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
The Wolverine (2013)
Prepare for an epic journey through the Star Wars universe and beyond! What happens when Dakota's timeline notes clash with centuries of Jedi history? Discover the passionate debate as we dissect "The Acolyte" and navigate the inevitable review bombing that every Star Wars release faces. Anthony provides his thoughts on the series, adding depth to the conversation with a comparison to "Andor" and insights into the complex Star Wars storytelling landscape.
Feel the excitement as we shift gears to "Star Wars: Hunters," an arena-style multiplayer game that has us hooked. We share our hands-on experiences, diving into gameplay comparisons with "Overwatch" and discussing character dynamics, accessibility issues, and the satisfying progression system. Our banter includes personal updates on Anthony's website development for the podcast and Dakota's ambitious Star Wars timeline project, "Star Wars Time Saber," offering a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes work that fuels our passion.
Finally, travel with us to Japan as we explore Wolverine's adventures in "The Wolverine." From his emotional turmoil and romantic entanglements to intense action scenes and post-credits teases, we cover it all. Our discussion includes a breakdown of pivotal moments, character dynamics, and the broader context outside the MCU, ensuring you're fully immersed in Wolverine's world. Join us for a blend of Star Wars and Marvel excitement that's sure to entertain and engage.
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
Youtini's Star Wars Timeline:
https://youtini.com/timelines/canon/high-republic
A hundred years before the rise of the Empire, it is a time of peace. The Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic have prospered for centuries without war. Today, guys, welcome to Project Geekology. We are covering you guessed it the Wolverine, but we have to talk about the Acolyte, because that dropped the first two episodes recently, and that's kind of been all I've been thinking about the past two days, even though I've I literally, you know, moments ago just finished watching the wolverine. My name is dakota, I'm one half of your hosts here at project ecology and for our 84th episode, just as we have had him on for every other episode, I'm here with my good friend and yours anthony, and honestly, man like you, kind of you, lost me there.
Speaker 2:I'm like man like I, I wasn't prepared. I thought we were, I thought we became a star wars episode right now, right then, and there I was like, oh my gosh, I I watched the wolverine, but here we are about to cover star wars.
Speaker 1:You know, lost me yeah, yeah, I've my my head's been kind of stuck in that realm. I just started doing like my timeline notes, literally. I literally just started doing my timeline notes. I wrote my first literal notes on the acolyte, uh, the first episode and the title crawl. You know we're not going to go too far into this guy's story, uh, but the title call did get, did catch me off guard because or it's not really a crawl, they didn't really. You know, it's not like a, it didn't crawl across the screen, it just kind of like appeared in semi star wars z font but it says 100 years before the rise of the empire it is a time of peace and that the jedi and the galactic republic have prospered for centuries without war. But, like we know, they were very much at war with the nigh hill in, like the high republic books just 100 years before that. So it doesn't make any sense, guys, it doesn't make.
Speaker 2:I mean, all right, don't get me wrong, I really liked the first couple episodes but yeah, that's something that caught me off guard right, right, maybe if there was a little bit more of a specification, like you know, the Nihil, yes, but maybe they, you know, not at war with the Sith or, you know, dark side users.
Speaker 1:It does say the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic have prospered for centuries without war. So maybe they're talking about with each other. But like the Jedi have not fought the the galactic republic, they have over a hundred years you know, like it's just the jedi man.
Speaker 1:They're always trying to fight the republic and the republic, you know, they just can't stand the jedi yeah, uh, I guess, before we jump into um our our main topic of discussion, which is the wolverine anthony, how did you like the first two episodes? I mean, I'm assuming you watched them? I did yeah as soon as they dropped.
Speaker 2:I watched them I, I, I enjoyed it. You know I it's been getting reviewed bomb online, which was expected right, right, like you know the, obviously any show, especially with you know, star wars, of late, it's going to be like heavily scrutinized, like there's no perfection. But the same thing could be said of the original trilogy man. Like nothing in star wars is perfect. Is some of it sloppy? Yes, and I'm not talking about the show in particular, but I'm talking about, you know, some star wars media in general is better than the others. Of course it is and, like you said, like you kind of you kind of pointed out something that you didn't like. Obviously it's not perfect, but I did enjoy it.
Speaker 2:There is definitely something different about it. It it kind of to me it's like a little bit of a fresh breath of of air, kind of like andor. Andor was different and that's what I like about this show. It's, it's got. Obviously it has jedi in it. Andor wasn't really all about the jedi and stuff, but this one is it's. It's really cool, man, I I definitely want to to cover this show at one point when it finishes. Obviously, maybe my thoughts of it will change as the show progresses, but so far I enjoy it. How about you?
Speaker 1:I will say it's a strong start. You know like there's very little oh within the first two episodes. That I dislike and I feel like, if you are disliking it, you're looking for reasons to yes like it doesn't. There's there's no blatant reason for you to dislike this show at this point.
Speaker 2:You know like you came in looking yeah, you had one of those people looking for a fight.
Speaker 1:You know you had to come in looking to pick it apart, to to dislike this. Um, if you're, if you're honestly coming at this with the intentions to, either, you know, just appreciate the art that's being presented to you. It's, it's fun, it entertaining I've. I laughed quite a few times Like there was one line where there's a character that's being like surrounded by Jedi and, uh, one of the Jedi goes. Who is he referring to? Some, some guy, he, you know the. The. This person was like speaking to and he turned around and looked at one of the other jedis. He goes. I thought he was with you. I just just very juxtapositionally funny like it was just a great, great line.
