A Geek History of Time - Episode 339 - Improve a Movie By Tweaking One Character

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

I mean, it is 2 o'clock in the fucking morning where I am. The 1848ers were so much more radical than what we're comfortable or familiar with. The layer, the layer of sarcasm involved in that entire delivery is, like I've seen, I've seen, yeah, it's not even frosting. But he failed, so fuck them buddies. Like that now after World War II ended Lockley started mapping out foot trails for the newly created Oh God, Pembrokeshire

So Pembrokeshire Okay Pembrokeshire Just please let me just read Latin all day We're way into the 19th century now I'm sorry Well Damien It's 3 o'clock in the fucking morning

Thank you. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And today, I managed to kind of find my inner, competent dad um you know i i have i have struggled as an adult with the fact that i never really learned how to do the kind of stuff my dad knew how to do you know working on car working on the

family car uh you know fixed stuff around the house all that kind of stuff and uh today i managed i managed to level up a little bit there uh because i managed to fix a leak in the pump on our above ground swimming pool. I was able to get it taken apart and get the, get the, and now I forgot the word, so I sound like an idiot, but the gaskets, that was it. Taking it apart, get the gaskets out, pull out the old ones, put in a new one, had to kind of struggle a little bit to figure out how to fit the new one in, but then I got it all put back together, and it is now running,

and that side of the pool no longer looks like we're engaged in a mosquito breeding ground experiment. because there was just there was this awful mud puddle and every time I looked at it I was like scrutinizing it like do I see larvae is there anything you know I was paranoid about that so I'm glad to I'm glad to be able to report the ground is drying out on that side of the pool and and I felt very very accomplished with my middling level of mechanical competency so that's what I did today how about you well I'm Damien Harmony I'm a U.S. history teacher up here in northern in California at the high school level. And I don't think that I've shared this on here, and forgive me if I have, but there's a certain lesson that I somehow refuse to learn, despite swearing that I'll learn it every time. And that is, buy the thing. Oh. Get the experience.

Do the thing, right? Okay. So we're going to set the way back machine to 2015. I'm at Celebration in Anaheim. I've got my full Mando kit. for $75, I could have met Jeremy Bullock gotten a picture with him and gotten him to sign the inside

of my Bobafet, you know, my Mandalorian helmet. Yeah. Jeremy Bullock played the original Boba Fett. Right. I was like, you know what? Celebration will come back around. I'll get it next time. I'm on a budget.

He's dead now. Yeah. I was at a convention, I think a year later, two years later. I saw the big show there, Paul White. dude's huge enormous and i was a reason for his name 50 dollars for an interview you know i've got

the kids here i'm on a budget uh i wanted to shake his hand to see how big mine was compared to his didn't that'd make a great story right um i didn't uh and i haven't been to a convention since so he's not dead but i still haven't followed through so i'm like okay when i get a chance I'm going to indulge the thing because I'll always make the money back some time. You know, it's not going to put me in the poor house. So I think I told you when my brother was out here, we went and saw Mick Foley. And that was really cool. Yeah.

And I bought Mr. Sacco and it's signed by Mick and all that. And he was auctioning off the shirt that he was wearing that night for a very good cause. It went up to like $750. I did not buy it. Yeah. My price point was about $300. We blew past that. That's fine.

I'm fine with that. And I left and he left and I ran into McFoley in the lobby and I told him, thank you. And that was really cool. I didn't get the VIP package. That's okay. All of that was okay. I had the experience that I wanted. When I took my kids, God, this would be more than a year ago as at the time of this release.

When I took my kids to Disneyland with my brother again, we got the lightsabers. They got the, the droids did all the cool things. Right. Captain America's Shield was there. And for $400, I could have brought it home. But I was like, nah, I'll get it next time. I've spent enough money. This is fine.

Yeah. Yeah. So now my school did, does a thing where they take the seniors on like a two-day bender, basically to Disneyland. And I was like, went to one of my coworkers, one whom you know, actually. I said, hey, do you mind getting this for me while you're down there? I'll Venmo you. And he's like, yeah, absolutely, no problem.

And so we looked it up online. It's not there anymore. Oh, shit. And I was like, God damn it, I thought I'd learned this lesson already. And so he goes down there. I'm like, well, that's, you know, lesson learned theoretically. And, you know, my life is fine without Captain America's Shield. Then I get a text from him.

And it's a picture of Captain America's Shield. And he says, Harmony, it's here. Do you want it? I said, I'm going to send you the money right fucking now. Let's go. Yes. Hang on. Another mutual friend of ours, not yours and mine, but his in mind.

Has hella discounts. So I got it for, because it was going for $4.50. I'm like, fuck it. I'll spend the extra $50. Lesson learned. I ended up getting it for like $3.88, which is an insane amount of money. But I have a me. Metal, Captain America's motherfucking shield.

Fuck, yeah. Oh, it's so nice. I don't give a shit about Thor's hammer. I don't really care about Tony Stark's, like, Ark Reactor or his hand. Those things aren't symbolic to me. I don't even care about, like, the Wakanda necklace or the claws. I can't think of a single other prop that mattered to me, like the Shield matters to me. The Infinity Gauntlet doesn't matter as much to me.

I loved that comic. Um, the, the, the, the, the scepter doesn't matter to me, like, Ronan's hammer, none of that shit matters. Cap shield was the only one that mattered to me. Yeah. And I got it. Nice. Here's hoping that, that it's a gentle version of learning that lesson. Nice.

That is, that is amazing. Yeah. So, next time you're over, I'll have you punch it because it makes sounds. Oh, dude. Yeah. Okay. So, so, anyway. So cool.

All right. So tonight we're going to go light and easy. I did what, like six episodes on fascism. I have more. But we're going to take more of a break. I want to talk to you about this thing that I saw and it was make a movie Muppets except for keeping one character human. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. And so, you know, there are all kinds of really fun ones like, you know, make Dune all. Muppets, Miss Piggy is now Paul Atreides, because she says, yeah, and that's a killing word. Yeah, okay, okay. You know, and make Duncan Idaho, the only human. Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, that's, that's like, yes, that's brilliant. The only problem is Duncan Idaho doesn't have very much screen time. Right, so it's all Muppets all day. Yeah, okay.

So, yeah. So outside. All right. Yeah. Okay, I get the idea there. The one I came up with was to. take requiem for a dream and make it all um all muppets except for suzanne shepard's character mrs scarlini who wasn't in it for very much uh just so that like a a non you know you have the

one human um of course that means that that scene of the two girls making ends meet is all muppets now um and so yeah i went down a twist avenue queue yeah but even worse um please Avenue Q, please go to the white courtesy phone. Avenue Q, please, yeah. So there was that thing that happened, but then there was another one that came about that I actually really liked, and it was improve a movie by changing one thing

about a character. So tonight, I'm going to make my case for a few of them. There's going to be plenty more. There will be a part two. I will encourage you to write up a podcast of this, but there's all sorts of movies and TV shows out there that are really, really good, but they could be great with just a small tweak.

And sometimes it's to fix a plot hole. Sometimes it's paying off a plot that got out of control from its creators. I'm looking at you lost. Sometimes it's... You're not bitter at all. It was emotionally satisfying, but only that. Yeah. And sometimes it's just tweaking a single trait about one single character,

and then you've got something that's magnitudes better. So tonight we're going to look at movies that would be improved by changing one thing about a single character in that movie okay can you guess the first movie well i know so okay i want to clarify a little bit sure when we talk about changing one thing about a care or improving one thing about a character does this mean like giving them a a a better character like it's a personality trait or can it be you could change a personality trait you could change a disability you can change you know if it's a fantasy movie give them give them an ability yeah okay I know I know what my answer is and this is one of those geek areas where you and I are close enough on the Venn

diagram like our diagrams actually overlap yeah I think you're going to agree with me this might not be your first one but Finn should have had force powers that's literally the very first one i'm doing this is like when we showed each other our lightsabers and it turns out they were exactly identical yeah yeah all right so to start we're going to look at the star wars sequel trilogy it can really be done in just episode seven right um and because the continuity would them require them to follow through all three movies right right and so yeah that is exactly it fin is force sensitive give fin galactic wi-fi just like ray had um this would explained so many of the choices

that they made with his character to get the movie going. He was the inciting incident. You know, there were plenty of plans for him that ended up on the cutting room floor anyway. My favorite, of course, centers on he and Rose continuing their relationship and leading a class war revolution

on Corosant in episode nine. That could have been cool. But instead we could have, yeah, okay. I could have gotten behind that. Instead, we got him leading a cavalry charge in space, which was weird, but still kind of neat. I guess.

Anyway, my suggestion isn't any of those things. It's just that Finn gets the force because that would explain so much of what he did do and what did happen in the films, although cutting Rose almost entirely out made no goddamn sense any which way you slice it. Crisis of Conscience during the mass murderer on Jack Who. Yeah. The force awakens within him. See?

