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
Dark Phoenix (2019)
What if the X-Men movies you've skipped over actually held some surprising gems? In our milestone 90th episode of Project Geekology, we promise to change your perspective on "Dark Phoenix," a film often dismissed but ripe for rediscovery. Anthony and Dakota dive into Dakota's fresh viewing experience and explore how this movie fits into the broader X-Men franchise tapestry, especially against the backdrop of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's dominance.
You'll gain a newfound appreciation for Jean Grey as we unravel her complex powers and traumatic origins. From her formative car accident in 1975 to the pivotal reveals orchestrated by Professor Xavier, we walk you through the emotional and narrative highs and lows. We also shed light on Mystique's brief yet impactful role, her death acting as the catalyst for Magneto's gripping involvement. The depth of these character arcs and their struggles with identity and power are what make the X-Men series uniquely compelling, even amidst its notorious continuity issues.
Lastly, we're setting the stage for our next episode on "New Mutants" with a teaser that will leave you eager for more. As always, we encourage you to connect with us on social media and leave a review to share your thoughts. Your support keeps our geeky discussions alive and thriving. Don't miss out on this engaging conversation that promises to change the way you view "Dark Phoenix" and perhaps the entire X-Men franchise!
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
Every Time THE ACOLYTE Broke Canon (...or didn’t?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL1C_OWrp5c&t
Twitch (Anthony):
https://www.twitch.tv/odysseywow
Welcome to episode 90 of Project Geekology. This is the episode where the Phoenix Force resides. I am one half of your host, Anthony, and joining me as always is Dakota.
Speaker 2:We are a nonagenarian podcast. At this point, we have made it to 90 episodes, 90, like whole episodes. There have been several, quite a few actually minisodes that we've, you know, injected into our stream, uh, over the the course of the past couple years, but 90 official full-length episodes. This is it, guys. We are going no further with this podcast.
Speaker 1:This is the final episode, just kidding why would we go to 100 when we can stop at 90?
Speaker 2:why would we go to 91 if we can make it to 90? No uh, we're excited to keep going out to this, but obviously we're covering x-men, dark phoenix, as the title of this podcast suggests. My name is dakota you you already met anthony. We are really excited to talk about this podcast Well, the movie anyway, because we are also excited to talk about the podcast. As we always are. But anyway, the movie. I have never seen this before until this, like a couple days ago at this point.
Speaker 1:You are fresh.
Speaker 2:I'm fresh to death with this particular movie, so I'm really excited to jump into the discussion of Dark Phoenix, because I've got a lot to say and at the same time I've got very little to say. So we'll see where that lands us.
Speaker 1:That lands us in the middle with a medium amount of things to say yeah man, what have you been up to? No, we recorded last week. We recorded last week. I felt like it's been a while since we recorded.
Speaker 2:We did record last week. It was just we were trying to make it in time for an episode release of last week, so we decided to just kind of like push it to this current week so to get our schedule back in order. Uh, but our schedule is back in order. We are recording and we're ready to get an episode out weekly at this point for the foreseeable future, until dakota decides it's time to go to orlando again, and then that just screws everything up all the time?
Speaker 1:no, but we usually try to get a couple episodes recorded before then. But you know, and then I try to sneak in a little bit of a mini-show.
Speaker 2:So, as far as what I've been up to, I've been really deep into the Avatar Roku book. As of recording, I have like less than an hour left of the audiobook, which I'm really excited about. It's been a really interesting read for me. It's it's been a really interesting read for me. As of this point, the avatar roku book has, specifically the reckoning of roku has been a really fascinating story because it sets up the major players that will eventually lead into the era of avatar angang.
Speaker 2:You have Sozin, you have Roku, you have Gyatso, you have all these characters that impact Aang in such a huge fundamental way as young people and you're trying to figure out what is going to build up to this moment where you know the Fire Nation attacks. I'm really loving it. It's such a cool introduction to, to roku's era and all that. But uh, yeah, definitely check it out. Uh, the reckoning of roku. It's the fifth book in the chronicles of the avatar series. Um, previously they've done two kyoshi books and then they did two young chen books. This is, you know, the first roku novel, sweet yeah, there there's I.
Speaker 1:I really want to dive in into some of the expanded avatar stuff, considering, considering the fact that it is one of or I I mean I've said it a bunch of times that it is like my favorite cartoon, especially during that period of time it was, and it just like, really like captured me, so I really want to hop into that extra stuff what's cool about it is that there's not a whole lot.
