The Ringer-Verse - State of the Nerd Union 2024 Edition | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Join the boys as they go over how the nerd-verse is currently fairing in the summer of 2024. They first cover this year’s additions to the ‘Star Wars,’ DC, MCU, ‘Game of Thrones’ IPs. Then they discuss The Acolyte's cancellation (11:18), what ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ means for Marvel’s future content (52:03), and Van’s desire for more ‘Game of Thrones’ spinoffs (1:15:54). Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Jonathan Kermah Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome into the Ringerverse. This is, of course, the Ringers' Nexus podcast feed for all things. Fandom, we are. Jumby the Explaner on, you've got questions. He's got answers. We are. Steve, the architect, Alman, the builder and tinker of things. We are old man, van.

He of the receding resurgent hairline. We are. Coke, baby, Chuck, the 24-carat closure, aka the brunch hoddy, along with the Midnight Collective, Alea O'Brien Zaneris. Arjuna Arjuna The watcher

Romga pal And here in his Birthday week The week of the chocolate The week Oh my God The Hershey hunk Mr.

Midnight That's nuts Jonathan Chocolate boy Kermah I don't like I don't like any of that Everybody on three, give me a pew, pew, pew, two, one.

Pew! Happy birthday. Chocolate boy sounded a little racist. I was like, you want to let's chocolate boy. It's a way that you can get, you can say boy or you can say boy. I don't know. Whenever you say boy is racist, and that's how I said it. Kerm, how are you feeling, were your birthday?

How old are you now? I'm 25 turning 26. Wow. Wow, Kerm. You guys are getting up there, man. Yeah? You guys are getting up there on the other side of 25. I don't like it.

I don't like it. I don't like it. I'm going with your life. Jesus Christ. Yeah, we're real slouches over here. Charles. Yo, what's up? I learned something about Alaya this week.

Oh, no. Okay. An acquaintance that we have, the guy that we met and we hung out with, Alea's a big fan. Okay, do you remember the New York night? You went to dinner with this person? Yes.

Do you remember the guy, the actor? We won't say his name. I will say one of the most charming gentlemen I've ever met in their life. What did I tell? What did I say? One of the most, there's an actor, a certain actor. Finn, you called me Alea O'Brien. Okay, so it's still a lot.

They're not stupid. So, is Dillin O'Brien. You're not sly. So look, here's a deal. Here's a deal. Like, Alea is so focused. She's, if you're listening to my voice right now and you're in upper somewhere, Alaya is a fantastic employee, always on her job, great manager, all of that stuff.

I've never seen her too up or too down. She's very even killed and she nips shit right in the bud. I said Dylan O'Brien's name and Alea became a co-ed in 1963 when the Beatles came. Is this true? It was the Ed Sullivan show. I've never seen anything. like it. She went, oh my God, she's with Bobby socks.

She's the whole nine. Listen, yeah, he's my favorite white boy. I will say it. Oh, damn. He was fantastic in Teen Wolf. Here's my thing. He was an incredible actor in Teen Wolf, and obviously that's a show that's like not high brow,

but he did an exceptional job in the third season when he became evil, and he's very talented. And I think he's an unproblematic white boy, which, in to see a very problematic. You and far between. We, Charles and I were lucky enough, thanks to Tommy Alter, who knows literally everyone, right?

So, we hung out with Tommy. Who else was there? Huh? What happened? Sorry. What you saying? Who else was there? I was like, the two of them were.

Oh, no. Mandy was there and Murna. So many much. Yeah. Mandy was there and then Murna Malloy, the actress, was there as well. Sure. You had not seen her before. So we're all hanging out with whatever.

And was it, is it? Dylan, a captivating hang. I was telling her what a nice guy is. Not only a captivating hang, but usually you're just like, oh, I'm hanging out with an actor. They're either going to be like an asshole or too cool. The motherfucker was just down in Guinness, like super chill laid back. Having fun. Amazing guy.

Alea, we're going to make it happen for you. We're going to make it happen. Oh, Dylan. We're going to make it happen. All right. All right. Follows on social, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok for now. Save Jomi's job.

Jummi's going great. Thank you guys for continuing to follow and support, man. You know, it's, sports been great, honestly. It's been awesome, you know, so shout out to you guys. Thank you. That was very high energy. We're not on YouTube.

You can watch every single, just when you're on the mic perform. You can now watch every Midnight Boys, House of Our Talk to Thrones episode on YouTube. com backslash at Ringover's like, comment, and subscribe. Programming reminders. I come out with energy. The Midnight Boys will be back next week.

Wait, wait, hold on. You won't be here, though. I will not. I will be on vacation. All right. So, Kerm will rotate in. Kerm, what do you want to do next week? What do you want to do next week? We can't do the Y-boy draft because we need Steve. Kerm, what do you want to cover? It's Kerm's choice.

Right now on the spot. Kerm's choice. What do you want to cover next week? Wow. Can we like rank all the X-Men movies? Can we do that? Could that be a thing? Kerm, that's going to get us in trouble. We don't want to do that. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to say anything. I try.

You said the one thing Kern, you know what you need to do? You need to get involved in like what we got going on. You might not know. It's like the one thing. Like you've known that like we can't do that. It's what I mean. It's Kerm's choice.

So think about what you want to do. And then we'll do it. We rotate you in to C's spot. And then we'll do the white movie draft. I think the next one. week, right? We'll all be together. Yeah, Steve has to be here. He's got to be there. It's his people. It's his situation.

House of All right. House of All right gives you their rings of power preview. There are preview of rings of power. I'll tell you what. If there's anything that people have been excited for in the history of the television world. All right, don't be an asshole. It's the return of rings of power. I've never heard this much buzz on the street. I've never heard the Tolkien's Tolkienin like this before my life. I was walking up the street right now and I heard this guy called me. My God, raise the powers. Everyone's talking about it.

People can like it. No one's so you can like it, but, you know, it's not moving. Motherfuggians, we're about to be watching Penguin and Agapest, so we can't say shit. I'm excited for it. I'm excited for some of those shows. Oh, by the way, I want to address, I want to address something. We didn't cover Alien Romulus. We didn't.

Why? You guys didn't. Y'all didn't. Right. And in addition did. We did. Yeah. Okay.

So when I said we, I mean, the Midnight Boys. Okay. So we got to talk about, because the people that weren't. We got to talk about who's making these decisions about what's getting covered, okay? Because, because, because, oh, well. We have to, yeah, oh, well, we have to talk about who's making these decisions about what's getting covered. We were off for a week, man. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about the fact we didn't cover Alien Romulus. Fucking Batman Cape Crusader. Like Superman and Lois, did you guys do that one as well? No, you did, you did my adventures with Superman. Yes. We got to talk about, like, what's happening here and what's going on. We talk about this as a family. First of all, I would never see Alien Romulus after hearing what that, what's happening in

that fucking movie, I can't. I don't do hard movies. I can't, like, motherfuck, he's a coward. No, no, no, no, I've seen the, God damn, Steve. Yes. What is, all right, fucking,

we're doing the white boy job next week. You see. I've seen, I've seen the best movies, which is the first two. The first two, and it's kind of like the first two. This one's kind of like the first two.

The host of the show, if he says we're doing it next week, we're doing it next week. We're doing it next week with Kerm, you're done. So, so, so. And guess what? You solve your own problem. That's who makes decisions on the show.

Who? Charles. If Charles says we're doing it next week, we're doing it next week. And if he says we're not covering Romulus, that's why. I'm saying I'm not seeing it. I'm too scared. That's a conversation. But see if Charles would have put his foot.

We didn't even have the conversation. But see if Charles would have put his foot down and say, we're not covering Romulus. We're not covering Romulus. Okay. Wow. Honestly, you know what? Are you laughing? Mint boys, y'all off.

Curve? We're doing cake crusader. We're doing a kicker. Hey, no, we're about to do. They do, we're about to do, we're about to do the midnight rebound. We're about to cover all the shit y'all covered and go up with that bitch. I'm going to have the whole cast of Alien Romulus sitting on these. Currne, you coming up?

Isaiah, we can't die a man. Okay, that's enough. It's good. But they were asking about that. I forgot you guys covered it, but they did good. I literally like the Cape Crusader episode, though. Cape Crusader was great. It's great.

It's good. Yeah. So Carrika was addicted to it. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Let's watch the bat. Let's watch the bat. She likes it because women got to take center stage and like, you know, it's black women.

They made, they made, what's her name into a black woman? Is that what she said? Wait, who's a black woman now? Uh, uh, Barbara Gordon's black. Really? Yeah. That's a little problematic. She's been black before.

The history of Barbara Gordon in the animated universe. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Batman hitting that. Yeah. I mean, we'll see. I mean, I could see it happening in this right here, too.

I can see a huge scandal type situation yet. Damn. Yeah, I can see it happen. It's a good show. Today's show, though, we're giving you the state of the nerd union as the Midnight Boys grade the year in Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones, the main things that we cover here. So getting into that, we have a spoiler warning for all, MCUDC, Star Wars,

and Game of Thrones content date. Let's do it. We're getting ready to. Talk about House of the Dragons. Star Wars. The hierarchy of power. Excellior. You're listening to a reaction podcast.

The spoilers are coming. All right. All right. Welcome to the Midnight Boy State of the Nerd Union. We do this exercise every year. We're going to discuss how the MCUDC Star Wars and Game of Thrones franchise is fair this year, creatively, critically, commercially. And at the end of each debate, the Midnight Boys will give their individual grades ranging from A plus to F.

Now, before we get into this, I think last time we did a report card, you got mad. You're saying no A plus. It seemed, do you remember this? I don't remember. It was the DC look-ahead thing. Yeah. Like plus. Are we good with an A-plus or do we want to do an A?

Oh, we could do A-plus. Whatever you guys. Like plus minus all that. Yeah. Plus because it's two different grades, but I get it. A, soft A, strong A, whatever. I get it. All right, so we're going to start with Star Wars.

I'm going to go over the year. If I miss anything, let me know. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

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Akelyte, not coming back for season two, canceled. First trailer for Skeleton Crew recently dropped. We did not get to discuss it on the show. And or season two coming out next year. And presumably Asoka's season two was coming at some point. Only Star Wars movie with a confirmed date is the Mandalorian and Grogu on May 22nd, 2024. and the projects that are still in some type of limbo,

Tycho-Watiti Star Wars movie, James Mangold's movie, and Donald Glover's Lando movie. Let's start with you, then. What is the state of Star Wars? Because obviously with the Ackleit not coming back, it's very shaky ground, and the skeleton crew trailer did not seem like it lit the internet on fire.