It's even in the name. Right out of the shoot, it makes a lot more sense. he feels a deep connection to all the pain and death around him and it paralyzes him into inaction all of his training goes out the window he even could sense Ray and have her sense him since they're in the same basic neighborhood he's only a day away right

yeah have that connection be the diad that they shoehorned in there with Ray and Kylo Ren later yeah or have Ren's reds died overpowered their dyad she she could you know play it both ways I don't care But it's clear that there's great chemistry between Ray and Finn, and I don't mean, like, romantic even. It could just be pals.

And it would be parallel without wholesale ripping off the will they won't. They o'gross their siblings and they kiss like that dynamic between Luke and Leia. Right, right. Now, he cannot carry out those orders, and he has no clue why. We're right there at the beginning in Jakku, right? He could even instinctively Jedi mind-trick a comrade into not shooting for a second. and then that comrade gets shot and leaves his bloody handprint on Finn

that would be cooler we would all be in on that then this could still lead to phasma's suspicions as she sees him not firing she checks his weapon zero shots are omitted she knows that there's so she knows there's a malfunction with him they could go on to get ready to test him

tons of dialogue could occur about how did we get someone force sensitive and amongst our conscripts we have to notify Kylo Ren immediately Kylo Wren has a reason to chase after him So does Fasma And then Hux could be like, no, I will take this The Supreme Leader Snoke all myself

And meanwhile, Finn is fiddle-fucking around On the Star Destroyer And he senses Poe's misery since he's being Tortured. Right, right And since that's how Finn first notices The Force, that would make sense, right? He's dialed into people's misery. He's, Finn is the compassionate Jedi.

He is the healer Jedi of the party, right? Okay. and that could absolutely open up to how different people feel the force different ways they could still have their escape he could still get to start the budding romance with Po that we saw but now there's a few

instinctive moves that Finn makes which keeps them safe they still crash land they still get overwhelmed Finn follows the force without knowing and he ends up at Unker Plotz town that little outpost Ray is being attacked he senses that because misery

he goes to help her just like we saw him do. They share a couple of moments of, well, that's odd. And then without acknowledging it to each other or even to themselves, and then they keep doing everything just like they did. You don't have to hardly change any of the script. Yeah. They're in said coordination on the Falcon now makes more sense. Yeah. They both are saying, I can do this. I can do this. And now it takes on much more meaning. Right. The seeds get planted in the opening crawl about Leah searching for her twin brother. And now it transfers to these two. Right. Right. Okay.

Everything Finn does still gets to, is still to get away from the first order, because that's still his motivation. Yeah. Everything he does is still to protect Ray, because that's his secondary motivation. Solo doing the, it's true, all of it. And then you flash to both Ray and Finn, hearing that the force is true, all of it. And he, Solo could even include a mention about how people are connected through the force like Luke and his own sister were. Right. It's true.

all of it. I remember even this thing. You know? Yeah, yeah. Which I just want to say the dialogue later in the movie between Finn and Han where Han says, that's not how the force works. Oh my God.

Would be, would just, it would be even better. Like, that was a, that was a fun line. Oh, God, yeah. And it was delivered real, like that whole interaction was great. Oh, yeah. But like, it would have so much So much more depth.

But it's like, you know. When you pay it off later and then you watch it a second time. It's kind of like watching a fight club a second time. You're like, oh. Oh, hey. Yeah. We feel bad for Marla. Okay.

Yeah. And, oh, hey, master Han here. You know. Right. So Ray's connection to the force and to Kylo Ren can still be everything that it is. It's just now that Finn's concern for her is based on something deeper and more inexplicable. Maz Kanada, when she, you remember the little April. When she looks into his eyes, suddenly that makes more sense, too.

Yeah. I see in your eyes, you know, da-da-da-da-da. Yeah. And when she hands him the lightsaber that Ray found, you have a weapon suddenly has a lot more weight to it. It's a link to Ray. It's a link to the force. And his willing use of it starts to make more sense, too. Now, when they rescue Ray from Star Killer Base, that makes more sense.

He feels drawn to her. Yeah. He's in the area. but you know it's kind of like in a total recall where he puts the towel on his head and it's wet so it you know makes the signal more generalized instead of pinpointed same thing he knows how he knows to find her

but he's still a little bit off hence Han Solo needing to point her out be like she's right there yeah right but now you throw in a line about how she didn't know where to go she just followed her instincts they drew each other to each other yeah she was led to him and he was led to her and when Solo gets murdered by Kylo Ren,

Finn feels it so much fucking harder because that's how he accesses the force without realizing it. That's why he's so mad at Kylo Ren in the snow. They still run off into the woods, but now Finn opens himself up to the forest without realizing it, and he's able to use it

to fight against Wren better because Kylo Ren is wounded. And that's doing... And he's sensing that pain. And so that does wonders for Finn's use of the lightsaber. You still have the same thing happen.

Kyla Wren still outmasters him completely because Kylo Ren's been trained, you know, and all that. Right, right, right. Ray's last line to him suddenly makes a lot, but it makes a lot more sense too. We'll see each other again. I believe that. Thank you, my friend.

Like, they're, you know, then you go on to episode eight, you could see the two of them taking very different paths, similar to what Luke and Leah did, right? Finn awakens from his wounds, and he's able to figure shit out with Rose. all of that can still happen his connection

to Ray through her grief over his over over oh I'm sorry yeah over her sister because Rose lost her sister right she's feeling pain now he is more connected to her

he doesn't know why or how Leah could also discuss with Finn the force and the dope shit that it makes you do including she could throw in a line with like your connection to the force is more like mine than my brothers yeah you connect to people fin you know what's hurting them and you're drawn to helping them with that the force can do wonderful things i've even seen people heal each other using the force or survive the cold vacuum of space or create illusions so believable that others would swear they were real like you know

and then be like ray has the force too but her path is different than yours you will you two will strengthen each other through your connections in the same way that my brother and I were never able to yeah yeah and then that part right there that makes it so that when she does pull herself mary poppin style out of space oh well she did just mention that she's seen people do that yeah that now makes more sense and again the tweaks i'm talking about these are like 30 seconds at the most right yeah yeah you could even have like luke tell ray about the diads in the force and have her whisper Finn's name at some point just be like Finn and

you could throw in some comedy there and have Luca what the hell's a Finn right? Right? Yeah. They would go a longer way to explaining Leia's Mary Poppins move. Finn's efforts with the Fathiers on Cantobright now makes more sense

because he could open up in using their pain right and the fact that he could that could open him up too. It could be having like the recursive effect. And so the animal handling that we see him doing in the cavalry charge suddenly makes more sense.

Yeah. Because he has a connection with people. He has a connection with beings. Rose is more sure of right and wrong and Finn is still not a rebel. And all that growth can still happen with just a few little bits thrown in there. And all the race stuff can still happen. But now Finn is aware of where she is on Snoke's ship. Because that makes it just easier, you know.

Yeah, and it's not like they spent that much time of like, we have to figure out where the fuck she is, you know? Yeah. Rose could still convince him like, hey, I understand that you know where your friend is, but we can't do anything to help her. We have to trust her to take care of herself. And she can't do anything to help you, but the two of us can help everyone if we trust each other.

Boom. There's his connection to Rose more, right? Yeah. And then he could even repeat a line that Leah gave him earlier about trusting in the forest, taking care of people or some such shit. So everything still goes down the exact way it does, but now Finn's total conversion to being a rebel is deeper

because it's not just follow your instincts, Finn. It's make a goddamn choice because Rose forced you to. And you've fully invested. And so when he tells Fasma, that's rebel scum to you, it carries so much more weight. Yeah. I had to put a lot into that to make that make sense for me. and I loved that line

he could still go ahead with his suicide mission by the way and Rose could still course correct him and he could do the line of like I know what I have to do this will help everyone right and she still knocks him off course and she still like points out to him

like this is not how it works and that's when he realized that the connection to people is the most important thing not that he's meant for sacrifice he's meant for something much more difficult you could still have Luke buying time to sacrifice by sacrificing himself but instead of ray just divining where everyone is finn reaches out

to her akin to what we see at the end of episode five leah hear me right yeah yeah yeah but now it's way stronger because they're both doing it they both are pinging each other right right right yeah they're still rescued ray and fin embrace but now it means so much fucking more and he can introduce her to to poe and rose properly and when we end with the stable hand using the force He could be comforting a fathier before grabbing the broom. Okay, so different people connect in different ways, right? And by the way, the whole line about they were nobody's, just junk traders from Wren, would absolutely carry more weight because look at this generation of force sensitives that we're seeing.