Speaker 2:You know it may look like a whole lot but, you know, compared to the amount of stuff that star wars has published in the same time frame of, say, 10 years or so, and it's not even like a tenth of what star wars has published. So the the avatar series is very like. There's five novels and I'm looking over at my bookshelf there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight graphic novel series and like a short story or short comic collection series that exists within the avatar universe. It's definitely a readable, readable series, um, and what's cool about it is that it adds to the universe in meaningful ways. Every time that I've like dived into it sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I need to hop into that. I'm still kind of like working my way through the rising storm. Uh, sometimes, like I want to. Sometimes it's tough for me to like get to like read because I have all this other stuff that I'm doing. But sometimes when I do have the chance, I and even like when I'm like laying down to like kind of unwind for the evening, I'll kind of pop that on instead of like maybe watching something and, um, I've been enjoying it. So far it's, it's good. I I'd love to cover that, that book, at some point with you. I mean, we've done lie the jedi, so we might as well go with the second in this, you know, in this series.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the rising storm is fantastic. I would actually, in terms of how much I enjoyed it, I would edge it a little above light of the jedi in term. In those terms, though, if I'm actually like trying to think about, like the books as a whole, I would probably say light of the jedi is the stronger of the of the books, if that makes sense. I don't know it's. It's a little bit difficult to explain. Um, as far as, uh, other stuff that I've been into or doing, I released my latest video, which is called. Every time the acolyte broke canon and in parentheses, dot dot, dot or didn't question mark um, and it's basically I saw that thumbnail.
Speaker 2:It's hilarious, it's yeah so I, I basically I I went to like the fandom menace or like the the very negative side of star wars youtubers. I looked at a bunch of their thumbnails. I got like I decided I was going to take a little bit from every one of them and I made a thumbnail that's like really ridiculous and totally not my usual thumbnail to kind of make it clickbaity for people who would normally click that kind of stuff. And I've gotten a lot of comments from people who would normally click that kind of stuff, which is kind of been. It's been fun. To be honest, I like that.
Speaker 2:I've kind of trolled a little bit of that side of the fandom. I like that. I've kind of trolled a little bit of that side of the fandom. But yeah, so the video itself is 20 examples of people claiming that the Acolyte breaks canon or lore and me explaining that actually no, it doesn't, because X, y and Z People just jump to crazy conclusions throughout the entirety of the acolyte because they had a preconceived notion that it must break lore, because it was created by people who believe different ideology than me or whatever. I don't really understand it, but I did make a video about it and people seem to like it, so I'm I'm happy about that uh, it was shots fired.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we'll, we'll put that video in the show notes for this episode so that if y'all haven't watched it by the time you're listening to this episode, you can go check that out. So that'll, that'll be interesting. I haven't gotten around to watching it yet, but I have seen some of the buzz around it so I do want to watch it because it is pretty funny that you're kind of poking fun at I'm. So star wars theory is like one of the, the people that I that I noticed that like, and sometimes this stuff is really good, but I have noticed that he's been a little like. I don't want to like be a, I don't want to attack, but sometimes he's been a little whiny lately.
Speaker 2:So yeah it. It really stemmed a couple years ago when he decided that, like he wasn't invited to star wars celebration and he assumed that other creators were because of their like the I guess they're more positive towards star wars. So he believes that they were invited to star Wars Celebration when he wasn't and really it boiled down to they bought tickets and he didn't and he assumes that they were invited and he wasn't. And since then I've noticed that he's been extremely negative towards Lucasfilm. He's been extremely negative towards Star Wars, new Star Wars, especially stuff that he has already preordained to dislike. You know the, the new game that's coming out, star Wars Outlaws.
Speaker 2:Some people have already written it off as woke and he is one of them. He's already. You know he's made videos about how he thinks the game looks bad. I fully expect when that comes out it's just more fodder for him to. You know chew on. You know like that's. That's just the brand that he has decided to make content for. I touch a little bit about that on in my video, not necessarily the history of like, why he is what he is nowadays. I I really respect what he grew to become, I guess. Guess I liked his older stuff a lot.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:His later stuff, or his more recent stuff, has been quite a bit negative and overly critical, and I break down a bunch of his criticisms that don't make too much sense when it comes to the accolade in my latest video. So he definitely takes center stage in terms of you know, the people making random claims that I disagree with that just are baseless, you know, like so that that was the point of the video well, I'm I'm definitely looking forward to to looking at that I know and I know it's not just him, it's like other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's there's quite a few people that I I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to poke fun at, but, like I, am trying to show people that these, these individuals are either lying to you or are willfully ignorant you know that was what I was trying to get at and I I think for the most part I got that across um right and we'll we'll probably talk a bit more about this when we actually do have our episode where we cover the acolyte, which I think is I think we're going to be doing that in a couple episodes, right like we have new mutants and then I think we're going to do acolyte to kind of that'll kind of break, give a little bit of a break from all the the X-Men stuff before we cover Deadpool Wolverine. We want to kind of give the listeners a little bit more time before we have a discussion on Deadpool Wolverine, because you know we're and we're going to say it until then that one's going to be like full throttle on on spoilers.
