Geekscape

The Geekscape 'Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice' Special!

You guys are officially spoiled! Two Ian Kerner wrap up Specials in two weeks on top of the main podcast! And if you haven't seen 'Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice' yet... you definitely will be spoiled as there are SPOILERS EVERYWHERE! This is the most controversial comic book film in recent memory and to wade through the ashes of this past weekend's enormous opening, Ian Kerner and I take the movie on piece by piece! It's not always pretty but you might just learn a lot (or even change your opinions on the film)! What was good? What made sense? What had us scratching our heads? It's all here so sit back and enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 1h 19m
Broadcast on:: 01 Apr 2016
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Viscally Responsible. Financial Geniuses. Monetary Magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations. Dear Fancy Gift Wrappers, you continue to amaze us. No present is too large or too complicated for you. Your creativity with elaborate calligraphy is unsurpassed. Your inventive use of glitter leaves us amazed. This holiday season, you'll have your gift wrap and work cut out for you. But you can leave the big red bows to us. Get offers on select vehicles at the Lexus December to remember sales event. Now through January 2nd. What's amazing at your Lexus dealer? Geekscapists. You demanded it. I'm getting it to you guys. The Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice. Wrap up special with Ian Kerner. I hope you guys know how spoiled you are. Because last week you got the Daredevil Season 2 special and you all seemed to love that. Now you're getting Batman v Superman not even a week afterwards. Well, I think by the time I post this, exactly a week afterwards. But this movie, there's a ton to talk about. And as I was watching this movie with Ian, I'm thinking, damn, there's a lot to talk about. And if the week since has been any evidence, hell yes, there's been a lot to talk about. On top of this podcast, there's also, I went and was on, I was a guest on the Unpopular Kids, which is a show over there. I think it spawned out of like the Smosh guys. And I was a guest over there. I talked with Matt Rob and Jovan Shire and Flitz about the Dawn of Justice. And so there's an hour of my thoughts over there. Now I'm about to give you guys another hour of my thoughts with Ian right here on Geekscapes. So, we saw it. I don't think we saw it twice. No. I know I didn't. But we watched it. And there's a lot to talk about. Some of it I loved. Some of it. I said, huh, that's also in a movie with things that I loved. Ian, I don't even know where to begin with this thing. You know what's really upsetting about this movie is, I'm reacting to you saying some of it you loved. Is there anything that you love that doesn't have an asterisk? No. No, because I mean the inclusion in this movie is an asterisk. I mean this movie is a bit of an asterisk and we talked a little bit before the show and I think we'll save it till later in the conversation with as much critical, I don't even know what you want to say about this. But as much as critical attention that this movie has gotten, how does Warner Brothers in DC Entertainment course correct from here? Because the train has left the station, the announcements have been made, Justice League shoots in two weeks. How do you course correct from here? Because although the thing is making a ton of box office dollars, it's obvious that the critics and the fans are, again, critical of this movie. Well, I mean look, first of all, you're course correct by getting rid of Snyder. You know? Contracted to do Justice League 1 and 2. Yes, but it's probably too late on the first part. The second part, you could phase him out. He'll still be involved. These aren't movies that you're shooting at the same time? I didn't see the schedule, but I don't think, even if, I mean again it's too early on the first part, I don't think it's a full shoot, like it's not going to be six months straight or whatever. Is there oversight given to Snyder on Justice League at this point? I mean, you can't stop the movie, he's going to start shooting. Is there oversight? I think there has to be, I think there should be. Obviously there's been, well, I shouldn't say obviously, there's a lot of conversation about what that three hour cut is. Of this film? Of this film? You know? I heard there was a six hour cut. Yes, I've heard that also. It's interesting because I want to see the three hour cut. When we talk about blaming Snyder, there's some stuff that he just did that's full on just bad, and this aspect of this movie that I blame Snyder mostly for things about how the movie flows, things that are missing that just doesn't progress well. I might tick you off, or you might think I'm crazy, but I kind of want to see the six hour version. I've had two friends. I would watch it. You know, we went to WonderCon this weekend and I had conversations with friends, one of which they said, "Hey, I think this movie needed a longer running time to deal with, I guess, just how oblique the plot was." Well, the first two thirds of the movie play like it's just a hodgepodge of stuff. Here's something. From the get-go, I went, "Oh, Batman, he's Superman, that's how he's going to start Batman." And I was like, "That's kind of a problem." I understand they've been on multiple Batman movies and all that, but they're forcing their universe too quickly. You and I have talked about this before, this idea that Marvel developed it and everyone had the single movies, and then they did it, and DC's kind of going, "Shit, we gotta catch up tomorrow. Let's just do it." And then we'll figure it out later, and that's apparent. Well, the other argument I have about this goes back to that first two thirds of the movie in just how overcomplicated it is. There's a 90-minute version of this movie that I think is pretty good, where the plot line, which is basically, and guys, they're going to be spoilers all over this podcast. Sorry I didn't tell you that, but you should've known because that's what the E-incarnate specials are for. Right. It's a recap. Every piece of it. I think the overcomplication of the first two thirds of this movie, at its core, this is still a movie where Lex tricks Superman and Batman are fighting each other, and when he's simplified, I think this movie is the best. Let me say this. I actually think that one of the things that's slightly redeemed the movie for me was that Lex manipulated them into fighting. Yeah. The idea that they were fighting on their own and going on all that, I didn't like it. Even though Bruce had that motivation of having seen, like, Wayne Enterprises destroyed and realizing that, like, first hand, front row seats, this is a God among men. We can't stop him. He's too powerful to do it. And it's interesting. I don't actually let, you know, you take it apart. The idea that Batman can be manipulated by Lex bothers me, but I still like that he was manipulated by Lex. You know, that was put away. Now, I'll tell you one of the holes is the fact, "Oh, Lex just knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman." Now, my general feeling is that playing this real world thing people would know, and yet there's an idea here that he's been Batman for 20 years, and somehow people don't know, but Lex just happens to know. Whoa. It's a pretty matter of fact. Lex just knows. Well, there's a few issues. One of which is he's the bad of Gotham, and now he's getting coverage after having existed for 20 years. And no point did Perry White say to Clark as he's put in a kibosh on the one actual goal that Clark/Superman has in the movie, because he's a really passive character in this entire movie. He actually doesn't do a whole lot in this movie actively. Oh, you mean like when he's at the Senate here, and the Capitol gets blown up, and he's just standing there. Yeah, maybe I should have been paying attention. So Clark has like one goal in the movie, and he's like wants to write this piece on the bad of Gotham. Right. And Perry says he's been around 20 years. We've done the story before. Sorry, small. Well, it seemed like the idea is that ever since, and again, that's like, hasn't it been a year and a half, but he's upped his game now he's branding people, so he's much worse than he used to be. Yeah, there's some sadistic parts of the story. Explain something to me. Yeah. So they say that he's branding people, and then they get arrested, and then the brand is a mark in prison, it makes people, if they see you with the brand, the other prisoners, kill you. Sure. Does that make any sense? No, it means that Batman kills people. Well, before I go there, because he kills a lot more people beyond that. People are angry in prison that the Batman caught them and branded them, so they're going to kill him. They're not working for Batman shouldn't be like, oh God, I feel for you, Batman beat you up. Yeah, Batman beat you up. Oh, I want to kill you because he hit you. Yeah. Why? What's the motivation of that? It's not like the brand is like, oh, they were a stoolie for Batman, then I'd understand it. No, these are people that Batman beat up shouldn't they be like fucking heroes? Right? Like they're the toughest of the tough. Yeah, like they survived Batman because, let's be honest, most people don't survive him. No. He's killing people left and right. He kills a ton of people in this movie. He runs him over the batmobile. I mean, Lewis, I'm the best. He tries to run Superman over. Right. Well, I feel like he was craning around that corner in Superman, I was just standing there and he tried to maybe avoid it at best. Did he? Did he really try to avoid him? I don't know. He didn't try to avoid anyone else. Yeah. I mean, blowing people up, he just dropped the scene before that. And the best is after that, he just killed all these people in this chase. Superman stands there and makes him have a car accident, wrecks his car. He gets out. He doesn't try to arrest me. I think he says, hey, man, you just killed all these people. But just so we're clear, don't do it again. Do you do it again? We're going to have a problem. One of the positives people are taking from this movie is the Batman, Ben Affleck, Bruce Wayne stuff. Love Ben Affleck. Are you saying that this is as flawed as the depiction of Superman, which is also already flawed coming into Man of Steel? Well, I'm saying that, yes, they've started the Batman franchise with a gaping problem. Yeah. And it's very much that same problem with Man of Steel is Batman's killing people after right. And I think the only justification is that he turns out, he goes, well, you know, Alfred with criminals. Right. You know, by the way, we'll do this 20 years. We've never decided to discuss this. But guess what? We're not the good guys, which no, Batman is okay, but Batman is okay with acting outside the law. So yes, technically, he's a criminal, but he's not