Ray, Finn, stable boy, nobody's. Yeah, yeah. Now, episode nine is where it's really going to fucking pay off, too. Finn is defending Ray's training to Poe, and Poe could throw it in his face. and he'd be like, then why aren't you training? And he could say something like, it's different for me, for me. She's the one who's going to fight this war,

but I'm the one who's going to help bring us back together. Okay. That would be so much better. Or something like that. You know, make it more melodramatic. I don't care. But his defense of Ray now carries more weight and pose frustration can now be with both of them more equally.

I don't really care about the Sith and Palpatine shit because having Finn be force-sensitive in a different way from Ray makes it all work better, ultimately. Kylo Wren can still do his dyad with her, and it could be that much stronger because now Finns and hers is more about their connection as friends and through force training. Kylo's Wi-Fi could just overpower their Wi-Fi.

And now, when they're in the quicksand, it would actually change the dialogue for the better because it could be that Finn was trying to tell her what Leah had told him and that it was okay that she got to do warrior shit and maybe even be sad about it, quote like like I would put in a quote like but she also told me that you'll have to and then they fall through instead of like I never I wanted to tell you and then they fall through because

then it's like it sounds like it's a oh he had a crush on her or something yeah yeah and instead of ray healing creature Finn could fucking watch her try and then see it take something out of her and then gently push her out of the way and do it himself and it takes nothing out of him because that's what he's meant for and then he could turn to Po and heal Poe instead of like, hey, we're going to heal this creature but never fix the guy who is a pilot and needs both arms.

Yeah. And they could still do all the other shit that happens. But Finn connects more easily with Jana through her beasts and Jana is also force sensitive. Okay. Rose could even say, another one. How many of you Jedi are there?

And yes, we should bring Rose back and give her shit to do, but that's not the point of this particular discussion. yeah um but jana could agree yeah jana could have a line about how she was always good with animals she left the first order because she couldn't handle the cruelty that could spark a recognition in fin's awareness he could then talk to her about the force and tell her what very little he knows and then have him say something like it's almost exactly the same with me but i've never been able to heal anyone you know yeah yeah um and then ray could still go off on her mission and poe and

Rose could object, but Finn could say something now about needing to trust each other and trust each other's paths, turning Rose's line back on her. Kylo Ren could still turn good guy, but now Finn has a different focus and they could have had in their talk about trust a talk about

having the same destiny without having the same path. Because that is what Wren and Ray did. Yeah. And you know, he could still lead the cavalry

recharge if people really want because again we've now established that he connects well with animals and that zana connects well with animals yeah but now the use of the beast has a deeper understanding and a deeper meaning and the multi-pronged attack now makes more sense because everyone has the same destiny but a different path to it and i would i would have them change some things at the end there because of all this ray would go back to tattooing she would bury multiple lightsaber still and the old woman asks her who she is and she says ray solo and then Finn is also with her and then when she asks him who are you he'll say Finn or Ghana

oh okay and as the two of them are walking back to the aope's a stable boy is with them and then he asks them what the next lesson in being a Skywalker is and then the two of them exchanged looks and they say I don't know making this up as I go along and you're fucking done

Nice Nice Movies would have been so much better with that Yeah And I'm talking about a change of Maybe seven minutes across three movies Yeah I can see that I can see that

You know I'm I'm More than 75% convinced That there was an intention at the beginning for Finn to be force sensitive and they abandoned it

yeah well there was also an intention that Han Solo be a green guild uh FOP at one point and they abandoned that too like there are a lot of things

that they abandoned well but but yes I think I think I think the idea of Finn being force sensitive lasted a lot longer in the development process than... Yeah, I could see that.

You know, Han Solo as an alien did. And I genuinely, at the end of the first movie, as it was, I genuinely thought that we would see if we leave the first movie entirely as it is, I genuinely thought that part of what we would see in the second movie is Finn following a

B plot of you know you are also you know you also have this this gift you know and and it never happened yeah and you know

I have my theories about why you know producers and writers chickened out on it right and you know it boils down to as a Star Wars fan I really fucking hate star wars fan they are toxic and terrible um like as a 50 year old white guy cis hat white guy star wars fan i really hate gen x a cis hat white guy star wars fans like

specifically as a subset um because you know my my fellow my fellow straight white dudes um are are a problem in fora and in the online community because I think and this is going to sound very harsh

and I mean it that way I think an awful a lot of them don't understand mythos and I think a lot of them don't understand story structure yeah absolutely

And, yeah, I have narrowly avoided multiple, like, verbal fistfights over my appreciation of Luke's fate in, in movie 8. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah, fully agree. like you know yeah it's star wars fans i think might be the worst fans that are out there um yeah i i think i think the worst star wars fans make up a more significant proportion of the star wars fan population than than just about any other group and i the only reason i say just about is because you know i i i i

I don't, there's, there's a lot of fandoms I don't, I don't deal with. So like, I've, I've heard some things about some aspects of K-pop fandom that that's like awful and horrible and oh my God, you people are fucking lunatics. But like, for sheer toxicity. Yeah, I was going to say, because K-pop fans tend to skew more female than male. and so I think that some of the criticism coming down the pike at K-pop fans might be some thinly guarded or thinly veiled sexism as well. I think that's a abortion of it for sure, yeah. Star Wars fans are, they tend to skew, skew boy than more boy than girl.

Yeah. And oh my God, they're like you said, toxic. It is a toxic fan. It is a toxic fan. Even wrestling fans are less, less toxic. They might be more homophobic, but overall, they're less toxic. Yeah, in broad spectrum toxicity. The aggregate is less.

Yeah. You know, and the funny thing is, as far as like, you know, wrestling fandom goes, you know, you and a couple of friends of the show. Yeah. And, you know, a few other people are my. We're the good ones. Well, you know, well, but you also represent 90%. of my understanding of wrestling fandom. Oh, sure.

And like, and, and, you know, you all have a remarkable level of self-awareness. Yes. And I, and I think that's, that, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's very, very helpful. I fully agree. I, yeah, I think Marvel fans are, this thing. Marvel fans are doing their best to catch up to Star Wars fans, but you got a waste to go, guys.

trust me don't worry your love of punisher will will fast track you but yeah yeah um definitely yeah i'd say yeah marvel fandom is is certainly uh following very close behind although you know i kind of think uh within the dc fandom there's there's also like like the people people that are that are that are trying to you know review bomb and and fuck up the upcoming uh superman movie because they they want their uh snider verse back um that's that's a particular group of comic fans that they they give they give lots of other fans a run for their money yeah i can't speak to dc fans just because i don't i don't have much experience with them so but yeah yeah so anyway

change that one thing about Finn and you fix 90% of what was broken. And don't get me wrong, I like the sequel trilogies a lot. When I say 90% of what was broken, I'm not saying that it was shattered in rent. Yeah. I'm saying like the things that were broken along the sides, like you'd fix 90% of those. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now, the next movie, because I think I mostly stuck to movies for this one.

But again, there will be more characters that I would. want to change um the next movie is dungeons and dragons uh honor among thieves have you seen it i have good okay i have i'm a fan i enjoyed it immensely good so i'm going to change the character doric the shapeshifting druid in one way okay now okay when we first run into her she's rescuing her friend who faces execution by quartering by neverwinter's guards lord neverwinter specifically is doing forced logging into the forest community and Doric is not going to have it, right?

And she changes from a horse into an owl bear and she goes wolfie berserker on all of them. Yes. Afterwards, our heroes go up to her and ask her for help and she agrees to do so because she has her own reasons for wanting to take down forge. Right. Okay. All that to say,

make her a fucking revolutionary. Make this quest the thing that she sees as her opportunity to get rid of forge and protect her fellow druids and their home because her reasoning otherwise is a little inconsistent. Have her a dive in the wool.

You guys are my best chance to end this shit. Here we go. She wants to fight for other druids and forever free them from the tyranny of the city of Neverwinter and it's constant thoughtless expansion, right? So now you've got her reacting to being in a city a lot more too

and that can just be done with facial expressions and a few snide comments here and there. Now she has the means to do so with these people, have several instances where she calls out Edgen. Edgen, Edgen, I think it's Edgen, right? Yeah, Edgen. Edgen. No, it's Edgen, it's Edgen.

Yeah, right. And where she calls him out. And she could literally just be like, why am I helping you again? Like just that. Like when they stop by Holga's old home, right? Yeah. And just be like, wait, why am I with you on this part, right? And have him explain, well, you know, we want hold on our side.

And boom, it's very simple because otherwise it does seem like an odd side story thing. I loved the scene. I really loved that scene, actually, because it was a really healthy breakup. But have her be the Winston Zedmore of the group on some levels. Okay. I like that analogy. Yeah, have her just be like, how does this help advance the plot? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And she could even use those phrases because it's a plot to get rid of Forge, right? Yeah. Her mission becomes a part of the larger piece of the story. And a final thing that Edgan has to convince her of before they get into the game after their plot fails. Right. She doesn't care what happens to the city and she's ready to just fucking leave. And then Edgan convinces her to help by him saying, like,

You think she's going to stop with the city. You really think that they won't try to suck the life out of everywhere nearby. That'll pull her back in. She's all in. The self-sacrificing heroics in the maze run. Remember, she's the one that figured out the gelatinous cube part despite the pain, right? The informing the party about the guards moving treasures to a boat, all of that. And then when the reunion happens, she's now the one who is on mission.

