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: First Class (2011)
Ever wondered how "X-Men: First Class" reinvigorated a legendary franchise? Join us as we unpack the reinvention of the X-Men saga in its 2011 reboot, dissecting the highs and lows that Dakota and Anthony experienced. From its fresh cast and storyline to its pivotal role in the X-Men timeline, you’ll get an insider’s look at what made this film a cornerstone of the series and how it paved the way for future installments. Plus, you'll discover the fascinating connections and contrasts between "First Class" and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But that’s not all! Anthony also shares an exciting personal update about his latest project—crafting a brand-new website for Project Geekology. Using his skills in web development, he's not only creating something valuable for listeners but also sharpening his own abilities. Expect the usual geeky banter, a playful nod to Persona, and more as we celebrate this milestone episode. Whether you're a die-hard X-Men fan or just love a good movie critique, this episode has something for everyone.
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
Welcome guys, geeks and certified freaks to episode 83 of Project Geekology. My name is Dakota and I am joined, as always, with Sunspot, I mean Anthony. Okay, Sunspot is a character that has been featured.
Speaker 2:Nothing to do with the movie that we're covering, nothing to feature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing to do with the movie that we're covering, but in the same vein, anthony, you did get to see some of X-Men 97, correct?
Speaker 2:I did yes.
Speaker 1:And Roberto da Costa is Sunspot. He's a character that was introduced in 1983. And this is our 83rd episode. But the film that we are covering today because we're mutant and proud is x-men first class, the 2011 film that kind of reinvented the x-men franchise. I think it invented, reinvented itself pretty, pretty good actually, and we're gonna talk about all that worked and all that didn't with that movie and how it kind of pivots the x-men franchise into the 2010s.
Speaker 2:Right Like up until that point, we'd still been dabbling with kind of the same, like the same cast not really cast, but like you know, the last film we covered was X-Men origins Wolverine, which was Hugh Jackman, and so that was kind of like the last. It was kind of like the last film of that generation of, I guess, x-men films, for sure. So this one ushers in yeah, this is a new era, you know.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting one. Yeah, there's a lot that we have to talk about when it comes to timeline wibbly-wobbliness, what this film was intended to be when this film actually came out, in relation to other movies, namely the MCU and our general you know appreciation for it when we first saw it and now you know how has that changed. So I'm excited to dive into that. But, anthony, before we get into anything, what have you been up to, my friend?
Speaker 2:Absolutely nada, man. Like I've just been in a catatonic state, like I've just been kind of in stasis.
Speaker 1:Just dreaming of Persona.
Speaker 2:Just dreaming of Persona. Hey, look see, I'm not the one that brought it up this week, it was your turn.
Speaker 1:I had to pop the bubble. Yeah, I had to burst that bubble. Get it out of the way while we still can.
Speaker 2:There you go. Well, actually, believe it or not, I finally hopped on a project that I've been talking about for a while now. It's going to take a little while to come to fruition, but I'm working on it and, honestly, to tell you the truth, it's going to do a lot more for me than anything when I complete this project, and it'll do a little bit for you, too, actually, dakota.
Speaker 1:Nice. I love projects that do a little thing for me. Tell me about it.
Speaker 2:I actually have no idea what he's talking about in this moment. So, yeah, anything could come out of his mouth.
Speaker 1:It could be like a persona fan meet and greet. I don't even know. Let's, let's find out close enough.
Speaker 2:You know, it is actually a persona website, just Just kidding.
Speaker 1:I'm actually.
Speaker 2:I'm actually working on a proper website for the podcast. I've got some code down. I've got some HTML, some CSS. The bare bones are kind of there. I mean, there's still. I'm working on one page right now, so there's other pages I want to work on, but I'm working on it. I have an idea. I'm running with it. But, yeah, the reason why I say that this is going to do a lot for me is because it's honestly practice using some of the knowledge that I've learned. And I mean, dude, I've been talking about this for the longest time. I've said it on the podcast, I said it to you off of the podcast, and so I'm like, dude, I need to finally do it. I'm not using my newly learned skills to actually get better with them. So I'm like, dude, I've been talking about this. This is a passion project for me. So, yeah, man, I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:That's really exciting, bro. I'm really happy to hear that, and also it's a cool project. You're going to get some actual real life experience making something that you already are excited to make, and I think that that is that's how most people start in any kind of creative endeavor that turns into a job.
Speaker 1:You know, like film editors, directors, they do, you know, not fan stuff they do, like their own small stuff, before jumping in and using that knowledge towards something bigger. You know, whether it be like editing a film. Or for me, just if I ever wanted to become like a video editor on YouTube, I've been doing it for years. I've edited hundreds and hundreds of videos, so I have that knowledge. If I wanted to do, wanted to go that route, that's true, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So it's something that is a passion of yours, I know, is web design and web development, and you also, I know you deeply love the podcast that we run together. So this will be a really awesome opportunity for you to kind of stretch those legs a little bit. So how do you plan for it to look or feel? Are you going to use like the RSS feed from Buzzsprout, which Buzzsprout is the podcast application that we kind of drop our episodes into and then they spread it abroad? So do you have any idea as to like how?
Speaker 2:to merge that into our site. So, yeah, so there's actually, there's ways that you can and I'm doing research now but there's ways that you can actually embed it to the website, that it uses actual html code and it sets it up for you it sets them up in these invisible containers called divs, and you can, like. You can style them in different ways. So I've actually believe it or not, like I've messed around with that. Like I said, there's a bare bones website that I already have.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, I've already got like a nav bar. I've already got like a whole first page. Now I'm filling in a lot of the blanks, I'm trying to figure out where I want to put things. You know, it's honestly, to tell you the truth, the first iteration of this website, you know, is probably it's not gonna look like Facebook. I mean not not. Probably it will not look anything like Facebook or anything looks super professional, because I am new at this, but it still will be something that I can say like dude, like I did this, and it's something that it's not. You know, it's a job not done. There's always ways to improve things yeah, and that's a good point.
