler were you talking about the opening where he? He's in the white house, right right, he's trying to assassinate, but I I think that you were saying that that was the best scene, or were you saying that the best scene was in this movie?
Speaker 1:because I I was saying that scene is my second favorite scene. The my favorite scene is when jean gray or phoenix like, kills the professor.
Speaker 2:Dude, it was so yeah that, that that scene was so insane and it was so powerful.
Speaker 1:It's so extra.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is so extra. It does like show a display and the thing is, is that like you saw how strong Phoenix was and like that still wasn't even as strong as Phoenix can be, you know?
Speaker 2:Phoenix gets ridiculous, Like I mean especially in the comics. So it was like to see at least some of that was interesting. I don't, they still haven't been able to nail down dark phoenix exactly yet, but hopefully in the future I want them to mess with other like x-men storylines before they try to approach this, you know yeah, because they've done it twice now right, right, right, give it some time they've.
Speaker 1:They've tackled it in the animated series. So, yeah, they definitely have other stories to tell. There's what 50 years of x-men stories?
Speaker 1:I don't know yeah, there's a lot, but most of the good ones are from chris claremont's run in the 90s. But anyway, what I would say like the reason I think the dark phoenix versus professor x scene is so powerful, like there's so many reasons why I love that scene so much, but I think a big component of that is the score. It's just so sweeping and powerful, like the music that they play. They play it a few times. Whenever it's gene pushing back against the phoenix, it's oh yeah it's like such a great.
Speaker 1:It's such a great theme and we don't get enough of it in these movies, but it's so sweeping like I can you know?
Speaker 2:no, no, I know exactly what you're talking about, but it gives me goosebumps, you know, like it's just, it's so powerful.
Speaker 1:and then you know you actually like accompanying that, what you're talking about. But it gives me goosebumps, you know, like it's just, it's so powerful. And then you know you actually like accompanying that music. You're seeing Jean Grey completely take control of the entire neighborhood, basically, and she's ripping the foundation of this home while she's controlling everything that's happening inside the house.
Speaker 1:The home is like spinning in the air and like, like everybody's like attached to the roof and can we just be honest here, like the cgi was so good in these movies, you know for its time, yeah I think and I saw this on twitter recently but, like in the early 2000s, cgi was so new that studios didn't know how to cut corners, if that makes sense, and that's why, like those early budget film or early earlier films with cgi had such huge, like ballooning budgets.
Speaker 1:But it looked so good and they spared no expense. Like everything, like the water coming out of the sink, as like magneto was pushed against it, the particle physics, like as things disintegrated, the like the slow motion warping of xavier's face as he like stood up to gene, almost like that wasn't gene lifting, xavier, he was, he was like standing his ground in that scene, just like try to like calm her down. So good, dude. And then he looks at logan. Oh, and you feel for magneto too, like obviously, like he's kind of, he's so radicalized by the end of these movies. You know like he, he gives up on mystique shortly after she loses her right, yeah, that is so insane.
Speaker 2:And like she's, out of all the films, she's been the one that's been the most like she's remained faithful, you know yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It was a weird thing for them to do with magneto there, but I love his reaction to charles death. You know like he's freaked out yeah you know, and he even like yells charles, you know, like he doesn't want charles xavier to die. And later on he speaks to pyro and says you know, like my greatest regret is that xavier died for our cause. You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I said, you know, especially like from the first movie, that Magneto and Charles Xavier, they obviously have their differences. Like you said, magneto is, you know, he's radicalized, he's really just anti-human because you know humans are essentially at war with them. So I mean he does have a right to be upset and so to want to have a fight. But there's also xavier, that is also you know, he's right and he wants to take the right steps and so, and he's like he doesn't want people to fear mutants, he wants them to see that they're not so different from humans. But yeah, magneto, even though that they have this push and pull relationship, they still have that foundation as friends. They've been friends for so long. They're frenemies, dude Like, but at the end of the day they respect each other. They have a deep respect for one another and Magneto really showed it. I love that line that he says that Charles Xavier has done more for mutants than anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really powerful. It's definitely like one of the more powerful scenes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But his behavior, like throughout these movies, magneto specifically, was always kind of like something that bothered me Because some things like Magneto wouldn't do, he wouldn't Like in the second movie, like he and mystique are in the jet and they're laughing at rogue's hair and you know he goes I love what you've done with your hair and you know that's something that he physically did to her in the previous movie like he's not a bully, you know, yeah he's not a bully, but they have to make him the bad guy, you know and that's how they do it.