She sees the storms gathering in the sky. she reminds them that they still have a wizard to stop. So, you know, he gets his daughter and all that. And she's like, excuse me, this is all well and good, but we got to handle this shit, right? Right. She's got a reason to help them. She's got stakes. And she's the one that reminds them of their stakes now.

This is more than just you meeting your daughter again. This is more than just her forgiving you and the truth being seen. This is about saving everyone. You said that we needed to do that. Here it is, right? Right, right. And then, like, you know, when it's all done, she is willing to give Simon another chance because he's stuck with her the whole way, right?

She can even throw in a line about so any of your spells involved changing into another animal farm, you know, and just have her, like, leave teasingly and have him stammering after or going, oh, what do you mean? Is that a thing with druids? So many more questions and seen, you know? So I think that would have improved the movie a great deal. And you hardly have to do. I'm looking for the cheapest and best ways, the most elegant tweak.

So you don't have to rewrite the whole movie, right? You just add in little pieces here and there to support this that shoot off of this. And it's usually maybe about seven minutes of extra anything. That's it. So. Yeah. No, I like that. And I, I, what I find entertaining about that is, um, true to the root of the film and true to the, the feeling of the film, um, I can see that being a conversation between a DM and the player who's running her.

It's like, okay, hey, wait, hey, wait. Okay, I like where, I like where you start this, but how about you, like, fully commit? Right. Like, no, no, you are, you, this, this isn't just like, these, these aren't just your people, but like, you know, you are, you are fully committed to revolution. Yeah. You are, you know, Shea Bavara. Yeah. Or vice versa.

Yeah. Have the DM be like, oh, yeah, well, you know, here's an idea, you know, da-da-da, and be like, oh, yeah, okay. but also I'm I'm down for completely burning it all to the ground like like it's not just that I want to no I want him dead right that is that is my goal I have now decided that is that is my ultimate motivation and everything I do is how close does this get me to ripping his head off yeah and then have that not matter when there's a bigger issue at stake still yeah Because I do love having, you know, a recurring villain or a villain who escapes or is hung up by his own butards. Yeah.

All right. So I've done Star Wars. I've done D&D. Guess where I'm going next? Oh, Marvel. Yes. Oh, all right. Do you want to try guessing the one out of like 56 movies?

Or should I just do it? Hold on. Okay. think um let's see it's it's not cap no um i don't think it's tony stark okay and now when we talk about marvel are we talking about marvel cinematic universe or talking about sony okay we're not talking about sony marvel so it's not spider man right right um well i consider the tom holland spider man's to be part of mcc u okay yeah well okay that's so fair fair distinction right important important thing yeah um i don't know all right

that's a broad field in winter soldier oh we're gonna change her a bit now winter soldier is such a good fucking movie it oh my god it's so good um but it could also be so much better with very little added here. Okay. This is like putting a little bit of salt on your watermelon. You're like, okay. How did that make it?

Did that work? Yeah. Right. Now, because the MCU is insanely intricate, the knock-on and retcon effect of this would be immense. Okay. Have Natasha's Red Room

be a part of the same group that ran the Winter Soldiers? Oh, shit. It'd be more faithful to the comics, which I love, much of the plot to be honest, but it would absolutely thicken up her and Bucky's connection and it would thicken up her backstory and it would give Bucky more to chew on post blip because she's the reason that the blip, you know, that the blip was a blip instead of just

everyone fucking dead. It would even feed into the Flag Smasher plot, actually. I will explain. And and it will feed into the Hawkeye TV series. Yes. right so natasha while she was with the red room was part of the crew that wiped bucky's mind that was part of their duties she knows a fuck ton about computers she reads up on people she reads people like all these things are true so it's no stretch to give her some more skills right yeah and as she's still young and he's still kind of young i mean um he's training her on her missions He's now her handler. And then after the missions, his mind gets wiped.

And over time, she becomes like the only constant that he remembers from mission to mission. And their relationship grows. And it's interrupted by brain wipes repeatedly. Yeah. And because there's really no need for them to be romantically involved, they never are. And it's so it's a mentor-mente relationship. It's a proto-nat-clint relationship. right it sets her up to have that relationship and be able to trust that more but every single time his mind is wiped and she has to start almost from scratch so now natasha has deeper stakes in helping steve to find bucky after their reunion on the overpass right now there's depth to the other movies coming up too she's a part of his flashbacks she's always in the background um but as the movie goes hers is one of the faces that halts him in killing steve in the helicarrier

like he'll flash yeah she can absolutely have as much or as little conversation with steve about it ahead of time because a girl loves her secrets um the part where natasha shows steve her scar that she got from the winter soldier so much deeper now because she's remembering the betrayal but hiding it and then covers it with bye-bye bikinis Steve won't notice but you see her eyes glass a little bit right yeah um there can even be a a scene where she and Steve are talking about being actual friends and her reminiscing about a friend that was a lot like him, who she lost. That's two extra lines in their truck drive. And that's why she's always playing

a role, right? And that can be as much or as little given dialogue as needed to get across. It can even be held back a little bit more and where she just looks out the window as they drive the stolen pickup truck and we can still have her make connections to him via the flash

backs have that be paid off in the helic carrier when natasha finally comes into focus saying please remember or something like that now when she reunites with nick fury while he's in hiding she can have a line or two about it's the winter soldier program there's no way to bring them back and she could almost be tearing up with that too because it can actually be all about bucky and the the sadness of knowing that she's going to have to put him down, right? It's just a couple extra lines, and that can still go through the whole movie, and yet everything is made different, even though you don't have to shoot any extra scenes. Anyway, here's what it'll do first as far as retconning things.

The lines that she has in the Avengers movie with Clint and with Loki about having read on her ledger and not judging somebody by what they did on their worst days, she's talking about Bucky okay yeah when we see her so like this just recons that and then you're like oh shit that's what she meant yeah the red on her ledger is she's wiping the mind of of a man who is a mentor to her repeatedly you know uh when we see Natasha's willingness to be friends with Steve um it's gonna mean more she's friends with Clint but she doesn't let any others in then she let Steve in despite his reminding her of Bucky now it means more right in age of ultron which is still my favorite avengers movie that's i mean i don't

consider end game to be an avengers movie it's it's the end game in infinity war is just they're their own movies but technically they're avengers movies but you get what i mean so in age of ultron steve's pep talk to banner about natasha and how she doesn't let people get close now means a lot more and he doesn't even know it means a lot more when they're in my favorite scene from the entire MCU, right? Where she just comes out of, he just comes out of the bathroom

when Banner comes out of the bathroom and she's like, oh, and he's like, yeah, there's no more hot water. That scene, do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My favorite scene in the whole thing, in the whole MCU, Banner, just getting out of the shower

and they have their sad talk, her monstrosity isn't due to her infertility, which was fucking stupid. her monstrosity is what she did to Bucky changed just a few lines they sterilized us because it was simpler but it's what they had us do to other people that they used

et cetera et cetera just 10 seconds more of dialogue and so when he rejects her it's going to hurt her more because she opened up to someone who's hurt people without wanting to or being able to stop it that's Banner's whole thing

thing right yeah so her impassioned plea on the quenget at the end about you got to turn that thing around we really need you much more depth yeah fourthly in civil war her staying back and reading the terrain is already peak natasha right um once bucky is identified as a culprit natasha's tells steve to sit this one out he's too close to it she's speaking from experience yeah and then it gets back to the he needs to be put down angle right right and the line line in the fight in the lobby of the German version of Shield where she comes face to face with him in the cafeteria, I think it is. And she says, you could at least recognize me before he powerbombs her on the table. Yeah. So much more meaning now. Yeah. And when she betrays Ironman

and Black Panther to let Bucky and Cap go, it means a lot more. She's choosing to do so to do the right thing, not just to help Steve. Yeah. She's making up for her. her damages she did to Bucky. Right, right. And so when they're back on the Avengers campus, Natasha is going off on Stark for his egoism and his pride and all that bullshit. And now it has a lot more depth than just you're breaking up the band. It's much more about like, there's a personal stake here in helping wipe the red off of her ledger

and by helping Steve and Bucky. And since Steve believes in Bucky's redemption, she lets herself do the same thing. because that's really Steve's superpower. Yeah. Now going forward even more, this would absolutely fit in with her tears at losing so many people during Thanos's snap, right? And still trying to act for Steve still.