Speaker 1:I like that attitude. You know, like once you complete something, that doesn't actually necessarily mean you are finished with it, especially if it's a project you love. You know, new stuff comes out, new technology, new types of editing web pages, for for example. You just refine your craft and you get better, and that's.
Speaker 2:That's all part of the fun of it right, right, and once I kind of tap into something called version control, I'll really be able to update the website a little bit easier than, like you know, I don't have to be like oh, oh the that I have to upload a whole new version of the website. You know I there. There's ways that you can set it up. That's what a lot of websites do and, honestly, to tell you the truth, I'll be doing projects after this also. But maintaining the website will also help me with practice, cause when I do build websites for people, I have to get used to actually maintaining it for them, and that's a good point.
Speaker 1:I hadn't actually even thought about that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, all right, I'm excited now anything breaks, I gotta go inside and see what's up. But yeah, man, that's really like the biggest thing that I've been working towards and you know, this weekend I had to deal with this whole ac situation yeah, where my ac went down and have you gotten that resolved yet, or?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, dude, I would not be recording right now in my room if it wasn't, I'd be. I probably would like record, like in that, remember, like I some of the episodes that I told you I had recorded with my friends. We recorded in this like library study space. I probably would have taken that over there. Okay, that makes sense so well.
Speaker 1:I'm happy you are not braving the miami heat, not, not, not the basketball team, the actual heat of miami alone without a working ac. I'm happy you're not braving that and I I'm happy that you got that all sorted. But while you were away you stayed at your friend's place for a couple days. You got the opportunity to watch at least a couple episodes, or maybe a single episode of x-men 97. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:it's really cool. I, I don't, so I haven't gotten super deep into it yet I actually, after watching a couple episodes, it made me want to go back and to watch the older one. So actually I'm going through the old cartoon right now, but from what I've seen in the newer one, the animation is super crisp. It looks really good. I will say that I mean and I don't know if you get used to it or if this voice actor kind of comes into his own, but the Wolverine voice actor was a little off-putting for me you can tell that the effort is there and that's what's important to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of the actors did reprise their roles from the original show, so I don't know if that is the original voice actor. I can look it up right now I mean, if it is, yeah, that actually is. That is the original voice actor for wolverine. He is 68 years old at this point, so he probably just sounds old but yeah, probably I do think by. I would say episode three is kind of where he comes into his own. That's how I felt.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But yeah, most of the voice actors that they use for the show are the original cast, I think a couple of exceptions, but how far did you get? If you don't mind my asking.
Speaker 2:The first two episodes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so there you go.
Speaker 2:I do think.
Speaker 1:I do think that the show really picks up by the third episode and by the fifth episode your jaw will be on the floor like it is heavy tail, heavy television, like red wedding television, you know, like it's oh, my gosh red wedding I'm not I don't want to say that like people die or anything like that, because I'm not trying to suggest that, but it's that level, like it's it's right right, right shock value shock value is there?
Speaker 2:yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna I was gonna say dang does like half the team get killed, or something like whoa.
Speaker 1:No, no spoilers here. I don't want to. I don't want to say anything, but it's definitely shock value okay, yeah, man, I've been watching through it.
Speaker 2:It's been like a trip down memory lane watching this, because I remember seeing a bunch of this, like when I was younger.
Speaker 1:I remember seeing a lot of the like spider-man when I was a kid the the animated series, yeah, yeah what's interesting is and I don't think this is a real big spoiler some of the shows from our youth, whether it be you know, like the x-men animated series, the spider-man animated series in the 90s, those two shows specifically were always connected in the same universe. According to, like marvel encyclopedia, those two shows were connected, it seems, with x-men 97. They're also connecting other shows like fantastic four and and other shows. That which is, it's just a strange kind of mix, an amalgam of different stuff that is all currently in the same universe, like that same animated side of the universe. They're all kind of connecting those shows, it seems from my experience with what we saw this season of that show. But anyway, I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent on that show because I feel like we've talked about x-men 97 quite a bit. Eventually I would like to cover it.
Speaker 2:But anything else you've been up to no man, pretty much that well, and and I've kind of I've kind of actually gone back to watch. So there's this anime that I had started to or I had watched it when I kind of came back to my anime reawakening in the early 2010s. So like as a kid I started off watching anime With DBZ and like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, and then kind of expanded off of that With Adult Swim and Toonami, but I did have like a dark age. You know, I would probably peep some anime here and there, but I didn't watch too much anime.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of us, or some of us, go through a period of time that we grew up with anime and we either don't watch it for a little while or we just stop watching it altogether yeah, I had a similar experience where I didn't watch anything for a long time and then around the early 2010s that's when attack on tit, titan and Sword Art Online and other stuff like that started popping up and I was just like, let me get a Crunchyroll account and for a couple of years I was really big on that. So I was definitely there and I kind of feel like I'm back in a dark age now when it comes to anime, like just anime itself, even though I'm watching a little bit of One Piece here and there, but overall I'm not super into it like I used to be.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I right I kind of broke broke, broke off of your story. So keep going. No, no, no, no, I mean it's, it's relevant. Well, so that's kind of what my dark age was like, a little bit here and there. But when I came to my anime reawakening, I had asked my friend for a couple things to like watch, and one of them was this anime that some people may know, some people may not know. It's not widely loved or hated. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. It's called air gear. I don't know if you've ever heard of it I don't think I have it's.
