‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Is Here. Plus: Our Fall Film Festival Preview.

25:42And so the stakes are silly and the CGI is quite poor. And it takes what I did think was impressive production design and just, you know, turns it purple for a third of the movie. I thought that there were some real issues with casting, which I want to talk about because I am not as familiar with Fantastic Four as, say, everyone else in this recording studio right now. And so I couldn't figure out what was the character and what was the actor. And it might be a little bit of both. but it doesn't really work. And then at the risk of spoiling the whole movie, which are we going to spoil right now?

26:20I wasn't planning on it, but we could do it momentarily. You want to self-censor your spoiler note? What does that mean? Like that I can just put a pin in it? I have a third issue with sort of the takeaways from this film. Let's hold on to that so that people can let us here talk through without spoiling. Although I will say that spoiling is an interesting question here because this movie is doing something that we haven't seen a Marvel movie do in some time. It is a self-contained story. It does not require any homework. There are no characters in this movie that we have ever seen before in a Marvel movie, in an MCU movie.

26:59In fact, the movie takes place on Earth 828, which is not the Earth that we are used to seeing in the other films. Right, though as someone who doesn't do the homework ever. When Earth 828 showed up on the screen, I was like, oh God, which one is that? Do I have to know something else? And that's just me being, you know, reflexively being like, oh God, now there's something that I don't understand. But I didn't know what that meant. I don't think it really matters if you know. I think it will matter. I thought it was going to matter or at least have some bearing on this movie. On how they resolve the situation.

27:34Yeah, and I guess that is kind of a spoiler to say that it sort of doesn't, but I was only thinking that because of the way the Thunderbolts ended, which was the introduction of a rocket ship with a four on it entering the atmosphere in the movie Thunderbolts, which takes place in a different universe, an alternate universe. Anyway, I'll come back to that. Wait, an alternate universe? No, it takes place in the proper MCU. The MCU that we know and we've seen all the other films in. Right. So the Fantastic Four is in the alternate universe. Coming from the alternate universe to, yes. Yes, I just wanted to make sure.

28:14But we can come back to it because we have to. I really did not think this movie was good. I, in fact, was kind of stunned while I was watching it. I wasn't angry or even frustrated. I thought that there was a general flatness to the drama of the movie. I agree with you about the miscasting I said to you with kind of amusement afterwards that I swear they used to be good at this and I did really have a sincere passion and I think newer listeners of the show might think that I always hate these movies but I really didn't. I really really liked them for like five years and I found the limpness of this movie kind of baffling and it's kind of juiceless and I don't know why that decision was made.

29:01Some of, I get why some of the decisions were made, which is that they were responding to a lot of the criticism that they had been hearing about having all of this baggage with every movie. There'd been all these TV shows. They overloaded us with content and hours of content. We want something that's just a fresh origin story. And some people may be listening and disagree and say, I had a fun time. I like these characters. Right. But. Well, I don't think the standaloneness is the problem. It's not. but what it does is it so look I've been critical of the homework thing and I think it is a problem so I'm I'm not trying to talk out of both sides of my mouth but I think when a script is not strong as I do not think this script is strong and it does not have those breadcrumbs that kind of keep us going and you'll hear me on old episodes in the last five years I'll be like I thought this stunk for 80 % of it and then at the end they kind of dragged me in with some sort of like tease to the future and I didn't even have that feeling at the end of this You said once the credits hit and we sat for the, you know, the mid credits or the end credits, the stingers, you said to me like they really better have the goods in this to make up for that.

30:12But you said it in a way as if you thought it would be possible still for like 30 seconds of, you know, teaser footage would make up for just the limpness and the yuckiness of the past two hours, which like that that is that's messed up. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was necessarily successful to say introduce Charlize Theron at the end of a Doctor Strange movie and then have us go scratching our heads multiverse of madness or introduce Harry Styles at the end of Eternals and have us like excited about what could come or to hear Mahershala Ali's voice at the end of a movie and think, oh, Blade is coming.

30:48Like, I think those are smart marketing techniques. But for my dumb lizard brain. Yeah. I was like, oh, cool. What's going to happen next? and the whole movie feels like, frankly, a response to shit I've said on podcasts. And like, I know that that's not what it is, of course, but to be trolled in this way is interesting. I think the movie is very sincere and it's trying to be true to the classical construction of Fantastic Four, which is a golden age story that is about family and is about coming together for a greater good. Like it's very simple. And in that way, it closely resembles Superman.

31:22And these movies coming out within two weeks of each other is fascinating. I think one movie takes the bedrock of story and he's this old character and really plunges him into some current stakes high events. This movie, because of the retro futuristic production design that you talked about, because of the performance style that they're going for, and because of the kind of closed world nature of it, just felt small to me. And I was really disappointed. Literally about a villain who eats other planets and is supposed to be larger than the universe and is like a space god. Yeah. That's what they keep saying.

32:04Even still, even though they traverse the galaxy, even though there is a silver surfing woman who is a herald to this planet devourer portrayed by Julia Garner. Even though there's actors who are like, in theory, very likable, have been successful in other projects. Right. um Matt Shackman I think WandaVision is one of the best things Marvel's done in the last five years I well and and this does have a lot of the bones of WandaVision in the obviously sort of like the throwback and the production design but that was also about feelings and trying to find a family and then I you know the trauma and whatever and I don't remember what the trauma was but it was about people who aren't quite human trying to be human it was about vision being dead and then wanting to preserve her life with vision and then creating a world.

