Jack Austin Tries To Convince Me To Return To Marvel

0:01 Voyage. Welcome to watch this tonight. I'm your host, Dan Bettimore. I'm a producer, writer of film and television and now a podcast producer. And despite having every streaming service, I never know what to watch. So anytime I watch something good, I talk about it on this show. This way, you'll never have the same problem I do. I watched this tonight. There's always something good to watch. Let's get started, all right. Today on the show, I have the wonderful Jack Austin of seven Lamb.

0:44 Jack is an awesome guy. He's done a lot of stuff with us with Voyage with scripted podcasts, but he also has a podcast called Alter Ego where he talks about pop culture, and specifically he talks a lot about Marvel stuff. And I think it was god. It was one of the moves of the Avengers where I walked out of the theater and I was like, and I like walked out on Marvel. I like left, I like a jilted, like you know, boyfriend or something. And and it's such a big part of our society and also I think it's at as traditional point right now, and so I wanted to have Jack on. And basically Jack's gonna gend to convince me what I should watch that I haven't watched a Marvel Well, sure, so let's start. I don't want to sound like a therapist, but where did your trauma start? Where did the problems start with Marvel?

1:33 What made you want to get up and walk out? So when they got the Avengers together, they obviously did the first movie with Jos Sweden, and then they had a movie after that. It's one of the ones that I believe Black Panther was in it. I believe, Oh this isn't the original Avengers. Are you talking about civil War? Because civil warhead? I think it was Civil War? Okay, yeah, leave it with civil War. And I and I remember I walked, yes, you know, actually I'm confident of the Civil War. And I remember I watched it and I walked out of the theater and I was like, I have I have not been improved as a person in any way by watching it. There's nothing about this that is going to stay with me. That is And then you know, I would say the inverse of that is Black Panther, which is also probably one of the last Marvel things I watched, which I saw with the buddy of mine. Um, we're both were both we're both Moroccans actually, and we're both from Baltimore, and we both deeply understood the meaningfulness of Black Panther, right, and it's actually has really is like a meaningful thing for like black representation, and like it was really an important movie. So that I was like, that is actually about something that has meaning. I really connected to it. But I guess what happened is at a certain point to me as like and maybe this is like a older too. I was like, you know, if it's just fun, disposable entertainment, I don't know that I'm I don't know that I care enough to continue watching, and so I just sort of I flew the coop. I can understand that for sure.

3:07 And everybody perceives everything differently, right, myself included. I've been reading comics and watching you know, the X Man animated series. I've been so indoctrinated into Marvel and my heroes and stuff like that since I was a young boy. So I think sometimes myself, as a hardcore fan, is able to see a lot more in what they're showing me on the screen than what your average person is going to appreciate. Does that make sense. Yeah, So when it comes to civil war, it's tough with Marvel, right because people see this big catalog of movies that they have to watch and they're like, I've got to watch all of this to understand everything, and that can be really daunting. I can completely understand where people are coming from in that regard.

3:51 But when it comes to our heroes, right, superhero movies are so different because it's so fantastic and it's so like outside of them of reality. And I think that's good and bad because sure, there aren't billionaires out there putting suits of arm around themselves and flying around and you know, trying to stop criminals and things of that nature. That's ridiculous. But on the other side of that coin, sometimes reality can really suck, so that can be a great escape to get to that medium and just kind of have some fun for a while. And I think the best superhero movies are ones that tell the human stories that we can relate to and add that fantastic on top of it, so we can kind of try to live vicariously through that in a way. I mean, when you look at some of these heroes, everybody's got somebody that they can identify with. They've got somebody that they see their attitude or the way they represent themselves on screen, and they go, Man, if I could do that, that's the kind of thing, you know what I mean, Like everybody is Captain America. If I could be this big symbol and you know, go and be an icon for everybody and make good in the world, I would do that. Or you have the people go, if I had billions of dollars, I'd make a cool Iron Man suit and fly over the city all I wanted. Or some people who have you know, it's it's funny. I'll tell you this one. This one is probably the most meaningful story for me. For superheroes. It's Aquaman.