Speaker 1:In a two-hour movie. They wanted to make him the bad guy you know.
Speaker 2:And that's how they do it in a two-hour movie. They wanted to make him like, which always annoyed me. They kind of wanted to make him kind of comic book-y.
Speaker 1:I guess. But he was never like that in the comics I don't think. He was always more just, cool, calm and collected. And a crazy Idealist isn't the right word, that's something that's more Charles Xavier but he had. He was more of a nihilist in the sense that like he didn't think that humans were capable of change. But there are some really good performances in this movie, like a standout one for me was Kelsey Grammer's Beast.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, I did like his. Like the Beast was really good in this.
Speaker 1:Not only that, but like the makeup he looked legit. You know Like he looked?
Speaker 2:like the Beast. It didn't look corny Like it looked good. Yeah, it didn't look corny.
Speaker 1:And you know, as we saw with, did you see the Marvels when it came out a couple months ago? Or it was like last the talking about with captain marvel and miss marvel. Yeah, yeah, there's that scene. There's the scene with monica rambo going into another dimension and seeing beast.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're played by kelsey grammar again oh, was that, but it was all cgi.
Speaker 1:That's cool, yeah it was, it wasn't, but it was all cgi you know, so that's kind of like another thing, like that's. That's one thing that we have to like. Just accept nowadays is just like, instead of the practical effects that you would get in movies like this, which look amazing, by the way that probably took forever oh, I'm sure it took hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, like I, I had seen that that for, like you know what do you call it? Reels of studios putting makeup on, like Ahsoka and from you know, from star Wars and Vecna, from stranger things, and yeah, it just it's definitely a crazy process. So I can imagine, especially like back then, you know, just practical effects, it looks good. But yeah, I guess, for for the sake of time and money, mystique is like literally like her whole body is makeup.
Speaker 1:You know that's got to be very body paint and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's gonna take hours, but they did a really good job with her look, but anyway, which is funny, like I'm thinking about it now. You know, comic book characters are often very sexualized in terms of you know, there's always a lot of cleavage, always like a lot of very little clothing, especially when it comes to female characters. But I can't remember a time in the comics where it was normal for mystique to be totally naked. She's always wearing something. In the comics she has a white outfit, right, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was thinking that white outfit that she usually wears what it's weird that you know I'm not asking that they sexualize all the female characters, but it's weird that they like super sexualized mystique but didn't do that for anyone else. You know, I I don't know, it's just that's something I thought about. Anyway, I don't think that would happen today. I think that was very much a thing of its time. You know, like just the mystique look oh yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:That was definitely an interesting decision on their part to do that, but so do it like and we hadn't even really spoken about, like, what this film was about. I mean, we've talked about the war but coming back to this film, and I didn't even realize, like there's things that I missed, even like after, like seeing it a couple times, like you know, all those years ago. But you know, this one, the war really ramps up because the fda comes up with this cure and I didn't realize that the cure was. Like I remember there being a kid, but I didn't realize that the kid was leech and I thought that was crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy, and you know, playing games like marvel snap, there's leech in there and I was like, oh, you know, that's really crazy, like I didn't realize that leech was in this film. Yeah, like leech has like that ability to like negate powers, you know, and that, yeah, that's what he does in the game. And it was that moment that beast visits him and he goes to shake his hand and like you see the human oh, that was, that was that was a really cool effect.
Speaker 1:I like that and it was a it's a really good way of expressing his particular mutant powers is, you know, proximity base. It wasn't necessarily him entering the room, but him getting like maybe five, six feet yeah towards him was enough to neutralize his mutant dna, at least in his hand.