32:58I thought it was her brother. Well, her brother died too. She's had a lot of trauma, The Scarlet Witch, and she explored that trauma to evil ends in the films Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. You should check it out. Oh, she's evil? She's the villain of that film. But then they bring her back around. It's pretty good. No, I know. I was on leave. But they bring her back around, right? since then she's not come back oh in fact I think Elizabeth Olsen is out of the MCU she was good and then she went bad correct and then she became Megan 2.0 by loss as we all are sure okay and now it's time for a new segment Summer Stars presented by Starbucks the summer 2025 blockbusters have well and truly rolled out and we don't just mean on the big screen just like this year's breakout stars Starbucks summer beverages have stolen the show but before we talk all things Starbucks we want to take a closer look at the fresh wave of talent taking over the silver screen this summer.

33:52Okay, Amanda, when you think of the stars of this summer, throw some names at me. Who has impressed you with the movies? I mean, we can start with Vanessa Kirby from Fantastic Four, who has impressed me. She was the best part of the movie, in my opinion, in addition to being very beautiful. She, you know, makes big faces. Yes. And she was also a real champ on the press tour. So I, you know, I've congratulations to her expecting a baby of her own. She looks great. She stepped up. She stepped up. Yeah. She stepped up just like Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman stepped up in Thunderbolts. It's not easy starring in a Marvel movie, you know?

34:23It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot to sell these fantastical worlds. Florence Pugh, I don't know where Thunderbolts would be without her, honestly. I'm not sure that's a movie that would work as well as I would want it to without her. But she's great. And Lewis Pullman, who has a kind of dual role in that movie, those spoilers, has a lot on his shoulders too. We've always liked him and it's nice to see him getting some more to do. Who else did you like at the movies this year? Alfie Williams, who is the child star. That's not fair. He's a teenager, you know, 28 years later. And the movie starts with him having a sort of, you know, coming of age ritual.

34:56So I don't mean to call him a child. He's a teen. From boy to man. Yeah. And that movie hangs on him. And certainly the rest of the franchise hangs on him as well. And he was sensational. Superman really hangs on David Cornswet. Now, he was a relative unknown for most of us before we saw James Gunn's new version of this story. Not if you saw Twisters. True. He was in Twisters. He was in the Netflix series Hollywood. He's been in some other stuff, but Superman was his big coming out party. Yeah. And honestly, he wore the cape well. He was one of my favorite parts of that movie. The fact that they nailed that casting, I think, is a big reason why the film was a success.

35:34And tailored the movie to him. Absolutely. And it works. Two small parts for you. Tramiel Tillman and Katie O 'Brien, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. A lot of people in this movie. There were. A lot of words said. Some said better than others. Tramiel Tillman and Katie O 'Brien, who are part of this submarine segment, right? Yes. To not to spoil anything, just steal the show. Tramiel Tillman in particular. Katie O 'Brien has some great moments with the suit. Otherwise, the movie, you know, it takes its time. but not when they're on screen. It's electrifying watching Tramiel Tillman say words.

36:14We've got to give some love to your guy, Jonathan Bailey. He's not my guy. I just, I understood the star power. It was him and a dinosaur, you know? And he was petting the dinosaur and the music was playing and he felt real emotion and I felt it too. You, not so much, but I thought that it was powerful. He's obviously meant for big things, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next. Lilo and Stitch, mixed on the movie, but not mixed on the two key performances from Sidney Aguadong and Maya Kialoa. And they were both very charming, I thought. Yeah, wonderful. It's everybody else in the movie who just won't help them, you know?

36:49But that's a credit to them that you just really want them to figure it out. I did want to give just a little bit of love before we wrap to my favorite star of the summer, hands down, which is the flaw in death's design. Sure, absolutely. That is the critical character in the movie Final Destination Bloodlines. An international sensation. It absolutely is one of the biggest box office hits of the year. And thank you to the Flaw and Deaths design for making it such a fun time at the movies. Refreshing and bold, Starbucks' summer beverages are also unexpected stars of the season. Savor every drop of summer with Starbucks and the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage.

37:23It's a crave-worthy iced blended beverage topped with creamy cold foam, making for delicious layers of silky flavor. Available for a limited time only. Your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. anyway you see my point I do which is that they're about not quite human people trying to explore like human emotions and like instead of found family it's like pretty literal nuclear family and that part I think is both the most successful part of the movie and also the thing that ultimately made me got the biggest reaction negative reaction out of me. But it is... They're not trolling you, you know?

38:10I know they're not. They're seriously trying to do something nice with this. And then I guess Galactus is like a historical comic book villain. He's the second most significant villain to the Fantastic Four. Okay. And is the first one the person that we saw at the very end? Yes. So that's an interesting question. Why do they start with number two? I had this same question. Okay, go ahead. I know the answer to that question, which is that their primary... villain, primary enemy is Dr. Doom. And Dr. Doom is the villain of the next movie. Yeah, I know that. Avengers Doomsday. Robert Downey Jr. is going to be Dr.