Speaker 1:There's stuff like that in it that I'm really enjoying and I think the characters are going to be really appreciated as time goes on. Uh, because I I do like that. It's like kind of like a murder mystery, even though you know who the murderer is. It's more like learning about the intent behind the murder at this point right and then the we'll talk more about it.
Speaker 2:I don't want to talk about any like huge plot points or anything, but you know the the reveal of the murder of the murderer was definitely like pretty cool. I thought I thought that that was, you know, to be vague, I thought that that was was pretty cool how they went about that yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot to to enjoy, um, from the first two episodes, and I've heard that it gets significantly better with episodes three and four, because certain press people um have already gotten access to that. So it's gonna be it's gonna be an eight episode series. So we'll see in seven weeks. It's gonna be a grueling seven weeks, let's be honest. Just because, uh, the star wars fandom, uh, hate itself yeah they hate themselves.
Speaker 2:So I mean, okay, so kind of moving on from that, like, like I said, we'll definitely have to make an episode about that. We usually kind of start off with with what I've been up to. But how about you? What have you been up to, dakota?
Speaker 1:tell us, enlighten us well, you, you heard I don't know if you heard about it, but they, they just released a new Star Wars show. It's the first two episodes of a new Star Wars show. So I watched that and then I watched it again. Never heard of it. Yeah, it's fun, it's a good time. No, I have been really excited about that and I'm excited to talk about that on the show some more at some point. At some point, but at the same time, or the same day rather, that the Acolyte Dropped on Disney Plus Star Wars game also released and we spoke about it briefly. Did you get, were you able to get your hands on it at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was able to do. I was able to get my hands on it. This game is very odd with compatibility, especially with mobile phones. A lot of games usually, I feel like, when it comes to something huge like Star Wars, even like with Blizzard, when it comes to releasing something on a mobile platform, they're usually pretty good with releasing it on almost any device, but doesn't work on my phone, doesn't like I have. I have one of the fold phones and even some of the like. It's like it works on mostly like older devices, like some newer devices, but like dude it's very finicky but it's also on the switch. So that's what I got it on. I have it on the Switch. I've been playing it a little bit. It definitely has that mobile phone aspect to it. It feels like a mobile game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are certain control aspects that are very simplistic for the sake of you know. You're meant to play this on a device without buttons, basically like a touchscreen sort of thing. But right, right, it's, yeah, it's something that's not tactile we haven't actually even said the name of the game yet, so we've been talking about this for two minutes. I'm sorry, folks, we're talking about star wars hunters, it's. It's a game that has been on the horizon for a couple years at this point.
Speaker 1:It's been a while dude, like I thought it was already out I thought it was already out, to be honest with you, because a whole year ago I read the tie-in book that was supposed to come out with this game and I just assumed that the game was already out and I just didn't care for it. But no, star wars hunters is a kind of like arena-esque uh multiplayer mashup sort of thing. Takes a lot of uh cues from overwatch and that type of gameplay where you you don't start out with all the heroes like you, like you would with overwatch, but you start with uh one or two heroes and as you level up, as you progress through the game, more unlock uh as you go along, and I I found that it's really fun and it's there's a definite like skill ramp to it, like understanding where the hit boxes are like strongest you know. So with with this game I I've played, I've played uh maybe like 20 rounds okay, so you actually hopped on to play I have, yeah, I've I've.
Speaker 1:Over the past couple days, I've played quite a few matches and I've won most of them. I think I've only lost two games out of the 20 or so that I played.
Speaker 2:Same.
Speaker 1:And it's pretty easy. It's easy to jump on. You don't have to have a lot of gaming experience. I don't play all that many games these days but honestly, I had the highest score on most of the matches.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just a matter of like aiming at the person that you're trying to shoot at right and the game fires for you um oh, okay, so so you're playing on your phone I am oh, okay, so so. So on the switch, it's a little bit more conventional where you're pressing buttons so you actually have to like press to to shoot and all that stuff and now?
Speaker 1:are you playing against other uh, other switch players, or are you playing against mobile?
Speaker 2:that's a good question. I don't know if it's cross play. I'm assuming that I'm playing against other switch players yeah and I mean that, yeah, you're right about the, the jumping on it's. It is fairly easy to hop on. I am also. I think that there's been like a couple games where I didn't have the highest score and that was because I was trying out somebody new.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:And actually believe it or not, I made it to the point to where I was playing the ranked mode.
Speaker 1:Oh cool. Okay, I haven't gotten that, I played a few ranked matches.
Speaker 2:I haven't gotten that. And that's definitely where it starts to, the skill curve definitely starts to go up. You start fighting against people who are either close in your ability or a little worse, or a little bit better okay, but, like it, you notice a skill bump from yes, from the people around you.
Speaker 2:Okay, definitely I I'm definitely depending on who I'm playing, because I try to. I'm I'm usually a flex player when it comes to a lot of games like that. I look to see who who are the other people play, pick and then I try to choose off of that. So if we already have like a couple tanks and a couple damage, I'll hop on like somebody that support or you know vice versa. So usually like if I'm, if I'm hopping on on like one of the dps, especially like that imperial gunner guy is like super op, sensibly, yeah, super super op, like I'm always like destroying whenever I play him you know, even on like the losses, like one of the losses that I've had.
Speaker 1:I played as him and I was like the best player in the whole match yeah, so even um, like his ultimate is just op, because he basically he calls in two other stormtroopers to fire alongside us, alongside him, and they don't go away unless you kill them, like he can die, and they'll still be on the map it's so crazy, it's so op yeah, um yeah, but it's. It's a really fun game, guys. Obviously we're not sponsored by any anyone at lucasfilm or anything that but we're having a really good time with it.
Speaker 2:Although we're open to it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Lucasfilm.
