Issue 02: Wonder Woman/Wonder Woman 1984

March Movie Madness Part 1 (of 3)! March is National Women’s Month, so -ahead of the Snyder Cut- we’re talking about Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984. What did we like? What would we change? What would we throw out altogether? 

 

Tune in next week for our thoughts on the Snyder Cut!

Have questions/comments/concerns? Shoot us an email: tencenttakes@gmail.com

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Transcript of Episode:

[00:00:00] Jessika: Do you, you can be, you know what, honestly, you can bitch about Snyder again,

Hello, hello and welcome to Ten Cent Takes the podcast where we rip into the comic books and characters you know and love, one issue at a time. My name is Jessica Frazier and I'm joined by my cohost, the Bitchin' Baker Mike Thompson.

Mike: Hello. 

Jessika: Well, if you're new here, the purpose of this podcast is to take a closer look at comic books and comic related media and how it's affected pop culture and our collective consciousness shaping how we view the world around us. Our topic for today is actually a deep dive into the recent [00:01:00] iterations of the Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 84 films.

What do you think Mike? 

Mike: I'm excited? Uh, I really, I really enjoyed the first Wonder Woman movie when I saw it in theaters. I haven't seen it since then. So it was really just a fun trip down memory lane to sit and watch it with my partner. And then. Kind of tear it apart a little bit, but yeah, we, you know, the, the Wonder Woman, the Wonder Woman, movies, I think are a bright spot and the DC extended universe.

And so I'm genuinely jazzed to talk about it with someone else. Like this is kind of like, based on our, our plans for the next couple of episodes, I guess it's almost like March movie madness. 

Jessika: Yeah. I was thinking that I was, I was getting myself very mentally prepared for a lot of. Sitting and watching movies with my dog.

So I'm excited. So is he, Carl's stoked. 

Mike: What's his favorite movie [00:02:00] snack? 

Jessika: You know, he just watches me eat movies, snacks, because he doesn't eat people, food. Whoops. I'm not owner where I'm like stuff feeding my dog eat. This is the reason he does not bag. He's such a good boy.

Mike: Yeah. Meanwhile, my dogs are all over me as soon as I'm eating lunch,

Jessika:  Your dogs are like tiny spiders. I don't know how they climb up so high. 

Mike: I don't know either, man. It's weird. All right. So, uh, you are leading this episode, so let's get started.

Jessika:  The thing we like to do each week is talk about one cool thing that you have read or watched recently, like right.

You take it away. 

Mike: Yeah. So the memorable thing that I have been consuming media wise over the past week or so has been a TV show called Resident Alien, which is a new show on the scifi network. Sarah and I were watching it and it's it's it's okay. At [00:03:00] first it's about this alien who crashed lands on earth, kills a human, takes his form, and then has to assume the identity of a small town doctor.

It's kind of a, a sci-fi comedy drama, but it stars Alan Tudyk, who if you've watched over the past 20 years he shows up in and he is, I think one of the most underrated actors, he really is just so wonderful at playing weird roles. And so he plays this character who is an alien, trying to blend in badly with humans in a small town in Colorado.

And he is so funny and you watch it and you're. You can understand how people kind of write them off as just, "Oh, this is a guy who is somewhere on the spectrum," but it's based on a comic book from Dark Horse. Um, and so after watching a bunch of these episodes and falling in love with the show, I downloaded it on Hoopla and just started reading it.

And it's really solid. 

Wow. That's 

Jessika: awesome. I actually didn't even realize that that was based [00:04:00] off of a comic. 

Mike: I didn't until about three episodes in, and then it said based on the comic book. And so that was when I looked it up. 

Jessika: That's so cool. Actually, one of my really good friends has been talking about watching that show.

So I guess he's going to be irritated that once again, he wasn't the one to get me to watch the thing, but here we are. 

Mike: So how about you? What have you been consuming?

Jessika: Well, recently I've been trying to get through another. Watch through of the MCU films. Um, and I've been doing them in timeline, chronilogic-, chronological order, starting with Captain America.

So that chronology it's been fun. 

Mike: Yeah. So Captain America and then Captain Marvel and then Iron-Man? 

Jessika: Yes. Yes. 

Mike: Okay. Cool. 

Jessika: Proceeding in that order, hadn't realized how many of those films I had missed. When I was first going through them, there are so many of them. So I [00:05:00] started watching just in order, making sure I wasn't missing any of them.

Even if people said, Oh, you don't need to watch that one. Okay. No, let me just watch the thing and just make sure, and I was surprised there were a couple of them that I liked more than some of the conversations I had would have led me to believe I would have. So it's been fun. So let's roll into our conversation about our first film, which is Wonder Woman.