Speaker 1:I mean it's just hard not to talk about a movie like that without spoiling it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's nothing, it's all spoilers. That's pretty much the entire movie, yeah what did you think about this cameo character? Well, that's a spoiler, anthony. What have you been up to?
Speaker 1:you know not not a crazy a bunch really I've been. You know I watched this bit mostly to cover this. It's been a while since I've seen dark phoenix, but I've done a lot of of gaming. I got the tail end of marvel rivals and for the most part I enjoyed marvel rivals, the, that, the, the closed beta, for that it's not perfect. There's a lot that they could work on it.
Speaker 1:I do kind of I do kind of wish that they weren't really trying to chase too much of the or the coattails of of overwatch, because overwatch is kind of in a precarious spot, because while I love overwatch and love a lot of people still love overwatch. It's kind of lost its way a little bit with some of the fans and I'm thinking, like you know, I I understand the inspiration, but maybe innovate a little bit which they have. There is some innovation there. They added some destructible environments, which I I really liked. I thought that that was cool, and the fact that it's third person rather than first person. So I'm excited to see who else they add. I mean, they have such, there's such a large group of heroes that they can pull from and they've already shown that they're not afraid to take, you know, a deep cut. You know Like they have Lunauna snow in there and luna snow is not really like a huge or like a widely known character yeah, that's jeff, also the land shark they added you mentioned jeff last week.
Speaker 2:I wanted to right just touch on that, like that was. One of the first things I noticed about the game was that there's so many marvel characters that they're not willing to take or they are willing. They're not willing to take or they are willing and they are willing to take deep cuts, like F-tier characters, like Jaff or Luna Snow, you know, like characters that have maybe been in 10 comics before. You know, like it's kind of cool that they can just pull from any of these individuals and, you know, add them to this list of playable characters.
Speaker 1:I think that's cool so yeah, for for the most part it it's, it's been that. Yeah, man, just you know, watching this, getting that last bit of marvel rivals and um, prepping for episode 90 90, how did we ever get here by? Uh, didn't. Didn't you say that seven is usually the stopping point? I think it's seven or eight.
Speaker 2:I think it's eight episodes is like the episode to beat for most podcasts. Most podcasts do not make it past episode seven or eight.
Speaker 1:So we're 82 episodes deep Past. That point I'm proud of it Absolutely Big time.
Speaker 2:We've made it to the big time. We've got seven listeners and 90 episodes. Let's get it, guys.
Speaker 1:You know. But, like we said, we mostly enjoy it because it gives us a chance to kind of get together weekly and kind of chat and catch up and, you know know, talk about cool stuff, and it gives me a chance to go back to watch things that I hardly ever watch, which, now that we're at that point, shall we hop into dark phoenix? I think we shall. What were your over? What were your overall thoughts so far? Or I guess we usually end with that, but, like you want to hear.
Speaker 2:You want to hear what I thought about.
Speaker 2:Yeah dark phoenix is a first-time viewer so I have been kind of. X-men is interesting because it was the. These last few movies, pretty much starting with apocalypse and ending in new mutants, were releasing at a time where the MCU was at its peak. These movies were winding down. Everyone knew that they were going away. You know, like these group of individuals were no longer going to be playing these characters for long.
Speaker 2:So at this point I was mentally checked out, you know, even by X-Men Apocalypse I think I was already like you know, eventually Marvel's going to get the rights to these characters. I don't necessarily care, and I didn't at the time, and I regret that because there was. You know, watching X-Men Apocalypse for the first time was not an unpleasant experience, you know, like there was some really crazy stuff in there. It was a crazy movie at times but it was fun. It's good fun and the X-Men are always characters that elicit hope and joy and I really like that about the X-Men. So when I had heard that most people disliked Dark Phoenix and then most people definitely disliked New Mutants, I wasn't really interested in catching up. At that point Marvel had already bought the Fox brand or Disney had already bought the Fox brand and it was kind of a foregone conclusion that Marvel would subsume all of the X-Men rights in the long run. So it no longer mattered to me, I didn't care about any of that.
Speaker 2:So I had heard a couple things about it. I was just like, wow, that sounds terrible. Wow, okay, there's like an alien race that comes down but're not the shiar all right, that's terrible. Okay, they're kind of shapeshifters, but they're not scroll. Okay, that sounds terrible. You know, there was a bunch of stuff that like I heard about the movie and I was just like don't really ever care to see it. You know, like I was okay with that. I was happy to never see the dark, dark phoenix. I watched dark phoenix recently and I believe it or not enjoyed it. You know, for the most part I enjoyed my time with x-men dark phoenix. I think it's a simple enough movie with a cool enough premise that, while maybe not memorable, is still really enjoyable on a base level. You know, like, if you don't put any faith in this series going forward which I don't, because these characters don't move on past this movie, you know New Mutants is entirely new cast. This is the last time this particular group of people will ever be in a movie.