Remember, she's eating the sandwich. Steve comes in, talks about like, you know, I saw whales and like she's tearing up at, you know, at all of this. There's plenty of lines that you can put in there about loss and things not being allowed to be finished and stuff like that. And so that when she sacrifices herself in endgame, She's bringing back everyone so they can finish their stuff. People were cut off mid, mid heel.

And she'd find peace and purpose with that. And Bucky and Steve could definitely have a short talk about the friends that they've lost and the people who meant so much to them. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. So very little would change in terms of actual plot, but so very much would change in terms of character arcs and depth. And honestly, fidelity to the comic books.

so win-win yeah no so yeah um yeah i i like it um and then you know the uh like i said that all all of that change in natasha's character arc you know carries over into um the black widow movie yes even though it's a prequel yeah you know it's it's it's Because Black Widow, the movie, happens largely right after, is it right after Civil War or right before Civil War? The thing is right before Civil War. Okay, yeah. So it's going to be after Avengers.

I'm remembering. Or after Ultron. Yeah. Yeah, it's after Age of Ultron. Yeah. And, but the, all of the themes of, you know, family. and, you know, all of that kind of stuff

are maybe a little bit less contrived. Yeah. I don't know if contrived is the right word. You know, a little bit less of a stretch maybe. Yeah. And her desire to stay the fuck away from it like makes more sense

because it reminds her of what she'd done. Yeah. And, and, um, giving her that role in Bucky's arc means makes it a little bit

easier for the audience to buy into the greater depth of the red room that gets revealed in the Black Widow movie right you know because like you know we hear about it and we see

kind of the flashback scenes where there's you know there are all of these girls and all of the stuff you know um but having having established that no no you know the red room and the agents of the red room were also part of the winter soldier program we're also right this thing just cements that that connection to the rest of the universe for that uh so it's not just about like torture torture that they all have it's much bigger than that yeah the stakes are deeper instead of uh well that's a sad origin yeah yeah it's it's not just her origin story anymore and and again to use the to use the the kind of Dungeons and Dragons uh trope for it it's it's less it feels less like

you know Natasha's player showed up with okay so here's my backstory you know level one you know they have this this novel right they put on the table um it doesn't feel like it's just that it actually feels like it's part of the world more yeah if that makes sense no it does it does um it's not just a one-off that helps you know like the the winter soldier program felt a little bit like a one-off that helps barrenzima yeah yeah yeah but uh yeah so i i think yeah that's a great that's a great idea and I would I would pay real money

to see to see those movies yeah so all right so the next one this is just going to come completely out of left field for you Conan the Barbarian

Subotai yes always been my favorite yes okay always been my favorite character from that movie but he never had any stakes

really there was a scene taken out by the director that kind of hinted at his motivation, but it was a garbage-ass scene, and it shouldn't have been in the movie anyway. So poorly written, poorly directed. Conan encourages Subatai to flee and to not stay

and fight with him against Tulsa Doom at the Battle of the Mountains. This is that scene, right? It's been included in the director's cut, and it's just trash. But Subatai basically just says, like, I'm blown around by the four winds, and they just blow me back here to where I am now with worse company.

um and conan and he laugh and then you know they they get ready to fight so basically his motivation is we're pals what else am i going to do right and that's cool but but i get why we took it out number one the whole point of conan is that uh he was so deeply traumatized by his youth that he's rendered emotionally vacant except for revenge and that's what's so good about the movie not much talking um yeah and honestly it's why i hated the record's cut because it gave Conan a facet that took away from the depth and gave him an Ahab moment. And it's just like, no, don't do that to him. And then Conan's final scene where he steps past Osric's daughter who's kneeling at his feet and then he picks her up and carries her home.

That's also a fucking dumb scene. It was much better to have him just leave. And then just have the text say, so he returned the way we're daughter, right? Have him sitting there next to the burning down structure. That's all you really needed. Because And then it cuts to old man Conan and the written text read by Mako, right? And it was almost a perfect movie. Now, all of that said, none of this is actually about Conan. It is about Subatai. Subatai needs depth and Subatai needs dialogue.

It's okay to give him dialogue. He was basically rescued by Conan, but then Subatai kind of mentors Conan in the ways of the world, but he still basically follows Conan. It's an interesting relationship, but it needs more. um he was chained up to be dinner for wolves for a reason yeah tell us why you know have him have a stake and seeing the snake cult destroyed too right uh have them have them be the ones that chained him up you're not good enough for a snake to devour we're going to leave you for the fucking wolves have him want to rid the world of thulsa doom too you could do this easily with very little dialogue have him just spit and curse when thulsa doom gets mentioned by a few people

you know hey black stygian the best right and no just those accursed towers and that fulsad doom snake cult and just have him in the back and go fuck that guy you know that kind of a vibe yeah yeah yeah subatai is already the one who's asking about blackstigian uh and and he's already asking that merchant about snakes right so he's already talking more about it than conan is and if you have them talk about that damn snake cult while eating chicken and discussing theology you'll deepen those stakes again instead of of like your god lives underneath him that's all well and good but also like these snake cults are getting out of control and just like three lines and then when they sneak into the tower of serpents with valeria yeah she can still all be about getting the loot but conan and subatai also have other motives right and then conan has a switch flipped by seeing the icon of the thalsa doom and and subatai could have the exact same uh switch flip when he sees the ceremony of above. He could show a bit of pity for the gal who is hypnotized and ready to sacrifice before heading out. You don't have to change much. You still have everybody moved where they move. But when they infiltrate the temple of set, Subatai could be the one who lights the fires. Conan didn't need to light those fires. Subatai could be like, oh, and I'm going to fucking burn this down, right? He's already going all in on killing guards and shit like that. He's his disgust at the snakes that Conan pulls out of Valeria on their

escape ride would be much more than just I'm creeped out by this and at the Battle of Mounds his throwing of his bow and yelling as he celebrates killing multiple Thulsa Doom warriors is more than just I did a really good sport thing and his need to rescue

the princess from Doom's parting right where Doom is like fires one last snake at her this is his final defiance of Thalsad Doom like fuck you we beat you and you're not going to even get to do this same move but now he's got greater stakes in it right and nothing significant changes but he's more than just a pal to conan so change subatai i like it yeah yeah all right next one

i'm gonna talk about uh the speaking of the perfect movie the princess bride hmm oh who am i Oh. Who are you changing? If you say Inigo Montolia, I'm going to be very upset. No, he is perfectly written. Okay. No notes about him. Okay.

Good. On that, we agree. Yeah. And I don't think you're going to do any kind of rewrites on Fezig because Andre the giant. like how I mean come on and also he's also iconic like no you don't need to change him yeah

um Bazzini or or or Humperdink It's Humberdink Okay I was actually I was gonna give Princess Buttercup huge tits

But I found that with Humberdink You could do something more So So with Humberdink It's gonna be short and sweet Make him hella buff And hella strong Not necessarily capable of going after

Fezic But make him There's you know You know how Data is the hellest strongest one and then Wharf is hell as strong? Yeah. Have Humperdink inhabit that second place one. He could beat the dog piss out of anyone. He could physically manhandle and strangle Wesley, and that makes what Wesley does that much better.

But in the books, he's actually described as being barrel-chested and capable of fighting all the animals that he tracks down in hunts. Hunting is really big to him in the book. It's barely mentioned. It's may I live a thousand years and never hunt again. Right. But in the books, like he's got fucking layers to a dungeon and he goes to whatever level he wants to to hunt that vicious kind of animal. Hunting matters more to him than anything in the book. And it's not really featured in the movie, which makes sense because the book and the movie are very different things.