Okay, so the only live action Star Wars show that we got this year was The Ackleite, right? Yes, yeah. Okay. But there was, Tales of the Empire that came out that was really fantastic

I really enjoyed that what other Star Wars properties did we get this year is it just Tales of the Empire and the Acolyte I believe so I believe that's it did we get any more

Bad Bass Season 3 which I'm only halfway through Bad Bass Season 3 so if we're gonna talk about the entirety of Star Wars we should probably include those properties too right

however it's not gonna change my grade. Because as we talk about those things, they didn't quite move the needle, right? Star Wars is a D and it's almost an F. Star Wars is in peril.

Like, it, it, when I say a D and almost an F, I mean, the acolyte itself, to me, was not a show that was an F. No. No. But to cancel the show is a front-facing admittance of the danger that Star Wars is in

and the shakiness at the top, to cancel that show after one season is a disastrous move that reeks of desperation to me. Yes. No one would have cared if it would have come back. The decision to make it to me signals more than the decision to have brought the show back.

I'm not saying it was the greatest show in the world. I'm just saying the way I view the health of something is how it's living, what it's few, is and what the nutrition of that entity is. I don't think Star Wars has great infusion of talent and ideas right now. I don't think it has a stable future, and the present is definitely not stable. So we didn't talk about this, but does skeleton crew worry you because after the accolite, I feel like they need a, just a hit.

And when I saw Skeleton crew, it's dropping on Christmas. I'm like, I don't know if this is the type of series that they need right now. So it doesn't really bother me for that reason because a couple of things. Number one, there's not really, I think when we say they need a hit, we feel that way. But then when you look at, I don't think they feel like they need a hit. I don't. I think the way.

When is the last time they had one? But I think the way they look at things is they think it would take another decade for the interest in Star Wars. to Wayne. They really feel that way. They feel like it would take with the last 40 or 50 years of Star Wars Fair and with how big the lawyer is and with how big the fandom is and with how big the entire base of people who love Star Wars is, I think they think it would take another 10 years, another 15 years for us to ruin this. Or they might think something else. It's probably more realistic that they think this, that they can't ruin it. That no matter when they make something, Star Wars, you'll watch. So I don't.

think they feel like that. If you're asking do we need a hit, I think some of us do and some of us don't, but Skeleton Crew is what it is, and it's not going to change. They made it, they got to put it out. I mean, it might be good. It was just like, when I saw the trailer for it, I was like, I think this is

a lot of Disney Plus. You can kind of tell that it was greenlit in another area, in another era, I mean, where I think they were trying a lot of different things, and now I think we're getting to the point where it's like, there's a reason the mandolet Lauren Grogo is the only movie that has a date. Because to me, that's the only thing that's working besides Andor. But Andor was always just going to be two seasons.

And even commercially, I don't know if Andor did what they wanted it to do. So like, what were you saying? I feel like the commercial viability of Andor is kind of immaterial because that was so universally loved that they can, like, they'll make an Emmys push for that. They've made, like, so many, there's so much goodwill that came off of Andor that I think it could almost be counting as its own, like, boon for them that they're probably not going to have for another long time. But it's expensive though.

It's very expensive. And that's, but like, so was the Acolyte. They spent like $300, 200 million on that season. Yeah. Which is wildly expensive and unnecessary already. But you don't spend that much money on something for people not to watch. Exactly. And you certainly don't cancel that show.

Yeah. If you didn't believe of it in the first place after spending all that kind of money, which is the ultimately hugest disappointing factor about getting rid of the Akelyde. I agree with you. We all had our notes about it. We weren't exactly singing the show's praises, but the fact that they clearly didn't believe in it enough to sit in it and stick with something

that even goes as far as like, okay, well, we can take what we actually learn from this show and improve upon it, build upon something. They don't seem to want to build upon anything other than making a hit, other than something that can universally drum up a lot of success for them. Well, this isn't like new, though, right? They did it, like, after The Last Jedi, You and Joe had that wonderful discussion

that you can go watch on YouTube right now. And after the Last Jedi Fiasco, they're like, cool, we're just going to triple back. We're going to double down. We're going to go all the way down, right? So it's kind of like when you struggle or something, it's like when you try to like cook for the first time and it turns out bad.

You're like, all right, never cook it again. I'm just going to take a rest of my life. But isn't it crazy? That's how they operate. Isn't it crazy, though, that when we, like, of all of the things that we know are hard canceled and not coming back at Star Wars, the only thing that we've heard about

from them coming forward and being like, Nah, we killed it. Was Akeleid. Not Obi-Wan, not Book of Boba-Fed. Like, like, hardcore pander. Go ahead. But it's not,

but it's not, that's not a pander. That is true. But it's right. We're not seeing Book of Boba-Fet again. We probably won't be seeing Obi-Wan again. Tomorrow Morerson came out and they were like, you're going to be in Manilorian Groog?

It's like, probably not. Y'all didn't like that other show. Right. Probably not going to. Yeah, but here's a thing, it is kind of crazy that, what, Ackolite ended like a month and a half ago,

and they're already like, Don't worry, guys, we killed that shit. That's the cat. I mean, you called him a coward earlier. That was crazy. But that's the cowardice of Star Wars. Something doesn't work. And they're like, cool, we're dumping it.

We're done. You know what's funny? It's like, first of all, I have two things to say. Number one, I didn't have any notes for the act. Like, this is not a Steve thing. This is not a Steve thing. But it irks me when we say we had notes. What?

You can't have no notes. Do you know how hard it is to do what they did? No, of course. It's like you can't, you can't. give them no. It's like me, it's literally like me. It's the same thing as me saying, this is what LeBron James needs to do. This is what he needs to work on during the summer. Okay. I go out. I don't know. Hey, there's nobody. Then come back down 3-1 against there's nobody in the NBA who you can talk about the way that they're playing, but there's

nobody in the NBA you can help with their game. Not one player. No, I mean, there's not one player NBA you can help with their game. I'm not going to argue that, but I do think that the argument that Steve, Jomey are making that Star Wars, especially since the last Jedi fiasco, I do think has a problem with standing by what they put out. That's our fault. I don't think so. Powerful.

How is it our fault? How are we more responsible for the creative output of a thing that you say we can't help? You definitely can't help it. You're more responsible because of the reaction. The reaction to everything is so firing brimstone. It's so binary. The thing that happened with the conversation between Joe and I, I can go watch The Last Jedi and not have loved the movie,

but then not come back and say that the movie was an absolute waste of time and spend all time online, destroying the movie, bashing the movie, doing all of this. The fandom is so deep in, and I'm one of them, the fandom is so deep in that the executives, who once again, you guys, we keep having this conversation over and over and over again, the people that you think are dedicated to telling some great, amazing story about how the galaxy gets saved, that's not what they're dedicated to. They're dedicated to pleasing you, and you guys can't be pleased. I will. Like, they're dedicated, they're dedicated. They're not, they're not, They're not dedicated to telling this, this amazing,

there are writers in a room right now with three red cameras and $150,000, right? If they could get three reds for $150,000. If you got three reds, hit me up, I need them. But like if, with three red cameras, writing a story that they have got to tell. Right. And it doesn't matter what you think. They might do a silent movie. They might do a movie with a niggas dancing.

They might do it. And they have to tell it. You got served. You got served, right? Star Wars, you got served. It's silent. It's crazy. Again, he's so sick.

The ideas, guys, come on. They're saying we can't help Star Wars. They actually just do. You got served. Take the dancing out and just make it Jedi. Oh, my God. You're saying that we can't help Star Wars. Come on.

We can help us. No, all right. So I will say this, though. I get what you're saying, then. I do think Star Wars does have a problem with listening to the top 5% the most toxic part of the fandom? Yeah. There isn't the loudest more than they think about

like actually believing in the thing because I would have believed that like I would have believed you when they said that they're dedicated to pleasing list if they only came out with Force Awakens. Because if they didn't, they wouldn't have let Last Jedi get across the finish line because they need to be like, whoa, this is going to piss way too many people off. I think Van

Van has a point but the problem is, and you mentioned this, is that there's a group of people are dedicated to making the fandom toxic. Like anytime There's personal color. Anytime there's a woman anytime. Bad faith actors. Exactly.

That doesn't align with their worldview. They're like, ah, they're going to review bomb it. They're going to spew all this hate and all this stuff. And that's the feedback that they're getting at Star Wars. And like, that's not entirely correct. I think there's like a top five, top 10% of people who are like all the way in there, like hateful and mean and just like nasty for no reason. There's like, you know, the 10% of the end who don't care.

Right. It's like a bell curve. There's like 80% they're like, hey, man, it was cool. Maybe we watched some more. You know what I'm saying? but they only listen to that top 10% and that's not good for a majority of the fans. I get it.

Two things. One is and or the show that we all laud and love. Oh, yeah. Doesn't care about Star Wars fandom, right? And we know at the same time, it's not as well watched. There's a line there that's starting to get, I'm not shooting them in any bail. There's a line there that's starting to get impossible to walk.

Andor is the one story where the guy, does care about just telling this story, audience be damned. It's sublime, but at the same time, it's not quite as possible. If you make Asoka, which is coming off rebels and has beloved characters, and it lands lukewarm and people tear it to shred. And by the way, don't be, I'm not saying anyone shouldn't be honest with their criticism. I'm just saying when that happens, the people at Lucasfilm fucking freak out, I can tell you. When the Asoka thing comes back and they go, oh my God, we just delivered them all of these member berries wrapped up and this stuff, blah, blah, blah.

And that doesn't work. They freak. And what we're seeing now is a little bit of panic from them. And we'll talk about some panic that we're seeing in Marvel 2. They don't know what to do because they don't know how to please the audience. And it's interesting, though, because my conspiracy theory brain about something like an acolyte cancellation, well, why does like a creative team that makes the acolyte who has done. all of these amazing shows and stories as well, even brilliant minds like that worked on Book of Boba Fett

and all these other things. Like, it feels weird to me that like all of these other creatives outside of, say, and or just decided to make their most revered or like not exactly connecting with an audience work when it comes to a Star Wars property. I know that all of those creatives know what they're doing. I have a pretty good idea about that. But like,

it seems that like why is only and or getting it right? to say that it's like not the one that cares or it's like too cool for Star Wars and that's why it works. I mean I mean I'm first of all I'm not taking anything away from anybody. No no, no, of course. On any other show that guy's a fucking badass. No, of course. And but like, you know me? But like to me, I'm not saying he's his more, I'm this fucking god.