Speaker 2:So it's this anime that pretty much it's like inline skating but it's motorized inline skates and they, they like have these really cool like races and battles. You know it's got, you know the whole shonen aspect to it. But so I kind of like went back to it and I watched it and kind of like an appreciation, you know, to like I was like man. You know I remember this anime. This was like this is one of the ones that kind of got me back into it, and one of the things that I'll never forget, man, or I'll never like forgive them, is that they never finished it, like they just had one season and that's it. If you want to finish the story, you have to read the manga so apparently that isn't as uncommon, as you might think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right especially in the early 2010s, there was a lot, at least when you know, like the couple seasons of like anime that I was, you know, really invested in. There were quite a few that I thought were really interesting anime worth watching, you know, week in, week out, that only lasted a season because it didn't get the viewership or whatever. Another one that I remember I think was that.
Speaker 1:That's what that was the issue with air gear I forget the name of the one that I'm thinking of, but anyway, yes there's a lot of anime that only lasts one season and you just never hear about it in the states, unless you're, like in touch with what's coming out regularly, you know right, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't, so I missed air gear. It actually came out in 2007, so that was kind of like during my dark ages, so I never had caught it. But yeah, that was definitely during that time where it was a bit harder to catch. You know anime and you, you picked up crunchyroll and I actually I went. Like a few weeks ago I went on this website called the wayback machine. Have you ever heard of it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, it's a website. That, if it's an archive, yeah, if someone archives something into the wayback machine, it will remember a web page and all its media as per the date that it was archived. Basically, that's the general premise.
Speaker 2:So I did that with crunchyroll oh and I did not realize that crunchyroll originally was one of those like websites that you went to watch anime not so legally, yeah crunchyroll is an interesting thing.
Speaker 1:It really is Pirating anime is a serious offense in Japan. It's not uncommon to hear of people going to prison for years and years, sometimes for life, because they pirated anime. In Japan it's a big offense and somehow the American market that is, crunchyroll had one of these pirating websites you know, like watchmovietv, something along those lines. It was one of those you know where it's just bootlegged copies of in this case it was anime. So it did have a huge library of it and it was one of the bigger ones, it was probably the biggest one. But at some point during the I want to say 2010 or 2011, they legitimized and they started reaching out to all these companies basically saying, like we want to form a streaming service with your anime. And that's when they kind of broke the mold and then Funimation wanted to make their own anime streaming service and I think nowadays it's just kind of just.
Speaker 1:Crunchyroll is the main one at this point right crunchyroll ate funimation yes, I think there was a time period where it was kind of like netflix and disney plus or netflix and hulu. Where there was, it was competing content on several platforms with funimation and all of its products, as well as crunchyroll and all of its products, as well as Crunchyroll and all of its licenses, because Funimation owned the rights to a number of different English translated, dubbed over anime like Dragon Ball Z and stuff. So at a certain point I think Funimation saw the writing on the wall. More people were getting involved with anime and they were going to Crunchyroll. So they just kind of signed up with Crunchyroll, they merged and I think it's just one big library. They were going to crunchyroll, so they just kind of signed up with crunchyroll, they merged and I think it's just one big library now. I don't know how it's currently run now because I haven't been on crunchyroll in quite a bit, but uh, maybe you can illuminate the masses actually you know what.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you something that was such a like a fascinating tidbit of information. I actually want to table this conversation and I think that we should have like a full-on episode on crunchyroll okay all right, because I actually want to like.
Speaker 2:I looked, I went in the way back machine. I looked a little bit back. I was like, oh my gosh, I even caught glimpses of anime that. I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot that existed. That was really cool. Yeah, dude, I would love to have a discussion or an episode just covering crunchy roll. That would actually be we. I've already done an episode with a friend on a website, so let's let we should do one on crunchy roll.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can do it, and it doesn't have to be like a mainline one either, like if I don't know how much information like we can actually like discuss about it. But we've covered maybe 10 minutes already, so I don't see why we couldn't you know also we right right we could, we could add to it.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it's attitude we could, we could do like one of those research sessions that I suggested yeah, we could definitely do that for this. Yeah, we could do that, all right, but but yeah, you know, we've been doing a lot of talking and it's been mostly centered on me. I know that you had some stuff that you wanted to talk about. This is probably gonna be a little bit of a longer episode, but, you know, I feel like we have a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1:I? It seems like I have a lot to talk about. First and foremost, I just want to get this out of the way because I'm really enjoying it. I'm currently on volume 16 of One Piece and the shelf is getting full, but it's a happy fullness. It looks really nice just seeing all the volumes side by side. And I have finally met the next member of the straw hat team, although he doesn't yet know that he's part of that team, tony tony chopper. He is the reindeer character who ate the human fruit or the human fruit, I forget what it's called, but anyway the human.
Speaker 2:It's one of the devil fruit, yeah, which turns this reindeer into a human-esque reindeer.
Speaker 1:You know it still has the antlers, still has the you know reindeer features, but it walks and talks like a human and it just kind of it's. I've started getting into the backstory of chopper as a character within volume 16 and uh it's yeah, yeah, his backstory is sad to me so far it has been sad. Yeah, I don't know how sad it's gonna get, but yeah. So I'm currently like mid.
Speaker 1:I'm still in the baroque works arc, but I'm currently on okay the on drum island in the grand line, so that's the one where it's like always snowing, but anyway, I'm having fun with it. Most of you guys have no idea what the heck I'm talking about, so I'm going to move on. But One Piece is really good. It kind of got a little weird when they first entered the Grand Line and I didn't really like the story. But whenever they get to an island and they start kind of, you know, spending a little time there and learning the story of the people on the island or the events, that kind of got our heroes there.
Speaker 1:That's what really interests me and yeah, I'm really enjoying this right now. Let's see to talk about. You know you were mentioning that you had been partaking in some creative endeavors with you know, web design and hopefully making a workable website for you guys to enjoy with. In regards to our podcast, first and foremost, this has been the best month on the podcast for downloads in yes, in our history and right right, we definitely hit a milestone.