5:19 And a lot of people can't stand Aquaman. They think it's kind of a silly movie and things like that. But my oldest son, since he was very young, has been afraid of water. He doesn't like getting water on his head, he didn't like getting bathed in things of that nature. He would have a full blown meltdown. And I found out through all this, you know movies that I watched at Aquaman was somebody he identified with. He loved him, and I was like Aquaman, why I don't understand, and it started to correlate with me. He had such a such a deep fear of water, and this superhero was so strong and powerful and he lived in the water, and it was like he saw something that he didn't have in himself and he identified with that character. I took him to see Aquaman in theaters and there's this moment in the movie where Aquaman is coming out wearing the original Aquaman uniform and it's a dead silent theater and all you hear is my son go, wow, you know what I mean? So like that seeing that in heroes has a lot of meeting in my personal opinion. But when I'm talking about movies that you're gonna want to watch, it all depends on the individual. So you saying you have things that have meaning, and Black Panther being important to you because you're being Moroccan and it has something in the I mean, it depends on what you're looking for. So if you're looking for something more grounded in reality, I would probably say don't watch any of

6:55 the Thorn movies. I would probably steer you toward Guardians of the Galaxy. And that sounds ridiculous. Well, because so this is it's a really it's a good place for us to talk him about the pivot that's happening with Marvel, right because and this is an interesting thing about emotion and storytelling. I was talking to somebody m a dad at my daughter's school, and he was like, yeah, man, I saw a Guardian And he's like this big, like kind of macho dude, and he's like, yeah, I saw Guardians Gazi three, very emotional. He's like, yeah, really, And I remembered vividly seeing Guardians Galaxy two and like there's a very emotional ending of that movie, and even the first one is very emotional. And it's not a coincidence that those movies have been sort of like holding off the tide of kind of some negative results for Marvel. So it's pulling off the mass exodus.

7:48 You're right, And so I think that it's not to say that I for me personally, like everything has to be like Black Panther, where it has its like heavy, heavy cultural significance. I just want movies where there's like a real emotion to it that is not sanitized, if that makes sense. Yeah, something that you can truly identify with and relate to. That's what makes these movies so great, and that's what makes James Gunn in particular really great. I'm very excited for what he's going to do at DC. I think he's an excellent storyteller, and I think he gets my point across the best, because I say, Guardians of the Galaxy for people you can identify with. None of us fly around in spaceships for a living. We don't live in the cranium of a celestial out there in a far away galaxy.

8:39 But the stories all of them go through are so much closer to you and I than anybody else in the universe. Right. We're not taking super serium, we're not gods. We're not billionaires, that's for sure, although somehow super Serium and and Godliness seemed closer to being billionaires at times. But the Audians are just regular folks, well Guardians specifically. They're like fuck ups, right, I Mean, that's sort of the idea, is that they're all like, they're all on a personal level disasters. Every single one of them has has big, major character flaws, and that's what makes them the greatest group to identify with, because there's nobody out there's perfect. I personally love star Lord. He's probably my favorite in the MCU right now. Of all those characters that are out there, star Lord I identify with the most because he's just trying to get by man every single day. And especially in Guardians three, which I won't spoil for anybody, but I will say Guardians three, in my humble opinion, was the best Marvel movie they've ever put out that is not a Avengers level movie. I mean, there are depths of emotion in that movie that you don't feel from other movies, which was what makes it so good. I'm curious. So obviously everyone has told me, you know, the Avengers movies wants they really went for it, and it's like you really got to watch him and I never did. Besides those, and besides Scarding the Galaxy, is there anything that I've really missed in

10:09 the Marvel ecosphere that is good, whether it's TV, your movies. Yeah, there is probably The all star for me, which is one of that nobody really knows about is a little Disney Plus special called Werewolf by Night. Oh. I remember hearing about that. Now that one was done. It's in the MCU, but it's kind of separate right, and it is a character. Werewolf by Night is a Marvel character. He's essentially a guy who can turn into a werewolf and he fights supernatural villains in that aspect. But the way they shot that was so unique to anything I've ever seen in Marvel, and it made me just so happy. It dug into its roots of like the old school Frankenstein Monster practical effects. It's all shot in black white.