Speaker 2:We talk enough about Star Wars on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, promise you guys. We're not shills, we're not Disney shills, even though we do cover a lot of Disney, oh no. Yeah, what else have I been up to I don't think I've been up to all that much since we last spoke. Yeah, I think that's like actually all I really wanted to talk about. What have you been up to, bro?
Speaker 2:So you talked about. So we talked about Star Wars Hunters. Obviously, I've been playing a bit of that and watching, watching wolverine, but I've also been working on that website. That the the last episode we talked about how I I really wanted to to build a proper website for the podcast and, you know, honestly, it's coming coming along pretty, pretty decently. Like because, like I was like one of my biggest fears when I came to learning this. I was like man, what if I'm, like you know, hopping onto this and like I'm just, you know, like I'm stuck and I don't know what to do? And and like, for the most part, like I know that like a time will come where I'm like what am I? I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:Like over your head what's?
Speaker 2:happening. But I know that I have, you know, a sufficient amount of training to where you know. If something's not working for me in that moment, you know, I just take a step, take a step back, you know, breather kind of approach it in a different way or work on some other aspect of the website and then come back to it later. But for the most part, you know, like this one, this first iteration is not going to be some crazy out of the park. It's a test almost. It's right, right, right. This is really more of like um, yeah, I'm testing myself, seeing seeing where I can. You know where my strengths are, where what I can work on better, and you know it's and trying to figure out what I want to add. Like you know things, I'm trying to think of different aspects. Um, I'm trying to add a thing to where, if somebody wants to, you know, send a message to us, it'll, it'll send to our email, you know that kind of thing okay and so.
Speaker 2:So I'm adding stuff like that. I, I'm, I'm. I have like a whole episode page that I want to like limit the amount of episodes that are on that page so that it's not like that one page isn't overloaded with, like you know, say that we're, you know we're hitting over 100, 200 episodes. It's not like a one giant page of like 200 episodes, like I want to be like you know, 10 episodes on one page and then it's, it's got like a next button, you, of like 200 episodes. Like I want to be like you know, 10 episodes on one page and then it's, it's got like a next button. You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, like you scroll, you scroll and then more pop up, if you, you know, keep scrolling, something like that Something like that, yeah, yeah. So that nothing, not everything, loads at the same time.
Speaker 2:Right, right, interesting. So yeah, you know I have a lot of ideas, things that I wanted to like look into and you know like just working on it a little bit at a time. Sometimes I spend, maybe you know, around like maybe 40-ish minutes. Sometimes I'm spending longer. You know, like I'll just be kind of chilling and I'm like man, you know what I kind of feel like working on it a little bit. So I'll spend a little bit of time working on little tweaks here and there and figuring things out. So I've had a few moments where I'm like man, why is this not working? I'll look into the code, I'll mess with things and then I get it to work.
Speaker 2:So, I'm really working on that problem solving aspect of web development, because I feel like I can problem solve with a lot of other things, but with web development it's different because it's like you know, say, say that you're trying to, you know, communicate in Spanish with somebody and you're like I don't know how to say this. So you kind of kind of figure out a way to communicate some. You know, because of that language barrier. You know it's like a language barrier. You know, and I'm learning as I go. So you know I've learned the gist of a lot of what I need, but still it's like now I have to put my reps in, I have to actually practice it. So this has been practice for me.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, bro. Yeah, that's awesome, and actually I forgot to mention that's actually something I have been working on. I mean, you have the web design stuff. I have like the timeline stuff that I'm working on, especially with the Star Wars graphic that I was working on.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm officially calling it I don't know if I mentioned it last week, but I'm officially calling it the Star Wars Time Saber, and it's basically like a big lightsaber, that kind of weaves into a large timeline.
Speaker 2:Isn't it going to be featured in the Acolyte?
Speaker 1:I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, lucasfilm, uh, wink, wink, hint, hint and the, the inspiration for the, the lightsaber whip, you know yes, if.
Speaker 1:If they do not credit me, I will get in touch with my lawyers and no, I'm just kidding. Just kidding, but I I did make a lot of progress, probably the or one of. There were two, two parts to the timeline that I felt were most daunting and I crossed one of those thresholds. I was able to finally figure out how I wanted to place the Clone Wars episodes.
Speaker 2:So instead of going- Because they're kind of out of order.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of them that are out of order, yeah, so I kind of separated it. You know, like there's a section of the timeline that's 22 BBY, 21, 20, 19. And that's all kind of bracketed by Attack, attack of the clones and revenge of the sith. So it was a matter of, you know, spreading those years out to a point where I could feasibly put enough little markers, because there's not only episodes of the clone wars in there. There there's, you know, episodes of the children's, like animated shorts, forces of Destiny, there's episodes of both Tales of the Jedi and Tales of the Empire mixed in there. There's comic books, there's novels, there's a bunch of other stuff that actually happens in the Clone Wars. So, yeah, it was just a matter of like figuring out a way to not have to literally pinpoint every single episode. But if I could do it in chunks, say if episodes three through seven of season three of the Clone Wars were, all you know, concurrent or there wasn't anything that happened in between those episodes, I would chunk it all together, you know, and I would do something like that. So that that was a huge thing for me in terms of trying to figure out how to do that, just because it could also get really messy. You know, and I've had timelines that I've had to just kind of abandon because they get messy or like, especially in Photoshop, when I'm doing big graphics like that, if I don't have a vision in mind, it kind of all falls apart. So I'm happy that so far I've gotten a really good portion of the timeline completed. And the second thing that I'm really worried about is the time period between.
Speaker 1:During the original trilogy, marvel has released so many comic books, so many comic books, hundreds and hundreds of issues of comic books.