Speaker 1:We definitely hit a milestone and we want to thank you guys for showing us a little bit of love. You know it's not a lot of people listening, just as podcasts go, as content goes. We're very small but we appreciate every single one of these listens that we get from you guys and every download that you do, on whatever service, whether you listen to it or not, it counts as a listen for us and that's how Buzzsprout, the podcast site that we put our episodes into, kind of counts our stats, I guess. So thank you guys for giving us those listens and giving us those downloads, and be sure to you know if you enjoy the content that us those downloads. And be sure to you know if you enjoy the content that we produce here, be sure to comment, be sure to share it around social media and definitely rate our stuff high so that whatever podcast service say you know apple music or deezer, or spotify, audible, whatever podcast application that you use, rate, rate it high, our show specifically, so that other people can also, you know, see that this is, oh, something worth listening to and that'll hopefully, you know, get this ball rolling.
Speaker 1:And you know not that we were ever going to necessarily stop making the show if nobody, if we didn't get like more listens or more downloads. We've been going at it a couple of years now. We do this for fun, so it's really cool to see that our continued fun that we have together on the show is proving worthwhile to you guys. But what I actually wanted to talk to you guys about was I am continuing my work on a visual Star Wars timeline that I hope to unveil in a video very soon and, anthony, I sent you a high quality image of that. It's a massive image.
Speaker 1:It's like 25 000 pixels by 10 000 pixels there's just so much star wars content out there from films, shows, audio dramas, adult novels, young adult novels, junior novels, comic books, lots and lots of comic books, dude, there's, there's manga, there's video games, and I'm trying to capture all of that. I'm probably going to stay away from the short stories and the short comics, just because that would get way too out of hand and it would get so messy and it wouldn't be visually appealing and useful at that point. But so what I'm working on, if you can visualize it, is like a there's like five lines, that kind of weave down the page and it kind of looks like a big lightsaber whip.
Speaker 2:I'm calling it the time saber and hey look, but it looks like we're getting a lightsaber whip.
Speaker 1:We are getting a lightsaber whip in the Acolyte.
Speaker 1:You know thanks to the character Vernestra Rowe a really cool character in the High Republic that is making her way into the Acolyte over 100 years after her introduction. So that's really cool and that kind of gave me the idea. Maybe I can do a multi-tiered lightsaber timeline whip sort of thing to kind of give myself more room instead of a singular line. So that's what I'm doing and you know my ultimate goal with this if I can do it is to make this a principle thing. You know I don't want to charge you guys an arm and a leg for you know something that I've produced on Photoshop. But if I can make a poster for you guys with the entire Star Wars timeline and keep this updated for you if you decide to buy a new version later on down the line, I don't know I don't even know if that's a legal thing for me to do, like I don't know if I can sell that.
Speaker 1:But that's kind of a stretch goal for me and I'm really excited because it's from my point of view. I'm looking at it right now. It looks really cool. I think it's going to be a really useful tool for people down the line when it comes to star wars, because there's so much star wars content out there and it's good, it definitely.
Speaker 2:It definitely looks cool and I could imagine that being like on on the wall, right, you know, saying like, yeah, yeah, I could, I can definitely imagine that so that's.
Speaker 1:That's what I've been working on. I don't want to take too much time, but now we should definitely segue our discussion into the film and topic at hand. Star wars. Fallen order first jedi no, sorry, I had a, I had a stroke just there uh no oh my god, that was crazy x-men first class the 2011 film
Speaker 1:anthony, but not the first film, not the first film, but it is the early. No, it isn't even the earliest, I guess technically it is like the earliest when it comes to, like the climax of the film and in relation to the other films in the series.
Speaker 2:But, anthony, tell me why you hate this movie so much actually I, I don't it's I'm kidding, it's no, this film is I think it's pretty good like we get new faces for magneto and professor x. We also get a new face for beast and mystique, and then we get some new mutants. In this one also, which there's definitely some really really cool mutants, one that's very similar to Nightcrawler.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Azazel, definitely.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I think, if I remember correctly, canonically in this universe, azazel and Mystique are Nightcrawler's parents. Because you get the blue skin and you get the teleporting abilities and the actual look of the teleportation. You know how it kind of like poofs in the air, like his does that? That specific effect, that design is very similar to the like the tendrils of mist, that poof when Nightcrawler goes off.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a. This is a really interesting movie for a number of reasons. Movie for a number of reasons, but for me, I think what really interests me is that this was clearly intended to be a working prequel to the original x-men trilogy and I think down the line they kind of just gave up on that. You know, in future movies there's less and less of a, you know, aside from days of future past where they actually do cross over. You know the old cast and new cast. I think with this movie they were definitely still under the assumption that this is the same timeline of events that you know led to the X-Men trilogy. But there's certain mistakes that really I don't think can be reconciled and make it work basically. But I still really love this movie for what they were trying to accomplish. I love Magneto's crusade in the beginning of trying to take down Nazis and eventually reach Sebastian Shaw.
Speaker 1:But I also think it's interesting to talk about the time period that this movie came out. So this was 2011. This is the same year that Marvel released Thor and Captain America the first Avenger. So at this point we had heard rumblings of a Avengers team-up movie and we had probably even seen some leaked like set photos of the Avengers team together, but we didn't know what kind of a juggernaut, what kind of a beast the Marvel Studios universe would eventually become, and in no uncertain terms, it changed the movie industry completely after Avengers came out.
Speaker 1:But at this point, x-men if I remember correctly and I'm trying to remember my own sentiments at the time I think X-Men was still the more popular series. At this point, you had Iron man and Iron man 2. Both of them did phenomenally. The Incredible Hulk was kind of lackluster in terms of the box office accumulation, and I think Thor and the First Avenger, the Captain America First Avenger, didn't perform as well as some of the X-Men movies had done at this point. So I think the general opinion up until this point was that oh man, x-men is killing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know you said 2011. Mind you, we're really honestly. The MCU has not been. It's still pretty much in its like child stage. You know, at this point, it's even though, even though we get avengers the following year. I remember seeing the iron man film, and that film really took a lower tier marvel character and, like, made him popular. Let's be real before that movie, people really didn't care about iron man. What's interesting? Iron who?