Speaker 1:Unless the MCU decides to do some sort of multiverse thing that brings them in the last time these, this, this particular group of people, will ever be in a movie, unless the mcu decides to do some sort of multiverse thing that brings them in sure, yeah, but that's not a guarantee that's not a guarantee and it won't be the same ultimately, because right right it'd be.
Speaker 2:It's not going to be fox, it would be disney's mcu type thing right, exactly so it would have a different feel from the get-go like you would know that there it would.
Speaker 2:There's a higher possibility of being it a bit more refined than it was towards the end of this, towards a fox's run yeah, I, yeah, I would hope so, anyway, I would hope so yeah, well, I mean, we know how the mcu is, so yeah, but then again there there was a level of unrefinement when it came to deadpool and wolverine, when it came to like its timeline stuff that I don't need to talk about in this episode. But, um, it's, it's. It was kind of like it took the x, it took the mcu's rules and kind of injected fox logic into it. That's pretty much what deadpool and wolverine did to that movie. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. I have little to no qualms with that. But um, yeah, that's kind of what I expect to see if ever these characters are brought into the mcu but anyway yeah, like I, I for the most part really enjoyed just the, the fun of these characters, and I think I was.
Speaker 2:I was worried about how they would adapt the dark phoenix story. And I will say because I, you know, I've, I've read, I've read that comic, I've read, I've listened to the audiobook like dramatization that they made a couple years back and it's a really, really strong run of comics by Chris Claremont for the Uncanny X-Men and I'm not disappointed in the way that this was adapted. If anything, it's a very watereded down version of that comic book run, like they kind of took everything that happens in that comic book run, just pulled at the weeds, you know, rinsed it down heavily and kind of made a copy of it and that's kind. This is kind of what that is. You know, remember in school when you'd put your paper onto some raised surface and you'd rub either a graphite pencil or a colored pencil over it and you'd come out with an image?
Speaker 2:That's kind of what happened here it's watered down, it's stripped of all its parts and then it's copied over with a graphite pencil. That's kind of what this feels like. The base parts of the Dark Phoenix story are in this movie and that's fine, because they take that their own direction, if that makes sense. You know, you have an alien race, you have Jean Grey coming into contact with the Phoenix Force and you have her kind of lose it. You know that's. That's basically the the essentials for the Dark Phoenix saga. It's not like a perfect one to one, but it's. It's still cool and it's still there.
Speaker 1:You know it's still cool and it's still there. You know, right, right, like for the most part. How she comes into contact with the Phoenix Force is, for the most part, like intact. Like you know, in the comics it happens in space. In this movie it happens in space. Stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's pretty much what came about with this. So was I a happy x-men fan? I think I was happy to be back in the world of x-men movies, if that makes sense. You know like it's a different type of happiness that like x-men can provide because, like the x-men comics are so good, like they, they are like the best marvel comics for the most part. The x-men and the spider-Men comics are so good they are the best Marvel comics for the most part. The X-Men and the Spider-Man runs are generally the strongest of Marvel's runs, and the Chris Claremont run in the early 90s and late 80s, if I believe I think it was early 90s it just kind of defined the team that we know today. So anyway, dark Phoenix this is my first time watching. I mostly enjoyed it. What about you? This is not your first time watching. How?
Speaker 1:did you feel right? So it had been a while. I I think I saw it in theaters so for the most part I had forgotten a lot of it. There was like maybe some bits and pieces that I remember happening, but I mean, overall, I do think that it was a pretty like. I did enjoy the film, like you said, but a lot of it is like forgettable to me.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, Like what? What in particular do you feel like you know, if we waited another week you wouldn't be able to even remember?
Speaker 1:Maybe some of the I would say maybe some of the odds and ends, like I would kind of remember the villains, but like the villains were not as imposing, like the villains in this movie felt like a monster of the week in a TV show rather than the villains of a movie.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I could see. Okay, yeah, I could see that, I could see that. So let's talk a little bit about the plot for those of you who haven't seen this in a while, and or at all, or at all.
Speaker 2:Like you, like me yeah, and if you don't have any interest in watching x-men, dark phoenix, have no fear. I have sat where you're sitting and I am going to tell you why or what happens in this movie and whether or not you should watch it. I think you should watch it. I I don't think it's a bad movie, you know, and if you think that it's going to be bad, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. So the the actual gist of the movie. It kind of stems from there. There's several sides of it but, like the, the main story when it comes to jean gray is in uh 1975. She is developing her powers. She's eight years old, she's in the back seat of uh her family's car and she's changing the radio station in her like with her mind um, because she can't stand the old-timey music that her parents are listening to.