38:43Doom. He is going to be Dr. Doom. I like that happened at a Comic-Con. Yes, there is a subtle moment where the table in the United Nations from Latveria, the name card is empty, which is, of course, Dr. Doom's nation. I actually did. I noted that, but I did not know that that was Dr. Doom's nation. That's where Victor Von Doom would be sitting under normal circumstances. He's the ruler of that nation. Yeah, like what's his title? Podcast host. And he is obviously going to be a big part of the MCU. And this is meant to be a sort of build up to him. Galactus is a more high stakes villain, but Doctor Doom is the primary enemy.

39:22Okay. One of the cool things that the movie does that would have gotten a lot more credit if Superman didn't just do it is it starts in media res. and it gives you this kind of newsreel flash montage explication of who these characters are at the beginning. I thought a lot of that was very successful. All of it is really good. It looks good. It's like... It's like kitschy in a good way. Yes. Yeah. It's got energy. They recreate the cover of the first issue of Fantastic Four with that monster coming up out of the ground. That's like a nice nod to fans. A couple of cool moments like that. You know, Mole Man shows up who's played by Paul Walter Hauser who's kind of a funny, you know, B-tier Fantastic Four villain.

39:59There's some fun stuff in the first 10 minutes. And when it was going, I was like, okay. Sure. Yeah. I get what we're doing. There's like an Ed Sullivan show stand-in that we're getting. All of that made sense. And then when the movie starts to become about the family that you're describing, it really slows down and it becomes very sincere. Yeah. And the sincerity, I don't mind. Well, okay. Well, okay. Go ahead. Are we spoiling now? Sure, let's spoil the movie. Okay.

40:34Reed Richards is a strange character. Yes. You turned to me and asked me, so he's a stretchy nerd. And that's not incorrect, but he is also the smartest man in the world. Yeah. And that's the way that he is presented to comic book readers. And that intelligence cuts both ways. It makes him an amazing problem solver and an incredible leader. but at times his intelligence drives him mad and it makes him very arrogant. And the latter part of that character is not really present in this movie. This was just Gumby. It was just Gumby. It was like Gumby with suspenders or whatever. I was so confused.

41:19You know, we've been having a lot of Pedro Pascal conversations. Seems like a good guy. so I he is way miscast as Reed Richards I don't understand why someone with such natural charisma as like as Pedro Pascal has keeps getting cast in these roles where he's just inert like I it's it's not that he's a bad actor it's just that what he's doing in this movie does not allow him to have any of the charm any of the like Reed Richards is that his name He's got no mojo. And like, it's just, it's really very strange. And he doesn't even seem that smart. You know, he's like doing equations a lot, but no confidence whatsoever.

42:03Well, as we know from Good Will Hunting, that is how you, you know, show us, demonstrate that you are smart. That's true. But he's still using numbers and letters, you know, like Good Will Hunting, they're doing like drawings, you know, that's a level of mass that I don't even understand. But he's with us in the numbers. I mean, you really need to be with Mr. Fantastic, as he is known, to be in on this movie. And I wasn't. And that's a huge problem. And I think some of that sincerity, that desire to kind of create an intimate, emotional and psychological atmosphere for these characters, which I think they're kind of going out of their way to try to present, ultimately kind of weirdly drains them of some of their humanity.

42:43And again, I just think the writing is not strong in this movie. There's a lot of dialogue that in WandaVision, it was winking at the modes of entertainment from the 50s, 60s, and 70s on sitcoms. In this movie, it's just like kind of 1962 in an alternate universe. So how do those people, how are they supposed to act? Like in that world, the song Monster Mash exists because we hear it when they're getting ready for a Halloween party. But Ed Sullivan doesn't exist. It's Ted Gilbert. So that's kind of confusing. and I don't know if we're meant to be watching the TV show version of the Fantastic Four because we see the TV show version the animated cartoon within the movie so there is this kind of like and there's a running joke in the movie that the the thing is not his cartoon character and he doesn't say it's clobbering time and he doesn't want to and in fact he all he just you know has a crush on Natasha Lyonne who's the teacher at the school next door yeah and who among us you know redheaded Natasha Lyonne yeah she looks great That's quite a blowout.

43:45Yeah, she looks great. So Pedro, that didn't click for me. Yeah, and then also, he then is married to Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm. And the in-media arrest thing does not work if the people don't have any chemistry. Because the whole time I was just like, why are you with him? Look at this woman. Like, what's going on here? Like, they didn't explain anything in the little newsreel. And I was just like, man, this is the hottest woman alive. And you are just really nervous. You know, I don't understand how this, I don't know why this is happening. I don't know. I don't, I didn't get it. I didn't get it either.

44:28And I didn't get Joseph Quinn either. Me either. As Johnny Storm, the Human Torch. I think he has an interesting part in this movie and the movie puts a lot on his shoulders. he is the one who is meant to engage with the silver surfer when she comes to the planet and then he is meant to be sort of a detective of the movie to determine you know why galactus is coming how the silver surfer became who she is how to save the day in the safest possible way right and he also has to like decode a new language he does but he's doing all of that in a different tone than everyone else in the movie. And he's sort of goofy, antic, quippy, Marvel, MCU 1 or 2.0.