11:00 It's just it's really well done. All the performances are great in it too. It's just got something new and it just, I don't know, it tugged at my heartstrings. It's got a lot of gore too. It's the first time you see actual, you know, limbs getting ripped off and people getting chopped up. And I was like, this is a different level for something that Marvel has done. And that's another point that I want to bring up later. But let's talk about other things that you haven't seen. So no TV for you yet. I'm assuming you've just kind of sworn off Marvel. Another one that was very interesting and very unique was One Division. Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that as well. Yeah, I mean a lot of people said that it was very inventive and very different from stuff they're also done. And yeah, it's one of those you know, to me, not everybody has to be blowing something up for it to be a great movie, especially a superhero movie, and this one was to me essentially is a lot of dealing with trauma and how we deal with trauma, and one division was an excellent representation of that, especially with somebody as such high levels of power as a Scarlet Witch or you know, Elizabeth Olsen's character.

12:13 But in terms of movies that you've missed too, Shuan Chi, Shuan Chianchi good. I love Shuan Chi. And so here's my question, um, because this is they I think we're Marvel ran into some trouble and it's a natural thing with these sorts of stories, and they've there's been a lot of kind of satirical in the online commentary about this sort of thing, where pretty much it's like, all right, you have blank hero, if blank bad guy. At some point, there's gonna be something in the sky, it's gonna destroy New York, the Earth, whatever, and there's gonna be a big fight at the end. They're gonna win, and and basically we're gonna just recycle that and we're gonna plug in like Mad Lives, We're gonna plug in this hero and this bad guy. But you pretty much know it's gonna end with this big confrontation and whatever, the big gas cloud in the sky.

13:05 So like something like a Chang Chi is a good example. This is it different from that? Is it the same as that? Like what made it great for you? I think it's different than that because it doesn't go towards those old tropes. And I think the villain of the movie is one of my favorites of all time. I put him up there with Thanos. I talk about it all the time. It's Shoon Chi's father, and I love his character so much. But yes, it's very different because typically it's good guy bad guy, we're gonna meet in the middle and fight, And this one takes a massive left turn at the end of the movie where you're like, okay, this is what's gonna happen, and you're like, okay, I had no idea this was something that was about to go on in the movie. I don't know again, I don't I don't know how we want to do spoilers or anything like that, but you know, long story short, the main villain has lost his wife and it just kind of disconnects him from all of reality, you know, and he has this insane plan that he can get her back somehow, And the film kind of follows Shuan cheese progression as somebody who was trying to distance himself from his father to somebody who has a purpose and kind of wants to stop him. In there is that, you know, that iconic clash, But that's not the whole movie right there. There's a lot more that happens beyond that. Another one if you want, like the basic tropes of superhero movies, Aunt Man and the Wasp is one that I could have on repeat all the time. So talk

14:39 to you about that, Like, what is it? I know, obviously it's more comic than some of the other ones. Yeah, yeah, Is there anything they're doing differently on a like a fun foundational narrative level or is it kind of the same thing but just a more comedic approach. No, no, no, no. They did things in that one that were so different than any other Marvel movie. For instance, Laurence fishburn Fishburne's character who code named Goliath for those of you who are big time comic fans, you know who Goliath is. There's aunt Man, and there was this kind of his antithesis was Goliath on the other side. But there's a point in the movie where one of the villains is like, I'm gonna go after Scott's family.

15:20 That's how we'll get him to do everything. And that is the iconic trope of all bad guys. Right, I'm gonna kidnap your kid, I'm gonna go after your wife, I'm gonna do X y Z. And one character goes, let me go ahead and tell you something. I understand we have a goal that we're after, but if you do something to hurt that person's family, I'm done. I'm out. And it's something that they follow. They go, okay, all right, that's fair. That's the line we're not going to cross. And then you know they have to unfold on either side. I just like showing people who may have nefarious purposes. For instance, Ghost is the character that wants to do whatever she can to restore herself if you will, and they find out that there's another way to do it they can. They're still the bad guy. They still have nefarious purposes, they still want to try to do that. But somebody I was like, why does every bad guy in every movie always has that mentality of Nope, I don't care about anything. Let's kill the kids, let's blow up the city, let's do this. Why can't we ever have a bad guy that goes, yeah, hold on, maybe this isn't the right thing to do. And aunt man, I thought did that beautifully because it avoided that classic you know, I need to save my daughter and da da da da dad. No, we can still achieve our common goal and have a compelling narrative without having to follow the blueprint. It's funny. It's almost like like when do you have stuff that you want to see but you just never end up seeing it? And it's like you're like the brain that has absorbed all these things that I was curious about. Did you see them? Did you