Speaker 1:You know like it was. It was interesting. And then they were able to play off of that with both kitty prides and juggernauts power. Which genius. I think that was a genius thing that they did. You know two people who could very easily break this kid out of jail or out of this like prison that he's being held in specifically with their powers, but they cannot do it because he neutralizes their powers. I love that. It's such a good concept. I wish they would have played on it a little more. Or, you know, maybe even explained it a little bit more, because I think it might have played on it a little more. Or, you know, maybe even explained it a little bit more, because I think it might have been a little too ambiguous for some people like why could juggernaut break into the room but not break out? Oh, it's because his powers were neutralized when he got close to the kid, stuff like that right right.
Speaker 2:So, like with each film, we get characters and then we lose some of them in the next film, and that's the case with this one. Like we don't have Nightcrawler in this one, but yeah, we get. That's true. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where did he go? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I always thought that was odd. Like I was like where did Nightcrawler go?
Speaker 1:There's that scene when they're all getting's only six of us, and I'm just like. You have a school full of superpowered people. You can't find outfits for the rest of them. Come on obviously you don't want to bring students.
Speaker 2:It's about right, right, right but yeah, we get angel and we get beasts. So hank mccoy has always like he's been like in the films, but not in this capacity. And yeah, we get a couple others, but we get juggernaut. What were your thoughts of juggernaut's portray not in this capacity and yeah, we get a couple others, but we get juggernaut. What were your thoughts of juggernaut's portrayal in this film?
Speaker 1:well, talking about portrayals is kind of fun with these early x-men films, just because so many of the characters are just interpretations right, right with counterparts.
Speaker 2:Some of them like look like, like cosplays, you know if I remember correctly, juggernaut isn't even actually a mutant.
Speaker 1:I think his suit amplifies, you know, his physical attributes and I think that is, if I remember correctly, he's charles xavier's brother, who didn't have any mutant powers, who amplified his own strength, you know his brother had the brains, he had the brawn, and like when he has momentum, he can just like exactly, and so in this iteration of the character, he is just some guy who has mutant power to break through walls at momentum, and that's fine.
Speaker 1:I guess it's fun. You know, I I had no issues with it, right, right like it was a liberty that was taken.
Speaker 2:That to me, wasn't it? It wasn't like you're disrespecting it, like because in the comics, like these characters could always like, like one day you could be, like you could find out, like, oh, you know what juggernaut like they find out?
Speaker 1:oh, he did have a mutant power and this is what it was right yeah, yeah, like they're doing that all the time, most recently with miss marvel she's. She's a mutant now in the comics, or so we're led to believe. Maybe she's like a mix of both. I don't know, nobody really knows. But yeah, you have other portrayals like the Phoenix character. I think they just go straight into Dark Phoenix. You know, it's just like one personality. It's just like this angry Phoenix character who just revels in pleasure and anger and getting what she wants. What is interesting is that they don't make the Phoenix this cosmic entity that possesses and controls Jean through her powers. Instead, they explain that her powers were so strong as a child that she developed a second personality as she was trying to control her powers, and that second personality manifested in the phoenix persona and that's the route that they took. So it's kind of like this is not a good portrayal of phoenix, but there were some good scenes with this portrayal of phoenix. It. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:like that scene in the in that house when she's ripping it apart is top tier superhero scenes period for me that was good too, and I the moment that that storm and wolverine come to the lake and they first find gene, that was cool, like the floating rocks and stuff, like dude, that was a really sick scene. Like there was some really cool, like that's what I'm saying. Like you know that there might have been some portrayals that might have not been ideal and this film might have not been the strongest, but if you look at the story, like there was the foundation there. There was like a good idea. It's just they had a hard time executing it and like maybe the way that they wanted to and it's also short.
Speaker 1:It's a shorter movie. It's an hour 44 minutes with credits, isn't that?
Speaker 2:weird, like that was a standard back then and now, you wouldn't even. That was a standard of a of a marvel movie being under two hours, you know yeah, and I'm not saying it's.
