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
New Mutants (2020)
Ever wondered how a world partially crafted by George R.R. Martin would translate into a gaming experience? Anthony takes us on a journey through his harrowing adventures in "Elden Ring," battling fearsome foes and navigating an intricate lore-packed universe. We also reflect on the heartfelt feedback we received from our Lilo and Stitch episode, especially from our enthusiastic listeners in France. Plus, Dakota finally got around to watching "New Mutants," the final installment in the Fox X-Men series, and let's just say it sparked some lively discussions.
Disney fans, brace yourselves! The recent D23 announcements are nothing short of exhilarating. From a new Cars Land and a Villains-themed land in Orlando to an Indiana Jones ride replacing Dinosaur, there’s so much to look forward to. However, it's not all smooth sailing—current attractions like Tiana's Bayou Adventure are facing some hiccups. Meanwhile, we can't help but wonder what the future holds for Marvel's announced projects, given the recent inconsistencies in MCU's timeline.
"New Mutants" may not have lived up to its horror-centric hype, but its student-film like charm and unique character dynamics offer plenty to unpack. We delve into the backstories of key mutants like Magik, Wolfsbane, and Sunspot, etc. while pondering on any potential future within the X-Men universe within the MCU. Despite its many flaws, there are redeeming qualities worth discussing. And stay tuned, because after a brief break from the Fox X-Men series, we'll be back with episodes covering "Deadpool" and "Wolverine," diving deep into the iconic characters that have shaped the 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 back to Project Geekology for our 91st episode. This is a big milestone for Anthony and I, because we were both born in 1991, believe it or not, I just can't believe we made it to 91 episodes on this show, and it's all thanks to you four listeners. If you didn't exist, you four listeners, I don't know where we'd be. We'd probably have gotten only to 90 and not to 91.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just kidding. There's more than four of you, there are dozens of you and all the listeners from france that listen to lilo and stitch.
Speaker 1:That lilo and stitch episode has gone crazy. Anyway, you've heard him, but my name is dakota.
Speaker 1:I'm joined, as always, with anthony and we're covering new mutants, the 12th film in the Fox X-Men series, and it's the last one that you know we need to cover right before we start covering the Deadpool and Wolverine stuff. And it's the last of the Fox X-Men films that I had ever seen. You know, like up to this point I hadn't ever watched X-Men, apocalypse, x--men, dark Phoenix and now the New Mutants. So now I've caught up with my X-Men game and, yeah, I'm excited to talk about New Mutants, but I've got some other stuff I want to talk about in the interim. But before I get into any of that, anthony, what the heck have you been up to?
Speaker 2:What have I been up to Dakota? That's a good question.
Speaker 1:You've been up to dakota?
Speaker 2:that's a good question you've been up to no good, truly, oh always. Uh, something persona obviously going in and watching new mutants, believe it or not. I finally decided to take another crack at elden ring, like I had played so I've had it for a long time and I started playing it a little bit and I guess, like on the the day that I started to play it, I was just not in the mood for something that is like insanely difficult to play, and so, yeah, so finally I was like, ah, you know what, let me hop on it. They just released that dlc not that long ago, which I mean I don't have to worry about that right now. I still have a long way to go before I'm actually at that point. But yeah, man, it, dude, it's, yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2:Man, like I find myself like just upset all, not upset all the time, but like, oh my god, like just like those of you that have played elden ring know that there's always some sort of like dumb thing that'll happen and you're like, dude, what, where did that come from? Like you know, like some giant enemy just chasing you down, you're like screaming while you're trying to like escape from this thing. Yeah, there's, there's a lot that going on, but I I've definitely gotten better over time. I will say like I'm surprised that some of these non-boss enemies really want to kill you, like the bosses want to kill you, but like these, like mobs, like there are these mobs called knights that I've like, like I'm starting to come across and I've killed a couple of them, but, dude, they are tough to fight because as soon as you attack them, like your guy is swinging as slow as like a monster hunter character, they're swinging as fast as like sephiroth. Like I'm like, dude, what is?
Speaker 2:oh wow okay, yeah, it's like, really, you know, yeah, yeah, I'm like oh, you know, I'm playing a samurai, so like my character's like ah, and then like this, like knight character's, just like like wind is like blowing. They're like hitting me with wind attacks. I'm like, dude, what is going on? Right now there's these eagle things with like swords on their legs. I'm getting attacked by these things. That's not I don't know. Like how do you know much about the elden ring? Have you heard about it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I mean it's. It's been one of the most popular games in the of the past, like five years, for sure, right, I know that the story was partially inspired by lore, created by george rr martin. Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:So george rr martin did create like the lore. He didn't do anything really with the story but like he did like pretty much the world building, like the world that elden ring is and kind of like the past and all that stuff and yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:It's definitely like an interesting kind of funny you know I'm thinking, yeah, what's kind of funny about ge RR Martin doing something like that? Is it kind of parallels Mythic Quest where they have? So Mythic Quest is a TV series that's about a fictional, massive multiplayer online game called Mythic Quest and it's a development team working on this and there's one older guy who's like a former writer, a sci-fi fantasy writer, and he's the one creating all the lore for the game and for all intents and purposes it's good lore and whatever. But what's funny is that he hasn't finished his book series in forever.
Speaker 1:You know, it's been like decades at this point and he hasn't produced a book, but he's actively working on the lore of this other series. So this is kind of funny because george rr martin is kind of in a similar position. I I mean, the intent is still there for him to get his sixth and seventh books of game of thrones out, or you know a song of ice and fire, but he hasn't delivered on that, and I think the last one was 2011. So it's been 15, almost 15 years at this point, 13 years and yeah, he's. He's suddenly in a very similar position to a very specific person in mythic quest, and I find that really funny. Mythic quest is a is a comedy. By the way, I think we've talked about it in the past. I don't think we've dedicated an episode to it, but it's a really good show and you should check it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've, I've watched it. I I think it. It would be interesting to to cover that because it does kind of blend. You know, it has that whole video game aspect and and you know how much I'm a big fan of video games but I love comedy. So, like you know, imagine you know not as quirky, but like imagine the office but a video game studio. You know it's very similar to that. They imagine the office but a video game studio you know it's very similar to that.