45:13But his timing doesn't add up with the other people. And then you're right. This script is just kind of jumping around. So he's playing this language all over again, but you don't actually see him decoding anything. They also have to do a lot of math and science. and thankfully the movie doesn't show it, but it means that then there's just a lot of announcing, like, oh, we fixed this problem, and oh, now we can teleport, and oh, now we can do this, and you're like, uh-huh, okay, like, sure? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole movie is kind of one long Amanda Science corner. I'm just being like, can we?

45:51Is it? Is it okay? Well, you know, the movie is, I think, meant to be in the spirit of Jack Kirby, the longtime illustrator and creative genius behind Marvel. an intergalactic fun saga, you know? And the characters do at a certain point traverse into outer space to go find and stop Galactus. Sure, well. Let's talk about Galactus. Sure, oh, okay. So Galactus. Yeah. He's voiced by Ralph Innocent, who's the amazing English actor who people may know from The Witch, The Green Knight, many other movies. He's a giant space god who is wearing a giant purple helmet. Well, he looks like... Lives inside of like a ship.

46:31He looks like a... There's also a drill. A Viking statue that you would build at a junkyard. Uh-huh. And he lives inside of a drill. Yeah. So that's just a... That's a tough beat, you know? Like that's a tough fate. And you get the impression... The movie turns on the fact that Sue Storm is pregnant when the Silver Surfer arrives on Earth to Harold Galactus is coming to the nation. and so they got to go into space. Right. Seven months pregnant, nine months pregnant, she goes into space to go stop Galactus. Well, there's something, so they go faster than the speed of light and so... Oh, it ages the pregnancy?

47:07No, no, no. I mean, let's, are you ready for Science Corner? Yeah, yeah. You want to start it now? Let's go, hit the music. Drop that beat, yeah. Okay, all right. Science Corner. Welcome to Amanda Dobbins' Science Corner.

47:21I mean, you turned to me, so we'll start with Anecdote 11. You turned to me and you said, would you go into space seven months pregnant? And, you know, I like hemmed and hawed because, you know, mamas can have it all. But also like like probably it's something that they could have zoomed in for. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Mamas can defeat Galactus seven months pregnant. But like probably like just a FaceTime would have sufficed. So, you know, like we can we can we can we can solve, you know, near where there are doctors. And like no one had any sort of like hospital like protocol on board.

47:59You know what I'm saying? I just they don't really they do let you fly. Where was that pod bay from Prometheus? You know, I just listen. It would have come in handy. But so then at some point they dock the you know, they take off. I felt that their rocket launch pad was far too close to the city. Agreed. I think Reid put it there. Sure. but I just like that is not good for everybody else in the air quality. Let's say you're living in Earth 828. You're going about your day. You know that the Fantastic Four are taking off that day from the Times Square of Earth 828. Are you just taking your lunch break to go watch them, send them off, say, hey, see you guys later.

48:35Good luck. I mean, some people were watching it on TV. I might stream it. You love space, like a space launch. So that the launch sequence and then the docking of the ship into the light year thing, like light year time warp, fast boats go thing was reminiscent of that's what they do in Apollo 13. and everybody goes to launch the launch in Apollo 13 and then they have to get the command module out and dock it with the lunar module and Kevin Bacon didn't have enough practice because he was the backup because Gary Sinise got the measles. They're re-releasing Apollo 13 in IMAX in September and I'm incredibly excited.

49:19That's great. Do you want to describe the entire plot of Apollo 13 to me right now? You can if you'd like. Anyway, but then they're in a light that ship that they dock in that's just like floating in space apparently waiting for them yeah it helps them travel faster than the speed of light which is like a real throwaway that line like ebben moss back rack just like dials up faster than the speed of light or something traveling faster than light so they go and then they come back and but when they're giving the disastrous pest conference which i definitely have some like pr media notes for uh reed richards we'll get to that um they're like they talk about a month long journey.

49:59So while a month has not passed in our viewing, or maybe even in the experience of the fantastic four, it has on earth. And we're not, I'm not clear how that affects gestationally what's going on and whether the baby is back on earth time or whether it's also traveling at the speed of light. Some things that we learn about the baby might also influence that. Anyway, she goes into labor in space. Wait, hold on. Yeah, sorry. Let's go officially into spoiler territory. Effectively, everything that happens all the way up until the gang goes into space to meet Galactus is roughly the first 35, 40 minutes of the movie.

50:40Yeah. And then the real conflict arises. It's not just that Galactus wants to eat planet Earth 828. It's that he's willing to make a trade. And here's where the spoilers come in. And then the trade is that he would trade Eating Earth for getting Sue Storm and Reed Richards' baby. Yeah. The unborn baby inside of Sue Storm is his price. Yeah. They, of course, say no. They get into a fight in the giant drill where Galactus lives. Right. And Johnny Storm, I thought, acquitted himself very well in that fight. I was pretty bored because it was all CGI. A lot of CGI. Yeah, I mean, again. This movie is full of CGI.

