Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What up, everybody? And welcome back to another episode of the.
I'm your host, Pavel, and joining me, as always, is Mr. Brian Schultz.
Superman.
We got what we got. Like a sort of like a featurette almost.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Like behind the scenes with a little bit more footage and costume reveals and quotes from the. From James Gunn and some of the cast, most notably Rachel Brosnahan. So that was our Superman day drop. That's what that was.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: The one thing, as I think about.
And shout out to Will Beats, because again, he is a Superman.
He is somebody that is really looking forward to this movie. So. Such as, you know, so am I. And. But he's like, there's no wrong that can go. It can't go wrong for him. Nothing. There's nothing negative that people have to say that'll diminish the excitement that he has for this film and his possible success. But the one thing I appreciate from James Gunn is that he continues to not show us more than what we've already seen, other than little, probably like an extra second or two of that scene or whatever.
So I didn't mind it. I didn't mind it. And that featurette, you know, he. A lot of the people were saying some of this things that we've been saying about how this is a new chapter, this is a new thing, a new world, a new universe. But my concerns continue to be some of the same things that I've had before with James Gunn and his writing style with regards to dialogue and funny things. How funny are they when things are. When things fall flat? They sort of take a little bit away.
I guess they take away from the moment, whatever's happening on screen.
But I enjoyed it. Brian, what did you think?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: I have liked what they've done in the last month, right. In the sense of. I think putting the scene in front of Minecraft wound up being a massive win for them from an exposure standpoint.
I think the scene itself. I think it hit with the audience they were aiming at, which was a younger audience for that particular scene. Crypto scene.
I think this featurette was a little bit more for the adults, right? Because, I mean, kids don't necessarily care about seeing the director and the actors talk about things, but we kind of do.
And I think it at least gave you a little more of sort of the.
The gun perspective, right? Where he talks about the nobility and he talks about the goodness and he sort of. That's. That's the point of emphasis. And then sort of bringing that into conflict with a world that's. That's difficult.
And then Rachel Brosnan saying, you know, right about now, we need more of that.
So I like that. I like the fact that you're, you know, you're just getting these little snippets. You know, listen, I think the big winner.
The big winner of this featurette, to me, is actually probably a bit character, which is Anthony Kerrigan. The showcase of Metamorpho. That's the. To me, is the single biggest win of this featurette. I was like, and I get it. Sometimes comics accurate can go wrong, right? Most, I guess, highest profile version of this was. Has always been the X Men commentary, right? They what do you want us to go out in? Yellow spandex? And then what, you want us to go out in black leather like that interplay.
But there are moments in this movie in particular where you can see they are trying to do some comics accurate or comics nod things.
And for the most part, I think they're working. Like, even stuff that's ridiculous. People are like, oh, the Nathan Fillion haircut's ridiculous. But you're like, that's exactly how Guy Gardner's hair is cut. Like, if you want to see what Guy Gardner looks like, that's what he looks like. And I thought the Metamorphos shot, where it's just a shot, it's really just like a still frame of him. I was like, that's it. Like, you can't do any better than that for the visualization of a character, which is inherently hard to not have look silly with all the colors and the patching. And so, you know, I thought it was good for that. I think. I think that. I think the aesthetic of this has generally been encouraging. And I agree with you. I like the fact that from an action standpoint, from a set piece standpoint, we've seen, like, five shots, and they're the same five, right? It's like the Kaiju shot him saving the kid.
You know, he's punching through a window like him. And is it Ultraman, I think, in the stadium like that Mr. Terrific putting up the shields like, that's it. Like, you're seeing the same five things. Like, I'm good with that. And then the one flying sequence, I guess, that people sort of were. That's it. You don't. To me, like, we will get one more trailer. I'm sure it will show a little bit more, but I actually don't think it needs to.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: It makes me look forward to if this continues and it's. And hopefully it's successful. It made me look forward to seeing what other things he'll do with other characters in terms of how they look like Martian Manhunter and things of that nature.