Speaker 1:They've got some big names in there. It's definitely worth a checkout. But yeah, I know of Elden Ring. I know that it's very difficult. I know it has that, you know, like one hit kill structure, like everything's out to kill you and it's very difficult to and it's, you know, very aggravating, but people make a sport of it. You know, very aggravating, but people make a sport of it, you know and like, try to do speed runs, and all that trying to get as far into the game as possible, playing in various ways too.
Speaker 2:Like I've seen people play it with dance pads guitar hero, guitars, dude like I mean it's insane. I was watching somebody recently they were playing the kingdom hearts games with a dance pad and you know, like, just imagine something that like is you know, kingdom hearts can be tough, especially like when you're like in the max difficulty. So imagine playing something like elden ring on that. You know that's insane. But yeah, so that's what I've been playing and I still hop on Overwatch here and there. Like I'm not as big on it recently. I I don't know what it is like, maybe I I'm. I'm kind of like I'm not over it, but like this is the longest that I've taken, not playing it consistently, but you know, I'll always have a place for it in my heart. I'm just hoping that I don't know there's just things about it that I don't really care for. I kind of miss the, the 6v. I know why they did 5v5, but we worked fine enough with 6v6 for all those years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We have a question. We have a question from the audience. What's going on with the website? Like, speak a little bit about the website that you've been working on, what it's about, where it's at, and you know, like what the next steps are.
Speaker 2:Okay. So yeah, you and I were talking about this a little bit the other day, so I've been kind of, you know, procrastinating with that, which isn't a good thing on my part, because you know, I mean, it is a passion project and there's no like real timeline on it, but at the end of the day, it's going to help me out with some of the stuff that I want to do professionally. So it really is important for me to finish this. But, yeah, the website. I finally like sat down the other day or no yesterday and I kind of got like a little bit of more work done onto it. I'm working on an about us page and actually I do want you to to send me like maybe some something small that you would like to add to it, and then I'll add to my thing sure, yeah, and for those, for those of you who don't know, the website in question is a website for the podcast specifically for Project Geekology and I guess our you know wider sphere of influence, correct?
Speaker 2:So something that I was really trying to work on well at first, like way back when I was like hitting it hard was on the main page. I was trying to create a featured episodes thing. But I was kind of running into some issues because you have to be able to dynamically edit that stuff. It's not really feasible to go in and re-edit and re-upload the website every time you want to make these changes. Especially, you know, say that we're changing the featured episode weekly or even if it was monthly. You know, know like that means I have to go into the code, I have to re-upload the code and I'm really trying to dive a little bit into version control so that I can make it, so it can make it easier for updates also. So but I I was trying to buy it off a little bit more than I could chew at the moment. At the end of day, I mean, when we upload it, I may have that up.
Speaker 2:I'm still kind of researching it a little bit, but that initial iteration may not have that featured, the featured episodes. But I will have the most recent five episodes on that main page and there's going to be a section for our episodes. There's going to be a section for you know and about us. I'm trying to figure out if I can do like a contact us page, see how much, how much I have to dive into that. But I I am working on it. I didn't really work on it today. I do want to try to see if I can work a little bit on it sometime tonight. But yeah, no, it is something that has come back to me. It's been on the forefront. I know that people have been wondering about that but, yes, it is still something that is very important to me and that I want to get out.
Speaker 1:Excellent Cool man. I'm excited to see what you come up with. I've seen the occasional picture over the past couple months of the work that you've put into it and I commend you for it. Starting a website from the ground up is not easy, you know. You have these like website builders, like WordPress and all that that do make it easy for people to make websites, but the actual act of like starting from code, like from the ground up, is cool and I think that's a fantastic first step for a, you know, a potential future in editing websites and creating websites.
Speaker 2:And having knowledge of coding and being able to use programming languages actually makes using websites like WordPress and even like Wix even better, because you can actually customize your website a lot more because you can use custom code, you know.
Speaker 2:Right so actually knowing this stuff, whether or not, whether it's from scratch or you using they call. So what they call those types of things are it's called. What you see is what you get. There's like an acronym for it, but we're not an acronym, but, like they shorten it down, it's like wiki wigs or something like that. But or wiki, I don't know, whizzy wigs or something like that. I know I'm butchering it. All the web developers that are hearing me say it. I apologize, I'm not good with that stuff.
Speaker 1:But they know exactly what you're talking about. But yeah, they know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:They're cringing, but yeah, they so that. So actually know how to code helps out a lot with that stuff too. But yeah, man, that's what I've been up to. I know that you had mentioned that you wanted to get some stuff covered in your section. What have you been up to and say your piece?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk a little bit about what I've been up to. First and foremost, I recently watched all three of the how to Train your Dragon movies for the first time.
Speaker 2:Really good. Yeah, I saw those.
Speaker 1:I had three of the how to train your dragon movies for the first time really good. You know I had never seen them overall and enjoyed it quite a bit not my favorite things ever, but I respect the lore around that a lot more. I know that you wanted me to touch on d23 and a big portion of why I wanted to like watch the how to train your dragon movies is that much of what we saw in D23, disney's convention, disney's expo, specifically their parks panel, was in response to some of the updates that Universal has going on in their parks, because Universal is creating a third theme park in Orlando and some of the stuff that they have going on over there is like monumentally crazy. Like they have like people have taken like telescopic video of stuff that they have going on with epic universe.
Speaker 1:That's their third part yeah and one of the things that they've seen is a flying drone in the shape of toothless the dragon and it flaps its wings and it flies over universal I know I saw that video.
Speaker 2:Insane, right, right, right. It's insane. The technology that we're getting up to is insane, man, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was impressed by, you know, seeing a drone show at disney springs, like a couple weeks ago. They have dragons at universal. They have actual like dragon drones over there. So you know d23 oh, and you know, by the way, I'm going to be talking about my upcoming projects in in this podcast. I just want to preface what you know you asked me prior to the show to talk about. So d23, they, they added a bunch of news for not just the orlando parks but for disneyland.