51:17But what we're learning, when the superheroes have to go to space to fight a space monster, it's just, it looks bad. Let's keep it. Maybe we don't need to be so galactic. I understand that his name is literally Galactus, but, you know, the same thing was a problem with Superman. So, yeah, but they make it out, right? They make it out. They survive. And then during their escape, Sue Storm gives birth. Well, she goes into labor, yeah. And then once they've made it out, they have to slingshot around a star, which is another thing they do in Apollo 13. That's how they get them home because they also ran out of gasoline.

51:49You'll be able to add Apollo 13 to your Fantastic Four syllabus. It's the moon's gravitational pull. It slingshots them around. Science is amazing. And so, yeah. Not my strongest subject historically. So then she gives birth. And I did appreciate that Reed Richards brought up gravity and needing gravity to push. And so he's kind of holding her down. But then she goes invisible at the moment that the baby is born, which some questions about that. I thought that was an incredibly profound metaphor for the invisibility of motherhood. That's cinema to me. Baby's very clean and doesn't have to eat once throughout the entire film.

52:32So once again, not really crying too much. Yeah. One moment where it wakes up crying a little bit and then. But I mean, there's just like food to sleep. It is not given any sustenance at any point. This is a real plot hole in all Hollywood films. I mean, you know that for like the first six months. Your son needs a lot. So I think you might be over-indexing on this as a plot hole. He's a very large baby. But you know that like those friends, look, he's a wonderful kid and he's really big. But you know all babies, the first three months, all you're doing is just feeding them. Yeah. Well, Franklin Richards in this film continues to be key because he becomes part of the bait to lure Galactus into the trap that they're trying to set.

53:19But before that happens, you mentioned this press conference. Yeah. Now, the Fantastic Four return to Earth. They're now the Fantastic Five. You've got Baby in tow. And the world wants to know how'd you do it? How'd you defeat Galactus? and rather than lie or filibuster or invent excuses, Reed Richards comes right out and says, didn't do it. Didn't beat him. He was a tough negotiator and he wanted my baby. And I said, no. And so he's coming to earth to eat everybody. And earth is not happy about this. This is the point at which you're like, not only is he not the smartest man ever, like he's actually just a dummy you know and i understand there are different forms of intelligence and that he could be math smart but not and not strategic smart but this is a really really you're more street smart this is a party foul you know it's a huge error yeah it's the kind of thing in a movie you're like oh don't do that like it was kind of a horror movie moment what so the whole movie hinges on this because you just open your fat mouth.

54:28Yeah, not ideal. And so Earth is like Fantastic Four. We're like, fuck these four. Yeah. Am I right? Yeah. And so they turn their back on him. There's a very funny moment where the thing is walking down the street wearing a hat and a trench coat carrying his groceries home. And two kids drive by and they're like, what about us? You ever think about us? We have families too, man. Yeah. Very weird movie. We should also say that in case you were wondering what happened. to the umbilical cord. The thing was there to cut it. Yes, he had the, what is that instrument called? I was out both times. The forceps.

55:03He had the forceps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, you know, like you do. You just have forceps on your rocket ship headed to Gomy Galactus. Sure, yeah. I'd like to take this moment to just stop and say, I looked at a couple of reviews of the movie and people seem to like this movie and I'm a little confused. Because it's not terrible. It's not like incompetent. Yeah. But it isn't anything special at all. Yeah. And a series of things keep happening where you're like, okay. Right. But you could have done it the other way. And you don't want to have that feeling when you're watching a movie, even if it's a comic book movie, where you have to suspend your disbelief and allow yourself to be thrown into the narrative.

55:41This goes on. You mentioned teleportation. Sure. That gets invented by Reed Richards, even though he doesn't know how to conduct a press conference. And that leads to him thinking he's got the perfect idea to teleport the entire planet Right. to another place. Right. Another location in the galaxy. Yes. And he's able to focus on these things because the only real kind of major theme of the movie is arising at this moment, which is that, what does it mean to be a hero? Is it selfish to try to protect your family in the face of protecting what you have said you stand for, which is standing up for humanity?

56:15And I really couldn't find, like locate another idea in the movie beyond that idea. Not great relative, at least it was Superman. even if not all the threads are knotted. I was like, this is a lot of threads. Some stuff here. Some stuff on this guy's mind. This movie just kind of feels like the story of a comic book. Galactus doesn't have any motive because he doesn't make his own decisions. Well, it seems like... Except he's drawn to the baby. He's drawn to the baby, I think, because he feels he is kind of trapped in this fate. Is this a QAnon movie? Could be a QAnon movie. He feels trapped in the fate of having to eat all the time.

57:01Okay. Oh, I'm not sure that I got that level of emotion from him. And he needs relief from that. And I think he sees the baby as his relief because of the incredible potential power of Franklin Richards. So the baby is going to... Take his mantle, relieve him of his burden. So he doesn't have to eat planets? I think that's what we're meant to understand. Okay. That didn't make its way to me. But the other thing they say is that Julia Garner, the silver surfer, is there because she decides which planets get eaten. Well, she's like a scout. Yeah. Yeah, she finds the planets. Because she herself was once someone who had to sacrifice her life to save her planet.