Speaker 1:Just between you know, in the year that takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedii, there's got to be 200 comic books in that in that gap. So I need to figure out a rough order to place everything in and I'm not doing like, uh, if I go comp like issue by issue, it's going to take forever. So I'm gonna, I'm going by, I'm chunking it by like, uh, collected volumes basically. Basically, so four or five, four or five issues were collected in volume five, four or five issues are collected in volume six of this and that and this, because there's the Star Wars line, there's the Darth Vader line, there's the bounty hunters line, there's a Dr Aphra line and they all kind of fold into each other's like narrative. So it's it's going to be that's. That's probably the, the section that I'm most worried about, like trying to figure out how to place. But I'll figure it out when I get to it next week I'll probably talk about it did you read the comics?
Speaker 1:I've read a good portion, uh, so no, I didn't read all of them, so so I'm going to have to do some research. I'm using there's a website called Uteni Y-O-U-T-I-N-I. That is a fantastic timeline resource and they have a general timeline for pretty much every item in the Star Wars canon. I don't agree with every one of their placements, but as a general guide I think that they're super spot on and super helpful. So I'm using that as a template and if I have differences in opinions of like where certain things take place, like in conjunction to one another, I'll just shift it around a little bit on my timeline. But yeah, so I that's pretty much what I'm going to be doing for the comic. So I've read a lot of them, but I've probably that's too many.
Speaker 1:In that section of the timeline. I've probably only read about 30% of them.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's just a lot.
Speaker 2:But anyway, it's funny that you say Uteni, because that's the name of the Jawa duo from Star Wars, hunter. Uteni, yeah, uteni, yeah, the java the like java duo from star wars, hunter utini, yeah, yeah yeah, so I think that's definitely a play on, like the, the java utini, you know so that's, that's, that's cool um, yeah, if you guys want to check that, that site out, it's, it's a.
Speaker 1:They do a really good job with the star wars timeline, if that, if that is interesting, you at all, but it's definitely interested me.
Speaker 2:I've I've always wondered where there was a pretty good timeline, because I, I want to, I want to to kind of like look at like where things are placed and yeah it's hard like there's so much information everywhere and, yeah, people move. There's like just some are, some are complete, some are incomplete and it's like, oh my gosh, like I don't know where.
Speaker 1:Yeah there's no. Well, I would say that that's probably the best option. That and you know, kind of balancing that with, like wikipedia's dating structures is pretty interesting. And on utini's site there's a way for you to filter what you're looking at. So on the top left of like, if you go to their timeline section, there's a filter button on the top left of the screen that you can click and you can say I want to look at novels, junior novels and comics, or you can choose films, tv episodes and and video games or any number of that filtering system, and it'll tell you, like if you're not interested in any of the comics per se, you can filter those out completely, or any of the anthologies, and it's a really, really good resource. I'm really impressed with it and I've talked to the guy who runs the, the utini timeline, and he's a he's a cool dude and he's he's excited for the, the project that I'm I'm making right now. So I I love that kind of like love within the fandom that like kind of just spreads around.
Speaker 2:So yeah, anyway, what's, what's I, what's I, what's that? Again like, how did the url go?
Speaker 1:y-o-u-t-i-n-i okay if you look up utini star wars timeline, yeah, you can't see nothing, but I'm pretty sure I found it, yeah, whenever, whenever anthony points the phone at the camera, it's just a white screen.
Speaker 2:Dude, it's just a white screen, and I just I know that he found it like. I could see it in his face like yeah, I got it, but um, uh, I mean, for those of you that are interested in checking that out, we can always put it in the show notes yeah, guys, you know what time it is, it's halfway through our podcast yes, it's time for us to talk about adventure time.
Speaker 1:No, it's time for us to talk about the wolverine dude, you just love saying it in that way. I cannot stop. So I think it's. I think it's um. If I remember correctly, that's how they announced his entrance into the ring in the first movie. Like in that when we first see him in the bar, you know, like when he's like in that cage I need to go back.
Speaker 1:I remember them announcing him, but I don't remember how they said it yeah, they gave it like one of those like wrestling type, uh introductions, um, and I have that burned into my head so whenever I see the wolverine I have to read it out like that but anyway this came out in 2013.
Speaker 1:This is a film that is probably one of the more interesting ones of the series, because, while I don't think it's as good as Logan, obviously it's a good film. It's hard to deny that this is a good film, and I think it's aged pretty well.
Speaker 2:I was going to say it's definitely a lot better than the first Wolverine movie that we got.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because they could have said Wolverine 2. They could have called it that, but instead this has got to be the most disjointed trilogy of solo films ever Because they're they're all the same actor and everything, but they have no connective tissue to each other. You know, logan has no connective tissue to the first two wolverine solo films. This has no connection to any of the other ones, but I think that's kind of like.
Speaker 2:A cool thing about logan is that he has lived so long and he's touched so many people in terms of like who he saved and who he hasn't, that he can do solo adventures and they could be totally standalone and they could be totally cool yeah, yeah, this, this was, yeah, I I I'm glad that you said that, because I I remember seeing this a while ago and I don't I don't remember it grabbing me as much as it did this time around and I was like, wow, like why do I not remember this being as good as it is? You know, like you said, it's not. It's not like a logan, like logan is out of all the wolverine movies, that's like the top one, but this one was man. I was like, wow, this is. It was just like really cool. You, you have wolverine, and in japan and I love that they call him wolverine in japanese- wait, is, is, is is.
Speaker 1:Uh, what was?
Speaker 2:the name.
Speaker 1:Kitsuri or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that means Wolverine in Japanese.