So I was not like super impressed. But it gave. It gave me some. Some hope to, you know, see something new, something different. And I think that's what people really want to see. And it also gave us a glimpse of how Superman looks. I think he continues to look much better with. With each showing of him in the suit.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: So I'm interested to see. When you're hearing this featurette, they are interviewing the cast. So you do have to sort of realize that they're not using necessarily their character voices. Not necessarily, but I paid. I actually did listen very closely in the sense of if Corin Sweat is using a voice closer to his normal voice, that will be a very deep voiced Superman. It's just something I've noted. Right. Christopher Reeve had a pretty tenor voice. Brandon Routh tried to copy that voice. Cavill had a little deeper voice, but was very soft spoken. Like when he spoke as Kal El, he was very toned down. The Animated Series, which was two voices. Tim Daly did the voice in Superman, the Animated Series. George Newbern did the voice in Justice League, Justice League Unlimited. Both of those were also, I think, a little bit of a higher pitched Superman contrasted to Kevin Conroy, who had a very deep Batman voice. So Corenswet has a very like baritone voice by nature. So I'm very curious to see this.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: He.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Does he bring that up? Does he bring that down? I just noted it. He has a very powerful voice, and I think that's something we haven't. I don't know if we've defined Superman's voice totally, but it's something I kind of just flagged. I noted it as well. You know, I have known this because I've seen her other work, but Brosnahan could just use her normal voice. Her normal voice is Lois. To me, it sounds like a reporter. It sounds very sharp. It sounds very quick. It sounds very witty. She doesn't have to change. I don't think she should change anything about the way she talks, but we'll see what she does. If you watched Creature Commandos, you got to hear Frank Grillo do Rick Flag in the series. He's pretty good. Like, I like the voice actually for Flag. He's always a good actor. But I like the voice for Flag. So, you know, and Nicholas Hulk clearly is not giving you his Lex voice because he's British. And so in the interview clip in the. He's using his normal Nicholas Hult voice, which I'm sure he will not use for Lex. But just like little things like that I was kind of paying attention to because it's really the first time we've heard some of these other characters speak. It's been a very visual promotional campaign. There hasn't been a lot of dialogue.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: I mean, what else can we say about Superman that we haven't said? Because again, he continues to show us just little things here and there. Nothing to really expand on. We've already talked about what this means for dc, what this means for Warner Brothers, what this means for Zaslav. Really what this means for the future of the DCU if this movie doesn't succeed in bringing in the dough for, for Zaslav. Right. And whether or not this sort of IP can continue in this new dcu.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: I mean, to that point, Minecraft is, as of the end of this weekend, going to be pushing 350 million US and over 600 million global on its way to a billion dollars.
So again, the.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Have you seen it?
[00:09:02] Speaker B: What?
We haven't seen it because we haven't had time. My kid wants to see it. But, but like, with a movie doing this well, I also know it's going to be there so I don't have to go see it. Like, it's not going to drop out of the theater in a week. So we have a little bit of time. But so that means again, you just, you're getting repeat eyes on that Superman scene. You know, it's like you get a lot of, a lot of press. And I think for better or for worse, they have played this slower than I probably would have. Like, you and I were pushing for the first teaser to come out 12 months before release. They didn't bring it out until the fall.
I've kind of been saying now that we have this featurette and you have the IMAX scene or the feature or the five minute scene, I'm still saying you're given that Warner Brothers owns TNT and you know, the NBA playoffs just started this weekend. Like, I continue to think as you get deeper into the playoffs toward like the conference finals, that's, you'll see the second trailer kind of coincide with, with that. And it seems like they want to play it closer to their release date to kind of get people, get people going. So we'll see if that works. But, but I don't, I don't hate this. They had lost some momentum. I think they've gotten some momentum back. I think there's still questions. This is not like a. This is a slam dunk home run. Going to be the greatest movie you've ever seen. There are real questions here, but I still think there's. There's optimism. I still think there's reason for hope and, you know, hopefully. Hopefully they pay it off. But I also don't think this is a movie that's going to satisfy everyone. I mean, I can tell you that, right? This is going to be a polarized. This is going to be a polarizing movie on its best day, as polarizing.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: As man of Steel was.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: So I say yes among the fans, no among critics. Critics. I think it will be better reviewed just because James Gunn. Critics seem to like James Gunn, but that doesn't always mean that audiences love what he does.