16:52 see the second Black Panther? Which I have not seen? I have I have seen the Second Black Panther? Was So what threw me off with one? Because again I really liked the first one. Is that the marketing. I was like, so they're fighting like bad guy? Awqua man, Like, what is the I was really thrown by that. I was like, what so because that, to me, that took it away from I really liked in the first Black Panther, where it's basically like, hey, the bad guy has a point. You know, You're like, oh, I can't you can see where he's coming from, And so going into the second one it made it less grounded, which I think is why I checked out a little bit. But did you like the second one? And what was the bad guys situation in the second one? So the bad guy situation in the second one is a character named Naymore. Now nay More for comic book fans would know, he is I think one of the very first ever superheroes ever published by Marble. It was a cyborg version of the Flash and not the Flash of the human Torch and nay More. So Naymore is an X man who's been around forever and he is kind of well, actually he was around before Aquaman, so it's funny to call him Marvel's Aquaman. Aquaman is kind of DC's nay More, although Aquaman's obviously been a lot more successful, and they just kind of put those two together, those two societies, and I think Aquam Aquaman two Black Panther, Wakonda Forever really suffered from missing Chadwick

18:25 Boseman. It was hard to build that character up so much and have him be so important and then him just not be a part of it. It was very noticeable to me, Um I personally it was not And I can understand why it would be so meaningful to you to seek being Moroccan and seeing things that really, Oh man, that's that's that's that's kind of speaks to you. But to me, Black Panther and Wakanda Forever didn't really do it for me. I thought they were good movies, but I didn't see them as the cultural phenomenon that everybody was saying that they were. And Black Panther too, I don't know. I just didn't like the direction that it went. I thought that they have so many excellent actors and performers and set designers and stuff like that. There were just it was just a chunky movie.

19:14 To me. There's a whole sequence with a young lady that ironheart. I don't think she even needed to be in the movie. To me, I felt like her whole character. I mean, I'm sure she could be great have her own series, and she will, and I'll watch it, but in terms of her being integral to Black panther Workonda forever I didn't feel like she was. There was this whole thing where you know, again, I don't want to spoil it, but it's like, we need to do this, and it's like, well, here are all our other options? Can we talk about this in the bad guy's Like, No, all I can do is I can only kill this person. That's the only way it's gonna be better. Well, you don't have to. You have my word that this won't happen. Let's have things be kind of equitable here, let's work together. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, but nope, I'm just gonna have to kill this Person's all the way up. The only way we can do it. You should start doing like Marvel movie recaps of just you explaining like very reasonably, like all right, well you know so that maybe that's a good place to pivot to where Marvel that now. So it's been interesting for me to watch, like again, like I abandoned it and left the country basically, and then it always remained extremely popular for I would say, a good another five years, and then only within the last couple of years you've sort of started to see maybe I'm not saying the wheels come off, but like maybe one wheel came off. And in terms of like the audience responding and they're making less money. And I do wonder if it's interesting

20:45 to hear for you that like there is a diversity and how they've presented these stories and the diversity of like not just like literal diversity, but like diversity of a narrative style and things like that. But it does seem like the audience is starting to have a fatigue factor. Where do you think they're gonna Where do you think they need to kind of pivot from here to not like have other people like me just abandoned ship. So the challenge with Marvel is when they got done with Infinity War, that was their big Holy crap, this is our pivotal moment. We've been building towards this for twelve years now. When iron Man first came out, it wasn't I mean, it was great, people loved it, but it wasn't like the Avengers. It wasn't that big. They were building towards something. So they went to that big moment. I think it had a massive payoff. It was great, but then they had to start over, and then you have the casual fan who says, well, I don't want to start over. I like iron Man.