Speaker 1:And but I don't think she realizes that she is yeah, it's. It's hard to tell right, right, like it's hard to tell, like if she realizes that she is. Because it was very confusing in this this time, because her mother seemed to think that it was her, as if like maybe there's been instances or maybe that they kind of know that she's got something going on, but then also, like gene genuinely seemed like she was like no, it's not me doing this yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's a really good point actually, because there is later in the film. You know I don't want to jump too much forward, but like when we meet up with her father again in the future, he or we learn that he understood that it was her who eventually made the car accident happen, because she basically like quieted not only the the radio station but like her mother's thoughts at that time, which caused her mother's steering to go right into a truck and the car that they were in flipped over. So the father knew somehow that this was definitely Jean Grey's doing.
Speaker 2:So my guess is that this is not the first instance of her using her powers to her parents detriment, if that makes sense of her using her powers to her parents detriment, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's just like, yeah, that at that point in time it was very confusing, but yeah, I, yeah, yeah, yeah it, I don't know. There's a sign like there's just parts of this movie that didn't add up were, for the most part, yeah, like kind of forgettable, like some of those, like those details.
Speaker 2:Speaking of forgettable details, professor Xavier shows up and, conveniently, a lot of the specific details about what happened with that car accident with her parents are erased from a young Jean Grey's mind and that's partially by design from her father, who is still alive but she believes is dead because, uh, xavier has wiped these memories from her mind. Yeah, I don't think the film ever suggests that the father told xavier to make her forget about me, but it's clear that the father has no desire to move forward with any relationship with his daughter, jane gray. So xavier takes it upon himself to essentially cut her off from her father because there's no goodwill coming from that direction, if that makes sense. What do you feel about that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, like there was that, there was that fear that he had. I mean, I, I understand that, I do understand where Xavier is coming from, but I mean, a good bit of this could have probably been avoided had he been upfront at some point in her life, like, hey, I just want to let you know, and like he would be able to let you know, and like he would be able to, you know, he can connect with gene in a way that, like some of these other x-men can't, like he could show her telepathically, like you know. Hey, this is the reasoning. You know why. You know I did this.
Speaker 1:I just kind of wanted you to kind of get over this a little bit. But look, look, I'm opening up to you right now. I just want to let you know this is the truth, because, like dude it just you know, she finds out like that he lied to her, and then it's like, okay, well, what else is being lied to me? And then she goes and confronts her dad and then that becomes a whole ordeal and a lot happens, know she?
Speaker 2:you know, in this movie, for a lot of this movie she's like the antagonist, you know yeah, it's a really interesting, uh dynamic shift from previous iterations of the gene gray character another character, but we know that there's like dark phoenix.
Speaker 1:You know we know that there are those villainous tendencies, uh like from the comics and stuff. So it does kind of tap into that, sure, yeah, like we, we know what's coming, I guess.
Speaker 2:uh, we also get jennifer lawrence as mystique back for about five minutes five to ten minutes, something like that. It's almost as if, like she didn't want to be involved with these movies anymore and she just like write me out and they gave.
Speaker 1:Wait, who who was?
Speaker 2:it Mystique, jennifer Lawrence's Mystique.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:She had a semi-strong little.
Speaker 2:I mean, the whole plot revolves around her for the most part, especially when it comes to Magneto's time in the movie.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so Jean Grey, after becoming infused with the Phoenix Force, kind of just goes crazy. She explodes with power and after being checked out by Beast she kind of just leaves the mansion and goes to Find out the truth about her father, which basically the father didn't Want her or love her, had no pictures of her in the house and it was a whole Debacle. Mystique shows up, tries to get her to see reason and In a Fit of rage, and you know, just like untapped power, you know she, she doesn't know her strength at this point um jingrei pushes her mentally and she's like impaled on a picket fence and that's kind of the catalyst for how magneto eventually gets involved in in all this. But I thought that that scene was interesting because you know we're less than 25 minutes into the movie and you've already killed off probably one of the probably your biggest star at the time, uh, and jennifer lawrence and I have a feeling you have, james mcavoy and I mean Sophie Turner had established herself at least a bit through.
Speaker 2:Game of Thrones, yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, jennifer Lawrence, I think yeah, at that point she was coming off of the performances of the Hunger Games series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so she was huge, and so was the action movies James McAvoy wait, james macaboy was in the hunker games no, no, no, like that.
Speaker 1:He's in the. He's been in these x-men films and he's in this too.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yeah uh, yeah, james macaboy, michael fassbender, these are, these are all huge actors but I think, in terms of just like star power on, like the, the ballot, like I think jennifer lawrence is probably the strong, like the largest actor, uh, on the set, but anyway, for whatever reason she's, she's killed off pretty quickly and that becomes a catalyst for other characters to get involved. You know, jean gray like races off to try and understand how magneto has changed his life around and I thought that that was interesting. So Magneto has kind of created a compound of mutants where they have some sort of immunity from the other world governments, you know, like they aren't beholden to, I'm assuming, the US government, because the US government does eventually show up at some point, and I thought that that was a really cool little story or story beat for Magneto. But I would have liked to have learned more about what that was when that happened, who these people are, what their goal is.