So I think this will be. If I had to predict, I would guess the. The critical Rotten Tomatoes score will be. Will be north of 80.
Best case is north of 90, but I think it'd be north of 80.
I'm not convinced the audience. I think the audience score will be lower because I think there will be people, factions of this who are still. Who are just gonna be like, I don't like the jokes. I don't like the look. I don't like the tone. Bring Zach back. This is not my Superman. And there's gonna be other people that are like, this is absolutely comic Superman. And what I want, like, I really believe that. And it's just a question of, like, in that push pull, like, which voice is louder to kind of drive the multiple viewings. What do you think? I mean, do you think he can actually get, like, a true consensus among fans and casual moviegoers that this is the new generation Superman?
[00:11:50] Speaker A: I have hopes that he will.
I think he understands what this Superman needs to be.
And based on his history, I think he knows his history and his style and stuff like that. He. I think he understands what he can't go the route of.
Sure, there'll be some funny moments, but he can't overdo it.
He can't overdo it. That's what I'm afraid of, that he overdoes it with. With dialogue. And just.
We'll see. We'll see.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: With all these test screenings, you better hope somebody in the audience is like, hey, James, on the jokes, 10% less like, right. I mean, like, that's what you do those for. You do those so that people give you that kind of feedback. So hopefully, if this is. If it's an issue, hopefully he's getting some of that feedback. From people close to the production kind of saying, like, yeah, like, humor is great, not too much. I will make one comment that I think it's lost to time, but you sort of have to.
I think it's fair to revisit. So if you go back to the way Donner's movie was treated in the immediate aftermath, and then knowing what we know now about how Superman 2 was kind of chopped up and re put back together, we look at Richard Donner Superman today, and it's sort of like a gold standard movie for the genre.
It was very well regarded in the moment that it came out. Like, if you look at the Rotten Tomatoes critic score, it's like over 90.
But that also was not unilaterally loved. I want to point this out, people, that because we grew up in the 80s, I remember getting my TV guide, remember TV guide back in the day, and they would show Superman 1 and Superman II be on TV and they would give you a tagline.
And I remember Superman 1 was lensed as being too long and too boring. And Superman 2 was one. They were like, now they've got it. Like, this is the one that has juice. There's nobody today that would say that like Superman 1 is bad or boring at this point. But I'm just saying back in the moment, there was an audience that kind of was like, I want my Superman to be more of an action oriented Superman. And Superman 2 gave you that, where Superman 1 kind of didn't. So lenses change is sort of my point over time. Like, how this is received in the moment may be different in terms of how it's viewed, you know, five or ten years later.
But. But even back then. My point is the Donner movie, which now is unilaterally acclaimed, was not Superman for everyone necessarily in the. In the years right after Tough character man.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Because he is who he is. He's perfect, pretty much. And like. And Tracy used to always say shout outs to him.
He's Mr. Perfect. So, like is. How do you feel sorry for a guy like that?
You know, how do you. And I think perhaps that's one of the reasons why they show us what they show us in terms of Superman being down and out.
We want to see how this happens. So I think that's a smart way to play it and not show him in this state of this guy is can do it all.
So it'll be interesting to see what heroics he pulls off. And I think that's because. I think that's important because in each of these movies he's except for let's stick with Superman 1 and 2 and Superman Returns. He does he does some pretty dope stuff. Those sequences where he's saving people on it, you know, those sequences are important. So we get a shot of him saving a child. But let's see what happens in these instances where he's fighting in the city, especially with that Kaiju. Is there collateral damage? What? How does he treat that? It'll be interesting to see.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Let us know in the comment section. Anything else?
[00:16:14] Speaker B: No, I think that's that's that's where we're at on Superman. Yep.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Let us know in the comment section below what you guys thought of the Superman featurette behind the scenes. And we'll see you next time on the report.