21:38 Bring iron Man back, And that's not really how it's working. So Marvel got really big for their britches and they started saying, Okay, Disney Plus and I remember reporting on this on Alter Ego. They were like, we're gonna have something come out every month for like sixteen months. And you and I know about the production side, right, that is an insane goal to have, especially when you're talking about the level that Marvel and Disney likes to do. And so yeah, just to put just to put the context here, we ad Voyage. We're now releasing a new podcasts fiction series basically every six weeks, and yeah, that's really hard. And Jack knows because they've done like seven million of these. It's really hard as a podcast, which is an audio medium, which means it's like the production of it is actually obviously massively easier than a live action production. So what you just said terrifies me, Like, if I'm the Marvel executive, that's so scary to have to do that, and you look at all the wheels that have to be in motion to make that happen, and they started putting out stuff that they had been working on in the Shadows, Loki Wan Division, Great Hawkeye comes out. That one's okay, but you can tell, oh, okay, maybe we didn't have a fully fleshed out story here. And then you have more projects start to come out, or Love and Thunder, which I think is the worst Marvel movie they've put out. It was just absolutely terrible

23:14 in my humble opinion. I have to add that that's my opinion. If you love it, I'm sure sure it's great. Yeah yeah, tell yeah yeah. And so things started to get worse and worse, and that the reviews started to go, what is this. We just came off of Infinity War An Endgame and you know, Iron Man and Spider Man and all these great movies. Now we're making this, And so I think Marvel has said, okay, they pulled the reins way way way way back, and now they're slowing down production and allowing Kevin Figi, who's their head of operations, to go in and overview everything and kind of have his finger on the pulse where they realized at Marvel that less is more. So production has slowed way way down and things are starting to build in quality. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, in my opinion, being the best thing they've put out obviously, So I'm hoping that things are starting to go in that general direction.

24:11 That's in terms of production, how things are going. They're starting to slow down and try to make better projects, which hopefully they can win some of their people back, they'd be great. But in terms of narrative, they're going pretty big too. So if you've ever been a big comic book fan, you know, there's a lot of different comics out there. I'm looking in my room around here and all the pops I have, and I'm seeing at least fifty different ones just looking around. Marvel is starting to do phases and bring them all together, which is kind of a massive scale. So they have their street level heroes like your she Hulk, your Spider Man, you know, all those guys that are that are going to show up on the street level. Daredevil is coming out with a new series which sounds really really good. I don't know if you were a fan of Daredevil back on Netflix, if you were the one that's coming in Daredevil Born Again is one of his most iconic runs that he's ever done, and this is supposed to be a pretty spectacular series. I loved Um Punisher, the standalone Punisher with burnthall the first season. The second season, I am ashamed to admit I have not finished. I have like three episodes le after the second season, and I think the reason why is that in the second season they didn't get the comic element of it quite right. And with The Punisher, if you don't have that effective comic like release, it's so grim that it's a little bit exhausting. In the first season, they had Micro and it worked great

25:41 because they had a really good chemistry between him and the actor's name. He's a great actor. He's on Bear also in FX. I forget his name anyway, Micro the guy who plays Micro. Yeah, him and Burnthal had an excellent chemistry that was humor. They almost had this like weird like buddy a couple relationship, right, and it totally worked. So first season A Punisher. That's like, for me, if you were to say, like my personal favorite Marvel thing they've done in the last ten years something, probably yeah. Well so yeah, And that's that's another challenge when you have not Marvel being involved because Anthony Russo, who's your antagonist from season one, rolls over to season two and he's playing an iconic Punisher villain named Jigsaw. Now Jigsaw, if you ever watched Punish your war Zone, that's probably more accurate.

26:30 He gets his face so maimed and destroyed that when they put him back together, he looks like a Jigsaw puzzle. So that's where he gets the name. And then they have this pretty guy playing Anthony LaRusso who's got a couple of scars, and they're calling him Jigsaw, and it's like, Okay, I think you're missing the point here. But so they have the street level guys, which Punisher is confirmed to be coming back, So Punisher, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones hopefully please please a new Iron Fist, not the guy who played Finn Jones, not him, Please not him. And then you know, Doctor Strange bleeds into that, and some of those other characters that have kind of both sides, like Spider Man, kind of goes to that higher level of global issue, you know, where your Captain America's show up, your Iron Man's and then you have your Galactic which is Guardians of the Galaxy. Now they're starting to implement that. They have Shield on Earth, they had Sword out in space. So they have all these different levels that they're starting production on. And so I think two things that could end up being too big for their bridges and people going I don't want to have to watch this and this and this and this. I don't want to have to watch Captain Marvel to understand what's going on with Daredevil. And that makes sense. But then you have that mindset that they're kind of catering to everybody.