Speaker 2:For, you know, paris is getting a lion king splash mountain ride yeah, yeah, I I think like almost every park is getting some sort of update.
Speaker 1:I think the only parks I didn't mention were the two Tokyo parks, but they've just gotten a bunch of new stuff recently, so that makes sense. But Shanghai and Hong Kong are also getting Marvel-themed rides. Disneyland they're getting a whole bunch of stuff. They have a new avatar ride based on the second movie and the future sequels. It's going to be like a boat ride.
Speaker 1:That's kind of yeah, I don't even know too much about it, but there's also several avengers rides. There's a multiverse thanos thing where, like in in the multiverse, there's a version of Thanos that won and it's like you have to assemble a team of multiversal Avengers to defeat him in this huge ride system thing. That's going to be incredible. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that Disneyland got. But the big news of the night was definitely the Orlando theme park news, because that's the stuff that's been rumored and talked about forever. We are getting a Cars's land in magic kingdom, which is pretty big and they didn't mention it in the panel, but it's going to be taking up the rivers of america and the tom sawyer's island area of frontier land, so it'll be like beside big thunder mountain. It'll be like between big thunder and haunted mansion is where the car's land is going to be and, beyond that, what I believe is the biggest news of the night was the villains themed land.
Speaker 2:It's going to have two rides they're doing the indiana jones thing also okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much orlando news that I stuff has gotten shoved under the carpet for me a little bit.
Speaker 1:So yes, I think that's already been confirmed, but it was good to hear a little bit more information about, like the indiana jones ride that's going to be replacing dinosaur. Dinosaur is for me like an s-tier ride, so I'm really upset to see that go. But I'm excited to see what they do with indiana jones and in that same area they're also doing a incanto experience where you get to go into the magic house or the casita and what else. In hollywood studios they're adding a monsters inc location and it'll be like, yeah, it's a monsters inc. Like a monstropolis land, and it's gonna be disney's first, like hanging roller coaster in its entire history for all of its theme parks. So that's going to be huge. But, yeah, like the villains land, which will be beyond the cars expansion. That's probably what everyone's most excited about. This is stuff that we won't be seeing at the earliest until like 2027 to like 2030, so it's a long ways off, but disney definitely dropped the mic a couple times I.
Speaker 2:I understand that it's a response to universal, but we have to see how well universal does this epic universe because, like it can go very well or very bad, you know right, and I mean some of their stuff was like kind of questioned. Like some people cut in where like I don't know about how to train your dragon land, I don't really care about that right you know there's some stuff that people have kind of like like I know that they have what harry potter like. They're doing more harry potter over there yeah and it's a ministry of magic.
Speaker 1:I believe that they're trying to tap into this with this part, right, right, I mean.
Speaker 2:So if they're gonna do this and they're gonna spend this money, they really need to like, do it up big, because I mean, you know, like Disney is, you know they'll throw the haymakers if they need to.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we'll see. Cause Disney's, they haven't got the best rap recently, even with, like, tiana's Bayou Adventure. I think it's a fun ride, but it's broken half the time, like right now I'm. If you look at the Disney app, the past like six days in a row, tiana's Bayou Adventure has been temporarily closed at the park opening, like it's just constantly needing work done on it and it's just. It's a little bit sad, you know, like it doesn't feel like a complete project, but anyway, getting getting off of D23. Well, you know, staying on it just a little bit. On it just a little bit. I think that marvel, specifically, is in a weird place right now, where they have previously announced so much content and so much of it has either gotten pushed back or deleted from their lineup right they really have no idea what is going to land and what isn't.
Speaker 1:I think we got the news last night that eternals 2 has been scrapped, you know, like that's just not happening anymore. So we're getting a lot of news about that. And between San Diego Comic-Con and D23 this year of 2024, marvel didn't really release any new information. You know like they may have given us like the title of the Fantastic Four movie or shown us, you know, like an exclusive trailer for the new Daredevil Born Again series, but most of it was stuff we already knew, you know. So I think that not only Marvel but like the whole Disney Entertainment panel felt a little bit lacking because it was just A it was all sequels to stuff that we already knew that was coming, and B the Parks panel that was the following day was just so much stronger.
Speaker 1:But yeah, without you know, let's, let's get off of that tangent. I know for my followers on youtube I get this question probably two to three times a day. It's, you know, accelerated once deadpool and wolverine came out. When is the next Marvel Cinematic Universe, the MCU timeline version 8.0, going to be coming to my, my YouTube channel, geek Critique?
Speaker 2:when was the last time you dropped one? I know it's been a little while.
Speaker 1:Right, it's been about two years at this point, yeah, since 2022 was the last big one that I released.
Speaker 2:Uh, well, I know you gotta you gotta kind of like let it stew you know you gotta let the MCU cook a little bit before you actually put something out, because it makes no sense. I mean, you could always make like updates, like a 7.5 or whatever, but like I know that, you know there's a lot of work that's put into it.
Speaker 2:So it makes sense to have a little bit more meat so that you can actually put into these episodes. But I mean that's cool, though, like you know you're working on, you know something that kind of like puts you on the map right, like your MCU timeline is something that you are well known for and you're very and look, this is hard work people. This man painstakingly like looks at the frame Bro, I don't frame bro, I don't have, I don't have the, the, the like, really just the. The attention span, like my attention span is like a goldfish. If I tried doing that, dude, I'd be missing all sorts of dates. Well, well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, anthony. So I did want to take some time to like answer some of the questions, like when I expect this to come out, how much work goes into it, what I have planned for it and what will be included. So I've been kind of taking a hiatus from making marvel content for a little bit I mean they've kind of been doing a little bit of hiatus themselves.
Speaker 2:You know like it's been.
Speaker 1:It's been a slow year for marvel for sure uh, you know, in comparison to the past couple.
Speaker 2:But loki, uh loki, deadpool, wolverine and then agatha all along is like really like the most that we've got right. Well, we have with the X-Men animated series, but like they're not MCU right, there's also the Echo series that dropped in January.