57:44And she turned her life over to Galactus and she would serve as the Herald, this person who locates what planets need to be eaten next to sate his hunger. But so he's not really making any emotional decisions one way or another. She's doing it. And she's doing it under the same question that everybody else is operating under, which is like, you know, who are you going to save? Who are you, you know? Do you think the movie would be better if it was just Daniel Day-Lewis playing Galactus? Yes. Like, would we feel more deeply for him, his struggle? There is something about making him this kind of titanic figure.

58:19And, you know, the teleportation scheme doesn't work. Silver Surfer intervenes. Galactus arrives. This is something people have wanted in movies. Comic book fans have wanted in movies for a very long time. Galactus, I think in the last movie, the Josh Trank version, I think he was like a cloud. I haven't seen this movie in some time, but they didn't actually render the giant space god walking on Earth. So for comic book fans, this is a big thing. I thought he looked okay. I didn't think it was terrible. Well, I mean, there were just some serious scale issues, right? Because he is large, but he shows up somewhere in the Hudson River, I think, or the Bay.

59:02He's near the Statue of Liberty. He's larger than the Statue of Liberty. That's your first focal point. And he's larger than all of the buildings in Manhattan. But I would say he picks up a handful of earth and several trees. But so his palm is like, you know, three large trees worth of Earth. So not insignificant. I can't do that. But like this is a person who's supposed to be able to contain entire planets. And his hand is only like that, you know, three trees big. I don't, he might have like an incredible intestines. We don't really know enough about the physiology of this character. Sure. But I'm just, I'm saying like, you know, it doesn't pass the eye test.

59:46That's fair. Okay. I won't quibble with that whatsoever. Nevertheless, the Fantastic Four come up with a scheme to draw him into a black hole. Right. Or to kind of teleport him out. Right. Because they can't teleport the entire planet out. And they have enough uranium left for one. 37 seconds worth of time for sucking him in. Of power and something. So they fail when they first try because Galactus is super smart. But then he basically mid-battle falls prey to Sue Storm's incredible ability to put her hands out and send beams of power into Galactus' direction. Vanessa Kirby doing a tremendous amount of face and grunt acting.

1:00:31We've seen this from many actresses over the years. You know, Scarlet Witch, known for this kind of... How would you do with this kind of acting where you had to gesture to the power coming out of your fingers? I haven't done my whole warm-up process yet. and my exercises. Is that not one of the solid core steps? You have to learn how to shoot beams. My pre-stage routine in order, you know, to be a super mama. It like, it takes a little more work. I didn't have time for it today. She did super mama her way to victory. Mamas are the real superheroes. And then, so she gets it most of the way because like you can't stop a mama.

1:01:04And then she, he like pokes his hand back out or something. And there are 11 seconds left. and we know that because they check the Human Torch's Apple Watch. And then in comes the silver surfer, who we have learned in flashback was once upon a time a mama herself. If not in actuality and spirit, she's seen with a small child doing mama-like things with flowing dresses. Yes, Johnny Storm reveals her intergalactic humanity. Sure. So she comes in to knock Galactus back through the wormhole or whatever the hell it is. So in the end, it's the two mamas who save the day. Yeah. And, you know, here we are.

1:01:51Those two mamas team up and Sue Storm dies, but then she gets brought back to life. Right by her magic child. Reed Richards puts a baby on her chest. Because once again, the power of being a, you know, like what you do as a mom is the most powerful thing of all. Yeah. So then she comes back to life. and then the Fantastic Four, they did it. Yeah. And hooray. And then I was like, okay, now we're going to get like 10 minutes of cool stuff is going to happen. Because this was just an issue of the Fantastic Four. That's all this was. It was just one issue of a comic book. Okay. Now that isn't bad per se, but the MCU has been down bad for a long time.

1:02:30And this movie has a lot riding on it. And in my head, I was like, okay, time to break out the big guns. What are we going to do, guys? What's going to happen with Fantastic Four? And then the credits hit. No, they did a bit about a car seat first. Oh, yeah. There was a car seat joke. The three, you know, the dads don't have it, but the mamas, they're super mamas. Right. So the super mamas figure it out. Franklin goes in the car seat. They fly off to another adventure. Right. End credits hit. Mid-credit scene happens. Yeah. Four years later, Sue is... Ish. They don't say that. You're just guessing that.

1:03:06No, it said four years later. Oh, it did? Yeah. That's why I said four is a great age. I just thought you were looking at Franklin and, you know, it was like one mama to another being like, I'm right there. It said four years later and Franklin's getting ready to read. He's already read Darwin for the day. So she's going to look for some board books that he might enjoy. And she steps away from her son for a minute only to return. And we see from behind a man holding a metal mask with a green cloak. invariably it is Doctor Doom getting ready to take Franklin and Franklin looks intrigued so a baby or a child in peril is like a major feature of Fantastic Four I don't really know okay I can't remember I didn't love it in general you know it was fine the baby is in a lot of trouble the baby is really and they've got like a bulletproof car seat or whatever but they're using the baby as bait when it's not feeding it but just putting it in harm's way.