27:48 So I like that personally. I love the street level Marvel heroes. I think they have a little bit more to lose. I think they're a little bit more damned of characters, so that I identify with that, and that's where you're starting to get that. But it's it's a lot. It's just a lot to think about. I wonder if you know when they made on World war Z, there was a big thing where they kept redoing the ending and they brought in I want to say it was Damon Lindeloff. They had a bunch of guys like rewrite the ending of that movie. And the thing with World war Z is it was so big and so the challenge was how do you top it in the final act? And the real stroke of genius that they finally got to was that you have to go small. And so the last the last act of the movie, they got rid of a whole I think it was like a whole Russian plot that like Matthew Fox was in The Russian Zombie Slayer is credited at the end of that movie, and it's some huge actor. I'm not not like in terms of presence, but he looked very, very big and his name was I think the Russian Zombie Slayer, and I was so pumped to see him because I saw him in the credits, but he was never in a frame of the movie. Tough break for that guy. Um. But yeah, at the end of the movie, it's a very small sequence, right, and it's more about the tension of something small and contained. And I wonder if if you're Marvel, like you said, like they built two where it was like a cultural event, right like Infinity World, and then you're right, like how do you start over? So I do wonder if like if you start doing almost like

29:21 the Logan thing where it's like smaller stories, character driven, like could they do like a cable movie and it's like, you know, just like very character driven and it's like more for you know that your audience is aging with the movies, right. I think if they made a cable movie today, like an R rated cable movie, you and I would go see it together, like we would be so excited. Especially with Josh Rowle and signing on to play that character. I thought he did such a good job. There are so many characters that you could watch, you know, a character driven story or a little bit more focused story on. And that's why when I bring up the freet level guys, they're perfect. You know. That's why I love Punisher so much is when he gets shot, he doesn't have the serum to heal. He doesn't have you know, he can't go to the police and say, go arrest that man, because nine times out of ten they're looking to arrest him. To My favorite thing in the history of that they've done with The Punisher is there's a moment where they're watching the news and the news are like, yeah, he's watching with Micro in the first season Punisher, and then he's like, yeah, there's a guy who's calling himself the Punisher and he might have killed like eight people or something like that, And Birnthall laughs and he goes that they know about Yeah, He's like, he's like a serial killer. He's like a lunatic. He's a crazy persons.

30:47 So yeah, I just I like when they take more risks with it. And I think that they're at a point now where they've so dominated the culture that they almost will have to take some risks in order to stay as relevant. Now there's where I say, you know what takes some narrative risks here. I used to be back in Phase one before thor Ragnarok. I was the guy who was like, man, they got it. They did this in the comic. It's so much better. And now that I watch it, I'm like, well, if I've read the comic, why would I want to go see the adaptation. I'm for you. My wife is a massive Disney fan. She loves her all the original cartoons and now the new live actions are coming out and she wants to go see those, And I'm like, why do you want You know the story, you know everything that's going to happen, Why do you want to watch it? And I kind of get it, and it happened to me. In Thor Ragnarok, there's a moment with Thor and Loki where Loki is getting ready to do that classic trope like you talked about, where he's gonna betray Thor, and Thor kind of sees it coming and stops him and goes up to him, and he's saying something to Loki. But I swear this was Marvel's way of talking to all of their fans, and he goes, you know, we do the same thing over and over again. I help you, you betray me, and like, it's just it's boring. You gotta do something new, you gotta reinvent yourself. And I think that was Marvel's way of saying that to people like me. But that's something that they're going to have to do

32:20 narratively. They're gonna have to make some big changes. They're gonna have to throw some different plot points in there. But you know, it's that whole lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink right, Like, They've got to make the changes in us as an audience have to realize we're not always going to get exactly what's in the comics, and that's okay. I recently. I actually just before this, I interviewed um. A screenwriter's name is Richard Wank. He's very accomplished. He wrote the Equalizer films. He's really a credible writer and awesome. He wrote They're doing a Craven the Hunter movie. Yes, they are. He has he has taken some major changes. Yeah. Well, so talking to him, because he was not shy about telling me, He's like, yeah, no, I just I just reached I just changed the mythology of the character because it was like I kind of needed to, like I couldn't for him. It was like a very obvious, like just the narrative urgency. It was like I had to make the story like I needed that in order to make the story work right. Yeah, And I do think that again, like we've talked about, right, it's like, if you're not afraid to do more of that with the right people doing it, you gotta get the right person to do it right. You can't do that willy nilly. But if you're not afraid to do more of that, I do think that, Yeah. I mean there's a shelf life on this, right if they just can't stay the course.