Speaker 1:It was like a five-part Echo series but there hasn't been a lot so I haven't been too focused on it. I wanted to take, you know, after the MCU timeline book came out and I really didn't like it, you know. Not so much that it didn't necessarily affirm some of my theories, it was more that it just felt under-researched and considering this was a canon interpretation of their timeline. You know, whatever's in there is now officially canon. So whether I decide to change that or not is irrelevant, because that is the canon. So that kind of just depressed me a little bit that it so little research was done in the creation of that book and you can tell just by reading it. It's, it's super. There there are inaccuracies, there's typos left and right, but like you can tell, it was just copied and pasted from the disney plus timeline and just kind of like inserted scene by scene into this.
Speaker 2:So that really bothered me. Well, you can tell when something is done as a passion and when something is done as a job, and that is probably where it happens here. Like I mean, you can't really fault the people who made this book. They're really just like getting the information, just like no, getting the information. But I mean, at the end of the day, like I would say that people like you and those who really like dig deep and they like look at these like you know little dates that are on there. You know when marvel decides to change things around without keeping that stuff in consideration, that really backfires on them. You know that makes them look like, okay, you guys don't even know what's happening in your own timeline. You know that makes them look like, okay, you guys don't even know what's happening in your own timeline.
Speaker 1:You know and that happens often.
Speaker 2:That that happens oh yeah, I'm pretty sure it's like oh, you know, with the retconning and all that stuff, I mean, you know we have issues like that with well, not anything time wise, but stuff like lore wise and like star wars right, yeah, so, like, a recent issue that marvel had in terms of their timeline was specifically the marvels movie, which was supposed to be a sequel to both miss marvel and secret wars.
Speaker 1:Technically, this show comes out a little while after miss marvel, which is in 2025, is it? Yeah, I haven't even thought about this for a long time. Yeah, miss marvel comes out in 2025, like the fall of 2025, and this movie is supposed to take place shortly thereafter. You know, like, even in like the post-credit scene of miss marvel, there's a scene where, like, carol danvers pops up in her bedroom. You know so, like it definitely is supposed to occur within a couple weeks to a couple months of that.
Speaker 1:But then you have secret invasion, which some people interpret as or at least disney plus interprets as late 2026, so november of 2026, but that's also supposed to be a prequel series to the marvels movie. So it didn't work like, both of those concepts do not work within that movie. So either the marvels takes place later in, like early 2027, late 2026, or the secret invasion takes place in 2025, shortly after Ms Marvel. So it's clear that there's no correct answer to this because they haven't thought it out, you know. But anyway, I don't want to digress too much on their mistakes or anything like that. I want to talk about what I'm working on because yeah, like I said, said I didn't touch on marvel for a while after the marvels, just because I was burnt out. I didn't feel like there was any real care being put into the timeline, so like, why should I bother, trying to fix it every single film and every single show?
Speaker 2:right, I took a break. They get a little sloppy. After you know end game, you know they started getting sloppy people.
Speaker 2:People don't like to admit it, but it's, it's true, you know it's almost like that whole infinity saga is like the original and then now we're in like sequel land, you know, and it's tough, you know, because sometimes a sequel can make or break a thing and right now they're kind of lost. They've had to do a lot of changes. I know with the whole Jonathan Majors thing really shifted a lot for them. Now they're going from Kang the Conqueror to Doctor Doom, looking like he's going to be the big bad, am I wrong?
Speaker 1:Who even knows? Who even knows at this point?
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:They also hired Robert Downey Jr for that role, and it's just like. What are you doing with?
Speaker 2:this, which is kind of wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So whatever they're doing with that, who knows, we'll see it when we see it, or they'll scrap it and bring Kang back, who knows, I don't know. At this bit I wanted to take some time to do side projects, do other timelines I've been wanting to touch on for a long time. I touched on Frozen, I touched on the MonsterVerse and the MonsterVerse has been fairly successful. Frozen not so much, but both of those videos I'm very, very proud of, just because I love the way that they came out and I put 110% into everything I make. So that's what I plan to do with the MCU now that I'm coming back to it.
Speaker 2:Right oh.
Speaker 1:I also made like a visual timeline for Star Wars.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct. Yeah, I mean, come on, folks, there are so many timelines that can be, you know, talked about. I mean, there really is like star wars is a massive one, and I know that you're probably gonna come out with a version two of that, and so, yeah, there's a lot to cover. And, honestly, to tell you the truth, y'all I apologize for those of you that do love the new content but dakota's gonna give you this version eight, but like it's not, like it's gonna be filled with great content. I mean, the content that he makes will be great, but I'm talking about the movies in question, you know, or the movies that are being covered. Some are going to be hits and a lot are going to be misses.
Speaker 2:I mean, in my in, my in my personal like you know how I feel, but you know I think it's not so much that it's hits or misses.
Speaker 1:It's just been a lot of stuff that's either good or okay and there's been stuff that's bad, but most of it has just been in that okay range, which just doesn't work with a universe like Marvel. But anyway, so my plan going into this, because I know that these videos take a lot of time For instance, my MonsterVerse timeline it's an hour long. I would say it's probably the best video I've ever made, just on a technical level. It took me three months to make that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I remember, and there's a lot more going on in the marvel cinematic universe that I need to account for, especially now that deadpool added all the x-men movies to the marvel timeline, as well as other films which you know I don't want to spoil here if you haven't seen that, because you know we're not covering Deadpool Wolverine in this video, but there are other timelines that it canonizes within the Marvel Cinematic Universe sphere that I will have to include in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1:So I am beginning my work now and I have been the past week making sure I have all the files that I'm going to be needing, and that's a long process because there's a lot of like 4k files that are in the wrong format for the type of video that I'm currently making. So I have a lot of HDR, high dynamic range video files that kind of look flat or muted when you put into a video editor. I want to re-download those, make them SDR you know a standard like range of color, so that that can be much more easily editable edit editable, not edible, and you don't want to eat it.