Speaker 1:Oh, I had no idea. Okay, yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, I looked it up, I was like I, I, I. I was like what, what's the significance of this name? They, they, the, the um, the guy that he had known from from world war ii, what called him that? And so did, like, the love interest of the story, had called him that too, and I was like, okay, what is that? What does that mean? Like is that, is there significance? And, yeah, it means wolverine.
Speaker 1:It's literally wolverine in japanese interesting, okay, so what did you? Did you like that they, you know, brought the story over to Japan?
Speaker 2:brute force and coming up against an enemy that doesn't. It's not always about brute force. It's sometimes coming, you know, from the shadows or from a a place that you cannot, you know you can't be spotted, and obviously it's wolverine. You know there's wolverine's always gonna have plot armor, unless unless you're you're watching logan. But you know we'll get to that yeah, yeah, for sure but I I thought that the setting was awesome.
Speaker 2:I I mean, look, you know, I'm a huge I'm, I'm an otaku, I love anime, I'm I'm a gamer, I play a lot of like jrpgs and stuff. So you know, as far as like the, the, the nerdy aspect of Japan, I definitely love that and you know, some of the culture is really really cool. So, dude, put him in that setting. I'm game to watch man. What about you? What are your thoughts on that? Move over to Japan.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was looking something up while you were saying that, but I do agree. Agree, you know it's so funny you were mentioning earlier about how, like, the movie didn't necessarily grab you when you first watched it, but watching it now you almost miss this kind of action movie, if that makes any kind of sense. It feels like the early, uh, you know, it feels like a film that would like work within the iron man trilogy in a way. Um, the way that the pacing and everything is structured, um, the kind of side mission that they send the wolverine on, it all feels very akin to an iron man movie, and I'm not even like trying to say that, you know, like, because they had a big guy in an armor suit at the end, has anything to do with that. That? That literally just popped into my head as I, as I was talking about iron man oh, yeah, yeah, I completely forgot about that.
Speaker 2:It's like obadiah or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah yeah exactly oh my gosh, that was hilarious yeah, I, I would actually say it's probably closest to iron man 3, but what's funny is that this movie came out in the same year as iron man 3 and it came out a year after the avengers, and there's actually, I feel like it's interesting, like going and looking at these movies and seeing how they're influenced by the other films and the genre outside of their company, and I do think that at this point they were being heavily influenced by the MCU, because this felt more like an MCU movie, especially when it came to the tease at the end.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the tease for the next movie that we'll be watching.
Speaker 1:It definitely. They had a very Nick Fury-esque, you know, like we're building a team, sort of moment, even though it was, like you know, characters we already knew who had a lot of history with each other. So the post or the mid-credits scene has wolverine going through an airport for some reason, I don't know. Yeah, we don't actually even get that explained, like why was he going, why was he in an airport? And for some reason magneto is moving metal behind him and he turns around and he's just like you're not alone or something, and like professor x stops time for everyone in the room and just like you're not the only one with special abilities or something like that it was. It was really bizarre. It's like a really stunted dialogue for a kind of cool scene that's very much hinting at the future, because they they mentioned there's a, there's a trask logo right here in the movie I believe.
Speaker 1:I believe there's a trask logo earlier in the movie, but also it shows up again at the end of this and it kind of leads into the events of days of future past, which would be the next movie, and I'm I'm really really excited to cover that one, because that I remember really loving that movie when it came out I did too, and it's cool like I'm I'm actually really happy that we're going from a movie, that that we like, like I said, like I really enjoyed this film, I thought it was good going into another, really really good one, you know yeah, um, I would actually like argue that this is kind of on par with, I don't know in my in my head, if, if I would place first class above x-men, 2, x2, but it's on that level of storytelling at least, not if.
Speaker 1:If it's not storytelling, it's, it's on that level of just enjoyment. You know, like, while I'm watching it, I'm never, I was never like bored throughout the entire movie, like it kept my engagement while taking me all over to japan. We went to a love hotel guys.
Speaker 2:Seriously, like it really like kept my attention and like I was like you know I was, I was thinking like, oh, you know, I'll probably watch, you know a bit of it today, and then you know just, and then you know, come back and finish it tomorrow. But, dude, like now I was like I watched it all in one sitting because I I thought it was like I, I enjoyed it, like I was enjoying my time watching this movie so I do have a a criticism.
Speaker 1:I have a couple criticisms, you know, just like I think it's kind of fun poking holes in the plot and I'm gonna do that for this one. So in early in the movie we have wolverine. He's kind of like been like shoved into a, a well or something with like a blast door on on top and he is a prisoner at some you know, world war ii camp. He somehow, you know, even though he was stuck in a hole for who knows how long, he knew about the bombing in hiroshima or hiroshima and he also knew, like, what kind of plane was used. So here's the thing how would he know that? How would he? Because he goes, uh, you better get in here. That was a b-29. You know what that. How would he? Because he goes, you better get in here. That was a B-29. You know what that means. How would any of those soldiers know what that means? You know, like it's not yes, hiroshima and Nagasaki are not super far away but like the specifics of like what kind of plane flew over.
Speaker 2:So you can explain that that, like you know, that time, uh, at the war, I mean at that time in the war, you know, japan and the us had been fighting for a long time and the and japan had been bombed like times prior to that. I mean, obviously, like, like you know, the smaller islands were shelled by ships, but they were also bombed at at some point. And I mean you know the, the, the military, like a lot of the people in the military they knew like, oh, those are p-51s, you know. So a lot of people could, could, spot a bomber. You know, bombers usually fly higher, um, whereas P-51s will fly a little bit lower.