a murderer. He's not a murderer. Superman does it when it's the final, let me say something because, you know, people that are really up on this stuff will argue that in his first appearance, Batman used a gun and a dead kill, but that's not the Batman we know, that's not the Batman that's the great hero. That's the Batman we deserve. Yeah. Boy, I guess that's the argument, isn't it? Zack Snyder would say that in the world we live in today, vigilantes would kill, and that's just what would happen. And you know, it's interesting. And you know, there's, obviously, there's already a lot of commentary out there. And one of the reviews I'd read talked about how, all right, clearly Zack Snyder was taken at task, a man of steel with all the indiscriminate violence and all the deaths that Superman, you know, causes. And here, there's an attempt to avoid it. It's not completely successful, but it would stuck with me in one of the reviews' idea, but it's sort of like he's doing it, you know, under protest. Like, all right, I'm not going to show him killing a lot of people, but I actually think he should be, you know? And I'm going to re-show you guys, this sort of crap. Exactly. So he gets to, he throws that back in and go like, yeah, see that, remember that? You guys said I can't do this again, but fuck you, I'm just going to show it to you again, to show it actually was worse than you thought. Yeah. We're actually going to see a shot of a guy on the phone with Bruce Wayne praying to God as he gets, he disintegrated by heat vision. Jack's the guy who waits for the terraforming weapon to be five blocks away before he thinks about evacuating the building. No, and he has to get a phone call from his boss before he even occurs to what an idiot. I just, I don't even know what to say. I was like, seriously, it was like, it was one of the stupidest things ever. The hiring practices at Wayne Enterprise, it was pretty loose, I mean, they hired that guy. Definitely. He was a moron. How did he get the job? Yeah. I mean, he was the boss. You would think definitely anything. He was the number one guy in that building that he got. Yeah, yeah. It was definitely problematic. It continues though. We have... So wait, wait, so talking about Superman and Killing, now I'll tell you visually, I really like the scene where, you know, the terrorist has lowest by the throat and her hands around his arm and Superman gets there and she looks at him and she takes her hands off, boom. Yeah. I can't do anything, but I'm sorry. Just for this record? There's no fucking way that guy's not dead. Oh, no. He's dead. He's dead. Definitely. Like, he's... He's oatmeal. And what troubled me was that the other Senate hearings about what went on in Afghanistan, or when I saw the trailer, I thought that the Senate hearings were based on the destruction of the droplets. Same here. Which would have made sense. Now, knowing that the Senate hearings are based on this terrorist activity, the... Because... And let's follow this. Because, apparently, the fact that Superman went in and got involved with this international incident led there to be these soldiers then supposedly went back and killed civilians. And that's the reason why. And you didn't see... And you know, if it didn't happen on screen, we're just on that. Well, wait, wait. No, actually, we did see it. Because that's just it. The people... The people... The people working for lax. But first of all, let's back up a second. Let's back up a second. This wouldn't be Senate hearings, so it would be a fucking United Nations. That's first of all. Doesn't even make any fucking sense. And you know what? The Senate... Okay. You guys were just gonna send a drone strike in there anyway. So what are you guys complaining about? That also. But more of the point... Let's actually break that scene down. Does it make any sense at all that Lex was doing that because his big plans to make Superman look bad? So here's something I thought about. I thought it was... I thought it was testing the waters that... If you had Lois, if the equation that Lex was trying to figure out was Lois in danger, Superman. I didn't think you were trying to... No, I didn't agree. No, I didn't agree. Now, I know how to catch Superman. I think he supposedly already knew that. But he only could have known that because he watched the old shows and movies, you know? But again, I think that was supposed to be a given that he's gonna come for her. But that's what I'm saying. He sits in the water so later... That's what I'm saying. He sits in the water so later when he pushes her off the building, he knows that Superman will come. Does that make sense? It does. I understand it. That's an interesting argument. I think it's a convoluted way to do it. Oh. Hello. The first two thirds of this movie is a convoluted way to do it. More than... Well, I wanted to discuss Luther. Because in the first two thirds of the movie, I was going like, "Oh my God, he's so too dimensional." Like, the motivation. Here's this guy who's in a geek way, supposedly. They presented a character that's supposed to be geek charismatic, even though he was just creepy. You know? He was Edward Digma is what he was. He was very Edward Digma, but it was a very Google kind of workspace kind of thing that they were going with, trying to make it very modern. But what's his motivation against Superman? Why? The guy has money. Is everything else? Yes, he's working with the government. I didn't really have a sense that as we've seen in other versions in the comics, and in other... Like, in Lois and Clark and to some extent in Smallville, but like, it's not the whole, "Oh my God, you got to kill the alien," or "The alien's taking my press," which was very prevalent in the more recent versions of comic books. And you also... Do you know what I mean? It wasn't that. You also have to factor in. That on some level, Lex knows something about the coming of Darkseid. Well, this is what I wanted to discuss with you. Wait, hold on. He's put in the files together to gather the Justice League. Why would he have an investment in removing Superman from the board? Well, this is my thought, okay? This is what I want to talk to you about, because here's the debate in my own mind. Talk to us about the case. Yes, yes. So here's the debate that I haven't decided yet the answer to this. It's not really in the movie. So the first two thirds, I'm watching this, this is two dimensional, actually beyond two thirds. It's not till the end of the movie when Lex makes the statement about Darkseid, which it's not clear. It's only clear to those of us who really know the comics. But it's also clear that he took these files and he's assembling some of them. Wait, wait, wait. There's an argument, some people are arguing as he's talking about Darkseid or Brainiac, but I think because of the Apaca's imagery we already have, we already know where Justin was going, he's talking about Darkseid. So the question in my mind immediately was, did he know Darkseid was coming all along? Is he a minion of Darkseid, you know? Sort of like there's a character in the comics, you know, Mannheim, right? And Mannheim runs Intergang. And he's a minion of Darkseid. And there's a whole thing in the comics for years that Intergang, it's like the mafia in Metropolis, but they have weapons from Apocalypse, so they can actually maybe even affect Superman, like you can really strong sci-fi weapons. And so instantly for me, I thought to myself, okay, and this is big, this is arguably a stretch, but if Lex knows about Darkseid all along, then his whole ploy to go after Superman is because he's a minion of Darkseid. And it's not only about killing him, it's actually more because what I think that leads to if that's what we're supposed to take away from it is the nightmare sequence that Batman has. And so it's already confusing because Batman has dreams that are his real dreams. This is Neil, I've never heard this theory, and I've talked to a lot of people about this. So it's confusing, but then he has a dream in which he's in the desert, and he's fighting pretty much a war against Superman. And that's called the nightmare sequence with a cave. It's called the nightmare with a cave, exactly. And in the sequence, we actually see Parademons, so the monsters that you see in that are right out of the comic of the Parademons that are Apocalypse minions, they look great. And you actually see an Omega sign, which is a sign of Darkseid. And then Superman lands, and he's killing all these people, and he seemingly kills Batman. And then all of a sudden, it morphs into this thing of, you see the flash seemingly out of a boom tube, giving Bruce this warning and saying, "A Lois is the key," and all that. Now, you were right about him, now you were right about him being Superman, and Lois is the key? What's your theory on that thing? Well, that's just it. So, hear me out on this, because my whole feeling is the whole sequence, not just the flash thing, but all of it is a vision Batman's getting of either the future or a possible future. Sure. Okay? And my feeling is that if Lex was directed by Darkseid one way or another to kill Superman, it's because Darkseid's now going to resurrect him, and in the process of resurrecting him he's going to make him his minion. And that's what that sequence is. There's that, and there's also the theory that we posted on the website that Jake Lopez wrote up, that if Lois is somehow killed, Superman will go back. Yes. And that's the injustice theory. And I like that too, and it makes me think that-- I'll tell you why I don't like that. Well, it makes me think that Justice League Part One is the Justice League without Superman having problems with the apocalypse, and then Part Two is Justice League Two is them resurrecting Superman and joining forces. Maybe. Maybe. I'll tell you what I don't like about the injustice theory, because then I love the injustice. I love the story, and you know, it's all about-- but that doesn't drive Superman to be bad, which look, he's a minion of Darkseid in that vision. He is a minion of Darkseid. There's no other interpretation of that vision. He's a Superman bad. He's literally working for Darkseid. He's indiscriminately killing people, and he's working with paradigms. Sure. Okay? That's more than just how low it's got killed. Yeah. Okay. Lowest gets killed, and he decides he has to take a harder edge. Do you know what-- Lowest getting killed made Superman do in injustice? Kill the dude. Pretty much act like he did a man of steel. Yeah. Only go a little further without actually taking over and controlling things. Sure. But killing people left and right, which Superman doesn't do. Not killing good guys. Right. You know? I mean, as injustice went on, it went a little further. Sure. But my point being that I don't see that. I see a minion of Darkseid. And my feeling is, it would make sense to me that one or another Lex is looking to kill him, whether it be Batman does it, or doomsday does it. I feel he's been directed to do that. To kill