Speaker 1:It makes the movie bad if it's shorter, but there's less time to flesh it out and I can almost feel that there was more to the story, more that was probably filmed than we actually got. Like angel's story was heavily stunted, like we only got three or four shots of him right about the entire, thing, yeah and it was always just kind of like this is this guy's son. This guy doesn't want to be a human. This guy needs protection. This guy protects his father. That's it, you know, that's.
Speaker 2:That's his art I really feel like nightcrawler would have been really good for this film because he had really struggled, especially with this look, and I know that, like rogue and him could have definitely been like those in that camp, like, oh, I want this because I want to live a normal life, you know, and that character was already established in the last film. You know you don't have this whole other character that just they really don't even show much of this individual. It's just some guy with wings, you know.
Speaker 1:What do you think about Rogue going ahead and getting rid of her powers? That's another big thing that happens in this movie that you know wouldn't necessarily happen in the MCU. I don't think you know wouldn't necessarily happen in the MCU, I don't think you know. Like they've kind of put that character into a corner and that's the end of her line, you know, in terms of storytelling. Well, maybe not, because the end kind of shows Magneto moving.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I saw I was actually going to bring that up that like the cure might be a temporary thing. It might be more along the lines of like a vaccine rather than like a complete cure, and so it's like if you want to maintain a normal life, you'd have to come like every once in a while to like re-up on it.
Speaker 1:But it's like botox everybody.
Speaker 2:It's not permanent, but I thought it was cool that the soldiers in this movie they were preparing for magneto so they were using like plastic weapons and stuff. I thought that was like a cool thing that that they did and I, I like that.
Speaker 1:He was like surprised that they, you know, didn't bring normal weapons. He's just like oh, they're learning. Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:I like that yeah, it's so crazy like that, how much he looks down on like humans yes, like they're like primates, like learning to speak or something primates learning how to use tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really enjoyed. What did I really enjoy? Oh, one thing they don't explain but I I find is really interesting is when logan and storm show up at alkali lake and it's you know, all those rocks are floating.
Speaker 1:When they first get there, it's super misty, like everything's like vaporized, you know yeah and while they don't say it, it's kind of implied that gene repressing scott summer's concussive blasts, concussive rays, whatever, made him explode and create this huge. You know like he vaporized all that, like a chunk of water in that vicinity, which is what caused that mist. They never explain it, but that's my headcanon. I don't know if that's ever been explained like in you know, behind the scenes or whatever, that's an interesting theory and it definitely could work.
Speaker 1:Because again, gene is found unconscious, so like maybe there was a big explosion, you know, as he blew up yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's. There is definitely some stuff and and and like, like you said, with it being short, this film does suffer from it being rushed, like when the film it feels okay, like it feels like they're moving at a pretty decent clip, not too fast, but, you know, maybe a little bit faster than the other ones, but that's because, like, a lot of these characters were already established. But it's like once you hit, maybe halfway through the film, it's like they just put it on fast forward and like you're racing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cool the way that they were able to. They told so much in so little time and I kind of respect it in a way. You know like they had so many ideas with this movie. You know like there was the idea of hank mccoy being a representative between the governments of the world and mutants right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like an ambassador he was an ambassador.
Speaker 1:We had this kid who was capable of creating the cure. We had this guy whose son turned out to be angel, who wants to cure his son and ultimately finds this kid who has the cure and creates a cure which in turn radicalizes a big group of mutants to push against the government and destroy not only the cure but the kid himself, so that it can't be weaponized, which it is. There's again. There's so many moving parts. I haven't even talked about any of the X-Men yet. Then you have Jean Grey turning into the Phoenix. She's back from the dead. Scott Summers is completely Gone.
Speaker 2:Dead the phoenix. She's back from the dead.
Speaker 1:Scott summers is completely gone, dead. Dead but overcome with grief in the beginning, which kind of incapacitates his ability to be a teacher. So logan takes over for a little bit.