Speaker 1:yeah, and a lot, of, a lot of people don't realize that iron man wasn't an a-tier character. You know he? Was barely b-tier. He was maybe c-tier and that's being generous, because up until the first Iron man movie there had been no really great Iron man content ever.
Speaker 1:He was best as an ensemble character alongside the Avengers. He had a single run of comics that you could buy as a trade paperback, but it was about him battling addiction. So, like any writers coming at Iron man up until that point, that's really all that they had at their disposal to look at this random comic of him battling addiction. So and you know he'd been in cartoons and stuff he was a popular Avengers character, but Avengers also weren't the team that they are today either. When you thought of superhero teams, Avengers, they weren't on the same par as justice league it's crazy, what a decade.
Speaker 2:It's crazy what I can do, dude. I wouldn't even can. At least at that point I wouldn't have even considered them on the same level as x-men oh, no, dude I was much more of a fan dude. I had been an x? X-men for a fan, an x-men dude. What the heck am I saying?
Speaker 1:I've been a fan of we're having strokes on this podcast dude.
Speaker 1:Seriously, I've been a fan for x-men far longer than the avengers, oh yeah yeah, yeah, and if you were to ask me what my favorite marvel superhero teams are, I would have said x-Men and Fantastic Four before I would have ever said Avengers. So that just kind of shows like how B and C tier these teams and characters were. That's what Marvel was like bringing up at this time period. I don't want to spend too much time on Marvel Studios, but that's the mindset that I want to like go into with this discussion is that at this point the general populace knew a lot more about X-Men and this film really opened the gates To how they can tell that narrative.
Speaker 1:And actually I think that X-Men Origins Wolverine Did a lot of good when it comes to this reboot, because they rebooted the character of Sabretooth and they dived into the history Of one of their characters, that being Wolverine. So if they could do that with Wolverine and it didn't really work box office wise, you know it wasn't a huge critical success but what if, instead of doing that for singular characters, they do that for the whole team? You know what happened. What did Xavier's first class look like? And I think that's kind of where this idea germinated from, and I'm happy it did, because it's a good film it is.
Speaker 2:If you're gonna reboot, you definitely want to start off strong, and they do with this film. So I guess you know x-men first class. Do you want to just kind of give like a little bit of a brief synopsis of what this film is about?
Speaker 1:Sure. So with these prequel X-Men movies they did something that's kind of cool, I think they went kind of decade by decade within the X-Men universe and gave us characters that would have fit semi-naturally within each decade. So with first class we're talking about early 60s. This ends with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. So this film takes place in the 60s. The next film, the past part of Days of Future Past, takes place in the 70s. You have the age of apocalypse, which is 80s, and then the 90s film. So they kind of jump decade by decade, which is a cool idea, but a lot of the characters don't really age appropriately for that. So that's something. But anyway, when it comes to like what the actual story is, you have magneto who, by the way, I thought it was interesting that they reused the footage from the first movie of the holocaust scene. I forgot that they reused that very same footage. And then they just added a shot of sebastian shaw looking down at a young magneto, moving the gates and basically like he tortures magneteto into utilizing his powers again. You know, show me that trick one more time, basically, and to do so he kills Magneto's mother right in front of him. This obviously awakens his powers like nothing else and he goes on a rampage later in his life, you know, jumping forward from the 1940s to the 1960s where he's an adult. Now he's going to Argentina. He's looking for the nazis that ran and he's causing havoc within those circles, looking for sebastian shaw to eventually, you know, enact his revenge there and to kind of bridge what professor x is doing at this time. He's giving lectures on mutation and what the next potential step in mutant evolution is at different colleges and catches the attention of Moira McTaggart, who believes that she has seen mutants in real life plotting against the US government. She's a CIA agent. His help as well as Mystique whom earlier in the film we learn has been basically a sister to Charles Xavier for her whole life, which I'm not a huge fan of, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1:I think that that's the dumbest part of the movie, but it worked for the narrative so I don't have too much of an issue with it lists the help of Charles Xavier. The CIA helps him find more mutants with the help of McCoy, who is Beast in secret. They kind of build a pseudo-cerebro to allow him to find other like-minded mutants and they kind of do, and it kind of all boils down into a Certain mutants you know are pro-helping humanity, humanity like, get along with them. And then you know you have the magnetos of the world, who don't ever foresee humans getting along with mutants the way that he would prefer. So it's a really interesting balance and it ends, like I said, with the cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1:But, you know, changed, altered, for historical purposes. You know, in real life there was that standoff between soviet ships and american ships, never really went anywhere, but what if mutants were involved? And then what if both armies decided that they wanted to take out mutants? And that's kind of what made magneto snap, you know. So that's, that's kind of the gist of what happens, you know in, you know, like a macro, look at the film, but what are? Did I miss anything in particular that you wanted to touch on?
Speaker 2:you know. So you had mentioned moira a few times. She was in the last stand yes, yes, that's a good point.
Speaker 1:you're right. X-men, the stand, the third in the trilogy. Moira MacTaggert does make a small cameo and, like you mentioned, she's also in the post-credit scene or mid-credit scene, wherein she is studying the ability to move one person's consciousness into a non-animate body, basically into a non-animate body basically, and it's kind of hinted heavily that Charles Xavier, after death in the third film, comes back to life in a new body in this film.
Speaker 1:But this is a Moira McTaggart. That's many, many years prior to this. So Moira McTaggart in the 2000s film would have to be in her like 60s or 70s.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, she's older in that one. So what do you think about the casting of James McAvoy as Professor X and Michael Fassbender as Magneto?