Superman. And then he then to ring it's resurrected by Darkseid in the pits. And then perhaps the resurrected process can make him a minion. And then if Darkseid had that as a plan, that makes it make a little sense to me. Now here's my-- So maybe Lois is the key to getting him back in Justice League Part II. That's what I said. And then all of a sudden now we have our Justice League when we go kick some ass. I think something like that. I also think that Lois is the key because it's about Luther and what Lois knows. What Lois has been piecing together. Well, can we talk about that story in a line? Because that story in a line was-- Well, it's kind of dumb. It was one of the least satisfying. I'm going to segue into that because part of that, though, is the fact that, all right, so you have this whole thing in the desert with Luther's minions kill everybody. To make Superman look bad, I guess. But then they use bullet-- There's been a fantasy in storyline, but not the nightmare sequence. Yeah, but they use bullets that are special bullets that only made by-- That are trace easily to Luther, right? It's kind of dumb. And literally, all I could think is, and someone said, "Oh, am I grasping here?" But as I mentioned a few minutes ago that in the comics, there's this inter-gang thing in Apocalypse Weaponry. I was like, I wondered to myself, was this a plot line that at some point they were going with, about the special weaponry, and did it get lost somewhere, and this is a leftover from a draft like that? You know? Maybe inter-gang. Clearly, they're looking for a reason to give Lois something to do. I really think this movie-- way too much of this movie-- is just set up. My favorite is that Lois recognizes him from Afghanistan because he's got the tattoo, that one-- Right. I'm just going to call him inter-gang guy. And then she's coming-- It's KGB's. It's KGB's. So she recognizes KGB's. She's closing up at work. She's coming down the escalator. She's got the same mistake. And she goes, "Don't I recognize you?" If you recognize him from your kidnapped in Afghanistan, you don't approach him. No. Like, she goes, "Wait. Do I recognize you?" He goes, "Yeah. Yeah, for all the wrong reasons. What are you doing? What are you doing? Conversation with the guy. Hey. I know you. You're the guy that almost killed me. Did we go to college together? Right. Totally stupid. So, you know, those are the credits, KGB's. That's Anatoly. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're more versed than I have. That's great. So, the whole thing about Luther doing that and setting him up that way, I mean, is it-- again, I go to this place in my brain like, I feel like there's a plan here about making him look bad, pushing him to a place emotionally, then killing him that only makes sense to me if that's part of Darkside's plan. But here's my question though, because my question is what I'm not clear on. I like that. And I like it too, but the other interpretation is they just didn't know what the fuck they were doing and he doesn't learn about Darkside until he uses the technology-- To create those. --of Krypton. Yeah, because remember, he gets access to the computer that he's like, "Tell me everything." So maybe that's where he learned about Darkside. And that might have been cut out. But if that's where he learned about Darkside, then unfortunately, the whole thing about being Darkside's plan falls apart, and it might be that. So that's what I wanted to ask you. Do you think it's there or did he already know it was the Dominion? I like the Minion theory a lot. Well, it's just a lot to bury into this first film. But it makes up for a lot of what's wrong with the movie. It also semi-justifies the almost-- it felt like shoehorning of the Justice League plot line in this film, because any time this movie had a bit of a bit of an engine to it, all of a sudden, you feel suspiciously, right? But if he's a Minion, then he's looking for everyone that could fight them. Right. Then it's the entire thing. Wow, there's so much-- there's a lot to talk about. Maybe my favorite Lex scene was one in which Lex turns to that-- you never see him again. The government guy says, "I want two things. I want to access to the Kryptonian body, and I want to access the Kryptonian ship." And as soon as he said those things, I turn to Laura, and I go, "An exchange for--" Right. "Noth--" Not blowing him up. The only thing that guy got was a Jolly Rancher. Right. I feel like there's a deleted scene after the credits where that guy is like on the best island, where like totally set up, and it's like paid for by Lex Corp. And he's like, "Thanks." No. Because that wasn't satisfied at all. Because you know what's missing? Because it's like an all-star Superman when they come to him, you know? It's almost like, hey, guess what? Well, there are versions of this kind of idea out there in comics, in movies and television shows. So, we'll just suggest the idea, and that's good enough. Sure. Again, this is what I'm saying is wrong with the movie. It's like, the movie on its own doesn't really stand. Even the ideas I'm throwing out there are only because I have the knowledge I do, can I even remotely grasp any of that? Yeah, and you're in-- Like, it's not on screen. And you're in the end of the day. It's just the name we suggested. You're doing 50% of the work here. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of work here. One piece of--here's a piece of math for you, and the scene that I did not need to see was Superman having sex with Lois in the bathtub. Like, I feel like that's-- No, when you see-- I feel--well, I just feel like that's not--you know, I'm all for sex. But this movie made a huge amount of money over the weekend. I feel like it would have made more if the stuff in it would have been kid-friendly. I feel like if kids would have been able to go-- Oh, come on, dude. That's the least of what's not kid-friendly in the movie. Right. But what I'm saying is, just on a character level, I don't think the kids raised some one who's just going to--like within 10 minutes of a movie, Superman's having sex, and here's an even bigger problem, Superman having sex with Lois so early in the movie. We learn later on, and this is just math, guys, human plus Kryptonian DNA equals doomsday. So nine months later, Lois is going to have herself a little doomsday. No, I don't agree with that assessment. We're going to have a doomsday, baby, Ian. It's back. I think the idea there, and it was a nod to Bizarro in the comics, you know? But although, even that, it's silly, but it's just the idea, Lex was creating a monster and just threw a little of his DNA in as part of the creating the monster thing. Nope. Making a doomsday. But kidding. No, no, he was. I know. Making a doomsday. That was the plan, but he just threw a little-- But Lois is going to have a doomsday, baby. To be perfectly honest, the whole Lexar movie's DNA in doesn't mean anything, because what is it really adding to it? I have some problems with Lex is the immediate ownership of that ship, because he fakes himself as Zod with the fingerprints. You would think that the ship's a little smarter than that, right? Yeah, and then it immediately recognizes him as Lex and lets him do whatever he wants. The deleted scene, I think, that may have been shot was, I'm Zod, though the ship recognizes me as Zod, turn over ownership of the ship to Lex Luthor, and then from there on we're good. I agree, that one makes sense. My favorite scene on the ship was Superman saving Lex. This doomsday immediately is birthed and attacks Lex, and Superman stops him. I thought that was cool. And now-- You can't call that a scene. It's a moment. I know, but now he's scabist, you actually have proof that Superman saves people. And that's it. Well, and also the Jesus thing, you know, after that fight. Well, the South America thing is one thing, but I never actually saw him save anybody from that fight. Yeah, he just floated there. And here's the thing with the montage. It kind of reminded me of like the old super dickery, you know, you added a thing. It's like, hey, you guys are like really in deep shit there. I'm just going to float here and look at you. I think the movie talks-- the movie mentions Superman saving-- like saving cats for entry. This character would have been helped immensely from that. And this is a character who-- I'm all for the journey of finding himself. I'm all for a Superman who has doubts. I'm all for that ponderous Superman. But I'm not for a nonactive Superman. And when Superman actually goes for questions, we really miss the fortunes of solitude. Instead, we get this Rocky 4 up-a-mountain sequence where he goes and talks to his father. I don't know. I mean, that's a fortress of solitude scene where he goes back to Jorrell. Yeah, I agree. I have zero idea what was going on. I guess super LSD. He's talking to his dead father. He had a spirit journey. Yeah, I don't know what the hell was going on there. But once again-- We really needed that fortress of solitude to seem to be there. And by the way, and once again, we get the-- you know, just like in Man of Steel, the, you know, this time a bit from his father, but then from his mother, it's pretty much, you know what? Fuck everybody. Do what you want. You know, I laughed and our friend Justin, I was talking about this, and we said how, you know what, with all these people critical, me and my mother would be saying, hey, fuck all those people. Right. They don't deserve you. And Justin said, yeah, my mother would too. But not Martha Kent. No. You know? That's how he was raised. It's like, no, you're better than everyone else and you're not doing this for the glad handing. You're thinking about it because you have a bigger role. So we were talking about kind of how circuitous and unclear Lex's motivation was. And if his motivation was to make Superman look bad, he did not succeed in the blowing up of the Senate building because everybody immediately blamed it on Lex and blamed it on an explosion. Well, they didn't blame it on Lex. That's also the other problem. It was in Lex's-- it was in the wheelchair that Lex gave the guard, but no one actually pointed it out. Well, they did say that-- They said it was the wheelchair, no one figured out that it came from Luther any of that. And here's the thing. They definitely did not blame it on Superman. Which I thought-- That's true. When the explosion was going to happen, we knew the explosion was going to happen. We saw the P, we saw the wheelchair, we put it all together as an audience. It kind of felt like, oh, we went there and now people died. We're like, oh, he's going to blame Superman. We all thought he's going to blame Superman. Nobody blames Superman. It didn't really play that way. It just felt unmotivated. And it felt-- Which again brings me back to the-- it's manipulating him emotionally. Right. It's taking him to a place. I think that's fine. But I think the movie gets stronger if you manipulate him both emotionally and physically. If you really put him