Speaker 2:They have a little battle in the danger room yeah, that was cool that it's almost like they were nodding to what they wanted to do in the future because they were fighting the sentinels in there yes, and, and we had the character of trask who in the upcoming movies I think in days of future past peter dinklage plays bolivar trask, but in this movie it's one of the president's aides.
Speaker 1:It's that the black actor I forget his name, but he's bolivar trask in this one who is eventually the creator of the Sentinel program. So you have a whole bunch of little things that this movie brings up and it creates a narrative around all of that. And you know it has flashbacks to Jean Jean's being found by Xavier and Magneto. I can keep going like I'm just thinking about these random little things on the spot and how they were able to just like mash all of this together into a semi, semi-cohesive movie.
Speaker 1:You know it was like you said. All the parts to a good movie were there. I think they wanted to go big. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:They wanted to go big yeah, they were trying to do. That's kind of what happened with spider-man 3.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what happened with spider-man 3 yeah, oh dude, spider-man 3's oversaturation of just.
Speaker 2:They tried to put in all these different villains in there, man Too much.
Speaker 1:But you know what I think? What's cool about Spider-Man 3 is it's actually held up better than people remember it, just because there's style to the filmmaking. You know, sam Raimi's an actual great filmmaker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Even though it's not a great film, it's fun to look at, you know Right right.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean story-wise it might not have been all together, but it's fun to watch. Like the story might've not been all there, it was kind of just kind of like a hodgepodge of different things but, dude, it was fun to watch that last fight. Fun to watch, you know, when the mutants are like fighting, saying all their powers. You know, everybody loves a good fight scene, man, and I felt like this movie delivered some good fight scenes, man absolutely so we gotta start talking about what we are going to be covering next week, because I don't think we've.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we haven't talked about it we have not, um, what, what we're gonna be covering? Should we continue this X-Men train as we roll ever closer to Deadpool? We could, yeah, we could.
Speaker 2:I don't think we have anything that we want to break it up with. So I mean, I don't see the harm in doing another X-Men movie. Maybe we could do something else after that and then kind of hop back onto the X-Men train. I mean, because we do, because we have, July is when Deadpool 3 comes out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we got a couple months, but if we keep breaking all these episodes up, we're going to run out of time.
Speaker 2:True, true, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:So should we bite the bullet and review X-Men Origins Wolverine next?
Speaker 2:We could. I mean, it's got your boy in it.
Speaker 1:It's got our boy, so it's the first ever film appearance of appearance of deadpool.
Speaker 2:Uh, quote, unquote, deadpool. I actually have a fun story about that movie. I'll talk about it next time.
Speaker 1:But okay, all right, all right. Any final words on the last stand? Any last stand words on the last stand?
Speaker 2:so I'm going to make my last stand and say that while this movie might not be the strongest of the three, it has a good foundation, maybe some poor execution, but it's still fun to watch. Like there's. I think it like if you haven't seen this movie in a long time, maybe watch it again. And you know, just watch it without expectations, just watch it knowing that you're gonna enjoy. You know an early 2000s marvel movie with you know cool fights in it, you know. So how about you?
Speaker 1:You know, I kind of agree. It's a lot of spectacle, there's a lot of moving parts. Not all of it lands as well as the Golden Gate Bridge, landing on Aquatraz, but that was such a stupid. It's fun to watch man, and I'm happy that we are going through these movies because a lot of them I haven't seen in a very long time, and this one included. So like I don't think I would have had reason to watch this had it not been for the podcast and I'm glad I did, because I found more to enjoy in it.
Speaker 1:You know, with time, you know having the luxury of time passed at this right, right, it's almost a 20, 20 year time past at this point. Right right, it's almost a 20-year-old film at this point. Right, it's 2006 that this came out so this is 18 years ago.
Speaker 2:Right and honestly, like that's like the biggest thing and, like you know, we established this podcast for that reason. I mean, while we do want to talk about new content that comes out, we do want to go back and talk about a lot of the stuff that shapes us. And actually the funny thing about this and just like quick little addition to this is that after this film, yesterday I decided to watch the old hulk movie, the eric banner one, and I didn't realize that kevin feige was a part of that one too. Dude, like that man was, like he had his hand in like every I don't know, if he did, it did.