Speaker 1:It's tough. I don't want to say anything super negative about their casting because, let's be honest, both of them did a fantastic job. But if you're trying to tell me that these characters become Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, I don't buy it, you know. But I will say that there are glimpses of the prior actors performances in their performances. You know it's definitely inspired by their performances and I like that about it. I wasn't a huge fan of like well, I don't want to say I wasn't a huge fan I.
Speaker 2:I liked, you didn't like to see professor x, you know, at a bar dropping. I was meeting line.
Speaker 1:I was trying to think about, yeah, like how do I, how do I talk about this exactly?
Speaker 2:I. It was weird. Let's be honest, I don't want to think of.
Speaker 1:I don't want to think of professor x that way, but you know he had to. He had a life at some point. So oh my goodness more than anything, I didn't like his relationship with mystique. I think it doesn't make any sense. You know the fact that three films go by with mystique. In the original trilogy those two characters never really interact Right, and there's also a couple of things that were very un-Professor X-like.
Speaker 2:Like what Like? He obviously preferred Mystique when she was in her human form.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Other than you know. And then what do you call it? You know, I always thought that Professor X was more about accepting who you were, and so Magneto and Professor X always had that similar thing accepting who you were, don't hide.
Speaker 1:I agree with you there. I think it was kind of strange that he preferred her in a human form. But I also have to think at the time, early 60s, she was essentially naked.
Speaker 2:There was very little left to the imagination with her in her blue form right, right, so that I get you know, even though the 60s like yeah, yeah, that you know what you. We all know what was going on in the, but that's the late 60s yeah, no, but still I mean yeah, no, I, I that I totally get.
Speaker 2:But like other than that, it was still a little weird that that, you know, even though he could have been like you know, sort of like, oh you know, why are you looking like that? You could have been like, you know, hey, just throw some clothes on.
Speaker 1:I will say that McAvoy's performance when he's doing his professor X thing. I know you sent me a GIF of McAvoy putting his fingers to his temple.
Speaker 2:They always love to do that Telepathy.
Speaker 1:Although did Emma Frost do it? I don't remember if she did it or not, I don't think she was doing that. She kind of just tilted her head a little bit. She had her own way of.
Speaker 2:They'll do the finger to the forehead or to the temple, they'll do the hand out. Yes, yeah, they'll do the head tilt. It's never just like. I mean, obviously they they want to show that something's happening. But I, I would always imagine that if something like that would happen, like you would just be, like you know, or like if you're trying to like lift something up, you'd be like you know, like not like one hand, like you'd be trying to like I don't know, like yeah I also think it's more visually interesting yeah in like actual cinema and just looking at it, because you you can kind of visualize what they're trying to do, even though it's all movie magic, you know.
Speaker 1:But what I was going to say was I appreciated mcavoy's attempt at capturing a professor x like or patrick stewart like performance more than I appreciated fast bender, who did a fantastic job.
Speaker 2:I don't think that fast bender did a very good job of trying to emulate ian mckellen right, I could, I could feel or I could see him being closer to, maybe like the animated. Magneto Okay, I could see that, yeah yeah, but yeah no, we know who they're really trying to go for. I mean, you're right, this is trying to be a bit of a prequel to that first X-Men.
Speaker 1:And so, at this point, these characters should be emulating a lot more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at this point it was like a lot more. Yeah, at this point it was like a solid prequel to the x-men films. Right, yeah, it's. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:They retconned a couple things like how magneto got his helmet. Also, I think in the original trilogy they mentioned that magneto helped build cerebro. We know that that didn't happen at this point. We also know I think there was a comment where it said that I think, if I remember correctly, in the original trilogy there's a line where professor x said I still had my hair or I lost my hair before being in a wheelchair, which didn't turn out to be true. I can't remember if there's any, I'm sure there's plenty of others. But yeah, I think the biggest change for this continuity has to be ra, raven or Mystique being so closely tied to Professor X. What I will say? I like the performance of both characters. At no point am I questioning these are Professor X or Magneto, but when I try to think about who they are in relation to the original trilogy, which at this point is a hard prequel, it's hard for me to imagine a little bit.
Speaker 2:So we also get Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 2:that I think that she did decent. I'm trying to really call back to the Mystique that we got in those earlier films and then that Mystique in those earlier films was very cold, but I don't believe that she was always like that. Maybe there were things that happened in this film that caused that kind of coldness. Or the way that she sought the closeness of Professor X that you know, it was like an unrequited love that she had. He saw her as a sister but she wanted more. So she got a little bit more of that attention from magneto and there is a moment where we do get that original mystique actress.
Speaker 1:she turns yeah in in in bed. I thought that was an interesting, interesting choice an interesting moment too. It's like they brought her in just for that moment the best cameo by far is when you know professor x and magneto are going on their recruiting spree and they go to a bar. And who's at the bar? But uh, wolverine, who's just like f off yes, dude, that was so awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2:But then it's like wouldn't there be recognition in the, the films that we got before, like there be some sort of recognition like, oh, I remember you like there was no recognition from magneto, I mean, I don't know if there was any from so at this point, I mean he knew in his mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, professor x knew that wolverine was called, right? I don't know how he knew that. I I just assumed he read it in his mind in the first movie right, that's what I assumed too when it comes to would they remember, you have to also remember it's also like 40 something years later. I think it's more likely that professor x would have remembered the magneto, because at this point he doesn't have the adamantium in his body, so he wouldn't register the magneto as someone worth that's true.
Speaker 2:You know, that's true. Yeah, I mean honestly, honestly, had he had that adamantium, I probably would have been like, oh no, I remember you, you've got a lot of metal in you. Like, I mean you, how would you forget that? If you're a man that manipulates metal, you could never forget that. You know, yeah, like he was able.
Speaker 1:He was able to feel like the guns on the different ships moving in their direction, just on instinct, you know like he would be able to. To tell like okay, there's this guy's lined with a very strange metal. I've never felt it before, you know. So there's that. What did you think about sebastian shaw and some of the other characters that they introduced in this movie?