33:37 And I don't think they know this too. If they just stay the course, this will burn itself out in another five ten years. It just will. So if they if they continue invent being more inventive. I mean, that's where to hop over to Star Wars for half a second. That's where it was like really sad that the Boba Fett show came out and and I was like, man, this is just like my dream since I was a kid. I was like, Oh, they should totally do a Boba Fete show. I'd be amazing. And I didn't. I never. I don't watch one episode because uniformly everyone said it was not good, it didn't work, and it was like, well, why wasn't. It's almost like the like the fumble at the one yard line of all time, right, it's like, just make hard are super violent show? That's it? Just thinking unapologetic. It's it sounds like that's not what it was, and I just don't understand why it was. It was Boba Fett turning over a new leaf. And here's the thing, though, that's what everyone wants. Everybody wants to see the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy decided that he wants to be a philanthropist. It's just it's it's it was hard to watch that one. But I think Star Wars is going to benefit from Marvel's mistakes.

34:47 I think they're going to see all the things that they've done and do what works and leave what doesn't. And I think and Or is a great example of that. I don't know if anybody out there is seen and Or. I cannot recommend that show to you enough. It's so cool that you liked it as much as I liked it. That's like the nextest point where our fingers touched in the taste, because yeah, it's like and Or to me is like what more do you want? Right? It gives you everything you can need. It gives you Star Wars stuff, It gives you like adult stuff, It has real emotional weight to it. It's actually about something. It's entertaining. It's just like everything you can want. That's all I'm looking for, is is there and and Or. That's the thing that I've said about Star Wars for years, as I'm tired of just the two guys with the laser swords meeting in the middle, you know what I mean. It was always Jedi Saith, Jedi Saith. I'm like I don't care. This is this is taking place in a galaxy far far away, and we're focusing on five or six people. Let's let's take a look at the world.

35:45 And and Or fleshed out the world of Star Wars so well. I mean, they really did make so many other galaxies and so many other places feel lived in and see the impact of what was happening in the galaxy. See when Darth Vader in the Emperor Over. One of the best parts of the whole thing of Andor is when ums Casson Andor right, I'm gonna lose my nerd creditualified for him. Um, He's like, we finished the job. I just want to go to the beach, man, I just want That's it. I don't care about any of this. I just want to go to the beach. And literally he can't even just go to the beach. He gets arrested, it throw in prison or for standing there. He does literally nothing, and he goes to this prison where they're like, yeah, you're here for the rest of your life. He's like, I literally didn't do anything. I was just standing there and they arrested me. And it's so powerful because it's you totally understand how he would be radicalized. And it's really if you actually dig deeper into that, that's basically how anybody gets radicalized.

36:50 That's how like, actual terrorists get radicalized. And these characters are terrorists. They are that's literally what they are. So it's it's actually quite radical if you really stop and think about what they're telling you. But it's done in such a way you're like, oh, this makes perfect sense. Yeah, oh I would do that too, you know. You see that and you're like, oh, they were just gonna throw me in jail forever. Yeah, Day one of breaking out starts right then. I don't care if I need to blow up this place. Let me get out of here. If I'm in jail with Andy Serkis, shit's going down. First of all, he's really be a bad time story every night. We should wrap up because we're gonna go way over. But what is what is like the next Well, here's here's a good one. What is something that's out right now that is Marvel that maybe not that many people have seen him, it was not as popular that you like, the people should watch Werewolf night. That's that's my biggest recommendation right now. It's it's like an hour. It was a Halloween special. It builds into the supernatural side of Marvel that I think they're getting ready to do. That's a great one. All right, cool Jack, thank you so much for coming on The show Man. That is a show for today. I want to thank everybody for listening until next time.

38:02 Bye bye, see yeah. Mm hm m hm m m h m hm