1:04:04Nothing will ever be worse than the sequence in The Flash. No, you're right. That was the worst. The flying babies out of the hospital windows was the worst. I mean, I was like, I don't love it, but I see why you're doing it, and the baby is okay. When I said that Superman was like a Saturday morning cartoon, I think I meant like a 90s Saturday morning cartoon. This is like a 60s Saturday morning cartoon, and they are different. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I prefer the 90s. And I prefer not every scene having like a wink wink nudge nudge inside joke at you or like get a load of this guy kind of sense of humor but I'd like a little bit of it and I found this movie to be surprisingly not funny yeah I would say you would like humor of some kind yes and they do try and there are some jokes and like Ebenhoss back rack innocent in my opinion he's trying but the thing is so unexpressive that you don't get as much from that character as you want I've actually I just think that the representation of the thing in the previous two Fantastic Four movies is actually better than it is in this movie, which feels strange to say because those movies are not good.

1:05:07So that stuff isn't great. It leaves us on this cliffhanger of, you know, Doctor Doom is coming, which is cool, but we knew that already. You know, the last Comic-Con, this was all revealed to us. We know RDJ is coming back. There's a Spider-Man movie one year from now. And then Doomsday. Now, I'm fond of saying that Endgame is good. One of the reasons why Infinity War and Endgame were so good was because they had spent 10 years building up to this incredible story and this huge stakes. And they presented Thanos and all of these situations over time and got to hear more about him over time and get figure out why he was the villain of this major story.

1:05:47Right. Didn't James Gunn recently give an interview where he said he thought of the Infinity Stones in like 15 seconds? I saw that quote. Well, he didn't invent them. They were a part of the plot line. Yeah. Well, that's what he said. I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know. I mean, the Infinity Gauntlet pre-exists before James Gunn. Maybe just the idea to use it as the MacGuffin to tell the story there. I'm reading an Instagram caption. James Gunn explains how he wrote the Infinity Stones in three minutes. There you go. Okay, interesting.

1:06:22I guess I just don't know where we're going. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but the Marvel movies unto themselves are... I don't feel like we're great works of art. I thought the great work of art was the push towards the conclusion of the story. That was the thing that I always wanted to celebrate as an interesting kind of evolution in movie storytelling. Never really seen anything like that. I thought they nailed it with a bunch of the storylines. Now we're headed towards the big event, the big new Avengers movie, the first Avengers movie since Endgame. What's even on the line here?

1:06:56I don't even know what we're heading towards. I know you don't know. I'm just, I'm like kind of bewildered by how they've set us up here. It's not the secret wars? What are the secret wars? Well, that's like a, that's another run from the 80s that's about a lot of alien figures and the collision of worlds. And there's going to be characters from other universes fighting each other. Well, we didn't, we didn't talk about how this, the dropped plot of the other universes and how they could have just teleported everyone to a different earth, right? I think they were just going to move the entire planet.

1:07:29Yeah, but then if you move him to a different Earth, then is Galactus going to come looking for that Earth? You know? I don't think the idea was to move to a different Earth. No, I know. But what if that, I'm just offering a solution. Move all of humanity to a different planet? To a different Earth. Because there are lots of Earths exist, as we know. This is 828. What about 829? What's going on over there? Does Reed Richards know there are other universes? You tell me. I mean, in some comics, yes. Okay. Isn't he supposed to be the smartest man alive? He's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, he's not supposed to be the greatest soy boy alive, but that's what he was.

1:08:03We would not say great problem solving to this one. No. This is a weird movie. I was confused. And sometimes when I see a movie like this and I'm confused, I'm like, I should go see that again. Maybe I missed something. What did I miss? I don't think I did. I didn't really feel either. I was confused because I did feel that the reviews and the reception that preceded us was more positive. Well, I do. I sense that a lot of critics were relieved to not have to know a lot going in. Sure. That doesn't, that wouldn't significantly improve my opinion of a movie. If that's the first thing that you're noting in why you thought the movie was kind of successful, that's not really a success to me.

1:08:54It's something that is helpful to potentially telling a good story, but it's not enough. Beyond that, performances are okay at best. The story is really comic book 101. The effects are not great, which has been an issue for Marvel for years now. And it doesn't even move the ball forward that intriguingly. So I'm baffled. Now, the tracking for the movie is... I would say mid. Okay. It's roughly$100 to$110 million opening. That would come in behind the Superman opening. I'm not, I'm quite fascinated to know what the word of mouth will be. You know, we had an interesting conversation with Jack after this.

1:09:38And Jack pointed out, Jack, feel free to speak up on this because you were much younger when the first two Fantastic Four movies came out with Yohan Gruffit and Jessica Alba and Chris Evans. When I was, I was in college when those movies came out and I watched them and thought they were trash. But what was your relationship to those movies? I absolutely adored them. I rewatched the original one today. It is not good. But I think a comparison point here is like, Chris Evans in the original movie, although it be bad, he has chemistry. He is engaging. He has charisma, sexual energy. Joseph Quinn doesn't really have any of those traits as an actor.

1:10:18And I like him. I think he's good. But it goes back to being deeply miscast. And I agree with your point in the original Fantastic Four. when you are watching The Thing, you see Michael Chiklis. And even though he's in The Thing costume, you are saying, I'm looking at Michael Chiklis. In this film, I do not see Eben Moss Bacharach performing. I see a CGI orange monster performing, and it lessens the humor of the character. Yeah, it's definitely true. And so the whole spirit of the characters that we know and love are kind of gone. I think it makes sense if you saw those early movies, regardless of their quality, and then you have a little bit more of an emotional connection to the characters.