But Tony Joe, I mean, it's also, it was his job. He was a director and writer to big scripts. Exactly. He's not, but I do think that the thing that's happening to Star Wars that to me is interesting is A, I think and or poised. the well a little bit because now anytime we kind of just get like an okay TV show in the Star Wars Universe. We're like, well, it's not and or I'm like, well, Tony Gilroy's not fucking writing it and directing and show running it. That's the first thing. I also think, are we getting to the point where maybe

Star Wars is not best served in TV where I feel like Star Wars for so long was a cinematic experience and I'm taking like the animated shows away from it? But it's like we want to go to the movies and be wowed for two hours and see a galaxy far far away. When you're seeing a galaxy far far away every other month, I do think as like fans, we start to get more nitpicky versus like if we saw an Asoka movie and it was just, I don't know, like an eight out of 10 or a seven out of 10, do you really think people would have been freaking out? Probably not.

But when it's stretched over a season, I think people start being like, well, this, that. That's a great point. I do think that that's true. also think that there's just a difference between Star Wars fandom and a lot of other fandom. I'm not blaming the fandom. Like man, Star Trek had Deep Space 9, Star Trek,

the Voyager, Empire, Imprise niggas, Star Trek, the New Whale. But it started on TV. Star Trek, Nickas. It did start on TV. And that's what, and because it started on TV, I'm saying, Are you just, are you casting that show now?

And the show, Jordan LaFourne. It's all Shorty LaForge. It's a captain. I have to think about it, though. Jordy LaForge gets trapped on a planet by himself and he meets this organism, right? And the organism bonds to him and it creates more organisms that kind of look like Jordy LaForge. Okay. And then the enterprise comes back, but also the organism lets him live for a long, long time.

He fucking cures his blindness the whole nine. The enterprise comes back 100, 200, 300, 300 years in the future, right? come back to the planet and they're like, oh my God, this planet is the niggas everywhere because they're all basically DNA clones of Jordy Laforge because he had to bond with his organism

on the planet to create new life forms. They're human, they're kind of human rights. Are they fucking each other? There's a civil war. And the enterprise... Here's a thing.

George's a war. But hear me out. But hear me out. But hear me out. This all black Star Wars movie. So, Jordanil Forge gets... I'm locked in. Jordan Laforge crash lands on the planet, right?

He crash lands on this planet. He's going to die. He doesn't have any sustenance. There's an organic organism. Like a symbiote. Like a symbiote that lives on the planet that attaches to Jordy LaForge and makes him strong. But also as a byproduct, he fucking multiplies. So before you know it, the DNA, yeah. DNA is everywhere.

The planet starts to change. And it's a whole planet that's like Jordy LaForge is a whole new race of people. They're human-esque because they reproduce asexually. They start their own society. They do this whole thing. And then after a while, there's a civil war between these two people, which brings the enterprise back to this planet to try to make peace in the civil war. Guy goes, who is the old man that's been here for a long time?

It's Jordy LaFord. He sees the eyes. This is Star Wars niggas. Dude, that's the movie. Does Tuvok show up? for like all the star Oh, Aura. Oh, Aura, bro.

They could, well, she's dead. Yeah. Yeah, she's. Well, she's been dead, right? But what about, uh, Whoopi Coburn? There you go. There you go.

And we came back from, let's give her great for Star Wars. By the way, not the worst Star Trek episode I've ever heard. I'm just saying, no, that's the whole fucking thing. Joyie LaForge is there. And, you know,

it's, you know, we can have some maybe some, we can have some maybe underlying themes about unity. in the community You have a civil war between a planet full of black men I don't know, bro don't act like it couldn't happen that.

All right, man, what's they're great? It's a D. It's a D. Jomey? I'm gonna give it a C-minus. Because the bad batch came out this year and the bad batches through is excellent.

It was great. Pulled out the hallstrings. It was like very, very, a very great send-off for those characters and for that show. But ultimately, and we talked about a lot, I think the acolyte was the thing

they were banging on. And ultimately, while we didn't love it, we liked it enough. And they, after like six weeks, were like, cool, get it out of here. And that's really disappointing. I got to give it a C minus. Yeah, I'll give it a C for those same reasons.

I just, I really need, I need the, like, industrial complex of Star Wars to kind of believe in itself a bit more. And if it doesn't exactly work the first time right away, you can still work with something and make something great. Because if we worked on that metric, then the animated Clone Wars show would have been

canceled season one. After the movie, they would have sent that thing to the I know, right. Like, yeah, like sit in it for a second. Yeah, it's a D. Y'all are wild. It's a D. I like, I like parts of that. I like parts of it. It's just in total disarray. Y'all didn't watch the bad batch. It's okay. Y'all not like that. I watch half of it. But also, you know

what? I haven't been, I like the bad batch, but I don't like the bad batch as much as I've caught up on the bad batch. I always get to the bad batch, but I'm not as huge your bad bash fans as some other people are. But it's solid. Like, it's good. It's not just solid. It's good. Yeah. All right, so we're going to D.C. This one won't be as long

because we haven't seen a lot of this stuff. But James Gunn's Superman. We ain't seen nothing. What? We didn't see all of this shit. We ain't seen nothing. Yeah, but we can talk about the state of it. I know, but you're saying we ain't seen a lot of it.

We, nigga, we didn't seen two trailers, all of this shit, maybe three. Can I just finish, bro? Go for it. God damn. Apologize. Once I apologize, we got to move on. That's the new rule. That's so toxic, by the way.

That's so toxic that shit. That's a black man. That's a new rule. What's I apologize? Moving on. It doesn't hear about it. Have you ever told that to Kalika? Yep.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on. You want to call it? Hold on. Jesus Christ. That's the most toxic kid I've ever heard. Just because I apologize, that means it so.

Watch this. Because you guys think that this is not the rule. This is the rule. One of munches. Once I apologize. That's it. That's so fucked. That's so fucked.

Hold on for a second. Let's see. It's so fun. Hold on. Let's see. Hold on. Let's see. She might be moving stuff because all of the flood and stuff like that.

Let's see. Kalika. Oh, she's, are you, are you, uh, brushing her teeth? Are you brushing your teeth or something? You're on the podcast. Okay. Well, you didn't text me before. I don't know that.

Because I just ate something. And like, I have the taste of eggs. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What's the rule about apologies?

The rule about apologies is if you apologize immediately, then you have to accept it. That's it. No. No. That's it. That's the rule. I didn't make up the rule. I don't fully agree with it.

You don't agree with it, Kalika? I don't fully agree with it, but I go along with it. If you take it away quickly, then it has to be accepted. Okay. Apologize. Apologize right away. Once I say sorry, let's just move on. And it works for everyone.

I don't know. It works for everybody. Apologize, you move right on. So, Kali, guess what? I apologize for calling why you were brushing your teeth. Okay, that right. Thank you, bye. Amazing.

All right, wow. All right. So, D.C., James Gunn, Superman, rap, filming after months of set leaks. The shows and movies we have coming. Joker Folly Adieu, the Penguin in September. Creature Commandos, animated series in December. I think that's going to be the first DC Studios canon. Project we get. Upcoming projects.

Supergirl, Brave and the Bold, Swamp Thing, the Authority, Paradise Lost, Easter, Gold, Waller, Lantern. And Peacemaker. And eventually, Peacemaker season two, yeah. At some point. So I think because we haven't seen a lot of the stuff, what I want to ask is,

because everything else is in a state of disarray, do you think DC is actually set up to succeed a little bit more now where it's like James Gunn, Superman, it seems like it has fresh. It's fresh in a way that I'm like, a lot of this other stuff, I think, is a little bit more dented.

And James Gunn has been, I'm not saying talking his shit a little bit, but they wrapped filming. And he was basically like, he said on social media, yeah, I rap a year in advance because I want to give the VFX people enough time when we film. The script is finished. I don't do a lot of reshoots. Everything that I'm hearing about Superman is giving me a lot of warmth and positivity because it seems like he is, he wants to do this right. He's not fucking around. You guys go first this time.

Well, I mean, the thing about James Gunney comes from like a very, like, technical background. He worked on, like, trauma films, right, way back when. And ultimately, what it is is, like, you don't have when he, like, how he learned to make films was very, write the script. You film it, there's not a lot of chance to do any stuff on the back end, right? So he takes that with him to the big budget films. That's how he's always operated that on Guardians and now he's moving to Superman. I think that's great for the superhero movies. I think it's great for Superman.

In terms of the entire future of D.C., I'm... I don't know, right? We have to see Superman first because that's the, that's the Lynchman. That's our first four way into his, his world. I, like you, am excited for Superman. I think what it comes down to is we're so down on all this other stuff, Star Wars, Marvel, all this stuff that anything that looks like,

oh, we might enjoy that. That, like, brings it up a notch because everything is so down right now. You know, so I'll be there and I'll be excited for it, but ultimately we haven't seen anything so I can't plant my fag and be like, yeah, Superman is going to be the next. big thing. Yeah, I'm, it's very, it's very interesting and a tiny bit confusing, but I, I can find myself excited by it because to know that James Gunn is effectively DC's Kevin Feigey, like, he holds all the keys, he's going to be the one that's going to be a major, like, driving

force in getting projects greenlit, in getting, like, things off the ground. He will build the rooms. He will be, like, drafting directors and making all these things and big decisions. that feels very untested for somebody who has, by all accounts, been a very solid director and a very, like, great filmmaker with a pretty good work ethic. But it's very interesting and a little, like,

like, shaky to feel that, like, okay, once somebody's in that level of control, I'm very interested to see how all of those things work out because it seems like it's going to rest on his shoulders. Yeah. For the most part. But we have all these other things that I actually like that D.C. is kind of...

out of sync with the rest of itself. Like, it's not like an MCU where everything is seemingly connected. We'll dial back on, like, your prerequisite knowledge for everything later. But the idea that, you know, the Batman is going to come out, that's going to have nothing to do with what James Gunn is doing. Joker Follyadu, we're going to assume that nothing is going on with what James Gunn's doing. You know, Cruiser Commandoes could just be a fun little offshoot and have nothing to do with the rest of this stuff. I like the idea that you can kind of come across these things at your own speed.

still, and while we have a big slate of interesting cool new projects, I already don't feel the pressure of needing to see all of them. That makes sense. So that's exciting. I like it. So I already know what my grade's going to be, but my entire view on the DC universe with James Gunn at the helm is going to depend on the Superman trailer.

Yeah, trailer. Yeah, just the trailer. Which will probably get probably around Super Bowl. Yeah, just the trailer. It's my entire, because to Steve's point, the thing that Kevin Fyke, gun is in a similar situation that Fagie was in, but then again, it's similar, but it's different. Okay. Yeah.