Speaker 2:interesting, you know, played by kevin bacon I liked it.
Speaker 1:Actually. I think the visual of him absorbing power kind of emulated some of the special effects you might see with some of the agents in the matrix series. Oh, yeah, yeah especially like when he was, like when they're getting shot at and like they'll kind of warp and bend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally see that. Hisazel was interesting. He was the Nightcrawler-esque character.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was all red.
Speaker 2:He was all red, I mean, he had some moves, though man, he really knew how to maximize his abilities.
Speaker 1:And we get Emma Frost, which is interesting, we get her in this capacity, and this is another this is another thing where it doesn't make any sense if you try to connect it to the previous x-men movies, because there was another emma who was the sister of that one girl that wolverine was, you know, in love with in x-men origins wolverine she had the same ability her name was emma.
Speaker 1:It was very clearly emma frost but that's right she wasn't a villain in that movie and she hadn't developed her powers like she does in this movie, and she was far younger in the x-men origins wolverine movie. So it just didn't. It doesn't line up.
Speaker 2:It's two characters that are the exact same right, I mean. So the age and the power thing is definitely the villain part. I could imagine like I mean there could be an easy explanation like oh, after the falling out of this, like she's like yeah, you can hand wave, I'm not feeling this, but yeah, I know, but you're right about the other stuff. So there's that, we also.
Speaker 1:We get like this whole team also like we haven't even covered well, while we're still like talking about sebastian shaw and the villains, I just want to say like there's a pretty spectacular plot hole when at the end of the movie we never understand why he does it, but he absorbs basically an entire nuclear submarine's worth of radiation and then magneto kills him by putting you know that coin through his head. Where does that radiation go? Why did he not blow up? Why? Why isn't that whole side of cuba now irradiated, like what's going on? They just abandoned that plot line for whatever reason. I understand that that made him stronger, but like he's full of radiation, he's full of energy. Like that's got to go somewhere right I don't know.
Speaker 2:Does he absorb and nullify it until he needs to use it?
Speaker 1:yes, but energy is still energy. It would still have to be. You know the basic laws of energy. Like you can store energy, but it has to go somewhere eventually, you know so we know how it is man.
Speaker 2:Comic books yeah, the laws of the laws of energy and physics are just absolutely insane just hand wave in front of me.
Speaker 1:Dakota, you're thinking too hard. This is not meant to be taken seriously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was an interesting moment, though that visual I like the submarine with the coin going through yes through his head and then what a great shot james mcavoy was pretty much like seeing through sebastian shaw and trying to talk magneto out of out of doing it. You know professor x and so like, with the coin going through and you see professor x, just like he's. He's screaming because he's. I'm assuming he's feeling that pain too.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming yeah but he also realizes that he can't stop like the freeze that he's put on sebastian shaw, because he has the ability to essentially let off a nuke whenever he wants to. You know he's that dangerous. So he doesn't want this character killed, but he experiences all the pain that this character experiences when magneto does that. But I I love that scene so much because it kind of exemplifies the shift in magneto's personality where, like he no longer feels that he can trust charles so he puts the helmet on himself. You know he he thinks that charles is going to stop him, which charles probably would have, you know so yeah well done.
Speaker 1:I think it was. It's a really cool scene and a good ending. You know that. That the visual of, like him and magneto, you know holding all these missiles in the air and you know dropping them as they're fighting on this beach and although oh yeah, that was so cool all the soldiers on the ships, you know, like you know, saying their goodbyes to each other while we're at this scene.
Speaker 1:This is how Professor X eventually gets paralyzed. Mortimer McTaggart is shooting at Magneto and he deflects a bullet and it hits him in his lower spine, which renders him incapable of walking basically. So that's his origin.
Speaker 2:Although like Magneto is like blocking it and you hear like the ping of the deflection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a really cool scene. We've kind of talked a bit about you know what's going on in the film. I mean, this movie is called first class for a reason, and we should cover at least a little bit of why that's called first class. First class being this is the first x-men team that we get, would you?
Speaker 1:like to go over the x-men team so we have jenn, have Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique. We've spoken a little bit about her. I also wasn't crazy about her performance. It never felt like she was really in it. I guess to me and I feel that way throughout the series, the films that I have seen of her in it, it never feels like she's entirely on board with the role. For me it may be different for you, it might be different for you listeners out there, but we also had nicholas holtz as beast, which is an interesting role. Eventually, his desire to have more normal looking feet I guess he really wants to go to the beach guys. He wants to go to a public beach. He can't go to a beach.
Speaker 2:He wants to put his toes in the sand.
Speaker 1:He's got to get his toes wet. Yeah, his endeavor to cure himself of that non-human looking feet eventually turns him into a blue furry animal, so I thought he looked really awkward.
Speaker 2:I don't know, the pinnacle of his evolution, you know.
Speaker 1:I think Kelsey Grammer as Beast in the previous X-Men Last Stand was way better looking than Nicholas Holt as Beast. Personally, it just looked really strange. Maybe he just got better at grooming himself, I don't know. Let's see, we talked about Emma Frost a little bit. Kevin Bacon I'm just going through the cast list as we go through it. Zoe Kravitz is in this.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And she plays a character named Angel Salvador and she's kind of like a stripper, turned, I guess, mutant activist when she's hired on by charles and eric to join their cause and eventually joins up with sebastian shaw and eventually then turns to working with magneto. So she's a villain, guys. She's a baddie, but she has the ability to spit little acid pellets at people right and she can fly.
Speaker 2:I thought it was really cool that the wings like they're, that she could make them into tattoos like they formed. Yeah, that was interesting.