Speaker 1:I would like to know anything. It was almost like a pre-Brotherhood of Mutants in a way, but maybe before the whole crusade for mutants.
Speaker 2:You mentioned Sophie Turner. I wanted to just briefly mention that I feel like one of the issues that I had going into this was that I was worried that I wouldn't feel like she was a good jean gray. But you know, by the time that she shows up at magneto's little pre-brotherhood mutant slayer like I've 100 sold on. Uh, sophie turner's jean gray. I think she did a fantastic job throughout the movie and she has the look of Phoenix, like the close-ups of her face where, like they have like the almost like the power coursing through her veins in her face really cool effect, really cool um thing to look at and she's, she's pretty, so it's not an unpleasant, you know, face to have on screen.
Speaker 2:But yes, sophie Turner did a fantastic job as Jean Grey and Phoenix. I think she really killed it and I didn't hear a trace of her accent at all, so I thought that was cool.
Speaker 1:You didn't see Sansa.
Speaker 2:I didn't see Sansa Stark whining about Joffrey.
Speaker 1:What were your thoughts of the villains of this movie? Because, like you know, I had to kind of I said my piece a little bit how I didn't feel like there were I mean, they weren't terrible villains, but I didn't feel like they were movie villains. They kind of felt like I don't know, like lackeys to a bigger villain, if that makes sense yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 2:So the villains, if I remember correctly, go nameless. Wait, I feel like that's not true. No, I think that they do name themselves, but it's such a random like it's like two or three syllables that don't really translate to anything Marvel related. So, like I didn't, I didn't just kind of brushed it off in my mind, but it sounded it's similar to Shi'ar. If that makes sense, I'm going to look it up really quick.
Speaker 2:Okay, so instead of the Shi'ar they are the Dabari D, apostrophe B-A-R-I, d-b-a-r-i, and I think ultimately they were trying to take the concept of the Shi'ar Empire, which is like a big alien humanoid race in the X-Men series that is prominent during this saga and also is a big part of Professor Xavier's arc as a character. If you've seen the X-Men animated series, you'll know that they have a huge part in that. So I think that they took a little bit of that empire and their history in regards to the Phoenix Force and incorporated that into basically the scrolls which I believe, if I remember correctly, they were trying to use the term Skrulls in this movie but they couldn't because of copyright, so they basically got watered down into the Dabari or whatever.
Speaker 2:So, they have the basic properties of Skrull, where they can shapeshift and all that, but they're just kind of like not anything besides like an amalgamation of just like evil aliens who shapeshift for some reason and want power, which is fine, you know it's.
Speaker 1:It's evil for evil's sake right, right, like they wanted that phoenix force power, because they were like actively chasing down gene gray throughout this film, like looking for that power they eventually come and find gene gray before the rest of the cast do, before you know, uh, magneto and his crew and xavier and his crew find gene gray all the crews all the crews.
Speaker 2:The alien crew came first. You know they. They found jingray and they were like yo, we've been looking for this power for ages. Why don't you give us a little bit? And then you know, jingray is like hook us up, got you fam and I got you fam started like siphoning power into uh whatever uh jessica chastain's character's name was, and um. Meanwhile, like you have xavier's crew and magneto's crew just battling it outside on like new york street, you know like right outside of central f or central park and um see.
Speaker 1:See, that's like one of the parts that I've kind of fairly remembered. Like I remember there being a battle, but I didn't remember who it was between, and like I was thinking, and I remember jean gray doing a lot of the fighting it's so crazy, like, how much of a blur it was until I watched the movie and then, like when I filled it in, I was like, oh, like there's a lot of this fight that I just like kind of like got really mixed up yeah, I, I don't blame you, because it's a very confusing fight, because it it's like friends turned enemies until enemies are turned friends and then everyone's on the same side and then they kind of walk away at the end.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's a little, it's just X-Men logic. One thing that I have to say is that the ages of characters in these four movies when it comes to First Class, days of Future Past, x-men, apocalypse and now Dark Phoenix these movies take place 40 years apart. X-men, first Class, takes place in 63. Days of Future Past takes place in 73, apocalypse is 83 and now dark phoenix is 92, if I remember correctly, because they had that endeavor flight which was in like 92. So these movies are 10 or 30 years apart. Yeah, so they're, you know, but like sophie turner and ty sheridan look no different than they did a decade ago. Same as same with storm and then fassbender and mcavoy yeah, fassbender and mcavoy have barely aged a day.
Speaker 2:You know. They've maybe aged a single decade in the past, like three decades.