And I hadn't watched this one. I watched it in theaters as well. I realized, and then hadn't watched it like you until recently until just last night, actually. 

Mike: Yeah. So I watched it about two hours before we started to record this episode. 

Jessika: You're fucking fresh. You're there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super fresh. The bad day.

The wound is fresh. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Well, I'll give a quick synopsis before we do each of our films. So this one was released in [00:06:00] 2017. And the film follows the character development of Diana Prince, and we watch her training and growth through her early adolescence in the fabled land at Themiscyra, learning the art of battle from an entire Island of strong, fierce and driven women.

All of this is brought to a screeching halt when a world war one fighter pilot breaks through the magical borders of their land, prompting Diana to leave the safety of her home land in order to fight against an ancient, evil, and save mankind from. Themselves. So, Mike, what was your favorite part of the film and what would you like to throw immediately directly into the trash?

Mike: Oh, man. Okay. 

It's hard to decide what my favorite part is. There's a lot of this movie that I really like, I, I guess I'd have to say it's really the setting, you know, World War One was a really bold narrative choice and I really liked how Patty Jenkins used to frame the [00:07:00] overall story. It's it's a really overlooked period of history, I think, because we just don't usually want to take that hard look at how awful we really were.

It was a really excellent contrast to the parts of the movie that are set in them mascara. And by comparison, I kind of like to trash the entire third act. I don't know how you felt about it, but. I don't feel like that third act is nearly as strong as what comes before it. And Patty Jenkins has talked about how Warner brothers I made last minute changes and forced her to do this giant CGI boss battle after she planned for something that she describes as smaller.

Um, you know, and, and on top of that, I feel like that third act doesn't offer any real payoff for Diana's party outside of Steve Trevor. So it feels like this very kind of... eh, "fine" conclusion [00:08:00] to a movie that felt really strong otherwise. 

Jessika: Yeah. I would absolutely agree with that. Absolutely. And I th the ending was very, for me, very kind of, eh. 

Mike: Yeah! I, yeah, and I mean, I was talking to Sarah about this and I said, it felt like when I sit there and I think back about the movie I was sitting there and going, Oh yeah: so they, they have that ball. And then they're at an airport. I can't remember what happens in between and it turns out not much, but it's a very sudden shift and again, it just, it doesn't quite work. So, yeah, that's, uh, that's kind my, my overall feeling about the movie, like what, what about you? Like, what did you really like and not like.

Jessika: Well, I found the movie itself, and this is with both of the films. They're just beautiful. They're just, they're such a treat. It's like eating dessert. [00:09:00] And even the gritty parts are very artistically done. They're, they're framed in a way that's that makes all of the characters look very alive and real, but at the same time, almost a, almost a glorification of themselves is how it feels. 

So that was very, a very interesting way to, to kind of frame that in my opinion now, for what I would throw directly away is I really wish that they had not focused so much on Diana's infatuation with Steve. Like he legitimately just met this guy, take a breath. I know he's literally the only man you've ever met, but look around and then look in the mirror.

I on the other hand, it's just, yeah, I don't know. The women are so fierce too. So I will go back to that. The women are super fierce and I [00:10:00] love how they show such a range of emotions that movies don't usually allow for, for women. And they showed strength and rage and honor, and little girls are usually told that those things are done for them and not by them.

Mike: Sarah had a really good. Point of view along the lines of, I don't understand why Diana doesn't go out and just get laid a whole lot. Like what's so special about Steve Trevor. Like, yeah, he's good looking, but, but at the same time, he's the first dude you meet and then suddenly you're surrounded by a plethora of dudes, you know, maybe, maybe treat it like a buffet.

Jessika: And I, I feel like it would almost be more true to her upbringing if she did go out and not have a care about, you know, the way she expressed herself, I feel like that would be more authentic to, to how she learned about the pleasures of the flesh as she called them. When she called men obsolete. I just about, I lost my mind, my dog [00:11:00] barked because I was laughing so hard. 

Mike: I will give some kudos to Steve. He didn't sit there and react like a douche. He was just, he kind of had this wounded. No, no, we're not obsolete. We're not useless then that was kind of, yeah, but yeah. 

Jessika: What was your biggest lesson or takeaway? 

Mike: I'm not sure I had a lesson from it. Like I said before, you know, my, my big takeaway was that this was the first time I found myself enjoying any of the DC EU movies that had come out to that point. So I guess my biggest takeaway was that I finally had some hope for the overall film franchise, but there was this tweet that I remember seeing a couple of days later where it was a picture of Carrie Fisher as General Leia and then Robin Wright as Antiope. And it said "I've lived long enough to watch my princesses grow [00:12:00] up to become generals." And I thought that was a really lovely sentiment just to have seen, to have seen the embodiment of all these, these characters became what I wanted them to.