Speaker 2:So I mean Logan, I can imagine that Logan would know that that's a bomber and he knows what that means. Maybe he didn't know that that was a nuke, but I could imagine that they would know what a bomber is. I mean Japan, they have their own bombers, you know Right, so they would know what a bomber is, you know they, I mean the Japan, japan, they have their own bombers, you know Right.
Speaker 2:So they, you know they would be able to, like that's easy to, that's easy to explain. Now, they wouldn't have known that that was a nuke on there, because that was the first time Anybody had experienced Anything like that. So, like the oh my, like the reaction to that blast, right, um, so, but they knew that, like they knew that they were now I don't know hiroshima was bombed three days prior to this, on the the sixth.
Speaker 1:This is this, this is the ninth and my. My issue is like how would wolverine, who has presumably been in prison for a while, know what kind of bomber they used in another city and what happened to that city, or even understand what a nuclear explosion is in the first place?
Speaker 2:so that's kind of right, so so I mean, did he, did he know that, that it was a nuke? Like he just knew, he just knew that, you know, he knew that, that it was a bomber, you know. And who knows, like, maybe he understood enough, you know, maybe he picked up some japanese, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Like I'm obviously I'm suspending disbelief at this point yeah, no, you're, you're, you're being, you're being the better critic than I am. I'm no, no, I'm being a little too picky, probably.
Speaker 2:You know, but I mean that. So I definitely understand where you're coming from, from that. But I could, like he would know what a bomber is. At least he would know at least that that's about to drop a bomb. How strong? Probably not, right.
Speaker 2:But, he would know that like, okay, that's a bomber. He would know what that, that like okay, that mean, that's a bomber. He would know what a bomber is like. The army knew what the people in the army. They knew the model of aircraft, you know. They were able to call out p-51s. There are the um, you know, and you know the, the various bombers. You know so and some of them and some of the people in the army were, you know you had the pair, the, you had the airborne who jumped out of planes. So they would know models of planes. You know, I mean, I'm getting crazy like deep into like into military history right now.
Speaker 1:That's true, but no, you're right.
Speaker 2:Like I mean you know. So obviously, with all the time that he has spent in war throughout the years, he would have picked up.
Speaker 1:But as far as knowing that that was a nuke, probably not, because he does, he shows even though the plane is like way past them at that point it's going into, you know, over the actual city of Nagasaki. He knows that something bad is happening or is going to happen. So he breaks out of his little confinement, drags the guy to the guy to the well and, you know, saves his life, which is actually a super cool scene, and seeing how he, you know, kind of withstood all the radiation burns and and stuff for this guy, only for the guy to turn out to be a jerk, big jerk. Spoilers, sorry guys.
Speaker 2:Um right, yeah, yeah, did you want to like go briefly over, kind of like? The premise of the movie for those of you who may have forgotten.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have, you know, a modern day Wolverine. I don't know that they have like any like present day years or you know like what. It's hard to tell like what year exactly this is. You know, 2010s maybe?
Speaker 1:Yeah, where Wolverine is kind of just living on his own in the woods and he's picked up by a Japanese girl and basically told that, hey, this guy that you saved back in Nagasaki in World War Two he's dying and he wants you, he wants to say goodbye to you, so he gets shipped over to Japan. Um, say goodbye to this guy who he, you know, probably forgot about at this point. And, uh, the, the guy apparently has created a, you know, a billion dollar industry, like a tech industry, and he's got like the biggest company in all of japan. And he kind of whispers to wolverine like, hey, hey, I know what your greatest wish is, and it's to die. Well, my greatest wish is to live. What if you trade your powers and save an old man so that I can continue my legacy?
Speaker 1:And Wolverine's kind of like, wow, that's kind of a dick thing to do. Why would you do that? Why would you tell me that? Yeah, and long story short. Why would you do that? Why would you tell me that? Yeah, and long story short? He doesn't do that, but it's kind of like forced upon him where, like, his powers are revoked.
Speaker 1:And I here's something that I really like about this movie how do you make a character who is invincible, interesting? Well, you give them a weakness, and his, you know, they literally gave him a weakness, he, he can now be weakened, and I like that about the film. There's a good portion of the film where he does not have his ability to heal and that presents an obstacle he's never had to face before, and that was really fascinating. Another issue, you know, stemming from that that I had uh, before I go back to the, the plot summary is, if he had no healing powers, then whenever he, like, extended his claws and retracted them, would there still be holes in his hand, cause those can't heal anymore? Right, he'd just be bleeding out of his hands forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, maybe maybe they weren't thinking about it in that terms, but yeah. No, no. It was interesting, though, how they used it was like a biotic little robot in the body that was kind of messing with him around his heart and that was messing with his healing factor.
Speaker 1:It's like that thing that they sucked out of neo's belly button in the matrix.
Speaker 1:They kind of had that like parasite I don't know the, the actual name for it, but you can kind of picture it like in like a biology context, like what those parasites, like the walking viruses, look like. But anyway. So going back to the, the crux of the story, apparently, um, this guy's dying wish even though it wasn't really his dying wish was to pass the, the whole company, over to noriko, his granddaughter, because she was worthy and that's a, that's a fun sentiment and all. But he was never intending to die and he even kept that information from her. So, even though that was in his will to pass the legacy of his brand off onto his granddaughter he was still technically alive.
Speaker 1:So I don't even understand the farce. What was the point of the whole farce? I mean, I get it, it's to suspend disbelief in the audience so that you can follow the mystery and understand what's going on over the course of it. But, uh, yeah, like I said, guy turned out to be a jerk, um, and he stole or you know, he was trying to forcibly steal uh, logan's powers through the help of some girl who had, like viper venom, uh, mutant powers right, right, I mean that's literally like her, her name, viper, and comics.