This is one of the very few instances where I cannot tell you that the movie or the book was better because they are both better. Yeah. But have him be hell of fucking buff He can still be preening and proper And all that shit But now he's bigger than all of his underlings So his, so sorry to Mr. Sarandon Scott Sarandon

You're gonna we're gonna need to find someone else But he's bigger than all of his underlings His force of will is backed up by his strength And he never shares any screen time with Fezic anyway So we don't have to worry Okay Now this will turn change a few things and you could change one thing to really emphasize it too. First, his impotent

rage at Buttercup denying him conveys more silliness and more menace. I would not say such things if I were you because he could snap her neck at any second. But also, look at this big fucking brute who is powerful in all these things and she just deflates him with a word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And also, he's still tantruming, but now he's so much bigger. So it conveys a little bit of worry, right? She doesn't know if she's getting out of this alive. And also, he's super rattled by her calling him out on his bullshit. So his Achilles heels fucked up. Such a big man could be brought so low by such a small woman is so great. And then the other thing, have the machine that sucks life away take a lot of effort to move. it this is really simple like rougan has to use a rope and pulley system and the prince just so we've already you know we could we could easily establish that and holy shit the rage right um and and have have it be so much effort that rougan says something like you know well you know one day i hope to take it up to four or five but that would take a team of horses to raise it that

high you could just do it in the writing right and just a little bit of of rope and pulle. So in addition to everything else he said about the machine going to five, and then when Humperdingt comes down and being all upset, and then the whining rage really kicks in, you know,

and you could have been truly happy, and have him still do that and just, like, holy shit, he lifted a house. And so when Rugen says not to 50, it's not just like, don't go so fast, but also like,

huh? like disbelief do that yeah yeah and finally when Wesley does his whole

to the pain thing and this I love if Rugen is hell is strong and he finishes it by standing up and saying drop your sword

and Humberding drops it his cowardice is even more highlighted because we all know how weak Wesley is yeah and Humberding could beat him in single combat

because he has the skill and the strengths because Wesley used like more skill than what's his face and more more skill than Indigo and and he used more intelligence than Fezic but here's a man who is cunning enough to like take down a fucking leopard um and yet Wesley bluffs him into all of that and and and so his cowardice is highlighted because of his enormity compared to Wesley and so that when we hear butter Cup tying Humperdink up and his protests of pain, we see what a buff was he is. And you don't require much at all. I mean, you're going to need to recast it. Yeah. But so much would add to

his character making me a genuine menace instead of just simply someone who has the power to menace people. Yeah. You know? So, and I think that scene of like, drop your sword is made so

much more clever. Yeah. And it shows how Wesley just out foxes everyone. So anyway, that's my change. Yeah. And I really like the, the image of some wrestler. And I have faces in my head, but I don't know names well enough. You know, some massive chicken shit heel playing the role.

Yeah. You know, rich guy, rich guy chicken shit. it heel. Oh, Ted DeBiase. There you go. You know. Yeah. I would want someone who's like much more defined though, you know. Yeah. So, but yeah, I think, I think finding a good enough actor who's that built at that time, very, very hard. Yeah. But I think it'd be worth it. Yeah. So, yeah. All right. So the next one is going to be in Chronicles of Riddick. Have you ever seen Chronicles of Riddick? It's the second of the series. I have seen all. I have seen all kinds of clips of I have never sat down and watched the whole movie all the way through.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to change the character, Riddick, in this movie. Have you ever seen the sequel to something and think, man, they totally unnecessarily ruined that character by trying to stack more things onto something that was already excellent? Yeah. Yeah, Chronicles of Riddick did that super hard. And I get the aesthetic that they were going for, and it totally worked. and I get the grander universe that they were creating

and I was down for it. Pitch Black was a ship that crashed on an abandoned mining planet and there's a whole fucking universe to get to build from that. And I'm fine with a death cult taking over and ruining the rest of everything as a plot point.

I'd rather not have it in my government but here we are. Yeah. Anyway, Richard B. Riddick, the titular character of Chronicles of Riddick, was a criminal. He was a murderer and escapist and likely a thief due to his multiple escape.

he was chaotic evil um he was abandoned as a baby he was left to die and he grew up hating the gods that uh the god that he believed in um and he seemed to live according to his own code and he had no problem killing people or watching them get killed by monsters right okay pitch black was a masterpiece i'm talking about chronicles eric and the first 30 to 45 minutes of chronicles aridic continued along those lines and i liked it there was a crew of mercenaries that came to hunt him down. He killed them off. He escapes from them. Because he was in the original movie in Pitch Black, he was being taken to a prison planet. Right. He escapes. He gets away. So he's still a wanted man. There's still a bounty out for him. He kills off the entire crew. And then he takes their ship

that they brought to get to a place called Helion Prime. And the reason he goes to Hellion Prime is because one of the two people who survived along with him on Pitch Black was any mom. um played by god which one's the white one yeah which one's the white one which one's black one there's david keith and keith david keith david is the voice actor for goliath for goliath

okay cool then it's that one so he's the imam um the other one looks like uh no but we have patrick suasy at home yeah um but who does a fine job yeah no shade there but okay so keith david uh plays the imam and and so he takes the he steals the the merc ship flies to helium prime to confront the imam and he's like what the

fuck did you wrap me out to the mercenaries and while they're having that talk this planet gets invaded and the whole movie gets really fucking dumb at this point even though it has dame judy dench in it um money dear boy yeah she plays an air elemental and and she talks with the earth elementals about a special race of people called the furions and And that worries the necromongers. And so they track him to the same planet that he's on. And, and Riddick gets scanned by telepaths, and he has to escape again, only to get recaptured by a Merck who's looking for a payday to take him to a prison planet. None of that shit with the freons and necromongers being scared of him was necessary at all.

They could have just invaded this planet, and it's a bad fucking luck, and it's done and done. But instead, they went with the whole special day. destiny and he's part of a race of people. So basically leave out the Fri-on thing, Furion's. Just leave that part out. Like he's just a regular guy who's really good at killing people, right? Riddick could just be a badass on his own

without having the special destiny rewrite of his origin story. In pitch black, he was a dumpster baby, strangled with his own cord. In Chronicles, they're like, well, every Furion is put to death as a child, but only the strong ones fight through it and show the will. And I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, why did you, why did you have Nietzsche, like, fuck the Spartans and then give us this writer? Like, you know, it, it reminds me in a way of what could have gone wrong if anybody had ever made a sequel to Highlander.

if they had taken the wonderful fantasy premise of Highlander where like, hey, there's these people who are immortals and we don't know why. And they got to fight and just, you know, roll with it and it'll be awesome. And if you like sword fights, this is going to be 90 minutes of cinematic heaven. Like, here you go.

Right, right. Great movie, you know, bitching soundtrack. And if they had decided to make a sequel that did away with the suspension of disbelief and tried to explain, oh, yeah, no, see, they're actually all aliens from, I'm just going to randomly say, they named the planet Zeist. Sure. Right. And, and, you know, the, you know, the, the, the, you can have like an Italian. You could have people living in mobile vehicles that are boxy, like, and you could have a Mario and Van Peoples, like, whatever. There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, that would be what went wrong if they tried to make a third movie, building on the errors of the second movie, which they never did. Because there has never been a sequel to Highlander. And friends of the show, Sean and Bishop, will be violently nodding along with me when they hear this. Because why, why would you fuck up a good thing? Right. By doing that.

And that sounds like exactly the kind of shit that they did when they decided to write this. That's, yeah, we're going to have space Spartans who scare necromongers into hunting them into extinction so that only Air Elementals and the high priest of Necromongers know who the Furians are. Wow. Yeah.

I saw Pitch Black in the theater. So did I. When it came out and was blown away. It was so good. Yeah. Like the

commitment to know, your main character is no shit a bad guy he is he is in fact a villain protagonist hi how you doing and and

yeah just the the finesse and the elegance of everything in that script

oh yeah was was amazing and yeah to because I remember hearing oh hey you know the sequel you know it's a sequel to pitch black it's riddick and i remember going oh yeah okay that was that was a really good movie and then hearing from people who were like this is not at all what i expected when i went into the theater i was like okay all right i'm i'm good

i don't i don't need to see it which is a god damn shame yeah it sounds like i made i made the right decision you did but there was like really good parts hidden within it like Riddick went to the prison planet eventually. He got captured by the Merks, right? And even in chains, he killed one of the Merks with some lethal timing. And we got to see a prison planet called crematoria, which is cool. And it literally paid for the prisoners, which is cool. I'm here for that.

Like, he didn't have to be a Furion for any of this to exist, right? He also had an understanding with animals, like, which we kind of saw in pitch black. And even the really vicious ones that scared all the prisoners, which totally tied into his opening monologue in pitch black about like when you go to cryosleep, the only part of you that's alive is the animal part, right? Which explains why I'm still awake and all that. I loved all of that. And he escaped from crematoria with Jack, who is now Kiri, Kira.

Remember that kid who escaped with him? Yeah. All kinds of cool shit. But here's the problem wearing its ugly head again. The necromongers are hunting Riddick and crematoria has drawn their attention. whereas it could have just been the necromongers are this death cult they still exist and just crematory is next on their list

but instead here we are Riddick gets captured along with Kira by the necromongers and he ends up having to fight to save Kira and himself same things could have happened and he didn't have to be a Furian Kira could still die Riddick could still hold her in his arms as she dies and because he killed the supernaturally powered

leader of the necromongers who I think was played by Dr. McCoy they still kneel before him as their new king and all of that could still work out just fine. It's a dumb fucking way to run an organization but it's a death cult so I'm not going to be too critical of it.

The cool thing that works after that also is that in the sequel Riddick, which is a really good sequel the necromongers still betray him and they still try to murder him on an insignificant world and he eaks out a living until bounty hunters show up again to hunt him for the bounty. But in this movie, he's searching for furia, and he gets betrayed by the necromongers who don't want him to be ruled by Furian, of all things.