Speaker 1:Don't want to eat those. No, not the files. Also, a lot of my files are in 60 frames per second, which I don't know how I ever did that, but like that's really hard to edit with a 24 frame per second video format that I'm trying to accommodate. So a lot of these files honestly, like dozens of the MCU films and shows that I currently have in like my external hard drive, I need to just completely redownload Along with the films that I have never, you know actively like gone through and sifted through timeline wise, like all the films that were introduced in this and the X-Men series I've never sat down to like okay, you know, let's go frame by frame through X-Men and X-Men 2 and Dark Phoenix and New Mutants and stuff like that, so that'll be fun, it's part of the process and all of that takes time. So I've determined that I'm going to need quite a bit of time to accommodate my needs for this coming video. So I'm going to be taking the next six months to work on the MCU timeline version 8. I decided that I wanted to release, alongside Captain America, brave New World, which arrives February 14th. It's August 14th right now, so that podcast should arrive the weekend of the 14th, exactly six months from now. So that's kind of like a semi promise that I'm trying to put out into the world so that I can, you know, continuously work on and towards this project as much as I can. Will I make other contents in between, here and there? I think yes, and I'm also, you know, while I'm collecting all the files that I need, because I think there's probably like, honestly, I need to like re, re download a lot of my collection of files. So it's going to take me a couple weeks just to do that and, you know, re encode everything. So that's part one of that project. In the interim, I'm going through some of the avatar comics, avatar books, like avatar the last airbender, and I'm thinking of possibly making a shorter avatar the last airbender timeline, while I'm downloading and encoding all that stuff in the background to better prepare myself for the mcu timeline version 8 when it comes.
Speaker 1:So I I have plans, guys, I have a lot of plans as far as how it goes. I want it to have a new background. So I'm going to be creating a new background, like a new scrolling background, like I do with my timeline videos. I want to make a new visual timeline for the MCU that just like pops a little bit better, it's a little more accessible. So a bunch of stuff like that needs to happen, accessible. So a bunch of stuff like that needs to happen. And I'm excited to, you know, start all that and I have a vision in my head as far as how I want it to go and I want it to almost be like more. I don't want to talk too much about it because you know we're wasting valuable new mutants discussion time. But, guys, I am making my mcu timeline version 8 and it's going to be my best video ever. So just stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Six months, that's, that's what I'm giving myself you'll get some periodic updates here and there on this podcast, so keep an ear out, listen, you know you'll probably get some, you know, updates here and there it's a project ecology guys, we do we do apologize.
Speaker 2:We know that, that we we kind of ran a little bit longer than we usually do about what we've been up to, but honestly, there's been a lot that's been going on. I have projects that I've been working on, dakota has projects that he has been working on, and I mean a lot of news kind of popped up, and part of the whole podcast experience is that we want to talk about the old, the new and kind of keep it current a little bit in some kind of ways like this. But yeah, I mean I don't know if you had anything else that you wanted to talk about, but I mean we can talk about new mutants, I mean, unless you yeah, no, no, no, let's.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about new mutants. I mean, it is something that I will have to cover in the mcu timeline, version 8, so I might as well just start discussing it now.
Speaker 2:New mutants what, uh, what a movie this was your first time seeing this, so thoughts at first.
Speaker 1:So, okay, I was going into it thinking, oh man, this is gonna be a horror movie. You know like, oh, oh, they're gonna adapt the demon bear story. Oh, that's kind of like supernatural and, you know, kind of creepy like what's going on here. So I was a little like I I don't like supernatural stuff at all. So you know, that's just a preface. So I went into it like kind of with my guards up, but then it wasn't scary at all. Like it was like there, like there, there are creepy things in it, but it's scary to only a certain degree.
Speaker 2:Right, right, so I do see the horror influence in this movie, but it is like horror light, if that makes sense. You know like there is horror out there but it's not like really meant to scare you like crazy. You know like there's goosebumps. That was like horror light. You know, this is kind of in the same vein, Like this is supposed to be kind of like a scary movie, but not scary to where it feels like you're watching you know something like I don't know the Conjuring or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I feel like it was supposed to be that like maybe not conjuring scary, but it was supposed to be a scary movie, you know, like that was clearly the intent of what they were going for and you know the entire vibe of this institution that these five mutants were being kept in was meant to invoke being trapped in a cage right and being isolated from the rest of the world.
Speaker 1:So that in itself is a scary thing. But it really didn't translate that way onto the screen. So I want to talk a little bit about. At first I didn't really like it. It wasn't doing anything for me. I was interested, I was engaged, I wanted to know what was going to happen, how this was going to resolve itself. But the actual meat of the story wasn't engaging me until I kind of realized, you know, in one of the scenes where they're all just kind of sitting in a room just talking about whatever's ailing them, that day felt to me like a big budget, a high budget student film. It felt like this is something that someone made in college with their friends, and taking that viewpoint on the movie made me enjoy it and appreciate it a little bit more, just because it felt a little amateurish. But it wasn't so bad that I desperately disliked it. You know, it was just was just it was. It was okay, I had fun with it. I'm not itching to go back to it.
Speaker 2:I mean. So, like you know, when it comes to this movie, it's insane. Like every single X-Men movie or everything in this whole X-Men series of movies that we've seen, even the ones that you don't really care about, there's stuff that is enjoyable about it. You know that you don't really care about. There's stuff that is enjoyable about it, you know. So I do agree that it's not the best film, but I do have fun with it and I do think that there's aspects of it to enjoy and honestly, I think it's really cool that they bring. You know, it's like the last time that we will really see these characters, but we get characters like Sunspot in there. You have magic. I kind of like the way anya taylor joy portrays magic. I think she's a pretty good magic at least very cool.
Speaker 1:You know, like the way that she does portray her is very, very cool, right, right, and you know we get wolf, spain and cannonball I.
Speaker 2:What is? What is? What's her name? The main girl?
Speaker 1:danny. Danny moon star's like comic book. Alter ego is mirage mirage, correct.
Speaker 2:So I mean it was interesting getting these characters, because these are not characters that you really see in the, the forefront of of like x-men or really comics. I feel like I've seen sunspot, maybe a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a very marketable character.
Speaker 2:Right, but the rest of them not so much Magic. I feel like I'm starting to see her a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially in the comics. She pops up more often in the comics, I think.