Jessika:  Absolutely. And actually that ties very well into what I kind of took away from this, which was.

You very well, may be stronger than society would have you believe

so. Yeah. Well, let's talk about our, our next fish on the butcher block here. Wonder Woman 84. 

Mike: Ah, man, this was, this was a movie that I remember you and I both had feelings about. And I feel like we're going to spend a little bit more time talking about those. 

Jessika: Probably. This other one was very like doo doo doo let's jump through the park.

You know, there are daisies and strong women I'm there. Um, this, this other one felt [00:13:00] very much more problematic and wow, that's such an, an intro I'm leading us. Aren't I

But here we go, ladies and gentlemen and theys. So having just been released in the last couple of months at the tail end of 2020 Wonder Woman 84 is set in current day with Diana Prince bossing it out, being the extremely knowledgeable antiquities expert. She is after the discovery of a wish granting object that falls into the wrong hands and inadvertently makes Diana normal, heavy quotations normal.

Our heroine must make the ultimate selfless decision in order to save the world again. So, Mike, what, what are your thoughts on your least on your favorite IC? I just started with the least your favorite and least desirable portions of this film. You [00:14:00] go first. I have opinions.

Mike: Man, I really gotta have a cigarette that I can take a drag from when, when I'm having these, these moments of kind of wistful regret. God, like I said, you know, I'm, I'm a lot more conflicted about, about this movie than I was with the first one. I think the best thing about this movie was Kristen Wiig. I, she was just an absolute standout and. That fight scene that they gave her in the White House, uh, where Diana and her are just beating each other's ass.

And then Kristen Wiig ends up mopping the floor with her after a little bit. I thought that was just amazing first of all, and second, I thought it was a really good example of what this movie did best, which was the smaller scenes were generally. So, so good. Which contrasts with what my big problem was, [00:15:00] which is that the quote, big moments kind of left me rolling my eyes.

Like, you know, it's, it's those moments that were meant to be epic or super emotional. And I can't remember one of them that really worked. Like there's that action sequence in Egypt slash Bialya. Yeah, it's the, it's that big action sequence with the motorcade where it's supposed to be this really cool thing where she's jumping from car to car and moving super fast and chasing things down.

And it just, it looks so cheap and there were so many totally obvious green screen moments that just really took me out of it. Um

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: You know, and, and on top of that, there's the, the extra heightened urgency to it, where they have the kids playing soccer and then they get into the street. Right? When this, when this convoy is coming down the road and I just, I couldn't, man, I rolled my eyes so hard.

It was so dumb. And then the same thing with Kristen Wiig's heel turn when she [00:16:00] beats up and almost murders, the guy who tried to rape her in the park. And I mean, Sarah and I were both on her side, you know, Sarah actually pointed out that a way more effective heel turn would have been if the homeless guy that she had brought the food to earlier in the movie and who shows up at the end of that scene, and she, she gets really aggro with. But if she had actually just been really dismissive of him, when he tried to say hi to her or something where she had just been like, I don't have time for you. And then there's finally that bit where Steve dies again. 

Jessika: Good riddance. Goodbye, Steve. 

Mike: Ahh, I, I really like Chris pine too.

Jessika: I mean, I do too. Chris pine hit us up beyond this podcast. I'm sure he listens. 

Mike: I'm sure, but like that whole sequence where they just, they turn it up to 11 where he sits there and right before she like renounces her wish you hear him go, I'll love you forever. And [00:17:00] there's a lack of subtlety throughout most of this movie that just kind of left me scratching my head and you know, and then there's also just the less, we talk about that final fight between Diana and Barbara, when she looks like a shitty thunder cat. Oh God, I don't know. I, I feel like there were just too many cooks in the kitchen man, because like, the story just feels like it's trying to go in too many directions in any one of them would have been fine, but the movie settles for this messy middle ground instead of filling, committing to any one direction and they just.

And they try to make up for that by, by going really intense and it doesn't work. So, yeah, that's my thoughts.

Jessika: In the sense of kind of trying to do too much, why do we have two villains? Could we not have, you know, had her kind of evolve at the very end of this film and have [00:18:00] her be in the next film or something, or, you know, have, have something happen or I guess that wouldn't have worked with the whole wish breakdown, but.

Is there some way where we didn't have to have a quarter of a story for each of these characters and then Diana making shitty decisions. The rest of it. 