And they lie about the planet being Furia, and they try to murder him and eventually leave him on the planet. And even the movie seemed to want nothing to do with the Furian thing, because as soon as he's left to his own devices, including domesticating a predator dog and developing an anti-venom, from another predator and splinting his own broken leg, there's nothing about the Furians that ever applies to the plot again. So just take it out in the beginning. You don't need it. You could just have like, oh, fuck, this guy turned up again. You know what?

We're going to capture him. We're going to make him a soldier. Fucking done. You don't need to be, oh, my God. So anyway, yeah, get rid of that part. Yeah. Keep all the other shit. and I think it might actually work better.

Again, I was not a huge fan of Chronicles of Riddick, but like the Furian part ruined it. So, all right, so the next movie. We're going to keep it going with epic films. And it's Achilles in Troy. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.

A bold choice. Yeah. Hollywood chickened out on the source material. okay the dude was pansexual maybe omnisexual at the very least bisexual so I think I think yeah I think I think I think uh voraciously omni would be you know a a more serious Deadpool like yeah and and in the movie they have him as straight and like he and Patroclus have a mentor mentee with just a tiny hint of something more but it's easily written off as, nah, they're just good old pals. Confirm bachelors.

Your uncle roommate, Stephen. It's what I would call queer adjacent coded. Okay. And I think that they had a chance in 2004 when they made Troy to be loyal to what Ishalis and Phaegis wrote about. I don't know.

when you look at the iliad it kind of gets left out but it kind of gets left out in the same way that my being left handed gets left out of most of our podcasts like it's just a thing that's true like is it really germane to the plot

or was it left out because your hatred of of the Finns was left out yeah you know is it obvious and needs a little discussion or was it left out because it didn't exist

like surely Ice-Chinese, one of the 10 attic orders from Athens from the 300s BCE, was over-emphasizing things when he said that assuming that Achilles and Petrocholus had a romantic relationship, which, quote, is manifest to such of his hearers, are educated men, unquote. So, like, everybody who knew the story fucking knew who Achilles was fucking. Right. Surely Alexander, in his desire to appear more Achilles-like, was in his own relationship with Hephaestion. Okay.

You know. So, assuming that the ones whose translations come to us in our current literature, such as the Victorians, and those who followed in their restrained footsteps, weren't really good at keeping their own culture out of translations, I'm going to side with the Anakin on this, with the Attican poet on this. Patroclus and Achilles were lovers, and Achilles was bisexual enough to also enjoy Bressaeus. And the death of both of them mattered a lot to the plot of the Iliad. So make Achilles pansexual again. Make his love for Bressaeus be the reason that he's infuriated at Agamemnon enough to sit out nine years of the war, rather than the weird insult that we have trouble with. Right. In book nine, Achilles actually refers to Bersaeus as his bride.

Um, interestingly, she actually wonders about Patroclus after his death because Patroclus was promising her to make Achilles, to make her Achilles' wife, not just his consort slave. So there's translations, but Achilles took his shield and spear and stayed home because Agamemnon stole Broseus for himself to replace the loss of Chrysaceus, who's raped by Agamemnon caused a giant fucking plague on his troops in book one. Right. Could you imagine a leader who's so forceful and venal that his behavior leads to ruin for followers. Anyway. Or gets involved in a pointless war. Anyway, Achilles stays out of what could have been a very short war.

And then what's the only thing that brings it back to the fight? Petroclos's death. Yeah. Not because they were cousins, not because they were pals, but because that's his lover. Hector kills Petroclos, who's dressed in Achilles' armor, instead of what we see in the movie, which is thoroughly unjustified rage, it essentially the idea of like, well, you killed my buddy who never questions

me. Like, the rage that he vented was really weird that you killed the guy that covers the other half of the rent. I mean, honestly, he's so pissed at Agamemnon for stealing Bressaeus, a woman he loved,

and then this is the second romantic loss that he suffers. he's finally fucking snapped, and that's what drives him to disrespecting Hector's body because it wasn't just, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to disrespect his body, and that's what leads him to breaking his first vow of fuck Agamemnon that he made when Agamemnon stole Broseus. Right.

And the loss of Petroclos, that's what enables Priam to appeal to Achilles' sense of loss. it wasn't hey you had a wife stolen from you it's you lost your dearest love i lost my son can i please have his body back and a pill and achilles is like yeah yeah go ahead so without achilles being in love with patroclus and vice versa it's bad writing and worse movie making yeah so make achilles queer again Makwa. Yeah. Now, speaking of queer coding, here's another movie, Ben Hur.

Ha ha ha ha ha. We've seen the same documentaries. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, so Charlton Heston was a product of his time. He's actually was progressive. at his time for his time.

You could reasonably say this because he he, but he was also made a product through his times. Heston actually followed Reagan's trajectory in broad swathes, but slower and with thought. He was originally a New York

Democrat, which made sense from being from Hell's Kitchen and from a family that was both divorced and filled with artists and actors. And when Charlton Heston moved out to Hollywood, he remained a Democrat and was one of the early and very few Hollywood supporters of the Civil Rights Movement that was gaining steam in the 1960s.

Charlton Heston actually picketed a theater in Oklahoma in 1961 that was showing his film because it was segregated. Oh, wow, really? Yeah, Charlton Heston and Harry Belafonte and Sidney Portier were all at the March for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. He was doing the fucking work at the time. time. He also opposed unfair housing, but as he aged, he felt the tug of goldwater on his nuts, I guess. Um, and Charlton Heston went from opposing the Vietnam War to voting for Nixon in 72.

So you get to a certain age, you stop, you know, you're like, this is as far as I go. You know, it's that kind of thing. Um, he, yeah. Yeah, after the war, Charlton Heston came out in favor of the war. He also fought for gun control in 68, although, go figure. Yeah. Now, remember when I said he followed Reagan's trajectory, right? He's quoting saying, I didn't change. The Democratic Party changed.

Remember what Reagan said 20 years earlier? Yeah. Was, you know, I stayed the same and the Democrats changed. And he was correct, but he was not actually correct for the right. reasons yeah um he didn't like all the reverse racism he was saying seeing um this was something he spoke about um he didn't like that the actors equity association barred white actors from playing asian parts because again i think you have a man who who got to a certain spot and he's like this is as far as progress needs to go yeah and i mean even we've even heard um uh scarlet johansen

defend playing different ethnic groups yeah by comparing them to trees like actors should be able to play anything a tree a rock you know and it's like oh so in in in 1997 charlton heston was all over that culture war shit and in a speech that he gave called quote fighting the culture war in america uh charlton heston signaled what a lot of gen x have learned lately uh the turn that their parents took as the message of queer folk getting left alone, marginalized ethnic groups getting greater representation and more proportional to their numbers in society

and us not having to pray to Jesus in front of the flag every morning, he said, quote, the God-fearing law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class Protestant, or even worse, evangelical Christian, Midwestern or Southern, or even worse, rural, apparently straight, or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owning, or even worse, and are a card carrying, average working stiff, or even worse, male working stiff,

because not only do you, don't you count, you are downright, you are a downright obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel level. Your opinion is less enlightened. Your media access is insignificant. And frankly, Mr. You need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something from your new America. And until you do, would you mind shutting up? end quote you know it's funny how fast he ran

at the point yeah and then managed to have butted the shit out of it just drove it off just crushed its nose like yeah we we

kind of need to do that because our volume has been to loud. Way out of proportion to our numbers. And the only one and the only one being listened to, so yes, we kind of do need to shut the fuck up.

Says the guy, you know, behind a microphone on a podcast, but you know. White guy, two white guys with the beard was the other name of this. Yeah. Yeah. Glad we didn't go with that one. Yeah. Yeah. Might have been

better marketing, to be honest. It might at least gotten temporary folks. Yeah. And then they'd be like, oh, they've gone woke. Yeah, yeah, a couple of cucks. Yeah, I also like how that makes it sound like we share a beard between us. Like we're a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, okay.

So, yeah, he got hit by the, there is no outrage, like outraged privilege. Right. He had hit with that stick. The Overton window had a backdraft so hard that it yanked him so far right. He went on in the same speech, he said, quote, The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of wise old dead white guys who invented our country. Now, some flinch when I say that. Why?

It's true. They were white guys. So were most of the guys that died in Lincoln's name opposing slavery in the 1860. So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is Hispanic pride or black pride a good thing? While white pride conjures shaven heads and white hoods? Why was the million man march on Washington celebrated by many as progress? While the Promise Keepers March on Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule.

I'll tell you why. Cultural warfare. Wow. Yeah. I mean, just looking at the mission statements of each group would get you to where you need to get. Kind of, yeah. Just looking at who cries out each slogan would get you there, I think. But if ever there is an argument for having ice flows for the elders, he's the argument.

Because you could have stopped in 1967, and he'd been pretty solid. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But I love how you go. I'll hand down, trying to remember the proper term for. Far northern native. Yeah, Inuit.