Speaker 2:Did he do any of the Spider-Man movies All?
Speaker 1:right. So let me look this up, Because you're going to be surprised by how many non-Marvel stars no wonder why this man, no wonder why he's like the head of the MCU. Yeah, he was definitely there from the beginning. All right, so I'm going to go to producer credits for Feige.
Speaker 2:You ready for this? I am Hit us.
Speaker 1:My guy literally has only ever done Marvel stuff. I'm looking at it now. All right. X -Men he was an associate producer. Daredevil, he was a co-producer X2. Co producer Hulk. Executive producer the Punisher. Executive producer Spider-Man 2. He didn't do Spider-Man 1. Two is an executive producer. Electra, co-producer man thing fantastic four. X-men the last stand. Spider-man 3 fantastic four. Rise of the silver surfer. All of that was before he was involved in marvel studios and then, of course, iron man came out did he do incredible hulk?
Speaker 2:because I mean technically that that was. I mean maybe not timeline wise, but like I mean it technically is the first mcu movie to come out.
Speaker 1:Oh, he did do the Incredible Hulk.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did do the Incredible.
Speaker 2:Hulk, so he's been there since the beginning.
Speaker 1:Pretty much. Yeah, he didn't touch any of the Blade films, but that's going to change shortly, very true. One last thing I want to talk about that I was trying to mention somehow naturally in the conversation, was I thought it was interesting that instead of giving kitty pride and colossus the relationship that they have in the comics, they chose to kind of make a love triangle with rogue, bobby and kitty. I don't know that. I like that because I always really liked the juxtaposition of, you know, kitty pride, who can go through hard objects, and colossus, who is like the hardest object.
Speaker 1:You know, I think I always kind of like the, the juxtaposition of that, I guess. But giving rogue the catalyst to push herself to take the cure was interesting and I I don't hate it, but I don't like it either. I just wanted to mention that briefly I believe in my head canon says that her powers will eventually return, and in that world you know how, at the end of marvel movies, like after you watch the credits, it'll be like iron man will return, or star lord or the guardians of galaxy will return.
Speaker 2:It's just rogues powers will return I mean, this film does have like a post-credit scene. Does it? It does with wait. I didn't, I skipped it. Wow, dakota, why would you do that man?
Speaker 1:I didn't know it was in there, remember that guy.
Speaker 2:That was that they showed in the coma no there was that that like doctor lady named moira and there's some guy that was like in a coma that she was attending to. Charles is in that guy's body. Remember they were talking about mind transfer. They were talking about mind transfer in the film that happened. I totally forgot yeah.
Speaker 1:I totally forgot about that scene. Oh my gosh, thank you for bringing that up. I got to go back and watch that right now.
Speaker 2:It's very brief.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to us here for our 81st episode of project geekology. If you want to listen to more of our episodes, we got a whole bunch of others, you know, on a whole bunch of different topics, from books to tv shows to video games and a lot of movies mostly movies, but guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to check out our socials, whether it be our personal show socials or the shows socials, you can find that in the show notes and wherever you're listening to this on. For those of you listening on Deezer, what's going on over there, like, why are we getting over 50% of our listens?
Speaker 2:from Deezer. What is?
Speaker 1:what is going on with that Lilo and Stitch episode?
Speaker 2:on with that lilo and stitch episode. Why is that getting such crazy? Was it that good, y'all love lilo and stitch and, yeah, shout out to everybody that listens. But yeah, there's been a lot of deezer folks, so mostly the deezer crowd.
Speaker 1:Come on, let's be honest. But yeah, whatever podcast application you listen to, please be sure to rate us a nice five stars. Maybe you know if you're not listening on deezer. Give us a nice five stars so that the listen counts and the download counts per episode will increase.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it helps push us up in the algorithm. It helps push us up. Yes, the more you rate, the more you show love and rate us and put reviews and stuff. It helps us out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, thanks guys, goodbye y'all, see you next time.