in a corner. And this movie did not put him in a corner. So here's a question I have for you. So when he kidnaps Moc Kent, why does he not just shoot his arms off? Why didn't he just say it? Be like, you know what I'm actually going to do, Lex? Because you can't-- here's the problem with making a Superman that kills a man of steel and making a Superman that is on that level. I think the good Superman who does not kill unless you're Zod and there's no choice. I like that choice. A Superman who will use killing as his last resort wouldn't kill Lex if Lex blackmails and gives him the rapey pictures of Moc Kent. The rapey pictures of Moc Kent I didn't need to see. But he's got Moc Kent. He says, you're going to fight the bat in 30 minutes, he's going to be dead or you're never going to see Moc Kent again, right? That blackmail doesn't work on the Superman that has been established in this DC universe. The Superman that's been established in this DC universe picks Lex up and says, no, what I'm actually going to do is I'm going to fly you around the city as fast as possible until we find my mom and every 30 seconds I'm removing a body part. Like you can't blackmail that Superman, he's too-- he's too mean. Yeah. He's not wholesome. He's not going to go for that. He's not going to go for that in the fact that you were able to act like a guy. Oh, I'm not going to go and do what you want. You know, he's not going to control me now. Yeah, I agree with you. He's not going to do that in the fact that you were able to act like that. Yeah, they're like pole finger off. The problem is in the establishment of that character from Man of Steel is like, uh-oh, you guys wrote him into this and that scene does not work because of the character you created. Yeah. All of a sudden, I'm going to kill all of you. He's like, yeah, this is what's actually going to happen. You're not getting on the helicopter because the helicopter exploded. You're next. Show me where my fucking mom is. Right. You know, and if Batman can just call Alfred and find the warehouse, you think Superman and his X-ray vision of zipping around the city can't find it and within five seconds? I'll give him one better. After he saves Lois, there's way too much conversation. Oh, he lays her down. Yeah. This Superman, let's lose there. It should have been dead long before he had a chance to even mention anything about his mother. Right. Should have already been dead. Right. In this and what we've seen before. Well, while we have amazing heroes, uh, I do like the plot point where doomsday lands on a, and they said it many times, they said it at least twice. He's on Stryker's Island. It's completely evacuated and Batman goes, the spears, the key to killing him. I'm going to lead him to Gotham. When everyone in the theater is thinking, oh, you're going to go get the spear and come back with it. Right. Nope. I'm going to lead him to populated Gotham. Well, fuck off him. Not a nice way. Yeah. Batman hates Gotham. Yeah. I'm thinking. Yeah. Well, he actually hates Gotham. He actually hates Gotham. Yeah. Why would he, he's just there to beat people up. He doesn't actually want to save the city. He wants it to be a cesspool that he can keep, he can keep, doomsday is what Gotham deserves. Doomsday is exactly what Gotham deserves. Second question. He saves Moc Kent. That's probably the fourth question. He saves Moc Kent, right? In the warehouse. Well, we have a lot to talk about that, but does he leave her in the warehouse or does he put her in the bat wing? Because both situations suck. He leaves her, he leaves her in the warehouse with a bunch of crippled thugs or puts her in the bat wing, never has a scene of dropping her off and during the entire doomsday fight, she's trying to get her like, her, her belt buckle off. You know what I mean? During the doomsday fight, I wanted to cut to the bat wing, which is crashed, and be like, I'm just trying to get the belt buckle up. I'm pretty sure she's okay left in the warehouse, because those guys more than Cripple Mostam are dead. Okay. One of them starts to wake up and she's constantly caving. Well, let's back up a second. Let's back up a second. Explain something to me. I can't. I cannot. I don't try. So wait. So, so Luther sends Superman to fight Batman, thinking he's going to get killed. At the same time, he activates doomsday. If Batman had killed Superman, what would have happened? Fuck. City of fuck. So, so all I have, again, if that was dark, so I tell him to do it, maybe it's okay if doomsday just wrecks the fucking planet, because that's good enough for apocalypse. Right. Do you think Lex, at the end of the movie, when he goes to jail, did Lex go to jail for the bullet scenario? Did he go to jail for doomsday scenario? What did they pin on Lex? It's really good question. I don't think they managed to pin the bullet, or what at the Capitol. Right. You know? Not clear. What is clear is that you're not allowed to have hair in that jail. No, no, which is not what they do in jail. Yeah. I really wanted the frying of Lex's hair to come during the birth of doomsday. Yeah. Like you have all this. That was crazy. That was crazy shit. This creature is birthed and all of a sudden this energy's unleashed. You see from the get guy, I was hoping to leave me a wig, like in, you know, the diners. No, I think frying Lex's hair in the birth of doomsday. That would have been great. Kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's these little myths. And what it should have been is while he's doing it, Superman should have blown, you know, some flames or something out and it should have lit his hair on fire and it should have blamed him, because that's the actual origin in the plastic commons with Superboy. Well, I'm not convinced Superman has his freeze breath at this universe. He never used it in Man of Steel and when Batman was hitting him with Kryptonite perfume bombs, like that would have been an easy solution. Yeah, perhaps. The freeze breath. So I'm not really confident that there's a nice freeze breath here. So there isn't Supergirl, which is a different universe within this multiverse, but not in Man of Steel. So we have to say, because it's amazing with this far into this, and we haven't even mentioned the best thing about the movie. Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it really injected that when she shows up in that last fight scene, it injects everything you want to do this movie back into this movie. And your wife Laura was so angry because every single time she came onto screen, I was like, oh my God. She wasn't angry because every time guys listen, I had needed Laura between me and Ian because Ian would have been talking to me throughout the movie. But every time Gal Gadot showed up in this movie, Ian just went, oh, she wasn't angry. It was kind of sad. Whatever. Dude. Dude. She was so amazing. Ian, Laura has single friends. I got it. Okay. Okay. She was worried about you. I'm fine. She's this eligible bachelor next to her. I'm fine. I'm fine. He's masturbating in the middle of a movie theater. Well, not quite. But anyway. And not without good reason. She was awesome. She was the best part of the movie. She was just amazing. And when she shows up in the fight scene, you're totally into it. And that's the thing. I think immediately when the movie ended, we looked at each other and we went, wow, as soon as that moment happens, it doesn't matter that you saw it over and over again in the trailer and all that. That shot of freedom together is fucking awesome. And it's a crime. People talking that made so much money, but it didn't. This movie didn't make nearly what it should have made for that scene alone. You're right. Because it's so, it's being slammed so hard and rightly so. I think beyond just the ability, the inability to be able to take an eight-year-old of this movie, like this movie should be PG. But by the way, it's also the two and a half hour running time. So theaters are losing a screening every day. Because if you have a 90-minute movie or a two-hour movie, those 30 minutes, they add up. Literally, you barely did better than Dark Knight Rises, which is longer, okay? And honestly, if you adjust for the fact of 3D, all that stuff, it didn't do better. And this movie had Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Yeah. So it's a fucking problem. So with inflation and with the 3D editions? Yeah. I mean, too. That's atrocious. And I gotta say, they haven't earned Justice League. What I mean by that is, as we've mentioned, it's Marvel built up each single character of that. So the introduction, excuse me, of Cyborg, Flash, an Aquaman doesn't make Justice League part one more anticipated than this. It doesn't. And you could have heard a pin drop in our theater when they did that, because the movie is already kind of moving. You start to see Batman versus Superman coming. It's right around the corner. Right. Let's have Wonder Woman watch YouTube videos. Wonder Woman has to check her emails. Yeah. And you're like, "What?" And I like the Cyborg video, because it's the introduction of the mother box, and you get to see some cool stuff. You know what? Other people I know didn't like it. I like that. Also, because mother box, that's cool. Sure. That's cool. Flash when I hated it. They couldn't get into it. The Aquaman one, I couldn't get into it. But... Yeah, it was whatever. Literally, I bought him just drawing the camera. I don't know why he took five minutes to do it. As I'm watching the... He's literally saying they go like, "Look, I'm going to destroy this now." As I'm watching the audience not react to that, I just thought to myself, "It is okay to put these at the end of the credits." Guys, the entire structure of what you guys are trying to do is already... But it didn't work, because you had to have it earlier for Batman and had to just cut the comment to Wonder Woman. I get it. No, I get it. I think if you didn't have enough pacing issues from the really vague plot, the overcomplicated plot is that those didn't already give you value. You literally stopped your movie to do this. I agree. The one thing, again, speaking of Wonder Woman, the one thing the movie did out well is it set up a little bit of a nod to and a suggestion that things go badly in the Wonder Woman movie. I want to see the Wonder Woman movie. Yeah, but I'm saying, they show a picture. You actually keep traveling the picture into it. Yeah. Excited for that. I was excited for that movie just because what I'm more excited about this movie now is I hope it's clear. I hope it's got a singular protagonist. I hope it just goes back to basics and it does the job because this movie is one or two revisions and really clean-ups from being a very clear movie where Lex trick Superman into fighting Batman. And we all leave happy. I'm not... No, you're right. There are things, and again, it makes me wonder about the three-hour version. There are things that people go like, "God, the things about the motivations and all that." It feels like it shouldn't have been hard to