Speaker 1:And you said that was it. Apocalypse is 1983?. Yeah, events of so between, was it? Uh? The whole car crash with with uh gene gray was in 1975, which?
Speaker 2:means that that was about eight years later, so she was around, was she like?
Speaker 1:was she like seven, eight?
Speaker 2:she was eight when the car crashed, so she would either be 15 or 16 in 1983 okay, so it's a little bit believable that is believable, yeah, so. So now she would be in her mid to late 20s mid 20s.
Speaker 1:So maybe I mean they could probably get away with that, but the james mcavoy and michael fastbender thing's a little bit harder and I know that they've mentioned with like like Jennifer Lawrence specifically, that like she ages slowly, like that's like canonically how she.
Speaker 2:You know she's okay.
Speaker 1:I give her the pass. She, like some of them, can get it, but like dude, come on. Michael Fassbender, as a Magneto and Professor X's powers are not slow aging.
Speaker 2:Also I like how Nightcrawler still looks like a teenager in this movie.
Speaker 1:He doesn't look emo in this one as much, but he somehow looks younger.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's possible. He's aging backwards. Anyway, that's something. I just have an issue with these movies in general, just because, like, what is the reason behind setting them a decade apart? Besides, you know, you're leading up to the x-men trilogy that obviously has a different chronology altogether. Like, what is the point here?
Speaker 2:anyway, dude yeah, it's, it's. It's a little backwards, but you know, I really did like that. You know like when jean gray came to magneto's island and she's trying to get his advice about like how to stop killing, and he's just like you know, you just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And then he's just like wait, where'd that blood come from? And she's like nothing, like where'd the blood come from? And she's just like I don't remember. And then you know like, eventually, like she just kind of like leaves, and then afterwards he finds out that it was Raven or Mystique and he goes ballistic.
Speaker 1:Right, right, he goes on like a warpath.
Speaker 2:He goes like he, he's gonna tear down. I just wonder what would have happened if gene gray had said that it was raven in the moment. You know, like, without hiding that information, like I did something terrible, I killed raven. What do I do? Would he have given her leniency for telling the truth and being honest in that moment? Or would that be, you know, just like? Would would it be kind of like when his family died in apocalypse and he, you know, killed all those policemen in that one scene?
Speaker 1:yeah, I feel like, I feel like magneto would have thrown down. I really think he would have fought yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, um, I um about that scene that before she leaves the compound. I really do think that was. That was a bit of a cool scene, the like kind of the, the match-up of powers between magneto and jean gray where, like she's like trying to take down this helicopter and, in a weird thing for magneto to do, he's actually trying to protect these people and right. So she's like, you know he's struggling with the, this power that she has, you know she's using and and, mind you, this man is like the master of magnetism, like metal. He has the straight up command over metal. So the fact that like he's being edged out over this extremely strong telekinesis was it was interesting to see and yeah, I mean when it comes to like power levels in the x-men universe.
Speaker 2:That's a really fascinating thing, because um magneto is an omega level mutant. Like he is the greatest ever mutant to ever manipulate metal. You know, like that is his, that is the apex of that branch of mutation. Like he is the greatest in that. In that term jean gray is the greatest in in her field of telekinesis and stuff like that. So with the added phoenix force she's essentially more than an omega level mutant. You know, like she's. She's just she's edged above that and that's before she even unleashes it. You know, like that's, that's just like the raw power being like uh, amplified by uh, the, the phoenix in her subconscious. It's crazy, like she's. She's easily one of the strongest characters in marvel yeah, that that was.
Speaker 1:That was a pretty insane scene.
Speaker 2:And then we get to, so I thought I thought for sure that all of those people in the helicopter were just gonna get crushed. Like I thought like there's no way that these guys are making it out like magneto's gonna help them, like magneto's gonna tell all of these people to get into the helicopter and she's just gonna squash it, or something like that's what I thought was gonna happen. I'm happy that didn't happen.
Speaker 1:But like, but it was funny what he did.
Speaker 2:He kind of yeeted the helicopter, yeah, yeah I'm pretty sure the helicopter crashed anyway, like most helicopters cannot like balance out from that. Like you know how often helicopters crash like it's a very common it's's like the least safe way to travel and imagine being yeeted several football fields away. The helicopter's done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not hopping on any of those anytime soon. So Jean Grey does eventually get caught by these aliens, the Dabari, and so the, the peeps. They go to save her and we get this like throw down on this train what's the lowdown on the throwdown, anthony?
Speaker 2:what do you? What do you say about the train?
Speaker 1:the train fight was interesting because it goes from like like everybody's kind of trying to to like kind of track down and stop, or like defeat or or kill gene gray to like trying to save her because before, because, uh, charles xavier is convinced that there's still good in her and he sees it, and so, yeah, we get this like throw down. Oh wait, no, it wasn't the aliens that that, um, captured her, was it?