So gun is kind of operating under the radar right now, which obviously Kevin Fagie was. when Iron Man came out. But he's a known quantity. So there are expectations from his universe that the MCU didn't have. So he's got a little bit of the flying under the radar. And then he's got a lot of bit of expectation because of Superman and situations like that. Now, a lot of people might be listening to this and going, how is Superman flying under the radar?

It's flying under the radar in the same way that I would, say Batman was during Batman Begins. Like it was a big deal when Batman Begins was coming out. But the character of Batman in the movies was a distressed asset. So it wasn't the same thing from somebody like myself who had been a part of all the Batman promo stuff throughout the 90s, Batman Forever, cups and toys at Burger King, whatever, and Kiss for Moreau's going to number one and Batman returns and all of that. stuff and then, but by the time it comes along, by the time Batman and Robin kind of ruins

the franchise and Batman begins, comes along, you're excited to see a Batman movie, but it's not quite the same thing. You know, you have a great director, a new star, all of that. It's kind of a distressed asset, though. Kind of the same thing here. Kind of the same thing here, but there are still some expectations because of the character and there's interest because of the character. So what I would say is there's so much intrigue about the Superman movie. I have just got to see the way it looks and feels. I have to see what, and not in long form,

just even in trailer form. I have to be able to see, because like you look at it now, you're like, oh, no, I have to be able to see the way this movie looks at. You like the set leaks? I'm going to be fair about the set leaks. I didn't like them.

They looked, but Gunn is a different type of visionary creative. So he has a different aesthetic. He has a different look. The movie seems to be trying to do a lot. If you saw Guardian Guardians of the Galaxy set leaks, I feel like you would have the same, like, what

what are they doing? Yeah. And then you see the movie and you're like, oh, he films in a certain way. His characters do sometimes look goof. Like, even his suicide squad movie, a lot of the characters look goofy. And then you watch that spoiler alert, a bunch of them die in the first fucking couple minutes and you're like,

oh, I get what type of movie. Yeah, it works. It works. And so, I for all of this stuff, right? For, you know, obviously the penguin and the Joker, they exist in the two different ways. I think the penguin is going to be pretty good. I was really intrigued about what we saw in a holiday when we were there.

Creature Commandos seems like something that I might be into because I just don't really give a fuck about it. But it seems like it's one of the things that's low upside, excuse me, low downside, high upside. The rest of this stuff should all work. The authority movie of all of this stuff is by far, or whatever this is, if this TV show of the movie,

by far the thing I'm the most excited about. The authority. It's a badass group. It's a badass group. It's a bad ass group. It's a badass group. Here the thing, I love the authority comics.

Like, I read them recently. I just don't. I'm like, dog, how do you make an authority? Because it's like, how do you make an authority movie in a world where we have the boys? Like, the boys, to me,

already feels like it did a lot of the things that obviously the authority came out first. Does that make sense where it's just like, if the authority. If the authority came out, I don't know, 10 years ago, we'd be like, whoa, superheroes can do this. Yeah, but in a post-boys world. In a boys' boys' boys' boys' worlds, are people going to be as surprised? Let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. Is this list of movies, these lists of projects, Supergirl, the Brave and the Bowels, Swamp thing, the Authority, Paradise Lost, Booster Gold, Waller, and Lanters. Is this too cute? Oh, a little. Did they get away from playing to the hits? You don't see Aquaman. You don't really see Wonder Woman. I mean, Paradise Lost is the miscarib.

You don't see a lot of the people that we've seen. Did they get too cute? Did he go to too many in a deep cut here? If we didn't come out of a James Gunn universe where he more or less like did all of this stuff and it feels a little done to death, maybe we do need a bit of a like calmer, softer reset of all of our heavy hitters in this universe. Obviously, I don't see this and see box office exactly. Yeah. But they got to have that.

They have to have that. But if you build all of these creative, like, rooms and people that you can have faith in, like, I could assume that guns got a vision for all of this. I mean, yeah, sure. To make these work. But I think what it comes down to is the fact that we had Justice League that came out. And, you know, whether it's Whedon, whether it's Zach Snyder,

and I didn't really move. It salted the earth for a lot of those characters. For sure. I feel like even, like, for Aquaman and Flash and all those characters, we're going to get them. I do think if I'm James Gunn, I'm like, people have such a sour taste. They got to forget.

We can give Aquaman a rest. But also, if we're going to be honest, this is how phase one of Marvel felt to me, where it was just like, we take it for granted, but I remember going to see a Thor film. I was just like, I don't really give a fuck about Thor, but like, shit, I want to see what happens. I feel the same way about, like,

I don't know, Supergirl movie. So I can fuck about Supergirl, really, but if they do a good job, I'm like, what? What's the last time you read a Supergirl comic, then? Never. Well.

Doesn't mean I don't care about her. Wow. I never read a Luke Cage comic. But when I see the niggas, like, what's up? All right, like, you just see him around the neighborhood. I'm never where to Luke Cage. I don't know who you all.

Look, that. We got to be real. I know, but I don't know. As black nerds, we do be doing that shit a lot. Because they'll be like, I'll be in the complex. I'm like, I don't want to Luke Cage comic. But the minute, somebody's like, Luke Cage sucks. I'm like, shut the fuck.

Shut the fuck. I'll talk about Lou Cage. Don't you talk about Luke Cage? My fucks can't get a fuck about Black Panther. That movie came out. I read Black Panther. Did you all read Mr. Terrific? No.

I write, no. I read comics with Mr. Terrific in them, though. Yeah. He was a man in Jazz. He was a man. But like, there's a lot of guys. But I read black pants. There was, hold on.

There was mad black comic characters I care about. But, like, some of them, you don't have to, you don't have to read a guy just to care about him, but I get with Charles. I was fucking. All right. So I'm going to give, I'm going to give a B plus. Okay, B plus. In terms of, like, just excitement level of where we're gone.

I'll give a B. I'm going to give the dreaded incomplete. Incomplete. I don't see nothing. I'm going to give him my eye. I want to give it a B, uh, because. Because, like we mentioned, like, Superman's going to be really exciting. There's a whole slate of Sophie haven't seen before.

That's really cool. That could be really cool. And Cusha Man, as we saw the trailer, it looked interesting. They got, like, the voice actors from the movie could be interesting. I'm not excited for Joker. I'm giving it a C. I don't want to be there. Okay.

Yeah, the Joker sequel is not there for me. For me, it's just like the height of my optimism doesn't go past the C-plus. Because all of these things can be really, really new and really exciting, but they're untested. And the things that are coming out, I'm like, okay, cool. I really have high hopes for the Penguin show because like that looked great in Hall H but yeah, Joker we'll see. He said

Todd Phillips is like, yeah, man. It's not a musical. It's just dialogue that have music in it. They're singing, but it's not musical. They were duck and smoke. And then they were like, oh, it's not Harley Quinn. She doesn't have any the stuff that makes her Harley Quinn. We just gave her the name. It's like, I'm like, and this is where I'm like, you're not serious. Just stand on the thing that you have

and I will also say, I think the penguin, like what we saw of the penguin, I'm actually like, I do think it's going to be good, But we can't lie. Like, the mood in Hall H was... Well, nobody was there for that. Yeah, nobody was there for that. They were like 30 minutes away from the Marvel stuff,

and everybody was just like, all right, looking at the phone, looking at the... And Colin wasn't there. You know what I mean? So, like, but they, everybody was just like, they were just bide in their time. But I will say, it was a great panel, though. It was a great panel.

It was a great panel. For those of us paying attention, yeah. You got a sense of why they made the show where they want to take the character and the world that they want to be. The show does look. I will say this. I'm not excited for the show.

The show does look good. It does. And let me tell you something. Matt Reeves is thrilled to be working on Batman and Batman adjacent things. Like I believe he's like, all right,

like Colin, we just loved what he was doing. You wrote a whole other thing for that. Like, it was great. All right. One last question before we, I actually wanted to ask you guys this. I don't want this to happen,

but I feel like the momentum is there. What is the possibility that they're like Glenn Powell is going to be Bruce Floyd? I don't think that I don't think that, I don't, I don't think so.

Look, well, here's the thing, right? We say that we, I mean, people said this about Michael Keaton. He said this about Kristen Bell, you know, even Bed Affleck. I love Ben Affleck's Batman. Yeah. Don't disrespect. I haven't seen it yet.

I'd have to, I'd have to see it. I remember when they announced Robert Prattison, I remember I was in an Applebee's, right? And my homie was like, yo, they just made Robin Pratt's a Batman. And for like, five seconds was like, the dude from Twilight? Hell no. And I was like, wait, the dude from Twilight? He might have it. Don't do that.

He's had some good movies. Don't do that. Yeah, yeah. You ain't seen Good time? No, no. Good time's great. Come on. I know what I mean, though.

But that's probably the movie that got him the role. Got him the role. Out of the Edwardness. Yeah, you know what I mean? But I thought about it. You think about it for like a couple seconds. Like, yeah, Robert Patterson would make a great Batman and he was a good Batman. Yeah.

Right? And so I have a scene that from Glenn Powell. Maybe it's there. But Robert Pattinson is a good Batman. But I'd argue that he hasn't owned the role. He's a one movie. It's had one movie, though. I know.

But what I would say is that. you don't think I mean you guys are right but you don't think Batman and then think Robert Pattinson no quite yeah I didn't I didn't think that

about Christian Bail until the dark night I liked because I liked Batman Begins but it takes if we're gonna be honest I thought he got it I thought he got it done

in Batman Begins I'm not gonna bullshit you I do think it does take Batman actors like like kind of two movies to get it down because even sometimes

like the Batman Begin suit kind of sucks like you go back and you're just like man this suit stupid yeah so I was asking about Glenn Powell

because I'm just like, you were talking about the cutciness maybe of the lineup. By fear, because it seems like they're going to do the Batman and Robin run for that and have Damien,

I'm like, are we going to get cutesy Batman? Are we going to get kind of like witty? I mean, we already have Pattinson's Batman, which is hard and dark and not great and like he's not a fun hang

exactly of a Batman. So I'm guessing Gunn would probably want to counter. Like a Michael Keaton too, kind of. Yeah. The only thing I would, so, I watched the Keaton Batman

movie Batman Returns was on this weekend and the under the underplay thing or the underrated thing about Keaton's Batman is Michael Keaton has a certain darkness to him but at the same time he was able to

like he's he's a there's a part in Batman Returns where Alfred says to him is that we got to get the the battle bill fix. All right and he goes yeah we got to get the Batmobile fix. And he goes, you know, there's security concern.

We can't just take it to any Joe's body shot. And Bruce is, like, going into the fish tank to click the thing so you can go to the Batcave. And he goes, you're telling me about security? You don't want to get Vicki Bell into the Batcave. I'm working. I turn around. It's like, oh, my God, Vicki, how you doing?