Speaker 1:It was very fairy-esque I will say I didn't like that her name was also Angel, because we had a character named Angel in X-Men Last Stand. But anyway, we had the actor Caleb Landry Jones play Banshee, who is kind of both a really cool character and kind of comedic relief. You know, it's just a ridiculous superpower to to be able to like make yourself fly by screaming, but they really they make it cool and believable. You know, like even like the the part where they use him to like get like sonar underwater. I thought it was.
Speaker 2:It was well done yeah, that was definitely cool we get havoc.
Speaker 1:You know scott summer's brother who doesn't have the concussive blasts in his eyes, but sorry, my cat's making strange demands behind me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Havok has like blasts that come out of his chest and eventually they find a way to channel it so that he can actually control it. Because in the beginning, when he first starts using his powers, homie like did like hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to like CIA property. It was crazy. They were all just like partying, they were all having a good time but, yeah, homemade like destroyed those buildings. One character that everybody gets annoyed about regularly on twitter there's always the meme remember when x-men killed the only character who can't die, and it's darwin.
Speaker 1:Technically the character is basically immortal, like he's one of those characters that physically can adapt to anything. So no matter what Sebastian Shaw did to him, he would have been able to adapt to it. And he's an interesting character. They don't really call him an Omega level mutant, even though he is technically, you know, on that level, or he can be on that level, even though he can't really control when his powers pop up, they just happen whenever it's, you know, necessary for him to adapt. Darwin in the comics is could potentially like be god level. You know, like if they threw him into a star, he would be able to withstand the power of a star. You know, like he's that kind of mutant, but it's circumstantial. So if he was just walking through a new york street, he doesn't really have any overt power. You know, he's not going to be able to lift a car up or anything like that. So it's, it's interesting, he's an interesting character, but, yeah, they killed him yeah, I did catch that.
Speaker 2:He's like. You know I can adapt to any situation. I was like so they blew this man up. So, yeah, he could essentially just survive any disaster and you know, tell the tale.
Speaker 1:Yeah but that's basically the the x-men team that they come up with, unless I'm missing anyone we did miss one villain.
Speaker 2:I don't remember what his name is tornado the tornado guy tornado guy um, what the hell is his name?
Speaker 1:I don't even remember. I'm looking, oh.
Speaker 2:Riptide.
Speaker 1:I'm going through the cast list. Right now, alex Gonzalez plays a character called Riptide. He's able to create small funnels or large funnels, depending on whatever room he's in, but I thought he was okay. I didn't really care for his character.
Speaker 1:He's one of those characters that just shows up for one movie and then that's it kind of like what they did with toad, with toad, saber-tooth in the original trilogy. There's a whole bunch. What night crawling, you know. I want to just jump back to something that I keep thinking about. When, whenever I think about x-men last stand, when magneto eventually like gets to the island that they're holding that one kid prisoner in x-men last stand, he basically like tells the mutants to to go and like half of them run and the other half of them all do like the same leap, and I'm like, do all of these mutants have the same powers? What is going on? Because, like, jumping high is kind of a superpower in and of itself.
Speaker 2:It's a bad superpower, but it's a superpower I don't know, maybe they have some sort of superhuman strength that lets them but it was funny because they were clearly all on strings and they were all being pulled in the air. At the same time, I know that I'm getting way off it's like obviously somebody has to climb down because they can't jump that high yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But anyway, x-men, first class, really solid movie. I really dig the first class film. Yeah, it is a first class film. Will the others be first class films?
Speaker 2:we shall see next anyway, I don't even know some I would say yes, some I would say no, but I don't think that they ever get as bad as origins I think you're right.
Speaker 2:It'll be fun going back to this and ranking them all yes yes, I think that would be really fun I think that on our our deadpool 3, we should start off like hey, you know, we've made it, let's rank up to this point I think that that'd be a good idea and actually let's, let's, or we could do it at the end, because we can incorporate deadpool or not deadpool 3, but deadpool wolverine so deadpool and wolverine will be the 14th movie that we do this to.
Speaker 1:This is going to be the biggest like stint of episodes that are themed in a row for us, but the next show that we're going to have to do, unless you want to take a break and do something else for a week. The next show would have to be the Wolverine we're going back to Hugh Jackman.
Speaker 2:We should do that. We definitely. We're going to get to Deadpool Wolverine a little bit after it releases, but I think that that's going to be good because that'll give our fans time to actually watch it and let it marinoi Maranoi.
Speaker 1:Maranoi.
Speaker 2:And I think that we're we're moving at a pretty good clip. I do want to say, actually I meant to recommend this, or I meant to ask earlier and we can talk about which one, but while we're in the midst of watching these X-Men films, I would like to cover an anime after this, maybe like a one season or Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Friends, Guys, thank you so much for listening to us here for our 83rd episode of Project Geekology. Do yourself a favor Download all of our episodes Every day.
Speaker 1:And listen to them, and listen to them, you know Like delete them and then download them again once you're done. Guys, we really do appreciate your listens. I'm being facetious here Don't overload your devices with our voices, but if you enjoy our show, please be sure to give other episodes that might interest you a listen and be sure to rate us a nice, fat, juicy five-star rating wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2:Yes, do what Dakota said, or else, or else nothing.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding or else we will have to make another episode exactly. We're just gonna keep going, that's it I mean, we're already.
Speaker 2:We're already 83 episodes deep.
Speaker 1:You know, we're just gonna keep going we might as well go to 84 at this point or 85. Let's not go crazy there, guys. Guys, yeah, thank you so much. If you want to check us out on our socials, be sure to find all of our socials, whether it be for the podcast, our respective channels, our personal socials, whatever in the show notes down below. And yeah, thank you so much, guys. Next week, the Wolverine.
Speaker 2:Yes, watch it. If you haven't watched that at all or haven't watched it in a while, so that you can join us in the discussion.
Speaker 1:And remember get naked, paint yourself blue, because mutant and proud baby Nobody will notice.
Speaker 2:Bye. Guys, Bye.