Speaker 2:And she's in that game, midnight Suns, and I think it would be cool under the right circumstances. It would be pretty cool to see maybe at least Anya Taylor-Joy as magic in like a future X-Men movie, because I feel like she let's say, I mean, I don't know who, I mean who would you cast?
Speaker 1:I'm not particularly good at casting anyone. That's not like my forte, so I don't ever spend any time thinking about like who I would cast for certain roles. But I did like Anya taylor joy as that character and you know, in something like secret wars, you know, which is kind of like a merging of several worlds onto a plane of existence called battle world, I could see them bringing, you know, picking and choosing characters, kind of like they did with the deadpool and wolverine film, to place onto this world, battle world. And I could see them taking a character like Ileana Rasputin Magic in the version of this new Mutants movie and, you know, having her play with some of the other characters like that. So I think that that is a possibility. It's a strong possibility because you know people like anya taylor joy. She's a great actress and she, for all intents and purposes, did a fantastic job in this movie right, and man, this movie is like you said.
Speaker 2:It does have kind of like that student film feel to it. And you know, there's a couple moments where it was like a little like confusing of like who the antagonist was, you know, like was it the doctor, or was it the smiling man, or was it the demon bear, for that moment, you know, and it was kind of like all over the place, like especially when you got to that last act it was like OK, what's going on? Oh, what are these guys? Oh my gosh, they're gone. Now we got this bear, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, these guys. Oh my gosh, they're gone. Now we got this bear, you know right? Yeah, I mean, the real antagonist of this is fear itself, I guess, when each of these characters is a broken individual yeah, true they have used their powers to kill, some on purpose and some by mistake.
Speaker 2:Each of these characters has killed someone in their life.
Speaker 1:So they each have those, you know, like personal demons that they're quarreling with, and these recurring nightmares that have suddenly become a reality at various moments in this movie, which I thought was an interesting concept. But sometimes it would happen while danny moonstar was conscious, and sometimes it would be to people that she cared about. So it was just like. Obviously she doesn't have control of her abilities yet, but some of the stuff that happened in the dreams that she's brought to life, the fears that she's created, had actual impact on some of the characters, like Maisie Williams' character actually gets a second brand on her neck that looks extremely painful and that was based on a walking nightmare that she brought to life. So, yeah, there is a sense of Danny isn't necessarily the antagonist. The antagonist is fear itself. But at what point is she culpable for all the damage she's doing to these people?
Speaker 2:Right In a way. Way it kind of sucks because it's like fear itself, but it's like fear manifesting. You know, it's fear actually like coming about and like doing something to them, and it's definitely one of the more interesting x-men films and it feels different than like all of them. Even dark phoenix felt like an x-men movie, but like this one it was completely different characters, even though we know that these are people within the x-men universe, that these are mutants. That felt a lot different, like the. The formula was different than the rest of the films, even though all the other films were, you know, doing all these different things. You know, you had the initial generation of x-men movies, the ones that we grew up with, and then the ones that came after that. I tried to kind of reboot it and then they kind of lost their way. So you got up to this one, and this one it's the last fox x-men movie, but it is different than all of them, you know and I respect it to a degree because of that.
Speaker 1:You know they didn't. It wasn't a formulaic movie right by any stretch of the imagination, and they, they only name dropped the x-men, I think once or twice in a single scene yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they talked about who was in charge of the doctor and they're like, yeah, it's the x X-Men, they're in charge.
Speaker 1:The Doctor doesn't say that, but the people in the Institute. They believe that Xavier is Dr Reyes's immediate superior and once they graduate from this essentially a mental institute, they can become X-Men. And some of them are like, oh, I'd like to be X-Men. Why would we want to do that? So I thought that that was was fun. So the mystery of who was behind everything was pretty solid and we didn't find out until the very end. But, like if you didn't know anything about x-men comics, you would have no idea who the ultimate bad guy was.
Speaker 1:Because all they really say is that dr reyes is working for the Essex Corporation. The Essex Corporation is a company owned by Mr Sinister, who is like a really old mutant who has kind of like stayed alive by like DNA vampirism in a way, like he like makes clones of people after taking their DNA and all that. So there's a scene where, like, dr reyes is taking the blood sample of danny moonstar and then you know, like once they figured out what her ability is, they realize oh, she's unstable, she's a threat and she's a safety hazard to have gather more dna and terminate her right there's so that was, you know, and that was kind of the catalyst that started the entire drama of the third section of the movie.
Speaker 1:But concepts of you know, like this is Mr Sinister behind things, was intriguing to me. I was just like, oh, that's a really interesting way to go for maybe a future movie. But obviously there is no future movie, so it's just kind of like a tease at nothing. So I thought that that was kind of just I enjoyed that to a degree, you know, like the, the mr sinister nod, the essex corporation, all that, but ultimately it wasn't like I don't think it's a good movie, you know like it it's got stuff to enjoy. There are, like I liked, a little bit of each character's background, but there's not so much of a story that you know like. I'm kind of happy that this was the episode that we decided to talk about our personal projects on, because there's not a lot to talk about about this. You know, like it, not a lot happens right, because they're like.
Speaker 2:The entirety of this film happens in the. It happens in this mental institution. They're not going around the world to different places like all the other x-men movies, like every x-men movie. They're going somewhere, but like they're stuck in this missile institution. Dr reyes, she has, like this, like force field ability that is preventing them from leaving this place and, yeah, like it, just it all happens. You know they get attacked there and you know what would you say, out of all of these characters, which one did you like the most?
Speaker 1:You know you mentioned Dr Reyes really briefly and I want to talk about that a little bit before I get into your question, because I don't want to forget about it. Is it just me or was Dr Reyes extremely understaffed? You know, you have five incredibly powerful individuals and all she can do is create force fields and like hope. That it works, you know. But if they all rebel against her, which happens, she's just not. She doesn't have the wherewithal to be able to control.
Speaker 2:She did a pretty good job about it. The only thing, the reason why she was able to be stopped was but because of mirage. Mirage was like the only reason why they were able really to able to get out of those force fields because, remember, she contains them all she's containing all of them within these force fields, but then she gets killed by the bear.