Mike: I have thoughts about that, that we can talk about later on, but I mean, there's so many ways that they could have done the cheetah's origin, the, the recent, uh, the recent rebirth Wonder Woman comics that were done by Liam sharp and Greg Rucka. The whole focus is about how Wonder Woman and, and by extension Barbara Minerva's paths are so tangled and so warped by all these red cons and everything. And it's trying to resolve it in a way that that kind of honors all the previous stories, but also explains this new, this new development.

And it worked really well. I really liked it a lot, but I mean, The whole thing with making with the [00:19:00] way that they did it, it was okay. But I, I agree. It was, it was too many villains at once. It was the same thing that they did in Spider-Man three with Toby Maguire, where it was like, there are three villains because there's a third movie and you're just kind of whatever 

Jessika: Spider-Man learns to shoot webs out of his feet to compensate 

Mike: Speedermin.

Jessika: Yes. So get Spider-Ham involved. 

Mike: Oh man. I would watch that movie. 

Jessika: Let's get on that. 

Mike: Okay. So like I've already vented my spleen, but like what, how about you? Tell me how you're feeling.

Jessika:  Let's I'm going to start easy. I'm not going to jump into the negative right away, although it's bursting to come out. So my favorite part was definitely the very beginning.

With a whole stadium full of strong women. I don't think that I can say enough about the fact that we don't get that very often. We don't get to see even a whole scene full [00:20:00] of women very often, let alone that many women let alone women who are competing and supporting each other and fighting and being fierce and being strong.

Those aren't things that we get that often. And so I, I started crying the first time I saw this and I, I watched this movie two times when it first came out and I started crying when I first started watching the scene and I was like, well, that's stupid, but it's not, it's not stupid. It's, it's something that we don't get to relate to.

And I'm a person who, um, I'm not going to say like, I'm a strong person, but I'm just like, I'm built a little more muscly. You know, I'm a runner. I can lift heavy things. And so to see someone represented that matches my not necessarily physique, but that matches like my motivation to go do those things.

Maybe not to that effect like Diana, but in that same sense, it really hits me in a spot that a lot of these floofy princessy things [00:21:00] don't. I'm not a floofy princess. I would love to be a floofy princess. I dress like one sometimes, but ultimately in court they'd be like, you don't fit in that dress. So, and that's okay.

We don't all fit in the stupid dress. 

Mike: Yeah. So you and I both come from that hearty peasant stock we're meant for working in the fields. 

Jessika: Oh yeah. I can, I can pick up a whole mess of oxen. Just pick them up all at once. So let's, let's move into the, Oh my God. I hated this. I hated this so much. So you and I, we talked about this I'm we're going to do it again.

So the whole Steve possessing another dude's body it's super gross. 

Mike: And the problem is that that really sucked the oxygen out of the room. When we were talking about, about problems with this movie and, and it's something that really felt pointless. There was really no driving reason for that to happen.

[00:22:00] And, yeah. Oh please like go out on. Sorry. I cut you off. 

No, that's 

Jessika: okay. I mean, there could have been so many other ways that, that he came back, quote unquote, but there were consequences to him coming back or, you know, something like that, but it didn't have to be him taking over another person's like faculties, that's not okay.

And it's interesting to me that everybody else finds this super gross too, but I think it's, it's interesting because it's, it's because it's a guy there's a ton of outrage about this because it's a man, but this pretty consistently happens to female characters in films and TV and women many times have very little to no agency regarding what happens to them on screen.

But we clearly view this as normal. So it really speaks to how our society functions to see the absolute outrage at this male character being treated like any [00:23:00] given female character in our media. Also the bit at the end of the film where Diana kind of gives the unnamed hallmark looking bro, and knowing look like, yeah, with that, it's, it's just gross.

He didn't have any say in the matter when the implied sexual acts happened, he was not in control of his body. Nor able to consent. And quite honestly, it reminds me there's a super assist and trigger warning. Everyone. It reminds me of how many, many women's stories of not knowing what exactly happened to them went down. You know, there are so many women who have no idea. 

Mike: I mean, because there's that whole aspect where Steve, Trevor, you know, is basically just his, his spirit is just thrust into some random dudes body, but. There's also the bit where it's implied that he just has no memory of anything happening for days.

So I think, I think that was just [00:24:00] massively problematic on a number of levels, aside from what you've just mentioned, but just narratively where it's like, what is this dude going through? Where, where he's sitting there with his friends and they're like, Hey, remember that crazy week where nuclear war almost broke out and all he can sit there and say is like, not really.

Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. I, I really hope that they were trying to make the point that I'm making or the point that I'm feeling about this. But I feel like it's so lost. I feel like we feel the outrage, but we don't, we don't feel the other side of what that outrageous portraying the fact that, that the other side of the world or the other half of the people live that reality.