make this stuff work. I don't subscribe to the theory that you can't do all these things in one movie. I don't. I agree with you. Of course, because people are like, "Oh, they should have done what Marvel did and introduced the characters one at a time individually and then brought them together." I don't agree with that. Whether or not Warner Brothers' DC Entertainment was reacting to what Marvel had already been doing over years is not a part of this. It's irrelevant. The truth is they made a man of steel movie and the framework was already faulty. The foundation was already a bit faulty based on that character being the things. I mean, God, if he had been a wholesome Superman from Kansas Rays when you put him up against Batman, just the juxtaposition, just on a visual level. You don't have a sense that the things he's bitching about, it seems like a fucking hypocrite, right? Yeah. Well, Batman going after Superman, if Superman represents the light and all this wholesomeness and he's actually wearing a light blue uniform and somebody who's positive, you really see this the shadow that is Batman as a complete juxtaposition, it's very powerful imagery, it's very powerful storytelling. We don't get that because Superman has been painted in such muted colors. So I think that you can make this movie and introduce, in a very close storyline similar to this one, you can introduce Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman concurrently and lead them off into a justice movie. This movie is just covered in a lot of extra stuff that is tough. Did it bother you that right away, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne meet, Clark knows instantly because he could hear Batman talking out for sure, he knows he's Batman. He knows instantly. I like that. That was hilarious. But we actually don't get any Batman recognizing who Clark is. And here's the issue. Which I guess is like, you know, because he's nobody, so it doesn't matter. Well, here's the issue. On the podcast that I did Monday, we realized that Batman should actually be a better detective than Lois is a reporter, right? And he goes back to the problem that Lois and Clark live together because Batman should easily surmise that Clark is Superman, right? And I think he does in the movie. I think Batman figures out that Superman and Clark are the same person. Clark having the same address as Lois is also a major problem because, hey, they live together. They shouldn't. But they do in this film. Just the fact that Clark is now a small- Well, but that back up a second. Well, I'm saying, I'm in trouble, if Batman knows Superman is Clark Kent, he should then be the enough of a detective to realize Clark's mom's name is also Martha. Yes. So it shouldn't be the giant surprise, it shouldn't be the thing that ends the fight. But taking this even further, at the end of Man of Steel, I mean, one of the big things is that everyone knows. They know where the ship came from. I mean, like, who doesn't know? First of all, there's nobody in Smallville that doesn't know that Clark Kent is Superman. Because of that fight. Because of the fight, because they literally say, you know, after he saves, you know, everyone, you know, with the… The series or the I-Hop? Yeah. After the whole thing about saving them, you know, the school bus, it's Clark's done lots of things like this. Right. Like, they know and then suddenly here's Superman who looks exactly like Clark Kent that they all fucking know. It's not like you have, like, what John Byrne did in the Man of Steel mini series where he was blurring his face. He's not. Here's Superman. Well, Simon, you don't even have, I mean, what I love the most is Frank quite Lee's Clark Kent. I love it. With Morrison, quite Lee Drew, but Morrison's idea, I agree with you. I love it. No one ever did that and it was brilliant. And it really is the Christopher Reeve thing too, because it's sort of. It's a different physicality, it's a different person. Yes. It's really in this movie. Let's explain this better. We see it in Superman 2 in the movie that when he takes, the glasses are off and he takes, you know, he takes off the suit and you see he's wearing the Superman outfit, he stands up tall. Yeah. And the comic that we're referring to, basically, he's dope. He's dope. He's hunched over. He does it a level using his superpowers, his muscles in a way that he's completely changed his whole posture and everything in such a way that he loses three inches, he even makes his face more pudgy like he might resemble Superman a little bit, but it's not clearly Superman. And on screen is where I miss the dopey Clark the most, because he visually has to be different, especially if he's working amongst a bunch of investigative reporters like Perry White. And having people know that, by the way, not to go on a frolic here, but it was actually great in the Supergirl episode that just there, did you watch it yet? This is the one I didn't air because, listen to this, my DVR didn't record the last two Supergirl, so I've been watching them on the CBS site. Yes, you have to wait. And the one that I haven't watched is just this past one where we get the Martian Manhunter stuff. And I can't fucking wait for the Manhunter episode, but I have to get Laura to sit in front of the laptop with me and watch the Manhunter episode, then I can watch the Flash episode. Okay. All right, then I won't say more, but there's a scene that I'm reminded of, but anyway. But what I'm saying is there's a lot of problems, again, that they go back to Manhunter's deal and the faulty foundation that was established for this universe, and I don't know how to course correct, but it does go back to just, guys, Superman's a great fucking character, and he needs to be respected, and he needs to be embraced because all the answers to the problems that we're now seeing and that the critics saw all weekend, a lot of the solutions to these problems were created by ignoring who Superman was. Well, here's the thing, and I'm about to bring up another thing that really pissed me off from the movie, but Zack Snyder went into making these movies with his vision and what these should be, this whole, "Oh, it's more of a real world take," is he doesn't care. It's sort of a fuck you to those of us that have come up for years, and he's like, it doesn't matter to him who these characters were. He's saying, "You know what, in the modern world and the real world, this is who these characters would be." Sure. And part of that statement, so they're in that Afghanistan scene, there's a CIA agent that's killed. Now, I knew when I was watching the movie because I actually knew that when I read about the movie before that they cast a fan favorite character, they cast Jimi Olsen, it was the actor, a man called Cassie. When I saw him play it. When I saw the individual holding a camera, I knew it was Jimi Olsen. Right. So, turns out, they killed Jimi Olsen like instantly, and Zack Snyder's now said, "Well, yeah, that was a little easter egg because for the plans for the cinematic universe that they have, they're never going to use that character." And that was actually... Well, now you don't have the option. Right. Which might have been nice. But that was actually brought home to me even more because at the end of the movie, they did the exact opposite of what the comics did. They buried Clark Kent's body, and Superman has an empty grave. Right. In the comics, it was the opposite. Right. And the reason this is important is because, but burying Clark Kent, they can't bring him back. Right. Because however Superman gets resurrected, they buried Clark Kent. Right. There's no... You know, in the comics, he was buried under rubble for a while, and he found some cans of food, whatever, and they saved him. But they actually had a body here. So which for me, and I've had this conversation elsewhere about the cast, is where the bottom line is that at the end of Man of Steel, throughout the whole movie, there was no Clark Kent as a reporter. And at the end, it's like he set up this idea, you know what, I'm going to go be a reporter because this is a good idea for me to, you know, be in touch with things. And we get a little bit of that in this movie. It's been a year and a half. So the idea is that, well, he did that for a year and a half, and we all know what that dynamic is. It's not what the movies are going to be about. And the movies are not going to be about Superman, street-level stuff. They're going to be big stories about, you know, monsters or apocalypse or whatever it's going to be. So Zack Snyder doesn't see that as necessary. So therefore, Jimmy Olsen is not necessary. I want to see the scene where Superman has just been killed by Doomsday, but Doomsday has been defeated. Lois runs up on the body, sees Wonder Woman and Batman, like lowering Superman's body, and then they immediately go, "Where should we hide it?" Like, where should we hide it? Because you think there aren't eyes on that giant fight sequence? Right. It was in the middle of Gotham. Maybe if it was in the middle of Strikers Island, you would have had some privacy, but now you've dragged the fight to the middle of Gotham. Here's the thing. If you're going to demand realism, and I think that's a noble cause, and I think there are a couple noble causes in this movie, like, you know, elevating the genre. Let's elevate the superhero genre beyond the Marvel style and let's do our own style. I think that's great. Do your own thing. But if you demand realism for these characters, you have to make the changes that will be realistic. I mean, you can't demand realism and be like, "Oh, I'm going to put them in these situations," but not have the characters act realistically by the logic that you've established and not having the things run. Well, what was Peter realistically? I mean, literally, having just reviewed the other last week, Batman's the fucking Punisher. Right. Well, in this, he's killing. In this left and right, and wonton destruction. Right. Well, he does it. Somebody who's shaded by the murder of his family now sees murder as a solution. It's contradictory to the character on another level. Yeah. It's like someone who sees murder. The branding makes no sense. It's like, dude, you were formed by the murder of your parents, and now you are a vigilante encounter. Guns are fine. Now you're a criminal-making machine. For all machine guns on the Batmobile. Like Batman hates guns. Right. Batman hates guns. Guns killed his parents. And now he's like, let's put a gun on everything I own. Everything. Let's just guns on the Batwing. You know, in his defense, his final weapon was going to be a spear. But yeah, there's a reason Batman doesn't like guns, guys. It's in the books. Again, a lot of these problems can be avoided by embracing these characters and not trying to make them your own. They're never going to be your own, man. Somebody's going to come up in 20 years and make new versions of these movies. It's going to be theirs. So these characters are bigger than you. So coming