Speaker 2:so really like, so, really at the. You know, when you think about it she was understaffed, but had she I mean sure, having others might have been able to help with Mirage, but she seemed like she had it pretty contained.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, no, you're right. You're right, she did have it contained. So let's talk about the individual characters. We have Maisie Williams Wolfsbane. I thought her character was kind of like a little bit one-dimensional, like she seemed very like she's. She's clearly like a religious girl who you know, once she developed her ability to turn into a wolf, she like brought that to the father of her church and the priest beat her half to death and that's why she has that brand. I guess the w would be for witch, because the guy called her a witch. Yeah, I could see that, and she ended up killing the priest right.
Speaker 2:It's almost like, and her and danny connect pretty well and it kind of makes sense because in a way wolf's bane is almost like a skinwalker, you know and you know that Moonstar, she's Native American and she has the control over this bear and so, yeah, they kind of developed this connection.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about Danny Moonstar. So she had crippling fear as a young person, you know, growing up deathly afraid of the dark, had crippling fear as a young person, you know, growing up deathly afraid of the dark. And her father kind of gave her an out in terms of this is how you can channel that fear in, you know, in the form of this necklace. And it gave her this Native American story of like there's two bears inside you, one's good and one's evil, and that depends on which one you feed. That dictates which one wins or which one has the most control over you.
Speaker 1:So I thought that that was an interesting concept because from an evolutionary standpoint that power makes sense to a degree. You know, like obviously powers don't make sense, but if this is her growth pattern, she's deathly afraid of fear itself. Then she would develop a power to control fear and manifest it when she grows up, when she gets into puberty and beyond, like that's her power manifesting. So I liked that backstory of her because, like you know, some characters will just like grow wings and that's their power. But why? Why did they grow wings? Like? What evolutionary, like advantage did they need to grow wings? You know, like there's a lot of that in x-men, it's cool and it's like quirky.
Speaker 1:But like this act, this power actually makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint right all right, let's talk about probably the coolest mutant in in the film anya taylor, joy's iliana rasputin or magic with a K she's, she's great and pretty much everything she's in. She clearly had a lot of fun with the accents and they gave her a much darker personality, like she was kind of very like bullish and and this one where I don't think she normally I don't really recall her ever being like that in the comics, but it it worked cause it was. You know it's an adaptation.
Speaker 2:Right Comic accurate. It worked because it was. You know it's an adaptation, right right comic accurate. Well, magic is not exactly like from what I've read and and like some of the media that I've seen her in, like you know midnight suns and whatnot, she's not like exactly the most personable person. Anyway, you know her being the she's the younger sister of colossus, or was that adopted?
Speaker 1:yes, that's a good question. Actually, I don't. I know that they're related. I don't know if it's adopted, or I'm assuming they're not. They're actually like siblings, but I'll have to do more research on that. Hold on, I'll look it up, right now it's magic related to colossus. She is the little sister to colossus, correct? Yeah, good one I I forgot about that yeah, yeah, no, I I remember that.
Speaker 2:I just don't remember if it was like in the adoptive nature, but no, no, yeah, I remember there being that relation there which is like I mean interesting because her powers and his powers are just like, completely like way different, whereas, like you have scott, and and what was his?
Speaker 2:brother, havoc like cyclops, and havoc they have right right psionic psionic exactly, whereas like havoc is like kind of a bodily cyclops is from his eyes, but cyclops being. You know metal and then you have magic that can create portals between different dimensions and this really crazy sword.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's kind of cool is that Colossus kind of becomes a shield of metal. She becomes like a sword, so they're kind of like opposites in that way. But she also creates portals into Limbo.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She has a pet dragon, lockheed.
Speaker 2:Lockheed yeah.
Speaker 1:And I thought you know the way that they handled all of that was really cool. I know nothing about her backstory in terms of the smiling people, like I couldn't honestly tell you if that's just how she interpreted, you know, these evil men in her youth as being like monstrous creatures and that's how she's kind of like boogeyman them or like slender men's them in her mind and that's the fear that she developed. Or if they were actually like you know, really creepy mutations that you know were like doing terrible things to her like I don't know what was the truth behind that, but I thought that that was like a really interesting story, I guess I think that the smiling man were like more of a.
Speaker 2:It was like a mental distortion like she made monsters out of.
Speaker 1:You know people who were essentially monsters correct yeah, okay, that makes sense, I can get behind that. Yeah, I thought her backstory was quite interesting. We have sunspot, who kind of has a very similar story in I mean not, I don't not too similar an x-men 97. His parents are rich people in brazil, like some of the wealthiest people there. They want him to get rid of his mutant powers for the sake of their business, because you know it's not a good look. So a big portion of that is just like them trying to get rid of him and have him, like, sort out whatever he needs to sort out but.
Speaker 1:I liked the idea that, like he would get so in literally the heat of passion, his body would heat up to a degree where, like he would burn the other person. Like that's terrible, like that you can never really have, you know, that type of affection but very similar to rogue, you know very similar to my personal experience.
Speaker 2:You know like no, okay, it's in the heat of passion, yeah you know how it is, but she actually like rogue.
Speaker 1:I don't think she killed. No, rogue did not kill her boyfriend in the first x-men movie. She just put him in a coma sunspot like burns his girlfriend to a crisp and then the girlfriend came back as like his nightmare in that pool scene. That pool scene was actually pretty interesting, you know, like he was kind of in dream logic sort of thing right, you know like he starts dreaming about one person and it becomes another person.
Speaker 2:I kind of twist and distorts along the way, but like right, right, it's, it's like his desire shifted from, you know, the desire to like the fear.
Speaker 1:You know, and then like that's fear and guilt, right, yeah, and so like that's when that kind of kicked in and you had that crazy looking flame jogger flame drugger, I like that. And lastly, we had cannonball played by charlie heaton of stranger things fame yes I felt like his accent was like really heavy it was it was like way too kentucky, you know, like people don't.
Speaker 1:I don't think people talk like that like anymore like at his age group. But I could be wrong, especially like if he, you know, just was homeschooled or, like you know, actually worked in the mines like he said he did. But his backstory is essentially he got claustrophobic while helping his father and a bunch of miners out in a literal coal mine and basically became a cannonball and just like killed a whole bunch of people trying to get out of there yeah, his power is interesting.