Speaker 2:But also I mean we also talk I have to talk about. I mean it's hard to imagine a movie being bad when you have your boy, um hiroyuki sanada yeah, he's in everything. He's well anything japanese, anything japanese, but it's all. It's usually like really good, like he's in that show, the shogun I haven't.
Speaker 1:I haven't checked it out yet, but I've heard good things it's good.
Speaker 2:I haven't finished it, but from what I've seen it's really really good cool yeah, that's, that's definitely on my list.
Speaker 1:And he he plays the father of noriko who wants the legacy of, I believe it's. I believe the brand name is yoshida, if I remember correctly. I might be, I might be incorrect there, but his father's dying. He really wants his father's uh company and it's all going to the daughter. So he kind of goes crazy and sends the yakuza after his own daughter, um, to kill her, because you know he's crazy and power hungry and doesn't actually learn a lesson by the end of the film he just dies at the hands of over, even though he tries to teach him a lesson. Sorry, I'm, I'm all over the place, but I'm. I'm having a fun time, kind of like remembering the little snippets of the story here and there. But anyway, dude was stockpiling uh, you know the I forget who the actual main villain and or guy he helped in nagasaki was called bro was like stockpiling adamantium, like left, left and right.
Speaker 2:He had a whole samurai suit of adamantium created for himself to extend his life I'm trying to see, um, I'm trying to trying to see what, what his name was, the older guy I mean it was. You can keep on talking.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I just want to let you know what I was doing no, yeah, figure that out, because I I'm just gonna be talking into the void at this point because I, I, actually I I do want to know I should have guys, usually here's a here's a trade secret. We usually have, uh, you know, a cast list of you know whoever's in the cast at the ready whenever we have a podcast going, so that we can actually break down these things with some level of uh, sense and merit. But, uh, and in this podcast we're kind of just winging it because we really liked it and you know, I think we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, his name was um ichi ichiro yashida okay ichiro yashida, ichiro, yashida, so yeah uh, yeah, so he had the yashida brand and, yeah, he was stockpiling adamantium. He made himself a basically a silver samurai outfit out of adamantium I think that's what he's actually called silver samurai.
Speaker 1:That is his, yeah, yeah I don't really understand his relationship to viper or his relationship to the black clan, which was like the clan of ninjas, and or viper's relationship to, uh, noriko's father, I don't know. It was kind of like a a wide web of characters that all kind of wanted something but we never really learned every person's desire, like the guy that noriko was originally in love with was like the leader of the black clan, ninjas what was it?
Speaker 2:well, so ichiro did actually say something about the black clan yeah, um him and, like his village, had a connection, like in the past. That is true, yeah, yeah that is true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they've protected that village for, I think, 700 years or something like that. So yeah, you're right about that. But again, like I didn't fully grasp what everyone's connection to each other was. Besides, like we're the villains until we're not, sort of thing. But I did think that the final fight was cool. I was a little confused how wolverine's bone claws didn't immediately grow back when they, when he, like, got his adamantium claws snipped off. But he did, he did. He was able to use them, he was. But there wasn't.
Speaker 1:It wasn't immediate, like it was basically after the guy sawed into or bored into his bone claws and extracted his little DNA to make himself young again. After that point the claws did grow back, but he basically had to retract them and then send them back out.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's part of the healing, or I mean if he can heal with them still out what I did find funny was that, uh, for wolverine to use and activate, like the the heat portion of the adamantium sword, he needed two hands but the silver samurai only needed one, because like he was holding him down and with one hand and like slicing with the other. So I thought that was pretty funny. Like it was just like kind of inconsistent but also kind of a cool callback to the rich. Like you know what he learned back in world war ii?
Speaker 2:well, maybe because I don't know, maybe it could have been a weight issue thing. Oh, I kind of like that you know, know the Silver Samurai, is this like giant adamantium, like armor, and so would be able to withstand the weight of that? I can imagine, like you know, those weapons were like solid adamantium. So I mean, you remember, when he sinks, or when Lady Deathstrike gets injected with the adamantium and she sinks to the bottom of that pool, it kind of makes like a loud, like clinking sound yeah.
Speaker 1:So one character that I totally forgot was in this movie that is definitely worth talking about is only present through um dream sequences and, uh, I guess, and I guess like memory, and that's Jean Grey, played by Famke Jensen. And what a fantastic role. She was just there to be his subconscious or to talk to his subconscious. I guess a big thing for him was that he wanted to die. He wanted to be with Jean Grey. It's the person that he loved most in his, in you know, the life that he's led, as far as we're aware, and it's interesting that he, like his subconscious actually, you know, created a version of Jean to like dream of you know what life would be like after death, you know, for him, do you believe that he was actually talking, or like communing with the past life, or like the soul of, or spirit of, gene gray, or do you think that was more in his head?
Speaker 2:I believe that was more in his head I think because of the whole, the whole romantic aspect of it.
Speaker 1:They never really got that far in the x-men trilogy yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:And um, by the end of the film when he realizes that no, I actually don't want to die just yet, you know he's just like no, I don't want to die just yet, I just found a japanese girl. So I'm gonna hold off on that for a bit. Basically he he did mention like guilt in having you know she she kind of brings up how he put her to death basically in the third x-men movie. That's clearly guilt on his part manifesting in this dream sequence. So I really like that, that part of the film, because it grounded the character um, even more so, I feel, than you know him being removed from his powers I agree, yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely.