Thank you. I love how you go a full Inuit. Yeah. I'm happy to grab wisdom for wherever, you know. But in 1959, Charlton Heston got an Academy Award for Best Actor in Ben Hur. Among the 11 that it won that year,

and despite almost 40 years later propping up a group who stood against same-sex marriage and coupling, he played a character who was 100% queer-coded in secret, as you know, because you watched the cellulid closet yeah um here's the thing gore vidal horrible piece of shit that he is um claims that he urged director and and by the way gorvudal it's this is one of those monsters can make great art things yeah he's a horrible person for saying the shit that he said

uh about the woman that roman polanski raped also he said some really important shit about queer rights and about uh the american character yeah um But he claims that he urged director Billy Wiler to convince actor who played Masala Stephen Boyd to play Masala as gay and a spurned lover of Ben Hur played by Charlton Heston. In the Cellular Clause of Documentary that you and I both talked about, a lot is made of it to show the queer coding that was prevalent at the time, because Hayes Code, so that queer folk could still see themselves in films despite that Hayes Code. Now, there's some back and forth that happened in 96 and 97 between Heston and Vidal, but here's my tweak of the character, okay? Okay. So make Ben-Hur have had a relationship with Masala. Do what Gore-Vidal claims that they were trying to do.

And have it be over with Ben-Hur being done with Masala. And whether or not it got played that way, I don't actually care for this podcast. But have Heston commit to that as a role. There can be a bit of dialogue rewritten so that they include. in their back and forth about their friendship and the closeness of it and a bit about their love of each other but by and large it's not actually going to change

anything however Masala becomes more than just a two-dimensional Roman shithead who's seeking power and Ben-Hur is more than just a man who stands up for his people. Yeah. He deepened the personal stakes here don't just make them archetypical

Judah Ben-Hur wants to help his old friend, his old love but his loyalty to his people is stronger than his memory of a love. And while Masala wants to do his career good, but he's still pained by the rejection and can't handle a double rejection like that. Like, hey, if we're not going to get back together,

at least help me with my career. So when Judah accidentally spooks the horse and nearly kills the governor, Masala feels bound by his duty and his need to climb to punish Judah and his family for their slight against Rome. And he cannot face his friend asking

for clemency or understanding because that vulnerability to a former lover is too much for him to face and that makes every bit of suffering by Judah that much harder to bear this was a man that he loved a man whose family loved him and it makes Masala's shame

at his overreaction that much more tragic and it makes him more the villain for doubling down instead of asking for any sort of forgiveness from his former lover and now the path they're on ridiculous as it fucking is, to the races, is so much deeper in its stakes to the point where we can actually look past how fucking ridiculous it is for a Roman commander of a fortress to enter as a charioteer in a goddamn horse race.

Yeah. Yes. By the way, cinematically, it's a cool movie, but as a movie, it's fucking ridiculous. It's 1950s Christian movie masturbation. At least Passion of the Christ had a plot that you could believe and stayed somewhat faithful to the source material leaving aside the furry baby devil and the Passion of the Trice

did try to do something with the languages but this shit it watches like it was a remake of a silent film version of an earlier silent film that itself was a truncated version of a Broadway play that was a stage version of the book written in 1880 thoroughly uninformed by history or any desire to make it make sense as a story

so why not turn it into a good story within that like we saw with the first two Thor movies. All right. So. All right. Yeah. I would.

Yeah. I would surely, I don't know if I'd, if I'd pay money to see that in the theater, but I'd, I'd watch it for sure. Yeah. So.

You know. Anyway, those are my, my cases. I just realized that I think there was not a woman amongst those. No. Natasha Oh, that's right

That's right Natasha She was the one Okay So I basically Avengers did Yeah Five guys and a guy

Yeah All right I feel a little more comfortable Changing masculine characters Or male characters Than I do feel changing Female characters

Yeah I will say Well you know Yeah Because Because The The

The Fear of Either Making a change that winds up unintentionally being sexist or the work to make sure that you're not making a change because of covert internal sexism.

Like, I can see that. It's much more that second one, yeah. Yeah, I can totally understand that. Yeah, I was able to do that with Natasha because, like, you know. Well, okay, so I want to go back to the monster conversation that you referenced.

Sure. Like that, that, I'm trying to remember what the timeline is between, you know, the Second Avengers, or Age of Ultron, rather. Mm-hmm. And us, you know, figuring out that Josh Whedon was a piece of shit. Mm-hmm. And, and like, that should have been a clue. Like, you know, the, the, the emphasis on.

I'm not fertile, so I'm a monster. yeah like there's there's some there's some things going on there that like somebody somebody should have analyzed that i feel like i feel like you know knowing that a person is a a shitty person and then going back and looking at the art that they made they always will tell on themselves like oh yeah louis c k um joss whedon um i'm thinking of uh oh god what's his name um Woody Allen You know Wow There's a lot of times Where these people

Telling themselves And I think it's okay To go back and look And be like Oh yeah yeah There it is There is Um

Yeah You know I don't I still think that That scene is one of the Most amazingly shot scenes And what I love about it Is what the miz and send

Does for the characters At that intersection of their lives I didn't like the line about like I'm a monster too because I don't I can't fucking have babies it's like yeah he's scared like honestly that makes you guys easier because if he does Hulk out while you're fucking and he hits you with his Hulk sperm you're not going to have a Hulkling like

no we don't need to worry about that yeah you know so I don't know yeah I just yeah it's it's it's like there's no read of that that does not come across as absolutely shitty yeah like like from from in in the meta circumstance it is it is a a shit script writing choice yeah um it felt lazy yeah oh incredibly lazy and and so so deeply sexist but then like okay if we if we ignore that level on which it operates and we just look at the conversation between nat and bruce that makes her come across as self-centered uh or or self like pointlessly self-flagellated like it's out of character yeah but i think again it feels lazy and i think it's because there's a layer of

Well, we had to give her something. Yeah. You know, and again, the red room trauma, red room trauma, that's all well and good. Like different characters had different traumas. And you remember, a lot of this is Scarlet Witch fucking with their heads. Right. And that's all fine. But yeah, your monstrosity doesn't come from your infertility.

Yeah. Because you're shown being a really good aunt. If nothing else. If for some reason, we want to pin it. a woman's value on on their ability to nurture children we see in like the the scene just prior to that she is beloved aunt nat yeah so what are you doing you know yeah so yes but okay yeah so uh what do you recommend to people this week um my recommendation this week is going to be uh the wake a novel uh by Paul Kings North.

And I don't know if I've recommended it on here before. If I have, it's been a very, very long time. But it is a first person, historical fiction, that delves really meaningfully into Saxon culture in England

right before and shortly after the invasion by the Normans. And, The title comes from a Saxon figure from that time period, Harroward the Wake, who led rebellion against the Normans that was viciously put down. And Victorian historians did their own history a disservice in the interest of nationalism and empire building when they, when they utterly whitewashed the level of violence that was committed by the Norman against the Saxons in the wake of the invasion and the sometimes almost successful rebellions that the Saxons undertook. So it's a wonderful read. It is written in a, it's again first person and it's written in a weird.

kind of half-language between Saxon English and modern English so there's there's you have to get used to the vocabulary of it but once you do it is it's amazing amazing stuff okay so that's my recommendation

all right how about you I'm going to recommend actually the documentary the celluloid closet find it wherever it's streaming or buy the DVD it's actually it's narrated by Lily Tomlin, um, which is probably a good idea. Um, and as I recall, I cannot recall the, the production

company that made it, but there's also a book, um, that, uh, that was written by Vito Russo, uh, upon which this was, uh, based. And they, they often are offered as, um, companions. Uh, but the cellular closet, it's an excellent documentary about the portrayal of queerdom in movies and the history of why it was and then it wasn't and then how it got snuck in so uh i'm going to recommend that i think it's a really good movie a really good documentary so uh where can we be found we can be found at our website at wobbo wobbo wobbo wobbo dot gighistorytime dot com uh we can also be found on the apple podcast app on the uh android podcast app and on uh uh android podcast app and on Spotify. And wherever you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star

review that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir? Let's see. By the time this airs November 7th, December 5th, January 2nd, and let's throw February 6th into there as well. Capital Punishment will be at the Comedy Spot in Sacramento. Emily is our new host. She has been for a while as of the release of this episode. And she's been just bringing a new verve and a new energy. So if you haven't seen our show in a while, you need to come check out what we've done different. It's really cool.

But yeah, so first Friday of every month, 9 p.m., Sacramento Comedy Spot. Go to satcommodyspot.com. And go to their events calendar and find our show. Get your tickets online. That way you are guaranteed to get in because we sell out frequently. so all right well that's that's about it for a geek history of time i'm damien harmony and i'm ed blaylock and until next time may the force be with finn