And I'm like, that's like, funny. Yeah. Like, it's, we had, we just had a Batman that, you know, he treated out for, like, shit. The whole thing. It took 10 minutes to walk up the stairs. You know what I mean? You lied to me. You lied to me.

I know that we want to get we want to get darker and darker. Sure, yeah. No, I don't want a darker Batman. Yeah. In a fucking room by himself, throwing batterings. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it would be okay. I think I could see a world where you got a Batman that was learning to kind of be a dad. Yeah. But I can tell you what, if you miss with that,

it's over. We'll go right back to it. So missing with a dark Batman, you still get something. You can get people. If you miss with family friendly Batman, it's going to look so fucking crazy. But I don't even think it's so much on the Batman. If you fuck up, because here's the thing, you have the plucky factor.

If you have a Robin that fucks up that movie, I don't know. Because like Batman is the linchpin of all this shit. Like I know they want to make a Superman. I'm like, I'm still kind of, I want to see Damien in live action. I'm like, what child actor alive can pull that off? You'd have to go a little earlier. Yeah. You've got to be like, not early.

You'd have to go 14, 15, 15, 13, 15. But Damien's, yeah, Danny's like 10. So one of the stranger things, kid? Nah, bro. If you go, if, is to me, I mean, I don't know. When you think about it, there might be some. For six, five. That's fair.

Yeah, I forget how I was all that kid is. I mean, you might be able to. I don't know. I think that the character of Damien kind of gets, it takes all the pluck out of it. But once again, The movie, I would say even Afflex Batman, Afflex Batman was a little bit less disaffected than some of the other people.

I liked his charming Bruce Wayne. I liked his charming Bruce Wayne as well with the hidden sense of purpose. I think back to the Glenn Powerpoint. I think he might, he could play like a pretty solid Bruce Wayne, honestly. He could play an amazing Bruce Wayne. The Batman.

Once I see Glenn Powell at the cow, I'll be like, it's like, Glenn Powell is not Tom Cruise, but it's like, if Tom Cruise is Batman, I'm like, that's Tom Cruise. Yeah, no. Yeah, Glenn Powell's still at, he's like on the rise, but he's still not at the point where, like,

he takes you out of the movie with his stardom. Yeah, I mean. He's got, he's dripping with charisma. Yeah, yeah. So that's what, like, as a Bruce, he'd be a fantastic Bruce Wayne. As Batman, he'd have to tap into something. I don't think we've seen yet.

If he put some base in his voice, I don't know how I'd feel. Like, just like, drive the car, Alfred. All right, let's do, let's do the MCU. So Deadpool and Wolverine, officially the highest grossing R-rated movie of all time, with 1.086 billion worldwide. X-Men 97 was the highest rate. MCU project on Rotten Tomatoes earlier this year.

Agatha All Along is releasing in September. Obviously, R.DJ came back to the MCU's Dr. Doom, or is coming back. Russo Brothers are directing the next two Avengers film. But rumored, trouble with Blade. I just saw Rumored. We will talk about Blade later. And the upcoming Marvel projects we have for next year are Daredebel Born Again, Captain America, Brave New World, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four.

and then maybe Ironheart seems like it might be next year as well. Yeah, they announced it. Yeah, it's coming out. The full trailer, I saw the full trailer. And we're still waiting on Blade, Wonder Man, Vision Quest, Shang Chi 2, a Wakanda TV series, and then Avengers Doom's Day, Avengers Secret Wars. Wonder Man has finished shooting. Yeah.

So, state of Marvel for you then? Marvel's on the upswing. Okay. like Marvel's on the upswing I'm going to give Marvel a B plus I'm going to give them I can't give them an A because we're not there yet

but this one basing my B plus on okay so they are riding the most successful movie that they've had in a long time and when I say successful I'm not just talking about the box office I'm talking about a movie that was also able to capture culture the way Marvel hasn't been able to do in a while even Guardians of the Galaxy 3

which was a very successful movie critically and commercially, it just didn't have this many people talking about it all the time. I mean, they did bring back to Q Jackman, so. I get it, but that's what they were going for. That's why you do that. That's why you do that.

So number one, they have the conversation piece. They have a movie that people love. And you guys, I got to say this. We were fair to the movie here and with the big picture as far some of the things that were wrong with the movie. Yo, people love this movie. Yeah. They love it.

They've gone to see it two or three times. Like, people love the movie. A lot of the things that we felt that were wrong with the movie, those are fair criticisms. But in terms of the movie going public, they love Wolverine and Deadpool. For sure. It's just working for them.

So that plus, Agatha All Along is a show that I think that I like, you know, but if I use X-Men 97 and I use Deadpool and Wolverine, that is a bang-up year, and the trailers that I saw in Hall of, forget about the Robert Donnie Jr. announcement for one second.

Think about what we saw from Brave New World. Think about what we saw from the Thunderbolts. Those movies looked great. And what we saw from Fantastic Four looked great.

It looks like they have a clear vision on it. I think they're in a little bit of a renaissance. I can't give them an A, but I can give them the show of Renaissance. Oh, right.

I do. I do. I do. Even from me. I think they're a renaissance. I can't give them an A, I don't think the strongest

B plus is a bad grace. Ever. But a run, all right, so here's my issues with this year where to me, Deadpool and Wolverine

obviously is success, you know, even if not critically, commercially definitely. Critically too, though. Like, you might have not liked it,

but most of the critics that, I didn't mean to step on you. Go ahead. No, no, no. I more so mean, the reason I think Marvel is still in trouble

is that, A, you inherited Deadpool. You already inherited a very successful franchise. So their job, and they succeeded on this, don't fuck it up.

And once they put Wolverine and Hugh Jackman, it was going to be very, very hard for them to fuck it up. And honestly, they exceeded my expectations just in terms of like what that movie did. So I have to give them that. Same thing with X-Men 97. Even if I didn't like the series, it connected with a certain segment of the fan base

and like they loved it. Now, I don't know if this gear proved to me that Marvel has righted the ship because it's not hard to get people to give a fuck about Deadpool and Mulver Lane. I think it's going to be really hard

to get them to care about Thunderbolts and Captain America, Brave New World. I like those trailers. I'm liking what I'm seeing, but I don't know if Marvel has regained that quality that they had

in their early years to get people in the seats for those heroes that are not the legendary. Like the reason, they're having to go back to convince people. You know what I'm saying?

Even with the third Spider-Man, they're having to go back and bring in a Toby McGuire or bring in these other actors and give you the member berries just to get people to want to see something like a Doctor Strange multiverse of madness. And I'm like, I need to see that they can pull off

Brave New World. And like, I need to see that they can make Thunderbolts happen. Like, and that's, they haven't been able to really like get that excitement for those movies yet. But do you understand, though, that I get that and that's of completely

fair criticism. But do you understand that you're you're not basing them you're not basing it on what they've done you're basing it on what you think they should do? So because, okay, but you didn't like X-Men 97, which is another thing that probably taints your,

that changes it a little bit. What you're saying is true. As far as the long-term health of Marvel, I could see that binge, but as far as what they did this year, like, they were successful. Yeah, so here's the thing. My grade isn't that far off from yours.

My grade is like a B minus. But you're talking about what you need to. Okay, okay, I feel like to get, but here's the thing. The reason I feel like both of us aren't going to give Marvel an A is because we know what a championship year is for Marvel.

We know when they're at the center of culture, when every movie or like, even every other movie is firing on all cylinders, critically, commercially, everything. They are the zeit guys. I don't think they're probably ever going to get there again. But I feel like

if you have Fantastic Four coming out a Blade movie should not be that hard to do. Like it's like there are certain things. Like we haven't even talked about the Blade part of it yet where I'm like, y'all are fucking up a Blade movie?

Like you can't even get like a 90 million Blade movie right? That's... Well, I mean... You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm just like, that's a layup. Yeah. Well, I mean,

there have been Blade movies that have been fucked up in the past, right? one yeah right the other two were fucking the biggest needs yeah but um but you know do you know how much money the original blade made domestic uh let's find out like look it up and so

and so um I'm not by way this is not in any way domestic yeah domestic how much 131 million no no I'm talking about domestic oh sorry it's total 70 70 million dollars so like it it

and so that's not me saying that blade wasn't a hit. And it was a different time in comic book movie going and all of that stuff like that. Damn, 58 on Rotten Tomatoes. Like, it's a different time. Like, what I'm saying is, to execute Blade in the way they won, I think they're being precious with Blake. I think

they need to get a, get a thing and let it rip. But I think they're being precious with Blade because if this blade were to come out and be a move, you have to, you have to quadruple that. So the, I think,

the cultural relevance of the character is there, but I think they're being precious with Blade because they're trying to massage what the audience of a Blade movie is. Because as big of a deal as Blade has been and look at the sequel and tell me what the sequel made. Oh, for a box album?

Yeah, like, just domestic and then worldwide, doing both because it's 131 worldwide for the for the first one. For the first one. Tell me what it made domestic. I think they're trying to create an MCU audience for a movie that they not sure really has one. And I think that they're,

they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're,

to your point, if they were in a stronger creative situation, I don't think they would be doing that. Eighty two million domestic and 155.

But not the, not the gigantic massive hits that you guys thought that people don't even think that they were. But like we said, different time. Also,

I feel like those movies, just because of DVDs, streaming, whatever, all of that, has a bigger audience. And to me, I'm just like,

is Marvel capable of making a Blade movie that's not their quippy, cute type shit? Like, part of me for a Blade movie is I'm like, you guys can do a horror, Kung Fu, gritty down to earth. Every movie does not have to. I feel like Blade was kind of quippy a little bit. Like, at least for, oh, yeah.

No, no, no. There was goofy parts of Blade, but I'm just like, Blade was fucking up people in a nightclub and it was raining blood and shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, are they, do they have enough? courage to be like,

our Blade movie does not have to behave and look like the rest of our movies. We can take a little bit of a risk. The same thing that James Gunn, if you go back and watch the first Guardians, Guardians looks a little bit different than everything that had come before. Certainly.

You know what I'm saying? How hard is it to find like a black director or writer to be like, hey, we're going to make a really dope Blade movie. We've seen John Wick. This is like, I'm like, make a fucking John Wick movie. It's not that fucking hard.

And I'm kind of with Charles with like, it's hard. to ride where the MCU is versus where it might go because I feel like this is actually a bit more of a pivot point than a proof of concept for a renaissance because if they come out with all of these things that are going to be

coming out after this and all of those things at least marginally hit I think then we could probably say that Marvel's in a much, much better place but if it doesn't, if Brave New World doesn't work it'll make money, but if it doesn't work if Thunder Bulls doesn't work, they're going to wind it back and shoot for what Deadpool and Wolverine did.