1:10:53and this feels like an elevation of those characters to one extent or another. But I didn't and I don't. Yeah. Is it going to do well? People are going to like it? Is the word of mouth going to be good? I'm confused. The gentleman who was sitting next to us at our 2 p.m. screening today, Matt. Matt. Matt didn't like it either. Matt introduced himself to us and said, guys, that wasn't good. Yeah. So that's our one man on the street. I was surprised by our reaction as well. Not because I thought like, oh, you know, this is going to reinvent my relationship to comic book movies. But just because it was positive and also people were so excited for this.

1:11:29And I guess some of that is like Jack's, you know, Jack's peers and a lot of people who have been waiting for these characters mean a lot to them. I only remember the disastrous Josh Trank Fantastic Four, which I never even saw. But I just know that that was not successful. and so I think I went in being a little, I didn't think it looked that great either. But you asked the critical question on the way out of here, which is, which was what? Which is, are we sure the problem isn't just the Fantastic Four and that the characters are pretty tough? Because, you know, your answer to is he a stretchy nerd was yes, but.

1:12:09Like, but there is more. You know, I don't really know what's going on with Sue Storm besides she can, you know, do a force field. Well, she turns invisible. Oh, yeah, that's cool. But you know what I didn't realize until I saw this movie? So The Incredibles is just like the Fantastic Four, but good. This was going to be my final note. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Incredibles is kind of obviated to these characters. But I don't think I understood, like, to a character that the powers are the same. Like, Jack-Jack lights up into flames. Violet does the force field and the invisible. There's no dash. but you know Mr.

1:12:47Incredible he can he does all sorts of things but he can stretch he's sort of like oh no no no Elastigirl Elastigirl yeah yeah yeah stretches but it is like an amalgam of all of the powers for the Fantastic Four and it's a family formulation yeah and the success of that those two movies makes it harder for Fantastic Four even though it's clearly like a big homage to Fantastic Four yeah I think you're definitely onto something there's just something gee willikers about Fantastic Four that is very outmoded and there was an attempt to kind of make this a period piece. Right. To make this like a Phil Spector pop song and it's, they didn't, I didn't feel they caught the tone.

1:13:26They didn't catch the wave. Like the rhythm is off and so I was, I was disappointed. I don't, the last few Marvel episodes Yeah. I've been presenting them to you as like, if they strike out, it's over. If they strike out, it's over. And now it's like, It's not over, it's just different. It's way different. Which is what we say about everything, certainly about movies. But this just seems like this is going to be for a subset of people who enjoy these things. I don't think they're going to be, you know, billion dollar spectacles going forward. I mean, it sets up Doomsday. It's an interesting question.

1:14:02Yes. The Spider-Man movie will probably work. Every Spider-Man movie has worked. Doomsday has Avengers in its title and will have Robert Downey Jr. selling it. So it's going to do well. Right. I don't know how much lower the bar gets in terms of what is well when you're on your third or fourth consecutive movie that isn't cracking$500 million. This movie probably will, almost certainly will internationally, but I think long gone are the days of$800 million guaranteed. And I'll watch it with interest. We'll talk about it next week, how well it does. X-Men? It's only like five years away. Is it really?

1:14:44Can I hold on for that long? Is it really five years? At least 2028. At least. I'm honestly just doing the math of how old you'll be. And that's pretty old. I'm probably going to be able to get Knox into X-Men and get him into the movies with me. I liked the one X-Men movie with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence. Sure, which was sort of like Inglourious Bastards, but X-Men. It's generous, but sure. Well, you know, it's a period piece. I, is X-Men what we choose? He knows about Spider-Man. He knows about Batman. Well, definitely, you can't go see the Batman with him. He's not going to be able to see that until he's like 12.

1:15:23No, that's true. Spider-Man, maybe. We watched Spider-Verse, Alice and I. And she was into it. She loves Miles and Spider-Gwen. Okay. But yeah, X-Men is a very, you know, he'll be like seven. when he's seven and I show him Logan you know I show him Wolverine me and CR showing him Wolverine that's gonna fucking you can't show him Logan at seven that's not okay yeah we can fuck yeah we can he's a sensitive little guy no I love him no you know he's a he's a he's a manimal like Wolverine himself and he will he will rise once more adamantium is that what his claws are made of yes wow I'm so glad that that is a fact that's stored in my brain I learned that from the Red Hulk that's right adamantium and vibranium are in a death race to see what is the more powerful naturally occurring element is there another element out there that trumps all of them that they haven't yes cocaine that just about does it for us any last thoughts it was fun to go to the movies with you it's always fun to go to the movies with you Amanda thank you to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode.

1:16:38Next week, we're actually going to come with our 25 for 25 first. We were originally going to do, I know what you did last summer, but I haven't seen it yet. So 25 for 25, we presented it to the Chicago crowd. I'm not going to reveal it here, even though I think most people know what it is already. We had a wonderful time presenting it. Hope you enjoyed the episode. We'll see you then.

1:17:16refresh your good vibes with Tic Tac with the right vibes you get oh man to

1:17:36Now try the different TikToks from minty-free to sweet-sweet. TikTok. Refresh your good vibes.