into the movie, having known Doomsday was going to be in it, I was concerned that we weren't going to kill Superman. And I felt, okay. Are you concerned? Are you okay with that? No. Well, if you're going to use Doomsday, you do the death of Superman. And I like the idea that, okay, let's have this redeem him. He sacrificed himself, you know, but here's where my problem with the movie. It's not earned. The government knows that Doomsday is now going to kill everyone, but I don't have a sense that the world knows. Right. I don't have a sense. Again, it's not unfair. The government proliferates that information. Do they? Would they? Do we buy that? Is that the real world? The level of assumptions you have to do. Right. You have to jump. And we only make use of assumptions because we know the source material. Yeah. It's not on screen. You can't. I understand trying to, like, part of me likes the movie for being that level of weirdness because here we are talking about it. It's not simple. Okay. But I'll give you that. At the same time, this is an art house film, man. It's okay to be a little simpler. It's okay to let people know. It's okay to do things in a clear fashion. And at the end of the day, it's satisfying, which I think... And by the way, look, look, look, look, go back to the Donna film. I'm not saying that Lex Luthor's plan to sink California to then make killing in real estate by having brought up all the land in the desert in Nevada. There's tons of problems in the Donna films. Yeah. I'm not saying that that's the smartest thing in the world, but okay. He's a little sane. It was smart enough for Brian Singer to want to repeat that scheme for his movie. And it's like, "Oh, yeah. He's got another real estate scheme." Again, we know that silly, but I just don't see the motivations. I don't get it. Again, the word is a bleak. It's like, "Holly Hunt was good, but where the hell did that go?" Sure. Oh, and a lot of people, the whole thing about the urine jar, like, all right, I guess that's supposed to be some comedy here. Yeah. It was... Nice way to say, "Hey, guess what? Boom." You know who drank the pee we did, the audience. I want to love this movie, and I said that in the scene. This isn't confirmation bias. I think this movie's also suffering in its defense. I think this movie's also suffering a lot from confirmation bias, because so many people love the Marvel movies, and they need the horse race of Marvel versus DC people. I want all these movies. Same here. I love the way I don't learn. I'm Wolverine 3 to be good. I wanted all this stuff to be good. I paid for the Fantastic Four movie. I wanted all these movies to be good. No, you didn't. I paid for Josh Tranks, Fantastic Four. No, I took you. Thank you. But you wanted that movie to be good, and you wanted me to want that movie to be good. So thank you. You were mad at me for taking you, and you bitched about it, and I said, "Yeah, but I paid for it." Ian, I think you're talking about somebody else. No, actually technically I didn't pay for it, I had tickets from when I had bought previous tickets. We went to the Arklight, which you didn't judge them. But you knew I was going to see the movie, and I knew I was going to see the movie, because I needed those answers. Yes. But you didn't pay for it so far. Okay. But I still, in paying for it with two hours of my life, I still want these movies to be good. Yes, that's fair. I do not like the horse race. I don't like people. No. When I hand out your reviews, I don't really want to hear them. I want to go see for myself. I don't like people going into a Batman vs Superman movie saying, "I'm going to hate it already because it's not Marvel." I agree with you. I think that's horrible. Yeah. I want every DC movie to be great. Sure. The confirmation bias, I think, really worked against this movie early on. You can tell with Rotten Tomatoes, right out of the gate, the audience reviews are bad, and I'm like, "Wait, you haven't even seen the movie yet." Wait, I think both of us came out of the movie going like after we heard, "We liked it better than we thought we would." I definitely liked this movie better than I thought I would. A lot of people I know, people that aren't huge fanboys, are liking it. I like that. I know that I think Miles Harvard, one of our geekscape is really, he puts it on Facebook. He's like, "I don't see the big deal, the movie is fine." At the same time, I don't think our education is tripping us up on this. It's a convoluted film. You asked, "How do they course correct?" How do they course correct it? I think a big problem is, and you related to it with Man of Steel, is that they've now established a Batman that kills. Yeah. A Batman shaped by a gun as the most defining object of his life, who now embraces it. So, wait a second. It's right away. How do you course correct that? In what world do you have a Batman that kills, and you have a Joker that's alive? You're right. Yeah. Yeah. How is he... I mean, and we actually already know that Joker has actually killed a Robin in this. Well, here's the thing, because Bruce says it. He says, "You do this long enough to see your friends killed or changed." So maybe... So you think... There's a theory out there. I think it's the only explanation for why Joker's still alive, is that he was the Robin, and he got turned into the Joker. Which you know they did on Batman Beyond. And I think that's the only explanation for how Joker's still walking around in a universe of Batman kills. I'm good with it. But I'm saying it's been done. That's fine. Most people don't know that. So, what we're saying is that the idea is that... Jerry Little's Joker was a Robin. Jerry Little's Joker was probably... if they go by the Batman Beyond idea, it was the Tim Drake Robin that was, you know, at some point. And actually what it should be is he actually probably killed Jason Todd. Sure. Batman killed him, but he had done something to infect Tim Drake, and Tim Drake then became a new Joker. Sure. And by the way, part of why that actually works for me is from an age standpoint, Jerry Delato is the right age to have been a robin to a Batman that was 40s. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So... I like that there's a lot to talk about. I know in the analysis from this Suicide Squad, it actually looks like he may have some wounds on him. Sure. So I actually... Listen, I like that idea a lot. There's a lot of stuff in there. We have a burned to a hulk way in the honor. So there's a lot of stuff for us to see still. Yeah. And you know what, Ben Affleck Batman, it's not something that I'm way in. Yeah. I'm excited for that movie. I have to say I'm excited. Because you saw the news that Ben Affleck has a script? Yeah. I mean... And that's just it. Is it of course correct or do we have to just accept the Batman kills? My problem with that is as much as any vigilante, you know, there's no version of the Batman that kills him indiscriminately that the police are on completely after. Right. That's sort of my problem with that. Yeah. And you think Commissioner Gordon can publicly work alongside that individual? Not publicly. Right. But publicly enough to put a giant fucking lamp in the sky for the entire city to see? I agree completely. I don't buy it. Hey, citizens of Gotham. Rest easy, this lamp signifies that we're letting the murderer out again. Right. Come on. It's a fucking boogeyman. It's a faulty foundation. It's tough, man. It's tough. I agree. It's very tough. Who do you choose to reboot this entire universe in tenure? Listen, yeah. I mean, it does not really come to shame about rebooting at this point. But we're talking about course corrections. How do you think you course correct justices? Well, by the way, does the death of Superman allow you to actually do so improperly when you resurrect them? I think... I don't see how you can. My problem is that we thought the course correction was going to be here and it was only half as done. But I do think the idea is that he's now redeemed with the eyes of the people. And man, we'll see where he gets to. At the end of the day, Jonathan Kent's lessons weren't the right ones. You know, Jonathan Kent kind of has to die of a heart attack because it's the one thing that Superman can't stop. Yeah. Well, as we've discussed, I hate how he died, man, I still. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I just don't... I'm sorry. No. I love to get swept up in a fucking tornado. Right. It's not happening. And that's what's so beautiful about the heart attack sequence. Yeah. You know, it's like... That's something he can't stop. He can't stop it. He can't stop it. He ultimately can't stop death of the mortal humans that he lives amongst. And it's beautiful. And everyone's going to die around him. It's the most beautiful thing about the character in my opinion. Yeah. It's like, wow. It's really... As much as his power saves him like this view of the gods, our powerlessness... So I keep coming back to you and the questions about course correcting and we're talking about the universe. You know, what a lot of us talk about, we love Grand Gustin's Flash, television show, and Zack Snyder made a statement. Yeah, that's fine. But they're doing their thing, because that's all about hope and light and ours is dark. Do we need a dark flash in Ezra Miller movie? You know? I don't... I don't... I think the flaw of that is that the universe is so dynamic. And I hope that the Berlanti movie is part of this, the one where he's doing Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. I hope that they're part of this universe, because... And I hope the Green Lantern movie, and I like the idea that today they were talking about Aquaman being a little more lighter, but not goofy, but like a little more fun. That's just it. That's Flashbuckling. No, but Aquaman's the character that should be dark. Right. That's fine. Well, look at him in all tattooed and like... Yeah. Well, look. They took a page out of the Peter David version of the character where they made him kind of like that pirate-y badass. Sure. And I'm fine with that. And you know, he could be sarcastic, but Aquaman dark, yeah. I think... Aquaman killing people I'm fine with. I think when you're talking about... Because by the way, you know, there's never a conversation about it. Aquaman can kill people under the water. Yeah. Fine. He just makes them disappear. Yeah, whatever. We all float down here. I think when you look at an entire universe that is that diverse, has plenty characters, has dark characters, has characters that are female, male, green, blue, red, white, when you have this intensely diverse storyline or this universe that spans universes, again, it goes through multiverses, it goes through to OA, it goes to Mogo, it goes to Earth, it goes to Apocalypse, it goes to New Genesis, it's a huge universe and it has multicolors to it. And then you say, "We're doing dark." I think you're really cutting yourself off of the knees and you're selling these characters short of what they ultimately can