Speaker 2:it was the, the government no, it was the government, but the aliens aliens were they were attacking the the train right, right, right, right, right.
Speaker 1:So dude see, yeah, another week from now.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't, even week from now, you would not be able to discuss this movie Dude seriously.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, no, them aliens were like throwing down on those soldiers, like they were taking no damage from those guns at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, the entire time time the x-men, uh all mutants on the on the train, were uh given like power restraints, so like yeah they could not use their abilities.
Speaker 2:But they were telling the guards like dude, let us, let us have adam, because we will uh help you out. And eventually, uh, the one guy in the beginning uh of of that sequence who had claimed that you know, like my son's a big fan of you when he talks to nightcrawler, he kind of like agrees that it's better to have the mutants on your side in this moment than to just, you know, all be dead because of some aliens who are trying to get at the phoenix force yeah but anyway, uh, I thought it was a pretty cool fight scene overall.
Speaker 2:I I think that there were some pretty cool set pieces and I like that the jessica chastain's like alien character got her comeuppance in, in the sense that like she got exactly what she wanted, but it was too much for her to handle anyway, like she didn't have the ability to withhold the phoenix force inside her. Sorry, there's a siren going off in the background.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you can hear that yeah, I've heard it, like I've been hearing it for a good little while maybe now you're good. So, like I know that you say, you know that, that you did enjoy it, but you know now that we're kind of coming towards the end of this episode overall, what are your feelings, your thoughts? Um, would you even recommend this movie? Um, at least like a one-time watch if you haven't seen it before, or like maybe a periodic watch, because obviously some people can't remember things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anthony, why don't you remember things? No, I know for his podcast.
Speaker 1:But we're supposed to be doing a podcast. I can't remember nothing.
Speaker 2:Oh, man, Uh, at least it's better than like when we first started doing like what have you been up to this past week? And then you're like I don't remember anything I did this week. Long gone are those days.
Speaker 1:Your memory has gotten a little bit better.
Speaker 2:So when it comes to my ultimate, I don't know about my ultimate, but my final thoughts on this is I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the performances. For the most part, I thought the villains were weak, but good enough, intention wise, to get me on board with the hero's plight, I guess, and I felt that sophie turner really did a fantastic job of emulating a jean gray in extreme turmoil and I I wish that she had more of these movies to explore, because she was barely in, uh, apocalypse, like she was not one of the main characters by any stretch of the imagination right, right, I mean she had some decent moments in it, but especially at the end, agree, yeah, especially at the end and and ty sheridan did a really good job as uh cyclops.
Speaker 2:I was really pleasantly surprised by that as well. So ultimately, I think that there are there is definitely some really strong points in this movie that x-men fans would enjoy. You know, I I think that if you are an x-men fan and you're not expecting a mcu movie, you will enjoy this movie. Like anthony said, it does have its forgettable moments, but in the moment, while you're having your popcorn, whatever, you're gonna enjoy this movie the ride that it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I I would. I would agree that you know, there are some enjoyable moments which, like for the most part, I would say every, every x-men movie in the fox run has had its enjoyable moments, whether it was a good film or a bad film, and I feel like you might. I feel like that you might share that same sentiment with the next film too, because I do feel like new mutants has some likable moments to it also, even though it's not you know, it's not a strong film. I I do believe. Oh man, you know, but that's remain it there, remains to be seen. You still have to watch it. So I want you to to develop your own feelings on it. I have my own feelings. I don't hate it as much as other people do, but still I think that it it'll be interesting to end off this one, almost end off this fox run. Well, actually end this fox run because it is the last. Uh, the new mutants will be the last of the actual fox films that that we're covering. So correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dark phoenix and new mutants technically were released under disney's ownership of the company, but they were produced under fox's ownership right, right before the completion of yeah, so of all that, so new mutants is kind of we'll see. I have no idea.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say anything about nimueons because, right, absolutely because yeah you came into dark phoenix expecting me to completely hate it, but you didn't come out of it feeling that way. So yeah, could be the same. There we go, guys.
Speaker 2:So yeah guys, thank you so much for listening to us here for our 90th episode. If you'd like to check out any of our other stuff, please uh check out any of our other podcasts. Uh, we have 90 of them, as I've said, plus a couple minisodes, uh, scattered about throughout them, and, yeah, we're excited to touch on new mutants next week. Uh, if you would like to check out any of our socials, please see, uh, our show notes. Down below you'll, you'll find links to our Twitter accounts, our Instagram accounts, our YouTube, et cetera, and you'll find a link to that video I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:And give us a five-star juicy review and share it with your peeps.
Speaker 2:Should they give us a juicy five-star review or a five-star juicy review?
Speaker 1:a juicy fruit five-star review.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, anthony, I really do, I really do, guys, thank you so much. Have a good one bye y'all the wolverine.