Mike: Well, yeah. You know, back to what I was saying about too many cooks in the kitchen, like this was a story that was written by three different people. There was Patty Jenkins, there was Geoff Johns, and then there is Dave Callaham. This is all armchair quarterbacking. I don't know. I am willing to [00:25:00] bet that that whole Steve getting thrust into someone else's body and then no real follow through on that narrative.

I would be willing to bet that that was something that came from either Johns or Callaham. And it just, it was something that they didn't think about because it's not something that dudes think about a lot. 

Jessika: Yeah. You don't have to. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I can think of at least half a dozen ways that you could have made that work without bringing in that, that whole rapey connotation.

Jessika: I agree. Like what if he came back and he wasn't like corporal okay. How interesting would that be? Like, if you just came back like Patrick Swayze ghost style, and they're just like, are you thinking about what I said that they're just like sitting, they're like making pottery. 

Mike: Well, and I remember sitting there and watching it when the trailers came out and originally I was thinking, Oh, no, maybe it's just, he's a ghost that's come back. Like, it's probably not going to be a real thing or, or it's a hallucination. [00:26:00] And then they show him, you know, beating ass while they're doing that whole convoy chase. So I had to sit there and go, well, no, I guess he's corporeal. I don't know how they're going to pull this off. And I just, I felt really dissatisfied with, with what they did.

I didn't have a problem with him coming back, but I mean, honestly the whole fact that, you know, Wonder Woman reveals that that Diana is a god, why not just bring him back. But the thing is, is that manifesting a body out of nothing, it turns out it takes a lot of energy. And so he is directly draining her divine power.

Jessika: That's so much better, honestly, that makes so much more sense. Cause there was actually causing correlations. Yeah. I, this whole Diana feeling bad because at some random dude, just, I mean, with a slick wink at the end is not convincing that that was a detriment to her, you know, she's she didn't have like the whole idea was that.

[00:27:00] You were giving up your most precious whatever to get the most precious, whatever, you know, and it's like, that wasn't really what she was doing. She just was using some guy and she really didn't care. I mean, that's the long and the short of it. She did not care. 

Mike: And that was whew. That adds a whole other problematic element.

Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. 

Mike: There are certain characters who. Yeah, we can get the alternate universe versions of them, or they can be mine controlled and turn evil temporarily. But the core character being is that they are these uncorruptable aspirational beings that we all want to use as the proverbial role models.

And so there's the characters like, like Superman who is decent and kind Captain America, who always tries to do what's right. Wonder Woman who is supposed to be the embodiment of like kindness. And there's a wonderful speech about how in one of her comics where she's saying like, you know, I [00:28:00] don't, I don't kill if I can wound, I don't wound if I can, I think capture... I can't remember this exactly. And I don't capture if I can use a word instead. That's great. You know, one of her, one of her things is that she can speak the language of all living things. And it's like, there's this, there's this really nurturing quality to her because of all that. And then it's like, Oh, and you know, she, you know, It took away a dude's agency and is totally unapologetic about it.

Jessika: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I feel like it came across so much better that first movie, when she really wanted to go help the woman in the trench and, you know, and she was able to speak the language and understand the pain, not only of the language, but she really understood people's pain and what they were going through.

She wanted to stop and help everyone, but it didn't feel like she was driven in the same way in the second movie. Even when she was supposed to have like learned her lesson, it didn't feel that way. Well, what was your big takeaway from this film? Did you have [00:29:00] one? 

Mike: Ah, I guess, again, it's one of those things where I don't have a lesson that I'm taking away from it so much, but it was just that overcorrection is a definite thing in the DCEU.

And they, they did it in Batman vs. Superman, where they were trying to acknowledge and, and sort of hold accountable that, that first Man of Steel movie for like the massive body count from all the destruction of the Kryptonians fighting each other. I feel like they did it again here because it was such a, a different movie.

And I don't quite know what they're trying to correct, to be honest, but it just, it felt like they were trying to pivot and then they pivoted too hard. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. What about you? 

Jessika: I would say that I learned that society only gets upset at lack of bodily agency. If it involves controlling a man, that would be my take

It's a rough one. Rough, like sandpaper up [00:30:00] like a little kitty cat's tongue. 

Mike: Remember when we started this podcast and we thought it was going to be really fun and lighthearted and... Yeah. 

Jessika: And we've got 13 pages of notes and just angst. 

Mike: The salad days. 

Jessika: Oh, you know, the planning phase is always super fun. Well, comparison time we watched two movies.