Speaker 2:It's definitely one of the the more interesting aspects of the film and I I think it's. It is a really good like driving force, especially when that unique situation or that unique proposition was presented to to wolverine of like, hey look, you don't want your, you don't want your long life, I don't mind taking off your hands. And you know he's been kind of toying with it already throughout his life, you know, since the whole gene gray thing what do you think about his love interest with noriko and I?
Speaker 1:I say this because in our coverage of x-men origins wolverine I mentioned that I kind of liked his, uh, love interest. I felt it was a little like it was genuine in that movie. But I never really got like it felt a little bit forced to me in this one Because for a good portion of the movie I didn't see them as compatible and I don't think that they were ever intending for that to be the case. I mean not the filmmakers but, like you know, these two characters, logan and Noriko, especially because she's the granddaughter of this guy that he's, you know, previously friends with and he kind of, I think for for a good portion of the film, not that he treats her like a, a daughter, but he does treat her like someone needing protection from others, you know, kind of like a damsel in distress sort of thing. And I I wasn't a huge fan of the love interest, I don't know, I didn't like that aspect of it. I kind of wished it remained just a protector and this girl trying to make her way through life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, it definitely was. I guess they needed to add a love interest aspect of it, to add a a love interest aspect of it, but I feel like if there could have been one, it could have been the, the, the other oh my gosh, what was her name? Uh, yukio, like. I feel like it could have been closer to that, because they had already been, like she had introduced herself, she. It was almost like the classic like setup, as far as that she went out to retrieve him, she brought him she. It was almost like the classic like setup, as far as that she went out to retrieve him, she brought him she. She was more of like the. She had more of like the caring, like hey, you know, I can, I can foresee people's deaths. And she was like very, she was very concerned with him, like she didn't want him to go and get himself killed. So I felt like if there would have been a romantic aspect, that would have been maybe the choice for this film.
Speaker 1:Actually, I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I kind of prefer that to what we got they're a little bit more compatible because she is an actual like fighter, you know not saying that a fighter and a non-fighter can't be together. But I, there was that chemistry, the on-screen chemistry that made sense and it.
Speaker 1:What's funny is that noriko had two other potential love interests in this movie, with like the, the her fiance her fiance, who was like a, a big-time politician who turned out to be not the best guy ever, and, um, the leader of the black clan I I don't remember his name either, but you know what I'm saying. They even had both of those characters were kind of betrothed to her at some point in their lives and it was interesting that she still chose Logan and kind of left the relationship open at the end of the movie. I know we're never going to see that ever play out on screen again, but I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 2:What a choice Call me when you come back to japan, or if you come back to japan yeah, I was just like what did she say?
Speaker 1:it was something like will I be seeing you soon? And I I spoke straight to the screen.
Speaker 2:I'm like no and it, and then also actually another. Another thing to reinforce the the romance between him and yukio was that she actually left with him at the end. Yes, I don't think she shows up in any other movies, if I remember correctly, yeah she's like I am the bodyguard for, yeah, literally for like the for five minutes and what's what's funny is that like she takes him onto a private plane and then the post-credit scene is him in an airport trying to get through to a plane.
Speaker 1:Like why couldn't she, the bodyguard, like take him wherever he needed to go? Like I know it's not the same time period, obviously, sometimes right, right.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was like two it said two years later.
Speaker 1:But oh, you're right, it did say say that yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:It said so. But the thing is, is that, like technically, I mean I don't know did something happen? Like because she's if, if she was still around him she could have done that still, you know, got him on a plane to go somewhere else? She had the hookup. He probably woke up in his sleep and stabbed her, like he always does. I know, like that there's a problem always trying to. Yeah, he has a problem with that, like he almost did that to your, to your girl my girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he almost said that to my girl. Guys, thank you so much for listening to us here. Uh, for our 84th episode covering the acolyte, um, we're very I mean sorry the wolverine the wolverine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's actually what we covered, guys. Thank you so much for listening to us here. Uh, we enjoy uh talking. We enjoyed talking about, uh, the stuff we love and the stuff we don't love very much. But, uh, next week I have a feeling, we have feeling we will enjoy the conversation quite a bit, just like we enjoyed the conversation today and we're going to be covering X-Men Days of Future Past, right, like that is the next one.
Speaker 2:Day Days of Past Futures.
Speaker 1:Hold on, let me just double check List of I think you're right. X-men movies in release order. I think you're right X-Men movies in release order, because that's what we're going by.
Speaker 2:And I think after that we get our first Deadpool movie.
Speaker 1:Dude yes, yeah, so it's the Wolverine. Then X-Men Days of Future Past and then Deadpool.
Speaker 2:We can finally talk about Deadpool.
Speaker 1:The actual Deadpool, not just the guy who got his mouth sewn shut.
Speaker 2:Same actor, though.
Speaker 1:In a surprising turn of events turns out, he did turn out to be a great Wade Wilson and or Deadpool Guys. Thank you so much. Please be sure to find all links to our show notes. Wait, not our show notes. Our socials in the show notes, whether that be for the podcast itself or our personal socials, whether it be youtube, tiktok. Not, we're not on tiktok, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I don't know I'm it's, it's late, I'm. I'm struggling here. I'm losing the plot.
Speaker 1:We're. We're on. We're on twitter, we're on youtube, you're on twitch. You can find us. You can go to the show notes down below you'll.
Speaker 2:You'll see the links to the show notes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and maybe you will find a link to the utini star wars timeline down there. Guys, anthony, any final thoughts on the wolverine?
Speaker 2:yes, I give it. I give it two thumbs up because I actually enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:I give it two thumbs up as well, and you know I'm also raising my toe thumb, my big toe. Three Yep, All right guys, have a good one. Bye the Wolverine.