be, which is dynamic. These are very dynamic characters and they should satisfy multiple colors. And again, if you already have Batman dark, why should Superman be so dark? If anything, make them polar opposites so that Batman versus Superman means something more profound. Well, you're right, but the problem is that they started with Superman and they did that dark. I know. You know? So, and then it was where did you go from there? Yeah. If anything, Batman versus Superman should have teamed up to murder people. Right. And by the way... They should have kept the picture. Yes, we have a version of Wonder Woman who is no problem killing. Yeah, they should have kept the picture. You know? And that was controversial, but I got it. She's an Amazon. Yeah. You know? Yeah, she's a weapon. Yeah. She's awesome. Yeah. And trained by the God of War, all that. You know. So, that's the worst. And gave a good odd train by the Israeli Army. Yeah. I think, you know, we discussed this before. I expected we didn't get it yet. Maybe we'll get it in the Wonder Woman movie, but it's not clear what our origins are. You know, I felt that in Man of Steel, they said that the whole thing about the ship that landed 18,000 years before, and I think they're still going to build something that both the Atlanteans and the Amazons are going somewhere descended from that. Mm. You know? From the ship we thought was Supergirls in the comic? Yeah. But in the comic, tie into Man of Steel isn't that Supergirls ship? We have it here from the outpost it's 18,000 years before, it was a ship that landed. Mm. Okay. Listen, the DCC cinematic universe can do whatever it wants. I'll still be their opening day of each of these movies. Oh, but are we going to call it the "Murderverse" now or not? No, it's just an "elseworlds." Yeah. Yeah. Like, it just has to be an "elseworlds" to me because we all know as fans who the true characters are, and these are versions of them that we are not involved in, and we have no authorship of, and it's okay. So it's pretty much, he's pretty much Red Sun, right? I don't know. I don't know who he is. I don't know. He knows Superman very well. Superman was an all-star Superman. He was in Superman for all seasons. I know Superman. This is not Superman. Yeah. No. No. And you know what? I fought it with Man of Steel because I enjoyed a bit of Man of Steel, and I love the imagery of a lot of this. I love Zack Snyder's imagery, and I love the idea that there's a Terence Malick-like style to a lot of this stuff. I mean, look, by the way, you know, there's so much of what's taken out of Dark Knight Returns is great to actually see that on screen. The scene, look. Dude, the fight was fucking sick. I said to everybody before we went into it, it was like, "Look, there's no Kryptonite, this whole fucking movie's stupid," and then right away the movie, I was like, "It's a great--." I love it, you know? And I love it. It was great. It was from the Terraforming Show. And I love, I love, he's punching Superman, and you have to see it, it's like he's beating him to a pulp, and then it's slowly, it's not working as much. It's awesome. It's hilarious. It's great. One of the best beats of the movie. Yeah. I also love that Gotham builds their buildings without load-bearing pillars, because you can take out every pillar in that building, and that roof is still standing. Did it bother you that Batman's really kind of Iron Man? No. Even down to like, even when he's fighting his own, it's like, you know, that sense. When we first see him jumping around earlier in the movie, it's like, I was literally going like, "I think he's probably wearing a Batman Beyond suit." No. You know? 'Cause that's what it is. He's wearing like an exoskeleton. That's why I'm the scene where he gets shot for mine. He's like, "No, he's okay." And I like that he's climbing the ceilings and stuff, he's like a little rodent thing. I was like, "Yeah." Mine's great. Yeah, I love that you can see him like in the background in that corner, and he's like, "Creepy." I like creepy Batman. But the danger again is when you start to contradict these characters that have been, it's not just that you want to make it their own. You have to accept that they're time tested. You got to accept that every time there's a variance from who these characters are, the pendulum swings right back to the center. They try and make these characters something else. They try and have blue and red Superman. They try and have different batmans. These things swing right back to the center. Water seeks its level and these strong, well-defined, time-tested characters come right back to who they are. And you have to accept them and embrace them and make the movies from them as your foundation or else you're going to run right into these problems and score in a character level. As comic book fans, what we often see is they turn and make these movies make certain changes. And those movies end up influencing the comics. And thank God, we're getting instead, we're getting rebirth. You know, not with the Batman, but a lot of this, a lot of this take on Superman and Man of Steel was sort of set up in the New 52 and that's something lacking and our expectation and rebirth, which was imminent in two months away in the comics, is that they're getting back to the basics of what these characters really are. Let's put some underwear back on Superman, are we getting that? I don't know. You saw the designs that came out of WonderCon, we put them up on the website. There's some, there's some character, Jim Lee did a pretty good line up with all the different characters. I'd be clear that we're getting Kid Flash. Yeah. Which is good. I love the different sizes. I'm getting back on Wonder Woman, which would be great. I'm excited. I don't know if it's a hard reboot as much as it's a soft reboot. I hear it's a soft reboot, I think it'll be a few things, but I'm excited also for a lot. You know what, at the end of the day guys just tell really good stories. Yeah. I don't think this is a horse race. If the studio isn't falling into a horse race, I think it's tragic because you're immediately pulling out the assembly line to try and make these opening weekends and in the characters suffer. Just tell good stories. So we keep coming back to that question and can they course correct? Well, they can, as you said, if they tell good stories. They think it through. If there's not a million holes in the movie, you know, because unfortunately I feel like that's movie was just, let's just throw a bunch of money in this and just do some big scenes. And it's a craziness and the Zack Snyder's gotten it for a long time, which is, you know, he's a video director. He makes big splashes. I like Zack Snyder. I like Zack Snyder. I like his visuals. I like the epic nature of what he does. I liked Watchman. I like Watchman. I thought he fixed the Watchman's ending. I thought the fact that he made that he made. I liked Watchman. I prefer the ending of Watchman where he takes Dr. Manhattan and makes him the center point of the disaster rather than this random worm from a different dimension that's artificially created. I agree. I like that. I think that is a more personal attack and I think that's a more sound attack to the ending. I think that's a lot better. Look, man, I don't even hate soccer punch. I like soccer punch. I wrote a whole fucking defensive soccer punch. And I was a girl. But these two movies are very flawed. Yeah. And I think at the core of the problem is he's trying way too hard to make this his own and say in the real world this person kills and all that. And again defending it. Like, wait, we'll wait. Wait, wait, wait. Who ran we'll fight. Who ran we'll win every fight. He made a statement, he compared this movie to the Force Awakens and saying, I mean, oh, the first order killed a planet, what does that have to do with this? The statement isn't there's too much depth in the movie. It's who does it? Yeah. The first word is the bad guys. We're not going to be mad if Lex Luther kills people or do you think kills people? Lex Luther should kill people. Yeah. And then he shows a giant answer in their corpse. But you know, you don't see Jedi killing people left to right indiscriminately for no fucking reason. Although if you did, I wouldn't have a problem with that because of Jedi, they're not Superman. That's a fan film, Jedi killing a bunch of people. Yeah. No. Yeah. You know, when Anakin did it in episode two when he slaughtered the young, you know, all the the sand people, that was bad. And it was supposed to be bad. Yes. Yeah. I only saw episode two once. Okay. It's brutal. Yeah. I think you, I think there really needs to be a recalibration of our assessments of these characters. What are they purely and clearly? And then let's tell the stories from that. These are very simple characters. And again, they're time tested. Let them guide you. I'm looking forward and in Justice League, I'm looking forward to Flash where I'm reading people into things so they like explode. No. I'm looking forward. I'm looking forward to Cyborg using his song to drop the picnic heads explode, you know. Acumen is going to screw everybody. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Because I'm not saying that that's what we have to look forward to, right? No. Oh. Is that not what's going to happen? I know. Well, if they're parademons, sure, but yeah, it's wonder when we need to use that last note to decapitate people. I want to make a movie. You know what? The sad thing is I wasn't wondering on this weekend. I was wondering. I know. And I'm sitting there in a conversation about this very subject. And you, and Justin, and you guys had just started, you got, there was a conversation on your emails going back and forth about how much this movie made. And I read it out loud to the person I was conversing with. And I said, now imagine if that eight-year-old kid over there could have been, could have gone to see this movie. No. So I have other friends who were talking about the take on this movie and it's, everyone's talking, oh, it made so much money. It didn't. This movie should have broken 200. Easy. And I'm sorry, but like, it's not, it's not a good thing. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, I know I'm naive. But if you take on a movie like Superman or Batman, you make, if you take on a superhero movie, you're taking on the responsibility to make a movie that should be something that when kids watch it, they, they learn what's right and what's wrong. And it should be clear. And it should be inspiring for them. And they should leave the theater saying, okay, tomorrow on the, on the, in the school yard, when the bully starts bullying people, I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to be a better person throughout my life. I'm going to live my life by a positive viewpoint. So do kids watch this movie and go like, kids can't watch this program. I'm saying, do toys get sold from this movie? Do kids, you know, want to be Superman? Dude, I got it. Batman. General Mills sent me six boxes of breakfast cereal to promote this movie. Did you see that picture of me, of like my driveway? I'd, dude, they sent me a Batman mask, Superman clarking to the glasses. Last week. So you finished up the cereal, right? Dude, I've been eating cereal all fucking week, but they sent me all this Batman stuff and each of these boxes of, I should have brought them to you because I have all these comics now inside of each of these cereal boxes for kids. I mean, it's tricks. Tricks is for kids. Tricks is for kids. I should not have even eaten this. Yeah. There are. So I read it. Yeah, there are comic books inside of them that I, I, I flipped through them and I'm like, no, this is for kids. Like they're, this is for kids and they, and they're sitting there being like, no, we're going to justify Superman killing because the bad guys in the Star Wars movie fucking exploded people, dude, it's quit trying to, like, like, what is it, quit trying to stay up with the Joneses. What's the term? Keeping up with the Joneses. Keep, keeping up with the Joneses. Quit trying to keep all the Joneses and tell us it ran story, tell the Batman story, tell the one over the story. Yeah. Just tell these stories and trust me, they will come in the box office will rise and the kids will come to the theater and they'll buy the toys and they'll eat the cereal and their teeth will fall out and they'll just want more and more because we were those kids and we, and we do not have to age out of this. Like we will still enjoy that PG movie, let me say this. And we know this even, even when you, they did the crossover, the big crossover of Marvel and DC. It's, Superman has the ideals that Captain America has. Sure. Well, Captain America, those ideals play great on the screen. Yeah. I mean, I actually love the first Avenger, you know, general fans and aren't comic fans didn't love as much, but it was great, great war movie, all that. It's got some pacing. It's got some pacing stuff. Still, I love that movie. Yeah, I love that movie. And we all know when a soldier is a masterpiece. Also pacing issues. And I'm so excited for Civil War. I like the off movies that Marvel does. I love Guardians. Oh, yeah. But, but I love them because they color the universe. And obviously, I think Daredevil is the best thing Marvel's ever done. No question. Again, it goes back to this idea that Marvel isn't just one thing that universe they're creating. Isn't just dark. It's not just bright. And it doesn't all have the same flavor. It's incredibly dynamic. And DC's is potentially more dynamic because we're dealing with gods. Well, let me say this, Suicide Squad. Very excited. All of my issues with this, you could take the tone of this and put that in Suicide Squad and I'm fine with it. Yeah, because they should be killing them left to right. And I think we're going to get a lot of humor in that movie that is lacking in these two movies. I hope so. But they're not Zack Snyder. I think that movie's going to be awesome. I'm really excited for it. And I'm excited that Affleck's in it. I'm excited somebody in a bat suits in it. I'm not sure it's been Affleck because I think it's a flashback sequence where he's on the car arresting Joker and Harley. I think it's the flashback to Harley getting arrested and I think Joker sells her out. I think it's a car chase sequence. I think Batman jumps in the car and it's the end of the road and Harley goes to jail and I think that's her introduction to gay and jail. That's my theory because there's no actual confirmation that Affleck was on the Suicide Squad but there was definitely publicized pictures of a Batman actor riding around in those fights. I'm pretty sure it exists. Sure. Affleck or no? Affleck. I think it's a flashback. That being said, if it's not a fight, whatever it is, I'm excited. I mean, DB's actually listing him as Bruce Wayne. Let's do it. Let's do it. They also had Doug Jones as the Riddler in Christopher Nolan's third Batman movie for a while. So I'm not going to go by that. Dude, I just met with a manager. IMDB said that I have a manager. He goes, so you have a manager. I was like, what? What about that guy? I'm not saying that I ain't an actor sometimes. Yeah. No, it's Wikipedia. So yeah, I'm excited for that movie. Yeah. If it's got a combo character in it, I'm pretty excited. Yeah. You know, I feel the same way. I got all of them. I've just said, of course, I was going to do it. Dude, I'm excited for Riverdale. I'm excited for R.T. R.T. R.T. R.T. R.T. R.T. R.T. is amazing. Yeah. But again, we're getting off topic. Sure. You know, someone I know said, you know, you guys always go off on these little detorts. Hello. Welcome to Geekscapes. Nice to meet you. Come on. Stay for a while. I made a point of saying, I would say something about it. But nothing, because I cared. Sure. But this movie is flawed. It doesn't mean I think people shouldn't see it. That's your final thought? Look, as I said, I want to really highlight that. We all, when it got to that point, the big fight with Wonder Woman, Batman, Suitman, if I even say-- The rock and roll, baby. It's way into it. And the whole theater was empty. Yeah. And cheer. It rocked. And I do like that Superman sacrifices himself and consciously knows that he's going to sacrifice himself. Yes. Yes. And you know what? If Lois had drowned, I'd blame that on Batman for not going to get the spear himself. Yes. But you know, and people are like, why didn't Superman just give the spear to Wonder Woman? She's as strong. And I was like, because then Wonder Woman would have died. Well, we don't know that. Well, Suitman died, and he's probably more powerful than Wonder Woman. But you know, Suitman died because of the Kryptonite, took his powers away. Sure, sure. Now, of course, it's the pity of that, and it actually is a callback to Superman Returns. But Suitman had to know that, excuse me, as soon as he's around the Kryptonite, he should be losing his powers. Sure. So, should he have even been able to do any of that? Probably not. But the point is that-- It was Superman's bag, and he was going to carry it. Yes. It was his responsibility. He was going to see it through in a-- Batman couldn't have done it, and we're not sure if Wonder Woman could have done it. So it was the most notable? We don't know if she'd be a fact about the Kryptonite. I love that movie. Me too. And we get that nod to Death of Superman with her cradle in him. So I agree with you, and I'm looking for one of these next few movies. Here's the other thing. You talked about you were bothered by the sex scene, but for me, there was some talk early on that this movie, as it was being developed, that it wasn't Man of Steel 2, but it very much is. And whether they needed to show the sex scene or not. But it's very much, it's 18 months later, but this is completely Man of Steel 2. This is fully a sequel. And what they did there is they demonstrated, they're completely involved, they're sexually active because there are people that would have wondered. And they're going to make a doomsday baby. They lived together, and even at the end, you know, his mother tells her he was going to propose. Here's the ring. You know? So this is like literally-- So let's tie them away from the sun. As I said earlier, there's the-- we're not going to spend a lot of time and all this stuff. We're just going to tell you that's what happened, and we're going to have to deal with it later. You know? We'd rather spend the time on finding the white Filipino or whatever. That's just it. I think that they have to fully establish. It's important for what they're going to do to establish that she means that much to him. Sure. You know? Because she has to be the thing that snaps him out of it. That was not the storyline that dragged in this movie. I agree. Yeah. So-- I think they did a very good job of just, you know, the Man of Steel 2 aspects of where he's at in his life and what's going on. Then had they stripped down the parts that were overcomplicated in the first two thirds of this film. I think it would have resonated even more. Yes. I'm glad it exists. I'm glad we're talking about it. I was walking out of the theater and I was pretty pumped because of the last third of the movie. But the first two thirds of the movie also exists, and you know it, and it's all whole, so yes. Even though you love it, do you love it with an asterisk? You do. And the funny thing is, if you listen to this review, you'll think you liked this movie more than you like to X-Men first class. Well, yeah, I see that point. Ian, I think we're going to have to do this again for Captain America Civil War. Oh, absolutely. And Apocalypse? X-Men and Apocalypse, we've never done an X-Men movie, but-- We did first class. We'll just see. I mean, I'm really excited. I'm-- you may disagree, but I'm more excited. Did we do days of future past? No. I'm more excited for X-Men Apocalypse than I am for Civil War, and the Geekscapes are probably sick. You're screaming. The Geekscapes are screaming. But I just think X-Men Apocalypse looks fucking awesome. I love it. Wow. When Apocalypse grows and sandwiches, you know, Charles Xavier, I think it's awesome. And also, I've seen the next trailer for this movie, and some of the stuff that's in the next trailer. Hasn't been released yet. Some of the stuff with that trailer has been so pumped for the continuation of the X-Men universe. Dude. And I love-- I know. I love Spider-Man, but I'm going to love Tom Holland, Spider-Man, regardless. I think Tom Holland may, at the end of the day, be the best actor who's played Peter Parker, and we've had two amazing actors play Peter Parker. I think Tom Holland's going to be the best. I'm very excited for Spider-Man. I mean, just that juxtaposition was so awesome. But I'm worried about the overcrowding in that film, and I'm the dissenting voice that thinks a winner soldier was too long and too much of a weird plot for its own good. And-- You look spot moving. And I really like winner soldier. I think it's fucking awesome. But again, I'm excited more by the off movies than by the mainstream one of these. I think I can't wait for Guardians 2 and bring me that, and "Man in the Wives" tomorrow. Bring it. Bring it. And bring Black Panther and Miss Marvel, I'm excited. Ian. Doctor Strange. Dude. So excited for Doctor Strange. The weirder it gets, the better as far as I'm concerned. Just paint with all the colors available to you Marvel and DC and Valiant, because you guys have a movie universe coming to you. Can't wait for that. Geeks gave us. Thanks for listening. Ian, thanks for chatting with me. Sure. Dude. Can you guys see this movie again? You going to wait for the already cut? I thought that was the already cut. You going to see this movie again in theaters? I don't know. Okay. But I definitely am looking forward to the already cut. That was the already cut. Well. He has sex within 10 minutes of the movie. Now we get to see it. I don't need that. All right, man. Geeks gave us. We'll see you guys next week on the main show.