Speaker 2:It's like a jolt of energy he shoots forward with like a jolt of energy I couldn't tell you I, I don't know it's. It's like propulsion, right, yeah, okay yeah, that's what I think it is. I think it's propulsion yeah, like energy propulsion yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly what it is and so, yeah, no, it's interesting because there's that, that moment where, like, there's the, the smiling man and he just like mows them down he like literally tears them to shreds right with his propulsion powers, yeah, his cannibal powers and it must like hurt because he's got like a, he's got like a cast like half the movie has black eyes.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's not the easiest power to come to grips with. I think I like mirage and magic the best in terms of power utilization and like story backstory what about you?
Speaker 2:I agree definitely with magic. I feel like magic was the one that got the coolest moments as far as power I mean mirage did too.
Speaker 2:But I mean, dude, like magic was like it went from like a story about danny moon star to like magic, like towards the end, like she was just Danny Boonstar to like magic, like towards the end, like she was just. It was like so much like magic going on and yeah, no, it was really cool. And then so like Lockheed was like a puppet, like for most of the movie, and then like the actual Lockheed, like was in limbo, I guess, yes, yes. And then she came out with the sword.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's one great scene that I really like, where magic, when confronted with one of the smiling men in her room, she talks to Lockheed briefly like what's going on, and Lockheed like looks at her and says it's her. So like her subconscious, or Lockheed itself in limbo, is telling Ileana that Danny is responsible for everything that's going on, and I thought that that, like subconscious knowledge, was really a fascinating story beat because, like she's not dumb, she's capable of like putting two and two together to come up with the correct response. So I appreciated that. Overall, I think the writing on the the film was like really corny. Some of it was like really corny. The final fight scene I don't even want to think about like some of the the stuff that was said, but it was just like like zingers in the heat of battle yeah, yeah, they absolutely had zingers, but there was definitely some.
Speaker 2:I I guess, like that's what it was like there was some weird like imbalance between the theming of the movie, like, remember, you know, we're talking about how it seems like it was trying to go down the horror route but then it would kind of lighten up a bit and then it would kind of get corny and then it would, then it would kind of get dark again. There's definitely some identity issue with the theme of this movie, like what or what kind of feel that they were going for, what genres they were trying to tap into. They were trying to tap into all of them. You know action, horror, comedy, but definitely, you know, calling back to that question, I would say magic and then like mirage, a close second yeah, so we got our first trailer our first like teaser trailer for this movie in like fall of 2017 oh, and then it was like it was like pushed back like four or five times until it came out in like the fall of 2020.
Speaker 1:It never happens where, like we get a trailer and then we don't see the movie and for a whole three years. But that's what happened with New Mutants. So an issue with this is it's probably like a Frankenstein movie where, like there's a whole bunch of stuff that was cut, whole bunch of stuff that was added and a whole bunch of different cuts mixed together to create a cohesive enough story to present to viewers. You know, I think that's what ultimately happened, because the actual themes feel so bizarre and at odds with one another. But yeah, so I think that's what ultimately happened, because the actual themes feel so bizarre and at odds with one another. But yeah, so I think that's pretty much what happened.
Speaker 2:And I think that, like, what really messed up with the release of this film is that, like at the time, there was, remember, the whole Disney and Fox acquisition thing going on.
Speaker 1:That's a good point, yeah, yeah. So that definitely did not help it at all. But, anthony, what are your final thoughts on this movie?
Speaker 2:It's not the worst movie that I've seen. You know. It's definitely an interesting watch, at least once, you know, to experience it once, to kind of see what we're talking about. Like if you haven't seen it, if you've listened to this entire thing and you haven't seen it, I would suggest that at least to watch it once to see what you think about it. Like there's redeeming aspects of it, like there's some cool characters, but overall it's yeah, like you said, it's not something that you would rush to go back and watch. You know, it's been a long time since I've seen this movie, so it was kind of justifiable for me to come back and watch it, you know, even though we were doing it to cover a podcast episode. But how?
Speaker 1:about you, so it's not the worst x-men movie that I think we've covered.
Speaker 2:I I still think x-men origins wolverine wow it so out of all the x-men movie.
Speaker 1:It really takes the cake wow I think x-men origins definitely takes the cake for worst of the x-men movies. I think this comes in at either a close second or third. You know, I would say it's on par with maybe X-Men 3 and, for me, Apocalypse. Those I didn't really care for all that much, Though there are stuff in those movies that I like. You know, Like there was stuff in this movie that I liked I for the most part didn't like it as a whole.
Speaker 2:You didn didn't love it, but you kind of enjoyed some of it it was enjoyable I'm glad I watched it.
Speaker 1:So anyway, guys, this has been really fun 12 podcasts, not necessarily in a row, but, like over the past couple months, we've covered every x-men movie up until deadpool and wolverine, and in a couple weeks time we're going to cover Deadpool and Wolverine, but in the interim we're going to take a Fox X-Men break and very brief the act very, very brief.
Speaker 1:We're going to cover the accolade, you know, the show that everyone universally loved, and, yeah, we're going to have a fun time with that. And then we're going to jump into Deadpool and Wolverine. Hopefully it's still in theaters by that time and we can watch it again. I'm sure it will be. But anyway, guys, thanks so much. If you want to check out any of our socials, you can find that in the show notes down below. Thank you so much for listening to us here. If you want to give us a rating on any of your podcast applications or a comment, we need not just a five-star, but a juicy five-star review. Anything less and we will come looking for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, like you know, imagine like a juicy, you know a juicy burger, veggie burger for those of you that don't partake in meat and just imagine stars. Yeah, yeah, five of them, yeah, five of those, yeah, five of those, onto our podcast and help drive us up on the algorithm and share it with your friends and you know, so they can enjoy our zaniness and the tangents that we always get ourselves into.
Speaker 1:Yep Guys, thanks so much for listening to us here for our 91st episode. If my math is correct, the next episode should be 92. So spend some time with us next week right here in the project geekology podcast, and we'll see you in the next one countdown to 100. Bye the wolverine.