They were... supposed to be in the same vein of movies, one was supposed to roughly follow the other from my understanding. So what was one thing that was similar or did not track it all when the two films were side-by-side or pick one thing that you, that you thought was interesting? 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. So a big thing in both of the movies is that the gods like to mettle with humanity, like.

You know, the the first movie it's, it's very blatant about that. You know, Aries is responsible for World War [00:31:00] One, and Diana has to set out to kill him and the war to end all Wars in 1984, it feels like there was supposed to be a big twist or reveal when it's revealed that the dream stone was created by the God of Lies.

We get, we get the name of, of the God who I can't remember for the life of me, because it was so one-off and then nothing comes from that. And I feel like there could have been something really cool tying the God of lies and deceit. And I think greed, I think, is what they said to the two things that the eighties was really known for, which was one was the Cold War, but the two was just the incredibly gross commercialization. 

Jessika: I thought you were going to say that .Brings us to our first episode. Watch our look, go, go back and listen to our Sunday comics episode, which is episode one.

Mike:  Yeah. I feel like that was a really wasted opportunity because nothing came about from that. [00:32:00] And I don't know. I, I also feel like that could have been, that could have been tied to providing Barbara with, you know, a... second opportunity to get back at Diana. I dunno, I did enjoy the whole bit where the, the actual ending to that movie was its own way, a smaller, more personal ending. I liked that, but I feel like, I feel like we needed something as a little bit more of a dramatic reveal as opposed to, oh, the dream stone was created by the gods.

Cool. But we got to see her murder, the God of war with lightning. 

Jessika: Exactly. 

Mike: Yeah. What about you? Like, how do you feel that it compares side-by-side? 

Jessika: I thought I would stick with something that I thought was interesting. That was fun between the two that was similar. Okay. Steve and Diana go through a very similar arc of discovering their new world that they've been introduced to.

And I didn't really [00:33:00] remember that until I rewatched wonder woman for this iteration last night, I was like, Oh, how funny? Because. Diana comes to new world and she's like, Oh, look at all of these cool things. And she's like, Oh, that's beautiful . Oh, a baby. And she's like looking every single thing.

She wants to look at everything. It's all new it's. This is literally the first time she's seen any of these things before. So it's super wholesome. My favorite part of this was when she gets the ice cream. This is so wholesome. She gets the ice cream and she enjoys it so much and she goes back and she says, "you should be very proud."

And I just, it was like, you are so sweet. That is amazing. And just, I mean, it's like looking at the world, like through a child's eyes I can imagine. And then Steve, when he first comes in, I mean, obviously he was a, he was a pilot, but he hasn't seen [00:34:00] commercial airlines. He hasn't seen, you know, anything that holds more than probably two or three people.

And the first thing he sees is like a huge commercial Boeing fly over him. And it was so cool and him going and finding out about space, travel and going and seeing a rocket. And it just. It was so cool. And seeing that through his eyes in that way was like, wow. Yeah, that is really neat. It's cool. And it makes you appreciate those things like, yeah, I guess ice cream is really cool. 

Mike: I, I got to say Chris pine continues to be one of my favorite actors out there and not just because he's super adorable and apparently a very decent human being, but just. 

Jessika: I mean, Chris pine hit us up. 

Mike: Yeah. He also takes very weird, funny roles a lot of the times that you wouldn't expect.

So, uh, if [00:35:00] you have not seen the movie Stretch, I highly recommended because it is one of the most bonkers roles that you will ever see him. If I remember right he, he first appears on camera, parachuting naked? I think? It's been a little while. It's been a little while since I've seen this, but it's directed by, uh, Joe Carnahan.

The guy who did, uh, Smokin' Aces, The A-Team, The Grey, uh, he just did a new one called Boss Level that's on Hulu, which is a really fun, strange action movie, which is where he kind of is at his strongest. But Stretch is about this one day that's absolutely insane for this limo driver and it's, it's... I'm not going to call it a good movie, but it's highly enjoyable, at least from my end as I remember it.

But yeah. So Chris pine tangent over, sorry, Chris pine is really good at [00:36:00] just being very believable and the wide-eyed wonder that he showed in 84, I thought was so it was just lovely. 

Jessika: He's a really good facial actor. Yeah, he's very, very, but like, to your point, he's very believable and his facial acting is so good.

Do you remember in Star Trek? When he was in Star Trek? 

Mike: Oh, yes, of course. Love those movies. 

Jessika: Um, just his face when he concentrates in that movie where he gets all red and it's like, Oh, it's like, Oh, wow. Do you really live in that? You know, it's like he would go on their journey with him because his face is just taking us there.