They'll play the hits because we know Robert Donnie Jr.'s coming. We know that there's going to be something bigger that... I guess my thing is, what did you think about what you saw on those movies? It's what I'm asking you, because we, unlike Superman, which we haven't seen anything, I saw stuff from those movies footage. I didn't see strength this year from what I saw on the screen. You know what I'm saying? I saw even...

All right, Deadpool and Wolverine, obviously I didn't like that movie as much as maybe like the hyper comic book fans. What I saw on Deadpool and Wolverine was a movie that was reaching back to the past to get people excited. They didn't do anything new, which is like the Marvel movies used to be able to introduce you,

not just to the superheroes, but to like side characters that you're like, fuck, I like this character where it's like for Deadpool and Wolverine, they didn't do anything new. It was just like a bunch of retreads of shit we've gotten. Same thing with X-Men 97.

I think X-Men 97. was far superior to Deadpool and Wolverine, but they're iterating on something that was already successful. Where it's like, what have they done this year? Like, Agatha, we haven't seen it yet. Can they prove to me that Agatha feels just as vital maybe

as something like Wanda Vision? Can they make me care about a character that I don't give a fuck about it? And that's a real skill to get to pull off. You know what I mean? If they can make an Agatha show count and work, like, okay, maybe you do have it. I'm not saying that's asking for a lot,

but I mean, you know, there's a lot of deep on the fuck about. I mean, I don't disagree with you. I'll be honest with you, like, even when they do do it, it just doesn't matter as much as how they handle the characters that you guys like. Because did everybody like Werewolf by Night? Yes. I watched that.

You need to see that. That's fucking incredible. Yeah. When's the last time we talked about it? So when we talk about what Marvel has done right and what Marvel has gotten right, World War Wolf by Night was really fun. It was really great. It was like amazing, right?

the new characters that they introduce, okay, so they've introduced you to new characters, right? So you got vision in Ultron. You don't really care about vision, right? You got Spider-Man, new character in the MCU, but at the same time, all you have to do is walk in a straight line to play Spider-Man right to get Spider-Man right. All right, so I'll put it, are you salivating for a Shang-Citu?

Like, I'm not. Like, I'm like... Well, I wasn't salivating for a Dr. Strange, too. So when I like the Dr. Strange movie, right? But I think for me is there's, and this is the disconnect between what we're saying, because I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm not disagreeing with you. The disconnect between what we're saying is that for me, none of this can be new.

Like, I'm so well initiated with all of these characters that none of it can be new. I just want to see how they do it. So it's like with Dr. Strange, yeah, they introduced, Dr. Strange was new for a lot, of people and they got Dr. Strange right, but I was just interested in seeing what a Dr. Strange movie would look like. When they said they were going to do Guardians, I was like, oh, my God, what a choice. I was just interested in seeing what it looked like because I was with all those people. So that's not as important to me, but the ability to take a character that not a lot of people cared about and weave a really impressive narrative around that character is something that

they used to do better than what they do. Well, I think the reason they do it better, they used to do better then because it was that superheroes weren't the juggernaut they are today, right? You see the movie, you go out, you're like, oh, man, who's this character? Like, for example, Iron Man come out. Iron Man was like a D-List character initially. I see, don't fuck over him like that. He was. He's a C-list character, D.

Sure. You put that nigga down there with puck. You know what I'm saying? You put it in... You say Iron Man in Alpha Flight? I mean, Iron Man was close. Shout out. Nah, y'all hate me. He was a C-Less character, but like, y'all putting this nigga with Shatterstar and the rest of the motherfuckers, Richter. Like, he, like, he's crazy, man. Curr, I'm like Richter.

Watch out with the Richter show. Like, you all put him like, he was a C-Lister, man. He was the leader of the fucking Avengers. Yeah, but then so, and then you have this, I mean, you said Renaissance earlier for the future, but, like, this era where superheroes are the most popular thing. People are going out buying comic books. People are like getting into the stuff. Now it's like, okay, cool, I know so, which in which I know so and so. It's harder to like capture the, like, I mean, we talked about earlier, Mr. Terrific,

you don't move the needle like that. You aren't rushing out to buy Mr. Terrific comic books, right? Making, like, trying to do that in this era is tough. I feel like it's tougher now than it was back then. Back then, we didn't know a lot of these people. We know a lot of this stuff. It's like, oh, this is new. It's interesting.

It's not new anymore, right? This is film. This is the zeitgeist. This is culture now. And so now you have to like dig really deep. And that becomes hard for anybody. Okay. To that point, do you guys think that the delivering on something new is harder when people want a lot of the characters that they've been with for a while?

Do you think the track is easier now that Marvel or superheroes are more well established? Or do you think it's harder because they're going to, now when you introduce a Shang-shee, they're going to compare them to Black Panther. Now when you introduce the Eternals, they're going to compare them to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now when you... I've said... I've said this. It's hard to, like, continuously innovate, innovate, innovate.

Like, when you change the paradigm, like, even, like, once, twice, three times, like, how often they're supposed to, like, all right, we got to flip the page, we got to do something new? That becomes stuff for anybody, you know? Like, you guys cover the bear, right? Like, they spend a lot of time...

It's like, oh, we got to do something new. Every day, every day, every day, every day. That takes a toll. You know what I'm saying? Superer movies at this point, point in our lives in 2024 are the thing. If you're asking them into like every phase, all right, we got to change it up,

we got to do something new, this and this. That's a lot to ask for people. And if it don't work, you go back to the old stuff. That's what they're doing. Yeah. They've done a lot of creatively cowardly things, in my opinion, where it's like we can't even get an MCU movie now. That's just, all right, for example, like the new Captain America movie,

that motherfucker got Captain America in it. It got the new Falcon. It got Red Hulk. It got the Serpent Society. You know, it's like tying into Eternal. Like, it's, these movies just can't be a Captain America movie anymore. It has to be like, oh, not only you're tying this to a bunch of stuff, but we're throwing other characters because we don't believe in this character.

I don't think that's true. I'm every single, Ant Man, motherfuckers through everything at that. Dr. Strange, a lot of these movies, they have to throw a thousand heroes. They're basically like, not Avengers movies, but they're one rung below. and I'm like, it would be difficult to put Sam in the movie right now where he wasn't surrounded with anyone else. He's been in it for a long time.

And man, you can tell a story about his origin with the whole thing. You're almost continuing the Captain America's story and you're asking him to put the abyss. He's just going to be around. But it's basically at this point, and I get why you would do that, but it's like, all right,

if you wanted to make a Hulk movie, make a Hulk movie, don't make a Captain America. Because it seems like they're trying to have it both ways where they're like, well, Captain America is a successful trilogy. We want to do a fourth one.

We have Sam. But they're also like, are people going to go see a Sam Wilson Captain America movie? They're probably not sure. So they're like, how can we do something? They did that with Civil War, though.

They put all the Avengers in Civil War. Yeah, but here's the thing. Civil War is still a Captain America story. It is. You know what I'm saying? He's at the center of it. When you think of the Red Hulk and you think of a leader. I think that's unfair.

I don't disagree because I really feel like everybody's cooking today. I don't disagree with what you're like, like we came back refreshed. I don't disagree with what you're We haven't been bullshitting this episode which I'm very... Yeah, I'm like, I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I think Red Hulk in...

Okay, let me ask you before I make it. Do you feel like they're hiding Sam Wilson in his own movie? Is that what you're saying? A little bit. Yeah, I think they've been doing this a lot. Same thing with Dr. Strange too, where it's like the multiverse of madness, they had to get us there with the multiverse. They had to get us there with the member barriers of like,

well, Professor X is in this. And look, oh, Mr. Fantastic is in this, blah, blah, blah. Because I don't know if they believe in this second tier of characters as much as they, I don't know if they believed in that, but it was a different era.

And sometimes I'm just like, yo, stand by those characters. I'm like, make a Doctor Strange movie. Make a Captain America movie. Or don't make them. Just make the version that you want. At this point, I'm like, if you wanted a Red Hulk movie,

Just make the Hulk movie. Like, just do that. Don't give me kind of this, like, hybrid version where you have to go back and do a bunch of reshoots because they probably were like, what is this movie about? Maybe. I think the universe is too big after Endgame

to not have these characters crossover more. Because remember, after the first Avengers movie, you have Iron Man 3, you have Captain America, Winter Soldier, and you kind of like, cool, these are movies, but like, hey, why didn't Cap call up his homies, right? Like, where's Tony? I'm sure Tony could have helped him or which, this and this and whatever.

After endgame, all these characters come together and they're supposed to be like, all right, we just say the war together, but I got this thing going on. I'm just, yeah. Also, we're hyper aware that, like, well, you coming in, Paul Rudd is actually going to cost like $80 million.

Tony Stark is in Spider-Man. They actually made a fake trailer. They made a fake trailer where Spider-Man is swinging and Iron Man is flying. Like, I mean, you know what I'm saying? The world is so big now. It's like, you have to almost and it's a really interesting conversation to me.

I don't want to beat it over, I don't want to belabor it, but like you have to introduce, it's not introducing Spider-Man to moviegoers as much as it was introducing Spider-Man to the MCU. But there was story elements in the comic books. But we don't know whether or not, their story is, we don't know whether, I mean, Comptor Mawr-Ross as the president,

we don't know the story-el-in-no. No, here's the thing. This isn't me being down on Captain America. I like the trailers. It's more so I just didn't get into the point where it's like, Nairmore, in Wakanda forever makes sense because I'm just like, oh, Namor and Black Panther,

there's history there in the comics, they're pulling from something, where it's like with a lot of the new movies, I get why a business standpoint they're doing it, but sometimes, perfect example, the RDJ, Dr. Doom shit, where I'm just like, Dr. Doom is a good enough character

where it's like, I don't know if you need the added cherry on top of being like, oh, well, we don't actually believe that we can pull off Dr. Doom unless we get RDJ back. And I'm like, old Marvel, I still feel like old MCU had this feeling of, we're going to make you care for these characters

and we don't have to like put 5,000 of them on screen because we're afraid that no one's going to show up for this movie. The R.DJ thing is actually interesting because I think it was yesterday. It came out and he was like he talked to Faggy and Bob Iger or something. And I think, I mean, y'all heard me on the podcast when he announced it. I was literally slurping and gurgling. It was crazy. But I've like kind of cooled on it.

But, I mean, I love RDJ and I'm, like, happy he's back on. So, like, I'm going to be optimistic about it. But I think the thing that helps me is that every time they talk about it, they're like, he's playing Victoron Doom. Now, I don't know how I think that's true, right? We'll see what happens when Doomsday comes out. They've lied before. Right?

But so far, it's not like, if they were like, well, he's playing this, like it seems like he's just going to be a guy just playing, God, this guy's a dude, playing another dude. He's going to be playing Victoron Doom. I think that could work. R.D.J.'s one, it could. Right? It's gonna be different. Artie J's Ironman. I'll give a fuck what nobody says. R.D.J. is Iron Man.

When he comes on the screen in an MCU movie, I'm like that. I'm like, you Iron Man, bro. They could do something different. That's like Christopher replaying Batman. I'm like, you're superman. What if it comes out and he's got like the penguin makeup on? You don't even know what I mean? Like, there are ways that it can work.

Come on. I mean, it could. I'm choosing to be optimistic about it. Obviously, it'll all be in the execution. Everything is all in the execution. Yeah. Yeah. I think. think that decision, because their arguments to be made on either side of this, I could argue that Marvels, that the minute the Avengers came out,

a lot of other Marvel movies were team-ups that had like a bunch of different people. Yeah, this isn't new. Right. So that is different, though. That probably speaks more directly to what you're talking about. In terms of them, Deadpool coming into the MCU, you were going to have to do something, blah, blah, blah. They came up with a way to hook

us in and get us, I get it. I really, really, really am interested in seeing what the Robert Donny Jr. Dr. Doom thing is. Once again, I said it before. I don't have that much of an issue with it. It just depends on what they do. Yeah.

And, and, and, but they, they almost have to execute it flawlessly. It's going to be so hard to not see Iron Man on that screen. We'll see how good he is. It's, all right. Did y'all see the sympathizer? Ben. B plus.

B-minus. Mint boys, before we go to Game Thrones. I'm gonna give it a B because we, you know, loved X-Men 97. At least three of us, the Stable did. And I think Deppel Wroen, despite all the problems we had with it, was one of the biggest movies of the summer, probably the biggest movie of the year. But there's just not a ton of output.

So I can't, like, sit there and be like, oh, they killed it. I'm gonna give them a B. Like, solid year, but needed more. Yeah, B-minus for me. A couple of real good standout stuff. A lot of game. left.

Looking pretty good. February. All right. So let's wrap up with Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon season two, critical success. But overall, the series lost some of the viewership

compared to season one. And we haven't talked about it, but a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms trailer dropped with the season finale of House of the Dragon season two in early August. So Game of Thrones is an interesting place right now. We already brought up Star Trek.

is Game of Thrones are they in danger of this becoming like fantasy Star Trek and that's not taking away from what Star Trek is but it's like I don't know if House of the Dragon season two was the zeitgeist moment they probably wanted where I think like it was way better to me than season one I enjoyed it but Game of Thrones to me used to be like appointment viewing everybody water cooler is talking about it and House of the Dragon, a Knight of Seven Kingdoms,

and whatever they're doing, it seems like they might be doing a Star Trek model where it's just like we're giving everybody a game of thrones. Oh, you mean Star Wars? Flood in the Zone. No, I mean Star Trek in terms of just like

every generation gets their Star Trek. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like it, you might hate House of the Dragon and like a Knight of Seven Kingdoms and like this one or like that one. Okay.

But to me, it's different. I thought with how, of the dragon, it was going to be more of a like, oh shit,

we're running this for the next decade because Game of Thrones is so big. And now I'm like, oh, it's just kind of another nerd show now,

which is why. I'm fascinated at where how's the dragon the Game of Thrones can go because all of these other things that we've talked about are based on

like decades upon decades of either source material or cultural knowledge that people can at some point glom onto. For Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon and the world that George R. Martin made with this, it has not had the staying power, at least outside of his own books,

until very recently. And that source material is already wearing thin. Like, one book is not even yet to be finished. House of the Dragon is based on a cultural appendices that is almost halfway done if you were to read it by the books. And that's kind of it. Then we have a couple of, like, a handful of novels

and a couple of other things. So the rest of this seems to be like a template, a, like, skin that we can put in other shows to be like, oh, well, I want to tell a prison break story in the Game of Thrones universe. I want to tell a succession level story in the Game of Thrones universe. it's interesting to me because that is also a high ceiling for a lot of opportunities to tell interesting and unique stories,

but also not a lot of cultural impact to where I'm like, oh, that character, that storyline, that type of thing that I can glom onto, that gets me excited. You kind of have to be in it for the world, and that's really it. And I think the reason, and I think we might have talked about this, so maybe they talk about it on Talk of Thrones. the reason they keep going back instead of going forward is kind of what we were talking about earlier with the MCU and how they keep putting characters and all these things. Because if you go forward

and you stand in time with John and Ariya or Sons or whoever, you know that. You're like, okay, why is it John and Ari are talking? Why aren't Sonsa and Ria talking? Like, you're just going to, they're going to go across an L.C. You're not going to like exchange Ravens? Like, what the hell is going on? So you kind of have to go like back to this era

where, you know, we're already halfway through the books. and you got to go back to Duncan Egg, and there's not a ton of room there in the narrative for that or for new stuff. Prior knowledge of the narrative. You can always make up and work with whatever. You can always make up, but then like, no, you're trying to do all that.

Nobody's trying to, like, actually think, Steve, it's Hollywood. You know what I'm saying? You just got to take stuff right off the page, you know what I mean? I just ultimately think that while I'm excited for, you know, season three of Hot D and whatever may come in that universe, I think with, like, also the stuff going on on on HBO and, like, it should have been 10 episodes, but it's eight.

I mean. And the one of others losses of billions of dollars You know what I mean? Like I'm excited to go They knew where that universe goes Also though there are other things That are keeping it for being

What it should be The spectacle it should be We should have got the battle of the gullet This season. That should have been episode nine And then we'd add episode 10 And we'd be sitting here Having a different conversation

But we didn't And season while I like season two If the episode's kind of like All right We're repunning for another two years now We have to come back in 2026 And have the conversation And do all that

Like, it's just kind of, I don't know. Like, it's part of me wishes. We were like, had old TV again where we knew, hey, man, we're getting 10 episodes. And then next year, 2025, man, May, we'd be right back. Right back at it. Right back in it. But it costs a trillion dollars to do that. It costs trillion dollars.

All this, the politics, the money. I, like, again, personally, I'm excited, but I just, there's a realism that gets over there. It's like, well, it's not going to be what it should be. And that's because of other reasons that. that don't have to do with anything with content. It's just like it's stuff. This is the worst possible time in my life to ask me this question.

You got to chill, bro. He's like seven. He's like, 70 hours deep. Robert Rathie would via YouTube. I was literally in the bathroom. I was literally in the back to roll through Twitter. He's like, is Rhaegar the real hero of games? I look at the worst possible time to ask me this question.

He's like, because there's never been a better time. Because when you say, when you say that, the stuff is wearing thin, you're probably right, but I don't think so. I'm thinking like it. It's like, it's like, like, calling people. I was like, yo, you think they could make like a, a ballad of a Trident movie?

I'm telling you right now. They could make a whole move, bro, a standalone movie either on max or two theaters about Robbers' Rebellion. Like a standalone movie. Bobby B, the movie. About, about Ragar and Leanna. Leanna and all of them and Tywin Lannister and the young Jamie. You can make a whole thing about that.

Their stories. Who would this be for? I guarantee you that goes up. Hold on. Hold on. I'll tell you right now. To me, the biggest television show, the biggest television show that they could make. A reason why I was appointment television is the Game of Thrones. Yeah.

Because who was? Who's going to sit on the Iron Throne? That's like the biggest TV show you can have, right? So many characters, so much dysfunction. So the biggest movie to me is the love story between Ragar and Ilana. Is how you say it? Leanna. Leanna, Leanna, Lina Stark and what it cost everyone.

Like it's stuff like that, some of the lore, some of the deep stuff in there, the he would trying to, for those that are uninitiated, Ragar was behind the scenes trying to work with the other houses to get the Mad King out. At the same time, he had married the Martel girl from Dorn. And they're setting up all of this stuff. They have the tournament in the Harrodhall.

He gives her the thing. They run away for a year to fuck in a tower. You are. You are too. You know, but look. He's fucking. But look. But look, Blatheon is in life.

love with her doesn't fucking know that she's in love with somebody else. He's getting a war hammer together. That is a fantastic story. I'll tell you something else. There are other stories in Game of Thrones. Dude, I'm fucking crazy about Game of Thrones. Are they doing a TV show about fucking Aigon and his sister wives? Like, yeah, yeah.

So I'm saying the beginning of Fire and Bluffs. Bro, you could do the conquest. There's so many other things that you could do. I'm not, so this is what I'm saying. I'm saying that to me, to the points that have been made, number one, nothing is going to be a point in viewing that they can make like... That rivals Greenwich. That rivals...

That'll never happen again. It just never, like... So they came back and they made the Many Saints of Newark, which... Oh, man. Nobody. I like that bitch. But it wasn't bad. It wasn't...

It wasn't great. I like that bitch. It's so not the... So I thought that the Many Saints of Newark, because during the time this is in the streaming wars, right? Everybody's getting their IP together. and they're like, we got the soprano, so let's do this. Let's reboot Tony, make everybody younger, and now let's watch Tony's rise.

It could be fucking fantastic. It's just not going to be what the old show was. It can't. Yeah, but I think HBO wanted season two of House of the Dragon to grow exponentially. I'm sure. So then why they did. With taking away two episodes. And it's them chasing that brass ring that I just see on the screen at all times.

It's good. Don't get me wrong. Like, House the Dragon season two was well. better than I could have ever anticipated. But to me, it's the fact that, like, we keep drawing on these things that are still frameworks. I bet you all of the, like, YouTube stories that you would watch are based on lore and, like, a couple of books.

Rather than, like... There's stories that are coming from the books. I know, but, like, it's the fact that, like, all of those things are filled, are gaps that are filled in by these shows and writers and creatives that do amazing work. But once we're starting to get to the point where we're talking about, like, the fifth other dude, like the Dunkin' Egg stories that have like a couple of novellas and then might be possibly be spoiling how

how's the dragon ends? Like, I feel like we're getting too intermingled at the idea. Are we getting too cute? Yeah. The only book I've ever read is fire and blood and I'd be honest with you, I have trouble remembering it. But I'm just not good. But in this week, we're doing

the 10 Game of Thrones YouTube's ranked by there. But it's not. But I'll tell you. ready. But I'll tell you straight up, to me, there is a, there's a lot of story there. I think it depends on the way you grade it. If I'm grading it right now, I think this was an incredibly successful season of House of the Dragon. For sure. Viewership-wise, maybe they shrank from the first season. Maybe they were hoping to grow. They made some

mistakes. But this was great, amazing television to me that wasn't perfect. It's an A-minus or B-plus. It's an A-minus for me. The way I feel about Game of Thrones right now, this could be an A-plus. Plus, plus, plus. I'm all in. Okay? I know dragons names I shouldn't know. I watched a whole video about the life of Vagar. A whole video about Vagar and his life.