Mike: He kind of reminds me of Chris Hemsworth, um, because he he's really good at being a solid leading man, but he is also really funny when he's allowed to be [00:37:00] like, do you remember in the third one -Star Trek Beyond- where at the very beginning where he's got all the aliens. And you can just see him getting more and more confused as they're asking him why he's delivering this artifact and then getting really fed up.

It was, I don't know why, but I still laugh whenever I see that scene. Oh man. 

I got to agree with you. I think, I think that whole montage of him rediscovering the world was, was really just delightful. Yeah, it was, it felt special. Yeah. 

Jessika: Well, so I have a little bonus category for Oh, Oh, okay. So I, you know, again, I watched wonder woman last night for the umpteenth time and I jotted down just a few, very Diana quotes as I was okay.

Mike: My body is ready for this number one. 

Jessika: Who will I be if I stay? [00:38:00] That one hit me, I would hit me right in the heart. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Yeah. Second one. I'm the man who can. 

Mike: Who was that a Steve line or was that something that 

Jessika: She said that, Diana said that .

Mike: Really? I totally don't even remember this that's great. 

Jessika: It's when she was going into, uh, they were talking about no man's land and he said, there isn't a man who can go there or like there's no man can go there.

And she said, I'm the man who can. 

Mike: Okay. Yeah, I totally glossed over that, which is really appalling. I mean, arguably the best scene in the movie. 

Jessika: I, I literally have chills. It's I'm rethinking about that, that scene. That was sexy. It was sexy as hell. And the third quote, what I do is not up to you. 

Mike: That was really good.

Jessika: Yes. [00:39:00] So that was, those were my three quotes. They stood out to me. So I wrote them down. Well, let's move on to our category, brain wrinkles. And we like to spend a little time each episode talking about something comic related that just won't budge from our consciousness. Mike, what's been stuck in your noggin, right?

Mike: So. We're we're doing these, these episodes, this one, and then the next couple, because the infamous Snyder Cut is launching this week. And, and do you want, do you want me to wait for you to Irish up your tea there? 

Jessika: Oh yeah. I'm almost done with my coffee. Oh, good. I have a second one sitting right here. 

Mike: But yeah, the, you know, the big thing that people have been focusing on ever since the Snyder Cutcat got announced and it was revealed has been the presence of Darkseid, who is, is basically the DC version of Thanos. [00:40:00] And I'm trying really hard to go into this movie with an open mind, regardless. I keep thinking about Darkseid as the villain that everyone wanted to see on the big screen, but it's really weird to realize that we're probably not going to see the coolest story with him in it, which is called the Great Darkness Saga.

And it's from the eighties and it's from the comic book Legion of Superheroes, which does not have the name brand appeal of the Justice League. The whole thing is that Darkseid wakes up after roughly a thousand years of sleep and winds up almost conquering the galaxy. And it's absolutely batshit. It's like he brings back like rever- I think they're called reverse clones or shadow clones of like Superman and if I remember right Wonder Woman, and it's a huge reveal when they actually reveal that halfway through the series or the story of five issues, that Darkseid is the villain who's doing all this. So it was, it was really [00:41:00] fun. And it's, it's that wonderful, weird, crazy space opera sci-fi that we're just not going to see in the current movie environment, because it's so risky to do something like that. 

Jessika: But see, that just sounds cool as hell I need. If we, if we can have, if we can have Guardians of the Galaxy, like why can't we have that? 

Mike: Yeah. And I think a lot of it is because again, I'm not trying to sound like a Marvel fan boy, but I think right now, the, I think Warner Brothers is very risk-averse for, for all of the financial stuff that's going on behind the scenes with, with AT&T acquiring them recently and the insane amount of debt that's surrounding that whole deal.

I think that they are trying to just do surefire hits. You know, if you, if you haven't read The Great Darkness Saga, you can actually go out and pick up a copy, pretty cheap of the collected edition. It's a [00:42:00] lot of fun, but one of the coolest things about it is that the, the epilogue to the story reveals actually that Darkseid wins in a way that's very personal and mean.

And I kinda love that that at the time the team was allowed to do something like that. So, yeah, that's, that's, what's been on my brain lately. How about you?

Jessika:  I'll have to check that out though. You always give me such good suggestions. 

Mike: Oh, well, thank you. 

Jessika: So my brain wrinkle and hear me out. Okay. I really liked Iron Man 3. 

Mike: I rather enjoyed it. 

Jessika: Everyone gives it such crap. Okay. I literally like every time I talked about like, oh, I'm doing a watch through, they were like, Oh, you know how people always have an opinion about like, which movies you can like skip, you know what I mean? So like Iron Man 3 is always one of the ones that people say, Oh, you can [00:43:00] skip that one.