It was pretty long. How long was it? I can't remember, but it was pretty long. What happened to the Star Wars deep dive videos? I got several different lords going at the same time. Right. Before I watched the Vagar video, I watched a whole video about nature in Star Wars. Right.

About the trees and the flora and the fauna. See, now, you think you have hyperfixations? Not like Van Lathen. I just, bro. And you know what it is? It's not me. It's the fucking YouTube. I'm like,

is YouTube's fault. A craftsman never blames his tools. It's YouTube's fault. We're trying to move the shit. The fucking floor is leaking in all of a sudden. And I'm, and I'm hearing. And I'm hearing.

And then he has swooped down on Saraksees. And all I see is, the house is on fire. What are you doing? The house is on fire. And you're watching. Anyway, but I get what you guys are saying. I know that HBO needs a 10-poles show.

Yeah. And if they thought that they were going to make another Game of Thrones, they were wrong from the beginning. Yeah. They were going to, every single time they do this, they can come back to it, but it's going to be a little bit of the returns are going to diminish just a little bit

because people are going to be comparing it to the same feeling that they had with the first show. And it's just a different story. I think I'm going to give it, I'm going to give it a B plus. Last thing I'll say on Game of Thrones. Do you think there is a world where they were just like,

you know what guys? We're going to do the last season over. I literally had the same thought. No, if, no, if he finishes the book and it's like even a little different than how that season ended, I bet you that somebody's going to think about remaking the last season. Like, they just did a movie or they're just like,

you know what? I bet you. You don't think about it. Let me tell you that something. That's the type of shit I like. That's fucking insane. If I was at Disney, I'm like, I floated this to some people too. I'll be like, just pretend like those three movies y'all made.

Just do it. We could do Luke and the Yuzon Vaughn. Like, just pretend like I didn't. So that's my question. Star Wars. Why are they just like, you know what? We just going to recast Mark Hamill. It's going to be a young Luke.

He's going to get the yellow jacket on. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, just, you know, just. And they laugh, but I'm like, I'm serious. No, I don't know. This is actually, I'm just like, is it this kind of the next thing probably for like a game of Star Wars? We're through the looking glass at that point. They'll never do that. They'll never do that.

But they, I bet you they thought about it. You don't think they would ever be like, we're going to do a movie where we're just going to like. Kid Herricka came out and was like, we were tired by the, like, by the end of like season, seasons. Oh my God. Those behind the scenes videos still crack me up. Those guys are disheveled at the table. They don't want to be there. They're so, like, they're so done.

Now, like, if you. you throw a check, that could change everything. I mean, now they're out there trying to live. Yeah, right. Now Gene Gray didn't work. Now Black Knight didn't work. Listen, now, by the way, there's many people in that cast. So, like, now he's different.

The one lady that shot him with the arrow, she did a fucking witch movie with Vin Diesel. Didn't work. Wait, wait. We got to, like, if you really think about it, who from Game of Thrones outside of maybe Carl Carl Drago got motion? Peter Pascal. Pascal got motions. Yeah, but he was out of that.

That don't really count. Yeah. Because he wasn't one of the niggas. Out of the main cast. Out of the main cast? What's Carl Drago? One of them niggas like that, though? I would say Sean Bean, but that was just season one.

Season one, like, any of like the people who were, like, there for, like, a good amount of time. Like, you know, Charles Dance was, like, always, like, they did. They actually did a video, a episode of this on trial by content of who had the best post-game of Thrones career. I mean, they're all doing straight. They're all doing fine, but, like, but they did. I mean, because think about it. mother of dragons left. Amelia Clark.

And she tried to, she was fucking Sarah Conner. She's not, it's not popping. I mean, I'm just being honest with you. It might be, you know,

the call company. You're like, it'll never have it. I'm like, the call can be, like, hey, yo, we're doing a two-part movie.

Like, that's so crazy. I think, I think for me, I'm going to give it, I want, you know what, I'm,

I'm going to give it a B plus, a B plus. I think for me, the reason it's not an A, is because, Because the streaming wars have me so, like, distraught, and I hate everything about it. It's ruined television.

It's basically ruined films, honestly. And so, like, we're at a point in media where if things like, we talk about it with Star Wars. If it's not hitting, it costs all this money, I'll be canceling. You know, Netflix shows don't, they get two seasons and they're out of here. They don't want to pay for 10 episodes of House of Dragon. I feel like if it had, like, that had that, like, runway, it's an A. I'm excited.

Let's go. but because of how just type everybody is to cash right now and how things are getting scaled down despite the fact that we really want to see this stuff, got to give it a B plus. Telling you guys, Robert's Rebellion movie, I swear to God, bro, is begging to be made.

Write it. Like, I can't even remember five of the names. I can't write stuff like that. Robbers' Rebellion movie Begging to be made. Big battles. Love story. Young Stark. Dorn

fucking all kinds of Different And the best part is We've already seen The ending We've already Know how they're How you give a fuck

About that shit Bro You're wrong When Big Bobby B come out What's it Bro think about it Took the Warhammer

And hit him In the chest The rubies fucking flew everywhere And Regar's last words Ayana She was up there

Giving birth Will John Snow Oh the princess Promise Everybody I niggas don't know You know

What Fuck I get like that. Now you sound like a comment. I'm going to make my own shows. I'm going to do fucking, I'm going to do my black niggas

Star Trek movie. Can we get? I'm going to do that movie. Can we get that movie? I'm going to do that movie. And then I'm going to do Robert's Rebellion movie. I'm going to do all the movies I like. You know what?

Fuck it. It's a bee for me. All right. What a fun episode. Charles's idea, by the way. That's a wrap. Next week, Midnight Boys return. Also next week,

House of Rory gives you their rings of power preview. You're not going to want to miss it. Our producers are Steve, the architect Almond, Alea O'Brien, Zanaris, Jonathan, chocolate birthday boy, Kerma. Jomea Dineran on social. Hashtag the Imaginarian of Jomea Adiron.

Is that what we're doing? That was last times. I didn't quite have one. be one on the fly. Tough. It is tough. What did I want to bring up? There was something I wanted to bring up regarding.

Oh, no. I already know it's going to be there. What did I want? Oh, how did the soccer team do? Oh, yeah. Very important. Okay, we're going to get into it.

Okay. So at Spotify, you know, we have like this like soccer team. We go out and we're in a league. And the first week we played, we played the champions of last year. Don't, don't. Don't.

Just tell niggas to score. We lost 12. Zero. 12-0. 12-0. I want to be very clear. It's amazing. It's awkward.

That's actually incredible. I mean, we had a lot of fun. It was a good time. I hope you did. Bro, no, bro, that's a 2000 Ravens NFL score. That's a Ravens championship team. Who on the starting line?

From the ringer people, you know, Isaiah was there, Gahau, Jack, and I. Right? We're the ringer folks on the team. It's filled with other Spotify folks. Really great people. But yeah, we lost 12-0 last week.

This week, we had a game on Monday. We tied 1-1. Yeah. That is a drastic improvement. Hell yeah. We're getting there. Who scored? One of the Spotify guys, I can't remember his name.

But he's like, honest, our best player. Really? Yeah, he's really, really good. Carl Cherry? What? We got a lot of fun. It's great. We're having a grand old time.

12-0. 12-0 was tough. That's crazy, bro. Those guys, man, those guys, bro, you got to watch it, bro. It was like, Brad, what are he supposed to do out here, man? It was tough. Kicking a ball, y'all out there. That's crazy.

You're the LeBron point. He was like, it's like, what are we supposed to do, man? No, it was funny. Hashtack Jomi Ronaldo. No. Joe Rinaldo. No. Steve take us out.

Steve. Steve, take us out. What? Steve takes us out. Why am I doing it? Steve, take us out. Steve, take us out. I said the wrong name.

Charles says. I was like, why? I apologize. I apologize. It's over. It's done. Don't bring it up. Don't work it up.

Shout out to our soccer team. They're still alive. And if you catch a man at home, he's probably watching one of those dumb ass game of throws deep. Do you? Did anybody have those report cards where it was like a plus, a dot, or a dash? Like when you were in like grade school or something? Was it ever like that?

Hey, man, I don't know what school. What type of good-ass schools you were? I don't know. It's like they didn't want to give you grades. So they gave you like these weird symbols that are just like, like great, meh, or bad. Like, you're just giving it like a meh. No, that's actually, I don't know what the fuck.

That's why people are. At my school, when we were like in kindergarten, they didn't want to give us grades, grades. So it's just like either a plus for good. Oh, hell no. In kindergarten, where I'm from, he got an F. No, hell no. Bro, there was one dude.

There was one dude, I'm not going to say his name, that failed kindergarten. There was one guy that failed kindergarten. And is he the kindergarten the first grade that he failed. And I remember, We never let him live it down for the rest of the time. We were literally in the 11th grade and we're all part. It's like, you're a year older than him.

I was like, and we're like, yeah, he failed the first grade. That's so mean. That's so mean. Is that crazy? Was he? Yeah, that's so mean. Yeah, that's so. Hey, man, what kind of dumb ass?

See, maybe, okay, so maybe this little merit in. Like, where everybody had to read out loud, where you're the time motherfuck would be like, And yo, him. I never did it. I mean, like, my whole thing, I actually be the one, like, hey, stop laughing at him. I'm going to get on your ass. But if we get to the 11th grade and we can look back,

or you fail in the first, it's kind of funny, bro. Okay, sure. But, like, I don't know. The whole time was a type of way, bro. You were on a basketball team and sometimes he'll do something. I'd be like, yeah, nigga, you're a year older. If we also had that move, you forgot the first grade.

That's a 1980s, 1990s, mean ice bullshit, bro. You're like, you can't guard me. Yes, you're older than me. Remember, you failed the first grade. So you should be able to, like, a year older is 10 years old. That matters in high school. I will say, in middle school, there was a homie who was like 14 in, like, seventh grade or some shit. And we was, you play a flag football.

He was like, I'm going to look at him. I'm like, I'm like, all right, man. Because he'd be trying to, like, school up. I'm like, come on, bro. It's funny. Because you'll be, because, like, somebody will be busting ass and you'll hear from the stands. How old is that? You got a mustache already?

He can't be in the same. I know that baby. That baby too old. He's like, it's practice. Why is he like?