But honestly, I rather liked it. And quite frankly, this is, I mean, The main, so the main complaint I've heard about this is that Tony is too traumatized and feely, but like, what do you expect? The guy clearly has, he's been through a ton of shit. He clearly has PTSD and he clearly needs therapy and he's making wearable weapons as an outlet, which by the way, not recommended.

I also think this movie is so necessary so that Tony stark overall character arc, otherwise. His final sacrifice and his like, kind of tenderness towards the Spider-Man character. It doesn't make any sense within the story or the character if he just continued with his one note selfish, douchebag tendencies.

Mike: Yeah. I really enjoyed that movie for a number of reasons. I personally think it could have used a little bit more editing, but I mean, there was no personal lesson -I [00:44:00] felt- an Iron Man 2. Like Iron Man 2 was a, it's a fun, it's a fun movie, but it was like, cool. Like the end of the day, like. He gets to make out with a girl and, and his best friend has a suit of armor now.

And I don't know, was there any more of a lesson other than Mickey Rourke is fun to watch? No matter what kind of terrible Russian accent he's sporting. 

Jessika: Other than that, I mean, the movie itself, to me, wasn't very memorable.

Mike:  No, I mean, it was fun, but it was just kind of whatever, you know, it was cotton candy.

Yeah. Yeah. It was fine in a, in a, in nothing but a complimentary way. The third one, I, I agree. I think, I think like the self-sacrificing nature does actually pay off better because of that. And also I thought Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin and then the twist with him as the Mandarin was one of the funniest fucking things I'd seen in a long time.

Jessika: One of my friends was very irritated at that and [00:45:00] almost walked out of the theater because the Mandarin is one of his favorite characters. And so when he figured out that it was this whole spoof, he got, he took it very personally, apparently. So which I just personally, I mean, I, I think it's very funny. I can understand you wanting to see your favorite characters represented, but we have to understand that, like you're not the writer.

We're not the writer. Like we can sit here and bitch about it, but ultimately, like we don't have writing privileges. And so we just have to go on the ride that they take us on. And to a certain extent, that's just what we have to do as the audience. And I understand that we are going to have feelings and that's that, you know what that means.

That means that they've done well. That means that they've, they've been compelling and that they've made us, they've made a spot in our hearts. But it's not something we should be able to take personally, or that we need to, in my opinion, I mean, I don't do it. Do what you want. 

Mike: You know, the other thing is like they, they did all those [00:46:00] Marvel shorts as well.

Do you remember those, like where you would get them in the DVDs and there'd be like a little five minute film or whatever. So I can't remember which one it was, but it was revealed that the Mandarin was. Was then being broken out of jail so that he could be brought to face the real Mandarin. And then they've never done anything with that, but they're also doing, uh, the new Shang-Chi movie, which Shane, she is this Bruce Lee style figure.

The movie title is called Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Which goes back to the terrorist organization, the Ten Rings. And then the whole thing with the Mandarin is that in the comic books, he has 10 rings of power, which originally they're supposed to be magic rings, and then they've been retconned.

So they're an artificial intelligent rings that manipulate reality, or they're, they're kind of like lesser infinity stones if I remember. Right. 

Jessika: But it's not the same kind of thing that, that Dr. Strange is [00:47:00] working with right? It's not that whole like mystic circle sitch. 

Mike: Uh, I don't think so, but who knows with where they're going to take the Marvel with, you know, the MCU is spinning stuff on its head in certain ways.

And yeah, and I, you know, we're just along for the ride, it's going to be really interesting to see what they do, but in the original iron man movie, the terrorist organization that winds up forcing Tony Stark to theoretically build weapons for them and what he uses to build the armor. Instead, they are called the Ten Rings.

And the Mandarin is, is actually a long running iron man villain -kind of problematic because he's relatively racist in a lot of ways or a racist caricature- but it'll be really interesting to see what they do with that. And I'm kind of hoping that we get some cameo of Ben Kingsley just like chained up, like, you know, princess Leia style with Jaba the Hutt or something like that when the Mandarin theoretically appears in Shang-Chi. So who knows. 

[00:48:00] Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Well, thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes.

This episode was hosted by Jessica Frazier and Mike Thompson written by Jessica Frazier and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson-Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits music is "Pursuit of Life" by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat.

Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us how we got something wrong. Please head over to tencenttakes dot com or shoot an email to tencenttakes at gmail dot com. You can also find us on Twitter. The official podcast account is tencenttakes -all one word. Jessika is Jessica with a K and the Jessica has a K in it as well. And then I am vansau: V-A-N-S-A-U

[00:49:00] Jessika: Stay safe out there 

Mike: And support your local comic shop.